In association with: Trust My Group
Will Plummer, CEO of Trust My Group, explains how the company aims to bring greater transparency to the financial protection sector
Q. Who are Trust My Group?
A. Trust My Group provides risk management and financial protection solutions to merchants, travellers and service providers of the travel industry through its three brands: Trust My Travel, Trust Protects and TMU Management.
We also want to contribute to a modernised, traveller‑centric financial protection regime that appropriately protects travellers’ money and offers a more transparent experience. And we want to encourage service providers such as payment processors, insurers and bond providers back to the travel industry.
Q. What issues did the pandemic expose in financial protection?
A. Large shock events such as 9/11 or Covid-19 are swiftly followed by a mass exodus of service providers that bear an exposure. This paralyses the industry.
Service providers want to reduce risk, and as there’s a systemic lack of data and modern technology, they can’t provide sustainable solutions to actively manage risk to service the industry in the bad times, as well as the good.
Q. How has Trust My Group sought to address those issues?
A. Our mission is to modernise how risk is managed in the travel industry to ensure the long-term provision of the financial protection that businesses need. We take a data-led technological approach when we provide any of our products and focus on ensuring all actors in the value chain are covered – traveller, travel merchant and service providers.
Our data standards ensure our customers have sustainable solutions that understand and work for their businesses.
Q. How should data help to improve how travellers’ money is protected?
A. Data is the fundamental element for all risk analysis and mitigation. With data, appropriate decisions around risk and the necessary protection can be made, and we support service providers in doing the same. Any decisions made without this data are simply not strategic.
Q. Should trust accounts be made mandatory and what impact will that have on companies’ cashflow?
A. The key to financial protection is that no one size fits all. We see trust accounts as tools in an arsenal available. On the one hand, they are very effective at meeting the Package Travel Regulations easily and affordably, but they can also be efficiently used as control accounts, where other protection is in place.
In these cases they ensure that monies go to the appropriate end providers without putting unnecessary pressure on cashflow, and always with a full, accountable audit trail.
For more information
Learn more about our financial failure policies at: tmumanagement.com
Find out more about Trust My Group and its brands at: trustmy.group
Get in touch: trust@trustmy.group
PICTURES: Shutterstock/TierneyMJ; Callum Ramsey