Unlock the future of transactions as you ride along with Tom Nipper, Global Head of Energy and Mobility at JP Morgan Payments and Markus Kuhnt, Co-Founder and Chief Technologist of Starfish, two titans in the realm of mobility and in-vehicle payments. They don't just predict the next wave of consumer convenience, they're creating it. Our conversation weaves through the intricate network of digital payment technologies that are transforming your car into an extension of your wallet. Imagine breezing through transaction points as if they were green lights, thanks to the innovative partnership between JP Morgan Payments and Starfish that's steering the industry towards a frictionless payment experience.
This episode is a journey through the rapidly evolving ecosystem of automotive OEMs and how they're engaging with consumers well beyond the showroom floor. With vehicles becoming platforms for secure and seamless buying experiences, the industry faces the challenge of aligning with futuristic transportation, such as autonomous driving, while maintaining a user experience that rivals leading mobile wallet providers. We navigate the complex roads of EV charging and biometric advances with insights that shine headlights on the importance of customer-centric design in mobility payment solutions. Buckle up for a ride into a future where every stop is an opportunity for a transaction as smooth as your drive.
Unlock the future of transactions as you ride along with Tom Nipper, Global Head of Energy and Mobility at JP Morgan Payments and Markus Kuhnt, Co-Founder and Chief Technologist of Starfish, two titans in the realm of mobility and in-vehicle payments. They don't just predict the next wave of consumer convenience, they're creating it. Our conversation weaves through the intricate network of digital payment technologies that are transforming your car into an extension of your wallet. Imagine breezing through transaction points as if they were green lights, thanks to the innovative partnership between JP Morgan Payments and Starfish that's steering the industry towards a frictionless payment experience.
This episode is a journey through the rapidly evolving ecosystem of automotive OEMs and how they're engaging with consumers well beyond the showroom floor. With vehicles becoming platforms for secure and seamless buying experiences, the industry faces the challenge of aligning with futuristic transportation, such as autonomous driving, while maintaining a user experience that rivals leading mobile wallet providers. We navigate the complex roads of EV charging and biometric advances with insights that shine headlights on the importance of customer-centric design in mobility payment solutions. Buckle up for a ride into a future where every stop is an opportunity for a transaction as smooth as your drive.
Welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast, where we talk to C-level leaders from across the payments landscape. We'll be discussing the products and services that impact the payment space today, as well as trends and predictions for the future of payments. We will also hear stories from our guests about their journeys to the top.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone, we've got a great special episode this week that I'm very excited about. We're going to be talking about mobility and in-vehicle payments, providing you, the audience, with the definition and the status of in-vehicle payments, what problem it actually solves from the consumer perspective, as well as how the partnership between JP Morgan and Starfish can help clients. So, with that as the background, let's meet our guests. First off, tom Nipper, global Head of Energy and Mobility from JP Morgan, and Marcus Kunt, the co-founder and chief technologist from Starfish. So, tom, over to you, give us a brief overview of your background. And JP Morgan, sure and Greg thank you for having me.
Speaker 3:So I've been in the retail petrol market for close to 22 years helping clients with payments, always been intrigued by how consumers buy products and services, pay at the pump, technology, things around that nature and a couple of ways that we as consumers like to shop, and I've always been intrigued by it. Spent a lot of time meeting with clients, would go to see stores to see how cashiers dealt with consumers around payments etc. And I could see mobility coming more forward and digital payments and things of that nature, and two years ago I moved into this role. It's more on a global scale, working with clients around how we buy products and services as we are doing our daily journeys.
Speaker 2:Okay, great Marcus, over to you for a brief overview of your background in Starfish.
Speaker 4:Right, it's really exciting being here on the show today. So, as Greg said, my name is Marcus Kuhn. I'm the co-founder of Starfish, chief technologist and probably here for my accent. I'm German, deep into payments and tech since a long time. This is also the background I bring into the equation. I see the payments industry from a technology product perspective, having sub-advisory in my backpack, and this got me started bringing Starfish to life, which is a technology services company headquartered in Germany but based around the world. We are really excited about tackling the tough challenges of businesses that they're facing today with collaborative innovation. We call it this. Collaborative innovation means we have dedicated teams of experts from around the globe which are leveling up the game of payment facilitation these days. I'm super happy to be here today to share some of the insights that we've gained over the last years on our journey on that regard with you today, and I'm really happy to be invited here, greg, looking forward to this conversation.
Speaker 2:Great, great Well, thank you both for being here. So, tom, why are JP Morgan and Starfish on this podcast here together?
