Our humble beginnings all started with a 17 year-old boy who bought a liquor store in the middle of downtown Oakland.

William Souza quickly discovered that his most profitable service, at his liquor store, was check cashing. In the years to come, he focused on check cashing and invested in a few additional stores in the Bay Area.

In the 1990’s Souza continued his efforts on improving his check cashing business and discovered a check cashing technology. Paycheck Secure helped him recover 90% of his acceptable loss. He quickly recognized its potential, knew that other check cashers would also benefit from this technology and spread the word.

As the first distributor of Paycheck Secure in CA, Souza quickly capitalized and incorporated Capital Retail Solutions, Inc. (CRS).

The CRS catalog of offerings quickly grew due to the strong relationships Souza made during the 40+ years of his career in the MSB industry.

In 2001, the USA PATRIOT Act was signed into law and banks were now under more scrutiny than ever to stop money laundering. Because of this, many of Souza’s merchants were losing their MSB bank accounts and he wanted to help.

Souza did his research, hired CAMS certified representatives, put together programs designed to save the accounts of his merchants and formed Capital Compliance Experts (CCE).

Today, CCE has helped save hundreds of bank accounts and offers services such as:

• Custom Anti-Money Laundering Programs
• Third Party Independent Reviews
• Employee Online Training
• Annual Compliance Oversight
• Compliance Consulting

Recently, Souza and his compliance team launched a portal to ease the burden of compliance management. The secure, online Compliance Management Portal stores and organizes all compliance documents and allows for auditor access.

The future is looking bright for Souza and his team. At his core, Souza has sought to assist and change the MSB and financial service industry with one big idea after another.

And to think, it all started with a boy and a liquor store.