Partnership Deals Push Monitise Into The Black For Second Half Of 2011

Dramatic growth in transaction volume fueled by various new partnerships helped Monitise PLC to report significant gains in revenue and a profit for the second half of 2011, the London-based mobile-money services company reported Feb. 13.

During the period, Monitise strengthened its position in Europe through a £24.7 million (US$39.8 million or 28.1 million euros) investment from Visa Europe (see story).  The companies had formed a mobile-banking partnership earlier in the year (see story).

In November, Carphone Warehouse, a mobile-phone company affiliated with Best Buy Europe Inc., announced it would offer Mobile Money Network’s Simply Tap, which enables customers to use their phones to buy directly from the company’s advertisements, catalogs, website or direct-marketing pieces. Mobile Money Network developed Simply Tap for use on Apple Inc. iPhones and Google Inc. Android phones in a joint venture with Monitise (see story).

U.S. Bancorp in July partnered with Monitise Americas and Fidelity National Information Systems Inc., or FIS, to offer a new mobile app for U.S. Bank ReliaCard Visa cardholders in 16 states (see story).

The acquisition of FIS’s 51% majority stake in the joint venture Monitise Americas in November enabled Monitise to sell directly into the U.S. market. Monitise also struck a five-year strategic partnership with FIS to create mobile-money services for existing and new clients via a licensing, services and development agreement.

Earlier this month, Monitise and Visa Inc. announced a new U.S. mobile-services offering through Visa’s Debit Processing Service unit (see story). The new product enables banks that use Visa's Debit Processing Service platform to offer mobile-banking users the ability to monitor transactions, move funds and receive alerts on their mobile devices.

“Our growth continues to accelerate, and we had an excellent six months to the end of December 2011 with encouraging signs across all our key financial, operational and adoption metrics,” Alastair Lukies, Monitise group chief executive officer, said in a news release announcing company earnings. “Our rapidly growing order book, increasing pipeline and deepening partnerships further validate Monitise’s leadership role as the enabler of choice in the mobile-money industry.”

Monitise reported a £1.05 million pretax profit for the six-month period; the company reported a £8.7 million pretax loss during the same period in 2010. Revenue reached £15.8 million, up 198% from £5.3 million.

United Kingdom revenue for the six-month period reached £6.7 million, up 148% from £2.7 million a year earlier. U.S. revenue was up 56.9%, to £455,000 £290,000.

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