How Cork boutiques use the AIB connector
Payments reconciliation is the unglamorous part of hotel finance. In a Cork suburban boutique with 22 keys and mixed leisure and small-corporate business, the accounts assistant used to spend the first three working days of every month matching AIB Merchant Services daily settlement files against Rezlynx folios by transaction reference. It worked, but it was slow. Since moving to the unified Bank of Ireland + AIB payment connector in April 2026 the same job runs in five hours.
· I ·The Cork problem in one sentence
Cork has a slightly unusual acquirer mix — historically boutique properties in Cork city, Ballincollig and Douglas have used AIB Merchant Services because AIB has an older Munster corporate relationship, while newer properties often opened accounts with Bank of Ireland Payment Acceptance. A group operator running three Cork boutiques ended up with two acquirer rails, two daily settlement files, two different reference formats, and no unified view.
· II ·What the connector actually does
The Bank of Ireland + AIB payment connector (€79/mo) routes all card authorisations, captures and refunds through both acquirers on a unified rail. On the reconciliation side, both daily settlement files land in the Client Portal in a common schema. Every Rezlynx folio line is matched by transaction reference or by amount+timestamp fallback, and un-matched items are flagged for manual review. The manual review queue is the only thing the accounts assistant now has to work through — typically 8 to 15 items per month per property, not the whole file.
· III ·Three Cork operators, one pattern
The three Cork boutiques we work with — a Cork city 28-key, a Ballincollig 22-key and a Cobh 16-key — all followed the same setup path. Week 1: connect the Bank of Ireland IBAN and the AIB Merchant Services ID. Week 2: back-fill 30 days of historical settlement files to verify matching accuracy. Week 3: cut over the live reconciliation process and retire the manual spreadsheet. From week 4 onwards, month-end took five hours instead of three days.
· IV ·PSD2 and 3-D Secure 2.2
Alongside reconciliation, the connector handles PSD2 Strong Customer Authentication and 3-D Secure 2.2 challenge flows server-side. Liability shift is retained where the challenge is passed — important for cross-border corporate cards from Dutch, German and French corporate travellers who make up 34% of the Cork city boutique's mid-week business. Chargeback evidence packs are compiled automatically from Rezlynx folio, guest signature at check-in and passport-copy where kept.
· V ·Ring of Kerry extension
The same connector serves properties on the Ring of Kerry — Killarney town, Killorglin and around the ring itself. AIB is the incumbent in Killarney for hospitality merchants, while Bank of Ireland has grown its Killarney book in the last two seasons. The unified rail is particularly useful for the operators who run two or three properties across Killarney town and the lakes — one reconciliation file, one manual review queue, one set of chargeback evidence packs.
· VI ·What to set up if you are on Rezlynx today
If your Cork or Kerry property runs Rezlynx and has any AIB and Bank of Ireland split, the connector is the single highest ROI module in the catalog for you. Setup takes under an hour with the Dublin desk on a call. IBAN and Merchant Services ID entry, then back-fill and test. Book a walkthrough via /contact and mention Cork.