Vodafone, Sumitomo Corporation, and Mastercard team up to advance the economy of things

New embedded payments technology will launch in the UK and roll out across Europe, enabling autonomous payments between machines in the freight, shipping, fleet and logistics industries.

Pairpoint – Vodafone and Sumitomo Corporation’s Economy of Things business – and Mastercard today announced a new collaboration and payments service that will allow fleet, freight, shipping, and logistics operators to authorise machines to trade with other machines on their behalf.

The new service, which connects Pairpoint’s platform with Mastercard Gateway, will allow fleet operators’ vehicles to make authorised direct payments at charging or fuel stations, and freight companies to enable payments for pre-approved connections along a route, such as port charges, handling and storage, among a variety of other applications.

Jorge Bento, Chief Executive Officer of Pairpoint said: “Contactless payments using smartphones are commonplace; the next step is to allow devices and vehicles to directly pick up the bill on a user’s behalf. This is possible through the partnership between Vodafone, Sumitomo, and Mastercard. Together, we can offer customers a secure, yet simple way, to authorise their machines to make online transactions whilst generating new growth opportunities for businesses and advancing the integration of IoT and blockchains.”

Pairpoint-enabled devices will be assigned standards-based digital identities stored within their SIMs, which Pairpoint can use to enable interactions and trades with other permissioned devices on its platform. The service builds on existing Internet of Things (IoT) technology that enables unattended connected devices to transmit and receive data, allowing a shipping container, for example, to autonomously report its weight and free capacity.

The new solution will be globally scalable, available to all telecommunications players, and support payment credentials running on all major card networks. It will become available in the UK later this year, followed by a progressive roll out across Europe.

Maria Parpou, Executive Vice President, Mastercard Gateway said: “The explosion of digital payments has unlocked the potential for commerce across and between any device. We look forward to working closely with Vodafone and Sumitomo to help business customers unlock the potential of Economy of Things technologies.”

The collaboration leverages the geographical scale of Vodafone’s global IoT platform, one of the world’s largest with over 187 million connections, Sumitomo’s industrial strength in 66 countries and regions, and Mastercard Gateway’s payment acceptance solutions connecting more than 200 financial institutions across 80+ markets worldwide.

<sup>Note to Editors

User Applications 
Vodafone, Sumitomo, and Mastercard envisage that this collaboration will benefit businesses across multiple sectors as they are able to offer their physical products and services more easily in digital asset marketplaces known as the Economy of Things.</sup>

^{Freight, shipping and logistics
Shippers of goods can use Pairpoint with Mastercard Gateway to automate payments to ports, warehouses, shipping, and transport firms without the delays of managing a paper trail of approvals and payment receipts. This is done autonomously but with full user control via a dashboard. In addition, Pairpoint can handle complex transactions such as only authorising payment when contractual agreements are reached, and ensuring freight is stored at the correct temperature and arrives intact.}

^{Fleet Management/EV charging
In the world of fleet management, vehicles can share their standard-based global ID using the Pairpoint platform, referencing individual people as drivers or employees of the company.  The unique vehicle ID is anchored via a secure SIM card embedded within the engine and control systems. Automatic payments can be made by the vehicle when parking, using a toll road or entering a congestion charging zone, as well as using EV charging points.}