ExxonMobil is the latest company to embrace mobile payments, or the concept of using your phone to pay for goods and services. Apple Pay went live in more than 6,000 Exxon and Mobil-branded gas stations across 46 US states. The service will be added to about 2,000 more stores by mid-year and will be available in nearly all of the companys 10,000 locations by the end of 2016, Russell said.
The ExxonMobil system is unlike Apple Pay as it was first presented. In that initial method, you wave an iPhone 6 or later device at a register to pay for goods. The phone talks to the register using a technology called near-field communication, or NFC. You also can use Apple Pay to make purchases in apps without having to enter your credit card information each time, which is the feature used by ExxonMobil.
The new method, by contrast, uses the phones location and the ExxonMobil app to let you make a purchase before you get out of your car.
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