Visa, Pizza Hut testing ‘connected’ car; order, pay from cars — without phones

New York -- Visa Inc., Pizza Hut and Accenture have teamed up to develop a connected car to test mobile and online purchases on the go. The connected car is expected to feature Visa Checkout (Visa’s online payment service), cellular connectivity, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), and Beacon technology deployed at Pizza Hut restaurants to alert staff when the customer has arrived and is ready to pick up the order. Accenture is managing the integration of the technologies.



Visa says Visa Checkout would allow consumers to order food from the dashboard of the car, with Interactive Voice Response (IVR) to let the driver order and authenticate purchases while keeping both hands on the steering wheel. The partners expect to test the connected car commerce experience in Northern California, over a three-month period, starting this spring.



“By 2020 it is estimated that more than 250 million vehicles worldwide will include some form of embedded connectivity,” said Bill Gajda, senior VP of Innovation and Strategic Partnerships, Visa Inc. “As the number of connected cars on the road increases, so does our ability to bring secure online commerce to consumers everywhere. We initially focused on a specific use case – ordering a meal on your way home – but we envision a world where consumers can seamlessly make many of their everyday purchases from the car.”



Pizza Hut has already integrated Visa Checkout as a checkout option on pizzahut.com. As part of the connected car trial, the company now will provide in-car access to menus, delivery and pick-up options as well as test in-restaurant “beacon technology” to notify team members when the customer’s car has arrived.



“We’re committed to offering speed and convenience to our customers when ordering online and this new connected car technology is the latest way for us to do that,” said Baron Concors, chief digital officer, Pizza Hut. “We have the largest suite of mobile apps and are proud to be the exclusive pizza company to offer Visa Checkout, so with our history of innovation, it only made sense for us to be the first to test the beacon.”



Visa is demonstrating its “connected car commerce” at Mobile World Congress, March 2-5 in Barcelona, Spain.