National Petroleum News (NPN) has been the independent voice of the petroleum industry since 1909 as the opposition to Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. So, motor fuels marketing and retail is not just a sideline for us, it’s our core competency.
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RETAIL OPERATIONS By StephenBennett Fleet card programs can help petroleum marketers draw more customers to their stations, and bring other benefits Card Business F leet card programs can drive up custom- er counts at fuel islands while imposing controls that deter unauthorized fueling and enabling retailers to offer additional services that build cardholders' loyalty, vendors of card programs said. Fuel marketers "want to drive traffic to their gas stations and they do that by providing acceptance of controllable fuel cards," said Tom Bragg, director of global fleet sales for CSI Enterprises, Inc., Bonita Springs, Fla. Fleet cards provide fleets the ability to "purchase the fuel in a controllable manner," Bragg said. But a card such as CSI's Global-Fleet Fuel MasterCard does more than provide controls for a fleet owner when its drivers pull up to the pump. It also provides "a large measure of security" to gas station operators, Bragg said. "Fraud hurts a gas station just as much as it does a business (fleet) owner," Bragg said. "Losses on fuel and disputes on charges affect individual gas stations immensely. The gas station owner can feel more confident that when businesses are coming to buy fuel the fuel cards are controllable so there's no fraud or misuse happening at the time of fueling." The major fuel networks are linked into the dispenser technologies at gas stations so that when the cards are 26 SEPTEMBER 2013 swiped the card reader in the dispensers recognizes what that individual user is allowed to do, Bragg said. The dispenser asks for a PIN code and an odometer reading, and based on that information it can authorize how much fuel that individual is allowed to pump; it also records what time they are pumping and then reports all that information back to CSI's fuel card customer "so they can control their fuel spend," Bragg said. "For security reasons a business typically doesn't want to hand cash or an open credit card to fleet drivers," Bragg said. "The more that you can monitor and know what your drivers are buying when they go to a gas station obviously then you can start saving money because you can dictate how much they're allowed to buy on a daily, weekly, monthly basis." As for fuel marketers, Bragg said, "Gas stations want to make sure they're accepting as many networks as possible, but they want to have some integrity with these networks. That's what we focus on – to make sure that all our customers can buy fuel in a secure manner so there isn't any misuse or fraud on their fuel card programs." Nearly a year ago – October 2012 – the fleet card landscape changed somewhat when WEX, South Portland, Maine, acquired Fleet One, Antioch, Tenn. The combination of the two entities offers growth opportunities, executives said. "We've got a natural market with a base of 350,000 businesses and 7.4 million cardholders and now there is an opportunity to cross-sell another product into that base," said Bernie Kavanagh, vice president of corporate payment solutions for WEX. "The acquisition of Fleet One by WEX was a natural fit," said Bill Cooper, vice president of over-the-road (OTR) sales for WEX Fleet One. "It's allowing us to address the mixed-fleet operator – somebody who is driving sedans but also using long-haul heavy tractors to move their goods across the U.S." The range of fleet card programs the company markets to fleets and fuel merchants includes its WEX card direct program, and programs that work at the locations of petroleum marketers with branded stations. NPN Magazine n www.npnweb.com