HBX Group offers innovative financial solutions tailored to travel

As HBX Group enters the FinTech space, Daniel Nordholm, Managing Director for FinTech & Insurance, HBX Group, provides a comprehensive overview of the company’s immediate plans and long-term goals.

He sheds light on the decision to venture into FinTech, attributing it to a shift in leadership and a strategic vision to transform HBX from a consumer of services to an enabler within the industry. The group brand aligns with this vision, positioning HBX Group as a tech player, focusing not only on traditional bedbank services but also on offering a suite of innovative solutions.

Brand TD: With your entry to the FinTech space, what are your immediate plans or goals in terms of adoption?

Daniel Nordholm (DN): It is two things really. The first thing we are looking into is to essentially improve our internal position to be fair, so to optimize the flows that we have, so we essentially reduce the cost when we receive payments and we essentially make more money when we are distributing payments out to the hotels; managing payments and payouts in the proper way. So that is essentially what I have been doing and building in 2023.

With that as a base, we are looking into rolling out new services for the travel ecosystem. Three services: insurance-related services, payment-related services, and multi-currency-related services. And that is what we would like to be able to offer into the whole ecosystem as an embedded solution for our clients and partners. So, they essentially can start to source these through us instead of going left right and centre and operate with multiple relationships and the markets.

Brand TD: What specific changes in the market influence HBX Group’s decision to venture into FinTech?

DN: I think it is really coming a bit from, let’s say, the new leadership at HBX Group. We have Nicolas Huss, our CEO, who worked for Visa in the past,  and me, working in the payments industry for 20 years. So, I think we have essentially looked into how we can transform HBX from being a consumer over the services to actually an enabler of the services to the industry.

Brand TD: How does the rebrand align with HBX Group’s long term strategic goals in the financial technology sector?

DN: I think it’s what we’re trying to achieve with it is to essentially reposition us as a company from quality traditional bedbank company in which we are sourcing hotel nights or accommodations and reselling them into take a position more as a tech player in this industry. And obviously with that position, we also need to start offering more services into the ecosystem.

Brand TD: Can you share details about the key features of your FinTech products?

DN: We have travel insurance and the reason why this one is important as well as a couple of factors. Thers are obviously, have the traditional insurance carriers. Their issue is to reach the end consumer, get the right set of data, understanding the need of that specific insurance for that specific trip. So, they typically go out with a very generic kind of approach into the market today. Whereas we sit with a lot of data. We know these customers; we know exactly when they are going to travel. We know exactly when they are going to check in and we know what they are going to do most of the time on that trip as well so we can tailor an offering to these travellers.

In a lot better way than a typical or a classic insurance carrier. Having said that, this is essentially how we connect with them. We operate with multiple insurance carriers on the back end, and only essentially use their product. So, it’s kind of a win-win. We help them with customer acquisition to reduce it and we essentially make a margin on both sides of this and we deliver a better product for the traveller as well, which is what you need. Therefore, you only pay for what you need, instead of paying for a generic solution and the insurance.

Brand TD: Now I assume the travel agent who is buying the product gets a commission?

DN: It’s a good incentive for them as well and it’s a good upsell opportunity for the travel agents, tour operators etc. Then if we look into payment solutions. A bit of a problem for this industry if you’re a big travel agents, big tour operator, you actually understand payments so you have it nailed down, but the tail end of the sort of mass market ecosystem in travel agents tour operators, they actually have pretty poor payment solutions. They typically offer Visa, MasterCard, maybe American Express, that’s it. So they are losing out on conversion. They are losing out on being attractive to the end consumer because the consumer they typically want to pay in local currency. They want to be presented with the payment options of their choices. And also to be able to give the travel agent opportunities to upsell more content to the traveller so if you take a solution like “buy now pay later” or instalment payments. And then the last piece is on multiple currency accounts where we want our clients and also partners or the hotels to be able to not have leakage when it comes to currency exchange. So essentially, that they can start to accept multiple currencies inbound, and they don’t use the bank to convert them they actually have full control of how they want to use those different currencies.

Brand TD: How does HBX Group plan to differentiate itself from existing players in the FinTech space?

DN: To be fair, I think we probably don’t really have a right to play in the very kind of high or the upper market because there are typical how the various sophisticated payment players, we are really in the mass market, in the small medium sized travel agent, tour operators hotels, because these are a bit flying under the radar of the of the bigger payments companies now, but the beauty of us is that we have a long standing relationship with these. We know how they trade we know what their credit worthiness look like. We can actually start to tailor very good products for the ecosystem.

Brand TD: What opportunities does HBX Group see in the current FinTech landscape that prompted this strategic move?

DN: I think it started off with I mean, the big flow of transactions that we see internally, I mean, we do 50 million bookings per year. We do billions of euros of transaction flow, which honestly was not optimized at all. So that was really the starting point to say, I mean, how can we essentially improve our internal position, but then when you started to think around that you also quite quickly came to the conclusion that, okay, but if we see this, if we have the challenge, there is an industry wide challenge we can actually start to offer and help the ecosystem with these the services as well. Indeed,

Brand TD: Can you elaborate on the technological innovations or advancements that HBX Group aims to bring to the FinTech market?

DN: What we’re looking to do here is that the financial services, insurance services that we are going to start to offer into the travel ecosystem. They will essentially be consumed through the same API’s as they are you consuming their booking data or you know, availability data as they do today. It’s essentially new services on the same API layer that that they are using.

Brand TD: Are there any partnerships or collaborations that HBX group has forged to strengthen its position in the FinTech sector?

DN: Yes, definitely. My whole strategy is partnership with them. A couple of reasons for it, one is time to market opportunities here. I know how to build products or we know how to build products, but it will take some time. If the products are already there, and we can help these partners with the distribution because we have the access to the customers, and I think this is very important. So we don’t only have the technology connectivity, with our clients and partners who actually have the billing relationship with these guys will have a very good kind of starting point to start to embed more services into the system so we will offer products I mean, I mentioned insurance and payments, but it will be a cash advance services, it will be multicurrency services, buy now pay later, etc. It will be a whole platform of different services that we are going to launch over the coming years.

Brand TD: How does HBX Group envision contributing to the evolution of financial services to its new venture?

DN: The big trends in payments or financial services are probably two things. One is embedded services. So instead of having you know multiple systems in order to leverage different services is that you have everything directly at your hands at the fingertips through the same API, etc. So, it is a convenience factor from that perspective.

The second one is really to tailor and find vertical solutions in specific industry. Most payment players work with all types of different customers. Whereas we will only be focused on the hospitality industry. Therefore, we got to find the best options, best solutions for that specific segment.