Visa’s new app will mean you can pay for petrol without leaving your car
The Western world's quick decline into obesity was accelerated today by news that Visa has created new services whereby drivers can pay for fuel and parking without even leaving their car.
The financial services firm has teamed up with Honda to create one of the apps, which can be accessed from the car's dashboard. It unveiled the new concept at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today.
Not only can you now avoid the arduous trek to the petrol station shop and back, you can save on mental effort too – the app tells you when your petrol is low, navigates you to the nearest place to fill up and calculates the exact cost.
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Visa also showcased another new offering, in partnership with ParkWhiz, which allows people to pay the exact price for their parking spot without under or overpaying.
"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 at 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."
This is not the first time that Visa has stretched people's laziness capabilities. Last year it teamed up with Pizza Hut to trial an app whereby people could order a pizza from their car and have someone deliver it to them once it's ready.
Visa said it is trialling the fuel app concept in northern California and the parking app concept in New York City over a three-month period, starting this spring.