Earthport Regulatory News (EPO)

16 September 2013

Earthport plc

("Earthport", or the "Company")

Selected by Azimo

 Earthport to expand Azimo's low cost remittance services to the developing world

Earthport (AIM: EPO), the cross-border payments service provider, today announces that Azimo, the award-winning online money transfer platform, has gone live with the Earthport service. The agreement sees innovative start-up Azimo continue to revolutionise the international transfer of money direct to bank accounts by taking advantage of Earthport's established, industry leading service.

The combination of Earthport's fast and efficient payment capability and Azimo's mobile, social and web-based consumer interface enables remittance customers to send money back home faster, more securely, and at lower prices.

Earthport's robust platform, broad network and low cost structure, will enable Azimo to expand its offering and accelerate scaling, whilst offering the most transparent, and cost effective methods of international money transfer in the industry.

The global market for remittances is expected to reach $608 billion by 2014 of which $468 billion will flow to developing countries. Currently, the annual level of remittances made to many developing countries from citizens working abroad can represent between 7% and 35% of a nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Remittances to developing countries are projected to grow by 7.9 percent in 2013, 10.1 percent in 2014 and 10.7 percent in 2015 to reach $534 billion in 2015.

"Azimo's mission is to deliver fast, simple and above all low cost money transfers to Europe's hard working migrants. Payments to bank accounts are an increasingly important part of what we do. We chose to work with Earthport because they have the robust platform, broad network and low cost structure allowing us to better serve our customers. From today, Azimo's online clients can benefit from a highly automated service with full visibility of when their payments will arrive, and exactly how much their recipients will receive. Sophisticated validation on country specific data means we reduce exceptions to almost zero and further drive down costs" said Michael Kent, CEO of Azimo. "Why does this matter? If we could decrease the global percentage commissions for money transfer from where they are today at 9% by 50% that would put upwards of $20bn back into the hands of those in developing countries who need it most."

"We are delighted to add Azimo, part of the new wave of consumer facing financial services start-ups, to our client roster. Building on our robust and tried and tested platform will help them quickly grow their business by offering cost-effective, transparent payment services to segments of the market not yet effectively served by banks or other payment providers" said Paul Thomas, Executive Director at Earthport. "Our recent partnership with IFC demonstrates the importance global development organisations place on facilitating secure, reliable money transfer services to developing markets. We believe the Azimo service will build on the Earthport platform to further accelerate the ability of the currently un-banked and under-banked to take part in global commerce - and increase financial inclusion in developing nations," he continued.

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About Azimo

Azimo is next generation London based FinTech business disrupting the international money transfer sector. Marrying UK financial services know how with emerging digital money, mobile internet and social media customer behaviours the business is changing the way that European consumers send and receive money. The business offers, bank deposit, cash payout, mobile wallet top up and home delivery services in over 200 countries.

Launched last year Azimo has been profiled in the FT, Wall Street Journal, Wired, the Economist as well as winning the best new business title at the UKTI Global Corporate Venturing Symposium and being chosen to represent the UK at the SWIFT SIBOS 2013 conference in Dubai.

Azimo Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Payment Service Regulations 2009 for the provision of payment services. For more details please visit azimo.com or visit FACEBOOK, @Azimomoney, Google+ and Youtube.

About Earthport

Earthport plc, a regulated global financial services organisation, specialises in the provision of a white label cross-border payments service.

Through its innovative payments framework, specifically designed for high volumes of low value cross-border payments, Earthport provides a cost-effective and transparent service for secure international payments. Earthport's clients include banks, foreign exchange businesses, money transfer organisations, payment aggregators and e-commerce businesses. Through Earthport's well-established payments infrastructure, clients can clear and settle payments directly to banked beneficiaries in over 50 countries.

The company is headquartered in London and is listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) on the London Stock Exchange. It operates globally with additional regional offices in Dubai and New York. Earthport plc is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Payment Service Regulations 2009 for the provision of payment services. To learn more, please visit www.earthport.com and follow us via RSS or on social channels, Twitter@Earthport, LinkedIn, Youtube and Slideshare.