In this session, our speakers cover why risk is concentrated at the intermediary layer and what it’s really costing the industry, why partial fixes fall short without booking-level data, and what genuinely resilient payment infrastructure looks like today. Curious what genuinely resilient payment infrastructure looks like? See how adding issuing to acquiring addresses the risk.

Alex Mifsud’s top three event takeaways

  1. Agentic AI will upend travel booking and payment flows – Agentic AI in travel is still in its early stages, but it will fundamentally disrupt established best practice in booking and payment flows. Payments in particular needs to adapt to this powerful new channel.

  2. Content and payments are more intertwined than people realise – In the air travel value chain, the management of content, such as booking seats and purchasing ancillaries and payments are tightly linked. NDC can empower airlines to operate as retailers, but many still need to build the capability to do so effectively.

  3. Duplicated risk cover is quietly costing the industry – Running an airline is tough – capital intensive, low margin, and vulnerable to economic disruption. The threat of airline failure means banks hold on to funds owed, creating working capital challenges that ripple downstream to OTAs. Partial solutions have emerged – data products, airline failure insurance, virtual cards, but they’ve created a duplication of cover along the value chain that adds unnecessary cost. A more joined-up approach to risk management could remove that cost and make the industry more profitable and adding issuing to acquiring is what that looks like in practice.

Meet the speakers

Will Plummer, CEO of Repayd and Trust My Group.

A recognised authority on travel payments, deferred delivery risk and financial protection.

With more than 20 years in the travel industry, Will began his career as a tour operator before owning and operating a DMC in Oman. That operational background gives him a rare perspective in payments: he understands the reality behind the transaction, from supplier settlement and FX exposure to reconciliation, fulfilment risk and the true cost of fragmented infrastructure.

Alex Mifsud, Co-founder & CEO of Weavr

A serial payments entrepreneur, Alex previously co-founded Entropay and Ixaris, pioneering virtual card technology in consumer and B2B payments.

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