MORGANVILLE, NJ – Douglas Wicks, PhD, formerly vice president of sales at CCBill, has acquired an equity stake in payment solutions company Payze. Wicks has joined the company’s board of directors and assumed the chief executive officer’s mantle.

Founded in 2009, Payze is a relative newcomer to the online financial processing business, but the company is backed by industry veterans whose histories in both adult and billing date to the late 1990s.

In 2009, Joel Paulin, formerly CCBill’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer, and Hank Freeman, chief executive officer and founder of SexKey, embarked on a cooperative venture to investigate innovative solutions for credit card processing and merchant accounts. The effort resulted in the Payze suite of software, which the company at first provided only to a handful of private clients while Paulin and Freeman continued to expand the offering, solutions and alliances.

Today, Payze offers individual direct merchant accounts and software solutions to support them, giving clients the ability to maximize their throughput, control their branding, manage their support and expand their businesses — all at competitive rates.

“When I saw the opportunity to create a modern processing venture and work with Joel again, I jumped on it,” said Wicks, who earned a PhD in psychology from the University of Kansas. “With Hank’s experience, reputation and client perspective, as well, I couldn’t be more excited to represent the entire Payze team.

“We’re building a better solution to help our clients reach their greatest potential,” he added. “This will truly be a one-stop shop.”

Each Payze team member possesses more than 13 years of experience in online and ecommerce processing and brings diverse experience and industry trust into this modern platform, Wicks noted.

“When I left CCBill over two years ago, I was not sure I would return to high-risk processing, but after seeing the solutions, team and vision for Payze, I was excited to bring my experience to the company,” he said.

Wicks may be contacted at his new [email=doug@payze.com]email address[/email] or at 855-487-2993.