For travelers, booking an airline ticket can be confusing when prices are displayed in a foreign currency. To improve the customer shopping experience, travel companies, such as travel agencies and airlines, are keen to offer customers the possibility to see ticket prices in the currency of their choice.
For many travel companies today, currency conversion is handled by third parties in the payment chain. To help them assume greater control over e-commerce currency conversion, Amadeus has developed a new currency conversion module, the first of their solutions from a suite of new foreign exchange (FX) services called ‘FX Box’.
By re-engineering the way payments are presented and managed from authorization to settlement, FX Box can help to empower travel suppliers to internalize the proceeds of a cross-currency payment. The potential for savings can be significant and could represent incremental revenue of up to several percentage points on multi-currency transactions.
FX Box provides travel firms with real-time access to best-in-class FX rates for more than 170 currencies.
Amadeus is currently working to add more leading foreign exchange providers so that travel companies can select their preferred partner, with Citibank being the first available on the platform. FX Box is integrated into Amadeus’ Xchange Payment Platform which brings together foreign exchange and travel data into one platform. This single data view has the potential to improve efficiency for travel companies as it simplifies revenue accounting, reconciliation and reporting activities, which can typically be complex and time-consuming.
Flavio Figueiredo, Global Head Rates & Currencies Corporate Sales at Citibank, says: “Being able to simplify local currency pricing solutions in the aviation sector has always been a key gap in the industry. Citi is therefore proud to be a partner to the FX Box solution with Amadeus, a recognized global leader in the travel technology space.”
“Our partnership with Amadeus on FX Box is a natural given Citi’s global relationships in the aviation and tourism sectors. A platform that improves customer experience and brings efficiencies, less complexity, time and cost savings to travel companies is always welcome; it is particularly so in these times.” added, Munawar Noorani, Global Co-Head of Aviation, Citibank.
Bart Tompkins, Head of Payments, Amadeus, comments: “With FX Box, travel companies can select the FX model that’s right for them and their travelers whilst benefiting far more directly. We’re pleased to welcome global leader Citibank as the first key banking partner that travel agents, airlines, and hotels can choose to work with as part of our FX Box suite of services.”
Amadeus’ Payments business has developed a range of partnerships and new merchant services in order to help travel firms to maximize the value of their payments strategy. These services aim to assist travel providers to monitor, analyze and control complex global payment flows, increase the range of payment methods they accept, reduce fraud, and now to help take control of foreign exchange services.