Orion Commerce Group

Rick Stroud, President and CEO
Phone: 800-455-5119

Company address:

2108 Jelane Drive
Valrico, FL 33594
Phone: 800-455-5119
Web site: www.msitampa.com

ISO benefits:

• Unique proprietary application enables restaurant patrons to pay for meals with debit and credit at the table, reducing fraud, especially eliminating card skimming
  
• Provides merchant services through affiliation with MSI New York
  
• Certified Hypercom VAR
  
• Looking for ISOs to create national footprint
  

A small Tampa, Fla.-based company has big plans to create a national footprint for itself by being both friend and competitor of ISOs across the country. Orion Commerce Group's specialty is designing proprietary software that integrates with POS equipment. Its business solutions focus on e-commerce needs with applications in a wide range of markets, creating opportunity and challenge for ISOs as a value-added reseller and merchant services provider.

Among OCG's business solutions is software developed for bankcard applications. "We are a two-part company," said Rick Stroud, OCG's President and CEO. "As a regional affiliate of MSI in Plainview, New York, we're a bankcard acquirer. We also offer solutions that allow companies to streamline the way they do business. We have a sales force that acquires merchant accounts, and we're a Hypercom VAR. We're the friend and competitor of all ISOs."

The apparent contradiction is part of the OCG model. Designing software applications that give restaurants, dry cleaning facilities and utility companies new ways to accept payments from their customers is half of OCG's business. The other half lies in getting OCG's product and the POS equipment manufacturers it partners with as a VAR out into the national marketplace.

"We're in business to do business," Stroud said. "We're a Tampa-based company, but we prefer to hand the software to ISOs and have them create the national footprint."

Sound intriguing? Stroud said the company's solutions are in their first generation and that exciting capabilities for ISOs are just around the corner as it continues to develop solutions and gain certifications from its partners, such as Hypercom, Ingenico, NPC, Global and Vital.

"There's so much business out there," he said. "Our ISO partners are our true partners, and the ISO population is so diverse, you have to ask, 'Who is your true competition?' "

The software is used by Tampa Electric Co. to run all of its e-commerce on OCG-created proprietary software, Stroud said. The software is used for intranet and Internet solutions and enables TECO customers to pay bills by phone.

OCG applications, paired with the Hypercom ICE 4000/5500, allow restaurants to not only accept debit cards but also let patrons pay for their meals at the table. With merchant and consumer awareness of card fraud in its various forms, such as skimming, giving customers the ability to keep their cards in their own possession at all times is reassuring to them. That – and the added bonus of being able to run PIN-based transactions to pay for meals – means increased business for the restaurant owner.

"There's been great acceptance in the restaurant industry. We're approaching our 100th installation of a restaurant application," Stroud said. "We have a unique system that lets people pay at the table. This reduces skimming and saves the user money by being able to use debit.

"Take the lease price for the 5500 to serve as a base. With our system, it's actually less to lease. This is the only way they can use to enter a PIN at the table. The cost savings from PIN-keyed transactions are greater than the cost of the lease."

According to Stroud, OCG is a certified Hypercom VAR, has an agreement with Lipman, is in the process of evaluating Ingenico's Elite 770 to develop integration capacity of that product, is certified with Vital for credit and is finishing its certification for debit, and is fully certified by Global. "And we're one of NPC's top five ISOs," Stroud said.

OCG has contracts with Aloha Technologies, which makes POS equipment for the restaurant and hotel industries. These contracts deal with integration issues for handheld devices wait staffs use.

"With our application, the Hypercom 4000 will communicate with the Aloha touch screen behind the bar. The wait staffs can do everything from the table," Stroud said.

That means staffs are able to take and place orders, print out the bill, accept credit or debit payment and hand back the receipt.

"This is the first debit-encrypted terminal to have true two-way communication to a PC application," he said. "This has opened a new field of life to credit card terminals. Our application is true two-way communication in real-time."

Stroud said the truly interesting thing about OCG's software is its flexibility. "The software can read anything, including health cards and drivers' licenses," he said. "The software can be modified to do what you need it to for almost any industry. The system's ability to interface with existing software makes it a truly multitasking application in almost unlimited areas."

The company's restaurant industry focus has shifted laterally recently into other markets such as drive-through dry cleaners, establishments that Stroud said are located throughout the South and all over Florida. The OCG application makes it possible for dry cleaners attendants to handle picked-up and dropped-off clothing and deal with payments from patrons right from their cars – they don't have to leave their vehicles. He said other areas OCG is exploring include places where cashiering is a concern, such as gift shops and cash bars in hotel lobbies and hospital gift shops.

Orion Commerce Group was formed in February 2000. Along with Stroud, the principals include Mel Meyers, serving as Executive Vice President and COO, and Alex Martins, serving as Chief Financial Officer.