Posted on: Thursday, October 10, 2002

Check verifier adding 300 jobs

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

A Honolulu company that offers a high-tech check verification and guarantee service has begun hiring the first of 300 additional employees to meet the needs of two contracts worth $200 million.

International Financial Services, doing business as EpiCheck, developed a system that lets retailers not only verify checks over the phone or the Internet but also eliminates paperwork, delays and refunds, said company chief executive Randall Preiser.

Galileo International Inc., an electronic-reservations system used by more than 16,000 travel agencies, has entered into a nearly $80 million contract for EpiCheck services over the next 36 months.

EpiCheck is also in negotiations for a $120 million contract with travel technology firm Sabre, Preiser said.

EpiCheck's 40 to 50 current employees work out of two floors in the Bank of Hawai'i building and may have to expand to accommodate the projected employment expansion.

Preiser credits the recent growth of the 4-year-old local company to the benefits of the state's Act 221, a package of tax breaks for technology businesses.

Act 221 helped EpiCheck by allowing eight investors to invest more than $1.3 million in the company and get the equal amount in tax credits as well as equity in the company, Preiser said.

"Act 221 helped us attract investment to the community," he said. "It'll help the state because we'll hire 300 local employees over the next 24 to 36 months and it enabled us to compete on a global level with Fortune 100 companies and win."

John Chock, president of the Hawai'i Strategic Development Corp., the state's venture-financing arm, said EpiCheck's expansion "is a good example of a Hawai'i company that can take advantage of Act 221 as a qualified high technology business and seek investment funds and provide investors tax credits."

At the same time, Chock said, "it creates new high-skilled jobs for Hawai'i's high-tech employees."

Preiser also runs EpiCheck's better-known, 30-year-old company, Unicheck, which handles $80 million in check transactions for some 900 Hawai'i businesses. With Unicheck, retailers call into a service that verifies the checking account but does not guarantee the funds, Preiser said. Businesses then have to deposit the check, wait to see if it bounces and fill out a form to get a refund.

The new system guarantees the funds and retailers get the full amount in their accounts within 48 hours, similar to credit cards, Preiser said.

The 1.3 percent charge on each check transaction is also cheaper than the 1.5 percent to 1.8 percent fee for credit cards, he said.

EpiCheck is also a boon to airline travelers who can't book tickets without a credit card, Preiser said.

"This enables merchants to now accept checks from the 90 million Americans who don't use credit cards, have good credit and buy things but don't use credit cards," he said.

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.