Crypto payment option for Honda cars only works via third-party platform

FCF Pay’s X account has been suspended amid circulating misreporting about its “partnership” with Honda, which has never happened.

Major automobile manufacturer Honda does not accept cryptocurrency payments directly but one can use cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) to buy a Honda car through a third party.

In early October, several publications mistakenly reported that Honda started accepting cryptocurrency as payment. But Honda doesn’t allow one to purchase its cars in exchange for crypto, a spokesperson for the firm told Cointelegraph, stating:

“American Honda does not accept cryptocurrency as payment. The recent reports regarding a change to this policy are incorrect.”

Honda didn’t respond to additional questions on its stance on crypto or whether the company is planning to integrate cryptocurrency payments in the future.

While direct crypto payments for Honda automobiles aren’t available, one can still use cryptocurrency payment platforms like FCF Pay to buy a Honda car.

According to FCF Pay chief operating officer Joseph Parkin, Honda isn’t the only car brand that can be bought using crypto on the platform. “There are more car manufacturers on the list, including Mercedes, BMW, Ford, Nissan and Mitsubishi,” Parkin told Cointelegraph in early October.

According to the COO, payments on FCF Pay are settled by a payment aggregator through the same payment rails that allow one to pay in cash in bank branches. “In the case of this payment flow, crypto really is acting as digital cash or the cash of the internet,” Parkin said. He added that only those companies that are part of FCF Pay-deployed bill payment aggregation system are currently available.

The service is currently only available in the United States. Still, FCF Pay is working with additional partners to carry out crypto-to-fiat bill settlement in Mexico, several Latin American countries, multiple African nations, and Asia, according to the exec. The bill payments system went live in September 2023, enabling one to buy products using coins like Bitcoin, Ether (ETH), XRP (XRP), Tether (USDT), USDC (USDC) and others for a $3 plus 2% fee.

“Our aim is to onboard companies and corporations of every size and in every sector for direct crypto payments and we hope that governments around the world open their eyes soon to the benefits of making it easier for companies to accept crypto payments,” Parkin stated.

The COO also emphasized that FCF Pay hasn’t entered into a partnership with firms like Honda to enable crypto payments for Honda cars. “Our system allows customers to pay with cryptocurrency, but the nearly 21,000 companies that feature on the system receive fiat via our payment aggregator partner,” Parkin noted.

The news comes amid FCF Pay’s struggle to restore its page on X (formerly Twitter) after its account got suspended on Oct. 5. Parkin has linked the suspension to accusations based on the fake news that has been circulating.

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“We were being accused of claiming partnerships with the companies on our bill payments system, whereas we were actually trying our absolute best to dispel these misrepresentations from other news sources,” the exec said. He added that FCF Pay’s X account encountered a lot of “bot-like interactions” days before the suspension. FCF Pay suggested that the activity might have been an attempt to get the account suspended by competitors or the supporting communities.

“The good news is that we are actually in the process of rebranding anyway as we lead up to our mobile app release at the end of the year. We may simply accelerate the process to switch over to the new branding if the FCF Pay account doesn’t get unblocked soon,” the COO stated.

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