Payments Unbound: The future of connected car payments

[Music]

Bal Ahir: Imagine a world where your car not only takes you places, but also handles your payments seamlessly. This isn't science fiction, it's the future of connected cars.

Abdullah Pandit: We are partnering with some of the leading EV charging manufacturers, mobility service providers, and trying to bring together easy propositions for the market so that we can provide not just the payments element, but also other elements some of our clients are looking for, for example, discovery of EV charges.

Bal Ahir: Remember when cars were just about getting from point A to B, those days are behind us. With the rise of connected cars, our vehicles are becoming integral parts of the digital world, transforming how we think about payments on the go. What does the future of in-car payments look like? What challenges still lie ahead? And how are industry leaders driving to meet them together? Welcome to Making Sense. My name is Bal Ahir, global head of Mobility Payment Solutions. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with my colleague, Abdullah Pandit, product strategy and global partnerships lead. In this episode, we will discuss advances in mobility payment solutions, and how strategic partnerships are paving the way for the enhanced customer experience of tomorrow. Abdullah, welcome.

Abdullah Pandit: Thanks Bal. I have the pleasure to speak to you every day, pretty much sitting opposite you on the office floor, so, but I'm glad we're sitting together to record this. I'm excited and, uh, there's a number of topics we would dive into today.

Bal Ahir: Right now, there seems to be tremendous opportunity for the auto industry to engage their customers in ever more innovative ways. Why do you think the moment is particularly right for the advancement of in-car-payments? In your opinion, what benefits do mobility payment solutions offer to both market leaders and the average driver?

Abdullah Pandit: I think, and Bal you can, this probably resonates with you. Coming from an automotive background, one of the big things we are seeing in the automotive and mobility industry broader is each of the players in the ecosystem wants to build a relationship with the end consumer. The in-car payments is an automatic extension of that relationship from the purchase to an on the go experience, so that that relationship ties in through the lifecycle of the vehicle. So that in itself, from an auto OEM perspective, makes it really attractive from a consumer's perspective. We are at the age where as a consumer, we are very used to using our mobile phone, our connected devices, on a day-to-day basis from very simple tasks like checking in the morning, how do we get to work or pre-ordering coffee on our phone and picking it up as we get out of the train station. So if you tie in both of these elements where the auto OEM wants to build relationship with the consumer, and the consumer is very used to these very frictionless, seamless, efficient consumer experiences. Tying those two together, there's an opportunity where in-car payments can obviously grow and become sort of the standard of a person driving in the car.

Bal Ahir: I fully agree.

Abdullah Pandit: So Bal, do you have any examples that illustrate how consumers might engage with this technology in the near future?

Bal Ahir: I, I think that's a, that's a really, key question, a critical question. You know, what is the point of in-vehicle payments? What are the actual use cases? How will this ever scale? And what do partners need to bring overall to the ecosystem to actually enable all of this? And I think the one use case that really summarizes for me the importance and the potential of an in-vehicle payment beyond the, the classic tolling or parking, is actually the use case of EV charging. So if you look into EV charging and how the industry and how the ecosystem actually behaves today, one would still argue that it's not actually that consumer centric. The customer still has to download potentially multiple apps, and there's still therefore a potential friction point when it comes to payments and EV charging the future of in-vehicle payments. It's not too far in my, uh, humble opinion where the customer can drive to an EV charger. Probably the cable will insert directly into the vehicle autonomously or via robotic mechanisms. And the payment is actually taken by the vehicle with the consumer not having to click or having to open multiple apps or having to open up RFID cards. And that's probably the real use case that will resolve a number of friction points for the end, uh, customer. Beyond this then, this is the one that gets the most scrutiny is this whole idea of a consumer marketplace where the consumer is able to transact across multiple merchants on the go. Whether it's a quick service retail restaurant, whether it's booking a hotel room on the go, the transactions are taking place whilst the consumer is on the go in the vehicle, and it's the vehicle that is completing the payment transaction.

