As Southeast Asia's travel and hospitality sector embraces more flexible employment models, the gig economy is rapidly transforming how businesses recruit, manage and pay their workforce. From hotel staff and airline ground handlers to delivery riders and remote travel professionals, millions of workers now operate outside traditional payroll systems, creating fresh opportunities for fintech innovation. In this interview with Travel Daily Media, Abdul Mikael, Head of Sales at AND Solutions, discusses how AI-powered fintech, real-time payments and alternative credit scoring are improving financial inclusion for gig workers, while helping travel businesses streamline compliance, workforce retention and cross-border payments across Southeast Asia.

Travel Daily Media(TDM): How is the gig economy reshaping employment in travel and hospitality across Southeast Asia, and where does this create the clearest openings for fintech to serve workers who sit outside traditional payroll systems?

Abdul Mikael (AM): The gig economy shifts the traditional employment model toward a more entrepreneurial approach, granting workers the flexibility to choose their own hours and directly increase their earnings based on their individual effort. The clearest opening for fintech lies in how these workers get their assignments: the vast majority operate through mobile or web-based applications. This creates a reliable digital trail of financial and behavioral data by tracking the volume of work completed and estimating real-time income.

For fintech platforms looking to serve segments excluded from traditional banking, partnering with these gig marketplaces provides direct access to an ideal target audience.

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TDM: How is AI-powered fintech enabling faster onboarding and more personalised financial services for gig workers in Southeast Asia, especially those with thin or no credit history?

AM: AI-powered fintech has the potential to eliminate traditional onboarding hurdles for thin-file gig workers by forming strategic partnerships directly with gig platforms to access their operational data. By analysing app-based transaction flows, delivery completion rates, and user ratings, fintech platforms can instantly verify income and score creditworthiness without a legacy credit bureau history. This seamless B2B integration allows digital lenders to onboard users in minutes rather than days, while deploying personalised financial services that enables them a cash-flow to increase the revenue even further.

TDM: How can real-time payments improve workforce retention in Southeast Asian hospitality businesses facing labour shortages, and what does instant access to earnings mean for financial inclusion?

AM: One instrument titled Earned Wage Access (EWA) serves as critical retention tools for Southeast Asia's labour-strained hospitality sector by aligning compensation directly with the immediate needs of workers. EWA companies boast dramatic improvements in employee loyalty, making workers up to 90% more likely to stay with an employer over a competitor tied to a traditional 30-day payroll cycle. By providing a safe, immediate cushion for daily living expenses, real-time payments eliminate a worker's reliance on high-interest predatory lenders, while simultaneously drawing unbanked staff into the formal digital ecosystem.

TDM: Airlines across Asia rely heavily on outsourced and contract staffing in ground handling, customer service, and catering. How can fintech streamline payments, compliance, and benefits for these distributed workers?

AM: Managing thousands of outsourced ground handlers and catering staff across different vendors is a massive operational headache for Asian airlines, but fintech acts as the ultimate digital glue. By plugging real-time payout APIs straight into airport scheduling software, airlines can automate instant payments to contract workers the second their shift wraps up, cutting through slow third-party agency paperwork. On the compliance front, automated fintech tools handle the heavy lifting by instantly calculating shifting tax regulations and labor rules across different airport jurisdictions.

TDM: Online travel agencies increasingly depend on freelance and remote talent across Asia. What are the key fintech challenges in paying, banking, and financially including these distributed workforces?

AM: For OTAs leveraging remote talent across Asia, the financial hurdles boil down to high fees, fragmented tech, and outdated banking rules. First off, moving money across borders means freelancers lose a painful amount of their paycheck to predatory FX rates and slow bank transfers. On top of that, Asia’s digital wallet landscape is completely fragmented. What works for a freelance developer in Indonesia doesn’t easily sync with a content creator in the Philippines.

But the real irony is the financial inclusion gap: these professionals are doing sophisticated remote work for global tech brands, yet because they don't have a traditional boss or a neat monthly payslip, local legacy banks treat them as financially invisible, making it nearly impossible for them to get a simple credit card or car loan.

TDM: Which Southeast Asian markets are leading in fintech adoption for gig worker payments and financial inclusion, and what is driving that lead?

AM: With my experience in the Philippines, I can confirm the Philippines has very well developed fintech adoption for gig worker payments. What’s driving this lead is the sheer size of their unbanked populations combined with governments that are actively pushing for digital transformation.

From delivery riders to BPO shift-workers and hotel staff needs daily cash flow to survive, the Philippines have become the perfect breeding ground for instant payout and micro-finance tools.

TDM: In emerging Southeast Asian economies, what are the biggest barriers keeping gig workers out of formal financial services, and how is fintech starting to close those gaps?

AM: The biggest thing keeping Southeast Asia’s gig workers locked out of mainstream financial services is the fact that they are still invisible to the traditional banking system. They earn good money, but because their income fluctuates and they don't have a standard boss or payslip, traditional banks treat them as high-risk anomalies.

This lack of a formal credit history completely cuts them off from basic bank loans and insurance, often pushing them toward local loan sharks when an unexpected emergency hits. Fintech is closing this gap by bypassing legacy banks entirely, plugging straight into gig platforms to analyse alternative data like daily e-wallet flows, job frequencies, and customer ratings.

TDM: What are the biggest payout and compliance challenges businesses face when managing large gig workforces across multiple Southeast Asian markets with differing regulations and currencies?

AM: Scaling a large gig workforce across Southeast Asia means tackling a massive operational headache: a fragmented payment landscape and a shifting regulatory minefield. On the payout side, there is no single 'Venmo' for the region; businesses have to stitch together a messy network of local digital wallets, from PromptPay in Thailand to GCash in the Philippines, all while getting hit with painful FX fees and transfer delays.

At the same time, compliance is a total moving target. Every central bank has its own strict, unique rules on tax withholding, data privacy, and how freelance workers must be legally classified. Trying to ensure a driver or hospitality worker gets paid instantly in their local currency without breaking a dosen conflicting regional laws is the ultimate balancing act for platforms today.