Present.Perfect.Continuous

Vinod Asrani, Director - Finance and Accounts

 

 

“With great power comes great responsibility.” ~ Spiderman

 

Preventing fraud while increasing transaction and revenue, this is the unique challenge that is posed to my team and me daily. No business can ignore Fraud and associated losses. Risk mitigation and preventing loss through bogus bookings is no easy task. The risk team analyses customer behavior through payment logs and data to zero in on possible frauds and misuse 24/7. And yet, it is also here that we walk a tightrope - between a legitimate and not so original booking. Anything could go wrong anytime. We could end up with the loss of face (& Loss of revenue) if we cancel a legitimate reservation. And this is not all; we must also ensure that we are abiding by international Master, Visa laws, and the RBI guidelines.

In 2009, RBI announced mandatory 3D secure for all Indian merchants. We were faced with a new challenge. These growing restrictions started negatively impacting the number of transactions. Moreover, 3D secure was mandatory only in India - international transactions were still not safe. We needed a solution and fast.

We reached out to Paypal. With its vast and secure international network, we believed it would not only help us with growth in the transaction but also ensure safety. They agreed to partner with us. The integration allowed us to accept International cards on PayPal leading to a surge in sales. The cherry on the top - We were also able to leverage Paypal’s special promotions and offers.

We didn’t stop there. As a team, we are always striving and are committed to continuous improvement. So, while we started this as an experiment for one line of business, we soon launched it across all other lines of business. Additionally, we came up with a combination of Paypal with Visa/Master under two Factor Authentication which started giving us a stable success ratio and fraud-related losses started coming well under control as we moved from quarter to quarter. Even Paypal was in the news as their transactions too grew because of the increasing traffic on MakeMyTrip and Goibibo.  Such is the power of continuous improvement and collaboration!