This whitepaper provides detailed information about the fuel card industry with current and future trends and the sectors it is extensively used in. It also covers in-depth analysis of fuel card features and its applications. This whitepaper will give you a clear idea about how fuel cards are used for real-time monitoring of the overall fuel expenses by your company driver. Fuel cards offer additional benefits by capturing low-level data that delivers details like cost per mile, gallons of fuel filled, and the maintenance of the vehicle. Fuel card offers a dynamic view of operations to management and helps your drivers perform cashless payment for vehicle fuels and other expenses.

A fuel card also referred as fleet card enables you to pay fueling, repairing, and maintenance expenses. Fleet cards offers real-time reports which enables the fleet manager or owner to simplify the process of monitoring vehicle expenses details by eliminating process of maintaining manual records and authorizations. Fuel cards helps to reduce frauds by using vehicle ID, driver ID and other authentication methods.

Types of fuel cards

• Branded Fuel Cards

Branded fuel cards use a particular brand and such cards are issued by the fuel companies. These cards include ExxonMobil, BP, and Sunoco.

• Merchant Branded Cards

Fuel merchant partners to issue branded or universal fuel cards. Some examples of merchant branded cards are Circle K, Quick Trip, and Thornton.

• Universal Fuel Cards

Universal fuel cards do not use any specific brand. Wright Express, Comdata, U.S. Bank Voyager are some examples of Universal fuel cards. These cards provide universal coverage and additional benefits like online reporting and level 3 data capture.

Things to consider when choosing a fuel card

• Pricing: Many people don’t know that the price of fuel at the pump is not always what you get with fleet card purchasing. Fuel cards have the potential to save your time as well as money.
• Location: Some fleet cards are station and location specific. However, some fuel cards are specific to the UK or only accepted at Shell stations. It is also important to note that, fuel cards which are location and fuel station specific can cause efficacy problems. For example, such cards can cause your drivers to burn up extra fuel.
• Connectivity: With fuel cards you can get all the information related to vehicles such as cost per mile, fuel economy details, fuel purchases etc.

Current Industry Trends of Fuel Cards

Consumers are embracing online payments in several forms such as a purchase at the physical store and in-app payments. Social media is gradually used for keeping a tab on consumer sentiment. In such a scenario, the consumer expects a reliable experience in a seamless fashion over several end-user touchpoints. This required an integrated approach covering frictionless payments, personalized loyalty offers, and overall mobile experience. With the increasing trend of digitalization of payments, the concentration on payments security has also increased significantly. Let’s have a look at the trends of fuel cards and they are influencing the industry.

• Telematics Interface

Fuel card service providers have new facilities such as robust reporting and telematics interface to improve fuel management efficiency.

• Omnichannel Experience

The fuel card industry is moving towards improved personalization to make the consumer experience more reliable. It influences online channels to decrease consumer acquisition time as well as cost.

• Developing Cardholder Verification Methods

Consumer Device Cardholder Verification Method is an important feature which can be used to analyze whether the person offering the payment instrument is the valid owner of the vehicle. This feature will play a significant role in fuel card industry to protect frauds.

• Leveraging Social

Fuel card issuers are hugely leveraging social media for customer acquisition, marketing, customer servicing, and keeping track of consumer sentiments.

• Focus on Security

Biometric authentication and tokenization for improved security remain to have a strong impact on the payments industry.

Features of Fuel Cards

Based on current industry trends, the following fuel card capabilities provided by fuel card industries.

1. Enhanced Data Capture

Improved data enables tracking of overall fuel expenses and efficiency of the vehicle. Fuel card can be used for manage expenses such as truck maintenance, fueling, replacement vehicle rental, truck repairs, and others. Enhanced data comprising detailed report such as odometer reading, fuel grades, fuel product, fuel quantity, vehicle ID, driver ID, and transaction details coupled with tax information.

1. Telematics Interface

The telematics interface integrates GPS data such as vehicle location, fueling, speeding etc. with the purchase data to monitor vehicle and driver performance. It determines the vehicle is refueling at a place which is accurate to its route. It also can track your driver behavior. Driver related report contain route, trip schedule, driving speed etc.

1. Efficient Fleet Administration

Fleet card platforms required to support API-driven interfaces to consumers’ purchase service, ERP systems, accounting systems.

1. Real-time updates

Tracking vehicle location by GPS and refueling location enable fleet manager to monitor all the fuel expenses.

Conclusion

The fuel card industry is growing rapidly owing to the innovative approaches offered by the fintech players, smartphones transforming the consumer experience, number of consumers embracing social media, and the government regulatory changes influencing the overall business growth. Various changes in the fuel card industry are impacting the product offering in the fuel cards industry.