US-based global payment processing company Payroc has become the latest inward investor to create exclusively home-based jobs in Northern Ireland.
Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Illinois, it will hire 75 technical and contact-centre staff, most of whom will be in place by the end of this year.
The company offers a end-to-end payment processing service for clients such as Visa and Mastercard, and also provides software and technology development, which includes front and back-end processing capabilities.
Payroc's chief technical officer Paul Vienneau told the Irish News: “We had originally intended to have an office base in Derry, but then Covid hit and we completely reassessed our model, which will be entirely working from our employees' homes.
“We won't have an office anywhere. Pure and simple.”
Payroc, whose operations service 50 locations globally, has experienced significant success particularly in the US and Canada, and its ambition is to continue this rapid growth through investment in sales, marketing and specialist technology.
Paul added: “Our new Northern Ireland team will add considerable in-house engineering and support resources and expertise. This will help us to achieve our international growth plans, with a focus on the implementation of new technologies, delivering product improvements and increasing capacity to strengthen our customer support.”
Invest NI has offered Payroc strategic business advice and £455,000 towards the creation of the 75 jobs over a three year period.
“But we'll easily bust that time scale,” Paul said.
“Some 20 jobs are already in place, and another 23 have signed an agreement letter and will be onboarding in the in the next month or so.
“And right now we're still recruiting through from senior leaders all the way down to placement students, and I expect to have another 30 hires ready to sign by the end of this year.
“We've talked about 75 jobs, but ideally we could meet that target by the end of 2021 and then will potentially look to expand further.”
Entrepreneur Paul Vienneau is known by industry peers for his contagious passion for quality, a talent for resourceful IT solutions and a capacity for motivational leadership, and he has already been involved with two other Invest NI client companies in NaviNet and Cayan TSYS.
“TSYS is going through a lay-off process at the moment, and we've picked up a fair number of folks from there, so the timing worked out perfect,” he added.
Paul said all the new posts would pay “fair market rate and above”, adding: “We feel we have a competitive offer. We also subside people for their home office with a one-off payment of £500 and also give them a monthly stipend to take care of utilities and such
“Our people can take holidays when they want, so we're not holding them to a calendar, and we offer other benefits around pension and health.”
Economy Minister Diane Dodds said: “Payroc is an early-stage company that has developed its high-growth international presence very quickly, and is a welcome addition to Northern Ireland’s thriving fintech sector, which is at the cutting edge of global technology development.”
