The e-mail billing software vendor Transactis Inc. has named Joe Proto its chairman.
The Bethesda, Md., company announced the appointment Wednesday. It said Mr. Proto is succeeding Mark Walsh, who will remain a director and co-vice-chairman.
Mr. Proto will have an active role with Transactis, working with chief executive Thomas L. Kohn on new business development, strategic planning, and mergers and acquisitions.
Mr. Proto has a long history in the payments software industry. In 1982 he founded Financial Telesis Inc., a holding company for businesses that offered remittance and data processing services to banks and other companies, and he was a member of its executive management team until 1995. Financial Telesis was acquired by CoreStates Financial Corp. (now Wachovia Corp.) in 1992.
In 1996, Mr. Proto partnered with the U.S. Postal Service to develop a remittance processing product, Remitco, and in 1999 he helped spin off Remitco LLC as an independent company and became its president. It was acquired by First Data Corp. in 2000, and he remained with the Denver processor until recently.
Transactis offers a product that enables billers to send encrypted invoices to customers by e-mail. Recipients can also initiate payments using the same e-mail, without using an Internet browser.
Mr. Proto "has spent all these years working with paper bills, and his new role is how to get rid of paper," Eric Fox, Transactis' vice president of business development, said Wednesday. "We're happy to have him. He's an industry heavyweight."
