How SCA will Affect Direct Bookings with Davis Evans

So basically what, what we're saying here, think of it going back to the booking factory and obviously with your channel manager and the PMS and all of that. So basically when someone books on your website and a lot of places, and I know ours does, we ask for a deposit at a time. How is that going to affect direct bookings?

How will that affect direct bookings? You're totally safe as long as you use 3D secure. Any direct bookings, as long as they're paying when they make the booking and it's 3D secure, you're covered. If you're just taking the card details and then charging after you're not, you have to make sure the booking system takes the deposits or the full payments or whatever when they book. And 3D skewer.

So here's a question, and I know a lot of people do this and I know we, we used to do this at the granary. We have somebody call up and they call up regular guests or first timer and they say, hey, I'd like a booking for the, the 1st of December for two nights. Yep, sure, 60 pound deposit and they give you the card deals and as you're giving the card details, you're typing it in on your card machine. For example, is that still valid for going for a card machine or not?

No, according to the rules it's not too authorized because you're not sure the person on the phone is the person the cardholder is.

Very true.

So you need some kind of payment request or something to go to them. That's the safest way.

Would it be. Yeah. Would it be where you could put it straight into. So I'm thinking free to book or wherever you can go in and you can add in the card details straight into the system on your pms. Is that it or is it best to send a payment request?

Payment request because payment request is 3D secure. That's the two factor section.

Yeah.

The whole reason the EU is doing this is the fraud aspect. Yeah, you guys in the whole country is fine. People in London are dying like big time. The fraud is amazing. So we had one of our, one of our customers had 20,000 pound chargeback only six months ago. In one month. Okay. So basically there are service apartments, they're doing self check in and they didn't check the cards that people paid with. So they took all these non refundable bookings, charged the cards, people show up, stay the night and as soon as a couple of fraudsters, you know, got away with it, they told all their friends and then all their friends are staying there. Their business was booming. Like, it's amazing. And then chargebacks like crazy. Like 20,000 straight away. And they learned the lesson. But the EU, they're really sick of this, you know, and they're sick of fraudsters using credit cards they don't own. The cardholders are pissed off, you know, because it, you know, imagine you that someone stole your card and stayed in 10 hotels. You have to, you have to go to the bank and go, I didn't stay in these 10 hotels. That's like a lot of stress.

Yes.

So it's protecting everyone. It's protecting the business, the cardholder. It's only the fraudsters that lose out. And the businesses just have to change the way they do business.

So what would be, in your opinion, the easiest way to make sure you are ready for the PSD2 changes?

Okay, the. We're still not sure what happens with no shows and stuff like that because I think, I don't know if it's gonna be a gray area that you can get away with. But definitely non refundable bookings and deposits. You have to get the OTA to charge it for you. Okay. So Expedia is fine because they got the Expedia Merchant model and Bucking.com can do it now as well. So it's just switching your OTAs over to taking payments for you that's the important bit. So they will, they will take the damage if there's any problems.

So that's the virtual card. Payment with.

Virtual card doesn't come under the rule. So you're, you're fine because it's not a cardholder. It's a, it's a business thing. So you can take a virtual card or just let them pay you end of the month. They usually do offer you both ways.

This is massive. And this could really transform the way how booking.com do business. And it does make sense if Stripe have been in communication with them. That why they are going down the virtual card route? Because I've noticed this year that they're pushing it more and I've noticed when I've done a few dummy booking runs through booking.com to test a few things. I know now that they, it makes sense why they were really prompting to pay upfront as in Pay via my PayPal or Pay via my. Whatever. Obviously this is coming through.

Yes.

So who doesn't?

This law was made two years ago.

Okay.

So the EU made it two years ago and they've said there's two years to implement. So the deadline is next year?

Yeah.

So it's like gdpr.

Gdpr? I was going to say similar to gdpr. A law that was passed and then everybody forgot about it and then panicked last minute.