Actuary, part of Perseuss Group, announced a collaboration with Mastercard set to better support acquiring entities across the travel sector with a data-led risk assessment tool. After a successful pilot, the T&E Risk Monitor is being scaled by Actuary in partnership with Mastercard to provide a real-time view of booking status across travel portfolios, increasing acquirer confidence when releasing funds to delayed delivery merchants (DDM).

DDM transactions involve a time delay between when a consumer pays for a reservation and when they board a plane or stay at a hotel. To address the financial exposure acquiring entities experience due to this delay, Actuary is leveraging its travel insights platform and Mastercard’s global travel industry partnerships and experience to launch the T&E Risk Monitor. The solution increases visibility across travel booking and B2B payment flows through interactive dashboards from which customers can run reports and create alerts.

Providing a trusted source of secure booking and payment related data, the interactive platform enables acquirers to make data-led risk decisions, providing greater peace of mind when releasing funds and taking on new travel portfolios. Benefitting the whole ecosystem, travel merchants benefit from automation and transparency over reporting and risk levels, whilst the enhanced visibility supports greater cashflow and liquidity across the travel sector.

Maarten Alleman, CEO of Perseuss Group, said: “Already pre-pandemic, the card acquirers’ credit risk conditionswere in many cases a major challenge for airlines and other travel merchants. This has been exacerbated by the unprecedented levels of booking cancelationsand changes, large scale use of vouchers and operational issues around refunding. Together with Mastercard, we aim to leverage our combined capabilities to restore the much-needed balance between demand and supply in airline and travel acquiring services.”

Commenting on the collaboration Chris Fendley, Executive Vice President – Enterprise Partnerships at Mastercard, said “Mastercard is scaling innovation to help the travel and tourism industry recover and grow, and our relationship with Actuary furthers our commitment to help organizations mitigate financial risk during times of heightened volatility. Through the T&E Risk Monitor, we are bringing together the travel payment industry to increase visibility and assurance, helping acquirers make data-led decisions and enhancing cashflow for travel merchants.”