Seamus Keating, Chairman of Mi-Pay Group plc LON:MPAY commented: “The Board is pleased with the progress made during the first half of 2016 and specifically the continued improvement in gross profits and lower operating costs, making further progress towards profitability.
We are seeing increasing opportunities with our clients as they start to embrace the need for a robust digital payment strategy and, in parallel, focus their attention on how they will deal with the increasing global risks of payment fraud and data security. Our proven capabilities in both of these areas means our solution is becoming increasingly relevant in our market. This strengthening business environment together with a strong closing cash position allows us to continue to invest to evolve and future-proof our product and service offerings.”
Mi-Pay (AIM: MPAY), the leading provider of outsourced and fully managed digital transformation and mobile payment solutions to Tier 1 Mobile Network Operators and Mobile Virtual Network Operators, has given DirectorsTalk its unaudited Interim Results for the six months ended 30 June 2016.
Operational Highlights
· During the period we were the first provider to deliver Amazon Payments as a Mobile Wallet payment solution to the Mobile Operator community enhancing our on-device digital payments capabilities and continue to see an increase in payments via mobile wallet solutions.
· Increasing focus and use by consumers of on device payment solutions such as ‘Mobile Optimised Web Pages’ and ‘Mobile Applications’.
· We have continued to deliver high payment success rates and low fraud levels in line with internal targets during the period, enabling us to improve commercial terms with our partners as our volumes grow in the longer term and to realise the benefits of our internal fraud solution.
· IBM global Beacon award winner for “Outstanding Solution Hosted on IBM Cloud” for our globally secure data centre platform.
· Successfully delivered annual PCI DSS level 1 accreditation for 2016/2017.
Financial Highlights
· Value of transactions processed in the period increased by 34% to £39.1 million versus H1 2015.
· Total revenue increased to £1.6 million (H1 2015: £1.5 million). Transaction revenue growth of 9% was lower than our volume growth of 34%, as one customer, on contract renewal opted to pay the merchant acquiring fee directly rather than through the Mi-Pay contract which now covers our highest value services, having no overall impact on our gross profit.
· Transaction growth and enhanced processing efficiency delivered a 33% improvement in Gross profit to £1.0 million (H1 2015 £0.7 million), underpinned by a 13 percentage point improvement in gross margin to 62% (H1 2015: 49%).
· £0.5m reduction in total administrative expenses to £1.2 million (H1 2015: £1.7 million).
· Operating loss reduced by £0.7 million to £0.3 million for the period (H1 2015: £1.0 million).
· Cash & cash equivalents as at 30 June 2016 were £3.4 million (H1 2015: £3.8 million).
· Net cash out flows, excluding movements in amounts due to clients, cash flow from financing and investing activities and one off exception expenditure reduced to £0.1 million for the period. (H1 2015: Net cash outflow £0.7 million).
· Basic and diluted loss per share 0.6 pence (H1 2015: 3 pence loss per share).
