Frédéric Stiernon (CarPay-Diem): A smart way to gas up
CEO Frédéric Stiernon, presents CarPay-Diem, a Luxembourgish startup allowing users to pay for their gas at petrol station via an easy to use mobile interface. Interview.
Can you describe CarPay-Diem in a few words?
CarPay-Diem is a service platform allowing any mobile app or connected car to activate any fuel pump and manage the payment from inside the car. The user experience is very simple. When the car arrives at the fuel station, the smartphone - or car display - automatically switches on and asks for the nearest pump number. The driver is then invited to take fuel. When he places the nozzle back, the transaction receipt appears on the screen. CarPay-diem has managed the payment and the loyalty. In the meantime, the fuel station has send a targeted commercial offer to the driver to motivate him to enter in the shop and buy something more on top of fuel.
"CarPay-Diem is compatible with more than 130.000 fuels stations."
What were your development challenges?
We had several challenges to cope with. The first one was to design a platform that was able to connect with any kind of fuel station, whatever its age, its brand and its material.
Today, our solution is compatible with more than 130.000 fuels stations.
The second challenge was to design the service in way it remains independent of the device - smartphone, connected car, autonomous car, embedded devices… - and agnostic in terms of method of payment. Finally, we had to convince fuel networks that the CarPay-Diem approach is the best one to access millions of customers rapidly and without a huge marketing budget.
We know have several fuel retailers that have decided to work with us and CarPay-Diem now deploys in Belgium, France, UK, Luxembourg and Germany.
What is CarPay-Diem’s agenda for 2018?
This year, we’ll deploy CarPay-Diem in the various fuel retail networks that have decided to work with us. In parallel the service in being integrated in different mobile app and connected cars making it available for more than 12 million drivers during the summer. We will also hire new colleagues to help us facing the fast increase of our activities.