A report published today by The National details how artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping the financial backbone of the travel industry, from fraud detection to currency handling and personal budget tracking for travellers. According to the report, global payments platform Adyen now runs AI-driven risk engines that analyse actual behavioural patterns rather than relying on static rule sets to catch fraud — an approach the company says matters particularly in travel, since, as Adyen's Daumantas Grigaravicius put it, "travel is one of the most complex payment environments any consumer encounters."
The report cites a long-standing estimate from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) that payment fraud costs the travel sector at least $1 billion annually, a figure that has pushed the industry toward smarter, AI-based fraud prevention. Beyond fraud detection, the piece outlines several other emerging applications: AI-powered foreign exchange optimisation and predictive hedging for currency payments, real-time budget-monitoring tools for travellers, and biometric identity verification enabling "invisible checkout" that removes the need to manually enter card details.
The report also highlights UAE-based fintech Halala Plus, which focuses specifically on travel payments, alongside a partnership between Trip.com and Mastercard that produced TripGenie, an AI-powered travel assistant. Citing Salesforce research, the report notes that roughly 80 per cent of UAE organisations plan to deploy AI agents by 2027, while the UAE government is targeting agentic AI integration across 50 per cent of its services and operations within two years.
Taken together, the trend suggests the travel industry is moving toward a model where AI manages not just bookings but the entire financial lifecycle of a trip, from currency conversion to fraud protection and spend tracking.