Fleet card provider and processor Wright Express Corp., which over the past few years has focused on building an international presence, is setting its sights on new regional opportunities, including Latin America, Mike Dubyak, the company’s chairman, president and CEO, tells PaymentsSource.
“The Fleet card markets in North America and Europe are more mature, but there are opportunities in Latin America to try to find alliances and partnerships to bring value in that marketplace,” he says.
Wright’s strategy is to “build out the knowledge” it has gained through acquisitions and to use that to grow and move into new markets this year and next, he says.
“Our ultimate goal is to leverage into the [business-to-business] model for prepaid, either by working with current merchants or current fleets,” he says. “I don’t see us getting into a lot of areas where we’re not serving businesses and government agencies today.”
To help fuel the company’s international growth plans, Wright Express on Jan. 11 announced the hiring of Gareth Gumbley as executive vice president of Wright Express International to oversee the company’s efforts to expand into new markets.
Gumbley previously was CEO of Euronet Worldwide’s ePay prepaid division, where he was responsible for overseeing acquisitions in existing and emerging markets. He will be based in London, and he tells PaymentsSource he expects to spend most of his time in Europe, the Asia/Pacific region and Latin America as he works to drum up new business opportunities for his new employer.
Based in South Portland, Maine, Wright Express thus far has made its biggest international growth moves in the Asia/Pacific.
In 2008, Wright Express acquired Financial Automation Ltd., a New Zealand-based provider of fuel card processing software. In September last year, it acquired the Australian fuel/fleet and prepaid card operations of Retail Decisions Ltd., which included the company’s merchant gift card operations (
Wright hopes to expand the BP deal into Europe as well, Gumbley says.
The company will begin processing BP transactions in Australia later this quarter, Dubyak says.
In North America, Wright Express is looking for opportunities in the open-loop prepaid fleet card market and with government B2B initiatives, he says. Its bank, Wright Express Financial Services in Salt Lake City, issues MasterCard-branded purchasing cards.
Tien-tsin Huang, an analyst J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. in New York, notes that Wright Express’ single-use MasterCard initiative “quietly” has opened new opportunities for the company, including e-commerce exposure, especially in travel, which is outside the company’s traditional fleet card business.
“They’re doing the right things. I give them a lot of credit,” Huang tells PaymentsSource. “They’ve done a good job of growing their core fleet card business. They’ve stated that their goal is to diversify and grow into new channels, and the [Retail Decisions] acquisition was a good example of that.”
Wright Express uses Total System Services Inc., or TSYS, to process its MasterCard transactions in the U.S., and the company is looking for processing partners to help grow its prepaid business, Dubyak says. Though Wright has had multiple meetings to address that need, it has not created a formal process to solicit processor bids. Still, the company hopes to announce a plan and act on it this year, Dubyak says.
In November, Wright Express cited continued success with its MasterCard cobranded credit card program and improvements in its Fleet business as the chief drivers behind its improved third-quarter earnings (
Investors have reacted positively to Wright’s activities, as the price of the company’s stock has grown to $48.96 per share on Jan. 12 from $37.23 on Nov. 1.
It was around early November when Wright Express disclosed the accretive benefits of its Retail Decisions deal, Huang notes. “That’s really when the stock moved. We always thought that the [Retail Decisions acquisition] was a good use of capital. It enhanced their growth profile, and with the numbers going up, folks got excited about the stock.”
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