Africa’s leading travel tech conglomerate adds virtual payments with Outpayce B2B Wallet

Providers like airlines, hotels and transfer companies will be paid by virtual cards

Wakanow.com, one of Africa’s largest travel sellers, offers a one-stop-shop booking portal to research, plan and book trips including air, accommodation, transfers and holiday packages.   

As part of its business transformation, Wakanow will use virtual cards to make payments to suppliers like airlines and hotels through Outpayce’s B2B Wallet. 

The adoption of the digital wallet means the most appropriate virtual card is automatically generated to pay for each individual transaction, based on factors like currency, provider acceptance policies and Wakanow’s own payments strategy.  

Bayo Adedeji, Group CEO of Wakanow, said: “Payments are an integral part of our strategy, as coordinated by our subsidiary fintech company, Kalabash54.com. With this technology we can access a wide range of payment methods in any currency we need so we can pay suppliers quickly and easily using virtual cards. 

"We don’t need to spend time reconciling payments to bookings and suppliers don’t need to wait 30 days to receive payment. How travel companies pay one another has been slow and complex but virtual cards bring the industry into the digital age.”    

Ladi Ojuri, CEO of Kalabash54.com, said: “With this development, we can mitigate fraud risks, expedite payment processes, and ultimately deliver greater value to our partners and customers.

Claudio Santos, head of commercial, travel sellers of Outpayce, by Amadeus, added: “Savvy travel sellers are embracing virtual payments as a way to digitalize B2B pay-outs whilst generating incremental revenue and reducing manual reconciliation. 

"Having the right insight, data and algorithm is crucial to ensuring the best payment method is matched to each transaction; and that can help our travel seller customers increase virtual card acceptance by 30%.”