Tag: Partnership

Shah Alam, Malaysia — Razer Merchant Services (RMS), the B2B arm of Razer Fintech, has joined hands with Discover Global Network, the payment brand of Discover Financial Services, as the first acquirer to enable Discover Global Network card acceptance at online merchants in Malaysia.

Through this partnership, RMS is setting the stones for its future goal of enabling 2000 e-commerce merchants in Malaysia to accept Diners Club International, Discover, and other affiliate network cards for online transactions by next year -2023.

RMS is taking calculated steps to ensure a potential lead in the future, as according to a report; e-commerce payments in Malaysia is estimated to increase at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 18.3% from RM28.5b, or $7.1b in 2021, to RM55.7b, or $13.8b in 2025.

By enabling the card scheme, local merchants would access a significant global customer segment with a diversified payment acceptance as the e-commerce industry continues to experience increased growth.

This collaboration offers a strategic advantage for RMS merchants to tap into the billion-dollar market with Discover Global Network and reach more than 280 million cardholders worldwide.

Lee Li Meng, CEO of Razer Fintech, said, “This partnership cements RMS’ continued leadership in enabling a plethora of comprehensive payment channels for our online merchants, thus, providing diverse payment options for their customers.”

Meng added, “RMS merchants can further expand their business reach by casting a wider net in the regional and global market as we look to replicate our offerings with Diners Club International and Discover across Southeast Asia.”

Meanwhile, Jonathon Gould, regional managing director for global acceptance of Discover APAC, shared, “This partnership between Razer Merchant Services and Discover is pivotal in expanding the Malaysian e-commerce market to our global partners. We are committed to continuously providing great benefits and convenience to our cardholders around the world by offering options to make online payments more seamless across borders.”

Mumbai India — With increased competition across dominant social platforms like Facebook, resulting in a higher cost per lead (CPL), automotive brand ŠKODA AUTO India tapped PHD – its media agency partner and part of the Omnicom Media Group network – to optimize campaign efficiencies and generate a higher number of average daily leads at reduced CPL from its Facebook campaigns.

ŠKODA AUTO hoped to reach a broader and more profiled set of audiences via Facebook – car owners, first-time car buyers and enthusiasts alike, to generate qualified leads that can be converted down the consumer journey. The automotive brand faced a challenge with its objective of optimizing performance in terms of cost per lead efficiently. Manoeuvring on Lifetime Budgets at CBO instead of Daily Budgets at ABO was a hurdle it was looking to overcome whilst optimizing daily lead count and maintaining scale.

To streamline efficiencies across campaigns, the two companies collaborated with Pixis – whose powerful AI infrastructure helps make marketing effortlessly intelligent, agile and scalable for brands. Pixis deployed its Governance AI system, which uses AI models trained with billions of data points to allocate the bid budget on a daily basis dynamically.

With its data-driven recommendations, Pixis’ AI supported PHD Media in delivering sharper results on ŠKODA AUTO’s KPIs – helping the auto brand make the leap in its performance marketing campaigns. Upon implementing the recommendations to optimize lead generation, ŠKODA AUTO India was able to reach the desired high-quality audiences at the right time.

The results outperformed the quality of leads coming into the system, increased savings in terms of prospects, increased the average daily leads by nearly 17% for ŠKODA Superb and improved the CPL by approximately 10%. Similarly, the campaign around ŠKODA’s avant-garde Octavia also gained a 28% increase in average daily leads with Pixis’ AI infrastructure helping scale the campaign by almost 25%.

Speaking of the collaboration, Bharat Khatri, chief digital officer for Omnicom Media Group APAC, said, “With innovation and creativity at its core, PHD Media believes that the key to a cookie-less future lies in leveraging the right technology stack and interpreting a combination of different approaches to support all the key tasks around audience selection, targeting, governance, personalization, and most importantly, measurement.”

