Mastercard has partnered with car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz to enable in-car payments using a fingerprint sensor.

The payment firm said Mercedes pay+ eliminates the need for PIN or authentication via mobile and allows customers to make secure digital payments at over 3,600 service stations in Germany.

The company says Mercedes-Benz is the world’s first car maker to integrate Mastercard Secure Card on File for Commerce Platforms technology for online payments into its vehicles.

When a driver reaches a connected service station and switches off the engine, Mastercard said the service starts automatically and predicts the price based on the current cost of fuel and how much the driver has in the tank.

The transaction is completed via fingerprint without the customer needing to go to a checkout area, with an invoice sent to the customer afterwards via email.

The service is currently only available in Germany, with the company planning to roll out the service to further locations in the future.

"Digital payments are coming of age, and consumers want to embrace new forms that are infused into their everyday experiences and activities,” said Jorn Lambert, chief digital officer at Mastercard. “Through our dynamic payments technology, we are proud to work hand in hand with Mercedes-Benz to bring safer, smarter, and more intelligent commerce experiences to its vehicles.”

Earlier this month Hyundai announced it had launched an in-car payment service in the US which allows customers to pay for items via a touch screen.

The automaker says that the car-based payments will be kept secure using tokenization, which replaces card details with a unique digital identifier to keep the data from being compromised.

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