HTNG Partners with OpenTravel Alliance and HEDNA to Form the Open Payments Alliance Standards Workgroup

Hospitality Technology Next Generation (HTNG), OpenTravel Alliance and Hotel Electronic Distribution Network Association (HEDNA) announced that they are partnering to form the Open Payments Alliance (OPA) Standards Workgroup for the hospitality and travel industry.

HEDNA's payments forum created the OPA concept to bypass the legacy constraints that restrict innovation in the travel industry's B2B payment space. The OPA advocates decoupling the payment channel from the reservation channel in order to streamline B2B payments between TMCs, OTAs, wholesalers and other travel operators to hotels. The OPA framework is applicable any time a guest does not pay directly for a room and has been designed to support complex B2B payment flows, involving multiple forms of payment (virtual credit cards, ACH, SEPA, etc.), different billing requirements (direct bill and bill-back), FX and hedging operations and commission payments. 

Most systems being used today were designed to primarily handle cash and credit card payments from guests. These systems have not been adapted to handle other forms of payment, which are being increasingly demanded by corporate travel managers. Virtual credit cards, in particular, are growing in popularity, and not handled well with current system functionality.

OPA's purpose is to bypass the current flow of reservations to process payments more efficiently and securely. By separating the payment path from the reservation path, significant changes will not be required by global distribution systems (GDS), central reservation systems (CRS), and property management systems (PMS). This will also increase security by keeping credit card information in a separate, secure environment.

This workgroup will create software standards, business rules and best practices so that OPA solutions can be developed and integrated with other key systems using open standards.

Any individual who is employed by a member of at least one of the three associations can participate in the workgroup. Nonmembers can participate until the workgroup is chartered and approved to move forward.