New Card Combines Fleet, Purchasing, T&E

In an unusual union between a fleet services firm and a corporate card issuer, PHH Vehicle Management Services and First USA Paymentech Inc. are forming a joint venture to develop a single card payment mechanism for fleet, purchasing, travel and entertainment expenses.

The card is expected to be available early this year and will come with data management tools to help travel buyers manage travel costs, according to Pamela Patsley, president and CEO of First USA Paymentech. Although NationsBank and First Bank Systems previously launched combined purchasing and T&E cards, the PHH-Paymentech card is the first bank to base its product on the new MasterCard corporate fleet card announced last November.

Designed to help companies track and manage expenses of their commercial vehicle fleets, the new MasterCard is being rolled out early this year by GE Capital Corporate Expense Management Services, Citibank and First Chicago NBD, along with Dallas-based First USA.

As with the MasterCard Purchasing Card, the fleet product offers corporations significant controls on the use of and charges on the card. But the new card offers something different: It can be assigned to a driver or a vehicle. In addition, the card enables fleet operators to control or restrict use of specific merchant categories, dollars charged per day and month and number of transactions per day and month.

"A customer could have every card issued with different functionality for individual groups or departments," said Mary Dees, senior vice president for First USA.

Jim Prebil, senior vice president for Hunt Valley, Md.-based PHH, said his company sought an alliance with First USA as executives noted a growing trend toward multi-use cards. By surveying its existing client base, PHH found that 40 percent wanted a multipurpose card while another 40 percent wanted the single-purpose option that PHH offers.

"The early adopters really want to manage this whole expense stream," Prebil said. "We want to be able to help them." PHH manages nearly 500,000 fleet vehicles and has more than 1 million fuel and service cards in use. Although PHH was recently acquired by HFS, executives said the acquisition will have no impact on the joint card.

At press time, executives from both companies were devising pricing for the card. Although Paymentech's corporate products typically cost anywhere from nothing to $60 per card, PHH usually charges monthly fees of $2 to $5 per card for its services.