When Apple Pay was introduced back in Oct 2014, many were sceptical. Today, 16-month later, the scepticism remains. However, ExxonMobil may be able to change that with its newly launched service – pay for your fuel at any of its 6,000 gas stations using Apple Pay – starting today. Well, actually, you still need to install ExxonMobil’s Speedpass+ apps.
In a way, the purchasing of petrol is not entirely using Apple Pay but rather ExxonMobil’s own apps. Although the app is available on Android devices and not merely iPhone, it doesn’t work with Samsung Pay or Google’s payment service, at least not now. For now, ExxonMobil wanted to focus on Apple Pay for obvious reason.
One of the reasons why Apple Pay was slow in the “adoption” process is due to the fact that Apple doesn’t own and couldn’t control the hardware at the merchant ends. Even ExxonMobil was facing difficulty replacing existing payment terminals with the right technology, despite owning the pump stations.
While Americans can buy fuel in more than 6,000 ExxonMobil gas stations across 46 U.S. states now, the service will be added to about 2,000 more stores by mid-year and will be available in nearly all of the company’s 10,000 locations by the end of 2016. But you can’t just wave your iPhone or Apple Watch at a reader on the pump.
The conventional method of paying using Apple Pay was to wave your iPhone 6 or later device at a register. Transparent to users, the phone talks to the register using NFC technology and make the purchases without having the users to enter credit card information each time because users would have uploaded credit or debit card information to Apple Pay’s “mobile wallet” prior.
With the new method introduced by ExxonMobil, Apple Pay isn’t in control but the world’s biggest oil and gas company is. Apple Pay is just an option within ExxonMobil’s Speedpass+ app. The app uses GPS to track your location and determine which gas station you’re visiting. You select the pump number and confirm the purchase using the iPhone’s Touch ID fingerprint reader.
As demonstrated by CNET, in places where cellular connection 3G / 4G isn’t available hence the geo-location doesn’t work, you can scan a QR code using your phone’s camera at the pump or search in the app for your location. You have roughly 45-second to start pumping otherwise the app will time out and you have to start the process all over again.
After your business is done, the pump will then dispense a paper receipt in the normal way, and you’ll also be able to track purchases in the app. Interestingly, ExxonMobil in the United States has its own contactless Speedpass system but they are incompatible. The app also allows you to purchase car washes.
To be fair, ExxonMobil isn’t the first gas station chain to integrate with Apple Pay. Last year, Chevron partnered with VISA to bring NFC technology to gas pumps in California, allowing “tap and pay” with Apple Pay, Google’s Android Pay or Samsung Pay at more than 20 stations around San Francisco and Silicon Valley. So, the deployment was quite limited.
If the latest experiment by ExxonMobil works flawlessly, other players such as British Petroleum, Caltex, Shell and other local brands may start introducing the same concept of payment system – worldwide.
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March 9th, 2016 by financetwitter
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