IBS Journal February 2015
Monitise puts itself in the shop window after revenue warning
The troubled mobile payments vendor, Monitise, has suffered another setback after publishing a warning to investors about revenue ahead of the publication of its FY2015 financial results. The company has advised investors to expect a 47 per cent drop in license revenue to £4.4 million, whilst development and integration rev- enue also fell 13 per cent to £21.8 million. Losses for the year are expected to come in at between £40-50 million, up from previ- ous guidance of around £33 million. In a trading update to the market,
Monitise advised that a sale or new share issue is likely. Moelis & Company has been appointed by Monitise as its financial advi- sor to broker investment options. The vendor has been executing a tran- sition of its business over the last year, shifting away from a structure of upfront licence fees towards a subscription-based revenue model. This came off the back of escalating losses over the past few years, despite the vendor sticking firmly to the commitment of being profitable in FY2016. Monitise said: ‘The board believes that the company has an exciting future as an
independent business, however it recog- nises that there may be other businesses which could leverage Monitise’s capabil- ities for digital commerce enablement to significantly accelerate the growth of the business and take maximum advantage of the growth opportunities in the market today.’ The ownership of Monitise has been in
doubt for several months now. In Septem- ber last year one of its major stakehold- ers, Visa, reduced its stake in the compa- ny to 5.5 per cent (it had originally taken a 14.4 per cent stake in the firm in 2009), resulting in a 25 per cent drop in Monitise’s share price. This news had followed reports of heavy losses by the company. Better news followed in November, however, as Santander, Telefonica and IBM acquired nearly £50 million in Monitise stock. The latter agreed a major partnership with Monitise in August 2014, whereby over 1000 Monitise staff, representing its entire UK development and integration business, moved to IBM. It is expected that IBM is now one of the companies which will con- sider acquiring Monitise.
IN BRIEF
Bank of the Ozarks, a regional bank in the US with roots in Arkansas, is converting to a new core banking platform, Fiserv’s Premier. The bank, which has $6.8 billion in assets, has grown significantly over the last few years via acquisitions, and need- ed to standardise and unify its operations on a common solution. Speaking at the announcement of the bank’s Q4 financial results, Tyler Vance, the bank’s COO, stat- ed that 2014 was ‘a very important year’. He explained: ‘We successfully implement- ed the biggest technology advancements our company has made in the past 30 years, laying a foundation that should serve us well for years to come.’ Bank of the Ozarks has been a long-standing customer of Metavante, which
later became part of FIS, running its Bankware system since the early 1980s. Howev- er, in 2014 it decided that an IT overhaul was needed. ‘We completed an extensive RFP process which resulted in our decision to convert our core operating systems to Fiserv’s Premier. This was a significant decision and a monumental initiative,’ stated Vance. The bank started with the conversion of its legacy Bankware software, which
was carried out in August. The acquired entities followed. Texas-based Omnibank was moved onto Premier in October and Arkansas-based Summit Bank was incor- porated in November. The conversion of First National Bank of Shelby in North Car- olina is now underway, with completion expected in February this year. And finally, Florida and New-York based Intervest, which is the latest acquisition by Bank of the Ozarks (it is still being finalised), will transition to the new software in June 2015.
IN BRIEF
Savvy Loans is a newcomer to the UK’s lending market. The online short-term lender for consumers and SMEs has recently opened for business supported by a cloud- based platform from Mambu. Alex- ander Chagoubatov, MD at Savvy Loans, says: ‘When we started look- ing into the UK market, we were advised to build our own platform, as there wasn’t anything already available that would suit our specif- ics.’ Coming across Mambu alleviat- ed that concern, he adds. ‘I am a big advocate of cloud-based solutions,’ Chagoubatov states. It enables a business to launch ‘without a huge upfront investment in technology’, and UK regulation allows certain types of financial institutions, such as lending firms and credit unions, to use cloud-based software (the case is not as clear-cut with banks, however). The Mambu platform supports
the back office operations of Savvy Loans, and Chagoubatov describes it as ‘a great core system for lending and savings’. At the front-end, Sav- vy Loans uses its own development. The lender scoured the market but Chagoubatov, whose background is in software development, felt that a bespoke, in-house developed solu- tion would be the best fit. It set up a sister company that carried out the development and provides ongo- ing support and maintenance of the platform. Chagoubatov muses that there is a possibility of striking a partnership with Mambu for offer- ing the product to other Mambu customers. Frederik Pfisterer, Mambu’s
co-founder and COO, says that the overall project was completed in three months. Training was carried out in six sessions within a two-week period. Mambu already has experi- ence of working with FIs in the UK, namely with My Community Bank, as well as with specialist lenders around the world, such as Kueski. com, a microlender in Mexico.
© IBS Intelligence 2015
www.ibsintelligence.com
13
ibs news
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56
