A US company which handles millions of pounds worth of internet payments has announced that it is establishing a research and development centre in Belfast.
CyberSource, which is headquartered in California, said it planned to recruit 56 software development professionals for the new facility.
The news came as more than 100 top US corporate executives arrived in Belfast for a three-day investment conf
erence designed at encouraging them to set up in Northern Ireland.
Detailing the investment, which has been backed by Invest NI, Economy Minister Nigel Dodds said the announcement sent a very positive message to conference delegates who are arriving in the Province from North America.
“CyberSource is internationally renowned as a specialist in the development of solutions used to process secure online transactions,” said Mr Dodds.
“By establishing a research and development centre here in Northern Ireland, this company is reinforcing the strength of the local skills base which it believes will boost the competitiveness of CyberSource in global markets.
“I am delighted to welcome the company to Northern Ireland and I hope that their endorsement of this region will encourage other companies from high-value growth sectors such as ICT, business services and financial services to consider Northern Ireland as an investment location.”
Last year, CyberSource processed more than 1.2 billion transactions valued at over £27 billion – a 57 per cent increase on the previous year.
It has 237,000 customers around the world including Google, Yahoo, British Airways and London Underground
Bill McKiernan, chairman of CyberSource, said: “We are delighted to expand our engineering operations into Northern Ireland.
“Our new research and development centre will be an integral part of CyberSource global operations as the demand for secure payment processing solutions continues to grow at a rapid rate worldwide.
“On our visits to Northern Ireland, we were impressed by the scale of the growing technology and financial services sectors and realised that tapping into this knowledge base would add significant value to our global operations.’’
Mr McKiernan added that the company was looking forward to recruiting the brightest individuals from the pool of impressive engineering talent in Northern Ireland.
Cybersource, a leading provider of electronic payment and risk management solutions, has sales, service, and development offices in Japan and the UK plus a range of locations in the US, including Washington, Utah and Texas.
The full article contains 399 words and appears in News Letter newspaper.
