Global Payments puts up Phl service center

MANILA, Philippines - Global Payments Inc. (GPI) will establish a multi-million dollar global service center in the Philippines to serve the Asia-Pacific area and the United Kingdom by next year.

Listed on the New York Stock Exchange, the Fortune 1000 company is one of the world’s leading payment processing and merchant acquiring companies.

For its fiscal year ending May 31,2010, GPI’s revenues grew 12 percent to $1.6 billion and likewise posted an 11-percent growth in normalized income from continuing operations to $325.9 million. It serves over two million customers throughout Asia Pacific, Europe and North America.

GPI is headquartered in Atlanta but has a major presence in Canada, the UK, the Czech Republic, Russia and now in the Philippines, with a global workforce of 3,600 employes.

The company annually processes four billion transactions for all types of payment cards and checks, through high-speed, highly-secure worldwide information network. GPI has a strong alliance with HSBC.

According to GPI executives led by Morgan M. Schuessler, executive vice president and chief administrative officer, and Vincent Perrelli Jr., chief credit and operations officer, the Philippines was chosen as a global service center because of the Filipinos’ so-called “soft skills,” English language and highly-trained back office processing skills.

Claire T. Yap, senior vice president of the Philippine global service center, explained that “soft skills” refer to the Filipinos’ ability to emphatize with the customers and clients.

GPI’s office at the Robinsons Cyber Plaza along EDSA was formally inaugurated Thursday by no less than President Aquino.

The global service center currently employs 335 personnel but by February next year, is expected to hire an additional 200 more workers.

Yap said GPI plans to gradually ramp up its operations to eventually serve clients in the Asia Pacific and UK, and possibly Central and Eastern Europe.

In his address, President Aquino assured GPI that his administration has vowed to be “reliable and committed” to business and welcomed the company’s investment in the Philippines.

The President assured that with his administration’s priority of job generation, it would “enable the people to cast off the shackles of poverty.”