OnlineDomain.com Domain Name News & Opinions
Escrow.com announced today that it hit one million registered users and that it is moving its headquarters to San Francisco.
“This follows exceptional financial performance by the payments business since being acquired by ASX-listed Freelancer.com in 2015. Gross payment volume in 2015 for Escrow.com exceeded US$430 million, growing at almost double the five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR), with total payment volume to date reaching US$2.9 billion.”
“Founded in 1999 by Fidelity National Financial Inc., a Fortune 500 Company, with original investment from Softbank, The Chase Manhattan Group, Pacific Century Cyberworks (PCCW), VerticalNet, Inc., Micro General Corporation & Madison Securities, Escrow.com has grown to the the world’s largest online escrow company. In 2015, Escrow.com was acquired by Freelancer Limited. Pro-forma turnover of the combined listed group in the 2015 financial year was AU$710 million.”
Since acquisition, the company has grown the management team. The San Francisco office is headed by newly hired Vice President of Sales Danny Raja, who was previously a senior sales executive at Box and Yammer.
Escrow.com has achieved a number of milestones since acquisition. The backend infrastructure for Escrow.com has been upgraded and migrated to Amazon AWS. Support hours have been extended and customer support is now multilingual (commencing in Chinese). New transaction types including domain name holding transactions have been launched and the payments management team has been greatly expanded (headed by group CFO Neil Katz). In addition, the Escrow.com compliance team has grown significantly under Group VP Compliance Greg Robinson (ex-Paypal, Colonial First State).
Jackson Elsegood has been hired as General Manager of Escrow.com (ex-First Data), and Keith Gettle has been promoted to Operations Manager of the business. Keith will be closely working with Danny Raja in San Francisco on Escrow.com’s major partnerships.
Located downtown in San Francisco at 180 Montgomery, the new Escrow.com headquarters will join three other new Escrow.com offices located in Vancouver, Canada, Sydney, Australia and Manila, in the Phillipines. Escrow.com’s office relocation to San Francisco is subject to approval by the Commissioner of Business Oversight in California.
“San Francisco is the logical best location for the headquarters for Escrow.com, being closest to partners, as well as allowing for further expansion in customer support, payments and major account management”, said Matt Barrie, Chief Executive for the Freelancer Limited Group (ASX:FLN).
“Partnerships with industry leading marketplaces is key to our exceptional growth,” said Jackson Elsegood, General Manager. “Being closer to those partners will allow us to work more closely together to deliver a great experience for their customers.”
“Escrow.com’s partners are able to use the payments platform of the world’s leading online escrow provider to protect the transactions of their users and prevent fraud on their marketplaces.”
Escrow.com’s partnerships program is available to online marketplaces, classifieds and affiliate marketers:
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For online marketplaces, the Escrow.com API provides a fully integrated online payment solution that reduces the incidences of fraud and the hassle of payments compliance.
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For classifieds sites, Escrow.com?s Buy It Now buttons offer a fast and simple way of adding secure payments to listings.
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For affiliate marketers, Escrow.com?s Partner Solutions generate immediate click-through revenue for publishers and content producers.
Huge fan of Escrow. Since freelancer bought them they have innovated heaps. I hope they add a feature so you can hold your funds there for a specific time period or even get paid in bitcoin. International bank fees are a bit of a joke although that’s not Escrow’s fault.