Dream Payments Still Committed to Moncton Despite Major Strategy Shift
MONCTON – Toronto-based financial technology company Dream Payments has decided to discontinue a key product and service, but its office in Moncton will remain a core pillar of its business.
Dream Payments opened its Centre of Excellence in Moncton last July. It was the company’s first office outside Toronto and became the centre where the company’s technology is being developed.
Then in September, the company announced that it was going to hire 125 people in Moncton over a four-year period with the support of the provincial government.
“We are as committed to Moncton and our Centre of Excellence as always,” said CEO Brent Ho-Young in a phone interview with Huddle. “Now as we’re focused on powering large [financial institutions] and the growth we’re seeing there, we’ll continue to place our engineers and technologists within the Centre of Excellence.”
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Chief Marketing Officer Christian Ali told Huddle earlier this year the company had hired 22 people as of February. As the company’s focus changes, Ali said Dream Payments will continue to hire at its Moncton Centre of Excellence.
“There are a couple of positions we’re looking to fill and obviously it’s in the technology space,” he said.
“You’re going to see some natural ups-and-downs as any type of business, but as we concentrate in the ‘insurtech’ and ‘fintech’ space, you’re going to see an injection of more talent into that area of the business.”
The company provides businesses with mobile point-of-sale (MPOS) solutions through its secure payments cloud- and device-management platform. It was the only mobile platform in the world that allowed Interac® Debit and Chip and PIN credit card payment terminals to be sold off-the-shelf.
The company’s technology is also used by insurers, banks and acquirers, including Chase Paymentech to deliver user-friendly mobile payment solutions to their business customers.
But on Wednesday the company announced it will discontinue the MPOS application and mobile card reader on July 5. It has also stopped selling the card reader directly to businesses online and through retail stores.
Instead, it will serve businesses through partnerships with banks and merchant acquirers.
“We love serving small businesses, we love working with Canadian companies, but we can do so at a much bigger scale working with the large [financial institutions], their brands, their reputation, their distribution to their channels,” Ho-Young said. “From a Dream perspective, it actually helps us scale and have more of an impact using larger financial partners in Canada and beyond.”
The company will also no longer be seen as a competitor to banks.
“From their perspective, this is a good thing, because we’re focused on reaching businesses but through [the banks], and we’re not potentially selling it directly to merchant customers that might be theirs,” he said.
Ali said the strategic move would also allow Dream Payments to focus on other areas of the business where there is growth potential and “to become a pure tech company.”
Ho-Young said “thousands” of businesses across Canada use Dream Payments’ products.
The company is working to transition businesses to other solutions. Businesses that have Dream Payments’ card readers will have to register with another bank or payment processor going forward, he said.
Dream Payments will refund MPOS card readers bought on or after April 4 if they are returned to the company with proof of purchase on or before July 5.
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