This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on March 6, 2018
KUALA LUMPUR: AirAsia Bhd group chief executive officer (CEO) Tan Sri Tony Fernandes fell victim to fake news yesterday when screenshots of a hoax CNN tech story appeared on social media saying that he was leaving the low-cost airline to focus on a new fintech company.
Entitled “Tony Fernandes Leaves AirAsia, Jumps On Financial Tech”, the report carried the byline of Seth Fiegerman, who is a tech writer for CNN. The report stated: “The real-life ironman, Tony Fernandes, has just announced that he will quit his job at AirAsia to free up more time for a new company that he thinks will change the world more dramatically than AirAsia, QPR, and Caterham F1 ever could.”
In quick response, Fernandes, a prolific user of social media, took to Twitter to deny the report, tweeting: “Had many scams on me. This is the best fake news. The reality is [long] way to go before I leave AirAsia and AirAsia is investing big in fintech. Some very valuable assets coming.”
AirAsia also issued a separate statement denying the claims that Fernandes, who is also AirAsia X Bhd co-group CEO, will be resigning to enter the fintech sector.
“Members of the public and media are advised to disregard screenshots of a hoax CNN story entitled ‘Tony Fernandes Leaves Air Asia, Jumps On Financial Tech’ circulating on social media.
“Fernandes remains committed to AirAsia and will continue to oversee its strategic direction and business operations,” it added.
AirAsia, whose innovative use of technology has played a key role in its success story, beginning with online booking, made its foray into the fintech space with the launch of its e-wallet service BigPay in January this year as part of the group’s digitalisation strategy, with Fernandes declaring that the value of BigPay may even surpass that of the airline’s in the future.
The app aims to provide low-cost, fair and transparent financial services for everyone, dubbed as an “everyday digital alternative to bank accounts” that comes with an accompanying card that allows users to spend their balance at over 35 million
Mastercard merchants globally.
BigPay also does not mark up on foreign exchange on international spending, as opposed to many debit and credit cards which charge large foreign exchange spreads and transactional fees.
Fernandes previously revealed that the e-wallet may in the future facilitate foreign exchange remittances and also moneylending services and added that BigPay was working with several digital platforms like Uber and Grab.
More recently on Thursday last week, when announcing the group’s disposal of its aircraft-leasing operations to US-based BBAM Ltd Partnership for US$1.18 billion (RM4.61 billion), AirAsia revealed that it was embarking on a new digital strategy which “will build a very valuable group of assets” but it did not elaborate.
AirAsia shares closed down 10 sen or 2.3% at RM4.25 yesterday, with a market capitalisation of RM14.2 billion. The stock has risen 59% over the past year.