The partnership will initially focus on integrating the eCommerce payment consolidation and control features of the BRIDGE payment orchestration platform into Worldline’s UK rail eCommerce platform.

Worldline’s eCommerce platform is a customer-facing service that requires complex connectivity to many other parts of the transport providers’ software architecture, from journey planners and reservation systems to online payments, loyalty marketing and financial accounting. Joint technology development by Worldline and BRIDGE will deliver a unified eCommerce solution for the transport and travel industry that allows companies to take control of the payments experience and seamlessly connect these transactions with other business processes.

James Bain, CEO, Worldline UK & Ireland, said, “We believe in collaboration for innovation, ensuring that, through our partnerships, we always have the most inventive technologies built into our solutions. Working with BRIDGE’s specialist strength in payments integration and control means that we will be quicker in bringing a more agile and resilient payment ecosystem offering to our customers. It aligns with the Worldline vision of payments for a trusted world.”

The future of transport and ‘Mobility-as-a-service’ (MaaS), where travellers shift away from personally-owned modes of transport towards a digitally-delivered service, increases the pressure on one-stop eCommerce journey platforms to deliver convenience, comfort and flexibility. As the initial focus for the Worldline/BRIDGE partnership, BRIDGE’s payment orchestration not only builds connectivity and resilience into current solutions, it also ensures that Worldline is equipped to support tomorrow’s vision for the transport sector.

Brian Coburn, CEO at BRIDGE, said, “For transport companies and their customers, the ticketing system is so much more than a permit to travel - it’s a key part of the customer journey. Given its influence on trust and satisfaction, we see payments as an engine for opportunity and differentiation today and into the future. Through our partnership with Worldline, we look forward to seeing our innovation at work within a world-class transport eCommerce system and showcasing its impact on a frictionless customer experience.”

BRIDGE is a new payment orchestration service for eCommerce enterprises that want to unlock the potential of existing and new digital payment services. Payment orchestration is a single horizontal integration layer across the retailer’s payment system that manages, consolidates and controls multiple payment offerings, as well as providing data reporting and analytics, and the ability to deploy and test new innovations at speed.