Croatia’s leading oil company INA has been testing contactless payment at petrol pumps for a year and a half, reports Jutarnji list/Dora Koretić.
Petrol pumps at INA’s petrol station in Resnik were fitted with contactless payment terminals in 2020, aiming to limit close contact during the pandemic by allowing customers to pay for fuel without having to enter the store.
The terminals were recently removed because the company decided to test ‘other technical solutions available on the market’. This wouldn’t be an issue in itself, but as it turns out, the contactless payment terminals at the Resnik station were never made operational, making it unclear what exactly INA has been testing over the last 18 months.
The company stated this was a pilot project aiming to gather user feedback on contactless payment at petrol pumps using bank cards or fleet cards.
‘Customer satisfaction is our no.1 priority, which is why the company continuously works on developing new solutions to enable customers to purchase products and services at our stations in the simplest way possible. [The project] is still in the pilot phase, and for the sake of establishing the best technical solution the terminals have been removed temporarily. Installation of new ones is underway so that we could carry out an analysis of other technical solutions that are available on the market’, stated INA.
Despite how long it’s been since the pilot project was launched and the fact that the terminals were never put into use, INA state they consider digitalization a critical factor of business, especially in a time where preventative measures, such as maintaining physical distance and limiting the number of customers in stores, are of great importance.
The company has so far introduced contactless payment at the pump through the INA PAY mobile app, which is currently only available for corporate users holding an INA card. Coffee machines at INA petrol stations are also equipped with contactless terminals. However, it still hasn’t been determined when mobile payment or other forms of contactless pay at the pump will become an option for private customers.
In contrast, many petrol stations in Slovenia offer customers the option to pay contactless at the pump. This mode of payment gained in popularity after the Slovenian government made Covid certificates a prerequisite for in-store payment at service stations, but not for contactless payment at petrol pumps.