Speaker 3:Well, if you think about it a couple, of ways that we all, as I like to say, meet at the client. Jp Morgan, we're in the payments industry. Consumers trust us for secure payments. We work with clients around accepting payments and buying experiences, and technology is a key piece of that. So a lot of the products and services we bring to market align closely with great tech partners like Starfish. So, as we think about these sorts of things, marcus and I often collaborate, because one of the things we all see as providers of services globally is we meet at the client, and the more that we work together, the more we understand products and services and can bring a combined solution that brings value. The better it is for everyone.
Speaker 2:Okay, and Marcus, anything to add there?
Speaker 4:Yes, as Tom said, it's really delighting to see how that collaboration works and how impressive it is actually that we are able to produce stellar solutions for our clients where we meet in a very short period of time. We produce value together very fast and this is something that really drives us forward.
Speaker 2:Okay, and as you guys obviously know, mobile commerce and in-vehicle payments has been around for a while and you know it gets some attention in the press and occasionally gets covered at industry events. But I think it's important to level set here on what it actually is, and also there are some differences between what's going on in Europe versus the US, so we're going to go into that as well. So, Marcus, we're going to start with you. Can you define what is meant by mobility or in-vehicle payments?
Speaker 4:Yeah, sure, I think it's very important to get that definition right from the beginning, because there's a lot of talks and a lot of discussion and opinions out there and to have a proper conversation today, I think it makes sense to really define that properly. So mobility payments obviously need to address the need to seamlessly do financial transactions while moving from different or between different locations and while utilizing various means of transportation, such as ride-sharing, public transit or cars or everything that you're used to. And naturally these transactions involve multiple parties you interact with and, of course, interacting on different locations, leading to typically an increased friction in the payment process or in the transactional process. So mobility payments typically tries to set the goal to enable individuals to pay easily and conveniently for their transportation needs, often through what we call mobile services or integrated payment systems. That's the general aspect of mobility payments.
Speaker 4:And within that bigger topic of mobility payments, we do see what we call in-vehicle, in-car payments, which is actually a representation of such a payment system integrated payment system and it's designed to run transactions conducted directly from within the vehicle and this is typically also facilitated by features and kind of aspects of the car, like, for example, an integrated infotainment system. So you can think of it as a like a mobile wallet on wheels that essentially in-car payment is, and with that the drivers, co-drivers, rear seat passengers, everybody in the car around the car is able to make purchases as part of the car experience in a way that is compliant also with driver distraction regulation. So, with that said, there's a lot of services already out there, for example, fueling, on-demand features, parking tolling, what's not and this is kind of the heart, the cornerstone of what commerce around the car and the car.
Speaker 2:Okay, and Tom over to you. What's your view or definition of mobility or in-vehicle payments?
Speaker 3:Sure, and Mark has hit on some great points. I'll expand a bit to just think about all of us as consumers and what we call our daily journeys. We buy gas, we pick up dry cleaning, we go through the drive-through products and services throughout the day. Throughout the day, and as more modern vehicles are produced with technology that allows for the ability to have what we call your wallet on wheels or connected car, consumers demand experiences that are easy, that are the same payment, the same approach or maybe a subscription as we go about our daily journeys. So we've partnered with auto OEMs really globally to help enable payments, as a part of the auto manufacturer's objective, into having tighter and more one-to-one relationship with consumers, because the auto buying experience is also changing from a consumer's perspective.
Speaker 3:Before we bought the product or we bought a car from a dealer, et cetera, and then that was relatively it, except for service at the dealer location. You think about it. Now, with this technology and evolving of payments and experiences, autos now have one-to-one relationships with us. So I'm able to have a subscription service for, say, ev charging. There's a number of different ways that I can pay and have those experiences.
Speaker 3:So what we see in the market is this evolving technology combined with us as consumers demanding better buying and shopping experiences, with the payment really being invisible, but what it brings around is truly what one could consider to be a marketplace. It's me with one payment in my vehicle on my daily journey, buying services and products throughout the day, and as a result of that, that technology is in my car, I'm able to have a card on file and then proceed forward throughout the day as a piece of everything that we're doing. So for us, jpmorgan Payments, we see that as a very unique opportunity to service our clients and help them be relevant with consumers and, at the same time, leverage the opportunity to work more tightly with consumers.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I appreciate both of you kind of level setting on that definition. But, tom, we're going to stay with you for a minute. What are you seeing that is maybe unique about the US versus Europe?
