Tom Nitopi, the CEO of NXGEN Payment Services, has been putting a lot of miles on the new company jet recently. Travel is necessary when it comes to running a successful global company.
NXGEN, founded and based in Whitefish, remains a shining example of technology innovation blossoming in the Flathead Valley. The company has touted 40 percent growth for three straight years and recently acquired contracts that further solidified its status as one of the most expansive merchant service providers in the world.
“We are growing in so many areas,” Nitopi said. “It’s a really positive story in the Flathead Valley.”
NXGEN has maintained momentum in both scope and innovation since announcing an international expansion into 16 European countries in May. A new office in Washington D.C. is opening. The company developed a new payment system that allows Canadian visitors to use their debit cards for the first time. NXGEN recently signed deals with the largest credit unions in Iowa, Oregon and South Dakota, beating out competitors vying for each lucrative contract.
“NXGEN was quantifiably superior on every dimension of our evaluation,” Tim Lord, the manager of business development of Veridian Credit Union in Iowa, said in a press release following the contract.
NXGEN may be announcing a possible new development in the coming months.
“What I can tell you is we’re in negotiations with the second largest processor in the world to do their reporting,” Nitopi said.
The announcement would be in step with the growth and innovation that has come to define the company founded in 1999.
Nitopi came to Montana in 1992 as a division manager for another company, and he fell in love with the landscape. By 1999 he was involved in the creation of NXGEN, which was officially incorporated in 2002.
“It was a dream to live in Montana,” Nitopi said. “This was a secondary, how to make money in Montana.”
Today NXGEN is “an organically grown company” that has 35 employees at its Whitefish headquarters and continues to add offices around the country. The company has merchants in more countries than any other MSP, according to its website.
Among other services it provides, NXGEN works with merchants, from banks to credit unions to stores, providing systems that allow them to accept and process payments through credit cards, debit cards, checks, gift cards and ATMs. NXGEN also provides check verification and guarantee; Internet e-commerce processing; ATM services; dynamic currency conversion; and merchant cash advances. These services have been developed and extended on a global scale because new systems are needed for each country’s unique requirements. Mobile processing has also become a new growing realm of NXGEN’s business.
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Customer service team members Anita McDonald, Caitlin Caltabiano, Courtney McCallum and Fabienne Nitopi, clockwise from left, work at their desks at NXGEN Payment Services in Whitefish last year. – Beacon file photo |
“We make businesses’ lives respectfully easier and more cost effective by automating their payment systems,” NXGEN President Giuseppe Caltabiano said.
A perfect example of NXGEN’s propensity for solving problems with innovation is the Canada Certified program.
The company announced in December the creation of an integrated program that now allows local retailers to accept Canadian Interac PIN debit cards. Businesses that are “Canada Certified” can process the debit cards and reflect credit card transactions in Canadian dollars. Previously, Canadian shoppers could only pay with cash or credit card.
Accommodating Canadian shoppers, which make up a large percentage of the retail revenues in the valley, is key for helping the local economy, and “Canada Certified” is a win-win solution in that regard, said Deb Coulson, executive director of marketing and strategy of NXGEN.
“The truth is, when people can’t conveniently pay the way they prefer, the result is often that they choose to spend less than they might otherwise,” Coulson said in a press release. “We owe it to our retailers and our cross-border visitors to take down those hurdles and make it easy.”
Coulson and others within the company point to Canada Certified as the latest example of NXGEN’s forward-thinking business strategy, and that mindset appears to be paying off.
“Business intelligence in merchant services matters,” Lord said. “It’s not just about lowest rate anymore.”
NXGEN recently upgraded to a new jet, an Eclipse 500. The new “business tool” is allowing Nitopi, Caltabiano and others to efficiently and quickly keep up with the company’s far-reaching growth. And based on the current situation emerging within the Whitefish company, Nitopi is prepared for plenty of air travel.
“It is so exciting to get up every day and to work at NXGEN and be part of the growth of this company. It’s been incredible,” he said, adding, “It’s not luck. It’s cultivating and finding the right people. (Our growth is) a tribute to the level of education and the types of employees we have.”