UNITI Expo 2026 (opens in new tab) is one of the most important weeks in the fuel retail calendar. Thousands of operators, technology providers, and industry decision-makers gather in Stuttgart to talk strategy — and the conversations this year are dominated by two questions: how do you grow in a market where fuel margins are shrinking, and how do you keep fleet clients who are demanding more than a fuel card?
Our CBO Tal Ginat published a piece on MobilityPlaza this week, timed for exactly this conversation. It's written for fuel retailers standing at a crossroads, operators who know they need to evolve their fleet card program but haven't yet mapped out what that actually costs them if they wait.
Open-Loop Fleet Cards: Why Closed-Loop Infrastructure Is Capping Your Growth
Most fuel retailers already understand why open-loop matters. What few have calculated is how much their current closed-loop infrastructure is actively capping their growth.
In a closed-loop environment, every expansion decision, a new geography, a new merchant category, a corporate client asking for EV charging, triggers an infrastructure project. That project takes, on average, six to eighteen months. By the time it's done, the opportunity has often moved on.
Open-loop changes the equation: a new merchant, a new territory, a new product line is a configuration change, not a deployment.
How Fuel Retailers Are Losing Clients to Open-Loop Competitors - Three scenarios
1. When your biggest fleet client starts going electric A corporate account with 400 vehicles wants one card for fuel and public EV charging. In a closed-loop system, you either build integrations with charging networks or tell them you don't support it yet. In open-loop, EV terminals already accept scheme cards. You configure the permitted networks. The driver uses the same card. You keep the client.
2. Expanding into new countries and categories A fuel retail group wants to extend services across borders and add car washes and convenience purchases to accepted categories. In closed-loop, these are two separate infrastructure projects. In open-loop, both are settings changes on the same platform.
3. The SMB opportunity most retailers are losing The fastest-growing segment in European fleet payments is small and mid-sized businesses, and they're not looking for a fuel card. They want one card for fuel, tolls, parking, hotels, travel, and employee expenses, with per-driver controls and clean monthly reporting. If you're not offering it, a fintech already is.
What should you be asking after UNITI Expo 2026?
Tal closes the piece with a challenge that cuts to the heart of the strategic conversation at UNITI:
"Do you have a platform that lets you choose any growth direction, new territories, new products, new customer segments, and move on it immediately, without friction?"
If the answer isn't a clear yes, the article is worth six minutes of your time.
Read the full article on MobilityPlaza → (opens in new tab)