Speaker 3:Sure, and it is an interesting point. Today, as we sit here in 2024, europe is further advanced in the EV market. It could be for a number of reasons, some governmental, et cetera. In the US, we're a bit behind and have a bit of ways to go. What I can say from the perspective of US versus Europe is, more importantly, the US is focused around how quickly we can buy products and services, how do we get to the next place and how timely can payment be made and yes, that's in Europe. But I think a couple of things that make it a bit different is the experience itself and how things play in that form. So what we see is more the US has some unique scenarios compared to Europe, but yet Europe has some advantages over the US at the moment. That you know. From our perspective, and certainly working with Starfish, we want to be a global partner to everyone.
Speaker 2:Okay, and Marcus, obviously you know the European market very well.
Speaker 4:So what can you add to what Tom has said so far? Very creative solution in Europe is due to various reasons. We'll quickly touch base on more on the how. We are a lot focused on kind of the solving the puzzle. Part of it and this comes back, I guess, to the fact that we in Europe have that, let's say, higher average population density on the continent. It's a very heterogeneous structure of countries and regulations, very dense, compact. We have pretty strong rules on privacy and data protection that you probably know of, and also the regulation around payments is pretty tightened up with PSD2 and strong customer authentication requirements. So what I want to say there's a lot of challenges or opportunities to triumph in that market, but this is also a good driver and an interesting field for innovation.
Speaker 4:This is definitely sad and you can see it with a little example.
Speaker 4:So if I'm the place I'm living, I can travel from my place across four different countries within a four-hour contract, so I can start here.
Speaker 4:I'm going to travel to Austria, we'll hit Switzerland and we'll then be in Italy soon. This is very, very dense and you know we have euro as a common currency here. That solves a lot of the issues, but still, on that trip there will be two currencies in play, like Swiss franc euros, that need to be integrated, and we have three tolling systems on the highways to integrate on that kind of journey that I have, and you can see, roaming is definitely a thing on this side of the Atlantic, which is probably the reason why we're good in terms of the means to solve those puzzles. But what we definitely need to learn from the US is bringing a bit more the why, bringing a bit more the ability to shape those ecosystems, to bring them together, to connect the dots, to produce what Tom was introducing as the seamless way of paying, a seamless way of transacting across these journeys. And this is where Europe definitely has some way to go.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, so I think we've level set on sort of the definition and obviously a little difference between the US and Europe. So with that background, let's now dive into the actual problem that is being solved here. So, tom, what problem or problems are actually being solved with this?
Speaker 3:Sure, if you think about the two sides of the conversation, right the consumer and the client you know we're all consumers. You know, as we noted earlier, we're looking for seamless experiences. Payments are truly invisible. It's about where I can get the best opportunity for buying products and services on the go. And then if you look at the auto OEM industry and the desire to have an ongoing relationship with us as a consumer, from a one-to-one consumer marketing perspective or contextual commerce, and be able to bring other businesses under the umbrella of an auto OEM and a subscription model, or as we like to refer to it, as a marketplace, and a couple of years ago JP Morgan invested in a business that brings together this and combines the technology and the opportunity for us as consumers, to have these buying experiences where I have my wallet on wheels and throughout my daily journey I can buy those products and services and at the end of the month my bill comes, it's on this account and the businesses that I visit are really marketplace at that point. And we're finding more and more marketplaces are becoming more mainstream in the US and in Europe and, as a result of that, where JP Morgan comes in and where we think we bring value is consumers see us as being able to safely store payments, credentials, to be able to provide payments on the marketplace, bring it back from where I bought the product and making everyone whole. So Mobility Payment Solutions is the product we have in the market and we're seeing really good success with consumers and clients and extending that out.
Speaker 3:Because if you think about EV charging, I pull up in front of the grocery store and I'm sure we've all seen this. If you have an EV or not, you're in your car, you're charging. You've got 20, 25 minutes of downtime Right. We're working with brands around contextual commerce, marketing opportunities, personalized one-to-one. Greg, you were in last week and you bought Diet Coke and candy bars. Come on in and get 20%. So the technology is moving quickly and for us, we find it important that JP Morgan be on the leading edge of contextual commerce marketplace and really the entire payments ecosystem and bringing all the parties together, and that's a role that we value and look forward to.
Speaker 2:Okay, marcus, do you agree or disagree with Tom there?
Speaker 4:I definitely agree on Tom's points. He kind of pointed it out very accurately. I just want to expand a bit on that automotive OEM perspective, which is kind of a problem space to apply solutions per se. It's very interesting because it's a great example of how a problem space is currently evolving. So if you think about in-vehicle payments, in-car payments or payments connected to the car, it's currently not fully clear which direction it will go. It has a great potential if you look into the numbers and the projections that you see out there.
