WEX NYSE: WEX Chief Financial Officer Jagtar Narula outlined the company’s growth priorities across mobility, corporate payments and benefits at the Deutsche Bank Technology Conference, emphasizing pricing actions, product investment, artificial intelligence initiatives and stock repurchases.
Narula said investors often view WEX as a complex company because of its operations in fleet payments, online travel and corporate payments, and employee benefits. He described the business instead as a payments platform applied to three distinct markets. In mobility, WEX provides commercial fuel-payment tools designed to help customers prevent fraud and optimize driver routes. Its corporate payments operation processes payments for high-volume sectors including online travel agencies, while its benefits unit supports health savings accounts, COBRA, flexible spending accounts and related products.
Mobility Trends, Pricing and Customer Growth
On the mobility business, Narula said freight-market conditions have improved primarily on the supply side. He said regulations under the current administration have reduced the supply of drivers and trucks, contributing to higher spot prices and improved profitability for trucking customers. That improvement supports WEX’s credit performance, he said.
However, Narula said WEX still needs to see further improvement in demand for goods moving through the economy before it sees a more meaningful change in same-store sales. The company tracks indicators including housing starts and manufacturing indexes for signs of that demand recovery.
Narula said pricing remains a continuing focus. He noted that WEX implemented approximately $70 million of pricing actions, predominantly in mobility, during the 2023-2024 period. The company has discussed about $15 million in additional pricing-related revenue expected during the second half of the year, including the third and fourth quarters.
“We still think there’s a significant opportunity to enhance pricing,” Narula said, adding that the company is evaluating product value, customer retention and attrition as part of its approach.
In the second quarter, mobility revenue excluding fuel-price effects grew about 3%, according to Narula. He said reduced late-fee incidence from higher fuel prices represented about a two-percentage-point drag. WEX accelerated planned pricing actions to offset that headwind, he said.
Narula also cited approximately one percentage point of second-quarter growth from BP coming online, one point from pricing and one point from organic growth. He said recent customer wins and investments in sales are expected to support growth going forward. Late-fee trends have moderated and remain in line with company expectations, although he said it was still early to draw conclusions.
Corporate Payments Focuses on Direct AP and Embedded Opportunities
In corporate payments, Narula highlighted 20% volume growth in direct accounts payable during the second quarter and said WEX expects mid-teens direct AP growth in the second half. About two-thirds of direct AP volume growth in the quarter came from new sales, he said.
The company has spent more than a year building its go-to-market approach for direct AP, including hiring and ramping salespeople and targeting midsize customers that can be implemented relatively quickly. Narula said the offering has been resonating with customers.
WEX also sees a strong pipeline for embedded payments, although implementations have at times taken longer than expected. Narula said the delays have been related to technical integration rather than customer decision-making. Because embedded-payment products integrate deeply into customer workflows, implementation can take longer on either the customer’s side or WEX’s side, he said.
That deep integration may also make customers stickier once they are live, Narula added.
Benefits Business and Bank Advantages
Within benefits, Narula said reported SaaS account growth in the second quarter was affected by a roughly three-point drag from factors that did not reflect the underlying health of the business. Sunsetting legacy, low-revenue products accounted for about two points of the impact, while lapping the prior-year implementation of the UAW trust accounted for roughly one point. Excluding those factors, SaaS account growth was in the mid-5% range, he said.
Narula said the company sees a strong sales pipeline during its seasonal peak in the third and fourth quarters, supported by product enhancements, direct sales and partner channels.
He also said expanded eligibility for certain retiree-oriented health savings accounts under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act increases WEX’s addressable market. The benefit is expected to develop over time through the company’s partner channel rather than its direct-sales organization.
Narula described WEX Bank, a Utah-based industrial bank regulated by the FDIC, as a competitive advantage. The bank provides access to lower-cost funding sources, he said, and serves as a custodian for HSA deposits. Using WEX Bank instead of a third-party bank can improve the company’s earnings on those deposits by 50 to 100 basis points, according to Narula.
He said the bank also provides regulatory infrastructure and allows WEX to act as both issuer and processor, creating a single accountable provider for customers.
AI, Margins and Capital Allocation
Narula said WEX is pursuing AI opportunities in products as well as operations. The company is using its transaction and customer data to develop insights tools for fleet customers, benefits users and claims-related functions. He said WEX expects eventually to monetize AI-enabled products after establishing product-market fit.
AI has also increased product innovation velocity, which Narula defined as the time from deciding to build a product or feature to delivering it to customers. He said WEX has reduced headcount since 2023 while accelerating innovation and bringing more products to market.
The company expects to improve operating margin by 75 basis points for 2026 and by more than 100 basis points in the second half on a year-over-year basis, Narula said. He attributed the expected improvement to scalable product investments, operating leverage and AI-driven efficiency.
On capital allocation, Narula said WEX reached its target of reducing leverage below three times a quarter earlier than anticipated and has restarted share repurchases. The company expects to direct the vast majority of adjusted free cash flow toward buybacks, while continuing to evaluate acquisitions that could improve its strategic position and generate risk-adjusted returns equal to or better than repurchasing shares.
About WEX (NYSE:WEX)
WEX Inc is a global financial technology company specializing in business payment solutions for fleet, travel, and corporate payments. The company delivers software-driven platforms and card-based services that help businesses automate payment processes, manage expenses and improve operational efficiency across a range of industries, including transportation, healthcare and government.
Founded in 1983 as Wright Express in Portland, Maine, the company began by offering fuel card services to trucking fleets.
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