Davis Evans Introduction and Explanation about SCA

Welcome back, everybody, again to the hospitality community. As I put in the event, and as I mentioned, it is something that is really important and it's something that nobody's talking about. Hence why when I saw Evan's blog about it and I just knew that we needed to do something and seeing that we've got a lot of people in here who it does affect, that is why we're doing it today. And Evan has kindly given up his time. So, Evan, just when you are ready, just introduce please, who you are, what you do, the name of your business and a bit of background about you.

I'm Evan Davis, I'm from the Birkin Factory. So it's a property management system for hotels and B and Bs. I started the business from having my family's hotel in Wales for, like, they've had it 40 years. So I kind of grew up around it, worked in the business. Similar to you, Mark, I think. Did you grow up in the hotel industry as well?

Yep, that's right.

I think it's very similar kind of background. Grew up around it. Everyone had to switch to online booking systems and everything. So that's where I was frustrated with what was out there, you know, So I kind of done my own thing. So we started booking factory four years ago. So four years old, 150 hotels live at the moment and it's going really well. Amazing.

Thank you very much. So where are you currently based right now? You? Amsterdam.

Yes. So we started in Wales for first two years, moved to London for the second two years. So it's four years and now we're in Amsterdam. We're looking to set up a second company here, probably next year.

So over to you and just let us know everything about what we need to be looking out for.

Right. So basically I was chatting to Stripe two weeks ago. They'd mention PSD2. I was like, what's PSD2? Like, oh, you don't know? I'm like, next year it's going to be a new European law where it's going to affect the hotel industry. It's like, what do you mean? Nobody's talking about this. It's crazy. I'm not an expert. So this all came from a quick chat with Stripe. Basically, the biggest part in PSD2, there's a lot. There's like 50 pages of stuff. But the important bits for hotels, it's just a tiny little section where it says you cannot charge anyone's card without two factor authorization. Okay. So that means you just can't charge anybody's card without them getting a text message and saying yes. Or maybe their bank app pop up and they have to agree to it or something like that. You don't like. You log into Facebook and it says we had to send you a text message because you know, we don't recognize this computer or something.

Yeah, yeah.

Just enter the code and you can log in. The new law next year is going to be basically that for pay months and anyone who charges cards without that is going to be either not allowed or they can just charge it back easily right now.

So what was Stripe saying about this to you and like what can you. What made you write the blog post and what do you think is going to be.

So yes, basically what happens in hotels now and B and Bs and everyone really is it's no big deal if you charge people on arrival or departure. Okay, that's simple. If you're charging on arrival or departure, you've got the two factor. The chip and PIN is two factor. Okay? To charge a card, they have to put the card in and actually put their PIN number and you're safe. The problem is non refundable bookings or deposits. That's the problem. So you know, when you get a booking with someone's card, you can charge it that day, tomorrow, next week, whatever, right? And next year that's not going to be possible. You know, that's why Stripe is working with Buckencom. They're working together to fix what's going to happen because whole model is passing the car to the, the BNB and guest house, you know, and hotels. But now as you notice, they start charging the cards on the website.