Lauren Goode, writing for The Verge:
ExxonMobil today said it would start accepting Apple Pay as a form of payment at around 6,000 ExxonMobil gas stations around the U.S, something that Apple CEO Tim Cook had said was coming during the company’s first quarter earnings call.
However, these Apple Pay payments won’t be tap-to-pay, unlike the experience at almost every other point-of-sale system that works with Apple Pay. In this case, Apple Pay will be integrated into Exxon’s existing Speedpass+ app, which is free to download and uses your geolocation to pull up local pumps. A customer can drive up to the pump, enter the pump number within the Speedpass+ app, and use his or her thumbprint to authorize payment through Apple Pay.
Interesting that you can’t just wave your phone or Apple Watch at the pump to enable payment. Anyone know why?
Update: Reader Erick Erickson pointed me to this Fast Company article, which explains:
Instead of telling gas stations to replace or upgrade pumps—which would have involved $30,000-$40,000 of expenses and major disruption to operations—ExxonMobil is piggybacking on two years’ worth of work it’s already invested in its Speedpass+ app, which has been undergoing testing in five markets. Adding support for Apple Pay to the iPhone app, which also directly supports a variety of cards, was the easy part. All the stations have to do is install a software update on their payment system.
Still, not the same transparent process of simply holding up your Apple Watch to pay.
ExxonMobil said something about the time and expense that would be required to modify each individual pump.
Who the heck is going to use this? What’s in it for the consumer? If I get a 10¢ discount per gallon, I may consider:
1) Downloading the app
2) Creating an account
3) Launching app
4) Log into app
5) Determine what pump number I’m at
6) Enter pump number
7) …
8) Pay via Apple Pay within the app
If I’m anywhere near a Meijer here in the Midwest, they get my business. I just put my thumb on my TouchID sensor and hold it next to the sensor. Done.
I’m betting that the reader in the pumps only works with the unpowered, read-only RFID chip in the fob – like a toll road transponder. I assume they’d have to install a secure and robust NFC system and have it communicate back to the ApplePay device. I don’t know how much this would cost (and what the cost/benefit ratio would be) but considering how few retailers have adopted NFC at this point (or even chip readers) I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Wonder why they require steps 2-4. That I dont have to setup a card with my account and use the in-app payment is convenient. It’d be killer with the Apple Watch but there is no GPS and in-app payment there yet.
Wow, $30,000 to $40,000 per gas station!? I suspect much of that is labor as actual hardware (even if it’s custom) can’t possibly cost all that much.
I just hope Exxon Mobile is also close to rolling out NFC payment pumps for new gas stations as well.
My suspicion is that that pricing means “new pumps”, since that’s about the cost of four new pump stations.
Probably the POS hardware in the pump units isn’t very modular or upgradable to do NFC contactless without just replacing the whole thing (or it’d be, in practice, cheaper to just replace than to pull them apart, pull it, re-integrate, etc.)
(In an ideal world it’d be modular, but nothing in the embedded space is that ideal, from experience.
And there are probably regulatory hurdles, is my guess, in “just replace the POS component”.)
I’m a loyal ExxonMobil customer, filling at their stations almost exclusively. This is largely due to the ease and convenience of the Speedpass. The first major company to offer me ApplePay at the pump gets my (admittedly meager) business.
Of course, all this is moot if I buy a Tesla Model 3!