IATA Pay

IATA Pay: Account To Account Payments For Airlines

What Is IATA Pay?

IATA Pay is an alternative payment method for airlines that lets travelers pay for air tickets purchased online by directly debiting their bank account. Instead of routing transactions through card schemes, it uses instant account to account payments based on open banking and request to pay schemes. The solution is designed for direct ticket sales via airline websites and can also be applied to NDC based flows, agency portals and group sales.

How IATA Pay Works At Checkout

At checkout the traveler selects the local account to account option alongside cards or digital wallets. The airline sends a payment initiation request to IATA Pay over an API connection. Using the transaction details, IATA Pay, through its financial partner, triggers an instant payment from the customer bank account to an IATA bank account over the relevant instant payment or request to pay scheme. IATA then reconciles the transactions and settles the prior day’s IATA Pay volumes to the airline in a lump sum on the following day, giving airlines daily cash flow for sales completed with IATA Pay.

Key Features For Airline Merchants

IATA Pay focuses on cost efficiency, security and liquidity for airline merchants. Since its launch in 2022, it has helped participating airlines save up to 99 percent in payment processing fees compared with their previous payment mix by shifting volume from cards to account to account rails.

Notable characteristics include:

• Cost efficiency: uses local instant payment schemes instead of card based acquiring and related scheme and interchange fees.

• Finality of payment: completed payments are definitive and assured, removing chargebacks and holdback practices for airlines.

• Real time refunds: refund instructions sent via API are executed immediately back to the customer bank account for eligible IATA Pay transactions.

• Single integration and contract: one technical integration covers all available markets and merchants work under a single contractual relationship with IATA.

• Control and branding: airlines retain control over customer payment information and can use an optional white labelled configuration so the payment method appears under their own brand.

Coverage, Currencies And Integration

IATA Pay is available in European markets such as Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, along with several Northern and Eastern European countries. Outside Europe, the solution operates in selected markets in Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America, including Ghana, Hong Kong, Malaysia, India, Thailand, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Vietnam, Türkiye, the Philippines, Jordan and Australia.

All IATA Pay transactions are collected in local currency. Supported currencies mirror the live markets and include EUR, GBP, GHS, HKD, MYR, INR, THB, BRL, MXN, COP, VND, TRY, PHP, JOD, and AUD. Through compatibility with the IATA Currency Clearance Service, airlines can repatriate domestically collected funds to headquarters in a preferred currency and receive reporting on settlement amounts and foreign exchange.

Airlines can integrate IATA Pay in several ways:

• Direct integration into the airline checkout page

• Via an existing payment gateway provider

• Through a direct connection from airline systems to IATA Pay

In all cases the method behaves like any other checkout option but uses dedicated APIs to initiate payments and refunds, so interactions between the airline and IATA Pay for payment initiation, refunds and selected reporting take place over API communication. For operational control, IATA Pay offers an Admin Portal, an online console where live airlines monitor transactions in real time. The portal supports role based access, and IATA Pay also produces settlement reports delivered via an interface using API or sftp to support reconciliation. IATA Pay transactions appear in Billing and Settlement Plan billing outputs under a dedicated IPAY category, while settlement flows remain independent from standard BSP settlement.

Use Cases For Airline Payments

The primary use case for IATA Pay is direct sales on airline websites, where it is displayed as a local account to account option alongside cards and e wallets. The service can also be applied in NDC based transactions, agency portals and group sales, providing a consistent way to accept instant bank payments whenever airlines sell directly to travelers or corporate customers. By complementing card and wallet options, IATA Pay helps airlines respond to demand for real time bank payments in markets where instant account to account schemes are widely used for ecommerce.

Conclusion

IATA Pay is an account to account payment solution aimed at airline merchants that want to reduce payment acceptance costs, accelerate cash flow and gain more control over their payment flows. It relies on instant bank transfers initiated through open banking and request to pay schemes and settles funds to airlines on a next day basis in aggregated form. For airline payment, finance and ecommerce teams, IATA Pay combines one integration for multiple markets, daily settlements, real time refund capabilities and structured reporting via an Admin Portal and technical interfaces. At checkout, it extends the payment mix with a secure local bank payment method while removing exposure to chargebacks and holdbacks and simplifying reconciliation.