The challenge

Foodpanda handles hundreds of thousands of orders a day and its explosive growth in the region had necessitated a reworking of treasury operations, which had comprised multiple banking relationships and a lack of automation on key processes which they wanted to address.

The solution

The company consolidated its main Asia Pacific banking operations to HSBC in nine markets, to fulfil four key objectives across the company’s full operational cycle with a range of regional and domestic solutions:

• Streamline bank account structure.

• Enhance liquidity consolidation, visibility and control, and yield on surplus funds.

• Gain efficiencies on process and cost through automation and standardisation, especially on reconciling the high volumes of payments and collections they were handling.

• Enable innovative digital experiences for partners and customers.

Foodpanda developed a process that enabled the bulk execution of payments via real-time payment (RTP) rails by uploading payment files to HSBC directly from their SAP system through a host-to-host connection. Initially launched in Singapore, the solution was expanded to Thailand and Malaysia, allowing Foodpanda’s partners to receive funds in seconds.

An automated withholding tax generation and direct issuance process was also created to further reduce manual effort for Foodpanda’s finance team.

Virtual accounts (VA) were introduced to help automate identification of incoming payments from merchants and reduce the overall number of physical collections accounts. VA is live in Singapore and further implementations are ongoing elsewhere in Asia Pacific ongoing due to the solution’s success.

Foodpanda also worked to expand the number of supported digital payment methods in their markets of operation to enhance the customer experience and improve customer reach. These included PayMe, a popular peer-to-peer payment app in Hong Kong with over three million users, in May 2023.

Through close collaboration with Foodpanda, HSBC has also managed to develop a highly efficient ticket management solution that has significantly reduced time spent on resolving payment incidents. The platform also allows both teams to do analysis on the tickets, trends and solutions.

Best practice and innovation

Foodpanda is one of the first food delivery companies to enable payouts via RTP in Malaysia and Thailand. Up to 100,000 payments are now executed via this method in these two markets, showing the commercial viability of using RTPs in both markets to support the large daily payment volumes that are typical in their industry.

The expansion of supported payment options regionally has enhanced the customer experience for Foodpanda. PayMe is now the third most utilised payment method on the channel, reflecting the high consumer uptake.

US$1m has been generated through the interest enhancement solution, enhancing yield on balances in both free and restricted currencies across the company’s various markets of operation. Foodpanda can manage interest conditions centrally and eliminate the need for interest to be negotiated in each local market as the latest market rates are provided. Interest is credited directly to each involved account, directly benefiting the respective local business.

Key benefits

• Cost savings.

• Number of banking partners/bank accounts reduced.

• Process efficiencies.

• Improved key performance indicator (KPI) metrics.

• Increased automation.

• Risk mitigated.

• Improved visibility.

• Errors reduced.

• Manual intervention reduced.

• Future-proof solution.