WEX Opens FI Commercial Payments Services Unit

Commercial payments company WEX is adding a new business segment under its Corporate Payments division, created to address the payments needs of financial institution clients, the firm said Tuesday (Sept. 17).

WEX said Greg Sassone will lead the new unit as Corporate Payments vice president. He joined WEX in 2015 and has held previous positions at Mastercard and Citibank.

“Greg Sassone will lead a team of payments experts who are industry veterans and understand the challenges financial institutions currently face from a payments perspective,” said WEX Corporate Payments President Jay Dearborn. “He’s an excellent, collaborative leader who will work with FIs to develop the right solutions.”

According to WEX, the company already processes nearly $70 billion worth of transactions on its platform, and nearly half of that is on behalf of financial institutions. Developing a new business unit specifically to target financial institutions’ payment needs will allow WEX to expand that service and support FIs’ own commercial payment operations, the company said.

The company added that it is developing a range of cloud products to accelerate and boost the efficiency of transactions it processes.

In July, WEX announced an expansion of its collaboration with Visa, allowing the company to issue Visa virtual commercial cards for its corporate clients in the U.S., Canada and Europe. At the same time, WEX also revealed an expansion of its collaboration with Shell in a deal that expanded acceptance of WEX mobile fleet payment technologies at various Shell locations.

Months prior, WEX also revealed a new partnership deal with Australia-based Octet, a company that allows small and medium-sized businesses to pay suppliers domestically and across borders. Their collaboration allows Octet users to use WEX virtual cards to make those vendor payments, and settle invoices in a supplier’s preferred currency, the companies said at the time.