Payment orchestration sees travel merchants innovate for one-size-fits-all digital checkout experience
Payment platform ZOOZ says travel companies spend 5.4 percent of their revenue just on managing payment processing. Payment management and the complexity of payment stacks means interest in payment orchestration adoption is growing. Seasoned travel payment professional Paul van Alfen said payment orchestration providers (POPs) enable travel merchants to increase their efficiency by operating "multi-basket solutions" all at once. He added that POPs will help travel merchants to leverage their customers' purchase experience to stay relevant and grow their businesses. But to integrate proliferating payment channels usually requires strong technical skills at both the front and back ends as it is very complex. This poses a challenge to develop internal capabilities to handle multiple issues at the same time.
Besides innovation, payment orchestration can reduce vulnerability to fraud and optimise payment ecosystems. CellPoint Digital, for instance, dynamically optimizes its platforms to meet the requirements of payment regulations, especially to be payment card industry-compliant and streamline their payment processes. Kristian Gjerding, chief executive of CellPoint Digital, said airlines and agencies often face problems in their payment technology to refund customers for cancelled flights.
As a result, travel merchants must manage the complexities in tracking refund payments, not to mention extra fees from certain payment methods. With cross-border transactions, travel merchants must rack their brains to deploy local acquirers in their payment management and strategies. These are some of the reasons travel merchants such as hotels, airlines, agencies and vendors need to partner with providers that enable payment orchestration. CellPoint Digital sees payment orchestration as an enabler for travel merchants to rapidly select and switch to a customer's preferred payment or refund method. It also helps solve geographical coverage problems to optimize every outgoing and incoming transaction, while controlling fees and conversion rates. All complexities in payment management are also being modernized and simplified. Payment orchestration will solve many factors that limit the level of authorization. Therefore, payment orchestration will help increase receipts of payment and increase the conversion rate of payments.
Airlines leading the pack
Radu Iliescu, director of digital retail consulting at Branchspace, said modular payment architecture based on off-the-shelf, best-of-breed components is a perfect starting point for most airlines to maintain their flexibility and competitiveness. Cebu Pacific Air, for instance, is ready to launch an innovative full payment orchestration platform across all its digital channels. As the most successful low-cost carrier in the Philippines, Cebu Pacific wants to improve the customer payment experience, especially for repeat customers.
According to ZOOZ, travel merchants, especially airlines, must focus on their operations and cross-border connections, as well as the complexity of their payment system management. About 60 percent of leisure travellers and 41 percent of business travellers with online travel arrangements should consider adopting new technology to handle the growing complexity of payments. Choosing a POP is considered a good starting point to cope with the chaotic conditions in the tourism industry. In terms of payments, POPs offer flexibility and agility, which are critical features travel merchants such as airlines need to survive during the coronavirus pandemic.
Sean O'Neill, senior travel tech editor at Skift, explained that the concept of payment orchestration is very helpful in encouraging changes in the use of digital payment technology. He added that payment orchestration covers gaps in manual operations, making the whole payment process seamless.
Moving forward with APEXX's payment orchestration layer
At APEXX, we are dedicated to raising the bar with our own payment orchestration layer for any acquirer in the world with many alternative architectural solutions. With an intelligent and dynamic routing system, our advanced payment orchestration layer is aimed at improving the user experience, reducing processing fees and boosting the global authorisation rate. Route distribution will be powered by our smart engine with a flexible cascading mechanism that boosts a seamless customer experience.
Besides dynamic routing and cascading transactions to maximize acceptance rates, APEXX also supports a single integration point to access an array of modern payment providers, including Arvato, Klarna, Apple Pay and Google Pay. This single access point would speed up any future integration and development of both merchants and future payment providers.
Our payment orchestration system can also manage the refund process via consolidated reporting across all payment providers. Consolidating all payment data into one interface allows APEXX to aid reconciliation and ensure accurate benchmark performances by providers. Reconciliation reports are customized to meet the travel merchant's specifications and requirements. Merchants' payment ecosystems will be optimized as well, including the identification and presentation of new acquirers, payment providers and fraud solutions. By leveraging APEXX's economies of scale, we guarantee travel merchants the best commercial arrangements.
Fraud rates can be reduced even further with a selection of APEXX's very own fraud solutions via its payment orchestration system. With continuous payment risk analyses, travel merchants are assisted in setting up the best strategy that complies with global regulations such as the revised payment services directive (PSD2) and strong customer authentication (SCA). Amid immense growth in global payments, a seamless payment process would propel travel merchants to the peak of the business chain. APEXX's payment orchestration is designed entirely for that purpose, embedded with a capacity to maintain high transaction success rates and reduce excess costs on any type of transaction. Payment orchestration sees travel merchants innovate for one-size-fits-all digital checkout experience.
