Amadeus B2B wallet: never pay too much again

The Amadeus B2B Wallet Payment Orchestration engine was voted the winner at PhocusWright Europe. We talk to Dan Greaves (Senior Manager, Marketing, Payments at Amadeus IT Group) about the opportunities and advantages of Amadeus B2B Wallet for travel agents in the Benelux.

A new solution for a changing world

Dan Greaves: “If you look beyond the travel industry at payments, you’ll immediately notice that the payment landscape has revolutionized over the past decade. Because of the ever-growing eCommerce economy consumers have changed the way they make payments. They traded cash for wireless payments via their RFID enabled debit cards, credit cards, PayPal, smartphone payments or even cryptocurrencies.”

“The same evolution has been going on in the travel agencies. They moved from bank transfers to credit card payments and ultimately to virtual card solutions. On one hand, this is great news for entrepreneurs in the travel industry since virtual payment solutions have not only made payments easier but also much more secure and easier to reconcile. On the other hand, some complexity still exists and since every payment methods has its own set of specific benefits and drawback, travel agents are still missing out in the end.”

Enter the Amadeus Payments team

“At Amadeus, we’re well aware of the factors that make the travel industry so unique,” Dan continues. “So, we started thinking. Why not introduce a payment solution that caters to the specific needs of travel agents? And that got the ball rolling, the Amadeus Payments team was born and the B2B Wallet became a hit worldwide.”

“The Amadeus B2B Wallet is a collection up to 9 different payment methods, all behind a single API. Why so many? Well, in the travel industry it’s common to make a lot of different transactions in different countries to different suppliers. All of those again with specific rules, surcharges, etc. Having 9 different payment methods available (ranging from credit cards, debit cards, travel cards, etc.) opens new possibilities for travel agents. It allows them to choose the right card type for each transaction.”

“And that choice is up to them, whether they want to save costs and avoid the merchant fee by using a debit instead of a credit card or earn a rebate by using a prepaid card.”

Simplified B2B payments

“We noticed a lot of added value for travel agents using the B2B Wallet, but still felt there was a need for further simplification. Yes, travel agents can choose the right form of payment, but do they actually always make the right choice and go for full maximization?”

“To help them we programmed the Amadeus B2B Wallet Payment Orchestration engine. This engine automatically looks at the payment type, analyzes it and makes simulations of the costs and/or savings per type of payment. It then proposes the travel agent the most economic form of payment.”

“We’ve run tests over the last year with 40 clients worldwide and discovered that using the Orchestration engine can lead up to savings of 1% over the total revenue. Our clients were ecstatic. I also had the pleasure of introducing our Orchestration engine in Amsterdam during the latest edition of PhocusWright Europe, last month (May 2018). Following my presentation during the so-called Battlegrounds, the Amadeus B2B Wallet Payment Orchestration engine was voted absolute winner of the PhocusWright Innovation Launch award for established companies.”

“This project has confirmed that Amadeus B2B Wallet really can make the difference for entrepreneurs in the travel industry.”

Do you want to save up to 1% of your total revenue?

Ask your Account Manager about it or get into contact with our Benelux offices.