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UK payment provider Exactly.com has partnered with travel software developer GP Solutions to expand payment options for travel merchants using GP Solutions' platforms.
The deal brings Exactly.com's payments product to GP Solutions' clients in tourism and travel technology. The companies are pitching the tie-up as a way to offer more transparent pricing and simpler payment operations, particularly for smaller operators that often face higher costs and more complex onboarding with large fintech providers.
Exactly.com provides card acquiring and payment processing. GP Solutions develops booking and travel management software used by travel businesses. Under the partnership, GP Solutions' clients will be able to integrate Exactly.com's payment services into their existing systems.
Travel commerce is becoming more digital and automated, with greater emphasis on online booking and self-service. As a result, the payment step has become more important. Research cited by the companies suggests online booking is now the default for many travellers, and that checkout reliability is closely linked to conversion for travel brands.
That pressure comes as travel payments remain structurally complex. Many travel firms sell across borders, bringing multiple currencies, local payment preferences, fraud exposure, and regulatory requirements. New and evolving rules, including the incoming PSD3 framework in Europe, add further operational demands for merchants and suppliers.
Travel payments also often involve several providers. A merchant might use one provider for card acceptance, another for fraud tools, and another for reporting. These setups can reduce visibility into performance and increase administrative workload. They can also lead to varying acceptance rates by market and card type, and costs that are difficult to predict across a season.
One platform
The partnership centres on embedding Exactly.com's payment infrastructure into GP Solutions' booking engines and travel management platforms. Exactly.com said the combined offering includes acquiring services, performance analytics, and support through a single platform.
Exactly.com also pointed to its direct memberships with Visa, Mastercard, and UnionPay. The structure is designed to allow a payments layer to sit inside merchants' systems, rather than requiring separate workflows and vendor dashboards.
The companies are framing the partnership around three themes discussed across the travel sector: ease, experience, and predictability. Payments are typically the final step in booking flows, where a merchant confirms revenue collection and manages chargebacks and fraud risk. In that context, payment reliability is both a customer experience issue and an operational control point.
Commercial focus
Exactly.com is emphasising fee structures, reserves, and support, as well as the need for consistent authorisation rates across markets-especially when customers book from outside a merchant's home country.
Mark Andreev, Chief Operating Officer at Exactly.com, said: "Payments must work equally well for both sides of the transaction. For travel businesses, that means reliability, fair fees, fair reserves, and real human support. For travellers, it means a seamless checkout that builds confidence. Even when demand is strong, competition is intense and fraud risks are rising. Secure, effortless payments are no longer optional, they are a competitive necessity."
Travel tech shift
For GP Solutions, the deal adds payments to a product set that has traditionally focused on booking and operational software. Travel companies increasingly treat payments as part of the product experience rather than a back-office function. That shift has been amplified by the rise of online booking, more complex itineraries, and a higher share of cross-border transactions.
AI-driven and agent-led booking models add further demands on payments systems, increasing the need for real-time authorisation decisions and consistent performance across channels. Merchants that sell through multiple touchpoints often want a single payments setup that works across both direct booking and agent-assisted transactions.
The partnership also reflects broader consolidation in travel technology stacks. Merchants are reducing the number of systems and vendors used for core operations, and payments are increasingly part of that push-particularly where finance teams want clearer cost control and operational teams want fewer reconciliations across separate reporting tools.
Exactly.com and GP Solutions said the approach can reduce third-party dependencies and limit operational complexity as volumes grow. They also highlighted authorisation rates as a focus area, since failed payments can mean lost bookings and customer churn.
In the near term, success is likely to depend on integration speed, coverage across key travel markets, and the ability to handle common travel use cases such as deposits, instalments, refunds, and chargeback workflows. It will also depend on how merchants weigh cost transparency against the risk management requirements that often shape acquiring decisions in the sector.
Exactly.com said it expects embedded payments to become a standard layer in travel commerce systems as the industry moves towards more real-time transactions and more automated operations.