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Marc Denny is Protect Group’s Chief Revenue Officer, responsible for driving growth across the Middle East, Asia and Oceania. Drawing on more than 20 years’ experience in banking and insurance, Marc has helped PSPs and merchants around the world rethink refunds as a strategic advantage rather than a back‑office cost. In this article, he shares why flexible refund protection is becoming an expected feature of modern payment journeys - and what that means for platforms that want to stay relevant in 2026 and beyond.
Across travel, events, hospitality and beyond, refunds used to be treated as a back‑office problem. A cost to manage, not a lever for growth. That mindset is rapidly becoming outdated. Customers book in an increasingly uncertain world, and their biggest purchase objection is simple: “What happens to my money if something goes wrong?”
Refund protection speaks directly to that fear. When customers are offered a clear, optional way to protect their booking at checkout, hesitation turns into confidence and confidence turns into conversion. Time and again, partners see that once this protection is live in the journey, more customers complete bookings they might otherwise abandon.
A model built to scale
One of the first misconceptions to clear up is that refund protection is “just insurance under a new name”. It isn’t. Traditional insurance is heavily regulated, jurisdiction‑specific and administratively complex. That’s precisely why many PSPs and merchants have struggled to scale protection products cleanly across borders.
Refund Protect takes a different approach. Customers upgrade to enhanced refund terms at the point of sale, and Protect Group runs a fully managed service: assessing refund applications, handling communication and paying out eligible refunds directly to the customer. Partners keep 100% of the original booking revenue and receive an additional share of the upgrade fee, without carrying the underlying risk. Because this is not an insurance product, it is far easier to deploy consistently across multiple markets and merchant portfolios.
For PSPs building global propositions, that distinction matters. You can offer a unified, high‑quality refund experience without building a different regulatory playbook for every country.
The proof is in the conversion
Scepticism is natural when a disruptive model challenges old benchmarks. Many businesses are used to embedded insurance products converting at only 3–4%. When they first hear about refund protection achieving take‑up rates of up to 20% of customers choosing a refundable booking, it can sound implausible until they see it live.
The explanation is straightforward: refund protection is tightly aligned to the moment of decision. Customers are not being offered an abstract add‑on; they are being given a simple way to remove their biggest concern about that specific purchase. Protect Group’s own product information highlights how this translates into real commercial outcomes: higher conversion, additional ancillary revenue per transaction and no exposure to refund risk for the PSP or merchant.
When boards and CFOs see the combination of conversion uplift and risk‑free revenue share, the discussion moves from “nice idea” to “missed opportunity if we don’t act”.
Brand loyalty is won in tough moments
In crowded markets, brand loyalty is sometimes dismissed as a “soft” asset. In reality, it is often the hardest competitive edge a business has. One bad refund experience can send a customer permanently to a competitor. One surprisingly good experience can secure their loyalty for years.
This is where execution matters. Protect Group operates a fully managed, human‑plus‑AI service: automation handles speed and consistency, while trained agents step in on complex or emotionally charged refund applications. The result is fast resolutions, often in hours rather than days, resulting in an Excellent Trustpilot rating of 4.8 out of 5 from tens of thousands of customers who have experienced the service first‑hand.
For PSPs and merchants, the lesson is clear. Loyalty is not decided at the point of payment alone; it is decided at the point of problem. A well‑designed refund journey with a seamlessly integrated product turns a potentially negative interaction into a proof point of your values.
From differentiator to expected feature
The most important shift looking into 2026 is how quickly refund protection is moving from differentiator to expectation. Once customers experience the option to protect their booking in one channel, they start to look for it everywhere. When they don’t see it, questions arise: “Why not? What happens if something goes wrong here?”
For PSPs, this creates a strategic fork in the road. Either refund protection becomes a standard part of the platform proposition - deployed consistently, branded well, and supported by a specialist partner - or it becomes a gap that more agile competitors will exploit. The same is true for merchants: those who offer flexible protection will feel more trustworthy and customer‑centric than those who still rely on rigid “non‑refundable, no exceptions” policies.
In other words, the conversation has moved on. This is no longer about adding a clever ancillary product at the margins. It is about whether you remove your customers’ biggest purchase objection so that you sell more, earn more, and carry none of the downside risk. In an environment of rising expectations and tightening margins, that choice is rapidly becoming one of the defining strategic decisions for PSPs and merchants worldwide.
Don’t let the refund opportunity pass you by – book a demo of Refund Protect today to build brand loyalty, provide genuine solutions and start improving your revenue streams.
