zipMoney publishes FY16 numbers

Aussie point-of-sale finance and payments provider zipMoney has seen strong transaction and revenue growth, but posted a loss on the year. 

The ASX listed zipMoney saw revenues grow from around $400k to $4.3m in FY16, which translates to year-on-year growth of nearly 1,000 per cent. The growth in revenues was fuelled by commensurate gains in the platform’s transactional and lending volumes. The former grew to $51.5m, while the loanbook swelled to $40.7m, up from just $2.9m in 2015. Nevertheless, zipMoney’s net profit after tax came in at a loss of A$7,089,478 for the year.

The platform suffered bad debts of 1.1% per cent and arrears of 1.3% in FY16. The loanbook’s performance is said to be in line with internal management projections. Executive director and COO Peter Gray said that the performance “continues to validate” zipMoney’s core IP – its fraud and decisioning technology.

zipMoney raised A$20.6m in a share placement in early June, after closing a $108m asset-backed securitisation with Victory Park Capital in December 2015. zipMoney has been sizing up the acquisition of personal finance management software Pocketbook since closing its share placement in June. Negotiations are ongoing, but zipMoney expects the purchase to be finalised within the next four weeks. Pocketbook boasts a user-base of 250,000 and “significant revenue monetisation opportunities”.

zipMoney is an online platform that uses big data to fuel real-time consumer responses. The company offers point-of-sale credit and payment services across various industries in Australia. Once a purchase is authorised using zipMoney, the retailer will be paid on the customer’s behalf and that customer then makes repayments to zipMoney. The financing option appears as a payment add-on at the point of checkout on partner company websites.

For the year ahead, zipMoney will continue to focus on growing its market share, will invest in offline payments capabilities and will look to enter the $15bn travel sector. The company will also seek to enter the health services space through a proposed joint venture. zipMoney also intends to ramp up hiring and to expand its data science capabilities.

“This is a great maiden result for the Company following its ASX listing in September 2015. Since our founding in June 2013 we have had a well-defined strategic objective to be the leading issuer of credit and payment solutions at the digital checkout.” Said CEO Larry Diamond. “There is significant scope to grow the brand and market position.”