KUALA LUMPUR (May 8): AirAsia group CEO Tan Sri Tony Fernandes says the aviation group will work on replicating its low-cost air carrier's model of success in the provision of money remittance services.

Fernandes, who was speaking at a panel discussion at the Global Forum on Remittances, Investment and Development 2018 (Asia Pacific) here today, said AirAsia's financial services will be provided on grounds of reduction of costs and inclusiveness, much like the aviation industry's philosophy.

"I'm a big, big believer of Southeast Asia, in opening borders, open economies, and migratory workforce. But there are many invisible barriers to that, and one of them is financial services — to be able to remit money or move money across [borders]," he said.

"We were the first airlines to create purchasing on the internet. That really left out a lot of people who didn't have a credit card, so we had to create many many systems to include people into the Internet.

"And so it has been my drive over the last few years to try and see whether we can do what we did in the airline business, in financial services," he said.

He added that his team has observed how travellers and migrant workers in the region have lost a huge amount of money in foreign exchange, where credit cards or remittances are involved.

"We don't see why there [should be] such a huge margin being made on travel, or when you travel and pay. We think costs can be slashed quite dramatically. Reduce cost — cost is our enemy," Fernandes stressed.

"Inclusiveness has always been in our plan. Just like we did for AirAsia, we reduced the cost, we kept fighting with airports and governments to reduce costs and include more people into flying. We'll try to do that with financial services," he added.

Fernandes went on to commend Bank Negara Malaysia as being at the forefront in terms of implementations regarding electronic Know Your Customer (e-KYC), and acknowledged that more work needs to be done as that would be a huge part of reducing costs and inefficiencies.

The entrepreneur added that the aviation group is working "very hard" on blockchain technology, which he said is "critical" in terms of reducing costs of remittances besides promising transparency, but did not elaborate further.