Cyril and John McGuire are among the younger members of a family of 12 children, raised in south Co Dublin. Many of their siblings live in the US, while their mother remains in Bray, Co Wicklow. The brothers displayed entrepreneurial leanings from an early age.

During his college days, John (39) began a business importing Christmas trees to Ireland. This still exists and is one of the largest operators in the sector. Cyril (38) had a short but lucrative career running discos during his time as a B Comm student at UCD.

The McGuires founded Trintech in 1986 after Cyril gave up his job with an Irish merchant bank and John completed a dissertation in electronic engineering at Trinity. The same dissertation won him the Hewlett-Packard award for Innovation in Electronics for his work on reducing fraud through stolen card numbers.

Ironically, Hewlett-Packard later bought US company Verifone, Trintech's biggest competitor, for $1.2 billion (€1.14 billion).

John McGuire is widely acknowledged as the technical brain behind Trintech, with responsibility for the company's activities in the US and Germany, while Cyril manages the company's finances from Dublin.

Another brother, Kevin, was recently appointed Trintech's vice president of engineering with responsibility for the company's advanced research unit in Princeton in the US.

He brought with him a team of 20 former nuclear physicists, who specialise solely in cryptographic security.