he American Dream is assembled from the success stories of people who have built successful businesses, even empires, from scratch. The American Dream holds the promise that independence, wealth and happiness are possible for anyone willing to work hard. Opportunities for success exist around every corner. They even exist for our neighbors just across the border to the north.

A Canadian-based payment processing company is enjoying phenomenal growth by providing some innovative approaches to handling merchant accounts in North America and around the globe. A combination of factors has contributed to the success PaySystems Corp. is experiencing, reflected in the company's motto, "A world of payment solutions."

Founded in 1998 by Philip Fayer, PaySystems was started to fill a gap in the market he experienced first hand. While involved in another venture, Fayer said he needed to find a credit card processor. When no one would give him an account, he figured there must be plenty of other merchants and businesses out there in the same boat without a paddle.

He set out to give merchants like him a way to process their transactions. Fayer said he wrote the software for a back-office solution working out of his bedroom in Montreal. His American Dream was just taking shape. The payment landscape looks a lot different in Canada. A third-party ISO sales channel is just beginning to be used there; a handful of banks control the market and process merchant accounts. But as Fayer said, "the world is borderless now."

Fayer started PaySystems and quickly learned all aspects of running a business; the company focused initially on Internet-based accounts. As time went on, reinvesting all the profits back into the company fueled the growing venture.

In 2001, Fayer said, the decision was made to make the company a full-service provider of merchant account services. Now, in 2003, he said PaySystems is debt-free and has 207 employees; its projected revenues for the year are $100 million.

Fayer credits this incredible growth to several key factors: knowing how to provide services that merchants want, the company's proprietary technology, taking all aspects of processing transactions in-house, and creative agent programs; mainly, though, he credits the growth to the quality of the people who work there.

It's hard not to get swept up in Fayer's enthusiasm not only for what he and his management team have accomplished, and for where their plans for PaySystems will take them. They're hiring up to 300 new active sales reps within the next 12 months through their new U.S. agent program, which was introduced in early October to accommodate expansion.

Targeted markets include everything from Internet to POS transactions, he said. "We're not focusing on national accounts, but rather on mid and small markets like retail, hospitality and medical."

Agents who work with PaySystems can expect some real benefits. Because they continue to write their own proprietary solutions, there is only one entity handling all aspects of the transactions, Fayer said. Real-time reporting and the application approval process they have in place are just the beginning. PaySystems' aggressive approach makes them the only company paying agents on a weekly basis, he said. They're also offering signing bonuses of up to $300.

PaySystems offers different rate strategies depending on the size of the merchant operation. "We're end to end in terms of merchant relationships. We write our own back-end software and have partnered with as many companies as possible for the front-end, so we can offer pay-as-you go programs with higher set-up fees, all the way to high-volume merchants."

While managing rapid growth can be daunting and can affect the quality of services provided, PaySystems has the right infrastructure in place to enable expansion; Fayer said the company's revenue is growing 35% to 40% a month.

A management team with a combined industry experience of decades between them, high-caliber staff and agents and a 52,000 square foot, state-of-the-art facility housing the company's headquarters in a sophisticated city creates a culture conducive to expansion.

"It's tough managing rapid growth, but we've created the right environment to give us room to grow," said Fayer.

Todd Whiton, PaySystems' Senior Vice-President of U.S. Sales and Business Development, said the company is different from others he's worked for in both tangible and intangible ways.

"We're willing to try anything, and we're good at executing ideas others are afraid to try. We have a great leadership team and the mental and financial bandwidth to be innovative. We have effective programs in place to provide merchants the service they deserve." said Whiton.

Whiton, who is based in Syosset, NY, said morale in the corporate headquarters is very positive. "They really love what they do. Montreal is the second largest college town in North America, following Boston, and it's really a true melting pot with every ethnic group represented. As a result, we have a great, diverse pool of talent to draw from. The company culture nurtures innovation-there's a willingness to put additional resources toward an idea, and if it doesn't work, employees don't feel threatened. People are given responsibility and they take pride in and ownership of what they do."

The PaySystems team is making a concerted effort to take advantage of the ethnic diversity at their doorstep in Montreal, a culturally rich, beautiful, world-class city.

Fayer said one big advantage that PaySystems offers agents and their merchants is multi-lingual support and customer service, available in a range of languages and dialects. Their staff includes a multi-cultural mix to support this effort, he said, as well as international growth. While 80% of their business comes from U.S. point-of-sale transactions, Fayer said the other 20% comes from international card-not-present business in 40 countries including the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and Australia. They have plans to establish a subsidiary in Germany.

Part of Whiton's job involves developing collaborations with banks and other companies to increase distribution for both PaySystems and those partners.

"We're making great strides in adding additional services. Our partners are eager to add merchant services to their suites of offerings. It's a great tool in attracting and retaining accounts for recurring payments and recurring revenue.

"Through our reseller partnerships, we're building the good reputation of the company by introducing leading edge, proprietary products for them to offer their merchants and to create revenue opportunities for them."

Fayer's once-small operation, started when he saw a need in the marketplace, is today an international company providing a complete array of payment options for merchants all over the world and on the Internet.

Flexible platforms for multi-currency processing of credit, debit and gift cards, ACH processing for e-checks and fraud management solutions are available for most POS environments and are compliant with most terminals; the company even offers a secure gateway.

PaySystems' aggressive expansion plans include an emphasis on finding like-minded, quality agents to represent them. They're looking for agents who are multi-lingual with connections to ethnic communities and, maybe most importantly, for those looking to establish long-term business relationships to grow along with the company.

All agents working with PaySystems are assigned a specific manager. The company provides live Internet agent training via WebEx, or they can take advantage of face-to-face training in Montreal, definitely one more perk to working with PaySystems Corp. Who could turn down that trip? As Fayer said, "Agents love to visit us!"