Fuel Card Advantages and Trends

Fuel Cards Save Time, Money, and More 

As fuel cards become more and more popular in the trucking industry, card options are proliferating. Fleets are finding just as many options for fuel cards as consumers have for credit. As with credit cards, fleet managers are at a turning point in answering the question “What’s in your wallet?”

Traditionally the benefits of a fleet card have focused on control and transparency for the fleet manager, but as the consumer world has shifted to digital payment, so too has the trucking arena, where drivers are embracing the change as well. While payment leaders EFS and WEX have followed through on their promise to provide fleet managers and owners game-changing solutions such as reporting and real-time updates on spending and business-related expenses, they are also providing advantages to drivers by eliminating manual expense reporting and receipt submission. What some companies might not consider right away is how much time and money drivers and managers can save by using a fuel card and its single point of exchange as well as the data that each use provides.

With the WEX account we are able to track all charges, when they were made, where they were made, who made the purchases, and how much was spent. It has saved us thousands of dollars. —Brandi De Marinis, Clermont, Florida

Clearly not all fuel cards are the same and cards are evolving daily. But when it comes to saving time and money, most of these fuel cards – and specifically the WEX fuel card – deliver efficiencies and control that translate to savings in more ways than one.

6 Ways Fuel Cards Save Time and Money

1. SAVINGS

Save up to 15% on total fuel management costs with the WEX Fleet Card, accepted at more than 90% of fuel locations nationwide.

2. SECURITY

Set restrictions, require driver ID authorizations, and add or deactivate cards to reduce unauthorized spending.

3. CONTROL

Real-time access to online services allows you to add or delete drivers and vehicles, pay your bill, and set purchase controls and alerts.

4. CONVENIENCE

All purchases are tracked for easier accounting and a lot less paperwork.

5. SERVICE

Access U.S.-based customer service 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

6. FLEXIBLE REPORTING

Easily view fuel spending in both real-time and summarized monthly reports.

Along with the advantages above, fleets and drivers are embracing fleet mobile payments and expecting the same consistent and reliable experience they have when using the tangible fuel card in their wallet. With any new innovation involving money, security and fraud prevention are critical. Fleet card companies are focusing on that concern along with a number of trends that customers are driving. Global digital services leader Infosys recently published a white paper on trends in the fuel card arena. The findings provide a better understanding of how fuel cards are being used currently and what is to come.

Current Industry Trends in Fuel Cards and Payment

• Omni-channel experience.
  The cards industry is moving toward increased personalization based on analytics to make the customer experience more seamless. It leverages online channels to reduce customer acquisition time and cost. Fuel card players have started to leverage mobile apps for customer servicing and to help cardholders locate the nearest
  service station.
  
• Migration to EMV.
  With the US cards industry embracing Europay, MasterCard, and Visa (EMV), most major markets globally have
  moved to EMV. Migration to EMV has involved investments from card-issuing players, merchants, and merchant acquirers. In recent years, the fuel card industry has started embracing EMV card issuance. There are two key benefits that chip-based cards provide — improved security and finer control of “offline” credit card transaction approvals.
• Loyalty offerings.
  Loyalty programs have always remained one of the key drivers of the cards industry as  the changing market space, customer demands, and competition make customer retention increasingly difficult. Fuel card issuers like BP have rich loyalty program features for fuel cards through a tie-in with Nectar (a loyalty point aggregator).
• Telematics interface.
  Fuel card service providers have started to embed the telematics interface and robust reporting facilities (derived out
  of telematics data and enhanced data capture) as standard product offerings to improve fleet management efficiency.
• Emerging cardholder verification methods. Consumer device cardholder verification method (CDCVM) is an additional security feature that can be used to evaluate whether the person presenting the payment instrument is the legitimate owner of the instrument. This will play an important role in the fuel card industry to prevent fraud by drivers.
• Host card emulation. Host card emulation has opened numerous opportunities for issuers to offer innovative in-house payment solutions. Issuers now have an opportunity to integrate contactless payments withtheir native app using HCE, thereby providing an additional form factor for consumers. Incorporating fuel cards into NFC-based mobile payment initiatives will make the cards even easier for fleet players to use.

• Leveraging social.
  Card issuers are increasingly leveraging social media for marketing, customer acquisition, customer service, and keeping tabs on customer sentiments. API-driven interfaces with fuel card platforms will enable leveraging of social media for customer service, acquisition, and campaigns.
• Focus on security.
  Tokenization and biometric authentication for enhanced security continue to have a strong influence on the payments industry. With the increase in mobile payments and recent data breaches at leading retailers, card issuers are adopting tokenization like never before. Tokenization coupled with end-to-end encryption enhances payments data security. Fuel cards are expected to continue adopting tokenization considering that mobile-based payments are expected to gather momentum across product categories in the cards industry.

What these trends indicate is that innovation is taking hold in the fuel card arena that will have an impact not only on fleet managers, owners, and operators but also on the fuel industry and the payment sector – proof that once again, the trucking industry is driving business in more ways than one.

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