Financial gateway to assist airlines towards payment processing efficiencies

Visa’s global payment and fraud management platform, Cybersource, announced its partnership with the International Air Transport Association (IATA) financial gateway to offer a full suite of payment tools and enhance the current payment capabilities within the Airline Industry. The pandemic exacerbated the airline industry’s challenges: protecting passengers, brand and revenue, to name just a few of the concerns. With the new integration, Cybersource and IATA, the airlines will be able to streamline the payment process, manage fraud, maximize revenue and innovate faster.

Visa’s Cybersource offers a global capability tool that is pre-integrated with secured digital acceptance to more than 290 airline IATA members. It also eliminates the need for multiple branded products, reduces operational delays, and minimizes expenses.Furthermore, this platform enables airlines to save time when expanding into new geographies, implement new payment methods, introduce new sales channels and ultimately deliver a seamless integrated system experience for their customers.

According to Visa, Cybersource’s modern technology provides an array of online and in-person services to streamline the payment process, which include the following automated services:

• Payment gateway services for the acceptance of online, in-person and call center payments in over 190 countries and territories

• Decision Manager, a leading fraud management tool to help minimize fraud loss and maximize revenue

• Tokenization and more payment security tools, such as Payer Authentication, to secure sensitive payment data and ensure rules are compliant

• Pre-integration into the largest global travel reservation and distribution systems

Visa has been a trusted partner with over 70 airlines around the world. The Cybersource technology and consultant team partnered with Aeromexico, for example, in evaluating their current efficiencies and identifying possible threats while exploring opportunities for digital recommendations.The team specifically provided key insight on deepening the airline’s ecommerce booking experience, which includes payment and acceptance requirements.

Fernando Souza, Vice President of Cybersource, a Visa solution, said, “As travel rebounds, airlines need to support domestic and cross-border travel, while containing costs and mitigating fraud.Cybersource’s platform provides tools and resources to ensure airlines can provide a smooth and secure experience for customers, while maintaining profitability.”

As the airline industry begins to recover, the integration between Visa’s Cybersource and the International Air Transport Association Financial Gateway will help build a more cost-effective payment strategy and enable increased travel payment processing flexibility for the world’s airlines, commented Muhammad Albakri, IATA, Senior Vice President, Financial Settlement and Distribution Services.

IATA airline partners who are interested in utilizing Cybersource can learn more at the IFG website.

 

First successful green finance project complete by BIS Innovation Hub and Hong Kong Monetary Authority

In countries around the world, issuing and investing in bonds can be complex and time-consuming. Typically, green bonds, also known as sustainability, work similarly to traditional bonds; however the proceeds go toward some environmental initiative and involve many parties and financial commitment from the investor.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced the successful development of Project Genesis, two prototype digital platforms where investors can invest in and sell green bonds and safe government bonds with greater transparency, view accrued interest, track how much clean energy is being generated in real-time along with the reduction of CO2 emissions tied to the investment – all available via one app.

According to Innovation Hub, the platforms combine blockchain, smart contracts, internet-of-things, and digital assets.

Below are two descriptions of the two prototype platforms stated by the Innovation Hub:

The first prototype simulates the lifecycle of a typical bond on a permissioned distributed ledger platform, including origination, subscription, settlement and secondary trading. The prototype was able to considerably streamline these processes.

A second prototype tested the same procedures using a public blockchain infrastructure. It also streamlines the investor onboarding and facilitates the direct payment and settlement between the issuer and investor.

As stated by Bénédicte Nolens, Head of the BIS Innovation Hub Hong Kong Centre, “Both prototypes show that DLT technology can be used to streamline green bond issuance across the lifecycle and ensure that retail investors have full transparency on the use of proceeds, in real time on an easy to download app. This digitized framework helps in reducing costs and time and should enable better financing terms overall.”

Leveraging technology in the collaboration between the HKMA and BIS Innovation Hub has further illustrated the achievements towards green sustainability finance. Utilizing tokenized green bonds provides the capability to change the financial paradigm for organizations’ green projects.

For more information, please visit www.bis.org

 

Compliance within the treasury and public sectors to mitigate cyber risks

A press release from the U.S. Department of the Treasury provided critical remarks from Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, Wally Adeyemo, at the recent LINKS conference, surrounding the importance of compliance in treasury and public sectors.

As technologies are continuously evolving into new and innovative solutions, “the government’s goal is to create a regulatory environment that fosters responsible innovation, writing clear rules of the road that mitigate these risks while preserving the economic opportunities this technology creates,” said Adeyemo.

With the rapid rise of cybercrime, a national security problem, Adeyemo discussed the following four critical action steps on what treasury must do.

1. Build a public-private partnership around digital asset and blockchain innovation to mitigate security concerns using the OFAC Virtual Currency Compliance Guide.

2. Faster data sharing. The first Bank Secrecy Act Report on Ransomware Trends was recently released to provide a snapshot of the suspicious activity reporting FinCEN received during the first half of 2021. The U.S. Department of Treasury pledged to create a feedback loop to industries informing them of their risk assessments and compliance decisions. In addition, the U.S. Department of Treasury is working on creating real-time data flows that will protect against future cyberattacks.

3. The use of targeted sanctions designations such that criminals are held accountable and information on parts of the virtual currency ecosystem are clearer to decipher threats.

4. Support of international organizations as they set standards for digital assets. The lack of implementing AML or CFT standards for this technology poses great risks. Therefore, the Treasury Department is working with the Financial Action Task Force to help countries and the private sector interpret and implement the compliance standards.

The U.S. Department of Treasury also discussed how the private sector has the responsibility to ensure that compliance standards are embedded at the inception of a product launch and built into the fundamental architecture.In addition, the department stressed not to wait for Treasury to act. Organizations must monitor their own platforms first for compliance and notify the department of any suspicious information along with current trends. Companies who invest in AML/CFT compliance will serve a great purpose for the industry.

For more information, please visit www.treasury.gov.