Status Match launched in Singapore in 2020 as an automated status matching platform that helps airlines and hotels acquire high-value loyalty customers. Status Match provides the technology to seamlessly allow customers to match.
Challenge
Having launched only in the last couple of years – and during particularly tumultuous years in the travel industry at that – Status Match is still in start-up mode. Therefore, acquiring more high-value airline customers is front of mind for the company’s CEO and Founder Mark Ross- Smith. And, having worked on all sides of the aisle (as a frequent flyer, in-house at airline loyalty programs, and now at Status Match), Ross-Smith knows precisely who he wants to recruit – high fliers. “These flyers represent 3-5% of an airline’s member database, but represent a total of 30-40% of the ticket revenue an airline will generate in a year.” Unfortunately, these flying customers are often….flying.
They could be in New York one day, Barcelona the next, then – who knows? – Singapore?
“When these customers sign up for our programs, they could be anywhere at any time. They could legitimately be on a very risky IP address because they are on a random airport WiFi.”
So the challenge was clear; how could Status Match be sure that a customer was who they said they were, when the data couldn’t be relied upon to verify their identity?
49% of ecommerce businesses alone experiencing a rise a rise in promo and loyalty abuse since mid-2020
With promo and loyalty abuse today considered one of the leading fraud trends to have emerged and surged over the pandemic, with 49% of ecommerce businesses alone experiencing a rise since mid-2020, reigning in fraud was considered imperative for Status Match, and for the major airlines and hotels they work for.
“We needed to improve our processes. We needed more data and intelligence that would allow us to learn more about these travellers so that our referrals proved to be high-value for our clients”
When it came to mitigating promo and loyalty abuse, Ekata’s Account Opening Solution proved a game changer for Status Match by offering a behind-the-scenes risk score of each applicant. When the score came back high, meaning the applicant could be a risky one, the team was able to internally introduce strategic friction, asking the applicant to go through extra steps to prove their identity.
For example, a customer’s email address was always something that made Status Match pause; was it a business address or personal? Ekata’s ability to score this attribute – and quickly! – and linking it to the applicant’s name is, to this day, considered pure magic to Ross-Smith and his team.
Prior to integrating with Ekata’s Account Opening Solution, Status Match was using a combination of tools to assess applications, a process which proved to be time consuming, and a financial burden on the operational efficiency of processing customer data. Ekata’s solution immediately streamlined the processing time from hours down to seconds; a near real-time automation that improves not only the experience of the customer applying for Status Match, but also Status Match itself.
Outcome
It’s important to note that Status Match came to the table back in 2020 hyper-obsessed with zero-fraud and, by partnering with Ekata, they simply sought to reduce their already low fraud rates down to near-zero.
Fortunately, the partnership has proved fruitful. And, of course, these experts in their field don’t rest on their laurels; fraudsters always evolve, so Status Match will continually review and iterate their rules. As Ross-Smith explains, “Ekata was the missing cog in our fraud tool-kit. By combining our internal data and tools with Ekata, we have turbocharged our platform, making it a well-oiled machine. We have saved our major global airline clients tens of millions of dollars in costs they would otherwise incur without any solution like this in place and our partnership is stronger than ever.”
Whether you deal with high-value high fliers or deal daily with customers on the ground, partnering with Mastercard Ekata can turbocharge your risk management platform.
