Bumper makes a deal with Volt to bring open banking to European car dealerships

Bumper, a UK-based firm that helps drivers split repair bills into interest-free payments, recently revealed its partnership with Volt, a popular real-time payments platform. The two intend to bring open banking to car dealerships, not only in the UK, but the entirety of Europe.

Volt and Bumper to improve car-related payments at over 5,000 dealerships

Bumper has grown quite popular with UK drivers thanks to the fact that it allows them to split their repair bills into smaller payments. This allows car owners to keep their vehicles in top-top condition without breaking the bank. However, Bumper also works with more than 5,000 dealerships and garages across Europe, including some in Spain, Germany, Ireland, and the Netherlands, in addition to the ones in the UK.

In total, the company has been helping over half a million drivers pay their servicing and repair bills in a more convenient and affordable way, thus increasing the safety of cars through pure convenience of repair payments.

Apart from growing further and helping more people through new partnerships, Bumper has found another way to improve its service, which is through a partnership with Volt, which can enable real-time payments.

With the deal inked, Volt will now start powering Bumper’s Pay Now function and enable real-time payments for cars, repairs, and even car parts. The dealerships will receive the benefit of instant settlements, which are all tracked in real-time.

Furthermore, the integration of Volt’s services will have another important effect — it will allow checkout flow and pay-by-link options, thus bringing the mobile-first experience to car dealerships and even further simplifying the payment process.

Eliminating the payment challenges at car dealerships

Volt’s Vice President of Partnerships, Richard Drury, commented on the new partnership, stating that the payment process has been a major challenge for car dealerships. This is especially the case now, when most payments are made digitally.

However, Volt’s solution will become a real assist in eliminating these challenges and making it not only easier for car dealerships’ customers to make payments but also for these establishments to accept them.

“We’ve created a perfect solution for Bumper, with the initial results and quick adoption proving that it resonates with both buyers and sellers. There’s huge potential for real-time payments to take off in the automotive industry, so this partnership was a no-brainer for Volt,” he said.

The partnership also came at the time when the UK started seeing a major rebound in car sales, as many more were sold in 2023 than during any previous year since the start of the pandemic. The used car sales have been particularly booming, with a 5.5% YoY growth in Q3 2023, so there is definitely no lack of demand for convenient payments at garages, mechanics, and car dealerships.