From POS to car dashboards: Building the Internet of Payments

Your car just paid for coffee. No phone, no wallet, just ambient tech making payments disappear into the background. From dashboards to vending machines, the Internet of Payments is turning transactions into invisible moments of flow.

- Himaghna Dey Sarkar

India's digital payments story has always been largely driven by scaling and bold experiments, whether it's demonetization or the rise of UPI. Now, even within this fast-evolving payment ecosystem, a silent revolution is underway. Payments are surpassing phones, and the next frontier isn't mobile-first. It is ambient and rapidly embedded into our surroundings, triggered by proximity, voice, or intent. In many cases, it's literally built into your car's dashboard.

PAYMENTS BEYOND PHONES

Payments are no longer enclosed with phones; they're becoming embedded in the everyday environment. Technology is moving from screen-based actions to ambient, context-driven experiences. The need to pull out phones to pay is fading. It is not just about the convenience; it is unlocking access to simplify user journeys and enable interactions across devices and touchpoints. Fuel refills, EV charging, vending machines, kiosk checkouts, and many more such endpoints are being integrated with such journeys. The more intelligent the payment becomes, the more natural it feels, and the closer we get to a world where payments simply happen, without conscious effort.

PAYMENT SYSTEM IN VEHICLES