A US company specialising in innovative payment methods combining phone, web and other solutions, such as prepaid phones, is to create 350 high-quality jobs at a new operations centre in Dundalk. The centre will serve the company’s European client base.
Oregon-headquartered Vesta Corporation holds a dominant US market share in real-time virtual (web, phone and SMS) top-up services for prepaid telecom products such as mobile phones and long distance calling cards. The company also occupies pole position in the flourishing Chinese mobile payments marketplace.
The company uses proprietary technology to manage its telecoms and financial services payment programmes. The company’s clients in the US include AT&T, Cingular Wireless, T-Mobile USA, MCI and Sprint.
Doug Fieldhouse, president and CEO of Vesta, said: “Vesta sees the European mobile telecoms market as an ideal expansion opportunity for our secure transactions services. The new Dundalk operations centre will play an integral role in our strategy to pursue further growth opportunities in international markets, particularly in Europe. As it will also be the disaster recovery back-up location for Vesta US, it will form a crucial part of our operations going forward.”
Established in 1995, Vesta has been recognised by Inc. Magazine as one of America’s fastest growing privately owned companies for five years running.
The new Dundalk centre will be a 24×7 customer support operation. It will also house: an engineering team; revenue assurance department; business analysis department; European finance and treasury management; and an in-house data centre providing disaster recovery capability for Vesta’s international locations.
The centre will initially occupy one third of a recently constructed 30,000 sq ft facility at the IDA Ireland Finnabair Business Park and will expand into the other floors as employment increases. Recruitment will commence immediately for customer service representatives, financial specialists, supervisors and highly specialised managers.
The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Micheál Martin TD said the announcement was positive news for the north-east. “Vesta is a successful global corporation operating in a highly innovative business area. IDA’s strategy of targeting the north-east of the country for international financial services investments proved very successful in 2005, with a number of significant companies locating there. Vesta will further complement and strengthen this success.”
By John Kennedy
