IATA Pay

IATA Pay is a payment solution for direct ticket sales via airline websites that can also be utilized in other use cases (NDC, Agency Portal, Group Sales). It is based on instant bank transactions and leverages on open banking or Request-to-Pay schemes.

IATA Pay is currently the leading account-to-account solution in terms of market coverage.

IATA Pay is available in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, The Netherlands (iDEAL), France, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain (Bizum), UK, Ghana, Hong Kong, Malaysia, India, Thailand, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Vietnam, Türkiye, Philippines, Jordan and Australia.

IATA Pay aims to cover all potential markets in which open banking and instant payments are available. IATA is continuously working to expand across the globe.  

All IATA Pay transactions are collected in local currency. So, all of the currencies from our live markets are supported: EUR, GBP, GHS, HKD, MYR, INR, THB, BRL, MXN, COP, VND, TRY, PHP, JOD and AUD.

Moreover, IATA Pay is compatible with ICCS (IATA Currency Clearing Service), allowing our customers to repatriate domestically collected funds to their headquarters in their preferred currency.

Open banking and Request-to-Pay are frameworks or schemes within the banking and payments sectors. These allow for new players to enter the payments landscape and create a payment method which is more direct between merchant and consumer.

Request-to-Pay is a scheme that allows for a payee to request a payment from a payor. In this context, the payor would only need to approve this payment request to initiate the payment. Request-to-Pay schemes usually cover instant transactions that are definite.

Open banking schemes provide a framework and/or rulebook for financial information messaging via standard APIs that can support new forms of payment based on request-to-pay transactions

In open banking, consumers can provide third parties with access to their financial information for providing financial services, like Request-to-Pay among others.

Instant payments are also known as immediate payments, faster payments and real-time payments. Key features include:

• Immediate availability of funds to the payment recipient.
• Assured payment: once a payment has been made, the sender cannot deauthorize the transfer and therefore funds are secure for airlines.
• Confirmation of funds via real-time balance. Once a payment is authorized, the sender’s account balance reflects the deduction instantaneously.  

First, the customer selects the Account-to-Account form of payment, which IATA Pay enables behind the scenes at the checkout stage.

The airline will send the request to IATA Pay with an instant API communication. IATA Pay will use the transactional details to send, via IATA’s financial partner, a payment request to the customer’s bank account. The funds will be transferred directly and securely from the customer’s account to IATA’s bank account.

The next day, IATA will settle the funds to the airline’s account.

IATA Pay is part of the ISS settlement services value proposition. All IATA Pay transactions are integrated in the BSP Billing Outputs under the IPAY Category.

However, the IATA Pay settlement flows are independent of the settlement of BSP sales in order to facilitate airlines reconciliation.

Yes. At the checkout page, the corresponding local Account-to-Account form of payment, which is enabled by IATA Pay, will be presented together with any other payment option offered by the merchant. (e-wallets, debit / credit cards, etc).

IATA offers the “IATA Pay Best Practices” which are a set of guidelines and recommendations on how to present the form of payment in the checkout page with the objective of maximizing volumes and conversion rates.  

The main channel of IATA Pay is the direct sales from the airline’s website. However, other channels and use cases are also available (NDC, Agency Portal, Group Sales).

IATA will reconcile the collected funds and settle them in a lump sum amount to the Airline on the day following the transaction.

This means that airlines could receive daily settlements which will include all the prior day’s transactions.

All interactions between airline and IATA Pay to initiate payment or refund will be via API communication, through the interface that has been built between both parties.

IATA Pay will provide a settlement report through an interface (API or sftp) with your airline.  This information can also be retrieved from the IATA Pay Admin Portal.

For further information about this IATA Pay Admin Portal contact the team (IATApay@iata.org)

Airlines will instruct IATA Pay to perform refunds as per their own internal policies. The instruction is sent through an interface (API) so that it is executed in real time.

Real-time refunds are going to be available to customers that made the original purchase using IATA Pay.

Yes, once you participate in IATA Pay Community, you will have access to an Integration guide and IATA Pay Admin Portal Guide to familiarize yourself with its functionalities.

Please contact your IATA account manager or iatapay@iata.org for further information.

Similar to other ISS financial services provided by IATA, your airline will be required to provide contact information, instructions for settlement and a signed contract.

To activate the service, IATA Pay will be integrated to your check-out website like any other payment service.

For further information on contract conditions, kindly address your inquiries to iatapay@iata.org

IATA Pay works like any other form of payment. It can be integrated directly into your airline’s check-out page, or through your payment gateway provider or through a direct connection to your airline’s systems.

Note that IATA Pay is already integrated to: IFG, 2C2P, Thunes/Limonetik, Pixel Watt Studio, Hitit, KIU, Branchspace, JusPay, TWAI, ISA, Data Wings, IBSP, Mobile Express, Verteil, Zapways, Sabre and Amadeus Outpayce.

The IATA Pay team is ready to support you in your IATA Pay journey. Please contact iatapay@iata.org  

IATA Pay Admin Portal is an online console where live airlines can monitor in real time their IATA Pay transactions.

Any IATA Pay airline employee could have a user in the IATA Pay Admin Portal, usually stakeholders in payments and ecommerce departments.

In the IATA Pay Admin Portal, there can be different user profiles with different levels of access and roles. There will be a main user/s from the airline with administrative power and visibility of all other users. This main user will be able to add, remove and change authorizations to any of the other users.

IATA Pay and IFG are independent.  Being IATA Pay a new form of payment for the airline industry, while IFG is a payment gateway which optimizes airlines and travel suppliers’ different sales payment processes.

These are two different payment solutions offered by IATA.

While IATA Pay is a new payments solution based on instant bank transactions, IATA EasyPay is an e-wallet solution for travel agents to issue tickets in the BSP.