The UK pumps around 36 billion litres of fuel a year, split fairly evenly between consumer and commercial use.
Annually, FleetCor pumps 3.6bn litres across its three fuel cards, which equates to 20% of the 18bn commercial litres.
Allstar is by far the dominant fuel card with its 33,000 customers.
One-third are large corporates, one-third are public sector and one-third are SMEs and together they pumped 2.5bn litres of fuel in 2012.
Fuel card market in decline
Have the issues caused by the network charge and software migration bugs resulted in lost business?
“We have had customers leave us but for a whole host of reasons,” Gibson replies.
“It’s hard to say that it’s down to these issues. The market is generally in decline due to travel policies, de-fleeting, improved fuel economy and credit issues.”
He adds: “We have listened to customer feedback. We will increase the emphasis on communications going forward and transparency. That will be a key focus.”
However, Gibson remains coy over the exact charging structure, which fleets claim they were initially led to believe would be a maximum of 2% of each transaction. Their invoices told a different story.
“We didn’t design it to be a set percentage for every customer. We make an appropriate charge based on the type of business,” Gibson says.
“No-one likes to pay for anything. will have to understand what they will get for their payment and then make their decision.
"Some will choose not to use us because they don’t see the value proposition.
"But they are all important customers, so I will have to find a solution to make the business attractive to them, such as via our The Fuelcard Company option.”
FleetCor has indicated a degree of flexibility in its discussions, according to some fleets which report their service fees have been waived until 2015.
Gibson confirms that some charges have been waived, although he stresses that this is “not a waiver programme”.
He adds: “We have individual arrangements with individual businesses.”
The majority of fleets have now been transferred across to the new software system.
Around two-thirds are also using Allstar’s paperless e-billing service, which was introduced this year at the behest of some larger corporate customers to fit in with their environmental plans.
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Bauer B2B group editor Stephen Briers has been an automotive business journalist since 1995. He has been editor of Fleet News since 2009 and before that was editor of Automotive Management for almost seven years. He now oversees both brands, as well as RAIL magazine.
One of many ex customers - 18/12/2013 12:59
Just to be clear we no longer use Allstar because of their charges. I think it is a bit disingenuous to say that customers left for a number of different reasons. I would suggest that Allstar had an increased rate of customers leaving shortly after they introduced the charging. However it’s great to hear that they have decided to be more honest in their communication!