Banking Tech Awards 2022 Finalist: Car IQ
Car IQ, has been selected as a finalist in the Best Smart Banking Tech Solution – Innovation category in the Banking Tech Awards 2022.
Car IQ
Car IQ®, a leading provider of vehicle payment solutions, has created a new payment solution, that is the first step towards advancing machine banking. Car IQ’s contactless and secure payment solution, Car IQ Pay, allows vehicles to transact securely with merchants and service providers without the use of a credit card. The company’s proprietary technology creates a unique identity for each vehicle that is trusted by banks and enables the vehicle to pay for their fuel or services without a credit card.
Car IQ Pay authenticates a vehicle as it pulls up to the pump, ensuring it can be trusted to transact based on sensor data and behavior. Car IQ Pay enforces specific fleet restrictions around spend, algorithmic logic tests and adherence to fleet controls creating further security for the payment experience.
The process is simple: the driver enters the pump number, Car IQ unlocks the pump, the driver fuels the car and drives away. Car IQ manages the process of payment to the merchant as well as validation of the fuel the vehicle received. This process eliminates chargebacks and disputes that can happen in human reliant transactions.
Car IQ is currently focused on bringing Car IQ Pay to fleets. Partners and customers include Blackberry, Shell, Sunoco, Kum & Go, Visa and Discover.
CEO and Founder Sterling Pratz recognized the lack of innovation and consistency within the connected car space, specifically around automotive payment solutions which led him to start his second company, Car IQ. He saw the need and fintech opportunities for a secure payment network that connects vehicles and enables them to transact securely with merchants and service providers.
Existing payment methods can be costly to manage, difficult to reconcile, and prone to fraud. Fleets cannot authenticate an actual vehicle, service need, or validate that the vehicle received a billed-for service. This can create security risks for the fleet operator, merchant, and payment network.
Car IQ eliminates the need for credit cards by enabling vehicles to connect to merchants and transact securely. What sets the Car IQ Pay solution apart is its ability to combine vehicles and payments in a way that creates a secure and trusted transaction that produces a rich data set for customers.
Founded in 2016 Car IQ has grown exponentially over the past few years as a fintech company that is delivering a seamless and secure way to utilize the car as a payment mechanism. Car IQ’s mission is to enable machines to not only communicate with merchants and banks but enable them to transact securely.
There are billions of transactions each day that use a process called “KYC”, Know Your Customer which knows everything about the person. But that doesn't apply when a car transacts. Car IQ created another form of identity verification called “KYM”, Know Your Machine, that uses the data from the vehicle as well as what is learned from the data around the vehicle to create an identity. That “identity” is used to authenticate the vehicle with both the bank and the merchant, so that it can transact securely.
This year, the company has secured agreements with fuel companies including Shell, Sunoco and Kum & Go making Car IQ Pay an accepted form of payment at more than 15K fuel stations across the United States. Car IQ has multiple fleet customers ranging in size from 5-100 to those that manage fleets of 1,000 or more vehicles. Car IQ recently partnered with EverWash, a leading car wash membership platform in the United States, to allow fleets to pay for washes at their 800+ car wash locations nationwide without a credit card.
Car IQ continues to add merchants to the platform to provide more choice for their customers and deliver a better way for fleets to manage their spend by enabling vehicles to pay directly for goods and services.