Car Parking: PayByPhone Aims for Corporate Customers

FACTS

• The Canadian m-payment specialist PayByPhone unveils a new service called “PayByPhone Corporate”.

• Goals: Enable corporate customers to manage their employees’ car parking-related expenses more easily.

• Targets: Companies with several commercial cars and car fleet managers.

• Featured for car fleet managers:
  • Set up accounts for the companies’ employees
  • Account maintenance
  • Monthly statement (listing car parking fees paid by employees, with fraud monitoring indicators applied)
  • Expense management verifying days, hours and vehicles in use

• Payments: This solution sets a direct link between the company’s payment method (Visa or Mastercard card) and the user’s PayByPhone account. Based on geolocation technology, each payment is debited for the payment card once the car parking time over. Employees do not have to handle cash advances or expense reports.

PayByPhone: Key Figures

• 1 million users/day in France
• +500 customer cities
• 1 million car parking spots including +460,000 in France.

CHALLENGES

• Optimise payment management. As with the previous version for individual customers, the actual car parking time is charged. According to PayByPhone, this corporate service is meant to cut down direct and indirect costs for businesses while improving employees’ self-reliance.

• Secure companies’ card data. PayByPhone’s PCI-DSS compliant solution implements security rules for card payments designed by Cartes Bancaires as well as Visa and Mastercard networks.

MARKET PERSPECTIVE

• PayByPhone was bought out by Volkswagen almost two years ago. As a pioneer in the car parking sector, they intend to boost their leadership with a service meant for corporate customers. This segment does express high expectations when it comes to optimising fleet and expense reports’ management costs.

• One of their main rivals in France, Parkéon, introduced Whoosh which also enables corporate customers to manage car fleets, while streamlining the payment step for their employees.

• Many other start-ups focus on this emerging car parking business: QuCit, for instance, relies on a tool for predicting customers’ behaviour and assess car parking spots’ availability. And Parkki implements sensors to track vacant car parking spots.