COVID-19 is ‘Game-Changer’ for Biometric Payment Cards in Zwipe H1 Update

Zwipe appears to be one of the fortunate companies that may actually be benefiting from the COVID-19 pandemic in its latest corporate update.

For the second quarter of 2020, Zwipe’s revenues are up sequentially at NOK 486,000 compared to its reported NOK 0.4 million in the first quarter. Its after-tax result for the latest quarter was a loss of a little more than NOK 15.8 million.

Looking to the first half of the year, revenues came in at NOK 880,000, compared to revenues of NOK 348,000 in the first half of 2019. Its net result for H1 2020 was a loss of just under NOK 31.6 million, a substantial improvement over its loss of just over NOK 36.3 million in the first half of 2019.

A reduction in operating expenses appears to be a big part of the reason for the improved after-tax result. Operating expenses amounted to almost NOK 36.6 million in the first half of 2019, and were down to just under NOK 32.4 million in the first half of this year.

Commenting on the results, Zwipe CEO André Løvestam emphasized Zwipe’s progress in the emerging biometric payment cards market amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“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,” he said. “COVID-19 has been a game-changer for market acceptance of the need for truly touchless payment solutions such as those offered by Zwipe.”

Løvestam went on to highlight Zwipe’s partnership with IDEMIA on the Zwipe Pay ONE platform, which is aimed at reducing manufacturing costs to enable mass-scale product of biometric payment cards, and he said that Zwipe has been “doubling down” on efforts to serve this market, “with immediate results.”

“During H1 2020 we have seen very good progress in our sales pipeline,” he said. “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.”

That all suggests that Zwipe is on track for further progress through the rest of the year, even as the COVID-19 pandemic persists.

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August 27, 2020 – by Alex Perala