Picture this: a potential flyer is about to book a ticket on your website and fly out to Kenya to tour the country. They've filled out all the details and selected their departure date and preferred seats. Then they head to the checkout page to complete the purchase, and your payment system fails. Or worse, they can't find their preferred payment method, mobile money, which they use for everything else.

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That's a potential customer you're losing. And most likely, they'll go to another airline with a better payment gateway out of frustration.

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This hasn’t been the case for ValueJet, an African airline we have supported for over a year, helping them reduce their payment failure rate to just 4%. So, if you run an airline or any travel business in Africa, your customers’ payment experience should be excellent. It influences your customers’ perception of you and determines if they’ll be repeat flyers. 

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It starts with choosing the right cross-border payment gateway for your airline and business. In this post, we'll show you how to choose one and how you can delight your customers with Kora's payment gateway.

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Unique payment challenges for travel companies in Africa

1. Multi-currency and cross-border complexity

When you’re a pan-African airline, payment systems can get complicated because you have to cater to different currencies and payment preferences of flyers across Africa. For example, if you operate in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa, you have to accept payments in Naira, Kenyan Shillings and Rands. For the payment methods, you must accept bank transfers in Nigeria, mobile money in Kenya, and cards in South Africa because these are the predominant payment methods in these countries. 

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This creates complexities around currency conversion, international transaction fees, and settlement. When a Kenyan books a flight and pays in KES, how quickly do you settle in your preferred currency? How do you deal with the conversion rate? The problem worsens when considering that many African currencies can be volatile. A booking made today in local currency might be worth significantly lesser (or more) when you receive settlement.

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So, choose a payment gateway with robust cross-border payment capabilities to accept payments, manages currency conversion transparently, and settle funds quickly. 

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2. High-value transactions and complex booking scenarios

Airline bookings aren't like buying shoes on an e-commerce store. Your transactions range from a $150 domestic flight within Nigeria to a $8,000 business class ticket from Ethiopia to London. A mistake can lead to huge business losses.

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Security is non-negotiable

Fraudsters target airline tickets because they're high-value and easily resold. A stolen debit card buying a $3,000 last-minute flight from Nairobi to Dubai? Your system needs to catch that. However, it also needs to differentiate between fraud and legitimate scenarios, such as a Nigerian business traveller booking an urgent flight to South Africa.

Refunds are complicated

African airlines deal with everything from weather-related cancellations during rainy seasons to visa denials for international travellers. Your payment system needs to handle full refunds, travel credits, and complex fare adjustments while working across different African currencies and global banking systems.

Seasonal volume extremes

When IJGBs and diaspora communities return home during the December holidays, transaction volumes can spike 10-15 times normal levels. Hajj season creates massive spikes for airlines serving routes to Saudi Arabia. Your payment infrastructure needs to scale without failing during these critical revenue periods.

Multiple revenue streams

African airlines increasingly rely on ancillary revenue—seat selection fees, extra baggage, meal options, and travel insurance. Passengers might buy a basic Lagos-Accra ticket, then add baggage and seat selection. Your system needs to handle these seamlessly.

Complex payment scenarios

Family members abroad often book flights for relatives back home, and corporate accounts manage travel across multiple countries. These situations require flexible payment splitting and multi-currency handling.

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6 important factors when choosing a payment gateway for your airline

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1. Security and fraud prevention

This isn't negotiable. Travel companies are attractive targets for fraudsters because of their high transaction values and international nature. 

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Here are some security tools on  Kora’s payment gateway to protect your business.

Real-time fraud detection

This is important for airlines. Kora’s payment engine identifies fraud recognition patterns, preempting fraudulent situations on your account.

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IP whitelisting

This ensures that only you or your team members can access your dashboard. It restricts access to only authorised IP addresses. You can add as many as 20 IP addresses on your dashboard. To use this security feature, head to the Settings tab on your dashboard. 

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Then select Security. After, click on the Get Started button beside the IP whitelisting option. 

After, click on Add IP Address and you'll see a modal, then input the IP address you want to whitelist. 

