BARCELONA, Spain — The evolution of cars as payment devices is inching closer, with Visa announcing a partnership with automaker Honda to provide payment apps accessible via a car dashboard.
At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, last month, officials with Foster City, Calif.-based Visa announced the credit-card giant will team up with Minato, Tokyo-based Honda on new developments that will allow motorists to pay for gas, parking or even a pizza without swiping a credit card or handing over cash.
The efforts are taking the form of apps that motorists can access through their car’s dashboard, which will use Visa’s Token Service and Visa Checkout to process payments, according to a report from Boston.com.
“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 at Visa.
John Moon, developer relations lead for Honda Developer Studio, the automaker’s main collaborator on the fuel payment apps, said the apps could fundamentally change how motorists think of what Visa has called “car-based commerce.”
Apps currently under development with scheduled field tests include one for store location and payment, as well as one for parking, reported Boston.com.
Visa also announced that it is expanding its Visa Ready program to include "Internet of Things" (IoT) companies, such as manufacturers of wearables, automobiles, appliances, public-transportation services, clothing and almost any other connected device. Emerging IoT companies will join mobile-device manufacturers, including mobile point-of-sale acceptance providers, mobile near-field-communications or NFC-enabled device manufacturers and other technology partners in its Visa Ready Program.
The program gives companies a seamless path for integrating secure payments into their products and services, officials said in a release. Visa Ready partners receive access to industry best practices, tools and resources, and Visa’s Digital Enablement Program (VDEP), which includes streamlined access to Visa Token Service (VTS). The token service, a security technology, allows secure mobile and digital payments anywhere there is an Internet connection.
The first IoT companies to join the Visa Ready Program will focus on payments for wearables and automobiles, the company said. Initial Visa Ready partners include Accenture, Chicago; Coin, San Francisco; Giesecke & Devrient, Munich, Germany; Fit Pay, San Francisco; and Samsung, Seoul, South Korea, who will work with device manufacturers including Chronos, San Francisco, and Pebble, Palo Alto, Calif., to help embed secure payments in consumer devices and have those devices certified as Visa Ready.
Visa Inc. is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions and governments in more than 200 countries and territories to electronic payments.
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