In travel, payment complexity is the norm. Issuing and acquiring are typically managed by separate teams, split across different systems, with gaps that slow down performance and tie up working capital. That’s now starting to shift.
Forward-thinking travel platforms are consolidating both functions on a single provider. The result? Faster access to funds, tighter control of cash flow, and new revenue opportunities. With fewer handoffs and less complexity, teams can move quicker and perform better.
In this article, we explore how unifying issuing and acquiring is helping travel businesses move faster, operate with greater certainty, and gain an edge in a highly competitive industry.
From delayed settlement to real-time liquidity
To understand why unifying issuing and acquiring matters, it helps to look at where the traditional model breaks down. Traditionally, travel intermediaries like online travel agencies (OTAs) collect payment from customers but often wait days for settlement, especially over weekends. Suppliers, however, typically need to be paid immediately to confirm bookings and lock in pricing. That mismatch forces businesses to hold cash reserves, pre-fund multi-currency accounts, or rely on costly credit lines.
A unified platform changes that dynamic. When issuing and acquiring happen on the same system, travel businesses can operate in real time, with incoming and outgoing payments directly linked. The moment a customer’s payment is captured, it can be reused immediately for issuing, meaning suppliers can be paid almost instantly, improving cash flow and reducing the need for pre-funding or short-term credit.
As Simon Thompson, Global Business Development Director, B2B Travel at Visa Business Solutions puts it:
“Consumer receivables fund payouts in real time, eliminating prefunding and unlocking more Merchant of Record volume for the OTA.”
Acting as the Merchant of Record changes how OTAs operate, compete, and grow. Instead of simply passing customer payments through to suppliers and earning commission, OTAs take ownership of the transaction and the end-to-end experience. That means greater control over payment timing, customer relationships, and risk.
From a financial perspective, this model dramatically improves capital efficiency. Supplier payments can be funded directly from incoming customer payments, removing the need to pre-fund multi-currency accounts or maintain large idle cash buffers. Cash moves faster through the business, rather than sitting tied up waiting for settlement.
It also strengthens risk management and consumer protection. Paying suppliers with virtual cards gives OTAs more control if something goes wrong, enabling chargebacks or payment recovery in cases of supplier failure or service disruption.
In practice, this means access to liquidity in real time. Travel companies no longer need to work around settlement delays between payment capture and payout or tie up capital to bridge the gap Instead, they can put those funds to work, driving performance instead of sitting idle.
For high-volume, low-margin sectors like travel, that shift is transformational. It relieves cash flow pressure, reduces financial risk, and frees up working capital to fuel growth.
Why speed matters: Lessons from the travel industry
In the travel sector, timing is everything. Fares can fluctuate by the second, and when a customer confirms a booking, there’s a narrow window to complete the transaction before the price changes or inventory disappears. If a business can’t act fast enough, the sale falls through, and the customer looks elsewhere.
For travel businesses, that pressure applies on both sides of the transaction.
As Grzegorz Kwiecień, Head of Payments & Fraud Prevention at eSky Group online travel agency explains:
“Price can change every few seconds, so it’s vital for us to have really fast in-payments and out-payments.”
Traditionally, matching the speed of that moment was difficult. Travel companies had to predict cash flow needs across multiple currencies and move funds to supplier accounts in advance. These transfers often needed to be made on a Friday to cover the weekend, introducing delays and risk. If the forecast was off, funds could end up stranded in the wrong account, at the wrong time, and in the wrong currency.
By consolidating both functions with a single provider, these businesses gain the ability to issue virtual cards the instant a customer pays. That means supplier payments can be triggered in milliseconds, tightly aligned with incoming funds, without manual intervention, and without relying on pre-funded balances.
Grzegorz Kwiecień from eSky describes how this works in practice:
“Once we have the payment captured within a few milliseconds, we can create the virtual card and send it right away to the airline or hotel.”
This level of speed and synchronization helps lock in pricing, secure inventory, and remove exposure to currency volatility or delayed processing.
For travel companies operating on tight margins and high volumes, particularly in travel, the impact is immediate and measurable. Reducing the operational burden of pre-funding and currency management not only protects revenue, but also frees up capital to be used more productively elsewhere in the business.
Solving the liquidity gap traditional banks won’t touch
Travel companies have long struggled to access short-term credit, not because their operations are unstable, but because traditional lenders view the industry as inherently risky. With volatile market conditions and the aftershocks of global travel shutdowns still fresh in the memory of many financial institutions, banks remain cautious. Few are willing to underwrite transactions against future bookings, even when the customer has already paid.
But providers who manage both issuing and acquiring on a single platform are in a fundamentally different position. With end-to-end visibility over the flow of funds, they can see exactly what’s been captured from the customer and what needs to be paid to the supplier. This level of control and transparency allows them to assess and underwrite risk in a far more dynamic and responsive way.
If a supplier fails, the platform can trigger a chargeback on the issued card, protecting the business from loss and shielding the customer experience. That built-in safeguard reduces the need for traditional risk controls – such as holding back reserves or delaying settlement – and makes it possible to offer businesses real-time access to captured funds or interest-free working capital without taking on unnecessary exposure.
For travel businesses operating at scale, particularly in high-volume sectors, this kind of financial flexibility represents a meaningful shift in resilience. It turns payments into a lever for liquidity, rather than a constraint.
Tania Platt, Head of Travel at Visa, adds:
“Travel is one of the most complex payment ecosystems. When issuing and acquiring operate in silos, friction builds across the value chain. Bringing them together creates a more connected flow of funds – one that improves transparency and supports the speed modern travel businesses require. That alignment benefits everyone in the ecosystem, from platforms to suppliers to customers”
From cost center to revenue stream
A compelling reason to unify issuing and acquiring is the opportunity to turn supplier payouts from a pure cost into a source of revenue. Traditionally, paying partners meant bank transfers, wire fees, and manual reconciliation. It added operational overhead, with no financial return.
Virtual card issuing changes that equation. By paying suppliers via virtual cards, businesses can earn interchange on outbound payments, turning payouts into a new revenue stream.
Grzegorz Kwiecień from eSky explains the shift:
“We realized we have to use more and more virtual cards to have an additional revenue stream and to simplify and accelerate the processes.”
Issuing functionality is becoming more sophisticated, offering a level of control that simply wasn’t possible before. Modern issuing platforms give travel companies access to flexible scheme products, where the interchange rate can be configured within a defined range. For example, a travel-specific card might allow interchange to be set between 80 and 200 basis points, creating a valuable tool for commercial negotiations.
With this flexibility, businesses can shape the economics of supplier relationships. A travel agency could, for instance, encourage a hotel chain to move away from manual invoicing and accept virtual cards instead, offering a more attractive interchange rate as an incentive. In doing so, they not only digitize the payment flow but also reduce friction and improve reconciliation for both sides.
Unification also brings advantages in currency management. For example, if a customer pays in Polish Zloty and the supplier requires Euros, the platform can manage the conversion in real time. When there’s a balance in a less commonly used currency, businesses can issue a card in that currency to avoid FX charges, effectively creating a natural hedge without additional effort.
Combined with the ability to rotate BINs, test card products, and continuously optimize for performance, issuing becomes a lever for margin, approval rates, and incremental revenue, helping to extract more value from every transaction.
Rowland Camrass, Head of Commercial Issuing at Checkout.com, adds:
“Issuing becomes significantly more powerful when it’s connected directly to acquiring flows. You’re no longer pre-funding or being dependent on settlement schedules – you’re putting captured funds to work instantly. For high-volume travel businesses, that improves capital efficiency, creates interchange revenue opportunities, and turns payments into a driver of margin rather than a cost to manage.”
Enhanced security and risk control
Virtual cards, particularly single-use ones, offer a significant step forward in protecting payments against fraud. Unlike physical cards or “technical cards” issued by banks – which are often reused across thousands of transactions – a virtual card can be generated for a single, specific payment. It’s locked to a defined amount and tied directly to an individual booking, which sharply limits any opportunity for misuse.
This level of control extends beyond the basics. For example, an online travel agency can configure a virtual card to activate only the day before a guest checks in and to deactivate immediately after checkout. That narrow time window helps prevent unauthorized use, even if card details are exposed. If the card isn’t active, it simply can’t be charged.
Virtual cards also remove the need for outdated and insecure practices that still persist in some corners of the travel sector, such as faxing or emailing static card details to suppliers. These legacy methods carry unnecessary risk and are difficult to monitor at scale.
By moving to virtual cards within a unified issuing and acquiring platform, travel businesses gain tighter control over every transaction. Exposure is reduced, risk is easier to manage, and sensitive information no longer needs to be passed between systems or teams. The result is a more secure payments process that protects revenue and reinforces trust.
Choosing a partner that can support scale
Unifying issuing and acquiring reshapes payment management, affecting everything from fund flows and risk exposure to customer experience and commercial terms. The right partner helps to make it work at scale, across markets, and over time.
Global reach is essential. Without it, businesses may find themselves juggling multiple regional issuers, each with different capabilities and integration requirements. A unified provider with international coverage helps simplify operations and reduce complexity, especially if looking to scale quickly across geographies.
Flexibility is just as critical. A strong issuing partner should support the full spectrum of card products – from commercial and consumer to credit, debit, and prepaid – and enable smooth tokenization for digital wallets. This breadth ensures that as your offering evolves, your payments infrastructure can adapt with it.
Perhaps most important is the level of support. Issuing involves a web of scheme rules, regulatory requirements, and operational logistics. A partner with a consultative approach can absorb that complexity on your behalf, offering the technical know-how and regulatory insight needed to keep everything running smoothly. That frees internal teams to focus on growth, knowing that the infrastructure behind each translation is stable, compliant, and future-ready.
The power of a single platform
By eliminating the lag between incoming and outgoing funds, it becomes easier to act as the Merchant of Record more often. That means tighter control over cash flow, faster payments to suppliers, and smoother experiences for end users.
Checkout.com is one of the few global providers offering both issuing and acquiring on a single, unified platform.
For travel platforms, that means the ability to fund and manage card programs directly from acquiring flows, without relying on multiple third-party systems. It enables real-time card funding, faster supplier payments, and simplified reconciliation – all within a consistent, developer-first infrastructure.
This integrated approach is designed to meet the realities of travel and platform businesses: complex supplier networks, multi-currency flows, and the need for speed, control, and resilience at scale.
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