Ford Motor Company has signed a five year agreement with Stripe to scale their e- commerce capabilities. Stripe will facilitate transactions for vehicle orders and reservations, handle financing options for Ford's commercial customers and route customer's payments from the automaker's website to the correct local Ford or Lincoln dealer.
The company plans to roll out the technology in North America but also in Europe in the second half of the century. The company raised $600 million in a round and said it would use the funds to expand in Europe.
Ford plans to invest $30 billion in its Ford+ strategy by the year 2025. The strategic decision is in line with the auto industry's move towards investing in technology that will offer the greatest likelihood of capturing returns, specifically in the short-term, as the pandemic stunted the automakers' abilities to meet customer demands. It makes sense for Ford and Lincoln to establish a robust digital payment platform because of the number of subscription services they are planning to add.
The CEO of Ford's financial services arm, Ford Motor, said that they are making strategic decisions about where to bring in providers with robust expertise and where to build differentiated, always-on experiences for their customers. Stripe has developed strong expertise in user experiences that will help provide easy, intuitive and secure payment processes for our customers.
Ford will use the platform of Stripe, which has other big-name customers like Deliveroo, to build its product and service tech stack. The payment processor will help create more efficiency in payments and will include charging services.
The Ford+ plan has investors reacting positively. The automaker was the best performing auto stock in the year. Ford's market cap hit $100 billion for the first time last week.
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