Four Cards and Payments Elites join RS2's Advisory Committee

RS2 welcomes four highly knowledgeable and experienced professionals in the cards and payments industry to join in its Advisory Committee. The Committee Members are Mr Alan Goslar as Chairman, Mr Leon Dhaene, Mr Hubert O’Donoghue and Mr Ian Pellicano.  The Advisory Committee will guide the company to expand further its operations and to keep on enhancing its BankWORKS product in order to remain competitive in the cards and payment industry.

Mr Alan Goslar will join RS2’s Advisory Committee as Chairman. He is highly experienced in the payments industry and is a specialised consultant for companies providing payment services. He forms part of a number of board and advisory positions with companies that are directly involved in the payments industry.

Alan’s career in the payments industry started at Standard Bank of South Africa where for 17 years he occupied various managerial positions in Branch Banking, Card Division, Corporate Banking, Electronic Banking and Information Technology. In 1984, Alan then joined Visa International until he retired in 2001 after some 35 years in the Financial Services Industry. His last position at Visa International was as Executive Vice-President of Products for its CEMEA region. In this position Alan was responsible for the integration of new technology into existing products, the development of new products and new delivery channels, and the provision of support for the entire product range to ensure the achievement of the Region’s business plan. Prior to this position, Alan Goslar was the Executive Vice-President for Business Development at Visa International where he was responsible for the development and implementation of strategies for Visa’s business as well as the management of relationships with Visa Members.

Alan Goslar spent several years at Visa managing the systems and technology activities. Among his early achievements of his career at Visa was the establishment of the organisation’s processing centre in London. The centre provided authorisation, clearing and settlement of Visa transactions. In addition, his Delivery Systems Development department was instrumental in creating the technology for point-of-sale transactions.

Mr Leon Dhaene holds 25 years of senior management experience in global account management, business development and sales, performance optimisation and services development in various multinational corporations such as MasterCard International, Europay International, Eurocard International and IBM.

Mr Leon’s career started in 1985 as Sales and Marketing Manager at Key Job, an IBM Agent Network with an IBM majority ownership. During this time Leon was also a lecturer at IBM Institute. In 1989 Leon joined Eurocard International as a Regional Manager for Central Europe. He was responsible for defining and meeting sales objectives and inclusive market shares in the area comprising of Benelux, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Yugoslavia and Turkey. Some of his achievements during this period were; the introduction of the first global ATM debit card, first European and global Maestro transaction, introduction of Barclays Bank’s cards in Germany and a recovery of the lost market share in Turkey, from 8% to 43%.

In 1993, Leon joined Europay International as a Senior Manager for Business Services. At Europay, Leon defined business case and strategies for the short term commercial projects and bring them to the market. He also defined the long term strategy and business requirements for commercial investments in key sectors. His achievements at Europay International were the development of international electronic document management network (SuperCom), and his leadership in global change management programme (Programme Global). Later in 1997, Leon occupied the position of Senior Manager for End-to-End Quality at Europay International. Leon was responsible for the position of Europay as a quality pay system by ensuring that transactions work as expected from where they are accepted. Together with MasterCard International (global partner), the mission covered the implementation of a worldwide system of Global Performance Standards between banks to increase the profitability of the banks and to reduce their business operational costs. In 1999, Leon was then promoted as Head of Acceptance Management at Europay International where he built plans to boost Europay’s acceptance in Europe. He also built a Maestro acceptance strategy plan.

Leon Dhaene was also Key Accounts Executive Manager at MasterCard Europe in the year 2000 where he introduced a key account management in payment systems, customer service corporate policy and a customer satisfaction survey concept. In 2001 he became the Senior Vice President of Global Key Accounts at MasterCard International. In January 2007, he was Chairman of N2EURO where he was responsible for general management, brand development, sales and marketing and business development.

