Costa Rica Business – U.S. financial technology firm Equifax has launched its second shared services center (SSC) in Costa Rica, with an investment of US$4.5 million.
The Atlanta-based company will now hire as many as 400 people, increasing its headcount to more than 1,000 in the Central American country.
The SSC, located in a free zone in Heredia, will support Equifax’s operations in over 15 countries across the globe, providing services in areas such as cyber security, finance and accounting, information technologies, and customer service.
Better known as a credit reporting company, Equifax has been operating in Costa Rica since 1995. In the past year, the company seemed to be reinventing itself, investing much of its money in creating information technology solutions for the financial services sector.
Industry analysts say today Equifax is looking more like a financial analytics provider, helping businesses understand their customers’ credit behavior and credit-worthiness.
The company assimilates data on more than 600 million consumers and 81 million businesses worldwide, in addition to using social media and Internet data to identify consumer behavior trends.
Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis paid a visit to Equifax headquarters during his recent tour across the United States, apparently in a bid to persuade the company to expand operations in his country.
The U.S. firm says it is looking for bilinguals with expertise in business analytics, accounting & finance, procurement, and information technology.Jorge Sequeira, managing director of Cinde, Costa Rica’s investment promotion agency, said expansion of companies like Equifax underlines the need for the country to create a bilingual talent pool. “Companies of the sector have confirmed that jobs opportunities would be opened more rapidly if we had better trained professionals. This is an opportunity that should not be missed.”
By Narayan Ammachchi, NearShoresAmericas
