Via Ian Rogers at Banking Day:
It’s a rum business being an airline banker, and even crummier for two banks – NAB and Westpac – well and truly entwined with the collapse into administration last night of Virgin Australia.
As the acquiring bank – meaning the processor of credit card payments – NAB may be on the hook for many hundreds of millions, depending on the recent (dubious) capability of Virgin to fulfill refunds on cancelled flights since the COVID-19 pandemic shot down international travel and, thanks to mandated social distancing, the supply and demand for domestic flights fell to trivial levels.
