With the Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR) coming into effect on April 13th and the requirement for simplified remittance at electric vehicle charging stations, CCV is introducing a solution for faster and easier payment integration.
“We’ve identified a significant demand in the eMobility industry from partners and governments to comply with a list of paying methods,” begins Pieter Peene, the company’s Product Manager.
During the “CCV Day” webinar hosted by Mobility Portal Europe, Pieter unveiled the details surrounding “Cloud Connect for EV charging“, the solution to these challenges.
How does this Cloud-based payment integration work?
“It provides a much-simplified integration of the payment terminal and the charging station using the OCPI protocol, significantly reducing implementation time and technical difficulties,” Pieter explains.
Furthermore, he notes that it aligns with “regulatory demands, such as AFIR and current market expectations of end-users”.
“Drivers can benefit from a smoother and safer charging experience, by choosing from a variety of methods including credit/debit cards and mobile applications. Users need to have a choice if they want to register their bank details in one or more online accounts or if they just want to use their debit/credit card directly at the charge station.”
CCV‘s proposal is designed to benefit multiple stakeholders in the eMobility ecosystem. According to Pieter, these are the strengths of the solution:
“The integration of the payment solution is done with the Charge Point Management System (CPMS) using the well-known protocol: OCPI. This protocol is already widely used in EV roaming services and therefore offers a quick and simple integration.
For Charge Point Manufacturers (CPM’s), it offers simpler and faster installation, enabling quicker commercialisation and reducing costs associated with integrating a payment solution. With Cloud-Connect for EV charging, a mechanical integration is all that’s required. The terminal can be integrated directly into the charge point or separately on a pole when used in a kiosk configuration (one payment terminal for multiple charge points).
For Charge Point Operators (CPO’s), all they have to do is choose a compatible CPMS and activate/link the terminal to one or more charge points.”
When asking Pieter how exactly the integration with the CPMS works, he explains:
“While, initially we had plans to develop our own direct payments module on top of the OCPI protocol, we were happy to see that the EV Roaming Foundation recently launched their own. This provides us and the CPMS to integrate with fully standardised protocols and not something customised, which would again require a learning curve.
Our payment terminal provides a user interface for end-users to start/stop charging and get receipts. This is of course very useful for AC charging, where, in most cases, there is no integrated screen or any end-user interaction.
When the user starts a session we transfer that request using OCPI to the CPO. When a charge session is completed, the CPO sends us the details of the session and CCV makes sure the money is transferred from driver to Merchant.”
What was your motivation for creating this solution?
“We already have a number of ways to integrate our payment solution, both local and cloud-based. However, when talking to our existing and potential partners, there were still some challenges in those. I’ll try to give both a clear image on which other integrations we offer and what those challenges can be.
Our most-used integration is the local integration. We provide a protocol for the charge point to talk to our payment terminal and this allows a manufacturer to integrate the payment exactly the way they want and differentiate their solution. The challenge here is that the learning curve of the protocol can be an issue for some manufacturers as this is not the focus of their business.
Another way to integrate is where the operator creates an android app which can be deployed on our android-based terminals and receives information from the operator’s backend. This allows them to provide a more graphical and company-branded interface for end-users. This can even be combined with other services, such as parking or discounts at local stores. Here, the operator has full freedom on how to offer his services to end-users. However, finding a software developer to create such a custom app can often take long and can be costly.
With the Cloud-Connect for EV charging integration, we provide solutions for those challenges. Manufacturers can focus more on the charge point itself and simply need to mechanically integrate the payment terminal and provide power/internet to it.
An operator then uses a CPMS which has CCV’s Cloud-Connect solution integrated and their only task is to activate and link the terminal to one or more charge stations.
All of this combined provides the EV charging industry with a quick and cost-efficient solution to meet end-user requirements and government regulations.”
About CCV
CCV is a European payment solution provider offering end-to-end payments at every touchpoint of the customer journey. From convenient online payments to powerful in-store and unattended solutions.
CCV distinguishes itself by its ability to adapt to market needs, offering solutions for both traditional retail and emerging sectors such as electric vehicle charging, parking, vending machines, and public transport.
Together with our small, medium and enterprise clients we have been pioneering the digital payment industry for over 65 years.
Founded in 1958 in the Netherlands, CCV was a pioneer in enabling cashless methods and has evolved into an international provider of cutting-edge services.
Currently, CCV employs over 1000 people across three countries and manages a network of nearly 750,000 reimburse terminals and around 20,000 operational online stores.CCV provides a variety of processing and acquiring services that support multiple disburse schemes such as girocard, Mastercard, Visa, Google Pay, and Apple Pay, ensuring consumers can transact conveniently and securely.
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