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IHG Hotels & Resorts, with close to 4,000 properties, will use FreedomPay Inc.’s payment technology, the payments provider said. Meanwhile, Helcim launched its Helcim Fee Saver surcharge program.
Philadelphia-based FreedomPay says its FreedomPay Commerce Platform will provide the payments functionality for multiple IHG brands, including InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Kimpton, Holiday Inn, and Hotel Indigo.
The implementation will enable United Kingdom-based IHG to unify its commerce activity across its properties and across different channels and regions, the company says. In addition to payments, including support for contactless and mobile payments and QR codes, the system will offer loyalty and business-intelligence components.
“Our hotels will ultimately be able to provide faster check-ins, using FreedomPay’s Quick Chip technology and a broader range of payment options, including e-wallet payments, contactless and alternate payments such as Apple Pay, Alipay, and WeChat Pay, thanks to this technology,” Peter Palli, IHG vice president, hotel, owner and commercial products and platforms, said in a statement.
Earlier in June, FreedomPay said it integrated Visa Inc.’s tokenization services into its products.
In other acquiring news, Helcim Inc., a Calgary, Alberta-based payments provider, announced the Helcim Fee Saver program, which adds on a fee to cover a merchant’s costs to accept credit cards. Merchants can toggle the fee on or off as needed. The program also enables customers to make a payment via their bank on the ACH network, which does not carry a fee to the consumer. In the United States, surcharging is only allowed on credit card transactions, not debit card ones.
Helcim, which announced a no-contract smart POS terminal earlier this month, says the Fee Saver program is easier to set up than a comparable surcharging program.
