OTTAWA — Canadian software program specialist BlackBerry is becoming a member of forces with a U.S. agency within the race to show automobiles into cellular “wallets” that may routinely pay parking charges and bridge tolls and even accumulate funds for ride-sharing and parcel supply.

Introduced Wednesday, the settlement with Automobile IQ of Oakland, Calif., is geared toward tapping right into a linked automobile funds market that Waterloo, Ont.-based BlackBerry predicts can be value billions inside a decade.

The system will hyperlink Automobile IQ’s monetary software program with the in-vehicle “edge” computing of BlackBerry’s IVY system and supply direct entry to car sensors. In edge computing, information is processed on the web site fairly than transmitted for processing elsewhere.

“Entry to sensor information and edge computing will enable for an extremely safe in-vehicle funds answer,” BlackBerry vice-president Peter Virk mentioned in a launch.

For years, automakers and tech companies have been attempting out methods that would emulate smartphone mobile-payment expertise. However the processes have been advanced, counting on a number of smartphone functions or “legacy banking” instruments like bodily bank cards to speak with retailers and repair suppliers, BlackBerry mentioned.

Embedding Automobile IQ software program will create a “digital fingerprint” that permits a car to rapidly hook up with a financial institution’s cost community, validate, and autonomously pay for objects from gas to tolls to upkeep, the businesses mentioned.

Monetary tech analyst Nicolas Drachoussoff says vehicle-based cellular wallets might even earn cash for automobile homeowners. Income from the sale of site visitors and different information collected by car sensors might be shared between the proprietor and carmaker, for instance. Audi and Amazon have already examined a system through which drivers are paid for transporting parcels.

“Finally, turning automobiles into wallets might enhance the general public curiosity for automobile sharing,” partly due to the benefit of sharing prices, Drachoussoff wrote in a report revealed by European enterprise advisor Initio.

Monetary phrases of the settlement weren’t disclosed.