NORFOLK IS JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED FOR MOBILE TECHNOLOGY REVOLUTION
It’s four years since Dr Neil Garner launched his pioneering technology for contactless payment software and neither he nor the business has looked back since. Fortunately he opted to base his Proxama company in his adopted county of Norfolk.
It now operates from The Royal, on Bank Plain, Norwich and is at the forefront of the consumer technology revolution and employs a team of eleven. Already, it has worked closely with BT, MasterCard, Virgin Mobile and John Lewis to bring mobile technologies ever closer to the mass market in the UK.
The company is majority owned by American Banknote Corporation, a 200-year-old global business that provides secure payment systems. Proxama is its UK research and development and customer centre. It also has sales and marketing teams in Europe.
There are many existing uses for the mobile phone but Proxama's advanced technology means that soon anyone will also be able to use it to buy goods in stores, book tickets direct from a poster advertising a concert, or download time-limited money-off vouchers from promotional posters.
For example, you will touch your phone to an in-store poster and the phone's software will read product information from a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag on the poster. The information will be displayed on your handset's screen, together with a money-off voucher which can be redeemed at the till just by touching the phone to a special reader.
It could be ready to go public within two years.
Proxama is heavily involved in contactless smartcard technology, which works in a similar way to the Oyster card used to make instant payments by touching the card to a reader.
So effective is the technology that it won a UK Design Council Award (funded by the Home Office's technology and strategy board) which recognised mobile technologies that protect against fraudulent use.
That is an area close to Dr Garner's heart. He has also developed a security pass card which is swiped before a payment card is swiped, to protect against fraud.
Proxama is taking part in the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Norfolk is now very much home – although Proxama outsources some niche areas of work including smartcard applications and web development.
After visits to his wife's family in Norfolk for several years, the Garners decided to make the county their own family home. And the business followed.
“I could have gone back down south, but we were living in Norfolk and I thought ‘why shouldn't I be able to do this here?' he said.
“Initially I thought it was a little bit of a risk, but it's worked out fantastically well. We have some high quality and ambitious people employed from the University of East Anglia, and because of our location we have also attracted business grants from the East of England Development Agency.”
He believes it is great place to live, with the opportunities for a good work/life balance and short commutes to and from work. There are also significantly lower overheads compared to London.
“I've grown very fond of the place and this is now my home,” said Dr Garner.
Visit www.proxama.com
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