Afterwards, the dashboard will display a modal requiring you to input your 2FA code from your authentication app. Input the code, and that’ll enable the feature. Then, click Add IP Address again, and you’ll see another modal asking you to input the IP you want to whitelist, as shown below.

After inputting the IP, input the 2FA code from your authenticator app, and then you’ll be able to whitelist the IP address. 

Remember, you can add as many as 20 IP addresses on your dashboard. 

Also, one important thing to look out for is the PCI DSS certification. Kora is PCI DSS compliant, which means your customers’ cardholder data is safe, and payment card transactions are secure.

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2. Comprehensive payment method support

Your gateway should support all the payment methods your customers prefer.

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Kora powers payments across different African countries. In Nigeria, we support bank transfers, debit cards, and payments with the bank.

Kora accepts all the major debit card schemes, including VISA and Mastercard. Customers can pay you with any bank for Bank Transfers. Our Pay with Bank method, on the other hand, supports PalmPay, Opay, and Kuda Microfinance Bank.

In Kenya, mobile money is the preferred payment method, so we support the top three networks consumers use: M-Pesa, Airtel, and Equitel. 

We also support mobile money payments in Ghana and the four major networks: MTN Momo, Airtel Tigo, and Vodafone. 

In Ivory Coast and Cameroon, Kora supports Mobile Money: MTN, Orange, Vodafone, and Etisalat.  

With these payment options, you can match the payment method preferences of your customers across different African countries.

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3. Multi-currency processing and settlement capabilities

Cross-border businesses need to be able to accept payments, make payouts, and settle in different currencies. This makes business operations easier to manage and protects them from currency fluctuations. 

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Your customers get to pay in their currency, while you can settle in your preferred currency.  Kora lets you manage payments in Naira, Ghanaian Cedis, Kenyan Shillings, West African CFA Francs, Central African CFA Francs, Rands, Egyptian Pounds, USD and GBP. 

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Sophisticated payment gateways also allow you to display prices to customers in their local currency. For example, a Kenyan flyer can see prices in KES even if your business operates in South Africa. 

Protection from currency fluctuation is another layer you need. Kora protects you by giving you transparent, competitive, real-time exchange rates for transactions. This way, you don’t lose your profit to currency fluctuations.

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4. Seamless integration and developer experience

Poor integration and API documentation frustrates developers. It delays integration, your launch, and causes revenue loss. 

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We pride ourselves on well-written and structured API docs that make integration smooth as butter for developers. Our merchants often tell us that they chose our solution because of the comprehensive documentation, clear code examples, and search functionality.

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Don’t take our word for it, check out our developer docs. 

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In addition, we also have webhook support that gives you real-time notifications when payment statuses change, which is important for updating booking confirmations and triggering other business processes. Also, Kora provides sandbox environments for your developers to test different scenarios without processing real payments.

The cherry on top is that we provide dedicated technical and non-technical support to help you figure things out if you encounter any roadblocks, pre- and post-integration.

5. Transparent pricing structure

Payment processing fees directly impact your margins, especially in travel, where margins can be thin and transaction values high. Kora’s fees for Pay-ins, Payouts and Settlements are transparent. We explain everything so you won't be caught off guard by unexpected pricing during our sales call.  

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This also includes currency conversion and chargeback fees. 

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6. Reliability and customer support

Airline payments are quite sensitive because your customers might be booking last-minute flights. Payment failures at those critical moments don't just lose transactions; it earns you bad reviews and cause you to lose a customer for life.  

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You need a payment gateway that offers dedicated customer support. One reason ValueJet loves Kora is that we’re always on standby to help them resolve any issues. 

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Kora's infrastructure is built for high availability and scalability, which ensures reliable 24/7 payment processing even during peak periods. Our dedicated support team also understands African market nuances and provides expert assistance.

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Ready to get started?

Explore Kora's solutions for the travel industry and see how we can help optimize your payment experience. Have specific questions about your payment requirements? Contact our sales team to discuss your unique needs.

Want to see how easy integration can be? Dive into our API documentation and start building today.

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