FISERV, AMAZON LAUNCH PAY BY VOICE FOR EXXONMOBIL

Fiserv has rolled out pay-by-voice capability using Alexa, Amazon’s cloud-based voice assistant service, at 11,500 Exxon and Mobil stations in the United States. The partnership leverages Fiserv’s ability to initiate a payment and unlock an unattended fuel dispenser from inside a vehicle with technology to detokenize payments and blend them with all other card payments a merchant accepts. Fiserv (through its First Data business unit) was the pioneer in this kind of payment processing.

Over 150 million consumers in the U.S. already have credit and debit cards as well as ACH details on file for use on Amazon.com. The company is actively expanding the utility of these relationships through Amazon Pay.

At Exxon and Mobil stations, “Alexa pay for gas” payments can be initiated without requiring any additional download. The ability to initiate tokenized card payments is native to Alexa and can be initiated at the pump by many devices, which include mobile phones (via the Amazon Alexa app,) Echo Auto, and Echo earbuds, as well as GM, BMW, and other vehicles with in-dash integrations. Amazon claimed last year that more than 100 million devices (including smart displays, phones, earbuds, vehicles, Echo auto devices, and speakers) with Alexa on board have been sold.

At Exxon and Mobil stations, Alexa-using consumers will pull up to the pump and initiate a payment using the phrase “Alexa, pay for my gas.” Alexa will connect to Fiserv to identify the gas station and request confirmation from the consumer of that station as well as the pump number before authorizing the transaction and unlocking the pump. Alexa informs the consumer when the pump is ready.

Fiserv’s decryption service for Amazon Pay tokens allows for the pay-by-voice service to go live in every Exxon and Mobil station immediately without requiring any effort from owners of individual franchises.

What Fiserv said its “above site-to-site level” authorization service was launched to support ExxonMobil’s Speedpass+ mobile payment service. Speedpass+ has subsequently been incorporated into the ExxonMobil mobile app.

Other companies using Fiserv’s remote authorization service for payments at the pump include Wex, which facilitates payments at several merchants via its DriverDash application.

Amazon and ExxonMobil are customers of Fiserv for merchant acquiring. Fiserv and Amazon are expected to bring pay-by-voice capability to other fuel retailers as well as other verticals like grocery, retail, and quick-service restaurants.

Interviewed for this article

Scott Mackay is VP of Global Digital Commerce Solutions at Fiserv in Atlanta, Georgia, scott.mackay@fiserv.com, www.fiserv.com.

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