Volkswagen FS Acquires Vancouver-Based PayByPhone Parking App

Vancouver-based PayByPhone has been acquired by automaker Volkswagen’s financial services division, as the acquisition means the latter now controls the world’s leading parking payment provider.

According to Volkswagen, the deal allows them to become a “clear leader in mobile payments and parking sectors,” while also allowing PayByPhone to expand globally.

In 2016, PayByPhone processed over $250 million in payments and is adding roughly 7,000 new users daily, to go with their existing user base of 12.5 million.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for PayByPhone to explore new ways to expand our mobile payments technology into different verticals, markets and use cases. The mobile payment movement has exploded recently, and we look forward to accelerating our consumer parking and payments agenda made possible by this deal,” said Kush Parikh, CEO of PayByPhone, in a press release.

Volkswagen says this acquisition will not affect PayByPhone’s daily operations, but users can expect better support and app functionality in the future.

“Our plans are focused on making the parking payment experience as seamless and easy as possible for users,” Kush told TechCrunch in an interview. In London, for example, PayByPhone has a service where users are charged automatically when they leave a parking lot, thanks to the coordination of license plates. He added “[This] can quite easily be extended into the autonomous vehicle movement.”

Earlier this summer, PayByPhone for iOS added support for Apple Pay, while last month the service hit 2 million users in its hometown of Vancouver.

PayByPhone is a fantastic app for parking—congrats to them on this deal.

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