Khatri added, “With Pixis’ AI, we were able to bring down our acquisition cost drastically while maintaining scale. Pixis’ easy-to-use AI plugin helped our team deploy advanced people-powered, supervised AI and ML models that improved our cost per lead by 10% and also increased average daily leads volume by 17%.”

Meanwhile, Tarun Jha, head of marketing for ŠKODA AUTO India, shared, “With an infinite number of customer touchpoints today, reaching out to the right people at the right time remains imperative. We’re pleased with the campaign results and look forward to exploring more such opportunities with Pixis, guided by the counsel of our partners – PHD Media.”

Speaking on the collaboration, Neel Pandya, CEO of Pixis for Europe APAC, said, “We’re extremely happy to see how PHD Media leveraged the Pixis AI infrastructure to garner incredible performance on ŠKODA AUTO’s latest marketing campaigns. It’s a moment of true excitement and honour to continue working with PHD to facilitate greater business growth for ŠKODA, and other clients, through our AI systems.”

Bangkok, Thailand – Thailand-based innovation centre, KX Knowledge Xchange, has partnered with TechNode Global, a tech platform that offers tech news, events, and tailor-made marketing solutions, aimed at building a thriving startup ecosystem in Thailand.

The partnership will support Thai startups by offering them access to funding opportunities, networks, technology, knowledge sharing, and resource exchanges. It will also help promote and upgrade the innovation ecosystem in the country to expand into APAC.

Moreover, the partnership will support the Innovation Ecosystem of KX Knowledge Xchange. This will be achieved through the exchange of valuable information, promotion of cooperation in innovation and entrepreneurial activities, and public relations campaigns, as well as joint planning, to support startups through an efficient innovation ecosystem, amongst others.

Dr. Gang Lu, TechNode Group’s founder and CEO, noted that TechNode Global’s partnership with KX Knowledge Xchange seeks to build a stronger and wider startup ecosystem with the support of the Techbite incubator program starting from the early stage of entrepreneurship.

“Serving as the connector between the Chinese startup ecosystem with the rest of Asia, we look forward to working with more institutes of higher learning to equip a new generation of entrepreneurs and innovators, offering them access to real-time market knowledge, industry-leading international events and conferences. Be it serving entrepreneurs, investors, corporates, or other partners, we hope to be part of this exciting journey,” said Lu.

Meanwhile, Dr. Booncharoen Sirinaovakul, KX Knowledge Xchange’s CEO, said, “This year, we are so grateful to have meaningful collaboration with TechNode Global. This will be a springboard for entrepreneurs and startups in our ecosystem to have more international exposure and experience necessary for expanding their business.”

Hanoi, Vietnam — International Finance Corporation (IFC) has collaborated with Vietnamese private retail bank, Ho Chi Minh City Development Joint Stock Commercial Bank (HDBank), to help Vietnamese small and medium businesses access innovative funding enabling them to better take part in global supply chains, expand into new markets, and help drive Vietnam’s economy.

The move follows the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between IFC and HDBank with the aim of boosting supply chain financing (SCF) for the country’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The collaboration is expected to help HDBank build an SCF portfolio of $1b by 2025.

The lack of working capital has been a key constraint for local businesses in Vietnam, especially SMEs which account for about 98 per cent of all businesses. Innovative funding such as SCF is relatively new in Vietnam and still to reach most SMEs. Additionally, the main sources of SME finance continue to be loans backed by mortgages. As a result, the share of receivables and inventory registered as movable collateral in Vietnam is just about 30 percent, significantly lower than those in the more developed markets.

Thanh Pham, chief executive officer of HDBank, said, “SCF that links buyers, suppliers, and financial institutions will efficiently support the trade cycles. IFC’s timely support will enable local businesses to leverage emerging trade opportunities and improve their linkages to formal supply chains, contributing to Vietnam’s economic growth.”

