Mastercard and Bahrain-based fintech Infinios Financial Services have announced a strategic partnership to advance the digitization of business-to-business travel payments between travel buyers and suppliers through the first Mastercard Wholesale Program launch in region. The collaboration will enhance liquidity for travel suppliers, such as travel agencies, through greater transaction flexibility, transparency, and security.
Infinios will deploy the Mastercard Wholesale Program, a virtual card based B2B payment product, to its travel industry customers using its proprietary technologies to help them secure, streamline, and automate B2B travel transactions. The combined solution has been specifically designed for and with the travel industry, addressing the lack of visibility, control, and protection associated with manual payment methods that are still rife across the sector.
Andrew Sims, co-founder and CEO of Infinios Financial Services, said: “We are excited to be continuing to develop our relationship with Mastercard in the B2B travel payments space in line with our commitment to support the overall financial ecosystem in the region. The combined strength of Infinios’s comprehensive technology capabilities and the pricing structures available through the Mastercard Wholesale Program will enable us to provide a further boost to the corporate travel industry as it continues to recover from the ill effects of the global pandemic.”
Khalid Elgibali, Division President, Middle East and North Africa, Mastercard, said: “As consumers regain the confidence to seek out and book travel experiences, legacy B2B payment processes threaten to hold the industry back. It is now vital that organizations across the sector consider how their payment strategy can secure growth and improve liquidity. Innovation must play its part in ensuring that travel payments are not only simple and convenient but, even more importantly, flexible and secure. Card payment technology provides the firm foundations from which the travel economy can not only grow but flourish, which is why we are delighted to join forces with Infinios to launch the first wholesale travel program in the region.”
The adoption of card payments continues to power recovery for the travel economy, and this collaboration will see Infinios leverage Mastercard’s dynamic and transparent pricing structure tailored specifically for industry distribution, market, and currency needs. The first-of-its-kind partnership in the region will enhance major B2B travel payment flows and bring the travel ecosystem closer together to accelerate sustainable growth across the travel value chain.
According to Mastercard’s Economic Outlook 2023, experiences currently fare better than goods in terms of spending, given the continued pent-up demand for travel and shifts in consumer preferences worldwide. As organizations across the ecosystem re-evaluate their payment strategies and operational priorities to drive sales and growth, the Mastercard Wholesale Program leverages proven virtual card technology to deliver multiple benefits. The innovative proposition is already being used by over 400,000 travel merchants.
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