This appointment supersedes Lomax's former position as head of marketing. In his new role, Lomax will be responsible for Alaric's continued sales growth and the development of its award-winning EFT payment and card fraud detection solutions.

Internationally, Alaric's expansion continues with the opening of its new Asia Pacific headquarters located in Melbourne, Australia. Heading up the new Melbourne office is Paul Griffin, who is responsible for managing local implementations.

Mike Alford, Managing Director at Alaric International, commented, "The establishment of an Asia Pacific headquarters is a direct response to the growing demand for Alaric's solutions in this key region. From our Melbourne office, we can now offer customers across Asia Pacific the level of service excellence and business benefits experienced by Alaric customers and partners around the world. We are currently undergoing a new level of growth at Alaric and Steve's new role as Director of Sales and Marketing will ensure that many more customers worldwide are able to profit from Alaric's advanced technology solutions."

Steve Lomax has gained considerable experience in business development roles within the consumer payments industry, with over 20 years' experience with vendors, service providers and card schemes, including ACI Worldwide and Europay-MasterCard.

While at Europay, Steve was responsible for building and managing the Vendor Programme that paved the way for the EMV smart card introduction. During his career, Steve has worked outside of the UK for over nine years, giving him an international perspective, and his roles in Product Marketing, Business Development and senior management have afforded him an excellent understanding of the key business drivers of all of the stakeholders involved in the payments arena.