How do you see the UK EV charging payments landscape evolving over the next 3–5 years?
We’re moving from a fragmented, app-dependent ecosystem to something far more unified and intelligent. The next few years will be defined by three shifts: the decline of single-app dependence, the rise of payment orchestration as critical infrastructure, and the integration of charging into broader mobility and retail ecosystems.
Right now, roughly 10–20% of charging sessions fail, with a significant portion due to payment issues. That’s not sustainable as we scale toward mass EV adoption. The industry is beginning to recognise that payments aren’t back-office plumbing – they’re the front door to the entire experience. Operators who treat them as such will capture more revenue and build genuine trust with drivers.
We’ll also see regulatory pressure intensify around open payment methods and interoperability. The days of walled gardens are numbered. Within three years, open-loop payments, Plug & Charge, and unified settlement will be standard practice rather than competitive advantages.
What differentiates Paythru from other EV payment platforms operating in the UK and Europe?
We’re not a payment processor adapted for EV – we’re built specifically for this ecosystem. That matters because the complexity isn’t just about taking a card payment, it’s about orchestrating every touchpoint: in-person terminals, web portals, mobile apps, fleet billing, compliance, and reconciliation across multiple networks and acquirers.
Most solutions force operators to cobble together multiple vendors – one for terminals, another for app payments, a third for compliance, and so on. That creates fragmentation, points of failure, and operational overhead. Paythru delivers all of it through one orchestration layer, powered by Adyen’s global acquiring network
We also deliver measurably better reliability: 99.8%+ transaction success across mixed estates. When you’re losing 5% of revenue to avoidable payment failures, that’s not a technical problem – it’s a business problem. We solve it by treating every payment channel as part of a connected whole, not isolated silos.
What do you see as the biggest barriers to EV charging adoption for customers and how is Paythru addressing them?
Trust and friction. Drivers don’t trust that charging will work when they need it, and when it doesn’t, the experience is often painful enough that it shapes their perception of EVs generally.
Payment failures sit right at the heart of this. When a terminal times out, a card gets declined incorrectly, or a driver can’t figure out which app to download, that’s not just inconvenient – it’s a barrier to adoption. And when drivers often see unpredictable pre-authorisation holds that take days to reverse, it erodes trust even when the charge itself goes through. These aren’t isolated incidents; they’re happening at scale every day.
We address this by making payments invisible when they work and instantly resolvable when they don’t. That means supporting every payment method a driver might expect – contactless, mobile wallets, QR codes, stored credentials – without forcing them into a specific journey. It means real-time diagnostics so operators can fix issues before drivers even notice. And it means unified reporting, so fleet managers and network operators have complete visibility into what’s working and what isn’t.
Fundamentally, charging should feel as reliable as refuelling. Payments are a huge part of making that happen.
How does Paythru ensure secure, reliable payment experiences, especially given high-value and fast-charging transactions?
Security and reliability aren’t features – they’re the foundation. Every transaction flows through bank-grade, PCI-compliant infrastructure, with end-to-end encryption and tokenisation built in. We’re also aligned with evolving payment and charging standards, ensuring operators don’t need to rebuild their systems as regulations change.
For high-value transactions – particularly in fleet and rapid charging contexts – we’ve built in automated fraud detection, secure identity verification (KYC), and real-time transaction monitoring. This isn’t just about preventing fraud; it’s about ensuring legitimate transactions don’t get falsely declined, which is equally damaging to the customer experience.
Reliability comes from architecture. We work with Castles Technology for certified unattended payment terminals like the S1U2, which are purpose-built for harsh, remote environments. These devices maintain cloud connectivity, receive remote firmware updates, and provide real-time diagnostics – so issues get resolved before they cascade into downtime.
We’ve also built redundancy into every layer. If one payment method or route fails, the system intelligently routes to alternatives without exposing that complexity to the driver. The result is 99.8%+ reliability, even across geographically distributed, mixed hardware estates.
Are you exploring frictionless or tokenised payments, dynamic pricing, or loyalty integration within EV charging?
Absolutely – these aren’t future concepts; they’re active areas of development and deployment.
