Travelport this week announced the launch of a joint venture with payment processor PSP International for a payment, settlement and reporting platform for agencies and other travel suppliers, including airlines.
Travelport GDS president and CEO Gordon Wilson this week said the joint venture is up and running, and the partners are working to expand the payment offering beyond its Australian roots to key markets in Europe and North America.
The partnership in some ways mimics the Moneydirect joint venture forged by Sabre and Amadeus in 2007, when the global distribution system competitors launched the non-air payment, settlement and reporting platform for agencies and suppliers as a bank settlement plan bypass
(BTNonline, Sept. 24, 2007).
Wilson, however, noted the Travelport joint venture with PSP, dubbed eNett, also is applicable for air transactions, enabling carriers, particularly low-cost airlines, to bypass bank settlement plans for payment processing.
Wilson said one such low-cost carrier, V Australia, has been using the platform for several months in its home market, where the PSP International business has operated for non-air payments since 2003. Wilson noted eNett "enables the low-cost airlines to distribute through the retail trade, offer the retail trade credit terms and differential payment capabilities without having the join the BSP."
Through eNett, Wilson said carriers electing to bypass the BSP can "set up agency-by-agency credit terms, meaning they can offer different terms to different agencies, which is a very important thing for low-cost airlines and also something that full-service airlines would like to have but don't today."
A Sabre spokesperson by e-mail this week said, "There is no limiting factor in Moneydirect that would prevent expansion into air settlement." Calling Moneydirect "the industry standard for payment processing in the industry in Asia/Pacific," Sabre said the payment platform has expanded to seven countries since it launched, including entry this year into Canada and Italy. Moneydirect also is active in France, the United Kingdom and is expected to launch soon in Germany, Sabre noted.
"We always view competition as healthy and good for the industry and look forward to competing vigorously with the Travelport/eNett JV," a Sabre spokesperson said by e-mail.
Describing the current payment and settlement for non-air transactions as "an awful and very antiquated process," Travelport's Wilson expects the eNett payment venture to first gain adoption in the United States and Europe in areas outside of air, including rail, rental car and hotel. Wilson noted the joint venture is actively courting clients in Europe and expects to make announcements shortly.
However, Wilson expects the platform to evolve as a way to settle and report on unbundled airline transactions for large and small carriers alike. "They may want the base airfare to go through traditional payment mechanisms, but they may determine that the added-value services they sell could be processed through something a bit more modern," he said. "The reporting and the data, both for the agency and supplier, are steps above what's out there today."
The eNett platform supports a variety of payment forms, including credit and debit cards and "other increasingly relevant alternative forms of payment which are not well supported today," Travelport said in a statement this week.
Travelport said it holds the majority stake in the joint venture, though Wilson would not disclose what percentage or any other terms of the agreement, which was completed on June 24.