Carmakers hunt for share of the mobile wallet
Revolution in mobile payments coincides with a race to make cars smarter
The Visa executive slips into the front seat of a new BMW, wakes up the tablet computer in the dashboard, and orders pizza. A few taps later and his lunch will be ready in 10 minutes at a nearby Pizza Hut. No need to pay at the restaurant — the car’s computer already did that for him.
Smartphones and, soon, Apple Watches can already function as quasi-wallets, able to store credit and debit card details that can be used to pay for goods in stores. The car is the next frontier.
“One car executive called me and said, ‘We really want to make the car your wallet’,” says Doug Brown, head of mobile for FIS, a maker of banking and payments software.
The revolution in mobile payments happens to coincide with a race by car and tech giants to make cars smarter. Consumers increasingly want their cars to have the same sophisticated technology as their smartphones.
Most new cars have minicomputers embedded in dashboards that can run apps or link up with smartphones to let drivers control their phones through the car’s touchscreen. “This is where you start to get the pieces coming together,” says Ramon Martin, Visa’s global head of merchant solutions. “New commerce opportunities exist.”
But not everyone is sold on the idea that consumers want in-car payments.
Kebbie Sebastian, managing director of Penser Consulting, a payments consulting firm, says: “Paying from a car dashboard might be innovative but it isn’t any more convenient than paying from a smartphone,” says Sebastian.