Mercedes-Benz has partnered with Mastercard to introduce a new payment system into its cars, whereby an owner only has to press a finger on the MBUX infotainment system in order to pay for fuel and other products.
According to the German marque, the technology will work on any MBUX system manufactured from 2020 onwards, with the built-in fingerprint sensor enabling biometric two-factor authentication – a bit like your face might when using Apple Pay, for example.
The secure digital payment system currently works at more than 3,600 "connected" service stations throughout Germany. As soon as the driver reaches a compatible connected service station and switches off the engine, the Mercedes Me Fuel & Pay app will start automatically on the MBUX infotainment system.
From here, the owner can then fill up at the nearest pump, with the system intelligently calculating the maximum total amount of fuel required based on the current fuel price and the amount of fuel when the tank is full.
Once topped up, the driver simply presses a finger to the screen, a digital receipt is issued to a stored email address and they can drive away – negating the need to authorize through a smartphone.
Coming to the rest of Europe soon
According to Mercedes-Benz, this fingerprint payment authorization represents the first use case for native in-car payments at the point of sale.
In addition to this, Mercedes-Benz is the world's first automaker to integrate Mastercard's Secure Card on File for Commerce platform into a car. This technology allows for transaction data to be encrypted using uniquely assigned cryptograms.
The technology is currently only available in Germany, but Mercedes-Benz has stated it plans to extend fingerprint payments to other vehicle-related services and to other European markets in the near future.
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