SmartHOTEL, one of the global leaders in innovative technology solutions within the hospitality sector, have announced a partnership with Gala Technology, the multi-award-winning Yorkshire-based company behind the 'Cardholder Not Present' (CNP) payment solution, SOTpay.
For more than 18 years, SmartHOTEL had been enabling professional independent hotels on a global scale to do business better with smart and seamless solutions for connectivity challenges. The trusted team of hospitality specialists support 1500+ hoteliers with solutions to take all manual work out of online sales via OTA's and direct channels, as well as taking care of all corresponding (pre)payments & credit card guarantee processes. This ultimately results in less administration, manpower and processing costs.
The exciting partnership announcement comes on the back of some pain-points that SmartHOTEL’s hoteliers were experiencing around connectivity issues between OTA’s, the hotels payment partners and the Property Management System (PMS), including complex PCI DSS requirements caused by the handling of payment card information, coupled with the manual process and duplication of work involved in getting the sensitive card data into the PMS.
The technical integration between SmartHOTEL’s powerful solution and Gala Technology’s SOTpay technology, which enables cardholders to complete secure remote transactions, whilst remaining in control of their sensitive card information on their personal device. Transactions are fully authenticated and PCI DSS compliant, negating the risk of fraud-related chargebacks and associated costs for the merchant, whilst securing sensitive card data into the PMS, without interaction from the reservation’s agent.
Gala Technology CTO Stephen Biggs commented ‘We are well established and trusted within the hospitality sector, where we support hundreds of merchants and properties combat industry challenges, such as PCI DSS compliance and fraud-related chargebacks. The partnership with SmartHOTEL enables Gala Technology and our gateway and acquiring partners to offer further functionality and value for our mutual clients. We already have a very big client interested in running a proof-of-concept and we expect this to be widely adopted moving forward’
Frank Zimmermann, Founder of SmartHOTEL concurred ‘SmartHOTEL is excited and proud to be working with Gala Technology. The technical connection and great cooperation between Gala Technology & SmartHOTEL enables hoteliers to connect their PMS system to a suite of professional payment solutions which supports them to protect their business and save money.’
