OSLO, NORWAY – 27 August 2020, CET 08:00 – Zwipe AS today publishes its half-year report for H1 2020.

Highlights for first half-year 2020 include:

Financials

Second Quarter

• Second quarter revenues at TNOK 486 (241)
• Second quarter result after tax at TNOK -15 842 (-20 989)
• Result per share for the second quarter of NOK -0.62 (-1.32)
• Cash flow from operations before financing at TNOK -14 789 (-22 554)

First Half Year

• Total revenues for the first half year TNOK 880 (348)
• Result after tax at TNOK -31 590 (-36 329)
• Result per share for the first half year of NOK -1.23 (-2.28)
• New equity TNOK 67 004 was raised in January 2020
• Cash flow from operations before financing and facilitation at TNOK -42 016 (-33 971)
• Cash and cash equivalents amounted to TNOK 43 168 on the day of closing, 30 June 2020

Significant events during the period

• 28 Jan: Zwipe lists on Nasdaq First North Growth Market in Stockholm, Sweden
• 25 Mar: Masria Digital Payments selects Zwipe for biometric payments
• 08 Apr: IDEMIA, Zwipe and IDEX achieve key milestone towards next generation biometric card platform
• 20 Apr: Zwipe and IDEX collaborate on Zwipe Pay ONE platform
• 22 Apr: Zwipe partners with Toppan Forms Card Technologies (TFCT) on biometric payment cards
• 23 Apr: Zwipe nominates industry leaders as new board members
• 28 Apr: Zwipe partners with Asia Credit Card to roll out biometric payment card products and services
• 02 Jun: Zwipe appoints new Executive Vice President Strategy & Channels
• 08 Jun: Zwipe steps up collaboration with TFCT, with TFCT placing an order 
• 18 Jun: Zwipe and Watchdata partner to launch next generation contactless payments
• 29 Jun: Zwipe and Thomas Greg and Sons do Brasil renew and extend exclusive partnership

Significant actions after the period

• 01 Jul: Zwipe and Publicenter collaborate on biometric payment solutions
• 28 Jul: Zwipe and Liveo Research partner to enhance biometric payment card offering
• 18 Aug: Zwipe and Smart Technology Services ramp up collaboration to industrialize Zwipe Pay ONE
• 20 Aug: Zwipe and Wisecard join forces to drive the mass market adoption of biometric payment card

CEO comment

The first half of 2020 has been very productive, and a period marked by progress and major achievements for Zwipe. At a time when the public is particularly attuned to the benefits of social distancing, the payment ecosystem has increasingly embraced the need for secure, contactless payment technologies. COVID-19 has been a game-changer for market acceptance of the need for truly touchless payment solutions such as those offered by Zwipe.

The year began with Zwipe successfully listing on Nasdaq’s First North Growth Market in Sweden, boosting liquidity and investor awareness through access to a broader investor community.

We continued building our end-to-end ecosystem, expanding our customer network globally, forging several new strategic technical partnerships, securing important orders and extending exclusive partnerships. All of this while continuing to make progress on our previously announced key projects, Zwipe Pay ONE with IDEMIA and IDEX, and the wearables project with Giesecke+Devrient (G+D).

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has elevated the focus on safety and significantly increased the growth of contactless transactions. This, in turn has led to raised contactless transaction limits all over the world and has served to highlight the improved hygiene and safety benefits of biometric payments. During 2020, the first announcements of upcoming small-scale commercial launches of biometric payment cards to consumers have been made, proving that the industry is ready to start serving a mass market.

We believe we hold the key to the next step of broad-scale, high-volume adoption of biometric payment cards through our cooperation with IDEMIA on Zwipe Pay ONE, which will reduce manufacturing cost for biometric payment cards to a level that enables card issuers to start mass-volume deployment.

Consequently, we are doubling down our efforts to serve the market, with immediate results. As previously announced, we have an ongoing dialogue with more than 40 out of the world’s top 50 smart card manufacturers. During H1 2020 we have seen very good progress in our sales pipeline. We have announced that five new smart card manufacturers have decided to adopt Zwipe Pay ONE once it is available for early sampling, planned for later in 2020, and our prospect list and pipeline are continuously increasing. These are the clearest indications of demand for our solutions.

During the period we also began to engage directly with issuers and banks. Early insights suggest that a sizable number of consumers are willing to pay a meaningful monthly fee for biometric payment cards. We have been able to initiate fruitful engagements with multiple banks on how to profitably deploy biometric payment cards to consumers in large scale. This has strongly resonated across the payments and cards ecosystem, creating a wave of interest in what we uniquely offer to the marketplace.

Zwipe builds its competitive position on combining cost and performance leadership with our value-adding trusted advisor/systems integrator role. This combination is the cornerstone in Zwipe’s ambitions towards mass market deployments of Biometric Payment Cards and wearables.

In the second half of 2019 we streamlined costs and lasered in on core processes to achieve mass-volume market readiness for Zwipe. Our progress in recent months is proof that we are on the right path. Our technology partnership with IDEMIA has secured Zwipe world-wide, exclusive ownership to a disruptive technology platform with superior energy efficiency and excellent biometric performance, positioning Zwipe for cost- and technology leadership.

Leveraging the deep systems know-how of our organization, we are also teaming up with other component suppliers and manufacturing partners to further simplify adoption and reduce the total cost of Zwipe Pay ONE. I am excited by the results of these efforts, which secure our ability to meet the aggressive cost targets we have set for Zwipe Pay ONE. We remain on track with regards to the development of Zwipe Pay ONE, having met all significant milestones during the period. We are confident that our cost leadership strategy is enabling us to bring a very compelling offering to our customers, while laying the foundation for a sound long-term business and value creation for Zwipe as the market matures.

Thanks to the experience gained from being fully dedicated to Biometric Payment Cards from the outset, we are a trusted advisor to smart card manufacturers and card issuers, advising them on what is needed to launch Biometric Payment Cards including user experience and customer onboarding.

This comprehensive approach makes Zwipe stand-out in the crowd. Zwipe’s uniqueness is in the combination of our know-how, network, patents and technology. We make the entire process of evaluating, building, integrating, and deploying a biometric payment solution simple. We provide the components and build the inlays necessary for the smart card manufacturers. We are building an ecosystem of partners to enable card manufacturers and issuers a frictionless route to launching Biometric Payment Cards. This cooperative approach is central to supporting the growth of the overall Biometric Payment Card market, but also key to cementing Zwipe’s position and role. By giving banks and issuers, alongside our smart card manufacturing partners, a one-stop shop for the most cost effective and compelling route to launching an innovative, rapidly deployable contactless payment solution, we are building a commercial path that creates sustainable long-term value for our customers.

Cardholders and consumers around the world are demanding greater safety and security when paying for goods, and they want convenience too, which is the background for our mission of “making convenience safe and secure”. I am confident that we are on track to deliver on our mission and fulfil our pivotal role in supporting our many communities tackle the risks posed by COVID-19 at the point of sale.

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This is information that Zwipe AS is obligated to make public pursuant to the continuing obligations of companies admitted to trading on Oslo Børs Merkur Market and on Nasdaq First North Growth Market. Certified Adviser on Nasdaq First North is FNCA Sweden AB, info@fnca.se, +46 (0)8528 00 399. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person set out below, at 08:00 CET on 27 August 2020.