This year’s ongoing Consumer Electronics Showcase has been a non-stop stream of innovation, collaboration and new technologies. The latest in the smart car and mobile payments spaces will be brought to consumers today by way of a partnership between Visa and Honda.
Today the leading digital payment technology brand and the multinational motor company are conducting demonstrations of in-vehicle payments for fueling and parking. The demonstrations will be done with fuel pumps from fuel dispensers and point-of-sale system supplier Gilbarco Veeder-Root and smart parking meters from telecom equipment supplier IPS Group, Inc. The collaboration offers drivers a quick and seamless in-vehicle payment solution.
John Moon, developer relations lead at Honda Developer Studio, said in a statement, “Payments have evolved from physical plastic cards to a digital, mobile wallet, and Honda sees this as an opportunity to bring this technology into the car to pay for services from the comfort of one’s own car.”
Drivers are notified when they are able to pay for fuel or parking in-vehicle when in proximity to a smart parking meter or fuel pump. For some services, the purchase amount will be displayed on the vehicle’s dashboard and drivers confirm payment with the touch of a button.
Avin Arumugam, senior vice president, internet of things at Visa Inc., said in a statement, “Turning the car into a platform for payments offers a nearly endless array of ways for automakers, drivers, merchants and other infrastructure companies to completely transform tasks that are tied to cars in some shape or form. Working with Honda, we both see the huge opportunity this presents for our respective industries and how we can collectively simplify many daily tasks from the car.”
The in-vehicle payments are secured by Visa’s Token Service technology. Tokenization, the process of securing sensitive information with tokens provided through the transaction rather than key details, is seen by many as one of the key ways to secure the increasing amount of connected commerce taking place across the payments ecosystem today.
Honda reports that it is currently in discussion with a number of additional companies looking to further innovate and augment car-based payments.