Riverside Payments, a one-stop merchant service provider founded in Vancouver, has what its owner calls an “ambitious and exciting goal” – to be the fastest growth business in Vancouver and Portland by the end of the year.
The company, which is growing to meet the demands generated by the popularity of pay-by-phone technology and other e-commerce, was established by Vancouver resident, Brandon Skinner, in 2014 and is backed by First Data, the world’s largest credit card processing company. Riverside Payments offers solutions for mobile processing, merchant cash advance, reporting tools, point of sale systems and an array of other services including ATM installation and ongoing support.
After 12 years in the merchant services industry, Skinner seized the opportunity to take what he’d learned and launch his own company with five core values woven into the fiber of its foundation. Integrity, passion, excellence, community and fun are what he believes are and will continue to be the key defining characteristics that bring his ultimate goal to fruition – to be the world’s best merchant service provider.
“We get a ton of referrals and people wanting to work with us because we’re so dedicated to being the best and nothing but the best,” Skinner said.
Since its inception, Riverside Payments has had offices in Vancouver and Portland. Due to rapid growth, 3,500 square feet of office space was acquired at Cascade Station near the Portland airport to house their marketing department and, in January, corporate offices expanded to 4,000 square feet at the Park Towers Business Center in East Vancouver. Twenty of their 50+ employees are located in the corporate offices and more than 100 account executives are spread across the country. Riverside Payments has clients and agents in 30 states and hopes to continue on its trajectory of 75-100 employees by the end of 2016. Offices in Seattle and Dallas currently round out their brick and mortar presence.
As a life-long Clark County resident who attended Columbia River High School and Clark College, one of Skinner’s greatest rewards is being able to supply promising careers to family members and friends. The large number of Vancouver natives creates a two-fold advantage.
Skinner said, “A bunch of our friends own restaurants and bars. It’s pretty cool to be able to help them out and save them literally thousands of dollars on processing fees.”
Riverside Payments knows that each situation is different and offers customized programs for every client. Skinner said that some restaurants benefit from pay-at-table and wireless terminal options while healthcare facilities might be more interested in services to help expand their online sales. The more features a business requires or requests, the more chances that Riverside Payments has to craft a customized bundle to include the newest technology at the lowest possible cost to the client.
At the forefront of all their customer interactions right now is making sure everyone is in compliance with chip-and-PIN technology which, by law, was required of all U.S. businesses by October 2015.
“If a business doesn’t have that (chip-and-PIN compliance) and credit card fraud happens at their business, they are liable,” Skinner said. “If fraud happens at a small business, literally 75 percent of the time that small business is shut down. Really protecting the business and informing them is a key thing.”
Keeping up with ever-changing technology – from Square credit card readers to Apple Pay to Samsung Pay to chip cards – and educating the public and their clients on those available options is a continual process. Even so, Skinner looks to the future with calculated expectation.
“My business partner and I grew up playing ice hockey so we have Canadian connections and hope to expand into Canada by the end of the year and we’re looking at Mexico and Latin America in 2017,” noted Skinner.
