Australian FinTech; PELIKIN RIDES THE WAVE AND RE-EMERGES STRONG POST COVID-19

With the COVID-19 pandemic completely paralysing the global travel industry, businesses had to pivot to make sure they survive its effect on the industry and the economy. For Pelikin, this meant a temporary shift away from travel-related financial services and switching to a new strategy.

The travel and fintech company’s main product is a global money app that syncs with a prepaid card to allow its users to affordably and easily transact with multiple currencies. After its initial launch in December 2019, the pandemic and resulting travel restrictions limited its use.

The COVID-19 Effect on Pelikin

To minimise the impact on the business, Pelikin pivoted its resources towards building its product lineup, keeping its team together, and building relationships with its partners.

“After three months in the market, we had to turn off our financial services product because of COVID-19. To keep the business going, we forged new partnerships in the TravelTech and FinTech industries to help us re-launch a new and improved product in 2021,” said Pelikin CEO, Sam Brown (pictured).

It was a hard blow to take after spending 18 months on product development and establishing relationships, only for it to grind to a halt in early 2020. Pelikin had to freeze their marketing plans for 2020 and divert their resources into riding out the storm. Doing this enabled them to keep a lean team together to continue working on their goals and feel fortunate enough they didn’t have to close their doors permanently.

“We always took the view that if we stuck to our guns, put in the work and stayed optimistic, opportunities would present themselves,” continued Sam.

And true enough, the student and youth space in the travel industry has become more open with some of the competing brands exiting the market. This has allowed Pelikin to be the number one brand in the student and youth category.

Coming Back Stronger in 2021

From day one, the core strategy of Pelikin’s innovative and growing team has been to build a network of best-in-class partners that will help their brand develop locally and globally.

In the coming weeks, Pelikin is set to relaunch its travel money product with the support of a new major partner. They promise a fresh and exciting product that adds more value than its predecessor, and includes the following:

• A plethora of new partnerships in the student market in Australia and New Zealand. Expect thousands of new and exclusive travel offers in the app.
• A travel card affiliate program in collaboration with travel companies and other significant groups within the industry. Affiliates can offer their customers and members the best travel card in the country, a challenge to the existing Mastercard Cash Passport program.
• Pelikin Prepaid Visa card that will be made available on both Gpay and Apple Pay and can be used at over 40 million Visa merchants worldwide.
• Other unique products such as student flights (discounted and flexible fares), local and international sporting events and a hotel/hostel booking service.

Whilst some competitors may have written off Pelikin when the pandemic hit, being reactive, and flexible allowed them to stay afloat, build their products and focus on their core ethos of people and partnerships.

Now, ready to emerge when the time is right, Pelikin is coming back stronger than ever.