Pham added, “It will further help HDBank realize its vision to be among the top banks in the country with a core focus on SME and retail banking, while emphasizing value chain financing and growing its anchor client base. Also, agriculture chain is an important target industry for us, especially high-tech and green agriculture.”

IFC will help HDBank grow its SCF portfolio; specifically assisting HDBank to design an SCF strategy for the agri sector, broaden its SCF products—especially supplier and distributor financing—and bring on board anchor firms along with their suppliers and distributors, among others.

Meanwhile, Stephanie von Friedeburg, senior VP of Operations for IFC, commented, “SMEs are the backbone of Vietnam’s economy and are essential to the country’s ambition to become a regional manufacturing hub. Our support to local financial institutions like HDBank will help SMEs in Vietnam link into global supply chains and access opportunities to grow and create jobs.”

IFC’s technical support to HDBank is part of a multi-year program to be implemented in partnership with the Swiss Secretariat for Economic Affairs to provide in-depth advisory services to regulators, local banks and non-bank institutions to develop SCF business in Vietnam, contributing to greater market integration and supporting the SME sector’s growth in the country.

Earlier in April, IFC also provided HDBank with a $40m trade finance line under its Global Trade Finance Program, which will improve the lender’s capacity to cover payment risk in granting trade financing to local companies, mostly SMEs. HDBank is the newest Vietnamese bank to join the program since its launch in Vietnam in 2007.

Singapore — Oddle, an omnichannel food and beverage technology company headquartered in Singapore, has announced the launch of a new booking option for its customers, following integration with Reserve with Google. This new offering enables bookings with participating businesses directly through Google products including Search, Maps, and Google Assistant.

The company operates in four countries namely in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Taiwan. Oddle Reserve is one of the four core solutions within Oddle’s omnichannel ecosystem that aims to connect restaurants and their customers through first-class experiences and engagements. Through the collaboration, Oddle’s restaurant partners now experience higher search visibility and new reservation avenues across Google’s products.

The modern reservation and guest experience management solution is first of its kind to drive restaurant profitability by empowering restaurants to own direct reservations channels without per cover charge or subscription fee.

The Reserve with Google and Oddle Reserve integration will provide Oddle’s users a seamless opportunity to attract and retain customers that are using Google to search for restaurant reservations.

Mumbai — FoxyMoron, the full-funnel digital creative and performance agency under the Zoo Media network, has won the digital creative mandate for Kotex, the menstrual hygiene brand of a multinational personal-care manufacturing corporation, Kimberly – Clark. The mandate was won via a multi-agency pitch and the business will be handled out of its Mumbai headquarters.

Kotex is a global brand available in more than 80 countries. Its parent company, Kimberly – Clark was established more than 150 years ago and owns renowned hygiene products, Kleenex and Huggies amongst others.

Commenting on the win, Prachi Bali, national head for partnerships and business head for North of FoxyMoron, Zoo Media, said, “Our work in this category in the past and our understanding of the GenZ audiences is what fuels our confidence to enhance the narrative with a brand like Kotex.”

Bali continued by saying, “The conversation around periods has changed for the better with more women being vocal and breaking the taboo around period talk in our country. Our goal is to help Kotex amplify this awareness through meaningful conversations advocated by the brand, backed by revolutionary products.”

Saakshi Verma Menon, marketing director of Kimberly-Clark India, shared, “It’s great to have FoxyMoron as our digital partner agency. Their team of creative thinkers will help a legacy brand like Kotex connect through our digital campaigns. I am looking forward to doing some great work together.”

In January, FoxyMoron also won the digital mandate for Organic Tattva, an India-based organic food options company.

India – 22feet Tribal Worldwide, the media agency under DDB Mudra Group, has won the digital mandate of Porter, India’s marketplace for intracity logistics, with the primary focus on brand awareness and community building.

Porter offers on-demand Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV) and bikes, as well as logistics delivery for enterprises. packers, and movers. It is set to expand its presence to 35 to 40 cities by March 2023.

