Visa extends secure payments to the automotive industry – the car is your new mobile platform for payments

Visa Inc. wants to turn your car into a mobile payments platform, just like using your smartphone or a traditional credit card. The company showed off a concept app at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Monday that will let drivers pay for fuel and parking without leaving their car.

Visa teamed up with Honda to create the app which can be accessed via the car’s dashboard. It will tell a driver when their gas is low and navigate them to the nearest place to fill up. Once parked next to the pump, the app can calculate the cost of filling up and a person can pay for the gas and even convenience store items via their dashboard.

Visa Inc. announced it was making the Visa Token Service available to auto manufacturers, helping to pave the way for easy and secure car-based commerce. To further advance car-based commerce, Visa is also offering a range of related digital payment solutions, including new standards for Bluetooth (BLE) and QR codes that could help expand enablement of mobile payments for both merchants and consumers in any environment. As payments shift from plastic to digital, technologies built with Visa Token Service, provide an ecosystem of payment partners – from auto manufacturers to point of sale (POS) providers and beyond – a streamlined way to offer commerce and payments anywhere there is an Internet connection.

Car-Based Commerce

In partnership with Honda and ParkWhiz, Visa will demonstrate fuel and parking proof-of-concept apps at Mobile World Congress, February 22-25 in Barcelona, Spain (Hall 6, Exhibit Booth 6D40). Developed by Honda Developer Studio and fully integrated into Honda’s head unit, the fuel and parking proof-of-concepts are designed to bring greater simplicity and convenience to services and tasks consumers do every day. Both apps showcase Visa Token Service and feature Visa Checkout, Visa’s online payment service offering simple, one-touch payments. Additional features include:

Fuel App Concept: Pay for gas in one click without leaving the car. The fuel app detects when the car is low on fuel and navigates the driver to nearby gas stations. Once parked next to the pump, the app knows the exact amount of gas needed to fill the tank and can calculate the cost to fill up. The driver can also purchase convenience store items with full integration of discount and loyalty/rewards programs.

Parking App Concept: Just park your car, push the ‘park’ button on the app, and go. Designed in partnership with ParkWhiz for off-street parking spots, the parking app helps a driver pay only for the time used and helps avoid under- and over-paying. Once a parking session is ended, the elapsed time and amount paid are shown on the car’s dashboard, requiring the driver to simply press a button to complete the transaction.

Visa demonstrated car-based commerce as an industry-first at Mobile World Congress 2015, when it showcased how in-car payments could simplify ordering food at a quick service restaurant. Over the last year, Visa has continued to test and evolve in-car payments, including showing how to simplify the process of leasing or buying a car, or even managing services like auto insurance or road tolls, directly from the driver’s seat.

“The notion of transforming a car into a platform for payments is not as far off as some may think, and we have made a great deal of progress since first introducing the idea one year ago,” said Jim McCarthy, executive vice president of innovation and strategic partnerships, Visa Inc. “Working with Honda to test these prototypes gets us another step closer toward commercial reality, which we think provides exciting opportunities to everyone who plays a role in the payments and automotive ecosystems.”

„This project demonstrates how apps can truly transform the in-car experience while creating new opportunities for automakers,” said John Moon, developer relations lead for Honda Developer Studio.

„At ParkWhiz we are very focused on creating a frictionless, and of course safe, parking experience for drivers,” said Aashish Dalal, CEO, ParkWhiz. „Eliminating the need for drivers to take tickets or check out at pay boxes is a giant step toward a frictionless experience and a big win for drivers. ParkWhiz is thrilled to be partnered with Visa on this ground-breaking innovation.”

The companies currently expect to test the fuel app concept in Northern California and the parking app concept in New York City, both over a three-month period, starting this spring.