3 Ways Travel Companies Can Optimise Payments – Lessons from our Customers

The travel industry operates across multiple regions, currencies, and payment systems, making seamless and cost-effective transactions a critical success factor. Managing cross-border payments, reducing FX costs, and ensuring secure transactions are top priorities for travel businesses worldwide.

At SUNRATE, we’ve worked with leading travel companies to optimise their payment processes, helping them scale efficiently while maintaining financial control. In this article, we share three best practices learned from our customers, Easybook and Quantum Reservation, and how they overcame common industry challenges.

1. Streamline Payouts

For travel platforms that facilitate bookings across multiple operators—whether airlines, hotels, ferries, or buses—managing supplier payouts can be complex and time-consuming.

Take Easybook, Southeast Asia’s largest land and sea ticketing platform, as an example. With over 5,000 operators in their network, they needed a faster and more efficient way to settle payments with partners across different countries.

The Challenge

• Slow and manual payout processes
• High transaction fees for cross-border settlements
• The need for multi-currency support to handle regional vendors

The Solution

With SUNRATE, Easybook seamlessly issued customisable commercial cards through the SUNRATE platform, enabling more efficient expense management, better spending control, and swift, secure payments.

Settlements are now faster, more efficient, and available in multiple currencies without excessive conversion fees. This streamlined process reduces manual reconciliation efforts and enhances operational efficiency.

With efficient supplier payouts in place, the next challenge travel companies face is managing currency fluctuations and FX costs.

2. Reduce FX Costs for Global Expansion

For travel companies operating internationally, fluctuating exchange rates and high conversion fees can eat into profits. Quantum Reservation, a leading B2B hotel aggregator, faced this challenge firsthand.

The Challenge

• High FX costs when processing international payments
• Inefficiencies in handling multi-currency transactions
• A need for better financial control over transactions

The Solution

By leveraging SUNRATE’s solutions, Quantum Reservation optimised its currency conversion strategy. The company benefited from:

• Lower FX costs through real-time, competitive exchange rates.
• Efficient multi-currency transactions without unnecessary conversions.
• Improved financial oversight with detailed transaction tracking.

As a result, Quantum Reservation reduced FX costs and cross-border payment fees, achieving savings of up to 49%. The streamlined payment processes and flexible currency settlement also improved financial management and increased operational efficiency by 55%.

3. Enhance Security and Fraud Protection

In the travel industry, where high transaction volumes and cross-border payments are the norm, security breaches and fraudulent activities can lead to significant financial losses.  As Easybook and Quantum Reservation expanded their operations, ensuring secure and efficient payment processes became crucial.

The Challenge

• Exposure to fraud risks and potential data breaches.
• Lack of real-time monitoring for suspicious transactions.
• Difficulty securing vendor payments without manual oversight.
• Cumbersome reconciliation processes with traditional physical credit cards.

The Solution

To mitigate these risks, Easybook and Quantum Reservation leveraged SUNRATE’s secure payment solutions, benefiting from:

• Virtual Commercial Cards for Enhanced Security – Eliminates card information leakage and reduces fraud exposure.
• Real-Time Fraud Monitoring – Detects and blocks suspicious transactions instantly.
• End-to-End Payment Transparency – Provides full visibility and control over every transaction.
• Automated Reconciliation – Simplifies financial tracking by replacing manual processes.

By integrating these security measures, both companies not only safeguarded their transactions but also enhanced operational efficiency and strengthened trust with business partners.

As travel businesses expand globally, optimising payment infrastructure is no longer a choice—it’s a necessity for efficiency, profitability, and growth.

To get started and partner with a solutions provider that can help your business optimise payments and help you scale both locally and globally, open a SUNRATE account today or contact our sales team.

About SUNRATE

SUNRATE is an intelligent global payment and treasury management platform for businesses worldwide. Since its inception in 2016, SUNRATE is recognised as a leading solution provider and has enabled companies to operate and scale both locally and globally in 190+ countries and regions with its cutting-edge proprietary platform, extensive global network, and robust APIs.

With its global business headquarters in Singapore and offices in Hong Kong, Jakarta, London, and Shanghai, SUNRATE partners with the top global financial institutions, such as Citibank, Standard Chartered, Barclays, J.P. Morgan, and is the principal member of both Mastercard and Visa. To learn more about SUNRATE, visit https://www.sunrate.com/

About Quantum Reservation

Quantum Reservation, established in 1993 and based in Singapore, is the largest supplier of worldwide hotel reservation services in Southeast Asia, serving travel agents globally through QuantumReservations.com. With access to over 10,000 hotels in more than 400 cities, we offer swift and reliable booking confirmations, often within minutes, especially for urgent requests. Beyond hotel reservations, we provide additional land services, including airport transfers and tour packages, through our travel arm, Renaissance Travel. Our mission is to deliver exceptional service and seamless travel solutions to our clients worldwide.

About Easybook.com

Founded in 2006, Easybook.com began as a pioneering platform for purchasing bus tickets in Malaysia and Singapore. Over the years, it has experienced rapid growth, evolving into the largest online booking platform in Southeast Asia for land and sea transportation services.

With a commitment to excellence, Easybook.com boasts over 3 million monthly customers within Southeast Asia and has successfully booked over 40 million trips. The platform has partnered with more than 1,000 operators, covering an extensive network of over 60,000 routes across Southeast Asia, making it the go-to choice for travellers seeking convenient and reliable transportation booking.