Moneydirect, a joint venture of Sabre and Amadeus, introduced a travel-provider payment solution designed to simplify electronic reconciliation and reduce fees.
Moneydirect's "virtual credit card" is aimed at settling payments between travel providers -- say a tour operator and hotel -- which aren't handled by ARC or BSPs.
Instead of the delays inherent in invoicing, travel providers establish an account with Moneydirect and settle payments electronically.
In addition to reducing fees and speeding payments, the virtual credit card captures booking details for tracking purposes. Those details include reservation code, request identifier, traveler name, hotel chain code and name, room type, rate code hotel confirmation numbers and travel dates, Moneydirect says.
If airline-owned entities control payment processing for flights, the Amadeus and Sabre joint venture can be seen as a way for GDS companies to exert their influence over another area in payment processing.
Moneydirect processes more than $2 billion in payments annually and last year completed an upgrade to its data center in Australia to handle increased transaction growth.