WEX Inc. and GasBuddy announced the companies have forged a strategic partnership focused on the retail gasoline market for consumers.
The partnership will focus on innovations that bring added convenience and savings to the more than 200 million driving consumers in the United States that fill up at retail gasoline stations, and represents a continued focus by WEX to expand the company’s offering to the business to business to consumer (B2B2C) space.
“WEX is keen to develop new opportunities that leverage our massive advantage in infrastructure and payments expertise to open new markets,” said Nicola Morris, senior vice president of corporate development at WEX. “We are excited to partner with GasBuddy to explore bringing new levels of convenience and value to the marketplace.”
Evolving From B2B to B2B2C
From its roots in fleet card payments beginning in 1983, WEX has expanded the scope of its business into a multi-channel provider of corporate payment solutions – including Travel and Healthcare – representing approximately 10 million vehicles in the fleet space and offering exceptional payment security and control across a wide spectrum of business sectors.
By comparison, with a smartphone app that has been downloaded by consumers more than 65 million times, GasBuddy has become the industry standard for consumer pricing data, with more than 300 million endpoints (e.g. Waze, Google Maps, in-dashboard GPS) using its crowdsourced gasoline price data.
Under the terms of the partnership, the companies will explore strategic uses of their collective technology, infrastructure, data, intellectual property and consumer reach to develop large-scale solutions that deliver new levels of convenience and cost savings to the driving public.
“Our technology, data and access to fuel retail sites in the U.S. paired with GasBuddy’s extensive user base makes this a powerful partnership,” said Brian Fournier, vice president of merchant and partner development at WEX, Inc. “We are excited to work with GasBuddy to bring unique payments solutions to the market, and we are looking forward to tailoring this offer to support our strategic expansion into adjacent markets.”
“With more than 65 million lifetime downloads of the GasBuddy smartphone app, we are uniquely positioned to drive added convenience and value to the consumer who is constantly striving for the perfect pit stop,” said Walt Doyle, CEO of GasBuddy. “Exploring the potential for these new solutions is a natural with WEX, the clear leader in fuel payments infrastructure.”
An announcement on the progress of the partnership toward consumer-facing payments solutions is expected later this year.
