By Jenny Lee WIRED Korea

Imagine a day when drivers can reserve, order and buy everything on the go – including gas, parking, tolls, food, coffee and groceries – without ever having to step out of their car. This means paying for goods and services would neither involve handing over a sheaf of banknotes nor swiping or inserting credit cards – just a simple tap on their dashboards would suffice. Now, go one step further and imagine cars making personalized recommendations, offering drivers location-based deals and discounts from their favorite stores as they drive along their daily route.

This scenario is neither far-fetched nor of a distant future; it is in fact unfolding this very moment in Seoul and other cities around the world as cars transform into an internet-connected platform for payments.

At the forefront of this new era of “car commerce” is OWiN, a Seoul-based startup that has developed IoT-based solutions which can enable any vehicle to be fully connected to digital devices, thereby paving the way for drivers to make fast, seamless transactions within the confines of their car.

Bringing Connectivity to Cars

How OWiN’s technology works is by assigning a unique digital identification to vehicles – whether they are connected cars with an in-dash system or conventional cars mounted with a signal-emitting device in a form of a cigar-jack charger – and linking them via Bluetooth with a network of retailers and service providers. Vehicle information, order details, estimated times of arrival and more are communicated through OWiN’s mobile application, PicK.

The company’s goal, said CEO Shin Sung-chul, is to effectively turn every car out in the market into “a smartphone on wheels,” and make it the key, global platform for mobile payments.

“South Korea currently has some 12 million vehicles on the road, and the average South Korean spends around three hours of each day in his or her car,” Shin said. “When connected cars and self-driving cars hit the road en masse, it is expected that in-car commerce will grow and expand significantly. So to gain a competitive edge, we have tapped into this sector early (in 2015).”

Approximately 250 million vehicles – that is, one in five cars globally – will include some sort of embedded connectivity by 2020, and more than 740,000 autonomous-ready vehicles will be added to the market worldwide in 2023, according to analyst firm Gartner.

A Highly Lucrative Market

Experts say integration of payment technologies into automobiles is a multi-billion-dollar opportunity for businesses.

“About $100 billion will be spent on car commerce platforms by the year 2022,” said head of Smart Fintech Research Center, Kim Yong-jin, who is also a business professor at Sogang University in Seoul.

With the future of connected car commerce being so bright, many businesses – automakers, card networks and retailers – are throwing their hats in the ring, and they are even forming partnerships to quickly equip vehicles with in-car payment technology.

In South Korea, Hyundai Motor Group is planning to rolled out new Genesis sedans equipped with its own connected car Operating System (ccOS) that supports in-car purchasing. To offer the service, the company has partnered with gas station operator SK Energy, parking service provider Parking Cloud and six credit card companies including Hyundai and Shinhan.

Car Commerce is Here, But Challenges Remain

And OWiN, which also has formed an alliance with local conglomerates including oil refiner GS Caltex, telecom operator LG U+ and Shinhan, has been testing its car commerce solutions since 2017, allowing users to pay for gasoline and order food and drinks ahead for curbside pickup. Close to 6,000 users have thus far registered to use the service, which is currently available at 120 gas stations and 240 cafes and restaurants in the Seoul metropolitan area.

Shin said the service will be expanded to all gas stations across the country in December, when the company makes its official foray into the market. Solutions for smart parking payments and automated payments of road tolls are still in the pipeline.

“With our car commerce platform, arranging and making purchases at local shops and restaurants – especially the ones without a drive-through window – have become faster, easier and more convenient,” Shin said.

While the potential for connected car commerce is high, there remain a few challenges to overcome before it can really take off – such as expanding the base of vendors subscribing to the OWiN platform and solving vexing technical glitches.

Kim June, a Gagnam-gu, Seoul, resident in her 40s, who has been using OWiN’s platform for the past two years, said her one complaint is that selection of merchants is rather limited as of now.

“The service is pretty much limited to fast-food restaurants and gas stations, and I think the company needs to figure out a way to add more vendors in order to become mainstream,” said Kim, who is also the owner of a flower shop that has partnered with OWiN. “As a registered merchant, I am pretty satisfied because the sales have almost doubled since using the service.”

For the expansion of its network, OWiN has raised about 5.5 billion won ($4.72 million) in Series A funding – from large companies like Industrial Bank of Korea, Ryukyung PSG Asset Management and Blueotus – and is now looking into attracting more investors for Series B funding, which it believes will be smooth sailing given the attention it has received. As is often the case for startups however, obtaining funding is easier said than done. Shin declined to comment on the company’s goal for funding.

The platform also seems to be having technical issues for some users including Joo Hyung-tae, a 34-year-old resident of Bucheon in Gyeonggi-do.

“The device installed at gas stations that receives signals does not work well,” Joo said. “I have to take the Car ID out from the cigarette power socket and hold it near the device.”