US business payment processing and information management solutions firm Wright Express Corp bought London-based corporate prepaid solutions provider CorporatePay Ltd for nearly GBP17m (USD27.4m/EUR21.2m) on May 11, 2012. The deal has an $8.9 million (£5.5 million) earn‐out potential.
Strategically, this increases Wright Express’s presence in Europe and offers a cross‐sell opportunity of the prepaid debit product. CorporatePay’s clients are mostly in the OTA industry, particularly smaller OTAs in Europe. Its business is mostly airline‐related, compared with Wright Express’s U.S. OTA business of mostly hotels. CorporatePay also works with hotels and tour operators. The company has about 30 employees.
This transaction is viewed positively since it provides Wright Express with a platform for development of a virtual card platform to complement its existing high growth and very successful US based business. At the same time it also expands the product set to include multicurrency prepaid cards, a product offering that should have solid opportunity with corporate travel as well as individuals that travel across borders.
Click here to view the entire Wright Express press release.
PayStream is currently gearing up for a third quarter Purchasing Card technology insight report. This report will examine the different types of p-cards such as the corporate prepaid debit product from CorporatePay Ltd., and how organizations utilizing cards are achieving savings ranging from 50 – 80 percent, simply by moving certain transactions from check to card.
PayStream wants to hear from you. Has your company recently implemented a purchasing card program? What benefits have you seen thus far?
