Driving seamless mobility: payment orchestration in digital payments for automotive and smart mobility

The automotive industry is undergoing a radical transformation. Ownership is giving way to usership, and traditional vehicle sales are being supplemented—and in some cases replaced—by digital services, subscriptions, and smart mobility models. As this shift unfolds, a new layer of complexity emerges: a dynamic, multi-actor ecosystem where interoperability and real-time integration are no longer optional—they’re essential. 

In this environment, Payment Orchestration, combined with Embedded Finance, is becoming a cornerstone of innovation, enabling seamless financial flows across a fragmented value chain while unlocking new revenue models for manufacturers, dealers, mobility providers, and financial institutions. 

The New Logic of Mobility: From Products to Services 

Today’s automotive industry is no longer defined solely by vehicle production and sales.  

With the advent of servitization, the supply chain is increasingly evolving towards a mobility ecosystem, where services around the "connected" car become the main focus. In this context, mobility companies are integrating financial capabilities such as: in-car payments (e.g., fuel, tolls, parking); subscription-based models (e.g., car leasing and shared mobility services); insurance-as-a-service (e.g., on-demand, usage-based policies) and digital wallets (turning vehicles into platforms for commerce, leisure, and entertainment). 

This servitization of mobility brings undeniable opportunities—but also significant operational complexity to manage: 

• data integration 
• need to make services that typically reside in silos interoperable 
• need to reconcile omni-channel payment flows involving a multitude of different actors 

and all of this obviously also impacts a topic that has always been a key concern for car manufacturers: the forecasting of financial flows. 

The good news is that this transformation also brings new opportunities, arising from the ability to use the enormous amount of data that manufacturers have at their disposal to transform it into value-added services to offer to the end customer exactly when and where they need them. This new opportunity is called Embedded Finance and is now among the investment priorities of European corporations when we talk about financial services. 

In 2024, the global integrated auto financing market surpassed $2.5 trillion, with an expected compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11–12% through 2030¹. This rapid growth signals a new direction for automotive financial services—one that depends heavily on digital payment solutions and embedded infrastructure. Notably, dealerships that adopt integrated financial services see, on average, a 20% increase in conversion rates². 

What’s more, automotive companies are increasingly partnering with financial institutions to deliver banking and lending services directly through their digital channels³. These integrated services are not just enhancing customer experience—they're transforming business models. Companies offering embedded financial services can achieve margins up to 2–5 times higher than their core business lines⁴. And 60% of customers say they are more likely to stay loyal to a brand that offers useful financial services over time⁵. 

Disconnected systems, manual processes, and limited interoperability make it difficult to manage payments across channels, partners, and regions. As mobility becomes more fluid, digital, and subscription-driven, the need for a centralized orchestration layer becomes urgent. 

Payment Orchestration: Simplifying the Complex 

Payment orchestration provides a unified infrastructure to manage, route, and optimize payment flows across providers, methods, and customer journeys. It ensures that transactions are: 

• Automatically reconciled and logged in real time through automated reconciliation 
• Tailored to local market preferences and regulations 
• Resilient thanks to multi-provider configurations 
• Easy to scale and adapt across different business units or brands 

According to a Capgemini report, more than 55% of automotive executives report challenges in payment reconciliation, mainly due to inconsistent data, manual processes, and complex revenue streams. Orchestration combined with Embedded Finance, not only mitigates these challenges, it enables strategic payment automation and end-to-end visibility. 

The Digital Engine Behind Modern Mobility 

Embedded Finance plays a crucial enabling role in this new landscape. By seamlessly integrating financial services into automotive platforms—whether in-app, in-vehicle, or via third-party portals—it becomes possible to deliver contextual, frictionless experiences that convert and retain users. 

Key use cases include: 

• Integrated financing: Loan approvals and offers embedded directly into the digital car-buying journey. 
• Embedded insurance: Personalized policies delivered at the point of sale or subscription renewal. 
• Pay-per-use and micropayments: For tolls, charging, parking, or urban access fees. 
• Recurring payments: Enabling mobility subscriptions and leasing with smart billing cycles. 
• Pay by bank: Simplified, low-cost collections that accelerate cash flow and simplify automated reconciliation. 
• Real-time data-driven services: Financial insights that support personalized offers and predictive maintenance. 
• Better cash flow monitoring: the automotive sector, with its complex supply chains and multiple touchpoints (e.g., dealerships, after-sales, mobility services), gains particular value from unified, embedded financial flows. Embedded finance empowers corporate treasurers in the automotive industry to move beyond static financial monitoring. By integrating real-time data, automation, predictive insights, and advanced risk controls directly into their operational systems, treasurers can forecast, optimize, and protect cash flow with unprecedented speed and accuracy. In fact, this real-time access allows treasurers to track cash positions, incoming and outgoing flows, and reconcile accounts instantly, without having to rely on periodic, delayed statements 

A Real-World Example: Toyota & Fabrick 

A powerful example of how payment orchestration and embedded finance can support transformation in the automotive industry is the collaboration between Toyota Financial Services and Fabrick. Together, they built a new digital infrastructure that redefines the financing journey for customers, delivering seamless, integrated services across all touchpoints. 

The collaboration showcases how digital payment solutions and integrated payment systems can enhance mobility. It also demonstrates the value of ecosystem collaboration—uniting OEMs, financial players, and tech providers under one orchestration layer. 

Explore the Toyota & Fabrick customer story 

Payment Friction Points Holding Back Mobility Innovation 

Despite technological advances, many friction points remain in the automotive and smart mobility customer journey: 

• Inventory bottlenecks: Capital is tied up in unsold vehicles, straining liquidity. 
• Slow sales cycles: Delays in financing approvals hinder deal closures. 
• Access to credit: Independent dealerships often struggle to secure working capital. 
• Abandoned applications: Complex or fragmented financing processes lead to lost sales. 
• Manual reconciliation: Paper-based back-office operations introduce inefficiencies and errors. 
• Lack of real-time insights into incoming payments and loan funnel performance. 
• Disconnected touchpoints: Sales, finance, and aftersales systems fail to deliver cohesive experiences. 
• End-of-month crunch: Spikes in operational activity stretch teams and increase the risk of error. 

Payment orchestration, especially when combined with digital payment solutions, addresses these challenges holistically—streamlining operations, enabling automation, and delivering better customer and partner experiences. 

Accelerating the Road to Smart Mobility 

As the automotive industry continues its evolution toward connected, subscription-based, and on-demand services, orchestrating financial flows becomes a key competitive advantage. Whether it's enabling faster financing, improving customer retention, or unlocking new monetization models, a well-architected orchestration layer ensures: 

• End-to-end visibility across the payment chain 
• Cross-border scalability with localized options 
• Automated workflows for faster, more secure transactions 
• Unified financial reporting and automated reconciliation 

Ultimately, payment orchestration is not just about efficiency—it’s about enabling the future of smart mobility. It gives OEMs, fintechs, and service providers the agility they need to thrive in a market defined by speed, personalization, and seamless user experience. 

Fabrick’s Payment Orchestra solution not only accepts and centralizes  multi-channel end to end payments, but also brings automation and added-value along the entire payment and financial lifecycle.