Today, Virta and Mastercard announced the launch of the new Virta Payment Kiosk solution, setting safety and reliability standards for unmanned outdoor card payment solutions for EV charging.
In collaboration with Worldpay from FIS, the new solution brings seamless card-based payments to existing and new charging stations in Europe.
While today, most EV drivers use charging service provider apps to manage their everyday EV charging, a simple card payment option has made it to the top of European EV drivers’ wish-list. As electric mobility is becoming increasingly popular, the demand for easy and convenient payment methods becomes critical. According to Mastercard research conducted in 2021, 65% of Europeans elected payment cards as their preferred payment method to overcome the number of apps and tags currently needed to reduce friction and improve the consumer experience. This trend is confirmed in the new White Paper published by Mastercard this year.
“The lack of coherent and easy-to-use payment options at charging points have long been a pain point for electric vehicle drivers. We are therefore happy to partner with Virta and Worldpay to set new payment standards across the EV charging landscape and contribute to making mobility more sustainable,” says Erik Gutwasser, Divisional President Nordics & Baltics at Mastercard.
More freedom of choice to customers and reduced costs for charging point operators
The new Virta Payment Kiosk also makes card payments financially viable for charging point operators. The reduced cost and fast implementation time is due to Virta Payment Kiosk’s ability to handle multiple individual chargers at the same charging site and the possibility to retrofit existing AC and DC charging sites with it. The Virta Payment Kiosk also integrates the payment terminal to Virta’s EV charging money management service and complies with current (PSD2) and expected (upcoming PSD3 and AFIR) legal and regulatory requirements.
“The Virta platform already enables one-time and post-paid card payments in the Virta app. Extending the range of payment methods to include the use of payment cards at the charging stations completes the freedom of choice and flexibility for consumers. As the global leader in card payments, Mastercard and Worldpay are perfect partners to ensure the highest quality of user experience. We expect Payment Kiosks to increase the utilization rates of charging stations especially in high traffic public areas attracting one-time visitors with fast and convenient charging without the need to download an app” says Mr. Elias Pöyry, Co-founder and Chief Business Development Officer of Virta.
The solution is now readily available for all charging point owners on the Powered by Virta platform. The first roll-out of the new solutions starts with Powered by Virta network partners’ charging sites in Sweden and Finland and selected key locations in Norway, Denmark and Iceland. The target is to enable card payments at all Powered by Virta charging sites in Europe by the end of 2025. At the moment, there are around 90,000 charging points connected to the Virta platform in 35 countries. The number of charging points is expected to increase fivefold in Europe by the end of 20251, as Virta continues to grow faster than the market.
(1) Estimated number of charging points in Europe in 2025 compared to 2021 +475% from 0,4 million to 2,3 million and 7,9 million in 2030. Source: ACEA, ICCT, IEA, BNEF, DNV 2030 Estimates.