Conferma ends fax card delivery in 100 more markets

Conferma has ended fax-based virtual card delivery in more than 100 additional countries and territories, leaving the US as the final market in its global programme to remove fax from payment communications.

About 95% of payment communications across Conferma's network now go through non-fax channels, following earlier shutdowns in Asia-Pacific, Europe, Canada, Central America and the Caribbean. The latest phase covers markets in Africa, the Middle East and South America.

The move changes how hotels receive payment details for virtual cards used in business travel. In the newly transitioned markets, those details will now be delivered through digital methods including secure email, digital vaults and direct API connections into hotel property management systems.

Fax has long remained part of hotel payment workflows even as other parts of corporate payments moved online. In practice, that has meant failed transmissions, staff manually re-entering payment information, and follow-up between hotels and travel management companies when details did not arrive or could not be processed.

Early figures from regions where fax had already been retired point to higher completion rates for virtual card payments. Payment completion in those markets is now about 2% higher than at the beginning of 2026.

The latest shutdown spans a wide range of territories, from Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia to South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It also includes smaller territories and island markets, extending the transition beyond larger business travel hubs.

Operational shift

The change is part of a broader effort to standardise payment communications across the travel sector, where hotel acceptance of virtual cards has often depended as much on process as on payment technology. Hotels, travel management companies and corporate travel buyers have all faced friction when bookings and payment details move through different systems and manual channels.

For hotels, the practical challenge often comes at check-in or during back-office reconciliation, when staff need to confirm that virtual card details match the booking and can be processed correctly. A delivery failure or misread fax can create delays for front-desk teams and travellers alike.

Conferma links the shift away from fax to supplier performance metrics tracked through its Virtual Card Performance Index, which measures virtual card payment performance across the sector. Hotels with more established payment workflows tend to record stronger scores.

Stuart Davenport outlined the rationale for the programme in comments released by the company.

"Fax has remained embedded in hotel payment workflows long after most industries moved on," said Stuart Davenport, Chief Product Officer at Conferma.

"This transition is not simply about changing a communication channel. It is about removing a manual failure point between the booking, the payment, and the traveller arriving at the hotel. Today, ~95% of payment communications across our network are already delivered digitally, demonstrating how quickly the industry has moved away from fax and towards more reliable delivery methods," he added.

Final market

The US is now the final phase of the programme and is due to follow by the end of 2026, completing Conferma's global withdrawal from fax-based delivery of payment details.

This final phase matters because of the size of the US hotel market and its importance in corporate travel. Travel payment systems have historically had to accommodate regional differences in hotel processes, property management software and payment acceptance practices, which can slow efforts to replace older workflows.

Even so, the share already moved to digital delivery suggests most of the network has shifted away from fax. That leaves a relatively small portion of communications still relying on the older method, although the final transition could prove more complex if it involves large volumes or deeply embedded hotel processes.

Conferma is based in Manchester and operates in virtual payments for business travel, connecting banks, travel management companies and suppliers involved in issuing and accepting virtual cards. The latest shutdown underscores how much of the travel payments chain still depends on operational change at hotels as much as on the payment instruments themselves.