Oil and gas company Total is to begin accepting mobile payments through a partnership with card payment system operator BKM at its petrol stations across Turkey that will let Club Total members make a payment without having to leave their car.

To use the service, customers need to have the BKM Express mobile wallet and download the Total Mobile Payment app. They will then enter their vehicle licence plate number so that their car is recognised as they arrive at a participating petrol station.

“When you enter a gas station, your plate number is entered on the pump before a transaction by the station staff, which is mandatory for all gas transactions in Turkey,” BKM explained to NFC World+. “Then the system recognises if a cardholder has a mobile payment option. If so, they receive a push message on their phone.”

If the customer clicks to confirm that they wish to complete the payment via their mobile, the Total app will redirect them to the BKM Express platform in order to complete the transaction using one of their stored bank or credit cards.

“We are introducing a first in the fuel industry in terms of digital innovation,” says Antoine Tournand, managing director of Total Oil Turkey.

“Through this partnership with BKM, we are achieving a worldwide première within the Total group and this technological breakthrough puts Total on the first ranks of the global mobile payment players. By the end of 2014, the system will be enabled in all our Istanbul stations and then throughout the country.”

“The BKM Express digital wallet that we introduced two years ago continues its strong growth,” added Soner Canko, CEO of BKM. “We currently have over 650 merchants and some 350,000 users, and we work with 16 banks to make card users’ shopping easier. With the BKM Express mobile app, we already gave our users the opportunity to send money at any time of the day.

“With the launch of the  mobile payment app in collaboration with Total, we have also started face-to-face transactions that are very important to us. We will continue to offer BKM Express users similar solutions in the near future with our partners in other consumer facing industries.”