Abdullah Pandit: Oh, that's, that's actually very interesting. But some of the use cases you mentioned just now, consumers are very used to doing that on, on their mobile phones, like booking a restaurant, pre-ordering stuff. Why would doing it in a car make it different?

Bal Ahir: So I think intrinsic to digitization is removing the number of clicks that a customer has to undergo to complete your consumer experience. And that could be your consumer experience or it could be a third party consumer experience. Our sort of objective when we're looking at the customer experience is actually to remove the number of clicks in any journey and in-vehicle payments definitely does that. So coming from a digital background, that's the point that really resonates. Having scaled many consumer propositions, having, uh, been responsible for many app-based opportunities in the past, every time you can take friction away from the consumer, it definitely leads to, uh, the overall better experience.

Abdullah Pandit: No, absolutely. I think one other thing which the vehicles can do, which mobile phones can't do in this case, is making the journey very contextual and specific to the customer. So it can automatically recognize when my fuel is low and direct me to the nearest fuel station, depending on the navigation route I have or where I'm going that a mobile phone might not be able to do given it's not connected to the car. So I think there are certain use cases where connecting to the car makes it very logical and potentially more scalable and lead to more adoption versus using it on the mobile phone. As we think about commercial fleets, I believe there are opportunities there which are even more significant. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Bal Ahir: Yes, absolutely. And I, and I agree with you. There are significant opportunities when it comes to commercial fleet operators, both from a driver experience perspective, but also a fleet manager's perspective, managing a large corporate fleet of vehicles. So just in the travel and expense policy approach of systems that really haven't fundamentally changed for decades, what in-vehicle payments does and a contextual element of knowing where that vehicle is and where that transaction actually took place. And being able to authorize on that basis actually for a fleet manager provides many, many, many benefits in managing an entire fleet of vehicles and associated transactions, regardless of who the driver was of that vehicle. So many, many opportunities there. But for the individual fleet driver, the employee, I think all of us would agree that travel expense management is actually a challenge. It's a pain point and it takes an amount of resource energy time to actually process and keep on top of. So if you've done fleet rolls, imagine there was a mechanism through in-vehicle payments that actually reconciles your daily expenses, your weekly expenses and monthly expenses, and therefore is able to reimburse to you in a more automated way than is, uh, is currently happening.

Abdullah Pandit: One of the other point is about tackling fraud. So a large proportion of payment volume for fuel is lost by fraud. So if you think about, uh, this in-vehicle payment solution is connected to the telematics of the car or the vehicle. So when some, when a driver goes in, puts fuel in, you would know exactly how much fuel has come in, you would know how much the payment has happened. So you can tie the two together.

Bal Ahir: That's a great point.

Abdullah Pandit: Bal, you'll remember when we went earlier this year to the consumer electronic show in Vegas, as we think about in-car payments, there are a number of participants in this chain. So obviously there's a auto OEM, there are the consumers, then there are all the participants who are, or the merchants who are providing services. So fuel as an example, gas station is a partner, uh, parking, it could be the council or the garage who's providing that particular data point. So when we think about all these participants, how important, Bal, is this partnership ecosystem in solving or addressing this gap?

Bal Ahir: Great question. And uh, it's very clear having, looking at the mobility area of CES that fundamentally in terms of a sector undergoing transformation, everything is still too playful. And that's been the theme for some time. And what's also very, very apparent is that no individual organization will be able to run this transformation directly themselves, and therefore the role of partnerships, even when those partners may actually be your competitors, is absolutely critical. And CES highlighted and showcased a number of partnership, best practice, uh, use cases, but that's enough for me. Abdullah, you really drive this space and lead this space. So who are we working with and-and what are we doing?

