Standard Chartered teams up with IATA to launch IATA Pay in India

Banking group Standard Chartered has built on its existing partnership with the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents 290 airlines, to launch airline industry payment platform IATA Pay in India.

IATA Pay, which is already available in several European markets, will be powered by Standard Chartered’s ‘Straight2Bank Pay’ in India.

Standard Chartered described ‘Straight2Bank Pay’ as a payment platform that helps online merchants “digitalise collections via multiple payment options through a single global connectivity”.

The new service, IATA Pay in India, uses the country’s real-time payments scheme, the Unified Payment Interface (UPI), to enable consumers to instantly pay for airline tickets from their bank accounts.

The banking group said IATA Pay will mean that participating airlines can offer instant payment options, such as ‘UPI Scan and Pay’ and ‘UPI Collect’ (request to pay).

Philip Panaino, global head of cash, transaction banking at Standard Chartered, said: “IATA Pay reflects our commitment and focus in driving payment innovation and building solutions that are not just fit-for-purpose, but also deliver value to all participants in our clients’ ecosystem.

“This new service will simplify the payment process for the consumers, streamline the collection and settlement process for airlines, as well as enable IATA to provide an industry-wide ecommerce solution.”

Javier Orejas, IATA’s global head of banking and IATA Pay, added: “IATA Pay underpins our focus on leveraging Open Banking and real-time payment solutions that will serve as a cost-effective alternative to conventional payment methods and bring efficiency to how money is collected and settled.”

Standard Chartered and IATA previously partnered in 2021, to launch IATA ‘EasyPay’ in India, which is a pay-as-you-go payment solution that aims to “streamline” the ticketing and settlement process among IATA-affiliated travel agents and member airlines, and IATA.