Imagine driving through toll booths, drive thru restaurants and gas stations without having to fiddle around with cash and coins. The future is calling for a world in which payments are seamless and with the experimentation and the introduction of self-driving cars, your car being in sync with your bank account is where technology is heading. Imagine if your car was your wallet.
Elon Musk’s Tesla has recently overtaken General Motors to become the most valuable car company in the US. According to Reuters, Tesla ended yesterday with a stock market value of nearly $51 billion which was $1 million more than GM. At the end of 2015, Juniper Research predicted that self-driving cars will take off by the year 2021 and there will be approximately 20 million vehicles on the road by 2025. With the emergence and rapid success of Tesla, these predictions could become a reality.
However, Juniper ranked Tesla as the third most promising player in the driverless car market, below Google and Volvo, after being in development for the longest and having logged the most autonomous miles. I spoke to representatives from FIS and SAP to find out what technology they are working on to ensure society has in-car payments in the future.
Doug Brown, senior vice president and general manager of Mobile at FIS, highlighted that the organisation are in the process of deploying a cellphone application that will enable the customer, or driver, to pay for fuel and order a car wash from inside the car. ‘The platform is app based and apps are deployed on a mobile device currently and planned as apps for the car dashboard display. In addition, we are working with fast food restaurants to allow app based order ahead and payment from in-car,’ Brown said.
This technology, as Brown explained, is all voice-activated and as many predict the rise of biometric technology in payments, this could be how the boom cements itself in society. Brown said that a ‘voice-print’ would enable you to authenticate yourself or a payment account and pay for a transaction ‘hands-free’. ‘This is essential to the safety of in car payments,’ Brown said. A recent New York Times article discussed how soon a car will be able to read a human’s expression because of biometrics.
Continental Automotive Group’s systems and technology engineer Zachary Bolton explored how with cameras with facial recognition, automakers would ideally like cars to have technology that will adjust seats and driving modes after understanding the driver’s needs. ‘We can use the gleam, the twinkle in your eye to determine precisely where you’re looking,’ Bolton said, and perhaps this is how FIS’ product will come to fruition in the next couple of years.
As a second example, Heino Kantimm, Chief Expert Connected Cars at SAP, described the company’s SAP Vehicles Network solution in conversation, which was launched in North America and Europe at the end of 2015. Since then, SAP have been building upon the system to allow car rental agencies or fuelling providers to integrate with the technology.
‘We recently launched a new partnership with Nokia, Hertz and Concur that combines the inventory of SAP’s Vehicle Network solution for parking and fueling with Nokia IMPACT IoT Platform, Hertz’s rental car management and Concur’s business travel and expense management solutions. This will allow users to reserve and pay for parking and fueling online and automatically track expense claims - creating a seamless journey and reporting process for business travelers,’ Kantimm said.
In addition to making transactions at gas stations, Brown reflects on how ‘there is strong potential and compelling customer value for cars with smart apps to act as wallets. Customers will elect to use the new technology as it becomes more widely available through distribution of more modern vehicles with dashboard units that can download and support ‘wallet’ apps and fuel, restaurant, grocery, banks offer more commerce capabilities. As customers see more convenience and value from these capabilities – smart car wallets are likely to be as indispensable as smartphones are to customers today.’
Kantimm put forward the idea that ‘for many commuters and business travellers, cars can be a home away from home. As long as cars need to consume services, like fuel and parking, users will want a way to automate these tasks. Once they get used to the convenience of managing these services from their car, they will likely want to extend that capability.’
SAP also partnered with the connected vehicle platform Mojio and app provider for Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile USA to provide parking and fueling through its app in the United States and Europe. Partnerships between fintech companies and automakers is not something rare; earlier this year it was announced that Chinese internet giant Tencent bought a $1.8 million worth stake in Tesla and there were talks that Tesla would collaborate with Chinese rideshare company Didi Chuxing.
After that news, Ford also announced a $1 billion investment in a joint product with Argo AI and Uber also made serious progress in developing its self-driving cars. This is a partnership that works and interestingly, we are seeing it blossom in the ride-sharing arena.