Currently Leon Dhaene is the Managing Director of Network of Alliances, Outsourcing and Merger Experts, a European network of partners whose mission is to actively search for those new and innovative solutions that could improve the efficiency of the European economies; including technologies, products and services. He is also the Chairman of N2FINANCE, a European network of experts that master the entire value chain of payments and cards.

In January 2012 he joined the European Commission-Directorate General Internal Market and Services as a Member of the Payment Services Market Expert Group (PSMEG). The PSMEG assists the European Commission in the preparation of legislative acts and policy initiatives regarding payment systems, including fraud prevention issues.

Mr Hubert O’Donoghue is a highly experienced Payment Industry professional and has been involved in the IT Transaction management sector since the late 80s. Over the past 20 years, Hubert held Senior Strategic Roles in large international organisations.

Hubert’s career started at PaySys International Ltd as Director of International Services where he led the development and implementation of large card management solutions for major banks and private label issuers throughout Europe and the Middle East. Later he joined Trintech Technologies as Operations Director where he was head of the Software Development Group and later head of the Product Group which spear-headed the introduction of new e-commerce products for merchants and acquirers. Hubert also was a Senior Consultant to the Credit Card Service Division at AIB Ltd where he was involved in major IT change projects for the Card Issuing and Merchant Acquiring Businesses.

In the year 2000 Hubert O’Donoghue co-founded OmniPay and he held the position of Chief Technology Officer with an overall responsibility for the technical direction of OmniPay’s processing platform. Under his management a transaction management platform was built and it allowed the organisation to offer global support for e-commerce transaction processing. This uniquely designed platform soon gave OmniPay a leading position in the market and in 2002 it attracted First Data Corporation - a giant transaction management organisation, to acquire a major interest in OmniPay.

Hubert sold his remaining interest in OmniPay and established O-C Group with Mr Patrick Clarke. O-C Group provides Project/Programme Management Services, Advisory services around Payment Systems and Operational procedures, and services around the implementation of PCI-DSS. O-C Group is a qualified security assessor and thus it is approved to perform Payment Card Industry audits for any organisation that stores, processes or transmits cardholder data.

Hubert returned to OmniPay in 2009 to assume the role of Chief Executive Officer with overall responsibility for the strategic direction of the company.

Mr Ian Pellicano holds over 20 years of experience in the IT and Financial services sector. Ian heads the payment services arm of Apco Ltd that was established 25 years ago with specific focus on the payments sector. At Apco Ltd, Ian Pellicano holds the position of Business Development Director and is responsible for creating local and international business for payment enabling technologies. He has extensive knowledge that covers card management systems, card personalization systems, unattended sales platforms and e-commerce payment solutions (payment gateways) with special focus on Anti-Fraud Systems.

Throughout his career, Ian Pellicano held other positions in various companies. During the years between 1991 and 1996, Ian was Chief Information Officer at Hasenbichler, an Austrian investment group. Later in 1999, Ian was a Director at Maltacom till 2003. He was also a Director at MaltaPost p.l.c. from 2003 till 2007.

RS2’s CEO, Mr Radi El Haj said “We are very excited about our Advisory Committee as the members bring with them vast experience in the payments and services industry. The newly formed Advisory Committee will bring together experts in our industry who will share their experiences and provide us with invaluable advice so that we may further enhance our product and international expansion.” 

Notes to Editors

About RS2 Software p.l.c.

RS2 Software p.l.c., is a global provider of Card Management Systems software, IT consultancy and related services to international and domestic banks, service providers, and other financial organisations.

RS2’s solutions are focused on the BankWORKS^® suite of application modules. BankWORKS^® is a powerful modular high-end card management system designed to meet current and future requirements in the international payment card industry.  The system meets processing requirements defined by banks, service providers, as well as other organisations participating in diverse card businesses.  The system’s modules include Card Issuing, Merchant Acquiring, Transaction Processing, Clearing, Settlement, Reporting, Dispute Management and Internet Services.

Please find further information at www.rs2.com

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