The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) began accepting credit card and debit payments from residents in a pilot project at its Davis office that began Monday. It also began a 2.3 percent service charge on in-person card transactions and a 2.1 percent service charge on card transactions at DMV kiosks and online, Anita Gore, DMV’s deputy director of communications, confirmed to Techwire. Customers are able to use Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover cards, and debit cards with the Visa or MasterCard logo at the field office. Among the takeaways:
• Residents’ in-person response was strong. During the pilot’s first three days, from Monday through Wednesday, officials identified 400 transactions that used the processing solution provided by Ohio-based First Data Government Solutions — or “about 40 percent of the transactions where a card is used,” Gore said. These may be “credit or pinless debit” cards, and it’s too early to determine whether this is an ongoing trend, she said.
• First Data is the project’s primary vendor. In an email to Techwire, Gore described it as “a merchant processing firm that is responsible for the card processing and depositing of fees for DMV.” The project’s subcontractor is Vitu, which according to its website offers tools for “a streamlined title and registration process.” Vitu “provides the back-end end user view” of processed data the agency uses for financial reconciliations, Gore said.
“First Data collaborated with Vitu and provided the intermediary processing through the use of a Clover point-of-sale device and the necessary software modifications to communicate with DMV systems,” she said. The contract is “held with” First Data, though the agency is “working with” Vitu as well.
• The amount of DMV’s contract with First Data is zero, Gore said, but the vendor receives the 2.3 percent in-person customer service charge levied at the field office. The First Data contract term is four years with two optional one-year extensions. The 2.1 percent online and kiosk customer service charge is paid to Elavon, DMV’s vendor for its kiosks and online services. The state is not privy to financial relationships between First Data and its “associated business entities”; nor to similar relationships between Elavon and its “associated business entities.”
• DMV has said it plans to offer in-person credit and debit card payments at field offices in Fresno, Roseville and Victorville and to fully implement card payments at all field offices by early 2020. The agency anticipates the rollout to additional pilot offices in mid-October, and the statewide deployment will begin in early November, Gore said. The statewide rollout, she added, will happen after a second round of pilots in Fresno, Roseville and Victorville, once these are observed to be “effective and have no major issues.”
The statewide rollout will occur over two to three months with new offices onboarded weekly. It will involve installation of new Clover point-of-sale devices and software “that enables the hardware to communicate and pass data between the DMV system and the devices,” Gore said.