BR-DGE, a leading payment orchestration provider, has integrated Visa Instalments, an innovative API-powered solution, into Kenwood Travel’s payment offering to customers. Leveraging Visa Instalments via BR-DGE Connect, UK luxury tour operator Kenwood Travel will be able to provide greater affordability, enhanced flexibility, and security at the payment checkout to holiday goers through a BR-DGE customisable Hosted Payment Page.

BR-DGE works with Kenwood Travel to enhance the online travel agents’ end-to-end payment journey, helping customers receive a frictionless luxury experience at the checkout. As Kenwood Travel caters to growing consumer demand for instalment solutions, Visa Instalments provides a convenient way for Kenwood Travel to accept and receive payments online. This solution gives eligible consumers more choice in how they pay online, by enabling holiday goers easy access to instalment payment options with clear repayment schedules shown at checkout – so the cardholder knows what they need to pay and when. Visa Instalments also uses existing lines of credit by integrating with consumers' accounts, making it convenient to manage their money without having to open or track other accounts. Research has shown that 75% of consumers said instalments helped them manage unexpected expenses, whilst 40% of merchants have seen an uplift in sales when instalments are offered.¹²

As Kenwood Travel looks to deliver greater choice to consumers, the tour operator is the first UK merchant to select Visa Instalments via BR-DGE, with more merchants expected to onboard the technology soon across the travel and retail industries. Kenwood Travel is leveraging BR-DGE’s modular, payment orchestration platform, taking advantage of a vast array of functionality, from Network Tokenisation through to detailed reporting and analytics, enabling the merchant to deliver a first-class, seamless online checkout experience.

This latest integration from Kenwood Travel is being enabled by BR-DGE Connect which provides merchants with real-time access to more than 100 different payment service providers and over 300 alternative payment methods. Utilising the power of BR-DGE Connect, merchants can easily make dynamic changes to the customer payment experience, in order to improve authorisation rates, reduce transaction costs, and build in greater resilience to technical outages.

Tom Voaden, Head of Partnerships at BR-DGE, said: “This announcement is a major step forward in our strategic partnership with Visa, providing Kenwood Travel and their customers with an innovative payment solution. We are thrilled to be the first platform to switch on Visa Instalments live with a UK merchant, demonstrating how BR-DGE is enabling our merchants to access the latest payment innovations via BR-DGE Connect. Working with Visa, we are excited to offer Kenwood Travel’s customers a first-class payment experience as they book excursions and holidays around the world.”

Mathieu Altwegg, Head of Product, UK & Ireland, Visa, says: “Partnerships play a vital role in driving innovations that reshape the payments experience. Through our strategic partnership with BR-DGE, we are helping businesses like Kenwood Travel to provide their consumers with more choice in how they pay for travel.”

George Koumi, Managing Director at Kenwood Travel, said: "As the first UK tour operator to introduce 'Visa Instalments' in collaboration with Visa and BR-DGE, we at Kenwood Travel are thrilled to offer our customers enhanced flexibility in their online payment experience. This innovation allows for convenient instalment options, complete with transparent repayment schedules right at the checkout. We're proud to lead the way in providing holidaymakers with affordability, security, and convenience at every step of their journey."

This development follows the launch of a three-year partnership agreement between BR-DGE and Visa, a world leader in digital payments, announced earlier this year. The partnership offers innovative payment solutions to merchants and consumers, with further product enablement planned for the future, including tokenisation.

Led by CEO Thomas Gillan, BR-DGE’s platform is revolutionising online payments for merchants by offering a universe of payment options via a single point of integration. BR-DGE offers merchants a suite of products to deliver seamless payment experiences for customers, underpinned by flexible and streamlined processes. BR-DGE provides merchants with actionable intelligence to stay ahead of the latest payment trends and, through BR-DGE Vault, network tokens can be leveraged ensuring customers are always offered the latest payment offerings in the most secure way.