Parkmobile USA Inc. is making payment for metered parking spaces less expensive for its members in Washington, D.C. with a Parkmobile Wallet option for aggregating credit or debit card transactions.
The Atlanta-based cashless-payment provider added the Parkmobile Wallet option effective Oct. 29 to help limit its own transaction fees, which it expects to rise under Durbin amendment rules that set rates for debit-card interchange.
Drivers in Washington, D.C. who choose Parkmobile Wallet as a primary payment method will have individual parking transactions deducted from a Parkmobile Wallet balance, rather than absorbing charges against a credit or debit card account for each transaction, the company states.
Consumers load money from a payment card account into the Parkmobile Wallet and reload money as needed. Since a single load can fund dozens of parking payments, the consumer completes just two or three card transactions over a time period in which as many as 100 or more could possibly occur with daily parking.
Parkmobile charges a 30-cent transaction fee for Parkmobile Wallet users, the company says.
Parkmobile has 415,000 members in the D.C. area and more than 4 million members nationwide, says Parkmobile executive vice president Laurens Eckelboom.
Because many of those Parkmobile members already use a mobile wallet for other programs, the company expects its members “to embrace the Parkmobile Wallet as it is a cost-effective and convenient payment method,” Eckelboom says.
Wallet users will be able to avoid the higher fees on a transaction that would be only a few dollars at most, she adds.
Commuters must register for the app on Parkmobile’s website and provide the license plate number of the car they park and their credit or debit card information. They then can download the app to their iPhone, Android, Windows 7 or Blackberry device. Current Parkmobile members can update their payment method to a Parkmobile Wallet online or download the app to their smartphone.
Parkmobile provides a mobile payment option for metered parking in Boston, Denver, New York City and Chicago, in addition to Washington, D.C.
Eckelboom says the new mobile wallet option will soon be available in those other cities, though no information about the timing of those launches is available on the Parkmobile website.
Parkmobile became a citywide parking payment option in D.C. in July of 2011 and the company’s most recent addition came in Chicago in October of 2011, Eckelboom says.
If the enrollment process for the Parkmobile Wallet is easy for consumers, it will increase the potential for members, says industry analyst Todd Ablowitz, president of Centennial, Colo.-based Double Diamond Group, LLC.
“My experience with mobile parking apps has been that they are not easy to enroll in because of all of the information they need [about the car and parking areas],” Ablowitz says.
Regardless of the enrollment method, the “power users” of city parking and smartphone mobile payment apps will likely embrace the wallet option, Ablowitz says.
“When you have use for an application like mobile payment for parking, and you use it regularly and value that service, then some of those users will be willing to put money in a mobile wallet,” he adds.
