Know our partners

Now it is official: Hotelbird’s smart online payment is now also successful in cooperation with Worldline, one of the leading industry providers of payment services. The integration of the online payment of SIX Payment Services enables the hotelier to rely on contactless payment and check-out of the guest. This reduces the risk of infection for travelers and employees and enables secure payment via all mobile devices or the Hotelbird self-service terminal.

We are pleased to welcome Worldline – SIX Payment Services to our Partnerverzeichnis and would like to introduce our newest member in more detail below.

Dear Mr. Karasavvoglou, we are pleased about the future cooperation with Worldline. Please introduce your company to us.

SIX Payment Services has been part of Worldline since the end of 2018 and has thus become the largest European technology partner for banks and merchants. The hotel and hospitality industry is one of our most important sectors for which we offer special solutions. Our dedicated team of experts works daily with our customers in the hotel and restaurant industry. The team consists of sales representatives, account managers and product specialists. In addition, the cooperation with renowned integrators and solution providers like Hotelbird is important to us. It is our goal to support our hospitality customers in their daily business both in the accommodation and the F&B sector.

We are one of the few providers that cover the entire value chain of payment transactions. Our product and solution portfolio consists of the following elements:

• Terminals: We produce and sell a range of cloud, desktop and integrated terminals.
• Payment acceptance: Our acceptance solutions have already integrated interfaces to various hospitality technology providers. In addition, we offer simple integration and connectivity options for third-party value-added solutions.
• European and worldwide acceptance services: We have a commercial acquiring license for Europe and are a licensed payment institution in 36 countries. – We support all major debit and credit cards (Visa & VPAY, Mastercard & Maestro, Union Pay, JCB, Diners/Discover), a range of domestic programs (TWINT, Bancontact), e-wallets (Apple Pay, Alipay, WeChat Pay, Masterpass) and bank transfers (iDEAL).- Value-added services We offer our own comprehensive solution for Dynamic Currency Conversion. We strive for long-term partnerships with our customers, have a local presence in over 30 European countries and demonstrate our industry knowledge on a daily basis. With our hospitality solutions, we serve more than 18,000 customers, of which about 6,000 are located in Germany.

What changes have you observed in the hotel industry over the last 5 years with regard to your core business?

The omnichannel concept has shaped the hospitality industry at least as much as the retail sector. In recent years, in-house Internet-based solutions as well as third-party solutions have become an integral part of the hospitality industry. More than ever, guests are using their cell phones to access data and services immediately. We’ve seen unprecedented development, new travel networks for private accommodation rental have emerged, and existing distribution channels are turning to in-app payments and tokenization. The latter has enabled the industry to move more and more from a pure post-paid experience to pre-payments.

The growing importance of OTAs underlines the need for hotels to integrate a simple and fast reservation and payment platform into their own online presence. Alternative reservation channels such as phone, fax or letter mail must be fully secure and comply with PSD2 guidelines.

Ultimately, hotel chains have invested in digital guest communication in order to benefit from the insights gained and to get to know their customers better. These tools enable pre-stay communication, where staff are informed of a guest’s imminent arrival and can check in contactlessly and prepare the keycards or smart keys. During the stay the tools can be used as a message board (e.g. to inform about local COVID’19 regulations) or to notify guests about special events, activities and offers. This significantly improves the customer experience and customer loyalty.

On site, customers can use a self-service kiosk or use tablet solutions distributed via the lobby for registration.

How does your company react to the changing needs of the hotel industry? How do you adapt your product portfolio?

We use a variety of channels to keep up to date with the latest developments. One of these is regular interaction with our clients through our account managers to understand their needs and vision. Thanks to these strong customer relationships, we were one of the first to offer a truly integrated Omni-Channel solution. In addition, we have our own product and IT team that monitors new trends. We also conduct innovation workshops with customers and our R&D teams. Worldline, in turn, is a globally operating company, which gives us access to extensive data. From this source we observe trends in other regions of the world and can react to them at an early stage. Valuable industry information also comes from our partner network, with whom we work closely. The joint development of solutions for industry challenges is very effective.

But legislation can also be an important driver for change. In line with recent PSD2 regulations, we have introduced intelligent tokenization and strong customer authentication that does not impact business processes and does not complicate the customer experience.

Let us take a look into the future: Where do you think technology will affect your business and where do you see the greatest potential in your core business?

The hospitality industry is increasingly becoming a technology-oriented industry in which the customer is the focus of attention and, for example, receives the room key via his smartphone. The guest wants a seamless experience with maximum service. It is therefore extremely important that all players in the value chain act in an integrated manner and Worldline invests heavily in API’s that easily connect to an ever growing number of industry providers. Our primary mission is to make our core payment business a seamless part of the customer experience. Artificial intelligence (to recognize transaction patterns and help combat fraud) and intelligent devices (e.g. for payment by voice) can be interesting developments. The latter would make it possible to move the most annoying element of the journey – checking in and out – from the lobby to the guest’s room, where it can be done in all comfort and ease.

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About Wordline SIX Payment Services has been part of Worldline since the end of 2018, making it the largest European technology partner for banks and merchants. More than 11,000 payment experts ensure future-oriented innovations and services in over 30 countries. The customized solutions from SIX Payment Services include a broad portfolio of payment terminals as well as the acceptance and processing of national and international payments with credit, debit and prepaid cards and the smartphone. Together with the industry solutions from SIX Payment Services, Worldline also serves the specific needs of customer segments such as the travel, hotel and restaurant industry, the ATM business, as well as e-commerce and omnichannel retailing throughout Europe.

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