The mandate will see 22feet Tribal Worldwide helping Porter define a proposition and develop campaigns that will move the needle on awareness and consideration as the brand continues to grow. With 22feet Tribal Worldwide, the brand also hopes to tap into every logistics conversation and deliver on the promise of service and reliability.

Mohit Rathi, Porter’s AVP of growth and marketing, noted that Porter is built on the promise of quality, accessibility, and affordability of the service, and they plan to carry these values into their next phase of growth. 

“We are excited to bring in 22feet Tribal Worldwide to lead our digital communication as we continue to transform the logistics space,” said Rathi.

Meanwhile, Ken Sekhar, 22feet Tribal Worldwide’s EVP and national head of business, commented, “The brand has bigger ambitions now as it looks to cement its top spot in the market, and we are excited to partner with them in this mission. I’m sure we will create a beautiful story together.”

Singapore – After Singaporean neobank YouTrip hinted on the launch of its new B2B product, the fintech officially unveiled YouBiz, its corporate credit card for SMEs, in partnership with Mastercard. This development follows YouTrip’s recent US$30m Series A funding.

The new product is integrated with a unified control centre bringing together multi-currency accounts, local and domestic transfers, corporate expense management, and credit features in a single hub.

YouBiz offers SMEs unlimited cashback on all spends with no cap, eliminating the need to manage and optimise their spending types. Together with savings from YouBiz’s zero foreign currency transaction fees, companies can rack up additional funds to power other business operations. Spending and managing individual employee expenses is also convenient with YouBiz’s ability to generate physical and unlimited virtual cards for payments in over 150 currencies at more than 80 million Mastercard merchants worldwide, online and in-store. This not only reduces the risk of card-sharing, custom spend limits on each card also prevent employees from overspending.

Moreover, YouBiz allows SMEs to receive, hold, and spend in nine currencies currently and make an immediate exchange at competitive rates and no fees. Doing business is also more accessible than ever with free local transfers and low, transparent pricing for international remittance. All transactions are delivered and streamlined in YouBiz’s unified control centre, making expense management and reconciliation a seamless process.

Arthur Mak, YouTrip’s co-founder and chief product officer, said that the concept of borders has blurred during the pandemic as SMEs increasingly do business internationally, and their cross-border payment needs are definitely going to rise – yet, many of their financial needs remain unmet due to the lack of a tailored financial solution. 

“Our continued partnership with Mastercard empowers us to establish YouBiz as a valuable and reliable partner for SMEs to grow beyond borders. Promising efficient and purpose-built financial solutions at the best value, we help businesses save time and cost as they focus on scaling worldwide,” added Mak.

YouBiz is also introducing a credit facility that offers flexible business financing to SMEs. Combining transactional data and machine learning, YouBiz allows businesses to obtain unsecured and collateral-free term loans with no hidden or early repayment fees. The application is fuss-free and loans are disbursed seamlessly into the YouBiz account within 48 hours.

In addition, YouBiz has collaborated with Google to provide businesses with direct support for digital marketing services, and established travel partners like Agoda, Booking.com, and Qatar Airways on additional savings for travel expenditure, especially as business travel resumes.

Mak shared that they have invested heavily in building their multi-currency technology infrastructure and obtaining a full set of licences for YouBiz. 

“Having this control over our value chain enables us to offer the most customisable and cost-effective financial solutions for businesses. We look forward to partnering closely with SMEs to innovate and customise our offerings to meet their shifting demands,” said Mak.

Meanwhile, Deborah Heng, Mastercard’s country manager for Singapore, noted that partnering with YouTrip on this innovative product will complement the work Mastercard has already done to help SMEs drive their overall digital transformation and harness the opportunity of rapid growth in online marketplaces. 

“As these digital merchants expand their business across borders, they will come to recognise both the competitive advantage and the savings they will enjoy from zero foreign exchange fees, unlimited cashback, integrated expense, and cashflow management. YouBiz also comes at a fitting time with the recent uptick in global travel and accelerated e-commerce growth, further supporting SMEs to scale and transact easily, both locally and abroad,” said Heng.

