Travel payment specialists Moneydirect will use Australia’s “early adopter” status in payment technology to secure global deals with wholesalers and tour operators.
Speaking to Travel Today in Sydney, Moneydirect chief operating officer Laurent Chartier said that Australia was “miles ahead of other countries” in terms of travel agents settling bills electronically.
In other markets, including the UK and US, cheques are still the main form of supplier payment.
The Moneydirect financial transfer system, or ‘central settlement plan’ as it is dubbed internally, acts as an interface between agents and suppliers.
Moneydirect, founded in Melbourne in 1991 and acquired by global distribution system (GDS) Amadeus in 2001 has embarked on an aggressive expansion plan in Europe and the US since being established as a joint venture with rival GDS Sabre in 2007. Chartier said key to the expansion will be leveraging existing Australian customers in other markets.
A Bermudian wholesale group with significant Australian operations and a Queensland-based retail network are among the as-yet unnamed Australian companies in “serious” talks about rolling the system out globally, he added.
In its new markets, the UK, France, the US and Canada, Moneydirect currently only has 350 customers, comprising wholesalers, travel agency chains and airline consolidators including Thomas Cook and , French agency chain Fer-Route-Air-Mer (FRAM). “In this market what you need is critical mass, so we had zero customers six months ago, 350 today and this will be thousands in a short time,” Chartier said.
24 June 2009
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