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Paymaster goes after value, expanding internationally - Decade-old company processing $60b payments annually
published: Friday | October 26, 2007
Susan Gordon, Business Reporter
Audrey Marks, chief executive officer of Paymaster Limited, at her Cargill Avenue, St. Andrew, office Wednesday - photo by Susan Gordon
Paymaster Jamaica Limited, now in its 10th year, says it is immediately going after more value from its business locally while it seeks to expand its international operations over the second decade in business.
Chief executive officer and founder Audrey Marks said the company, which processes transactions of $60 billion per annum, would begin the first stage of transforming its business model from volume driven with low margins to one that offers higher value proposition.
Marks, in an interview with the Financial Gleaner earlier this week at her new Cargill Avenue head office, said the company invested $25 million this year in new technology as the platform on which her new business model would hinge.
Seeking venture capital
However, for the medium and long term, Marks, a pioneer in bill payment, is seeking venture capital to build out her business in 10 states in the United States, three Caribbean countries, London, Toronto and Africa.
The technological payment company is already visible in Alabama where it established three Paymaster outlets four years ago.
"Our focus for the first 10 years was high volume and low margin," Marks told the Financial Gleaner of the bill payment company which now boasts 1.5 million customers today.
"Our shift now is to give more value. We are going through our business line for more value. Our new model is to go for value proposition," she explained, pointing out that this was necessary to keep ahead of the game.
Before, clients were heavily subsidised. "We believe we have laid the base these 10 years and now want to build on that to create multiples of value."
Technology reach
She said Paymaster was looking leverage of the brand and that the reach would be through technology.
She said the company would use every aspect of technology to offer the service it now offers, emphasising that Paymaster would look radically different in its next 10 years.
"We invested heavily in technology. We've just completed a $25-million upgrade and are working with Cable and Wireless to put in an islandwide network to be totally technologically driven," said Marks.
"Web tech is the biggest thing now where websites are social networks and phones for mobile network."
However, Marks said the company has just engaged a financial consultant to put costings on the remodelling and that the first stage had already started.
In fact, she said the company would continue the investment in the region of $25 million for the next few years to upgrade its technology.
Hopes to go public
Paymaster still hopes to go public but the timetable has been pushed back.
Marks had hoped that Paymaster would have become a listed company from April 2006, but delayed the initial public offering to allow for market conditions to change.
She still believes the entity should either go public or have a diversified ownership base, saying all her current plans are meant to facilitate that.
"We are putting more emphasis on the international business in terms of physical expansion," said Marks.
Over the last four years, Paymaster has set up three operations in Alabama, United States which, Marks described as a "cookie-cutter market".
"We've identified 10 states in the U.S., plus Toronto and London, three in Caribbean countries and one in Africa, as some of the targets we are looking at for the next 10 years," she said.
Initial investment
Marks said the initial investment in Paymaster was $20 million 13 years ago in 1994 when she decided to build on her concept of having a multiple payment online system for payment of utility bills.
This investment spanned three years at a time when, based on Marks' research, there was no software available, even in the U.S., to make multiple payments online.
Paymaster became a pioneer.
By 1997, through its first outlet established at Sovereign Centre in Liguanea, St. Andrew, Paymaster got its first big client for online payments - Jamaica Public Services Company Limited.
Cable and Wireless Jamaica came on stream in January 1998 and the National Water Commission in December 1998.
Today Paymaster has 52 clients and employs 400 persons ,which is a rapid climb from the two it started out with in Jamaica.
Transactions processed
The company processes about 750,000 transactions per month, up from about 200 in the first three months of operations.
"We started out small with utility companies and quickly formed an alliance with a supermarket, so we put the location where people shopped … this was our form of advertising to bring the business into their faces in trying to build up acceptance."
Today, Paymaster has moved from just utility companies as clients to add small credit companies, cable operators, insurance companies and just about every type of regular bill payment.
Although the company has tested its products for real time, it has upgraded its transaction processing time from 24 hours to every 15 minutes.
Concept
Marks said the concept for her company evolved while she was employed to Cable and Wireless Jamaica working on a 10-year plan to increase its customer base to one million then.
She noted that no room was made for bill payment, but did not act on the idea immediately.
In 1993, Marks went to Florida to do a doctorate and diverted attention to the real estate business where she ended up establishing, with a business partner, a real estate company in Jamaica called Wharmann Marks Realtor.
While in Florida, she came across the same challenge of paying her own personal bills on time.
Her multiple online payment system idea resurfaced in 1994 and, like a true entrepreneur, she found a former colleague at Cable and Wireless Jamaica - who is now working at Paymaster - to design a system.
"I had to sell every asset I had, to invest in the business," Marks said.
She said through her tenure at Air Jamaica and between 1982 and 1992, she had amassed substantial wealth from her personal trading business and investments in stocks to come up with funding.
She risked it all in market research and development and setting up the first store in Sovereign Centre, using her real estate office to test the system.
The gamble paid off.
