The new facility is iBanFirst’s third R&D centre globally, with the other two in Paris and Dijon. The office opening is accompanied by a recruitment plan in France and Tunisia of 45 additional hires in 2020.

Tunisia has been chosen as part of iBanFirst’s product strategy, to leverage the large talent pool of technology and engineering specialists from internationally renowned universities of excellence within the country.

Although the opening of the new centre, originally planned for March, has been delayed due to the COVID-19 crisis, several new employees have been confirmed out of the 20 planned for the Tunisia office by the end of this year.

The opening of the R&D centre will enable iBanFirst to achieve its ambitious research and development goals to continue to innovate and disrupt the financial services market with its B2B payments service.

Oualid Abderrazek, Chief Product Officer at iBanFirst said: "Our decision to locate an R&D centre in Tunisia is part of our global strategy to build a team of highly trained and specialist technology engineers. Tunisia’s heritage as a global leader in STEM skills combined with its geographical, cultural and linguistic similarities with France, made it a sound decision to open the new office in a thriving technology scene.”

"Tunisia represents a great pool of talent in which we will be able to draw the resources to accelerate the development of the products and services of tomorrow. The fact that we are in the same time zone has also been a decisive element in this choice of location, so that the collaboration between the teams in France and those in Tunisia is as fluid and efficient as possible.