Life with OpenWay
Nicosia, Cyprus
Sunny Cyprus has been known historically as a meeting point for Europe, Middle East and Africa, with unique influences from neighboring Greece and the United Kingdom. Located in Nicosia, one of the financial and business centers of the region, OpenWay’s Cyprus office is a fully multicultural, international team with robust finance, delivery and sales departments. Members of our team get to broaden their horizons with implementation projects and programs across Africa, Europe, Middle East, and the United States. The office is a stone’s throw from the vibrant sights of Niсosia’s Old Town, where you can enjoy Cyprus’s coffee culture in one of many modern and traditional cafes. Other perks are free parking and meals at the workplace, health insurance covering family members, and fun events throughout the year. At Cyprus office, it is easy to commit to a high quality of life while developing an international career profile.
Marios Papaminas
“Working at OpenWay hones your skills in international diplomacy and builds trusting relationships in the business world.”
Business Relationship Manager Marios Papaminas oversees OpenWay’s projects in Europe and the Middle East. As a trusted advisor to banks and processors, he maintains a growing network of partners and enterprise customers, and is a key point of contact for IT business stakeholders. Here is what he loves about working in his native Cyprus for OpenWay.
Cultural melting pot: In my work, cultural sensitivity and negotiation skills are constantly honed, even in relationships with partners in neighboring countries. For example, in the Greek business world, authority is more clearly defined than it is in Cyprus. In Lebanon, it is important to note that oral business agreements are considered binding. OpenWay respects the local business culture where each partner operates.
Diplomacy: I enjoy the challenge of gaining trust as a business relationship manager. When advising large financial institutions of risks, options, costs versus benefits and impacts on end-user products and services, it is important to maintain balance and be precise when recommending an approach. Any recommendation must also be in alignment with the vision of IT senior leadership.
Meaningful: I find it extremely rewarding to help large financial organizations like National Bank of Greece improve their customer experience, because it has a positive impact on an entire country of users.
Amar Sirohi
“OpenWay is willing to invest in your career and allows you to enjoy a high quality of life while you are developing new skills.”
Amar Sirohi is the Head of Delivery for OpenWay Technologies in Cyprus, overseeing end-to-end delivery of multi-million dollar product implementation projects across Africa, Europe and the United States. Having immigrated to Cyprus as a young adult, over the years, he has been instrumental in setting up OpenWay’s Cyprus office and defining its strategic and operational framework.
Investment in new talent: While many companies are reluctant to hire new university graduates, OpenWay invests in new talent by being ready to hire freshers – people with little to no experience. Our training program for new hires lasts from eight to ten weeks and covers the entire product suite.
High quality of life: As someone who immigrated to Cyprus, I really appreciate the high quality of life here. I love Southern Europe’s relaxed culture, great weather and food. Our multicultural clients have broadened my horizons and taught me to communicate better while understanding the intricacies of doing business in various countries.
Sophocles Ioannou
“OpenWay’s agile culture makes it a great place to work”.
Since 2009, Sophocles Ioannou has been active as the Regional Manager and mentor for OpenWay Technologies in the Mediterranean and Levant region with experience in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. As sales manager, he is actively involved in reaching out to new clients, helping them see the benefits of migrating from legacy platforms to Way4, adopting EMV and contactless technologies, and developing innovative self-service solutions.
Global exposure: There are great benefits in working for a company like OpenWay.In Cyprus, the market tends to be quite saturated, but here you are exposed to global influences from the start. I enjoy hunting for new clients in markets that encompass large world regions.
A few words on agility: With my corporate banking and fintech background, I know what it is like to work in large, bureaucratic and extremely structured organizations. At OpenWay, I enjoy the agile culture that has eliminated much of the bureaucracy and gives people a chance to develop their innovative ideas. We have shown that we can easily adapt to the ever-changing payment landscape.
Constantinos Michael
“The technical challenges of day-to-day support and delivering upgrades are never boring.”
Constantinos Michael, Technical Support Group Manager, oversees the Cyprus Support Department, a part of OpenWay’s global support that works with English-speaking customers worldwide. He describes what it is like to work in an intense, fast-paced environment.
Daily challenges: Our support team handles six areas: IPS and Transaction processing; POS, ATM, and Acquiring; eChannels and eCommerce; Products and Daily Operations; Platforms and Oracle; and EMV, Security, Way4Manager and DBManager. Day-to-day support involves tracking and resolving issues through the Jira ticketing system, assigning them to the relevant group. Sometimes an internal issue might be opened with the development team. A critical level issue with a large financial impact must always be resolved within a matter of hours, if not sooner.
System upgrades: Generally, twice a year, Way4 rolls out upgrades in response to updates made by international payment schemes. Support first gathers data and returns it to the client with a new version of the system. They update upgrade logs, gather data on results, and tweak settings. After a regression test, clients can upgrade their production systems. The upgrade manager provides support for reporting incidents, and support for production upgrades on a 24x7 basis.
Intense teamwork: This kind of 24x7, technically intensive, international support is possible only because of genuine teamwork and OpenWay’s investment in training. The team in Cyprus has various levels of experience. Those with lower levels of experience are assigned more experienced members to work with them. Of course, every new member is well equipped to handle many tasks, since he or she has gone through several weeks of intensive training in both implementation and support.
Ioannis Tornaris
“Working at OpenWay, you feel that the whole company is supporting you!”
Ioannis is an Implementation Group Manager and program Manager for the Delivery team at the Cyprus Office. He describes the implementation lifecycle and the power of teamwork and friendly collaboration.
Implementation lifecycle: After sales, implementation takes over the project, checking contracts, client requirements and business needs. Each project has a very specific lifecycle, starting from the Discovery Project, where client requirements are captured and the team advises the client about end-to-end processes. Then the team is assigned tasks and a variety of tests are performed in phases. After the build goes live, we oversee high volume testing and production before handing the project over to our global support team.
We do quite a lot of preparation to smooth the transition to support. We might have two or three years worth of data accumulated that we hand over, including information on our relationship with the client company, its culture and mindset. We work closely with our support team to ensure that the client is not impacted.
Personal support system: We have a good collaborative environment here at the Cyprus office. I would say it is a very friendly team where its members help each other willingly and are generous in giving their personal time. To help their colleagues, team members may wake up in the middle of the night and put in extended hours. A strong work culture defined by teamwork and open feedback motivates you to do more.
You are always aware that your work may affect many clients – cardholders, merchants – and that at any time something could go wrong. However, if you feel the whole company is supporting you, you do not view this as a panic situation but rather as a professional challenge that can be met and overcome. I enjoy the excellent liaisoning with management and all the departments of our company, in Cyprus and abroad. It is a very demanding job but it fulfills you.
Join our team
If you feel your attitude and experience are just right for OpenWay, we’d absolutely love to hear from you!
Please, send your CV to our HR manager in Cyprus, Stephanie Soteriou <ssoteriou@openwaygroup.com>, and she'll contact you back