New Zealand-based travel and expense automation provider Serko during the past week made a string of announcements, including some related to its as-yet-unlaunched mobile app. Even before that app hits the market, Serko is lining up resellers and laying out its vision for a near-field communication-enabled process to streamline travel payment and expense management, bolstered by Apple's recent announcement of the Apple Pay contactless payment system for iPhone users.
Serko also has new partnerships with AirPlus and travel risk management firm Intelligent Travel. Through the deal with AirPlus, announced Wednesday, Serko is linking its Incharge expense management tool to provide "direct access" to AirPlus transaction details. "We are linking the data into Serko Incharge, showing the breakdown by traveler and formatting it correctly, which in turn reduces the friction in the expense reconciliation process," according to a statement from Serko CEO Darrin Grafton. He noted that AirPlus also is "an established form of payment" for the Serko Online booking tool.
While linkages between booking, expense and payment systems are not new, Serko is seeking to break new ground with its mobile app. Promised to serve as "one piece of technology in your hand that covers travel and expense," Serko Mobile promises to provide itinerary information and travel alerts, and allow users to make changes to existing flight bookings (accomplished through Serko's Universal Traveller tech platform).
The forthcoming iOS and Android app also will be positioned as a doorway into the emerging world of contactless payment. In a blog post last week, Grafton wrote that Apple will "change the payment game forever with the launch of NFC on the new iPhone 6, which will finally see the wallet and the phone become one. And, as Apple changes the way we pay, Serko is also changing the way employees experience business travel through the launch of our new mobile app."
Serko claims several NFC-related patents, including one obtained in the United States in June for a travel expense system that uses mobile NFC automatically to carry out financial transactions, communicate with corporate enterprise resource planning systems and handle "associated expense management reconciliation."
According to Grafton, "Users will pay for their business expenses with a simple tap of their phone using their corporate credit card stored securely in their iTunes or other virtual wallet and will have their receipts flow automatically into their online expense management systems."
Meanwhile, Serko last week also announced a three-year deal with existing partner nuTravel Technology Solutions through which nuTravel will resell Serko's mobile app. It's an exclusive arrangement within North America.
"The contract gives nuTravel the right to resell a private label version of the app under the nuTravel brand to its U.S., Canadian and Mexican customer base of more than 2 million registered travelers," according to Serko.
Once integration is complete, nuTravel expects to make available the Serko app to its North American users "in early 2015."
According to Grafton's blog post, Serko's latest technology will launch in "multiple" countries "in the next few weeks."
The company noted that the Serko Mobile app, once available, will include health and safety risk ratings for cities around the world, provided by Australasian risk management firm Intelligent Travel. The agreement between the two companies calls for co-developing "a suite of products" and comes amid new legislation in Australia and New Zealand that, according to Serko, requires corporations to "take a far more active approach to managing the risks to corporate travelers."