Booking.com’s fintech engine quietly becoming a major profit source

Simplifying payments is central to its Connected Trip strategy and a key growth engine for Booking Holdings

Booking.com’s fintech division has quietly become a major profit source by streamlining payments, lowering transaction costs, and supporting its broader connected trip vision. Even small savings per transaction can translate into millions at Booking’s scale — a strategy that positions payments as both a revenue driver and an enabler of seamless multi-product travel bookings.

Key takeaways

• Profitable fintech unit: Booking.com’s fintech division, launched in 2021, is “a very profitable source of revenue,” focusing on simplifying travel payments and reducing foreign exchange costs for travelers.
• Payments scale advantage: Even a few basis points of savings on transaction costs — as little as 0.01% — can generate millions in profit given Booking.com’s global booking volume.
• Global payments complexity: With over 1,000 payment methods worldwide, Booking’s strategy involves testing aggregators before building direct integrations that improve margins and control.
• Connected trip backbone: Payments are essential for enabling cross-product bookings like flights, cars, and attractions — areas that require prepayment, unlike the traditional “pay at hotel” model.
• Skepticism toward LLMs in payments: Marovitz doubts large language models like ChatGPT will enter payments due to fraud, chargebacks, and regulatory complexity, leaving Booking with a defensible operational edge.
• Late but catching up: After lagging behind competitors, Booking.com has accelerated its fintech efforts, including launching its first U.S. credit card in 2024 to drive loyalty and direct bookings.
• No crypto plans: The company currently sees no customer demand for cryptocurrency payments and remains on the sidelines of that trend.

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