Tokenised payments are already embedded across our platform. Drivers can store credentials securely, enabling one-tap charging without re-entering card details. This is particularly powerful in fleet contexts, where our Visa-powered platform provides open-loop digital wallets with full spend control and consolidated billing.
We’re also working with partners on Plug & Charge readiness.The goal is to make payment completely invisible: you plug in, the car and charger communicate, and billing happens automatically.
Dynamic pricing is increasingly important as operators look to manage demand, incentivise off-peak usage, and respond to energy market fluctuations. Our platform is built to support time-of-use pricing, surge pricing, and promotional tariffs – all visible to drivers in real-time through apps and portals.
Loyalty integration is another area where we see significant demand, particularly from retail and destination operators who want to tie charging to broader customer engagement strategies. Our APIs and SDKs allow operators to embed loyalty schemes, vouchers, and subscription models directly into the payment flow.
Who are your key partners today and where are you focusing next?
We’ve built the platform on strategic partnerships that deliver enterprise-grade capability without forcing operators to manage complexity.
Adyen is our global acquiring partner, providing the financial infrastructure and network reach that allows us to operate consistently across markets. Castles Technology supplies certified hardware for in-person payments. Visa powers our fleet platform. And we integrate with leading CPMS providers and eMSPs to ensure seamless interoperability.
Looking ahead, we’re focusing on three areas: deepening OEM relationships as Plug & Charge matures; expanding partnerships with destination and retail operators who see charging as part of their customer experience rather than a utility add-on; and building stronger connections with fleet operators and corporate mobility providers as electrification accelerates.
We’re also exploring how AI can simplify decision-making for drivers – helping them find the best charging option based on price, availability, and journey context, while ensuring the payment experience remains seamless regardless of which network or location they choose.
Beyond partnerships, we’re increasingly engaged with regulators and standards bodies with our Charter for Smoother EV Payments. We’re committed to shaping those standards, not just responding to them.
What customer insights have influenced your product roadmap most significantly in the past year?
On the operator side, we’ve heard repeatedly that managing multiple payment vendors is a massive operational drain. That’s driven us to consolidate more capability into a single orchestration layer, particularly around reconciliation and dispute management, which were previously handled through fragmented tools.
Fleet operators, in particular, have pushed us hard on consolidated billing and real-time spend visibility. That insight shaped our fleet offering significantly, by giving fleet managers complete financial and operational control across all transactions, fuel and non-fuel.
On the driver side, the feedback is simpler but equally powerful: “I just want it to work.” That’s influenced everything from our approach to stored credentials and one-tap payments to our focus on reducing false declines and improving session completion rates. Drivers want to charge quickly, pay easily, and trust the experience will be the same every time.
And then there’s cost – not just the visible transaction fees, but the hidden ones: fraud losses, failed transactions, and the operational overhead of managing disputes and reconciliation. We’re addressing both sides of that equation – competitive rates through our Adyen partnership, and elimination of the invisible costs through better reliability and automation.
Looking ahead 10 years, where do you hope Paythru will be positioned in the market?
I hope we’re invisible!
Not because we’ve failed, but because payment orchestration has become so embedded, so reliable, and so seamless that operators and drivers simply expect it to work – and it does.
In ten years, I see Paythru as the connective tissue of the EV ecosystem: powering payments for millions of sessions daily across public networks, fleets, retail destinations, and integrated vehicle systems. We’ll be the platform that allows a driver in Manchester to charge at any location, using any payment method, with the same level of trust and simplicity they’d expect from contactless payments today.
For operators, we’ll be the partner that allows them to scale without rebuilding infrastructure, enter new markets without renegotiating acquiring relationships, and launch new services – subscriptions, dynamic pricing, loyalty – without worrying about the payment complexity underneath.
And critically, we’ll be helping shape the standards and regulations that make all of this possible. Payment orchestration isn’t just a technical layer; it’s a public good that enables the entire transition to electric mobility. If we do our job right, the next generation of EV drivers won’t remember what it was like when charging was unreliable. They’ll just expect it to work.
That’s the future we’re building toward.
