Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn announced today it signed a five-year agreement with economic e-infrastructure company Stripe to scale the automaker’s e-commerce capabilities faster and deliver an always-on experience for Ford and Lincoln customers.
“We have been working with Ford to reimagine our e-commerce payment infrastructure. Stripe’s platform will help us deliver simpler, outstanding payment experiences in any channel customers choose and scale improvements faster,” says Marion Harris, CEO of Ford Motor Credit Co.
The partnership will scale the online payments infrastructure which serves customers in North America and Europe. With products like Stripe Connect, it will let businesses create a platform to facilitate purchases and payments between third-party buyers and sellers, using Connect to facilitate a customer’s payments to a correct local Ford or Lincoln dealer.
“As part of the Ford+ plan for growth and value creation, we are making strategic decisions about where to bring in providers with robust expertise and where to build the differentiated, always-on experiences our customers will value,” says Harris. “Stripe has developed strong expertise in user experiences that will help provide easy, intuitive and secure payment processes for our customers.”
Stripe will be a key part of the company’s tech stack for all the e-commerce offerings it is developing across the product and service spectrum. For Ford and Lincoln dealers currently offering digital payment services, Stripe’s service is expected to drive new efficiency into processing of e-commerce payments such as vehicle ordering, reservations, and digital and charging services.
“We’re thrilled to be the payments engine under the hood powering the next stage of Ford’s digital transformation,” says Mike Clayville, CRO at Stripe. “During the pandemic, people got comfortable paying online for groceries, health care, even home haircut advice from barbers. Now, they expect to be able to buy anything and everything online. Ford is making e-commerce possible, too, and scaling that strategy with Stripe’s help.”
Rollout of Stripe technology is expected to begin in the second half of 2022, starting in North America.
