BlackBerry To Turn Cars Into Mobile Wallets That Pay For Fuel, Tolls, And More

BlackBerry will partner with a U.S. company to turn vehicles into so-called mobile ‘wallets.’

The software specialist and former cellphone giant has announced an agreement with Calfornia’s Car IQ that will tap into connected car payments. It is reported that the system will involve Car IQ’s financial software being linked with BlackBerry’s in-vehicle ‘edge’ computing that processes data at the site rather than transmitting it elsewhere for processing. The system will also provide access to various vehicle sensors.

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The system will create a unique ‘digital fingerprint’ for the vehicle, allowing it to securely connect to a bank’s payment network and autonomously pay for frequently used services including fuel, tolls, parking, insurance, maintenance, and other ‘wallet’ capabilities.

“We are delighted to demonstrate the value of BlackBerry IVY’s end-to-end offering for this market through our partnership with Car IQ,” said vice president of IVY Product and Ecosystem at BlackBerry, Peter Virk. “Access to sensor data and edge computing will allow for an incredibly secure in-vehicle payments solution.”

“We are excited to accelerate the time-to-market of our latest in-vehicle payment solution and to capture share of the connected car payments market by leveraging the BlackBerry IVY platform,” added chief executive and founder of Car IQ Sterling Pratz. “With BlackBerry IVY we can now fully embed our solution on a common platform in the vehicle, allowing us to not only provide the highest level of security, but also greatly reduce complexity for banks and merchants.”