A JOBS boost has been given to York and North Yorkshire as a financial company announces nearly 100 new posts.

TSYS, one of the world's largest providers of payment services, plans to create 98 new high-quality jobs in York and Knaresborough this year.

As the company continues to expand operations at its York-based European headquarters it is to take on an additional 75 employees at its Fulford Road base and 23 at its state-of-the-art data centre at Knaresborough this year.

The firm says the expansion is in order to meet rapidly growing demand for it company's services. Last year, TSYS took on an additional 55 staff at its York and Knaresborough facilities.

Today, City of York council leader Andrew Waller said: "These high- quality jobs provide great opportunities for York people to work for an internationally recognised organisation.

"TSYS's success shows the benefits of operating in our vibrant enterprising city."

The company launched its European operations in 2001 and since then has grown, increasing the number of people working at their headquarters in York from 50 to more than 300 employees.

An additional 100 people are employed at its data centre in Knaresborough, which opened in October 2004.

With support from satellite offices in London, the Netherlands and Spain, TSYS Europe processed 20 million accounts across UK, Irish, Czech, Hungarian and Polish markets.

Andrea Steadman, the firm's senior director of human resources for global services, explained why the company chose to base their European headquarters in York and data centre in Knaresborough.

She said: "The high concentration of financial services and hi-tech industries in the York area makes it a great location for a company such as TSYS.

"Although York has a relatively small population, 1.5 million people live within a 45-minute drive of our York office, which means we have access to a large pool of potential employees with specialist skills.

"There is also a large population of graduates from the universities in the region, many of whom decide to stay in the area, this means the pool of highly-qualified and specialist individuals in the local workforce is constantly being topped up.

"We have also had a lot of success relocating staff to York and North Yorkshire thanks to the high-quality housing, good schools and the fact that it is a great place to live."

The Inward Investment Agency for York and North Yorkshire, york-england.com, helped TSYS find the right business premises for their city headquarters.

Denise Stuart, chief executive of york-england.com, said: "The jobs created by TSYS are high value, high quality jobs, many of them are specialist positions which is a very positive development for the regional job market.

"TSYS is exactly the kind of dynamic and leading-edge business we are working to attract and retain within York and North Yorkshire and we look forward to providing ongoing support for the company as it continues to grow and develop.

"In recent years we have seen growing numbers of IT companies moving to our region, attracted not only by our highly skilled specialist workforce, outstanding quality of life and excellent transport infrastructure, but also by our top ranking higher education institutes with IT specialisms, such as, the University of York, whose Department of Computer Science is consistently ranked as one of the best in the UK."