As payment technology company Conferma builds direct connections with hotels and other players in the virtual payment ecosystem, it soon will say a final farewell to the fax machine as a communication tool in the process.
Use of the fax machine by hotels for virtual card authorization—a practice still used by a shrinking but not insignificant percentage of transactions today—often is brought up as a "Can you believe they still do that?" derision for the process. It was "a piece of technology that at the time made sense" and since has hung around as a base communication method, even as it vanished from broader business use, because legacy hotel technology infrastructure wasn't equipped to process the data and instructions needed for virtual card transactions, Conferma chief product officer Stuart Davenport said.
"It is still a little bit crazy that in a world of Gen-AI and agentic AI that I'm here talking about decommissioning faxes," Davenport said. "But that also highlights what we're actually doing to counter that."
A large part of that counter is through growing adoption of its Conferma Connect Direct API, which can integrate virtual card transmission into hotels' technology infrastructure, including property management and central reservation systems. That eliminates manual rekeying of data by a hotel's front desk, which is one the major pain points and chances for error in virtual card transactions, Davenport said.
In April, Hilton Worldwide announced it was enabling Conferma's API to access its PMSs, covering thousands of properties around the world that use its Property Engagement Program and OnQ systems. Davenport said that integration took about three months, not counting the work already done prior to the announcement.
The Hilton announcement "spurred other partners of similar size to re-engage with Conferma," Davenport said, and Conferma's growing base of corporate and agency customers—currently about 400 agencies and "tens of thousands" of corporate customers that use the platform—also are urging hotels to make the virtual card process easier, he said.
"We've hit a point of critical mass now in multiple markets where this friction is a little bit too noisy," Davenport said. "More hotel partners are standing up and saying, 'How can we get you on the roadmap, because we're feeling that pain as well,' and they're getting that pushback from corporate buyers on the need to pay this way."
Announced hotel partners that are working to scale Conferma APIs include Omni Hotels & Resorts, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts and Nordic hotel companies Strawberry and Thon Hotels. In addition, Conferma said that BCD Travel, CWT and Flight Centre Travel Group as well as PMS providers Mews and SynXis Property Hub have announced integration plans.
In a statement, BCD Travel head of payment solutions Neil Fyfe said the partnership "marks a critical step forward in scaling direct delivery, reducing front-desk friction, streamlining reconciliation and tax reclaim and ultimately driving innovation across the sector."
As that momentum grows, Conferma plans to fully phase out fax delivery in 2026, switching off country by country, Davenport said. That effort will start in the Asia/Pacific region in the first quarter, expand to Europe, the Middle East and Africa in the second quarter and spread to the rest of the world, including the United States, after that.
Conferma doesn't expect to move every hotel to direct connection, he said. The company has a goal to get about 50 percent of its volume on API with the rest managed by email via Conferma's direct database.
"We recognize the hotel industry is very fragmented," said Davenport, noting that even the same PMS brand could come with numerous different configurations. "There are a lot of franchises and independent hotels, and we want to enable the capabilities at any hotel in the world, but not every hotel in the world is going to be able to do a connection with Conferma."
In the meantime, Conferma continues to evolve its automation capabilities across the payment ecosystem, with its invoice automation capabilities emerging as one of its fastest-growing products. In June, Conferma announced a partnership with tax technology provider Fintua to automate VAT recovery as a part of the invoice automation.
The ultimate goal is to "recreate Uber" when it comes to hotel virtual payment, Davenport said.
"No one thinks about payment with Uber," he said. "You ask for the service, you enjoy the service, and you leave, and there's nothing more around it; it's seamless in the background. That's where we're trying to get with hotels.