Germany’s equivalent of Fuel Finder has brought about no meaningful change to average petrol and diesel prices despite the mandatory scheme being up and running since 2013.
Instead, the Market Transparency Unit for Fuels (Markttransparenzstelle für Kraftstoffe, of MFS) has led forecourts to change their prices 20 times a day or more, as operators seek to maintain a competitive edge with rival sites, and firms deploy automated IT systems to monitor how much nearby forecourts are charging.
Those insights were shared at Forecourt Trader’s 2026 Summit by Jürgen Doetsch, managing director for forecourt firm ED, which operates 100 sites. He was accompanied on a remote conference session by Sarah Schmitt, director of legal, regulatory affairs and governance at BFT, the German trade association for independent petrol retailers.
“It hasn’t had any effect”, Doestch said. “I wouldn’t say margins have gone down, and it hasn’t worked as the politicians intended”.
Instead, he detailed that while Germany’s 14,000-plus forecourts used to change their prices twice a day, the introduction of MFS means filling stations now update their pole signs 20 times a day or more. “We had a dynamic market with price changes before, but not nearly as many as we started having after the scheme arrived”.
The efficacy or other wise of the Fuel Finder scheme has yet to be determined, but such volatile pricing is unlikely here, as UK forecourts buy fuel on assignment, meaning operators pay for it when it is delivered; whereas in Germany a consignment model operates, meaning the fuel remains the property of the supplying oil firm until it is dispensed, leading oil companies to be closely involved in retail pricing.
There have also been attempts at increasing the scope of the MFS scheme, with politicians at one stage wanting retailers to publish not only their prices, but how much fuel they sold at individual prices – a proposal that was subsequently dropped.
Doestch added that UK operators should be mindful of how any IT systems they might use to monitor and set prices operate: “We have had a situation where the [MFS] scheme was showing prices for sites that were no longer operational, and competitors were changing their own prices based on prices for sites that no longer existed.”
