SOFTWARE development company Sentenial is to create 70 jobs in Maynooth, Co Kildare, as part of a €15 million investment plan.

The announcement was made by Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Coughlan at the opening of the company’s new offices in Maynooth Business Park yesterday.

Sentenial, which directly employs 65 people in Dublin, London and Amsterdam, provides direct debit processing services for leading Tier 1 European banks such as ABN Amro.

The company said it has already begun recruiting for software developers, QA engineers, project managers, software engineers, business analysts and technical implementation consultants.

The firm’s chief executive officer Sean Fitzgerald said Sentenial was well positioned to respond to recent changes in the global banking sector.

“Banks have suffered as a reaction of diversifying from their core business such as transaction banking and into areas such as derivatives. Now banking is very much going back to its core, which is where we operate.”

Mr Fitzgerald said the company’s involvement with the EU’s SEPA (Single European Payments Area) programme also presented opportunities because it was regulatory driven.

SEPA is intended to make it easy for a banking customer to make electronic payments anywhere in the euro zone using a single bank account and a single set of payment instructions.

Separately, Tesco Ireland opened a new store in Drogheda, Co Louth, yesterday, resulting in the creation of 220 jobs.

Minister for Justice and Louth TD Dermot Ahern will officially open the Tesco Extra outlet in the Rathmullan Business Centre on Monday morning.