The Bank of Spain has granted an electronic money institute licence to Outpayce, the payments subsidiary of multinational travel cooperation Amadeus. With this licence, Amadeus is able to offer payment and card products to its business partners and retail customers. In a statement, Amadeus says it will “soon“ be able to offer a prepaid virtual card that can be used across corporate self-booking tools and travel agency booking systems to make payments to providers such as airlines and hotels.
Amadeus announced in late 2022 the plan to found the subsidiary Outpayce with the intention to launch a virtual card programme and, afterwards, to extend the product offering. Outpayce CEO David Doctor, who is a longstanding executive at Amadeus, shared that the company will not only focus on their own offering but develop an “integrated payment ecosystem” for travel companies that can connect to it via APIs.
The travel industry is a hot area for fintech in general. This is likely due to the massive payment volume combined with the high number of players in the industry that have often very complex payment relationships. For that reason, many fintech companies focus on the travel industry. You can basically visit the banking-as-a-service or embedded banking provider of your choice and very likely you will find a page that describes their solution in the travel industry. I would assume that many of them pitched their services to Amadeus as well, but due to the size of Amadeus’ business and their general preference to build such services in-house, they decided to get their own licence.
On a side note, in a previous statement, I found the information that Amadeus was expecting to receive the licence in early 2023. That it took them much longer is not a surprise for many of the fintech-experienced readers. Nevertheless, it serves as a reminder for any company heading into this process that even cooperation with such large resources can take longer than expected. Personally, I tend to ‘joke’ when people ask me about the time it will take them to receive the licence, and my answer is “twice as long as whatever you are expecting.”
EMI approval (2024), Outpayce launch (2022), Blog post from Outpayce CEO David Doctor (2023)
