A European-wide credit, debit and retail card transactions company, which four years ago set up its HQ in York, has now opened a £20 million hi-tech data centre in Knaresborough.
TSYS Europe will now transfer 50 jobs in a temporary Harrogate outpost into the new centre.
Today the firm announced that it will be taking on 30 more people at its York opertion by the end of the year.
That will bring the number employed at York's 41,000sq ft Fulford Moor House, former HQ of the Shepherd Building Group, to 170.
Based in Columbus, Georgia, TSYS serves more than 20 million consumer and commercial credit accounts in Europe, a market with 562 million credit and debit cards issued in 2003.
Apart from its York and Knaresborough bases it has a presence in London as well as a sales office in the Netherlands serving northern and southern Europe.
The TSYS flagship system, TS2, is regarded as the gold standard of the industry, processing payments in multiple countries, currencies and languages.
With more than 305 million accounts on file, TSYS serves clients on three continents representing 16 currencies and seven languages. In 2003, TSYS processed 7.4 billion transactions globally.
The new data centre in St James Business Park in Grimbald Crag Close, Knaresborough, was formally opened yesterday by Kelley Knutson, TSYS Europe's managing director, applauded by Phil Willis, the town's MP, and Richard Gregory, deputy chairman of Yorkshire Forward, the regional development agency.
It was yet another major investment in the region after TSYS worked closely with Yorkshire Forward's Atlanta office and UK Trade and Investment.
The investment is a major boost for Yorkshire and Humber's digital industries cluster which employs almost 80,000 people, generating £3 billion for the region's economy
Mr Knutson said: "Investing in a purpose-built data centre demonstrates our commitment to the European marketplace and helps us achieve our objective of becoming the leading consumer finance transaction processor."
Updated: 11:15 Friday, October 08, 2004
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