Earthport Regulatory News (EPO)

29 Mar 2007 07:04

Earthport PLC29 March 2007 29 March 2007 Earthport plc ("Earthport" or the "Company") Trading Update Earthport is experiencing strong business growth in the first quarter of thecalendar year, fuelled by the successful launch of several new clients via itspayments gateway. After solid improvement in transaction volume for the month ofDecember 2006 which was 38% higher than the comparable period of December 2005,transaction volume has continued to accelerate, with January 2007 transactionvolume more than doubling, by 111%, and February 2007 up 122% versus the prioryear. Earthport's CEO, David Fife commented, "Since my arrival in November of 2006, wehave been incredibly busy at Earthport. Transaction volume for the month ofFebruary 2007 was 60% higher than for the month of December 2006. We havestrengthened the balance sheet through a fund raising in which I participated,completed our migration to a channel partnership sales strategy - leading tosigned contracts with Giact Systems and Virtual Automated Technologies (VAT) andfinished three new upgrades to our Earthport Payments Platform, including thefirst phase of our implementation of SWIFT. Earthport is the first paymentscompany that has been admitted to SWIFT. As part of our efforts we have broughtrevenue from Foreign Exchange (FX) into the business model. As we concentrate oninternational money movements this promises to become a significant addition toour transaction revenues." In addition to the existing client base from which revenue is rising as newproducts and territories come into play, Earthport now has a strong pipeline ofsigned contracts to provide payment services scheduled to go live between nowand the end of the fourth quarter of the financial year (30 June 2007).Following the signing of Giact (RNS 11 December 2006) and VAT (RNS 10 January2007), both partners have introduced transacting clients to Earthport and bothhave further clients wishing to use Earthport's services. Mike Harrison, Earthport's Executive Chairman commented, "Taking a conservativeview of what our channel partners are forecasting to us, we should see anadditional 100,000 transactions per month by June 2007. The potential monthlytransaction volume of our existing contracts coupled with the potentialtransaction volume through our signed channel partners approaches 1,000,000 permonth. With Safepay Solutions due to come on-line via Giact in the next week andNu Skin now live and transacting, we are just at the beginning stages of aperiod of exponential growth for the Company." Earthport has developed and paid for a banking and technology platform which isnow in the early stages of commercial use for transforming the traditionalpayments model from a cross-border transaction service to a globalliquidity-management driven model, thus reducing fees and settlement times forsending money around the World. The Company's main asset is a global network ofsegregated trust accounts (ability to move other people's money), whichfacilitates making local payments for international money transfers in 190countries in 19 currencies. David Fife, Earthport's CEO remarked, "Our presence in local markets and ourability to settle in local currency is at the heart of our value-add. Wefunction, in some respects, as a single, global multi-currency account, helpingmiddle-market companies bank globally. My confidence in the business isunderlined by my personal investment in the Company." -End- Press enquiries: Mike Harrison, Chairman - Earthport plc +44 20 7220 9700Mark Ashurst - Canaccord Adams Limited +44 20 7050 6500Lulu Bridges/Polly Hutchinson - Tavistock Communications +44 20 7920 3150 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange