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reopening of US borders following the emergence of the Delta variant but insisted increasing vaccination rates will prompt an easing of restrictions. “A month ago, before
the variant took hold, we were feeling confident (of an imminent reopening) and I am still confident because at some point the numbers are the numbers,” he said. “If you look at those numbers (vaccination rates) you are getting to the stage where we can travel safely while retaining some precautions. “I don’t know if that’s going
to be later in the [autumn] but I am confident people are going to be travelling going into 2022 and the pent-up demand is certainly there.” He added: “Because we were
really careful (with funds) over the past year we are going to be in a position to do everything we want to do with our trade partners and our re-entry on the consumer side will be very robust. “We are also hopeful we will
get a degree of support from the federal government. This administration is very well aware of the importance of international travel to economic recovery and is ready to invest in it.” Spearheading that
international return will be the UK, Garzilli believes, describing it as the “leading edge” of the European market. In 2019, the UK accounted for 4.8 million visitors to the US of a total of 14.4 million from Europe as a whole. “Much as we look at other
countries, we are going to follow the airline seats and the transatlantic routes are going to open up strongly,” he said.
Paysafe says its trust s Merchant acquirer extols safeguarding model to protect customer money on
The Covid pandemic has been a stress test of the travel sector’s resilience like no other, and no more keenly has that been felt than in the area of payments. Cancellations, refunds and
credit notes threw a sector already considered high-risk by banks, payment card firms and merchant acquirers into a period of unprecedented uncertainty. However, one merchant acquirer
that has set its stall out as a specialist in travel said the dark Covid cloud offered it a silver lining: proof its “safeguarding” trust arrangement could withstand any shock. Paysafe had launched
safeguarding three years earlier, partly in response to prior crises in travel, but mainly to differentiate itself against bigger competitors and demonstrate sector expertise. It sees customer payments held
independently and allows Paysafe to offer more-beneficial merchant terms by managing its risk and therefore the cash collateral it requires from clients as security.
Safeguarding model Daniel Stanbridge, senior vice- president of merchant risk, said: “Last year was a live stress test of the safeguarding model. “When it came to refunds the
funds were there. We could pull the money out and issue them without creating a detrimental impact to merchants’ liquidity base. “We had instances where those
funds came under stress because of administrative actions, but they were ringfenced so we could continue to fund our merchant from the trust and support refunds. “The silver lining of Covid for us
54 9 SEPTEMBER 2021
“If a travel agency wasn’t getting money back from the airline, how could they possibly refund the consumer?”
was it really proved the case for our safeguarding model and acted as a bit of a springboard into much heavier usage of trusts.”
Covid ‘chaos’ Assessing the impact of Covid over the past 19 months, Stanbridge described the start of the pandemic as “chaos”. “There were a number of voices
out there telling consumers, partners and merchants what the best course of action would be to appease consumers and resolve chargebacks,” he says. “At the outset at least, there wasn’t
necessarily a clear path on how to deal with this issue. No one had been through something on this scale before. It was a period of unknown. “You had the CAA saying one
thing, card companies another and airlines going off and doing their own thing. That then impacted travel agencies. If the travel agency wasn’t getting money back from the airline, how would they possibly be able to refund the consumer?” Once updated rules were available
on how refunds and chargebacks should be managed, Paysafe was supported in sending the right message to its travel merchants. “We were being strictly governed
by the card schemes, so that helped,” recalls Stanbridge. “The message we were delivering to our merchants was that these would be the rules we were going to operate by. “Ultimately the schemes, rightly or wrongly, govern that flow of
Paysafe is ‘strictly governed by the
credit card schemes’
travelweekly.co.uk
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