LONDON (Alliance News) - Vipera PLC Monday reported a narrower pretax loss in 2013, boosted by higher revenues and broadly flat operating expenses.
Vipera shares were Monday quoted at 7.14 pence, up 5.9%.
In a statement, the mobile financial services platform provider said its pretax loss narrowed to GBP104,360 in 2013, compared with GBP537,159 in 2012. Revenue rose to GBP1.4 million, from GBP974,359, while operating expenses were broadly flat at GBP1.5 million.
Vipera, whose software and services enable mobile access to personal financial services, said it is continuing to widen its customer base, with more emphasis on larger European financial institutions.
"In particular, we believe that we are successfully engaging in relationships which strengthen our sales channels and reinforce our credentials in the mobile financial services market place. In parallel, we have continued to receive further business from existing customers as we work with them to enhance their mobile services," Vipera said in its strategic report.
"Continued sales growth reflects increasing customer acceptance and market credibility. Targeting this sales growth has called for investment in the future, balanced against profitability," the report added.
In addition, Vipera said the results exclude the trading of software consultancy AC&D Srl, in which a controlling 51% stake was acquired in December. AC&D management is the other major shareholder. AC&D, which also trades as Advance Codd & Date, provides contract programmers and IT advice. Its main area is in the Italian banking market. In 2013, its turnover was EUR4.2 million, compared with EUR2.6 million in 2012, resulting in a EUR250,000 pretax profit.
Vipera has been focused on growth, raising GBP1.1 million by issuing just shy of 18.9 million new shares since the end of 2013, and on Monday said it wants to continue to expand.
"Vipera is looking to work closely with strategic partners to broaden its customer reach and to continue to develop new functionality that both takes advantage of advances in technologies, and identifies with customer and end user needs. The group is seeking to expand its sales team to help execute its plans," Vipera said in its strategic report.
Vipera's 2013 will be the last to be reported in sterling, with the company changing its reporting currency to euros due to growth in its European sales meaning that the bulk of revenue and earnings are denominated in the currency. It shares on AIM will continue to be quoted in sterling.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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