Cirralto sees cash receipts and customer numbers grow in encouraging March quarter

Cirralto Ltd (ASX:CRO) recorded 25% growth in cash receipts and 12.5% growth in customers, its March quarterly report has revealed. Cirralto, which supplies industries with a broad range of B2B payment services, digital trading software and integrated solutions, has $24.3 million in the bank as it heads into the final quarter of the 2021 financial year. The company also grew merchant payments turnover and successfully completed Visa Business Payment Solution Provider (BPSP) and MasterCard Business Payment Aggregator (BPA) functionality. “Transformational” period ahead Cirralto managing director Adrian Floate said the company was now ready to capitalise on its growth and move into a “transformational period”. “The coming quarter will usher in the culmination of a long road, but it’s just the first step in our exciting journey,” he said. “Our IP strategy and offering customers a breadth of digital transaction capabilities is critical to our long-term competitiveness and we believe eCommerce is here to stay and likely to become more tightly integrated into the physical world in the coming 10 years. “Businesses generally have an impartial view how they achieve a sale, providing they can meet the customer where they want to access the right product at the right price, and we want to be even better prepared for the anticipated changes in market conditions and bolster our digital engagement technologies. “We expect these moves will enable us to be more competitive and own a greater wallet share of expanding customer base.” Finances are strong In addition to an $18 million capital raise, which is being used to fund accelerated commercialisation plans for its products, potential synergistic acquisitions, commercialisation of pilot business payments solutions and working capital, Cirralto also received $3.3 million from the exercise of options. Following further capital raises in August and November last year, Cirralto has now firmly recapitalised its business and on March 31, 2021, had $24.3 million in the bank. It also took in $294,000 in cash receipts, a 25% quarter-on-quarter gain, grew its customer base by 12.5% and increased merchant payments turnover by 18%. Post-COVID growth “This is set to be a transformational period for Cirralto,” Floate said. “We are in a robust financial position, with a strong, debt-free, balance sheet and a number of strategic commercial deals in pilot and in our pipeline. “Together with our partners and customers, we demonstrated our resilience from the impacts of COVID-19 and remain committed to, and optimistic about, expanding the business commercially both through the successful onboarding of customers to the Spenda ecosystem and through the acquisition or partnership with new businesses.” Cirralto is now working to finalise the acquisition of long-time business partner Appstablishment and the launch of its aggregator services under the Visa Business Payment Solution Provider (BPSP) and MasterCard Business Payment Aggregator (BPA) agreements with Fiserv. Phase II testing was successfully carried out with multiple customer and supplier scenarios utilised to process live accounts and receivable payments of up to $100,000 per transaction, and the company has set a go-live date of May 1 for the BPSP and BPA-enabled business payment stack. Cirralto has also released buy-now, pay-later, pay-by-instalment, pay-by-account and pay-by-favourites functionalities into Spenda, a feature-based payments product that integrates business processes that happen before and after the payment event adding value up and down the supply chain to consumers, retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers. “The June quarter will see the company evaluate complementary acquisition opportunities and build on the existing agreements with Fiserv and Invigo and expanding these relationships will enable us to unlock multiple payments and point of activity lending commercial opportunities,” Floate said. - Daniel Paproth