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Did you ever wish you could make a secure payment directly from your car using your credit card? Pay for your gas and parking right from you seat? Well Visa is now giving auto manufactures access to their token service so you will soon be able to do just that without leaving your car. Visa recently unveiled its fuel and parking proof-of-concept apps at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.
These apps were developed in conjunction with Honda and ParkWhiz, creating apps that let drivers pay for gas and parking from the driver’s seat. The apps will be tested this spring over a three-month period, with the parking app getting a run through in New York City, and the fuel app getting a test drive in Northern California.
“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.”
The inside scoop on the apps concept
Each of the apps uses the Visa Token Service and feature Visa Checkout, which is Visa’s online payment service providing users with the ability to make one-touch payments.
Once launched, the Fuel App will let people pay at the pump with one click, but it's also designed to “know” when your car needs refueling, and then help you find and get to the nearest gas station. It also knows how much gas you need to fill up, and how much it will run you, so the bill is no surprise, because it gives you an estimate. If you want to buy other items at the gas station like a coffee and a donut, or a map, you can do that too using the app, and it can also be integrated into discount and loyalty/rewards programs.
The scoop on parking
What about parking? With the parking app, you can park your car, click on the park button and then head out to the theater, restaurant or to catch a flight at the airport. The app is designed to make sure you pay just for the time you've been parked no more, no less. When you get back to your car the app tells you via the dashboard how long you've been away and how much the bill is. You then press the button to pay.
To go along with this development, they will be rolling out new standards for Bluetooth (BLE) and QR codes, so that making this auto based payment are easier and faster for consumers and issuers.
