Skift Travel News Blog

Short stories and posts about the daily news happenings around the travel industry.

Travel Technology

Mastercard to Invest in Fintech Company Conferma Pay

1 year ago

Mastercard is planning to make a minority investment in Conferma Pay, a fintech company acquired earlier this year by Sabre Corporation.

The new partnership with Mastercard will allow Conferma Pay to expand the use of virtual cards for business-to-business travel payments.

Sabre acquired Conferma Pay for $72.5 million in August 2022, according to a filing in September with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

UK-based Conferma Pay provides software and commercial deals to help the travel industry move to virtual cards, through which account information is issued for one-time use in an effort to shield the buyer’s identity when making online purchases and prevent fraud. Virtual cards also allow travel buyers and suppliers to more easily track and reconcile payments. 

(Skift has covered this in its recent megatrend Travel Payments Find Path to Painless.)

Conferma Pay said it connects issuers to more than 700 travel management companies, all the major global distribution systems, and more than 100 online booking tools. The company said it is fully integrated with all the major card brands and works with more than 50 banking partners, allowing them to issue virtual cards in nearly 100 currencies.

Conferma Pay will continue to operate independently. Sabre’s Virtual Payments platform integrates the Conferma Pay services. 

“The payments industry is in the midst of a revolution and there is an increased need for travel companies to better manage the whole payment experience,” said Roshan Mendis, chief commercial officer for Sabre Travel Solutions, in a statement. “Companies in the travel space — including travel management companies, travel agencies, corporations, issuers, and technology partners — need sophisticated solutions and seamless connections. Sabre is taking strategic steps to fulfill the needs of our industry, beginning with the acquisition of Conferma Pay.”

Travel Technology

Sabre Buys Payment Tech Firm Conferma Pay in Bet on Virtual Cards for Business Travel

2 years ago

Sabre acquired payments technology vendor Conferma Pay based in the UK, on August 3, the travel tech company confirmed in a statement to Skift. The travel technology company based in Southlake, Texas, didn’t reveal deal terms.

“Sabre has had a successful partnership with Conferma Pay for many years, and Conferma Pay is the basis upon which its Sabre Virtual Payments proposition is built,” a spokesperson said.

Conferma Pay provides software and commercial deals to help the travel industry move to virtual cards, where a business traveler buys each thing with a separate virtual number. So-called virtual cards can provide more secure authentication than traditional processes and more easily adapt to mobile wallets, such as India’s Paytm and China’s Alipay. (Skift has covered this in its recent megatrend Travel Payments Find Path to Painless.)

During the pandemic, Conferma Pay signed many deals and created integrations to help spread the adoption of virtual payments. In late 2020, it helped Visa launch Visa Commercial Pay, a suite of business-to-business payment solutions that strive to replace most manual processes.

Business Travel News Europe was the first to report on the acquisition.