WEX Australia a new MasterCard scheme member

US payments company WEX Inc has announced that one of its divisions, WEX Finance, has received a MasterCard issuing licence in Australia.

WEX Australia (formerly Wrights Express) managing director Greg Drumm said in a statement that the licence would be "an important pillar" for the company's growth in Australia but did not specify what the business plan was.

WEX Inc was established in 1983 as a fleet card payment provider and has since expanded into a range of corporate payment activities.

In Australia its business activities include Motorpass and Motorcharge fuel cards, Giftvouchers prepaid cards and "virtual credit cards" (commercial payment cards).

MasterCard and Visa have changed their scheme membership rules in response to Reserve Bank changes to the card access regime.

On January 1 the Reserve Bank varied the access regimes for the MasterCard and Visa credit card systems and revoked the access regime for the Visa debit system.

The RBA also abolished the ADI category of specialist credit card institution.

The combined effect of the old access regimes and the SCCI rule was that only authorised deposit-taking institutions were eligible to join the MasterCard and Visa systems.

The changes give the schemes greater flexibility to expand their memberships. The RBA said in a review that it was satisfied that the card schemes were open to admitting new types of members.

MasterCard and Visa have confirmed that they have received a number of approaches from five local and international organisations inquiring about membership.