In September 2022, Vyne partnered with Automotive Transformation Group, the leading provider of automotive retailing solutions. This partnership enables dealers to add Open Banking powered payments to their websites to access fairer transaction fees compared to card, higher payment security and real-time cash flow with instant settlements.
Please explain Automotive Transformation Group, who you are and what you do.
Automotive Transformation Group are leading specialists in omnichannel, digital retailing, and retention solutions in the automotive retail space. Through our comprehensive, fully integrated software product portfolio, our goal is to help automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), retailers, and financiers achieve greater efficiencies throughout the vehicle sales process – ultimately helping them to acquire, convert and retain consumers easier and faster.
We currently service 82% of the top 200 UK Retail locations and have carefully and compliantly captured over 13 billion digital interactions to date allowing us to develop a deep understanding of car-buying behaviour. We also supply 65% of the world’s Manufacturers, 60% of Europe’s Financiers and 80% of the top 10 Fleet and Leasing companies across 76 countries worldwide.
How are online consumer demands framing how automotive dealers take payment online?
Particularly over the course of the past three years, the scale at which we’ve seen growth – in terms of both technical capability and uptake – in digital retailing has been truly remarkable. The dramatic acceleration that we saw in this space is here to stay; the speed and convenience offered by retailers across multiple verticals in the retail industry has now been normalised, and consumers have come to expect that as a matter of course.
This convenience has been facilitated to a significant degree by the level of integration that retail platforms have increasingly come to offer – both in terms of intuitive browsing tools such as smartphone apps, down to the payment methods that retailers accept. From account-to-account transactions, to mobile payment technology, purchases are becoming faster and more convenient, while maintaining the levels of security and reassurance that customers are looking for.
The growing demand for seamless online browsing and purchase experiences has not been confined to lower-value, day-to-day goods, either; we’re increasingly seeing customers seeking these experiences when it comes to buying a vehicle. The teams at Automotive Transformation Group noted a 21% increase in online sessions across the retail websites that we power, from January to July this year compared to the same period in 2022.* As part of this, we’ve also seen that in the same period, the number of online purchases increased by 36% year-on-year.*
Both automotive OEMs and retailers therefore need to enhance the speed and efficiency with which they can facilitate payments, while upholding high security standards, in order to gain an edge over the competition.
How have you seen automotive payments evolve over the last five years?
The increasing shift to online browsing habits in the automotive retail industry has also had an equally positive impact on how transactions are being made. More and more of them are being completed online – but that is by no means the whole picture.
What’s interesting is that vehicle purchases are increasingly being made in the same style as lower-value goods: through mobile payments. We saw that, in all online transactions completed in January to July this year, 11.5% were made through Google Pay and Apple Pay. This was a 22.3% increase compared to the same period in 2022.*
Account-to-account payment technology is also beginning to get a strong hold in the market; digital automotive retailers have seen Open Banking technology take a significant share-of-wallet – including CarStore, who reported that Vyne Pay claimed 80% of the total proportion of payments.
The key threads in the automotive industry are speed, convenience, and security, and stakeholders in the sector need to make sure they’re fully equipped to service the demands – inspired by the broader shift to digital retail – that consumers are increasingly making.
What was the key factor(s) in your decision to partner with Vyne?
The emphasis on speed, convenience, and security is top of the priority list for consumers looking to buy a new car; providing an experience that delivers on those three priorities will see customers coming back again and again for their vehicle purchases. Both Automotive Transformation Group and Vyne share that same conviction, and our partnership has enabled us to create a consumer journey that delivers on those demands, and continues to generate impactful results.
Stay tuned for the next instalment of the Partner Spotlight series. In the meantime, learn more about Automotive Transformation Group on their website.
NOTES
*All data points sourced from Automotive Transformation Group’s NetDirector® BI platform.