Tag Archives: terrapay

Koert Grasveld from B2B travel payments specialist Terrapay comments on the collapse of FTI and the impact it would have on B2B payments.  “Travel agents and tour operators everywhere are under huge and ever-increasing amounts of pressure to advance pay hotel chains, single property owners and many other suppliers of services – this undoubtedly will have played a big part in today’s news. Right now everyone in the FTI B2B ecosystem – be they actual travel services suppliers, travel agents selling their packages, or more simply the B2B distributors and tech partners – will all be scrambling around to understand their financial exposure but even more importantly to understand what protection they have in place. Those who have been using virtual credit cards to transact with FTI will find themselves having much greater protection than anyone using old fashioned bank transfers – certainly anyone using prepaid virtual cards, as no fictive money would have been loaded on the card if the service had not been consumed yet / was due payment. Even those certain of financial protection could still be in for a very busy few weeks though, with refund requests and charge-backs being issued at the consumer end, resulting in huge amounts of back-office admin unless they have in place up-to-date, automated systems. If COVID wasn’t a wakeup call, then perhaps this will be to make sure that travel companies invest in robust B2B payment technology.”

Speaking at the Bavel Travel Summit taking place in Spain, Maria Sellar from Terrapay called out gender bias in the travel technology industry. During a speech titled ‘Breaking Barriers: Inclusion and Diversity in Travel Industry Leadership!’, Sellar went on to demand the travel technology industry bridges this gap or risks falling behind. Whilst addressing the 200+ crowd of travel tech professionals at the event in Sitges, Spain – organized by B2B travel payments company Voxel – Sellar shared her own experiences of discrimination and highlighted research seen by Terrapay that proved the stark inequality between males and females in the sector, including that: • Only 28% of tech employees are female, but more worryingly still the percentage of women serving as CEOs in technology companies is only roughly 17%. • There’s some evidence things are going backwards: there was a decline of 2.1% in the representation of women in big tech companies between 2020 and 2022! • Between 2016 and 2022, an average of only 15% of tech startup founders were female, according to Startup Genome, 2023. “You only need to look down the list of attendees at travel technology events to see how male dominated it is, there’s not much statistical analysis to be done – and again, when you look at who is speaking on stage or who are the CEOs, the gap is obvious and worrying” commented Sellar, who at B2B travel payments provider Terrapay is the General Manager for Travel. She continued “For anyone with any doubts about the value of gender equality, consider that it isn’t just a moral imperative—it’s a strategic advantage that fosters creativity and a broader range of perspectives, ultimately benefiting the …