Abdullah Pandit: So if you think about in car payments, you have merchants, you have the automotive and you have the payment wallet, which is what we're providing. And then there is the identity piece, which really Qualcomm is solving for. So we are very used to using our mobile phone and making payment from that. But the relationship between the owner and the mobile phone is one to one. Like there's one owner who owns one mobile phone and is pretty clear who owns the mobile phone. With the car complexity comes is, I could be driving the car, my partner could be driving the car, my kids could be driving the car. And automatically how does that payment mechanism tie in with the identity of who's enrolled into or logged into the car at that time is quite critical. So our partnership with Qualcomm really focuses on the identity piece, which Qualcomm provides and the payment processes and processing, which we as J.P. Morgan is providing. And we together packages as a one-stop shop for automotives. And through that, what we are really hoping for is, we reduce time to market for, uh, new automotive who want to build out these capabilities. Qualcomm is deeply penetrated in the automotive ecosystem from a hardware perspective, this is sort of taking the next leap into the software space. So there's a huge opportunity as two market leaders to come together and address a gap in the market. And we really believe this could work for a number of use cases, not just for commercial vehicles or passenger vehicles, but also for rental vehicles where I go in, log into a car for the first time and my payment credentials are there to make any use cases happen. So that's what we showcased earlier this year, what we did with Qualcomm. Besides Qualcomm, we are also addressing a number of other use cases in the market. We talked about EV charging earlier. We are partnering with some of the leading EV charging manufacturers and EMSPs mobility service providers both in Europe and the U.S. and trying to bring together easy joint propositions for the market so that we can go live faster and provide not just the payments element, but also other elements. Some of our clients are looking for, for example, discovery of EV charges and then going beyond EV charging, order ahead, we have worked with the likes of Mavi who are really shaping the space in the U.S. and also fuel aggregators like ride in Europe and P 97 in the U.S. So we as J.P. Morgan are very in an enviable position to be speaking to a number of these participants across our day-to-day work. And now we're trying to bring it together as one joint proposition to our clients. And talking about clients, Bal, maybe you can spend a bit more time on what our clients are really asking for and what they're looking for and where they are in this journey.

Bal Ahir: The way I'd summarize this in all the dialogue that we've had with clients, customers that are looking into this space is, is really twofold. Firstly, they really appreciate through this partnership what we can bring to them in terms of in expertise. And that translates into two areas really. So J.P. Morgan invests in this space, and our clients are able to leverage that investment in a space that is still pretty unknown. So with all the uncertainty that's going on at the client side, this is one area that they can almost delegate to us and our expertise and bring this competence in, via a variable cost rather than having to make the upfront, uh, investment. And Abdullah that really resonates with the, with the customer. And so that one area definitely resonates. The other area that definitely resonates with the client is they really appreciate the role the bank is playing in this space in taking such a strategic view, and also, quite frankly, acting as a partner in this space by attempting to resolve, uh, uh, an element of the equation. And one thing the clients that you know, regularly tell me is, of course this makes sense, it's gonna take a bank to come along and resolve the space of payments when it comes to in-vehicle transactions.

Abdullah Pandit: So while we talk about the opportunity of in-vehicle payments, number of challenges still exist, right? We talked about authentication, but there's also a level of standardization that needs to happen. And when I say standardization, I'm going to pivot back to the mobile phone example. There are essentially two big app stores. One is the iOS app store, apple App store that consumers are used to, and the other one is the Android one. And any new feature, any new app that comes in are built onto those two standards right now for automotive, there's no such standard that exists. There's no real app store which exists that automotives can plug into and suddenly get access to a number of those apps that customers can download or make use of in the car. At this stage, each automotive OEM is billing out their own use cases slightly different. And I think for this to scale across the globe, across brands, across cars, you will see a level of standardization that needs to happen. So I think we're seeing that, but it will take time. The identity and authentication factor is also a significant challenge that needs to be overcome. Uh, and that's one of the things we are working with Qualcomm on. So I think we're probably more informed in that space on where we are and how we can address that. But I think that's becomes very critical, to make sure that the payments are not just seamless and frictionless in the car, but they're also secure.

Bal Ahir: Right, right. Yeah, it makes sense that it is not just resolving one pain point, it's resolving a number of pain points for it to start getting, uh, adoption, and then adoption generates some level of standardization. The other topic that really comes to mind is, and it's the classic topic, but the most fundamental one in this journey of standardization and in-vehicle payments, who owns the customer?

