Visa Debuts Fuel App Featuring Car-Based Commerce

SAN FRANCISCO — Convenience store and gas station customers could soon have a new technologically advanced experience at the pump.

Visa Inc. announced it will introduce the Fuel App concept as part of its larger Visa Token Service to auto manufacturers. According to Visa, Fuel App detects when a car is low on fuel and navigates the driver to nearby gas stations. Once the car is parked next to the pump, the app takes it one step further as it knows the exact amount of gas needed to fill the tank and can calculate the cost to fill up.

Fuel App also allows the driver to purchase c-store items with full integration of discount and loyalty/rewards programs.

San Francisco-based Visa debuted the app at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, on Feb. 22, in partnership with Honda. The app features Visa Checkout, the company’s online payment service.

“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, Visa. “Working with Honda to test these prototypes gets us another step closer toward commercial reality, which we think provides exciting opportunities to everyone who plays a role in the payments and automotive ecosystems.”

Also as part of the Visa Token Service, it will introduce the Parking App concept. In partnership with on-demand parking app ParkWhiz, this app helps a driver pay only for the time used parking at off-street parking spots, and is intended to help avoid under- or overpayment. Once a parking session has ended, the elapsed time and amount paid are shown on the car’s dashboard, requiring the driver to simply press a button to complete the transaction.