UK headquartered mobile banking firm Monitise has reported a net loss of over GBP16 million (USD25 million) for the 12 months to end June, despite a 136% increase in revenue.
Monetise net loss increased by 12.4% year-on-year, marking the 6th year of losses, despite revenues more than doubling in each of the past three years, reaching GBP36.1 million in 2012.
Mobile payment consultant Georg Fasching told Electronic Payments International that the losses are due to the recent acquisition of US competitor Clairmail. The deal was valued at GBP108 million.
Fasching said the acquisition will boost Monetise’s operations in the US.
“Monetise had a bit of work in the US, but not nearly as many customers as Clairmail. They are now working to integrate their business into Monetise’s structure,” he said.
Monetise is also targeting Asia for expansion. On 4 September 2012, Monitise Asia Pacific- the joint venture Monitise formed with the mobile technology unit of the Asian fund First Eastern Investment Group in 2010 – struck a deal with the Hong Kong subsidiary of Bank of China (BOCHK) to develop its mobile money services.
Monitise chief commercial officer Lee Cameron said: “Hong Kong has one of the highest levels of smartphone penetration in the world and a long heritage of payments innovation. We are delighted to be working together with BOCHK in Hong Kong.”
Earlier this year, Monitise also entered into partnerships with one of the subsidiaries of PT Bank Permata, Indonesia’s largest bank by assets, and HDFC Bank, India’s third largest bank by assets.
Monitise Group chief executive Alastair Lukies said: “As a company of unprecedented scale in this space and with the ongoing support of our strategic partners, we are executing on our strategy to capitalise on the global mobile money business opportunity.”
“We are focused on delivering profitability earlier than anticipated,” he added.
Visa Europe became Monitise largest shareholder in August 2012, when it almost doubled its stake in the company (now 10.2%), by buying 45.3 million Monitise shares.
Monitise share price has fallen by almost 7% in the last 12 months.
