Earlier this year, Mastercard rolled out its Fleet: Next Gen platform across Asia Pacific (opens in new tab), the latest payment network to bet on open-loop as the future of fleet spend. It's part of a broader push already underway at Visa, which built out its own Fleet 2.0 ecosystem for fleet and mobility payments (opens in new tab) starting in 2025. Two of the largest card networks in the world, moving in the same direction.
The question that tends to follow an announcement like that is some version of: is it finally time to drop closed-loop? That's the wrong question, and it was already the wrong question before either network made a move. The real one is whether your platform can run closed-loop and open-loop programs side by side, for the same fleet, without a multi-year rebuild or a loss of the control that made closed-loop attractive in the first place.
Here's the claim this article is built on: as fleets mix fuel, EV charging, tolls, and other mobility spend, closed-loop-only programs get structurally boxed in. Open-loop adoption is accelerating for real, verified reasons. But the operators who end up boxed in aren't the ones who stayed closed-loop. They're the ones whose infrastructure never gave them a choice in the first place.
What's the Actual Difference Between Open-Loop and Closed-Loop Fleet Cards?
Closed-loop cards run on a proprietary network controlled by the issuer. Acceptance is restricted to a defined set of merchants, often a single fuel brand or a negotiated group of stations, with rules enforced through merchant category codes, geo limits, and product restrictions (diesel only, fuel only, and so on). Because a limited number of parties handle the transaction, closed-loop programs have historically offered richer item-level data (product type, quantity, odometer reading) and tighter fraud control at the point of authorization.
Open-loop cards run on a global scheme, Visa or Mastercard, so the card works anywhere that network is accepted. That means fuel, EV charging, tolls, parking, and maintenance can all sit on one card instead of a patchwork of merchant-specific tools. The trade-off historically cited against open-loop is thinner transaction data and a different economic model, since a share of the interchange goes to the network and issuer rather than staying inside a closed, negotiated relationship.
Neither model is a strict upgrade over the other. The honest framing is control and data granularity on one side, universal reach and multi-energy readiness on the other.
Why Is Open-Loop Adoption Accelerating Right Now?
Three forces are converging at once, and none of them are hypothetical:
EV adoption is outrunning fuel-card infrastructure
Corporate fleets already account for roughly 60% of new car registrations in Europe, and battery electric vehicles took an estimated 27% share of the EU market in mid-2026. Most EV charging infrastructure was never built around fuel card rails, which pushes mixed fleets toward open-loop by default, whether or not it was a deliberate strategic choice.
The payment networks are building fleet-specific open-loop infrastructure
Visa Fleet 2.0 and Mastercard Fleet Next Gen have both expanded through 2026, purpose-built to unify fuel, EV charging, tolls, and mobility expenses under one scheme-based card rather than leaving retailers to stitch multiple systems together.
Regulation is removing the "wait and see" option
Proposed EU rules would add binding zero-emission targets for large corporate fleets starting in 2030, and national tax frameworks are already shifting to favor electric company cars. Multi-energy readiness is becoming a compliance question, not just a commercial one.
What Can an Open-Loop Program Actually Do for a Fuel Retailer or Issuer?
Universal acceptance across energy types
One card covers fuel, EV charging, tolls, parking, and maintenance instead of a fuel-only program that stops working the moment a fleet adds electric vehicles.
Faster market entry
Open-loop removes the need to negotiate and build a proprietary merchant network before a program can launch, which matters most for issuers entering a new region or vertical.
A real path for mixed fleets
Trucking, corporate, and blue-collar fleets increasingly run fuel and electric vehicles side by side. A fuel-only closed-loop card simply has no answer for the EV side of that spend.
The One Question Every Retailer Asks First: What About Fraud and Control?
This is the objection that stops most open-loop conversations before they start. Closed-loop earned its reputation on control: fewer parties touching the transaction, tighter merchant restrictions, and fraud rules applied at the point of authorization. Open-loop, by design, trades some of that restriction for reach, and issuers reasonably ask whether that means accepting more fraud exposure as the cost of wider acceptance.
It doesn't have to. Control isn't a property of the network, it's a property of the authorization layer sitting on top of it. Real-time validation of driver, vehicle, and transaction context at the point of authorization, not after settlement, applies exactly the same way whether the card is closed-loop or scheme-based. The network determines where a card works. It doesn't determine how carefully the platform underneath it says yes or no to a given transaction.
