Following the launch of Gant
Strategic Pay earlier this year, Gant Travel has launched a second virtual
card solution, GantCoin, for hotel bookings. The solution links to a company corporate
card, eliminating the need to open an additional bank account specifically for the
virtual card to draw funds.
"Creating a [separate specialized] account is slow and
often requires approvals at many different levels inside a company and bank.
This is a hassle that often stops travel managers and travel coordinators from
getting the solution they need," said Gant VP of corporate accounts and
sales Chad Seybold.
As with most virtual card solutions, GantCoin is a good
option for infrequent travelers, employees without corporate or personal credit
cards and nonemployees, as it offers an alternative payment method to issuing
corporate cards. GantCoin is additionally useful for small and midsize
enterprises that don't want to go through credit checks or don't have good
banking relationships, said Gant president and CEO Patrick Linnihan.
The Mechanics
GantCoin builds on Gant Strategic Pay's existing technologies
and processes with Concur and Conferma and therefore works similarly, whether a
traveler books a hotel on Concur
Travel or through a travel agent by phone or email, explained Linnihan.
Through the Gant Gateway platform, a travel manager can perform such tasks as designating
which type of travelers get access to GantCoin and determining whether the
transaction will cover just room and tax or a buffer for incidentals.
When a traveler makes a booking in Concur Travel, the
profile will indicate whether the booking is eligible for GantCoin payment.
Likewise, a Gant agent will know which travelers are eligible for GantCoin based on the
company specifications in Gant Gateway.
With Gant Strategic Pay, a traveler initiates a transaction with
a corporate or lodge card, Linnihan said. With GantCoin, Gant assumes the risk
by fronting the funds from its own account. Conferma then generates the virtual
card. Linnihan declined to reveal Gant's virtual card bank issuer. A day after
the trip is completed, Gant's system automatically charges the company's
corporate card for the final amount, thereby shifting the liability to the
credit card network to ensure the company pays its credit card bill.
Gant Travel said in May it planned to enable air
bookings for Gant Strategic Pay in the third quarter, but then it redirected its efforts
to creating GantCoin because of customer demand, according to Linnihan. Gant
Travel now aims to enable virtual card for air bookings on both products by the
end of the year. Rental car will follow. Linnihan said it doesn't
have any live clients on GantCoin but expects to have some in the next couple
of weeks.
Accepting Bitcoin
Likewise, Gant Travel accepts the cryptocurrency bitcoin,
but Linnihan admitted no customers have requested that form of payment and he
doesn't anticipate much interest in the capability. But he added, "It's a
signal to the marketplace that this is the direction we're going. By doing so, we're expecting two things: One, that someone will say, 'That's exactly how we
want to pay,' and two, 'What's the deal if we do?'"
Last year, KDS enabled bitcoin
acceptance. Then-CEO Dean Forbes expressed similar thoughts regarding the
corporate travel market's lack of interest in adopting the currency but likewise
felt it was important to expand the T&E provider's payment capability.
While corporate travel buyers seem unmoved by the currency
as a payment option, travel suppliers are paying attention and scrutinizing how
they can incorporate blockchain, the decentralized ledger technology that
supports cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, into their processes. AirPlus
International CEO Patrick Diemer recently said the payments company
initially saw blockchain as a "potential threat" and has since explored
possible opportunities. Innfinity
Software Systems is working on a booking tool using blockchain.