Mercedes drivers in Germany can now authorise in-car payments for digital services and on-demand hardware upgrades using a fingerprint sensor on their vehicle’s dashboard without needing to enter a PIN or use an additional mobile device to verify a transaction.

Mercedes has integrated fingerprint sensors into the MBUX head unit and infotainment centre of vehicles in its EQS and EQE series, its S-Class and C-Class and the recently launched GLC, enabling owners to complete strong customer authentication (SCA) compliant transactions from an eligible Visa debit or credit card using the Mercedes Pay+ platform.

“Customers can use native in-car payment to pay for digital services that allow a more convenient and entertaining driving experience,” the vehicle manufacturer explains.

“They can activate and subscribe to these digital services from the car’s MBUX infotainment system and authorise the payment transaction with their fingerprint. Examples of these digital services are connectivity apps that control comfort functions of the car, such as pre-air conditioning of the vehicle via a mobile device.

“Upgrades to the vehicle software can easily be activated and paid for via fingerprint, like, for example, advanced navigation services that provide information on the weather or available parking spaces at [the] customer’s destination.

“In addition, the Mercedes me Store offers the ability to unlock pre-installed hardware components easily on-demand by fingerprint in the car. For example, a vehicle owner can subscribe to the remote parking assist, a service to park the vehicle remotely with a smartphone, or activate and pay for the adaptive highbeam assist or the rear axle steering with larger steering angle with only one touch.”

The system uses Visa’s cloud-based token framework and delegated authentication service to support SCA compliance and will add support for cards issued by other networks later this year.

Mercedes also plans to add support for biometric native in-car payments for other vehicle-related services including fuelling, and to roll out the Mercedes Pay+ service to other European markets “in 2023”, the car manufacturer says.

It originally unveiled its plans to roll out in-vehicle biometric payments using fingerprint recognition technology in November 2021.

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