Chexar Networks to bring 500 new jobs to Cordele

Chexar Networks, a Roswell provider of technology-based services that allow banks and other businesses to serve the under-banked population, plans to create 500 jobs in Cordele where it will open a risk management center, Gov. Nathan Deal said Monday.

The company now employs 115 and has a data center in Atlanta and a data center as well as its headquarters in Roswell. The Cordele data center will support the existing operations as well as the company’s growth. Chexar will locate in two existing 18,000-square-foot buildings in Cordele, in Crisp County in south Georgia. Plans are to open by January.

Chexar founder and CEO Drew W. Edwards said the company’s growth, “is accelerating in spite of economic headwinds …”

Chexar technology allows businesses to cash checks and provide other financial services to people without traditional bank accounts _ a population estimated at more than 80 million. Georgia has 457,000 households that are un-banked, 12.2 percent of the population, according to The Pew Charitable Trusts.

The company is eligible for $10 million in state job tax credits and for $954,000 in Quick Start training.

“Georgia works very hard to be sure we remain among the best places for business for data center locations,” said Cris Cummiskey, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development. “Chexar is one of more than 50 data centers that call Georgia home, and in this 24/7  information culture we live in, it becomes more and more important that we provide the best strategic resources for these companies to meet their customers’ growing needs.”

The state has become a magnet for data centers for several reasons, development officials say. It has low business costs, a supply of reliable and competitively-priced power, sufficient bandwith and fiber access, and computer and information sciences-related degrees and certificates offered by many of its colleges and universities.