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"We provide a significant service to our customer base and we have a desire to continue to invest in that network and provide product differentiation we haven't seen in seen in that market," he explains. "The Network Service Fee is going to bring a batch of new products and applications to the market that customers will see value in."
The first of these is what Gibson claims will be an industry-leading chip and pin introduction coming next year in partnership with Visa, something he says involved "double-digit millions of pounds of investment on our part".
"The investment was going on in the background - something we weren't consistent in telling people - and at the end of 2013 and into 2014 we'll see investments coming to bear and people will start seeing the benefits."
To get the partnership with Visa up and running, Allstar needed to visit every petrol station that accepts its card - which is 95% of UK forecourts - to reconfigure the card terminal ahead of the roll-out that starts in April 2014. The target is to have all Allstar customers onto chip and pin by the end of next year, if not sooner.
"To introduce a fee for a service is always difficult, especially when customers have had years with no fees," Gibson acknowledges. "With hindsight, the focus would be a lot more on the customer value proposition and helping customers understand who we are with the network, service and the value add we bring to the business - be it Visa or a number of other developments in the pipeline - and we'd talk to them about how we will manage in the future.
"Coming from the world of banking, if people pay a fee, they need to understand the value of that; if they understand the fee they'll engage with the product and engage with the features," Gibson continues.
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