Challenge

As an early fintech innovator, Mint Payments got its start in 2007 developing mobile payment apps that it licensed to banks in Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore. However, by 2018 the company had pivoted to a new business model with greater growth potential: offering an end-to-end payments and workflow solutions platform that allowed businesses to accept payments from customers and make payments to their own suppliers.

Initially, the company targeted businesses in the travel industry with a focus on Australia and New Zealand and a view of international expansion across the United Kingdom, Europe, North America, and select markets in Asia Pacific. The strong initial response from customers confirmed to CEO Alex Teoh that Mint Payments was on the right track toward its goal of providing a solution that would help travel agents streamline their payment collection process and better serve their customers. “We started with that mission, and day-to-day we’re constantly thinking, ‘How can we help our customers with their collections?’” said Teoh.

By 2019, though, Teoh realized that the company’s existing payment technology was limiting its ability to meet its business model goals and achieve its growth potential. Onboarding new customers with Mint’s previous payments merchant acquirer was labor-intensive, with manual processes that could take as long as 35 days—frustrating new customers eager to use Mint’s solution and starting the customer relationship on the wrong foot. In addition, this process made it difficult to ensure compliance with local regulations as the company pursued acquiring and onboarding travel agencies at scale.

Likewise, Mint needed more flexibility in the number of online payment methods it could offer its travel agency customers, who often serve clients from around the globe. In particular, because of the high volume and value of transactions for a typical holiday, Mint wanted to easily support a range of alternative payment options like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and buy now, pay later.

Finally, Mint wanted to expand its product offering by supporting travel agents’ in-person payments, which account for 30% of their total transactions. But the company’s technology infrastructure made developing and launching new products too capital-intensive and time-consuming for the company’s product development team. New products regularly took Mint more than a year to bring to market, hindering its ability to keep up with customer demands or market changes.

Solution

Mint Payments adopted several Stripe products to offer a best-in-class user experience for customer onboarding and payment collections. “Both Stripe and Mint have a growth mindset,” said Teoh. “Having a partner that understood our needs gave us the opportunity to really grow our business.”

Mint integrated Stripe Connect directly into its platform to route funds collected through Mint Payments to each travel agency customer. Because Connect works in more than 45 countries, that single integration covered Mint’s existing business footprint and could enable future expansion, minimizing complexity and costs. Mint also integrated seamlessly into Stripe’s hosted onboarding to deliver a frictionless onboarding process that automatically ensures compliance with Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Know Your Customer (KYC), and local regulations. Stripe Connect immediately improved the onboarding experience that Mint provides its customers through real-time notifications and immediate pass-through upon meeting all onboarding requirements without manual intervention.

Connect’s integration with Stripe Payments meant that Mint could extend additional alternative payment methods to its travel agency customers, including buy now, pay later; Apple Pay; and Google Pay. With those payment methods supported by the same payment system as credit and debit cards, customers could manage all their online payments through Mint Payments.

Incorporating Stripe technology into the platform also allowed Mint to leverage additional Stripe tools to bring new products to market. In 2024, Mint used Stripe Terminal to enable in-person payments for its travel industry customers. Because Terminal easily integrates with Connect and Payments, Mint was able to offer customers a full-service payments solution that is integrated with travel workflow solutions, providing a unified view of all their customers’ transaction data in one place.

Results

Connect reduces onboarding time from weeks to hours

Connect dramatically simplified Mint Payments’ customer onboarding process, reducing what used to be a 35-day process to under 48 hours, a 94% reduction in time. “Connect was a really flexible platform for us that solved our issues of being able to control the entire merchant experience, onboarding, risk, AML, and KYC,” said Teoh.

Stripe helps Mint generate 275% growth rate in total transaction volume

Since switching to Stripe and implementing new online payment methods and an in-person payment solution, Mint Payments has been able to grow its total transaction volume by 275%, from $800 million in 2018 to $3 billion in 2024.

Mint launches an in-person payment solution in just six weeks

Stripe’s range of payment solutions makes it easy for Mint Payments to quickly add new products and functionality without spending unnecessary time building from scratch, allowing it to react quickly to market demands. For example, using Terminal allowed Mint to launch its new in-person payments product in just 6 weeks, compared to the 12–18 months it used to take to develop products of similar scope and complexity.

“Bringing an in-person payments product to market within 6 weeks was a record, and it allowed us to address the 30% of our pay-in volumes that we weren’t observing before,” said Teoh.

Stripe helps Mint maintain its position as a global payments partner

By outsourcing its payments infrastructure to Stripe, Mint can focus on its core technologies, customer service, and product marketing to stay ahead of travel industry trends, proactively meet customer demands, and expand its global footprint.

“In addition to helping us bring products to market faster, Stripe helps us go to other markets without a significant investment. We just went live with our first US customer in under six weeks of work, and Stripe is essential to our international expansion plans,” said Teoh.