Airlines to take back control of payment, an International Air Transport Association (IATA) Airlines. magazine article with Muhammad Ali Albakri, IATA's SVP for Financial Settlement and Distribution Services. Thanks for putting the S in OOSD (Offer Order Settle Deliver) in the spotlight as “Distribution doesn’t happen without payment”! ➜ BSP for airline sales collection ➜ Digital currencies ➜ Modern airline retailing “The payment landscape is larger and even more complicated than distribution, Airlines have taken back control of distribution, and they now need to take back control of payment.” With the control also comes the responsibility and liability, as always in life there's also an element of 'be careful what you wish for'. The large online travel agencies run highly sophisticated payment operations, at scale. It might therefore be a challenge to replace that.. #iata #airlinepayments #b2bpayments
On the stimulation of Paul... here are my thoughts. Examining the headline actually tells a story that perhaps IATA doesn't want to hear. The key question is whether or not IATA's payment/settlement services are actually still fit for purpose? The airlines are clearly not emphasizing their focus on IATA's solutions. Increasingly they are using alternative forms. Why? I would say there are two basic reasons. IATA's costs are high and their solutions as the pandemic demonstrated were inadequate as a true settlement system. The other reason is that alternatives have emerged which are cheaper and extracting time from the process. IATA needs to significantly up its game if it wishes to stop the erosion of marketshare in settlement. This erosion is coming not just from the move to more direct transactions but also that the airlines use of OOSD opens up alternative paths to financial settlement.
What I miss in the story Muhammad Ali Albakri is the increasing role of blockchain technology and digital wallets, which will eliminate the need for intermediaries like IATA: Products and Services of airlines and other travel companies beyond airlines will be reflected as NFT’s, and Offers, Orders, Payment (between Customer and Retailer, and between Retailer and Supplier) and Delivery will be registered and handled secure, traceable and immutable on the blockchain, like CAMINO. The blockchain will be managed by the consortium that has a scope far beyond airlines, so served a broader scope than IATA. Perhaps the title of a following article could be: “How blockchain can give back control to Travel Retailers over their full Order lifecycle (and how this cleans up legacy backoffices).”
A blockchain with smart contracts will eliminate the needs of BSP and traditional payment services
Travel Payments Strategist | Up in the Air
6moTimothy O'Neil-Dunne, any thoughts? 😀