Faster Than a Pit-Stop: 7 Payment Plays Auto Brands Can Deploy Today
Payments are top priority in the automotive C-suite and for good reason. Warranty claims alone drain over $50 billion from automakers every year, and nearly 80% of drivers abandon dealership service the day their warranty expires.
And the real money is shifting to software with GM anticipating up to $25 billion in annual in-car subscription revenue by 2030. In today’s automotive industry, profit margins ride on speed and are dependent on how fast you can pay customers, reward dealers, and process every tap-to-unlock feature inside the driver’s seat.
The problem is that old-school payout rails - like paper checks, batch ACH files, and plastic cards that arrive weeks after order - fail to meet 2025 customer expectations.
Instead, they burn cash, invite fraud, and chip away at dealer morale. Three payment innovations offer solutions to this disparity:
- Direct Send real-time transfers to any eligible debit card or bank account.
- Instant-issuance virtual or physical open-loop cards.
- Granular spend controls & analytics that prevent fraud and provide valuable data.
The following are 7 high-impact strategies for automotive companies to leverage these tools.
Recall & Warranty Reimbursements
The Problem: Traditional check-based reimbursements can leave owners waiting weeks for refunds, negatively impacting CSI scores and increasing courtesy-car expenses.
The Solution: Triggering a Direct Send reimbursement the moment a claim is approved or issuing a virtual “parts-only” card that’s restricted for use with approved dealers for specific parts.
The Win: Speeding payouts from weeks to minutes can turn a potential PR crisis into a loyalty boost. Instead of customers complaining and taking their business elsewhere, they will be thrilled with the service they receive and will spread the word.
Trade-In Equity & GAP Refunds
The Problem: GAP claims and equity refunds often sit for 30-45 days in processing limbo and eventually get delivered by a check in the mail. Even then, Onbe/NRG research shows up to ⅓ of consumers accidentally throw out paper checks.
The Solution: Imagine Finance and Insurance teams instantly pushing funds to a customer’s debit card or dealership-branded digital wallet with a simple click, before the buyer even leaves the lot.
The Win: Replacing paper checks with instant digital payouts eliminates cash float and puts funds in the customer’s hands immediately, increasing their satisfaction. At the same time, the back-office skips the reconciliation, lost-check reissues and other headaches that tend to plague traditional refund workflows.
Salesperson SPIFFs
The Problem: Sales Performance Incentive Funds (SPIFF) are crucial for motivating car salespeople. However, manual processing often delays these payments by a pay cycle or more, dampening enthusiasm and leading to potential disputes.
The Solution: Reloadable incentive cards that auto-load the moment a particular VIN Is reported sold. Tracking the cards keeps HR and Finance happy too.
The Win: Salespeople receive instant recognition for their achievements, dealers maintain strong inventory turnover, and the corporate office benefits from streamlined and accurate financial records.
Post-Warranty Loyalty & Service Credits
The Problem: Once warranties expire, 70-80% of customers migrate to independent service providers leading to a substantial loss of potential revenue and long-term customer relationships.
The Solution: Branded, reloadable rewards cards that earn service credits or accessories dollars with every dealer visit. Spend controls funnel funds back to the OEM ecosystem to directly benefit the brand.
The Win: Car owners continue to visit the dealer for their service needs, increasing overall revenue.
Instant Issuance “Maintenance Wallets” in the Showroom
The Problem: Rewarding new car buyers with a mailed prepaid card after-the-fact diminishes the excitement of the first drive off the lot and postpones accessory upsells.
The Solution: Push a digital card to Apple Wallet or Google Pay before the customer leaves the lot and fund it with enough cash to cover the first oil change, detailing package, or even some branded merch.
The Win: This type of perk raises CSI scores at the moment that matters most, jump-starting post-sale revenue.
Connected-Car & In-App Purchases
The Problem: With vehicles transforming into sophisticated software platforms, every in-car translation - from map upgrades to parking payments and feature unlocks - needs a compliant digital wallet infrastructure. Building that payment stack in-house is a time-consuming and resource-intensive endeavor, often beyond the core competencies of automakers and dealers.
The Solution: White-label Banking-as-a-Service APIs offer a powerful alternative. These APIs allow OEMs to instantly issue virtual cards that integrate with Apple Pay and Google Pay. Funds can be rapidly provisioned via Direct Send, and spending can be precisely controlled by restricting merchant categories, all while the BaaS provider manages the complex back-end operations.
The Win: Automakers can launch and monetize new in-car services quickly, instead of waiting years to implement a payment stack. The result is the transformation of connected vehicles in reliable, recurring-revenue streams, free from the burden of compliance complexities.
Aftermarket Rebates & Promotion Fraud Control
The Problem: In 2024, refund and promotional fraud siphoned $103 billion from retailers, with tires and other car accessories among the prime targets. Car dealerships face a dilemma: they want to provide seamless refunds, but the threat of fraud jeopardizes their profits.
The Solution: Single-use or SKU-restricted cards eliminate duplicate claims and instant issuance cards can be kept in stock and funded only at the moment of customer handover, eliminating the risk of the cards being stolen.
The Win: Customers benefit from convenient refunds and promotions, while car dealers safeguard their financial interests.
Ready to Put Your Payments Program in the Fast Lane?
From corporate headquarters to the showroom floor, speed is displacing horsepower as the real competitive edge in the automotive value chain. Whether you’re placating frustrated recall customers, motivating a dealer’s sales team, or unlocking a new line of connected-car revenue, the faster the money moves the faster the margins grow. Yet, legacy payment rails remain stubbornly slow, expensive, and prone to error.
Forward-looking OEMs and dealer groups are no longer treating payments as back-office bureaucracy. Instead, they are elevating it to a strategic lever. By plugging Berkeley’s Direct Send real-time transfers, instance-issuance cards, and precise spend controls into existing systems, automotive brands can solve 7 of their most difficult challenges quickly and efficiently. The result is a virtuous cycle of happy drivers who receive funds instantly, more engaged dealers who see incentives hit their cards in real time, and brand new subscription services that start generating cash immediately.
Better still, these use cases feed off of one another. A loyalty wallet funded at a service visit can be topped up during a recall payout. The same wallet can later become the default payment method for software upgrades. Each incremental program builds on the last, creating a seamless ecosystem in which every payment action deepens customer loyalty and generates new revenue.
Ready to put your payments program in the fast lane? Berkeley’s team can design and launch a pilot in as little as 90 days.
Book a 30-minute strategy call to see how quickly we can get your program on the road.
