An international online payments company headed by three Irishmen and responsible for processing up to one million credit-card payments for global brands such as Ikea and Finnair has moved its company headquarters from the Dominican Republic to Dublin, siliconrepublic.com has learned.
FreeStar Technology Corporation, which has offices also in Helsinki and Geneva, previously only had a satellite office in Dublin.
The company is led by chief executive Paul Egan, chief financial officer (CFO) Ciarán Egan and operations director Fionn Stakelum. It’s wholly owned subsidiary Rahaxi Processing Oy, based in Helsinki, and has a robust Northern European Base24 credit-card processing platform. Rahaxi Processing Oy currently processes in excess of one million card payments per month for such companies as Finnair, Ikea and Stockman.
The company’s Enhanced Transactional Secure Software is aimed at empowering consumers to consummate e-commerce transactions with a high level of security using credit, debit, ATM (with PIN) or smart cards.
In August, the company revealed transactions averaged 1.3 million a month, with more than 15.5 million individual transactions in the fiscal year-ended 30 June. Egan has predicted by the end of the year the company will average two million transactions a month, a gain of 25pc per month, as a result of a gain in new customers.
Both Paul and Ciarán are graduates of Terenure College, Dublin. Paul was vice-president of Inter-Leisure in South Africa before founding ePayLatina. He also worked with South African firm Engen to oversee its new project division after it acquired Mobil Oil South Africa. Prior to this he was employed by Trafalgar House Construction division, working on major building projects in the London banking district.
Ciarán was previously managing director of Medipro International Recruitment in South Africa where he was responsible for establishing new markets in Ireland and the UK and was successful in obtaining contracts with the Ministry of Defense and Aviation in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. He also implemented contracts with the National Health Service in the UK.
Stakelum, a graduate of NUI Galway, has a strong software localisation background and served as senior software localisation engineer at Microsoft, Lotus and Symantec in Dublin.
It is understood the company’s new headquarters will be based on Lower Baggot Street in Dublin. In addition, the company announced it has opened an office in Stockholm, Sweden.
Paul commented: “In 2006, we expect to have 90pc of our operations in Europe. Moreover, in the next 12 months, we envision having terminals in nine European countries. Therefore, it has become essential to centre our management in Europe.”
By John Kennedy
