Mastercard has entered a strategic partnership with Fuelin, an Egypt-based fleet-tech innovator, to digitise fuel payment management for businesses across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The collaboration aims to transition the mobility sector away from cash and voucher-based processes towards seamless, data-driven digital transactions.
Through this initiative, Fuelin will issue virtual and physical commercial cards that operate on Mastercard’s open-loop ecosystem. This integration allows fleet operators to authorise, cap, and monitor transactions in real-time, leveraging advanced security features such as tokenisation and contactless payments.
By shifting to controlled digital payments, the partnership addresses key pain points in the sector, including fraud and financial leakage. It also promises to compress manual reconciliation processes that previously took days into actions completed within seconds.
Muhammad Nana, senior vice president, Digital Partnerships, EEMEA at Mastercard, commented: “Our work with Fuelin represents a significant step forward, in digitizing operations for businesses in the mobility sector in the Middle East region. Alongside expanding commercial card acceptance, this collaboration introduces tokenization, advanced security, and network scale into a high-impact business vertical”.
Beyond payments
The collaboration extends beyond simple transaction processing to offer broader operational insights. Fuelin’s platform provides fleet managers with a unified dashboard to set controls at the driver or vehicle level, track CO₂ savings, and automate reconciliation across multiple networks.
The solution also connects card programmes to station-level offers and non-fuel services, such as oil changes and vehicle care.
Karim Gamal, CEO of Fuelin, stated: “Our collaboration with Mastercard brings world-class security and speed to every fueling transaction, turning it into a data-driven moment that helps fleets save time and money. We are combining the discipline of closed-loop operations with the reach of open-loop payments – while maintaining full control and protection”.
For fuel stations, the digitisation of payments is expected to result in faster checkouts, fewer errors, and better access to B2B demand insights. The shift also offers advantages for governments and regulators by increasing transparency and improving the reliability of environmental and tax reporting.