Ixaris, Banking Circle Streamline X-Border Travel Payments

Travel payments optimization company Ixaris announced a new partnership with financial service infrastructure company Banking Circle to streamline cross-border payments for the travel industry.

In a press release on Friday (April 26), Ixaris said it will deploy Banking Circle’s Virtual International Bank Account Number (IBAN) technology into its existing payments offerings for the travel industry, negating the need for corporate clients of Ixaris to have physical bank accounts in the various geographies where they need to send and receive payments.

Virtual IBAN lets companies send and receive cross-border payments in real time at competitive rates, the companies said in their announcement.

“Our partnership with Banking Circle allows Ixaris to offer an even more competitive edge to our travel customers, not only by optimizing payments but by creating a seamless cross-border transaction process across more than 25 currencies in 60 countries, in a way that banks simply would not allow,” said Ixaris CEO Aran Brown in a statement. “Ixaris’ ability to optimize travel payments is now second to none.”

“Banking Circle Virtual IBAN plays an invaluable role in delivering faster, cheaper payments to merchants transacting around the globe,” added Banking Circle CEO Anders la Cour in another statement. “Unlike traditional business-to-business cross-border payments, which can incur high bank charges and payment delays, our innovative and multi-award-winning solution enables Ixaris to give customers their own virtual IBANs. This improves payments acceptance, settlement times and reconciliation without the burden of multiple banking relationships, high fees and slow transfer times.”

Last year, Banking Circle announced a separate partnership with Alibaba Group, enabling the latter to augment its current payments infrastructure and target cross-border payments friction.

Banking Circle was previously owned by Saxo Bank, which divested the unit last year and sold it to investment firm RQT.

Ixaris, meanwhile, previously announced a collaboration with Visa Europe to promote the use of virtual cards in B2B travel payments.