Discover and Car IQ have created a machine-initiated payment platform for automotive fleets, allowing them to automatically pay for services such as service/repair, tolls, fuel, insurance, parking and more.

Car IQ has developed a touchless machine payment platform, which once a service is complete, has vehicles generate an automated payment file for Discover to be paid via a virtual card transaction over the Discover Commercial Payments Network.

This collaboration represents a new method for payment authentication to simplify the payment management of any vehicle, according to Discover. This method enables payments to have regulatory and security elements, creating a comprehensive banking and risk management solution specifically designed for vehicles.

“Machine-initiated payments is an expanding frontier that will increase volume over our network and simplify the payment management and accounting processes for fleet customers,” said Bill Dulin, vice president of network solutions at Discover. “Car IQ’s perspective on machine identity will support an emerging payment category in machine-to-machine or IoT payments, and coupled with the Discover payment and blockchain expertise, we are creating solutions with emerging technology that will redefine the customer’s expectations.”

This advance of allowing a vehicle to pay for services on its seeks to simplify fleet payments by making the vehicle accountable for handling the day-to-day payments automatically.

“We believe the future is machine banking where cars and IoT systems are able to connect and pay for services directly with banks and payment networks,” said Sterling Pratz, Car IQ founder and CEO. “We are excited to partner with Discover as the payment provider for our proprietary identity verification process to deliver authenticated and trusted transactions directly to their payment network, and drive towards the future."