Ford Motor Co.’s pushing to use technology to make things better, whether it’s an all-electric pickup truck or its e-commerce and payment experiences for customers and dealers. That effort took another step forward when it inked a five-year deal with electronic payment service provider Stripe.
“We have been working with Ford to reimagine our e-commerce payment infrastructure. Stripe’s platform will help us deliver simpler, outstanding payment experiences in any channel customers choose and scale improvements faster,” said Marion Harris, Ford Motor Credit Co. CEO, in a statement.
The new deal aims to expand the automaker’s online payments infrastructure for customers and dealers in North America and Europe. The goal is to ensure the process is quick, reliable and always ready. Stripe also will enable Ford Pro FinSimple solutions for commercial customers.
New services will begin rolling out in the second half of this year.
Using technology to simplify, accelerate payments
Using Stripe Connect and other services from the San Francisco-based company, Ford can bolster existing services and add new ones through the use of new technology.
Connect allows businesses to create a platform to facilitate purchases and payments between third-party buyers and sellers, the automaker noted. Ford will use Connect to facilitate a customer’s payments to a correct local Ford or Lincoln dealer.
“As part of the Ford+ plan for growth and value creation, we are making strategic decisions about where to bring in providers with robust expertise and where to build the differentiated, always-on experiences our customers will value,” Harris said.
“Stripe has developed strong expertise in user experiences that will help provide easy, intuitive and secure payment processes for our customers.”
Expanding functions
The deal allows Ford to expand what users can pay for with new technology. Mike Clayville described Stripe’s roll as the “payments engine under the hood” as Ford looks to grow the use of technology across its businesses, including financing.
As Ford develops e-commerce offerings across the product and service spectrum, Stripe’s platform will be a key part of the tech stack. For Ford and Lincoln dealers offering digital payment services today, Stripe’s service is expected to drive new efficiency into processing of e-commerce payments, such as vehicle ordering, reservations and digital and charging services.
For those thinking the name “Stripe” rings a bell, it should and its push to get into the automotive segment shouldn’t be a surprise. Former General Motors CFO Dhivya Suryadevara left the automaker to take the same role at Stripe in August 2020.
When Suryadevara departed, she noted that she “really enjoy(s) leading complex, large-scale businesses and I hope to use my skills to help accelerate Stripe’s already steep growth trajectory.” Stripe, which started in 2009, has about 2,800 employees in 16 offices, handling about $10 billion in transactions in 2019.
