Jens Wohltorf, co-founder of Blacklane, discusses how the latest payment trends are making working lives easier and improving business opportunities across continents

Since the 2008 recession the payments sector has seen huge innovation and these changes are making all sorts of lives easier – including the travelling lives of business people.

Indeed, payments technology is influencing travel technology, which in turn is impacting the business travel experience, making it more convenient for the hyper-connected global business traveller.

Today, business travellers want the convenience of organising travel through one global service, avoiding the need to download local apps and clones when arriving in new countries. Innovation in payments is providing the infrastructure to help travel technology businesses evolve to satisfy demand from business travellers for global services.

Take Stripe, for example, the US-based payments start up making it easier for companies to accept credit card payments online. They recently partnered with Alipay to enable travel merchants to detect if a shopper is located in main land China and give them the option of paying with their account on Alipay, the Alibaba-owned service with more than 300 million users.

This is opening up the Asian travel market to Western travel start ups which have traditionally found it tough to sell to Asians accustomed to using Alipay when buying travel services online. The partnership opens up opportunities for business travellers to use emerging travel technology when travelling to Asia. This is good news for travel businesses looking to tap into lucrative business travel spending in China, which is projected to increase by 17.2% and surpass business spending in the US as early as 2016.

New trends and turns

Marketplace payments technology is also impacting the evolution of travel technology and driving new trends in business travel. Braintree Marketplace, Stripe Connect and Mangopay’s marketplace payments platform all enable travel businesses and start ups to split payments between themselves and providers such as hotels, transport services and restaurants. This in turn is changing business travel as we know it.

For example, Airbnb uses Braintree Marketplace to split payments in its market-style accommodation business. Traditionally a popular site for vacation rentals, the startup is now successfully tapping into the business travel market, with 8% of bookings registered as business travel last year. The startup’s new business portal is already in use by 30 companies, including Facebook, Salesforce and Eventbrite.

Mobile payments technology such as the PayPal app and Google Wallet are enabling people to travel and pay for things without carrying cash and multiple cards in their wallet. Travel merchants are investing in this type of mobile payment technology so that business travellers do not have to worry about carrying cash, credit cards and other loyalty cards when away from home.

Consequently, business travellers are becoming an increasingly mobile and cashless breed, using their smartphones to pay for meals in the hotel restaurant as well as collect loyalty points at the reception desk.

For all travel businesses and business travellers, it’s tough to keep up with innovation in payments - Google, PayPal, Stripe, Paymill, Braintree and a host of other startups are constantly releasing new product updates and expanding into new markets. Any decision on what payments technology is most appropriate must be based on local trends for travellers. In Germany, for example, credit card penetration is relatively low and there is a strong tradition of paying by bank transfers or direct debit, something Blacklane considered carefully when rolling out the service in the country. Likewise, Alipay must be a serious consideration for any travel business eyeing the Chinese market.

The evolution of payments infrastructure today is opening up new opportunities for travel technology companies looking to expand internationally, tap into the sharing economy and access customers via mobile. This is driving new trends in the business travel experience, which will continue to grow, especially as start ups, which are traditionally consumer facing, calibrate their offerings to tap into the more lucrative business travel market.

Jens Wohltorf is co-founder of Blacklane, a portal for a chauffeur driven service. His views are his own.