Eurowag Debuts New Visa Card for Fleet Management

Eurowag has teamed with Visa and Nexi’s Nets on a new payment card for fleet management.

The Eurowag Visa card, announced by the payments and mobility platform Tuesday (Feb. 18), replaces the previous Eurowag Mastercard and complements Eurowag’s existing closed-loop fuel offering, letting customers use their cards at any fuel station in Europe. Nets will remain the supplier of new cards for Eurowag.

Once linked to a specific vehicle, the Eurowag Visa card offers contactless, cashless payment capabilities for refreshments and accommodation, while ensuring security against fraud. Customers can also pay for traffic violation fines using the card, the company said in a press release emailed to PYMNTS.

“Eurowag’s membership of the Visa network brings new benefits to card users, but also various types of new FinTech services,” said Jiří Petrák, head of payment product at Eurowag.

Petrák added that the company will eventually be able to provide expense management through physical and virtual cards, tokenization and mobile payments services like Google Pay or Apple Pay, or through a “hybrid card combining closed and open loop features.”

David Jones, head of fleet and mobility at Nexi Issuing Solutions, noted that Eurowag’s fleet has 280,000 active trucks operating in 23 countries, meaning that it’s “critical each vehicle offers a secure, reliable and seamless way for its drivers to make payments, wherever they are.”

In addition to the transition of Eurowag cards from the Mastercard network to the Visa network, the company also prepared a completely new design for all its payment cards, which will become available to customers starting this month.

In other news from the transportation world, PYMNTS spoke last week with Auto Hauler Exchange CEO Royce Neubauer about changes in the vehicle transportation industry.

It’s a space that has long relied on middlemen who coordinate transport but add cost and complexity without necessarily improving efficiency, he said.

“Middlemen are a necessary evil … when you’re in that arena, you’re constantly negotiating against supply and demand,” Neubauer told PYMNTS, adding that a wave of new innovations  — fueled by technology, strategic partnerships and streamlined logistics — is transforming the industry.

Five years ago, while creating a vehicle logistics division within his brokerage, Neubauer realized the entire vertical was fragmented and frustrating for shippers and carriers. The disconnect between supply and demand wasn’t about a lack of capacity or need, but rather a lack of direct access.

“Shippers were struggling to control their logistics, while carriers couldn’t find enough opportunities,” Neubauer said.

For all PYMNTS B2B coverage, subscribe to the daily B2B Newsletter.