The CEO of Fexco Group, Neil Hosty and Minister Niamh Smyth, Minister of State with special responsibility for Trade Promotion, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Transformation, met in Miami this week to discuss Fexco’s US expansion through payUnite, Fexco’s payment orchestration platform, and the development of Conversational Commerce tools and Fexco’s push into the AI Agentic payments space.
The meeting focused on Fexco’s payUnite, the market leading payment orchestration platform in the cruise industry, where it serves over 40% of the market, and the company’s multi-million euro investment in the US market, fuelling further expansion into the hospitality, airlines and retail sectors.
In a boost to the company’s ambitious growth plans, payUnite also announced a new strategic partnership with PayPal, which will enable merchants using the platform to offer PayPal Checkout, Venmo and PayPal Pay Later directly through payUnite. This collaboration connects PayPal to payUnite’s advanced payment orchestration technology, enabling merchants across key verticals such as cruise, airline, retail, and hospitality to enhance customer experience at checkout by adding trusted PayPal payment options through a single, intelligent integration. This helps improve approval rates and deliver a smoother checkout experience for customers booking trips or paying in‑destination.
Fexco also revealed its next wave of payment innovation, demonstrating its next generation of Agentic payments products, built to capitalise on the rapid evolution of AI and its impact on human behaviour. As consumers increasingly seek a more personalised, seamless online payments experience, conversational commerce is emerging as a major opportunity in the payment sector, which, as a country with strong fintech and AI sectors, Ireland is well positioned to capitalise on.
Fexco has built a global reputation for pioneering payment solutions that move at the speed of commerce itself. Operating in over 60 countries, it has consistently anticipated shifts in digital payments and financial technology, delivering products that redefine how businesses and consumers transact worldwide.
Speaking following his meeting with Minister Smyth, Fexco Group CEO Neil Hosty said: “As a country with strong fintech and AI ecosystems, Ireland has a strategic opportunity to lead in a new class of economic activity – conversational commerce. It was great to meet with Minister Smyth to share an update on Fexco’s work in this space as we lead out in the development of agentic payment technology, and to launch our partnership with payUnite and PayPal. I’m grateful to the Minister for her ongoing support for AI and digital innovation.”
Niamh Smyth TD, Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment with special responsibility for Trade Promotion, Artificial Intelligence and Digital Transformation said:
“Driving digital transformation is a key commitment of this government, and it is always great to meet with companies that are leading the way. Fexco’s success to date is incredibly impressive. During our meeting we discussed their work in supporting digital transformation in the payments sector, including their new partnership with PayPal. AI continues to advance at a rapid pace, and so I particularly welcomed having the opportunity to discuss agentic AI in the payments space with Fexco, and the opportunities that this emerging sector creates for the Irish economy.”
Norman Happ, SVP, Small Business Sales and Partnership, at PayPal said: “Travel is a strategic growth area for PayPal, and we’re constantly innovating with partners who understand the complexity of global commerce. payUnite’s state‑of‑the‑art orchestration platform is already helping leading cruise, airline and hospitality brands manage high‑volume, cross‑border payment flows. By combining that capability with the trust and familiarity of PayPal, Venmo and PayPal Pay Later, we can offer travellers and shoppers more choice at checkout and help merchants capture more revenue from every booking, stay and sale.”
The tools being developed by Fexco in this space offer an opportunity to make digital interactions more human, intuitive and more accessible, and further highlight a major opportunity for Ireland, a country with strong fintech and AI ecosystems, to position itself as a leader in a new class of economic activity: AI enabled, behaviour-responsive commerce and payments.