Accelerating Digital Financial Services Launch for a Global Travel Leader
How Thomas Cook launched its Financial Services Division through a secure, integrated digital platform with Mitra AI
About Thomas Cook
As one of the world’s leading holiday companies, Thomas Cook launched its new financial services division in 2017. The Australian division brought together existing financial services under one brand, helping the company focus on launching new, innovative products to enhance its holiday money offering to customers, both domestically and abroad. The new division catered for a wide variety of essential travel needs, such as Foreign Currency Exchange (Forex), travel insurance and a travel SIM.
Opportunity
The initial intention was to launch a few travel-related products to the market quickly, the business model being to partner with reputable third-party service providers and extend those services to Thomas Cook’s customers, at an attractive rate, via an integrated and easy to use hub.
Thomas Cook initially engaged an Australian technical solution provider that promised to deliver the interface required. After starting work on the project, it became apparent the selected provider didn’t have the skills to deliver what was needed in the necessary timeframes. As a result of this delay, there was extra pressure to find a new partner that had the technical ability to deliver the new platform quickly. Mitra AI came highly recommended, as a partner that had the technical experience and delivery maturity to produce the integrated web platform in time for the proposed launch date.
Solution
Understanding the need for responsiveness, Mitra AI quickly pulled together an experienced project team that had the capability to create the required platform to integrate with the chosen third-party suppliers and deliver key project milestones on time. A new website was also created as part of the integration to make the products accessible to customers via a fresh, on-brand, user-friendly interface.
Key Solution highlights include:
Bringing Products to Market:
The Mitra AI team successfully integrated the three third-party white-labelled products that form Thomas Cook’s financial travel services offering, which includes travel money, travel insurance, and a travel SIM.
Adding Value:
Mitra AI understood what was needed on the project and made recommendations at every stage to help get the best outcome for the customer and end-user alike. This resulted in additional technical enhancements including increased platform security for customer data and a seamless customer experience.
Vendor Management:
A key part of the project was the management of external vendors, which meant exceptional communication and negotiation skills were required by the Mitra AI team, ensuring timely delivery of key business and technical milestones.
Impact
A professional, secure, user-friendly website that customers can trust
A fully white labelled product offering via third-party services accessible from one location
A future-proof, scalable interface that can evolve as new services are onboarded
"Working with Mitra AI has been a truly amazing experience. It was a challenging time for us when we first approached Mitra to take on the project, with a number of complex integrations needed in a short time period to ensure we could meet our scheduled launch date. The Mitra team not only had the skill set needed to complete the work, but they also had the dedication and passion to ensure our deadlines were met at every stage. I cannot thank the team enough for going above and beyond to help us deliver what was required and I look forward to working with them further as we scope out plans for additional third-party integrations that will enable us to offer our customers a wider range of white-labelled financial services.”
Mark Tarring,
Managing Director, Thomas Cook Money, Financial Services Division, APAC