Originally Posted by
Flyer_Brit
Comparing your example to this situation, the airlines are the banks here, not the payment processors. The payment processors were and are uniquely placed because of their position in the transaction; they can make this change happen properly. The equivalent in the NDC example is the global distribution systems; the GDS systems build the actual technology. Forcing agencies and their clients (who have no hold over the GDS) to switch onto a system that still can't (a) book multiple passengers in the same reservation or (b) handle residual credits is punitive for no real reason.
Amex made the switch, they are the bank and the payment processor. Given AA's Sabre is their own, they're sort of both too.
Regardless, the fact that the change was
forced by the payment processors after years of mickey mouse club fraud is not a case study of "well done to the banks" for restraint; fraud didn't hit their bottom line quite as much until the payment processors said "adapt or eat the fraud loss"