Fire Financial Services Limited trading as fire.com and Fire) was incorporated in Ireland in 2008 and is registered as a Limited Company. The business operated under the name of Carapay Limited from 2008 until July 2013, when it then operated as Realex Financial Services Limited. In March 2015, Realex Payments was sold to Global Payments Inc and Realex Financial Services Limited was spun out and is now owned by Colm Lyon. In April 2015, the Company changed the name to Fire Financial Services Limited. During 2016 Fire joined MasterCard as an issuer. In February 2017 the business commenced trading as fire.com and Fire, utilising a new brand.
Fire was authorised by the Central Bank of Ireland as a Payment Institution under the Payment Services Directive in accordance with Regulation 18 of the European Communities (Payment Services) Regulations 2009 on 4th June 2010. This licence has been pass-ported to a number of European countries at this point.
The Board of Directors consists of two executive directors Colm Lyon (CEO) and Paul Davey (COO/CFO). There are two non-executive directors namely Tom Conlon and Joseph Caulfield. The Board of Directors meets every two months. The following are brief biographies of each member of the board.
Colm is a graduate of University College Dublin with a Bachelor of Commerce and a Master of Management Science Degree. Colm is the CEO/founder of Fire and was the founder and former CEO of Realex Payments. Colm has worked in financial services related businesses for over twenty five years, starting with fourteen years in the banking sector. His roles included Director and Chairman of the Irish Internet Association, Head of Central IT in Ulster Bank. Colm has received many accolades including Finalist in Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the year 2005, Business and Finance Person of the Year 2011, UCD Smurfit Business School Alumnus of the Year 2012, HSBC European Business Awards- International Entrepreneur and many more.
Paul Davey is the COO/CFO and a director of Fire and former CFO of Realex Payments. Paul joined Realex Payments in 2006 and as CFO he was accountable for a number of functions with a strong focus on strategic business planning. In March 2015 Realex was acquired by Global Payments in a deal valued at €115m. Paul moved to Fire on a full time basis in July 2015.
Paul has a B.Comm from NUIG and qualified as a Chartered Accountant having trained at PwC. During his time at Realex Payments, Paul also completed an Executive Masters in Business Administration (MBA) at the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School and recently completed the Strategic Leadership for CFO’s programme with Stanford University Graduate School of Business in 2015.
Tom completed his Institute of Bankers, Bachelor of Commerce and MSc in Ops Research & Statistics qualifications early in his career at Bank of Ireland (BOI). Tom worked for BOI for 39 years in a variety of roles including operations research, project management, systems development, product/service costing & payment systems. On retirement from BOI Tom joined Irish Payment Services Limited in 2003. Tom joined the board of Carapay Limited (now Fire) in 2009 as Chairman.
Joe has a first class honours Financial Services degree from UCD and has 38 years’ experience working in the Financial Services industry. His roles included Head of Treasury in Chase Bank Ireland Ltd; Director Corporate Money Markets and Foreign Exchange, Ulster Bank Group Treasury; Head of International Banking, Head of Operational Risk and Head of Corporate and Capital Markets Operations, Ulster Bank Group. Joe joined the Board in 2013 and is Chairman of the Audit and Risk Committee.