What Is Staying Closed-Loop-Only Actually Costing You?
- Revenue left on the table. Every EV charging session, toll, or maintenance purchase outside the closed network is spend a fuel-only card simply never captures.
- A second, third, and fourth system to manage. Mixed fleets running a fuel card, a separate EV charging app, and manual expense claims for everything else are managing fragmentation, not efficiency.
- Data that can't answer the question that matters. Spend data split across disconnected systems means no single view of what a fleet actually costs to run, which is the exact visibility issuers and retailers need to price and grow the relationship.
How Do You Evaluate an Open-Loop Migration?
Can your authorization engine run open-loop and closed-loop rules side by side? If the answer is no, you're not solving the original constraint, you're just moving to a new one.
Does fraud control happen at the point of transaction, or only in reconciliation? If it's the latter, widening acceptance through open-loop will widen the fraud window along with it.
Can the migration be phased by fleet segment, region, or energy type? A program that requires an all-or-nothing cutover carries far more operational risk than one that can move one segment at a time.
Does the platform give you one view of spend across both networks? If open-loop and closed-loop transactions land in separate systems, you've solved acceptance and reintroduced the data fragmentation problem in a different form.
Frequently Asked Questions: Open-Loop vs Closed-Loop Fleet Cards
What is a closed-loop vs open-loop fleet card?
A closed-loop fleet card only works within a defined merchant network controlled by the issuer, typically a single fuel brand or a negotiated group of stations. An open-loop fleet card runs on a global scheme like Visa or Mastercard, so it works anywhere that network is accepted, including fuel, EV charging, tolls, and parking.
Do open-loop fleet cards support EV charging?
Yes. Because open-loop cards run on scheme rails rather than a fuel-specific merchant network, they can be used at EV charging points, tolls, and other mobility spend categories alongside fuel, which is one of the main reasons adoption is accelerating as fleets electrify.
Is open-loop less secure than closed-loop?
Not inherently. Security and fraud control come from the authorization layer validating each transaction, not from the network type itself. A platform that applies real-time driver, vehicle, and transaction checks can maintain the same control standard on an open-loop card as on a closed-loop one.
Can a fleet program run both closed-loop and open-loop cards at once?
Yes, and for mixed fleets it's often the more practical path than a full migration. The requirement is a platform where both models sit on one unified authorization and data layer, rather than two separate systems that each need their own reconciliation and reporting.
Which fleet types benefit most from open-loop?
Fleets with unpredictable routes, multi-region operations, or a mix of fuel and electric vehicles benefit most, since acceptance breadth solves problems that a single-brand closed-loop network structurally can't. Fleets with highly predictable routes through one brand's network may still find closed-loop's negotiated rebates the better economic fit.
The Department Store Card Playbook
Retailers have been here before, just with a different kind of card. For decades, a department store card only worked inside that store. It came with loyalty perks and negotiated economics that made sense as long as the customer's spending stayed inside those walls. Then co-branded bank cards arrived: the same store loyalty and perks, but running on a network that worked anywhere. The stores that treated this as replacing one card with another missed the point. The ones that won kept the closed-loop loyalty relationship and simply extended it onto open rails, so the customer's spending outside the store still flowed back to a relationship the retailer could see and act on.
Fleet payments are at the same juncture. The question was never whether to abandon the closed-loop relationship for an open one. It's whether the infrastructure underneath can carry that same control and visibility onto a network with wider reach, instead of forcing a choice between the two.
The Real Choice Isn't Open-Loop or Closed-Loop
Go back to the question most people start with: should we switch to open-loop? By now it should be clear that's the wrong frame entirely. The right one is narrower and more useful: can your platform run both models for the same fleet, without a rebuild and without giving up control on either sides
Can your infrastructure run both models at once, or does it force you to choose?
If the honest answer is that it forces a choice, that's not a statement about open-loop or closed-loop. It's a statement about the infrastructure underneath both of them.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Reins builds fleet payment infrastructure for fuel retailers and issuers, from open-loop and closed-loop card issuance to real-time fraud prevention and multi-energy authorization.
Contact us to learn more.
