PORTLAND, Ore, USA and DUNDALK, Ireland — February 9, 2006 — Irish Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Micheál Martin TD today announced that Vesta Corporation, a US pioneer and worldwide leader in virtual commerce solutions, is to establish its European Operations Centre at the IDA Ireland Finnabair Business Park, Dundalk, Co. Louth. The centre will support Vesta's European mobile telecoms clients, as well as provide a duplicate service operation for the company's existing international business. Supported by IDA Ireland — Ireland's investment and development agency — the centre will create 350 high quality jobs over three years.
Vesta holds a dominant US market share in real-time virtual (phone, Web, SMS) top-up for prepaid telecom products, such as mobile phones and long distance calling cards, and a leading position in the flourishing Chinese mobile payments marketplace. The company is unique in offering a combination of customer service infrastructure, proprietary fraud indemnification, and payment processing for card-not-present transactions. Vesta sees the European mobile telecom market as an ideal expansion opportunity for its secure transactions services.
Minister Martin welcomed the investment, saying, "This is excellent news for Dundalk, as Vesta is a highly successful company operating in a growth 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."
Doug Fieldhouse, President and CEO of Vesta, said, "Our 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."
The new Dundalk centre will be a 24x7x365 customer support operation, and 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 square foot facility at the Business Park, and will expand into the other floors as employment increases.
As it is essential that Vesta has the Dundalk centre up and running by March due to the demand for its services, recruitment of the first 60 people will commence immediately. Overall the positions are on offer across varied operations: customer service representatives, financial specialists, supervisors, and a number of highly specialized management positions.
Vesta chose Dundalk as a location for its European operations due to the availability of highly qualified and skilled people, a factor confirmed by other IDA clients in the area, and Dundalk's location in the European Union, which the company required in order to serve European mobile operators.
Dermot Short, Vesta's Vice President, European Operations, said, "It's exciting to start a truly greenfield operation, especially with a dynamic company like Vesta. The support from IDA and local organisations and companies in getting the project off the ground has been amazing, and is a sign of the success to come with the Dundalk operation."
Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, USA, with operations in China and Europe, Vesta has been a pioneer and worldwide leader in virtual commerce since 1995. Vesta utilizes proprietary authentication and fraud screening measures in managing its telecommunications and financial services clients' virtual (phone, Web, and SMS) payment programs, and provides a secure, privacy-assured payment alternative to end users. Vesta has been recognized by Inc. magazine as one of America's fastest growing privately owned companies for five years running. Vesta's clients in the US include AT&T, Cingular Wireless, T-Mobile USA, MCI, and Sprint. For more information on Vesta Corporation, email info@trustvesta.com.
info@trustvesta.com
+1 503.790.2500
Ruth Croke
Manager, Press & PR
+353 1 603 4200
ruth.croke@ida.ie