By co-creating with Standard Chartered and leveraging its Straight2Bank Pay digital gateway, DHL has introduced the national QR standard to its e-payment solution in Malaysia.
WITH payments and collections being the lifeblood of any company, businesses in today’s world have to quickly adapt to cashless and contactless innovations to survive and thrive.
For global logistics brand DHL, part of the Deutsche Post DHL Group with about 400,000 employees in more than 220 countries and territories worldwide, it believes in the staying power of offering flexible payment options to customers while fulfilling their shipping needs, as volumes of deliveries and e-commerce orders grow.
“The pandemic highlighted the growing importance of digital transformation for all businesses, including payments. With people confined to their homes, e-commerce has seen a boom – naturally, this meant an increased use of digital channels for payments and collections.
“For businesses, it meant an immediate need to have an omnichannel digital collection solution that can track and reconcile the various forms of payment methods and channels for better client experience and real-time processing,” said Julian Neo, managing director of DHL Express Malaysia and Brunei.
DHL thus introduced the national QR standard to its e-payment solution in Malaysia on Dec 1, enabling its couriers to generate a dynamic DuitNow QR code on their handheld scanners containing details specific to each transaction.
With this latest feature, DHL customers can authorise e-payments for their outgoing shipments at point of pick-up, as well as for duties and taxes on incoming shipments at delivery. It also offers customers the choice to make real-time payments in their preferred mode – ranging from bank transfers and credit cards to e-wallets and others – for a seamless payment journey.
Neo said that as a company highly interwoven with supply chains globally and locally, DHL sees this integration as a step forward in convenience and safety for the communities it serves.
“As a company highly interwoven with supply chains globally and locally, we see this integration as a step forward in convenience and safety for the communities we serve,” he said.
Noting that the logistics industry has been highly traditional with its paper-based processes, Neo stressed that among the key tasks DHL needed to transform was the consolidation of payments from multiple channels, while ensuring ease of experience for its customers.
As switching to cashless methods reduces paper-based processes, this is part of its sustainable business practices and commitment to society and the environment, to advance Deutsche Post DHL Group’s aims to achieve zero-emissions logistics by 2050.
What makes such payment solution flexibility possible is Standard Chartered’s Straight2Bank Pay digital gateway, which authenticates and tracks all transactions securely, while also enabling DHL to automatically reconcile payments from multiple channels.
He further said that Standard Chartered, as an established institution, had the knowledge, expertise and understanding of what DHL required to co-create a next-generation payment solution.
“Having Standard Chartered as our partner gets us the best of both worlds: solid expertise in the area of payments and collection and fintech (financial technology)-like agility in their solutions that shake up the way things are done for better overall efficiency,” he shared.
Moreover, he lauded the financial institution for melding deep market knowledge stemming from years of experience with insights into the local regulations of individual markets, with its nimble approach in offering innovative solutions that can be customised to the needs of different businesses.
The future of the digital ecosystem
With banks taking charge to close the digital gap among countries at various stages of the digital banking journey, especially within Asean, Standard Chartered is among the leaders driving transformation for businesses with its presence and on-ground knowledge in all 10 Asean markets.
With technology at the heart of its strategy as a leading bank in the digital space, it seeks to drive efficiencies, increase automation, introduce global platforms, reduce manual errors and strengthen its defence against financial crime.
By identifying and customising potential solutions, as it did with DHL, it can build a more strategic long-term relationship with its clients – be it business-to-business or business-to-consumer organisations – as it helps them navigate complexities, tap into emerging opportunities, innovate and digitise for growth.
This in turn helps businesses to not only simplify their processes, but also enables them to be ahead of the evolving payment landscape.
Standard Chartered is able to provide effective financing and best-fit solutions to accelerate business cash flow, benefit the entire business community and support growth, said Ang.
Standard Chartered Malaysia transaction banking head Wendy Ang said that the bank co-creates with its clients to meet their future aspirations by providing effective financing and best-fit solutions to accelerate business cash flow, benefit the entire business community and support growth.
It does this via its proprietary solutions as well as those in collaboration with tech companies to help businesses manage cash, trade, securities, FX requirements and supply chain finance needs, among others.
She added, “We recognise that our clients are increasingly looking for new solutions to address their need for greater efficiency and security.
“Our focus is on deploying a strong standard offering across our network comprising superior user experience and seamless digital delivery of core banking products, data-driven insights and integration of highly relevant value-added services platform partnership capabilities.
“By shifting to digital platforms, these solutions reduce cash and cheque handling which, in turn, minimise errors and fraud. This also aligns us with the nation’s digital blueprint and ambition to become a cashless and chequeless society,” she said.