Abdullah Pandit: That's the question we get asked every time. That's what I thought I'd ask you, who owns the customer? So obviously as the device you're sitting in is the car the car manufacturer owns the customer in a way, but they're not the only ones. There is gonna be a level of shared identity across multiple ecosystem partners. So I think for me, this whole question of ownership of a customer is sort of, is more theoretical than in real life. I think there this is a space where multiple participants have to come together to build a solution for the consumer so that it's efficient for them. And in doing that, the real owner of the customer is the customer themselves on where and how they want their data to be shared across multiple participants and make sure that allows them to offer the most seamless experience they can get. Now, we talked a lot about, about what's happening, what's in the market, what excites you, what mobility innovations are you most looking forward to?

Bal Ahir: Great question. The one that really excites me, the one where we can clearly see traction, and the one that is in my humble opinion, the closest in terms of scaling is actually the EV charging use case. EV charging is not an analog experience. Ev charging is a digital experience. There's this great line that I saw at CES, which is from pumps to platforms, which just summarizes the, the difference between fueling to, to EV charging. So if you've got a smart charger, the charger has a software stack, you've got a smart car, the car has a software stack, you've got a smart cable that enables the charger and the car to communicate, then if the vehicle is a payment device, that to even a, uh, simpleton like myself, I can understand that we're not too far away from an experience where the customer will be able to pay for their EV charging session from within the vehicle. And that has a number of benefits for the ecosystem for the individual driver. And I really believe this one innovation is gonna really support the adoption of electric vehicles.

Abdullah Pandit: Oh, absolutely. I think EV charging as an industry is pretty nascent, like maybe 10 years ago, uh, in Europe and maybe it's even less so in us. So from a, uh, adapting or changing consumer behavior perspective, I think it's relatively easier to do, given the behavior might not be as well, well-formed as some of the other use cases we've talked about. So in that sense, I think that use case will be very important as we look or as we think about scaling the in-vehicle payments volumes over the next few years.

Bal Ahir: It's an exciting time. Abdullah, thank you so much for being here and sharing your insights with us all.

Abdullah Pandit: Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.

Bal Ahir: And thank you to our listeners for tuning into making Sense. We hope you'll join us again soon.

Voiceover: Want to dive deeper into the future of payments, check out the latest issue of Payments Unbound by visiting jpmorgan.com/payments/paymentsunbound. You can also find the link on our episode page or directly in the description of your favorite podcast platform.

J.P. Morgan and third parties listed on this page have not entered into a legal partnership to provide the services described above. Third party trademarks, brand names, and descriptions of products and services that appear on this page are provided by the respective third party. J.P. Morgan is not liable or responsible for such trademarks, brand names, descriptions of products, companies and or services. J.P. Morgan may generate profit from the use of any services or products provided by the third parties. Nothing in this material shall be taken as an endorsement of any third party or advice on the suitability of the third party’s services for the client. You shall make an independent determination for selection of the services provided by the third parties. Neither J.P. Morgan, nor its affiliates, shall be liable to you for any loss or liability suffered by you from the use of the third party’s services.

The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of J.P. Morgan, its affiliates, or its employees. The information set forth herein has been obtained or derived from sources believed to be reliable. Neither the author nor J.P. Morgan makes any representations or warranties as to the information’s accuracy or completeness.  The information contained herein has been provided solely for informational purposes and does not constitute an offer, solicitation, advice or recommendation, to make any investment decisions or purchase any financial instruments, and may not be construed as such.

Any Future capabilities of mobility payment systems are under development; features and timelines are subject to change at the Bank’s sole discretion.

© 2025 JPMorgan Chase & Co. All rights reserved. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. Member FDIC. Deposits held in non-U.S. branches are not FDIC insured.  Non-deposit products are not FDIC insured. The statements herein are confidential and proprietary and not intended to be legally binding. Not all products and services are available in all geographical areas. Visit  jpmorgan.com/paymentsdisclosure for further disclosures and disclaimers related to this content.

[End of episode]