Marks' company, which celebrates a decade of existence in November, now has 150 outlets in the chain and is located in every town.
susan.gordon@gleanerjm.com
published: Friday | October 26, 2007
Susan Gordon, Business Reporter
Audrey Marks, chief executive officer of Paymaster Limited, at her Cargill Avenue, St. Andrew, office Wednesday - photo by Susan Gordon
Paymaster Jamaica Limited, now in its 10th year, says it is immediately going after more value from its business locally while it seeks to expand its international operations over the second decade in business.
Chief executive officer and founder Audrey Marks said the company, which processes transactions of $60 billion per annum, would begin the first stage of transforming its business model from volume driven with low margins to one that offers higher value proposition.
Marks, in an interview with the Financial Gleaner earlier this week at her new Cargill Avenue head office, said the company invested $25 million this year in new technology as the platform on which her new business model would hinge.
Seeking venture capital
However, for the medium and long term, Marks, a pioneer in bill payment, is seeking venture capital to build out her business in 10 states in the United States, three Caribbean countries, London, Toronto and Africa.
The technological payment company is already visible in Alabama where it established three Paymaster outlets four years ago.
"Our focus for the first 10 years was high volume and low margin," Marks told the Financial Gleaner of the bill payment company which now boasts 1.5 million customers today.
"Our shift now is to give more value. We are going through our business line for more value. Our new model is to go for value proposition," she explained, pointing out that this was necessary to keep ahead of the game.
Before, clients were heavily subsidised. "We believe we have laid the base these 10 years and now want to build on that to create multiples of value."
Technology reach
She said Paymaster was looking leverage of the brand and that the reach would be through technology.
She said the company would use every aspect of technology to offer the service it now offers, emphasising that Paymaster would look radically different in its next 10 years.
"We invested heavily in technology. We've just completed a $25-million upgrade and are working with Cable and Wireless to put in an islandwide network to be totally technologically driven," said Marks.
"Web tech is the biggest thing now where websites are social networks and phones for mobile network."
However, Marks said the company has just engaged a financial consultant to put costings on the remodelling and that the first stage had already started.
In fact, she said the company would continue the investment in the region of $25 million for the next few years to upgrade its technology.
Hopes to go public
Paymaster still hopes to go public but the timetable has been pushed back.
Marks had hoped that Paymaster would have become a listed company from April 2006, but delayed the initial public offering to allow for market conditions to change.
She still believes the entity should either go public or have a diversified ownership base, saying all her current plans are meant to facilitate that.
"We are putting more emphasis on the international business in terms of physical expansion," said Marks.
Over the last four years, Paymaster has set up three operations in Alabama, United States which, Marks described as a "cookie-cutter market".
"We've identified 10 states in the U.S., plus Toronto and London, three in Caribbean countries and one in Africa, as some of the targets we are looking at for the next 10 years," she said.
Initial investment
Marks said the initial investment in Paymaster was $20 million 13 years ago in 1994 when she decided to build on her concept of having a multiple payment online system for payment of utility bills.
This investment spanned three years at a time when, based on Marks' research, there was no software available, even in the U.S., to make multiple payments online.
Paymaster became a pioneer.
By 1997, through its first outlet established at Sovereign Centre in Liguanea, St. Andrew, Paymaster got its first big client for online payments - Jamaica Public Services Company Limited.
Cable and Wireless Jamaica came on stream in January 1998 and the National Water Commission in December 1998.
Today Paymaster has 52 clients and employs 400 persons ,which is a rapid climb from the two it started out with in Jamaica.
Transactions processed
The company processes about 750,000 transactions per month, up from about 200 in the first three months of operations.
"We started out small with utility companies and quickly formed an alliance with a supermarket, so we put the location where people shopped … this was our form of advertising to bring the business into their faces in trying to build up acceptance."
Today, Paymaster has moved from just utility companies as clients to add small credit companies, cable operators, insurance companies and just about every type of regular bill payment.
Although the company has tested its products for real time, it has upgraded its transaction processing time from 24 hours to every 15 minutes.
Concept
Marks said the concept for her company evolved while she was employed to Cable and Wireless Jamaica working on a 10-year plan to increase its customer base to one million then.
She noted that no room was made for bill payment, but did not act on the idea immediately.
In 1993, Marks went to Florida to do a doctorate and diverted attention to the real estate business where she ended up establishing, with a business partner, a real estate company in Jamaica called Wharmann Marks Realtor.
While in Florida, she came across the same challenge of paying her own personal bills on time.
Her multiple online payment system idea resurfaced in 1994 and, like a true entrepreneur, she found a former colleague at Cable and Wireless Jamaica - who is now working at Paymaster - to design a system.
"I had to sell every asset I had, to invest in the business," Marks said.
She said through her tenure at Air Jamaica and between 1982 and 1992, she had amassed substantial wealth from her personal trading business and investments in stocks to come up with funding.
She risked it all in market research and development and setting up the first store in Sovereign Centre, using her real estate office to test the system.
The gamble paid off.
Marks' company, which celebrates a decade of existence in November, now has 150 outlets in the chain and is located in every town.
susan.gordon@gleanerjm.com