Global Payment Platform Stripe Reveals Achievements in the Southeast Asian Market

Stripe, player fintech The giant, headquartered in San Franciso and Dublin, continues to deepen its presence in Southeast Asia by launching a number of product updates to reach businesses of all sizes. This area is considered to have good prospects because it has been named a digital payment center.

"What's different about Southeast Asia [and Western countries] is that many businesses have only been built in the last 10 to 15 years as digital native. Then on to offline [..] it is an interesting trend,” said Regional Head and Managing Director, Southeast Asia, India & Greater China Stripe Sarita Singh.

As a result of changing consumer and retail trends, as well as more inclusive payment options, IDC in its 2021 report estimates spending E-commerce will increase by 162% to reach $179,8 billion by 2025 in Southeast Asia, with digital payments accounting for 91% of total transactions.

The report also highlights that the market E-commerce will become more accessible with 188,6 million new users by 2025. The largest marketplace for payments E-commerce estimates are Indonesia ($83 billion), Vietnam ($29 billion), and Thailand ($4 billion).

Stripe first entered Singapore in 2016, followed by Malaysia in 2019, followed by a pilot program interbank transfer in Indonesia in early 2020 under the legal entity PT Stripe Payment Indonesia.

In October 2022, Stripe added to its portfolio in Thailand. Users in this area are quite diverse, including Grab and Singapore-based Carousell and travel platform unicorn from Indonesia Tiket.com.

In the Stripe Tour Singapore series, the giant company introduced its complete range of products and services to help minimize payment gaps, as well as reduce the difference in value between online payments and in-person payments for businesses. Here are the details:

1. Provide A/B Testing to make it easier for business owners to identify the best payment methods in the system checkoutwithout coding, allowing them to offer an easy payment experience for customers without business owners having to build/maintain their own payment systems. Also includes access to more than 100 payment methods.
2. Improve product services to help unify commerce online and offline, simplifying the process, and expanding its accessibility so that consumers can make payments anywhere. This includes releasing the Stripe Reader S700, the latest POS device that makes it easier for business owners to accept payments, collect relevant customer data, such as signatures and email addresses, and allows business owners to make adjustments to the device. This product complements previous POS that have been released, namely Stripe Reader M2 (2021), Stripe Tap to Pay on iPhone (2022), and Tap to Pay on Android (2023).
3. Expanding the Stripe Tax product suite, the revenue and financial automation product will soon enter Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, after first being present in Singapore. This is a product designed to make it easier for business owners to overcome tax challenges, automatically collecting sales tax, VAT, and GST on Stripe transactions, including when they expand to other countries without having to deal with the complexity of additional tax procedures.

Indonesian Market

Sarita Singh didn't talk much about Stripe's work in Indonesia. He only explained that there were interesting things he discovered when partnering with a number of local startups in this country.

According to him, there are still many local players who focus only on playing domestically. Even though it is very possible for the business to enter the global realm. Tiket.com, for example, used Stripe to launch the Multi-Currency feature, to make it easier for Ticket consumers from various parts of the world to make transactions on Tiket using 16 currencies for accommodation, flights, and attractions and entertainment products.

This step allows consumers to cut currency exchange rates and credit card administration fees for converting the currency used for transactions.

"What we are working on with Tiket.com is not only expanding the market, but improving their customer experience. "Previously, we spent a lot of time with their team talking about all the products they were offering, until finally we were able to support their strategic initiatives and tactical execution."

Tiket.com, he continued, is a good example of what Stripe does with its partners. How they think about strategy and what partnerships they want with their parties. "We have a team of experts spread across the world in the fields of product, marketing and others that we are ready to bring to the Indonesian market."

Singh did not specify who his main target was for the Indonesian market. He only said that all business scales would be the company's target. If detailed, Stripe users in Indonesia so far come from startup circles, including Tiket.com, Advotics, Kiddo, Eduqat, and Hukumonline.

At the regional level, he also found that business owners on average have a high thirst for new innovation, and are also quick to adapt and iterate. They always want to do A/B testing, if it doesn't work they will try something else.

“Being able to survive to enter the market and consistently iterate, create products and adapt in running a business, is the secret resource for startups in Southeast Asia. The problems we solve in this market can actually be taken and applied in the global market.”

Singh continued, “Our users in Southeast Asia have been great at telling us what they need. We can also build quickly to meet local market needs."

Stripe Reports

On this occasion, Stripe also revealed interesting findings in this area. First of all, a recent study from Stripe found that businesses in Southeast Asia are optimistic about their international expansion prospects. As many as 84% ​​of businesses in Singapore hope to expand to new countries in the next 24 months.

However, as the scale of their international operations increases, there are some significant challenges to overcome. These challenges create pressure for finance leaders in Southeast Asia, who need to spend most of their time solving problems manually.

According to Stripe's latest study of CFOs (Chief Financial Officers) and global finance leaders, 89% of finance leaders in Singapore spend more than half of their time manually performing behind-the-scenes tasks that could be used for more strategic work for progress. company.

The costs incurred from these manual tasks are not only related to time, but also have an impact on business decision making. As many as 65% of financial leaders in Singapore think that expanding into new markets is difficult due to potential disruption to the existing financial system.