SJH.L Share News (SJH)

(Sharecast News) - St James House updated the market on its trading and recent developments on Friday, reporting that its payments division has seen orders for prepaid cards exceed 13,000 in November, with 700 delivered and activated as at the end of the month.
The AIM-traded firm said it believed it remained on target for the revised forecast of 20,000 cards to be delivered and activated by the end of January.

It said euro IBAN wallets were now available to clients and were fully functional, providing "fast, seamless and low-cost" transactional capability across 33 countries.

Market Access, trading as 'Another', now provided euro account clients with full access to borderless payments across the EU member states as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, Monaco and San Marino.

Additionally, the Another euro prepaid card was fully connected to the IBAN account, so that balances could be automatically swapped between cards and accounts through one platform.

St James House said sterling accounts were being rolled out for qualifying clients, with a view to a broader roll out in the new year, with US dollar accounts to follow shortly thereafter.

Foreign exchange and international payments through the SWIFT system were now also available for those transactions which originated or end outside of the Single European Payments Area (SEPA) zone.

"In anticipation of the upgraded payment gateway and fraud prevention software in January, the merchant services team have conducted a successful merchant acquisition campaign with the goal of producing a more industry diverse sales pipeline," the board said in its statement.

"Together with recent agreements signed with two Baltic and European acquiring partners, resulting in successful test transactions from new merchants, we are confident of a positive contribution to the group during the first quarter of 2020."

Looking at its lottery business, St James House said the number of lottery lines played on a weekly basis was about 30% higher this year than for November 2018.

It said that growth ensured the lottery business continued to be on target to make a positive operating contribution to the group for the second half of the year ending 31 January.

At a group level, the board said working capital remained constrained, although its board believed the improving operating performance would alleviate the position gradually.

In addition, it said it was actively exploring options to improve its position before the end of the current financial year on 31 January.

"We now have a fully functioning suite of sterling and euro prepaid cards, proper IBANs in euro as well as sterling accounts for qualifying businesses with dollar services to follow shortly - all accessible through the Another portal," said chief executive officer Graeme Paton.

"Our clients can send and receive money to and from virtually anywhere as well as manage their cards, wherever they can connect to the internet."

At 1356 GMT, shares in St James House were down 12% at 22p.