A GLOBAL transport payment company is set to create around 80 North-East jobs after opening a new centre in the region.

Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS) officially opened its new global operations centre at their Stockton base yesterday.

The centre currently has 20 employees, and bosses told The Northern Echo they plan to increase that number to 100 in the next 12 months.

CTS, who have been at their Stockton site since 2004, design and create payment systems that make travelling on public transport easier.

There are more than 24 billion transactions processed using Cubic software every year.

CTS was involved in the creation of the Oyster card system used in London, as well as other contactless payment methods for use in major worldwide cities, including Sydney, Brisbane and places across North America.

CTS already employs 120 staff at the Stockton site, with around half of those engineers.

Roger Crow, senior vice president and European managing director, said the organisation has a lot of confidence in the Teesside area.

“Stockton is a good place. Cubic was established here and there is an excellent workforce.

“We have great ties with the universities in the area – Newcastle, Durham and York – and it makes a lot of sense to be based here.”

Min Wei, senior vice president in operations, added: “Our main markets are the US, Australasia and the UK, so we wanted an English speaking country.

“We didn’t want to go to a greenfield site and Stockton was a cost effective location for us.”

CTS employs more than 2,000 people and has its headquarters in the US, along with bases in the UK, Australia, Sweden and Germany.

CTS also confirmed the Brexit vote has had no baring on their future plans.

“It remains as it is. We are still planning to grow the company” said Mr Crow.

“We are fortunate that our contracts are multiple year contracts” he added.

CTS is part of the US-based Cubic Corporation alongside Cubic Global Defence.