Per my June blog BNPL – Travel Example, I laid out how Airlines were a logical focus for BNPL. It seems that Issuers are either reading my blog, or coming to the same conclusions as SRC is likely to launch first with Airlines.

SRC Bundle – From Issuers/Visa

• Tokenize all Cards on file with network tokenization services (ie VTS)
• Implement SRC on all travel checkout pages as default purchase method
• Receive liability shift on all transactions

Airline Considerations

• Airlines are a great focus for SRC, very complex fraud vectors. (Note they were a key customer of my fraud fighting company -41st Parameter).
• Airlines have deep co-brand relationships, I’m sure they want their co-brand card as default payment instrument. So design of browser checkout will be a consideration.
• Airlines will receive many of these same benefits if their customers use ApplePay. My recommendation is that Airlines compare consumer experience between the two. Also note there are customer experience differences for each browser type. Specifically Chrome and Mozilla are supporting W3C’s SRC Payment Handler other browsers may not.
• Airlines should note there are active SRC wallets. Wallets will be provisioned by the banks. The banks are not uniform in their approach to consumer registration for SRC. Thus there will be a high flux interim period.
• The ability to detokenize and guarantee on authorization rates are key (see my Money 2020 Blog on topic).

Who Wins if This Takes Off?

• Visa. Having secured the SRC platform as the primary eCommerce/mCom wallet for TCH.
• Airlines could be winners, as they reduce their SUBSTANTIAL fraud teams
• Consumers win in privacy and protection as their cards are no longer stored at airline. They are tokenized.
• Issuers. They gain initial foothold for SRC in eCommerce and establish a new “direct” channel for future airline products (see my BNPL blog).