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Hosted by Aevi, this podcast explores how in-person payments are evolving across retail, ISVs, banking, and fuel & mobility.
Each episode brings together industry leaders, product owners, and operators to challenge established thinking, share practical product updates, and unpack the biggest learnings and obstacles they’ve faced along the way.
From payment orchestration and estate management to emerging payment technologies, regulatory change, and new in-store use cases, the focus is on what’s actually working, and what’s slowing progress down.
The conversations cut through fragmentation and legacy constraints to examine how modern payment ecosystems are being built, scaled, and operated across regions. Expect honest perspectives on decision-making, execution, and the trade-offs enterprises face as they modernise in-person payments.
Let me turn this around, Jermaine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1:We're here in the UK Forecourt Show. If we were in the European Forecourt Show based in like Germany or others, what would we seeing there that we're not seeing gear?
Speaker 2:Well, firstly, we wouldn't be getting the Birmingham hospitality that we normally accustomed to. That definitely won't be the case. But no, on a serious note, what my experience based on what the the larger fuel brands are showing is, in actual fact, they're divesting a lot of their focus away from site operations. Right. And they're allowing, the regional group operators to step in and do that work.
Speaker 2:They're relying a lot less on the management and more on the consolidation of what works and what doesn't. So when I'm looking at Germany or I'm looking at The Netherlands, not only have you got the differences in regulations, you've got the different payment method requirements, the customer journeys are completely different. You know, the way that you have interoperability with MyFair and others in in Europe compared to The UK is so very different from a fuel card perspective that here, if you if you, you know, you're at the Forecourt show, I don't see a massive amount of discussion about fleet. Yeah. Whereas I see a lot more of that in Europe around what are we doing on fleet, what are we doing with the data on that end?
Speaker 2:So the buyer to the differentiator differs. Here is a lot more technologically driven Yeah. But a lot less on the customer side, a lot more on the merchant side, the retail side. So there would be the differences. In terms of trends, as I mentioned, divestment is one.
Speaker 2:One of the key challenges that we're hearing customers talk to us about is vendor lock in. They're basically saying to us that they don't want to have to use the same person in every place. And because they don't wanna use the same person in every place, they're met with exorbitant costs. So, ideally, what they're looking for is a level of local agility. So I wanna work with the best player in each market, but I still wanna have a visibility and control in a global sense.
Speaker 2:And to get those two things at once, very challenging. The other trends that we're seeing on the fuel card side is around, fraud. A lot of skimming, a lot of issues on the roaming side. And what we're hearing a lot of customers asking us for is, what can you do pre transaction to screeve for fraud? What can you do post transaction to screeve for fraud that allows us to reactively deal with an issue that happens at the point of sale, proactively block a card knowing that it's not following certain trends, and prevent customers from losing money.
Speaker 2:And because of the fragmented nature of fleet, because of the fragmented nature of the payment solution, if you can have an underpinning layer that supports that, gives them visibility and control, it makes life so much easier for them.
Speaker 1:Another question for you. So here, we've got a really great representation of, like, the independent sector. If we just walked past, an MFG and Greenergy and Jets Mhmm. So we're seeing we've talked about the trends there. About on, like, a more macro level than the big brands?
Speaker 1:What are what are the different trends that the big brands are seeing as opposed to the smaller independents?
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's interesting you say that. So if you look at the largest brands, especially in Europe, but I could speak more to Europe because that's the area that typically I work in. They're trying to invest money where they make money. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned Aevi in our last conversation. That's not necessarily a revenue generator for them. And although it may help customers in some regards because they've got issues with the CPO CPMS payment terminal connection for the clients and whatnot, it actually is making the payment experience clunky. Yeah. It's costing money to set up and it's making no money.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I'm seeing a massive shift away from innovation in that space. There's definitely a push towards digital payments. We've seen a number of RFIs and RFPs in relation to how do we allow people to access our solutions in a digital sense, whether it's through the wallet on their phone that exists today or a native, mobile app that they that they have today. So we can utilize that they, provide them with offers and basically enhance the customer experience.
Speaker 2:That's in that sense. But I think the biggest disconnect I'm seeing is, as I mentioned before, the divestment of dual brands at the sort of local level means that group operators can come in and provide that localized support, but there's a disconnect in terms of expectations. So for example, if you're dual brand that relies on a group operator to provide services and then you're an independent dealer that goes to your group operator to enable a new fuel card. Yeah. You now have to speak to your group operator who now needs to speak to the fuel brand, who now needs to speak to the technology company.
Speaker 2:That line takes time, energy, and effort. And the light of it is, you're not gonna be prioritized. So what we're finding is is that there's probably, and we're seeing it more, there's probably gonna be a lot more divestment. There's gonna be a lot more focus on localized support, and most localized support providers are gonna have to have strong relationship with the brands, multiple brands, because they'll go to whoever provides the best service. You mentioned Grenadier before is providing the wraparound care.
Speaker 2:It's no longer just gonna be about who's selling the best deal. It's going to be who provides me with the easiest way to engage with my customer
Speaker 1:and
Speaker 2:allow them to pay, allow me to make more money.
Speaker 1:So last question, Tim. So you and I are payments geeks. Obviously wedded to the fuel retail sector. But what can we learn as payments people from talking to retailers and being in an environment which is very focused on retail?
Speaker 2:When you walk that's a great question. When you walk past the retail sites compared to the fuel sites, you can see there's a very distinct difference. Yeah. Colors. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Engagement. Yes. Yeah. No disrespect to those who are not in those areas, but you've got a lot of a lot more energy. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think when you look at retail, they do very well in engaging people. Yeah. We talk about fuel, we've got to remember people's trends are changing and the people who you are trying to sell fuel to are the people who are being engaged by these retail sites. They're young. They're dynamic.
Speaker 2:They're Gen Z. They're millennial. They're on their phone. They're interested. Their attention span's very short.
Speaker 2:So if you want to take anything from retail, it would be, how do you engage by adding value? How do you stay relevant? And I think fundamentally, fundamentally, how do you adapt? Because if anything that retail has taught us is those who stay in the same place become redundant very quickly. Now the problem with payments technology in fuel is you might have a site Hey, mister Russell.
Speaker 2:That has the same technology for seven or eight years. Okay. And then fine. Hardware wise, that's okay. But the software and the data behind it and the support around it and the way you engage with customers, that's flexible.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And you need to shift your mind away from the physical part to the customer engagement part. And if you can do I mean, we're seeing it with retailers like Tesco's and others who engage with club cards and things of that nature. Grenagy utilized Nectar to get engagement. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Focus on the customers. They will come. They will spend money. They will keep coming back, and you'll win.
Speaker 1:I fully agree with all those things. And I think I had said this to you before that payments people often don't get their hands dirty, too far removed away from what I'm sure retailers need from us as as providers for for their business. So let's go and talk to some
Speaker 2:more retailers. Exactly.