Speaker 4:But currently the use cases are very limited around what typically was in the car already before. So charging, fueling, tolling, parking, all like well-known, well-understood use cases and this is good to solve them. And this is the starting point and we are here, together with JP Morgan, to solve them in a good timing, so to say. But what is also very interesting is to look how the OEM industry automotive OEM industry tries to solve that. And this is a pretty interesting response because their natural response to solve those problems they're going to be facing with their customers in those kind of connected marketplace situation as Tom Tom has described, then is they solve it with a feature of the car, so they add another kind of button to the car, let's say, where you can pay for something. This is certainly required, but this is a very engineer's perspective that you see here and this very engineer's perspective it's maybe also like due to the manner or the nature of that industry. But that does not mean that we necessarily solve customer problems at the end. So we solve like a first order problem, but the second order problem of the customer we need to look into more specifically, and this is one point we are working very strongly with our clients, together with JPM, to kind of get them an understanding. They need to reinvent how they define and address what a driving transportation experience will be in the future. You know, if you, for example, consider autonomous driving in the future, like where the car will do the heavy lifting of driving itself, driving a car will be more like a living room situation than sitting in the cockpit of the airplane. Right, currently, everything is going to focus on that airplane mode, driver distraction rules, everything has to be on steering wheel, whatnot. That will go away. So if that's a truth, that will come and the OEMs are working on that and the success is already pretty strong on that we need to find ways, how these OEMs can tell stories and solve problems that appear and are present in those situations, specifically if you have in mind that, without the travel restriction rules in place, the smartphones, the tablets and whatnot are in a very good position again with respect to transactions.
Speaker 4:So if you think about in-vehicle payments, in-car payments, where the car plays a specific role, we need to solve the puzzle what experiences there are that are worth solving from the car and will that also provide experiences that are dragging the people in, that are making it sticky so they stay with us, stay with the OEM and produce great transactions? So you can find a great analogy also in mobile wallets, for example. If you look at Apple and Google, both of them rolled out their mobile wallets a couple of years ago with their integrated payment systems and what you can see on their side, they did it basically the other way around. They did not come up with an XYZ pay at the beginning 2012 or something like that. They were creating an ecosystem first. They were creating experiences. First, they made sure people have their mobile phone reachable any time, they make sure it's sticky to them, it's easy to use and whatnot. With that, they were creating ecosystems and experiences. They gained reach and then they started to facilitate transactions and monetize the setup. So there's no point, for example, having Apple Pay in the store when you don't have the phone in reach. You need to have the phone and the experience around the phone first and with that you're great to make transactions.
Speaker 4:This is like a little of the complication we do see in solving those problems. We need to bring the OEMs, we need to bring the automotive industry, but also the connected service industry, in a position that they can start to reason about these future plans. They can start experiment with those plans, as Tom explained it, and with that, gain traction and build it out. And this is the proposition. We're also like a starfish, together with JPN, come into play and make them bring them a solution, a ready-made solution, such that it can get rid of that button in the car. They don't have to worry about that. This is a solved problem. But they need to move on into what the customer really drives, which is the experience in a car in the future. And this is definitely something where we're going to observe a lot of evolution and a lot of innovation and very interesting spins and turns down the road. Okay okay.
Speaker 2:Well, let's turn the conversation to clients, and you mentioned OEMs. So maybe talk about what you do, together with JP Morgan, to help clients, and maybe a good thing to do also would be maybe define who the clients are. I mean, obviously, oems make sense, but it sounds like there may be more than just OEMs. So maybe talk to us about the clients and then then, together with JP Morgan, what are you doing to help those clients?
Speaker 4:Yeah, we kind of already touched base on that ecosystem around us, like JP Morgan, starfish Together in that industry we kind of encountered a couple of different client types, let's say, and these clients are the ones that are obviously the automotive OEMs, the automakers moving into that new field of action with different levels of maturity. Obviously, this is the one side. The other side is what we call the tier ones, like suppliers to the automotive industry, which are not necessarily only in the payments or the incorrect infotainment system but also like in other goods and services that are integrated. These are also kind of plans we have conversations and interactions and project with to move them into that new sphere, to kind of produce offerings like capabilities. And finally, we definitely have a good relationship to service providers out there who kind of bring in value, which are basically the components the automakers and the creators of those experiences can start to wire up in lesson experiences.
Speaker 4:So, giving you one example EV charging. Tom already mentioned it. It's like if you just think about going to a charge point, going outside the car, plugging the cable in, starting the charge operation, coming back, unplugging the car, then you have to maybe tap your RFID card or whatnot to drive away. This is like one experience you can think of, but you can also kind of expand it and in projects we do, we do, for example, talk about how can we use the approach time to the charge point as a planning opportunity. So, like finding the right charge point, maybe also do a prepayment, a pre-authorization of a certain amount that the charging is already being paid for. You don't have to hassle around with RFID cards and whatnot. But also we can take into equation the question like what can I do at the price? I do the charging, because we all know charging is not a fueling operation. It will take 10, 15, 20 minutes, so we want to fill that time.
