Case Studies
Airline Unlocks Savings and Reduces Payments Costs with CMSPI
Our experts continue to support the client with insights into upcoming payments industry changes – partnering closely with their internal team.
Introduction
The CFO and payments team for an airline headquartered in Europe, engaged our experts to help reduce their cost of payments acceptance.
Key Achievements
- Significant 7-figure audit rebates
- 7-figure savings from the RFP process
- Freed up internal resources to concentrate on other business critical projects
The Challenge
The airline industry is challenging. Most airline providers manage numerous acquirer relationships, complex holdback arrangements, a huge array of complex fee structures, and challenging cross-border arrangements that make it difficult for merchants truly optimize their own arrangements. Reporting is sent in different formats from different payment partners, and with varying levels of data making auditing, analyzing, and finding opportunities difficult for even the largest merchants.
The client wanted to audit their historic charges to ensure all fees were passed through correctly, as well as run a full acquirer RFP to ensure their arrangements were market-leading, future-proof, and as competitive as possible. A key goal of the project was to consolidate their supplier relationships without sacrificing levels of service to their business and customers in each local market they operated in.
The Solution
To start, our specialists conducted a forensic audit of all fees from different regions, channels, and payment partners. By using the CMSPI Platform -which uses machine learning to harmonize different datasets and quickly identify opportunities for optimization – our hands-on team were able to provide full transparency of payments costs, how the airline compared against the market, and areas of inefficiency.
The initial forensic audit led to significant overcharges. After securing the airline an impactful rebate, we led a data-driven vendor selection and RFP process. Understanding the needs of merchants operating in the airline space was crucial to finding the right partners for the client. Our experts benchmarked SLAs, led commercial negotiations, hosted workshops, and helped the client choose partners that fit their complex requirements. The RFP resulted in additional savings across all areas of the merchant service charge – as well as SLA enhancements – while keeping customer service top of mind.
The Results
Our team helped the client unravel complex payments costs, access hidden savings, and stop overpaying for payments acceptance. The client benefited from significant 7-figure audit rebates, as well as 7-figure savings from the RFP process. The two projects not only delivered big savings, but also freed up internal resources to concentrate on other business critical projects.
Our specialists continue to support the client with insights into upcoming fee changes, auditing, and quarterly insights into their payments arrangements – partnering closely with the client’s internal payments team to amplify results.
By working with us as trusted payments partners, the client was able to:
Achieve high annual 7-figure cost reductions and future proofed SLA’s
Execute a professional and data-driven RFP process
Stay ahead of the curve with unique insights from the CMSPI Platform