The European Commission has given two of the world's biggest GDSs to run a joint venture in Europe.
The EC said the Moneydirect payments project, created by Sabre and Amadeus, would not "significantly restrict" other competitors in the European economic area.
The scheme, already up and running in other parts of the world, will now be launched in Europe.
The scheme will focus on non-air suppliers among them hotels, ferries, car rental companies, railways and agencies.
Laurent Chartier, chief operating officer for Moneydirect, told BTE it would provide an industry standard payments solution open to all and available through all channels.
He said its "flexibility" made it suitable for all payments. These included any booking channel, like GDSs, any type of payment, including pre-payments, settlements and commissions and payments made at any time in any direction and in any currency or country.
Philippe Chérèque, Amadeus' senior vp corporate strategy, said: "In a rapidly evolving industry, travel players are continually looking for ways to streamline and improve their business.
"We believe Moneydirect can help the industry significantly increase efficiencies and reduce reliance on manual processes."
Mr Chartier, who was formerly a director in Amadeus' corporate strategy department, said the project was already working in Australia and New Zealand with $2bn flowing through the system.
"We want to start up immediately in Europe and are talking to a number of players in Europe and the US," he said.
He said the one of the areas where it could help managed business travel was in the processing of hotel commissions.
"What Moneydirect can do is provide a single hub where hotels and their subscribers can settle the payments through one system.
"One of the current problems is the huge variety of systems and complex processes, forcing hotels to access many different systems."
Mr Chartier also said it would help in the growing area of pre-paid hotel reservations.
Moneydirect will be based in Ireland with subsidiaries in the US and Australia.
James Filsinger, previously new business manager at Sabre Holdings, will be the ceo and general manager.
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