Vipera Plc (LON:VIP) Chief Financial Officer Martin Perrin caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss their new contract with the Government Savings Bank of Thailand (GSB)
Q1: You’re a company offering mobile financial services for banks and retailers but can you tell us a bit more about the sorts of services you provide in consumer terms?
A1: Mobile banking has come a long way over the last few years and it has evolved from a simple ‘can I pay a bill using my cell phone’ to a much wider spectrum of functionalities. For example, we have a product called Card Control and this enables consumers using a simple Vipera app on their cell phone to exercise a good degree of control over their credit card so it actually provides the ability to get real-time confirmation about what’s going through that credit card and control, for example, over blocking so for example, do you want to switch on or off card holder not present contractions or indeed other categories of card contractions. At Vipera, we focus on providing the banks with the tools to offer their customers the mobile functionality so we’re not necessarily dealing direct with the end users, in fact some of it comes under what you would call a heading called self-service. To illustrate that, you when you go on holiday, on a business trip or just abroad somewhere and a card company like you to notify them where you’re going to be using the card and actually ringing a call centre can be rather a bore, a quick entry on a Vipera app on your cell phone is a welcome alternative. The banks like that too as it saves them call centre costs.
Q2: I suppose the big question investors are really asking, this new contract that came out today, how much is it actually worth?
A2: Well, I’m conscious that the audience for anything I say publicly may include customers or competitors so please forgive me if I hold back in giving the exact number on that. In any event it may actually be more helpful if I put this in context by noting that this is the second largest single purchase order which we have received and to put that in context, we have other instances where customers contract with Vipera with an initial order and they may keep coming back for more so that over time they accrued to have been the forefront of a material amount of revenue. For sure it’s not all about revenue, it’s about working with satisfied customers over time to deliver what we call a route map of evolving mobile services and we have a whole spread of customers with whom we can work to develop these things.
Q3: Now the contract is with the Government Savings Bank of Thailand (GSB), could you tell us what this means for the company?
A3: GSB dipped their toe in the water, so to speak, with an initial small order last year and the fact that they have now ordered an additional licence for 1 million users, it reflects none of the cash of their initial deployment of the mobile banking platform which we called MOTIF and also reflecting on the actual appetite for mobile financial services from end users. So at Vipera, we’re pleased it’s gone well for them and we’re also pleased for our partner in the Far East which is TNFIS and for us at Vipera, it’s a welcome step in achieving our aim for 2015 and if I can gently say so, invested with a prefix that selling a licence as opposed to selling deployment services is a high growth margin activity.
Q4: How long has TNFIS been a distribution partner of yours? Have they got other customers partnering with them for you?
A4: Well yes, we have been working with TNFIS for 4 years now and we have one other bank customer with them. They are good sensible people who have stood firm in a recent period of political and economic difficulty in Thailand and I think this new contract may well be an indicator that conditions in Thailand are changing for the better and we are certainly aiming to win more in that region.
