Volt & Bumper Partner to Bring Open Banking to Car Dealers

Volt, the fintech connecting the world’s real-time payments (RTP) platforms, has partnered with Bumper to bring its open banking capabilities to car dealerships. 

Per the deal, Volt’s RTP and open banking capabilities will be integrated with Bumper, already the payments platform of choice for many car dealerships, Volvo, Ford, Nissan, Volkswagen, Audi, Seat, Porsche and JLR all included.

Bumper’s partnership with Volt comes after it raised US$48m in Series B funding earlier this year, which CEO James Jackson hoped would propel Bumper to become the “dominant payment platform for car dealers in Europe”.

Now, the payments platform for car dealerships has taken its next significant step to achieve this dominance, bringing RTP to Europe’s leading car dealerships. 

Volt & Bumper: Spearheading open banking adoption

Indeed, the partnership comes during a rebounding car sales market in Europe over the past year. In the UK alone, used car sales experienced a 5.5% year-on-year growth for Q3 2023, and Volt and Bumper have already processed a combined £3m in car dealership payments this year. 

Now, it will be even easier for car dealerships to process payments, with Volt powering Bumper’s ‘Pay Now’ function to facilitate payments. Dealerships can now benefit from instant settlements tracked in real time.

In addition, Bumper’s clients will have access to checkout flow and pay-by-link options, providing a mobile-first experience to the service that car dealerships provide. 

Richard Drury, VP of Partnerships at Volt, says: “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.

“For car dealerships, the payments process has been a major challenge and our solution is a real asset in alleviating those challenges many dealership owners are facing today.”

Indeed, slow settlement times for payments have historically been a key cause of friction for dealerships. Now, though, dealerships can gain greater control over their cash flow and inventory, and also reduce the risk of non-payment or system errors.

Jack Allman, CCO and Co-Founder at Bumper, adds: "The move to Volt as Bumper's Open Banking payment provider will have a huge impact on functionality for our partnered dealerships and their customers, providing them with a frictionless account-to-account payment experience.

"This new partnership enhances our open banking infrastructure with increased functionality including settlement accounts, real-time notifications and refunds. These developments will increase operational efficiency and automation across all users, whether they work in accounts, sales or service.”

For Volt, this latest deal with Bumper comes after signing other significant partnerships with the likes of Shopify and Worldpay in 2023. 

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