Payments processing firm OmniPay will create 30 new jobs at its Dublin headquarters over the next six months as it expands business in India, South Africa and Latin America.
The company manages all of its global processing operations from its Dublin headquarters, where it employs 165 people. The new recruits will primarily be in technical roles such as project managers, business analysts, systems developers and quality assurance specialists.
Originally founded in 2000 to capitalise on the then nascent e-commerce market, OmniPay came about because its founders spotted a gap in the market: at the time banks had expensive legacy systems for processing payments and early growth in electronic commerce presented an opportunity for a new player that could more easily handle web-based payments.
OmniPay is now wholly owned by First Data, a US e-commerce and credit card processor which had been an equity investor in the company since 2002. It took a majority stake in OmniPay four years later.
Last April First Data acquired the remaining 30 per cent holding from Fexco, which had provided an early-stage £5 million investment to help OmniPay build the technology needed to process cross-border transactions in multiple currencies.
The company processed its millionth transaction by the end of 2002. The following year that increased to 17 million payments. During 2012 OmniPay processed 1.2 billion transactions from around the world, worth €55 billion and involving 149 currencies.
OmniPay develops and hosts its technology platform from Dublin. “Our focus is entirely international. We have no clients in Ireland,” said OmniPay’s co-founder and chief executive Hubert O’Donoghue.
Being fully part of First Data means OmniPay will process more transactions on behalf of its parent in the future. Mr O’Donoghue said First Data had now chosen OmniPay as its strategic global payments platform and said this was the main reason for the acquisition.
“We certainly expect a lot more business to flow to us through that source,” he said, adding that OmniPay would also continue to grow independently.
First Data accounts for just below 30 per cent of all transactions on OmniPay’s systems, with the remainder coming from other sources. The company works with 32 acquiring banks and deals with 5.4 million merchants in 73 countries. Its reach stretches from Wells Fargo on the US west coast to Citibank in New Zealand. Other customers include Bank of America and HSBC.
Last year OmniPay extended a long-term deal with PayPal, with which it has had a relationship since 2003. Although he could not comment directly on the deal, Mr O’Donoghue said: “Volume-wise it’s a significant piece of business.”
Another trend driving transactions is the growth of smartphones for mobile payments – Mr O’Donoghue expects this to drive further growth at OmniPay this year. “I’d be hoping for 30 to 40 per cent growth during 2013 . . . the applications and conduits for volume to us are expanding all the time, and fortunately we’re ready.”