Speaker 4:Then we start to connect the dots to bring in other experiences on those marketplaces, such as the customer can't transact. And this is like one field of action, like making customer experiences happen based on the great platforms and products we have. The second side of the equation is obviously we need to have an ability to level up the network payments required to do the transactions ultimately. So if there's I don't know, like curbside delivery, a grocery store, a charging point and maybe also a parking spot involved, the money that's going to be collected from the customer has to be distributed. So we need to have good ways in order to kind of maintain those mobility ecosystems, to kind of distribute the funds accordingly. And this is the second part where we collaborate to make client operations much more smooth and seamless and kind of provide a greater value to our customers.
Speaker 2:Okay, and Tom, what are your thoughts on?
Speaker 3:this. Yes, I want to expand on what Marcus noted there because it's particularly interesting and this is where JP Morgan payments are area of expertise. In that example, I've got my connected car, I've ordered a takeout order of food. I pull up to the curbside pickup, the delivery is made to me. I've already paid in my connected car vehicle, I drive home and I've had dinner. That's on the pay inside and then on the pay outside it's the auto OEM settling services with the restaurant in this case and JP Morgan.
Speaker 3:We're involved in the flow of funds there from a marketplace aspect and this goes to the overall end to end of how we see mobility payment solutions and we find that to be a critical and integral piece of the overall ecosystem in order to make it work, to make the funds flow both pay in and pay out and that's an area that we think it continues to evolve and innovate. Marcus made an interesting point on different methods of payment. We're seeing some really unique things to speed that along, including the way consumers buy today, adding things like biometrics and how they're quicker, more secure, safe transactions in combination of the contextual commerce experience. You can see that the overall experience is evolving and changing and our companies together collaborate to meet at the client in this fast moving space. It's really intriguing and particularly entertaining.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, I feel like we could talk about this subject for hours. Unfortunately, we don't have hours for this one podcast, but I wanted to give the audience the ability to learn more. So, tom, how can the audience learn more about mobility and in-vehicle payments and about JP Morgan mobility payment solutions?
Speaker 3:Sure, they can certainly reach us on LinkedIn for more dialogue. But specifically, we've started a series of mobile experiences events. We're bringing together the players in the ecosystem from service providers, ev companies, grocery store brands, auto OEMs, energy companies, consumer retail, qsrs and what we call our Mobex experiences, and we're having one in Europe this year and we'll be having one in Detroit later this year. In Europe we'll be in Frankfurt. We'll bring together all the players in the ecosystem to talk about how we stay relevant with brands, how we stay relevant with consumers and how we can bring value in this ever-moving, ever-growing space. That's very, very important to all of us and one of the ways we see the value there is the more we're talking, the more we're collaborating, we're bringing value to the overall marketplace.
Speaker 2:Okay, great. And Marcus, how can the audience learn more about Starfish?
Speaker 4:Yeah, you definitely can also reach out to us on LinkedIn. You can find us there. I'm happy to answer your request. Maybe there's something you want to dive deeper into.
Speaker 4:This entire industry, as we discussed here, is in its move, in its early stage Also, you have to admit, it's like early days for all of that, and we do see there's a lot of misunderstanding and also uncertainty out in the market. So we decided to build what we call a future of mobility playbook, which is a kind of a digital helper that you can apply to your specific ask, whether you're OEM, whether you're a service provider, whether you're one where we can take our own products for rapid experimentation, together with AJP Morgan, also very quickly go to live times, but also kind of fostering the right questions at the right point in time to bring in our experience asset-wise into the situation and make your mobility payment experience for the future a breeze for your customers. There's going to be a link in the show notes that we can, I guess, provide to our audience here to reach out to us and learn more about that future of mobility playbook that we have.
Speaker 2:Okay, great, great. Well, tom Marcus, I know your time is very valuable and I really appreciate you being here. I think this has been a great show, a great opportunity for people to learn about what's going on in this space, and I really appreciate you guys sharing your knowledge and information. So again, thank you so much for being on the show today. I really appreciate it. Thank you, and to all you listeners out there, I thank you for your time as well, and until the next story.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us this week on the Leaders in Payments podcast. Make sure you visit our website at leadersinpaymentscom, where you can subscribe to the show and where you'll find our show notes. If you enjoyed listening, please share on your social channels as well.