These are difficult times for the world and extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. These measures are covering anything and everything right from the global health market to the payment sector. There has been enough discussion already on why contactless payment solutions are the best bet across the world when all the countries are going through a financial renaissance. According a report by Juniper research, contactless payments will triple to $6 trillion globally by 2024, from about $2 trillion in 2020. In the US alone, they are expected to rise to $1.5 trillion by 2024, vis-a-vis about $178 billion in 2020.
Today Governments as well as most prominent card issuers like Visa and Master card are recommending contactless payments. Central banks and regulators are also supporting them easing out regulations in contactless payments. Though contactless payments have been in existence for a while now, they are still underpenetrated and accepted only at limited retail outlets. Certain sectors like the transportation industry are still untouched.
According to Association for Convenience and Fuel Retailing Stores (NACS), an average American spends three hours in an year waiting at the gas station. In other regions like Africa and APAC this behavior constitutes an average of five minutes at fuel stations. Most of this waiting time is due to acceptance of payments which is either through cash mode or traditional PoS terminals. Countries like the USA, India, Nigeria, Tanzania and UAE have implemented automated toll collection systems like E-Z pass and FasTag that can be used for fuel payments.
Most automobile makers have the bar code or QR code on the inside of the driver's door to identify the make of the automobile. Customers can use this barcode or opt for a new barcode from the Oil marketing companies and link their automobile to the payment mechanism like wallet, bank, card etc. On the other hand, fuel stations need to implement RFID readers like the one you see on toll stations. This reader is linked to a centralized platform which can identify customer account and deduct money directly as per the preferred payment mode. Even a fuel dispenser can be part of this ecosystem by providing inputs for fuel rate and quantity. In this system, all different entities like the customer, their automobile, retail fuel outlet, payment solution and fuel dispenser are tightly integrated into one single system to make sure transactions are cardless, cashless, contactless and automated.
An Ideal User Journey
Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) can work towards developing a Customer Downloads mobile application where the customer can self-onboard, scan their existing barcode or opt for a new barcode. They can also link their vehicle to their account and choose a preferred mode of payment (mobile wallet, prepaid card, real time bank account transfer or Credit/Debit card). Prepaid wallet can be an ideal choice for both customer as well as the OMCs. A customer can also set their preferred top-up value according to their usage or a terminal operator can set this value as per customer’s need.
Once the onboarding and linking process is completed, the customer drives to the fuel station, terminal reads the barcode, operator refills the fuel as per customer requirement, system auto-processes the payment, customer gets the notification and invoice directly in their mobile application. Viola!
MobiFin Elite is well versed with such large digital transformation programs providing efficient NFC solutions. Configurable architecture of MobiFin Elite allows OMCs to design solution as per their business process and allows linking of vehicles and loyalty points configuration under a single platform. ECC encryption and PCI-DSS environment provides the apex security standard for customers to link their payment modes of bank or card. When the future of transportation payments and an evolving cashless society are in question, security holds the key to acceptance and worldwide usage.
Contributing Writer: Manasi is a content creator and developer at Panamax Inc. A post graduate in Journalism, she has dabbled in various domains in last 10 years of her career.