Singapore – Global digital ad verification company Integral Ad Science (IAS) has expanded its partnership with short-video sharing platform TikTok to add new services, which will allow IAS to measure viewability, invalid traffic (IVT), and app-level brand safety, allowing brands and agencies globally to effectively monitor the quality of their media buys on TikTok’s platform.

Through this, IAS will now be providing advertisers with trusted, third-party measurement powered by the Open Measurement Software Development Kit (OM SDK), giving marketers ultimate transparency and confidence around campaign performance. Governed by the IAB with IAS being a founding member, the OM SDK is designed to facilitate transparent third-party viewability and verification measurement for ads served to mobile apps and open web environments. 

Moreover, the offering will be providing granular reporting with 24/7 access to the IAS Signal UI, allowing advertisers to take action and stay informed on campaigns. By partnering with IAS, marketers will now have access to an increasingly comprehensive set of solutions to manage their advertising campaigns on TikTok.

Lisa Utzschneider, IAS’ CEO, commented that they are excited to offer marketers an increasingly comprehensive set of IAS Media Quality Solutions to manage their advertising campaigns on TikTok.

“It is more important than ever for marketers to engage with users on social platforms and ensure that their ads appear next to brand safe & suitable content on a global scale. We are thrilled to deliver a holistic solution on TikTok and provide new levels of transparency and precision for these campaigns,” said Utzschneider.

Meanwhile, Melissa Yang, TikTok’s head of ecosystem partnerships, shared that they are thrilled to build on their partnership with IAS and introduce new solutions that give brands the confidence to scale their businesses and audiences on TikTok.

“Through this expansion, brands and advertisers around the world will have access to IAS viewability measurement to monitor the quality of their campaigns on our platform. We’re excited to see how this will usher in new levels of transparency and success for our clients,” said Yang.

Singapore – Esports tournament platform FACEIT has announced that it has entered a multimillion-dollar partnership with Singaporean crypto fintech platform Cake DeFi, where the aim is to go beyond brand integration by offering FACEIT players an opportunity to get involved in decentralised finance, earn crypto prizes, boost their prize winnings and create passive income. Through the partnership, Cake DeFi will offer players on FACEIT more than half a million dollars in crypto prizes won through weekly tournaments and in-game missions. 

The collaboration marks Cake DeFi’s first move into esports, which was facilitated by sports marketing firm, Pivot Agency. The agreement will offer the company access to FACEIT’s 25 million user base of competitive gamers, and will offer players a unique opportunity to earn actual crypto prizes while playing. This year, Cake DeFi will provide more than half a million dollars in prizes, paid in crypto. All crypto prizes are redeemable through their Cake DeFi account, allowing FACEIT to expand its current play-to-earn offering. 

Michele Attisani, co-founder & CBO of FACEIT, said that FACEIT platform is home to the largest community of competitive gamers, which means they have a unique understanding of their audience. 

“Our users are incredibly forward thinking and educated when it comes to crypto, so the partnership we chose had to bring tangible and substantial value to be of interest. The collaboration with Cake DeFi is much more than brand integration, and offers our community clear experiential and financial benefits which go beyond what any partnerships of this type has delivered before,” Attisani said. 

Meanwhile, Julian Hosp, CEO and co-founder of Cake DeFi, commented, “Gamers have a natural affinity with crypto and they can now join us on the DeFi movement. Cake DeFi’s partnership with FACEIT will allow players to earn crypto while they game, and further earn returns on their crypto through our platform. In 2021, we paid out US$230 million in rewards to our customers. So it’s a win-win-win for FACEIT gamers.”

Like many crypto fintech platforms, Cake DeFi is employing an aggressive marketing and customer acquisition strategy as startups from all over the world fight for market share in the newly developing space.