• Where: Rancho Santa Margarita
• 12-month sales: $99.3 million
• Two-year growth: 3,382%
• OC workers: 42
• Business: ATM, credit card or check processing equipment; transaction processing
Chances are U.S. Alliance Group Inc. could be behind your ATM, credit card or check transaction.
“If you write a check to your water or gas company, we could be the one clearing the check for the Federal Reserve,” Chief Executive Fadi Cheikha said. “If you pay with a credit card at a supermarket or gas station, we could be the one behind that.”
The Rancho Santa Margarita company ranked No. 2 on the Business Journal’s 2010 list of fast-growing private companies with sales growth of 3,382% for the two years through June 30, according to a Business Journal estimate.
For the 12 months through June, U.S. Alliance Group had estimated sales of $99.3 million, up from $2.9 million for the same period in 2008.
The company provides ATM, credit card and check processing equipment and also handles the processing of transaction data for a variety of businesses including banks, sports arenas and retailers.
“We move money without touching it,” Cheikha said. “If you go to an ATM machine, say, at a bank, you may think it’s the bank you’re withdrawing the money from or depositing to. But we own the machine, we service it. It’s really us behind it. But we sell and brand it to them.”
Cheikha started the company in 2007 while running his other company, Electronic Cash Systems Inc., and seeing a need for a company that handled it all.
Electronic Cash Systems, started in 1997, also is growing fast with a two- year growth rate of 230% and sales of $40.6 million for the 12 months through June 30. It counts about 10 workers in Rancho Santa Margarita.
The Business Journal opted to list just U.S. Alliance, the bigger of the two, on our fast-growing private list since both companies work closely together and share the same headquarters.
Electronic Cash Systems sells, leases, maintains and monitors ATM, credit card and check processing equipment, but on a much smaller scale.
It doesn’t have U.S. Alliance’s software programs.
Handling transactions was the basis for starting U.S. Alliance, Cheikha said.
“Around 2007, I had the idea to do consolidated payment processing for my competitors,” he said.
U.S. Alliance sells and installs equipment and handles payment processing using software that allows transactions to be processed online, through mobile units or even smartphones.
Customers include the Anaheim Convention Center, New Jersey’s New Meadowlands Stadium—home of the New York Giants and New York Jets—retailers Lord & Taylor and Rite Aid Corp., some Shell gas stations and Taco Bell restaurants, Irvine’s South County Bank, Long Beach’s Farmers & Merchants Bank and Saddleback Church.
The company is a reflection of the retail industry, processing transactions that offer insights into how people are shopping, according to Cheikha.
“Let’s say you have a store that processes credit cards or checks and also has our ATM machine,” he said. “Well, we’re going to know how that store is moving—if credit card processing is up or if ATM machine usage is down, and vice versa.”
That means U.S. Alliance can see how the market is ebbing and flowing, he said.
“We’ve been able to see where we should move our resources and where we should put them during such a bad economy,” Cheikha said.
All of the work is done from Rancho Santa Margarita. The company counts 42 workers there.
Cheikha said his employees are a big reason for the company’s growth.
“We have an incredible team,” he said. “Some of them come from Fortune 500 companies. They really understand our business.”
More products are on the way.
The company plans to come out with the third version of its virtual terminal, a system that allows retailers and others to take a person’s credit card without storing the data.
That could help prevent hacker or employee theft of credit card data from retailers.
“I’m basically masking the data,” Cheikha said. “Nobody can break in and get the data.”
A different number is used when a credit card or debit card is swiped, so a person’s private information never enters the database, he said.
This year, Cheikha said he expects U.S. Alliance to see sales of more than $120 million.
“I can’t tell you how many venture capitalists want our business,” he said. “There’s not that many businesses growing right now, and even my competitors aren’t doing what I’m doing, processing everything in one place.”
Gomez is a former Business Journal editor and freelance writer based in Long Beach.
