According to statistics from the Circle K car number payment solution, compared to residents of the Nordic countries and other Baltic countries, Estonians are beginning to use modern, comfortable digital solutions many times faster. If in Estonia already every fifth fuel purchase – that is, 20% of payments – is made using a mobile application, then in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, for example, the share of users of such an application is only a few percent. The Circle K system allows you to pay for fuel completely contactless. The system automatically detects the license plate number of a car arriving at a gas station, opens the corresponding column and allows you to pay directly through the application. Launched in Estonia in 2022, the system at Circle K gas stations is used by almost 20% of fuel buyers, that is, every fifth customer. Payment by number has also been implemented in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Latvia and Lithuania, but the percentage of users there is much lower. “We are very pleased that approximately 20% of all fuel purchases on Circle K are paid for by car number. This shows that Estonian customers are much more ready to implement modern digital solutions compared to their neighbors,” explained Circle K Motor Fuel Sales Director in the Baltic States Raimo Vahtrik. – For example, our southern neighbors, Latvians and Lithuanians, use the payment system with license plate recognition approximately half as often. And in the Nordic countries there are even fewer such users.” According to Vahtrik, Estonians value convenience, speed and independence when refueling. He noted that refueling using license plate recognition saves each client two to three minutes at one gas station. “Paying with a bank card at a gas station takes longer than a digital payment, since you first need to insert a bank card, then enter a PIN code and only when the system has detected that there are sufficient funds for payment, the gas nozzle opens. Most clients also need a receipt, which they then need to receive from a machine. When refueling using a mobile application and license plate recognition, these steps are skipped, since refueling can be started immediately, and the receipt is automatically saved in the application,” explained Vahtrik. To date, in Estonia, the Circle K app, which allows you to pay by car number, has already been downloaded by about 60,000 people, and on average 3,000 new users join it every week. In Latvia, on average, 1,300 new app users appear per week, and in Lithuania – 1,900, although the population in these countries is larger.
