The starting signal was given in the Netherlands, shortly followed by Lithuania: Europe's largest fuel card issuer, DKV Mobility, has now begun to transition its fuel and service cards to NFC chip technology for payment at the gas station. Other countries are expected to follow.

"Our new service cards with chip technology now enable contactless payment for the first time. Our customers only need to hold the card close to the terminal and no longer need to swipe it," explains Jennifer Bautista Lozano of DKV Mobility, who was significantly involved in the product development, highlighting the advantages of NFC chips (Near Field Communication). In addition to the convenience gain, the technology, which has been used in credit and debit cards for some time, promises higher protection against counterfeiting.

Another significant advantage of chip technology is that cards equipped with it also work offline. If the point-of-sale cash system is unable to connect to the authorization server, the transaction is still possible seamlessly thanks to authorization through the chip.

Jennifer Bautista Lozano,Director Product Management Fuel & Payment Authorization at DKV Mobility

Broad acceptance

A real unique selling point of the DKV Card with chip, according to Markus Naumer, is its cross-acceptance. "This means that users can pay at many gas stations within the large DKV Mobility acceptance network in the future. This is a significant advantage over cards tied to a specific brand," emphasizes DKV Mobility's expert for payment systems.

If a gas station's payment system is not yet equipped with modern technology, that's not a problem either: "Even in the Netherlands and Lithuania, where not all point-of-sale terminals are equipped with the corresponding technology, we retain the magnetic stripe on our cards," adds his colleague Bautista Lozano as an additional feature – and another parallel to credit cards. The cards can be used without any issues even when traveling beyond the borders of the pioneer countries.

Markus Naumer, Head of Payment Competence Center at DKV Mobility

No card exchange required

For existing customers, there is little change for now: The exchange of already circulating cards is currently not planned. "The innovative offering is primarily aimed at new customers. They can purchase the chip card in our webshop. Already available in Lithuania and the Netherlands today, and in the future in other countries as well," says Bautista Lozano.

Further roll-out not technically trivial

When the chip card will be offered in other countries is not yet determined. "The Netherlands and Lithuania are pioneers because many gas stations there are already technically capable of accepting our chip cards," says Markus Naumer. "We are working diligently to increase acceptance penetration in other countries. However, from a technical perspective, this is by no means trivial."