GFG grows on back of emerging markets

Electronic payments software vendor GFG Group said yesterday it expected to record year-on-year revenue growth of 15 per cent to March 31 and hoped to at least replicate that result next year.

The Melbourne-based GFG, which is registered in New Zealand, has raised $10 million in new capital from executives and directors, as well as venture capitalists TMT Ventures and Endeavour Capital.

TMT and Endeavour put in $10 million in 2005, which helped fund the company's growth into its fifteen target countries, mainly in the emerging markets of Indochina and the Middle East.

GFG software drives the Philippines' Smart Communications mobile payments offering, which has become the largest in the world, with 35 million subscribers participating.

GFG chief executive Grant Halverson said more than 115 million consumers worldwide were now able to access GFG's payment solutions.

"Sixty per cent of our revenue is coming from card management and forty per cent from the telco side."

The two main products are Simfonie for mobile payments and Cadencie for card management.

Halverson said: "We expect the mobile side to grow much faster than the card management work. The big opportunities are in mobile payments in emerging markets, we decided that a few years ago.

"You have 3.4 billion people on this planet carrying mobiles and the majority of those are in emerging markets - the question is how can you turn that into payments opportunities?"

Demand was coming from both telcos and banks, said Halverson

"Demand is coming from the big telcos in emerging markets as well as the banks, because when you get into cross border remittances and things like that you need a bank on board."

In Australia, Halverson said he took a lot of interest in NAB's Docklands trial of a NFC mobile payments system.

"Like most of the other big trials around the world, the NAB trial showed there is a real proposition there.

"The challenge in a developed payments market like Australia, where you already have infrastructure, is how is it going to work and who is going to pay what?"

GFG, which employs about 75 people, is currently developing five new sites to add to its 44 existing implementations. Possibly the most exciting of these is the partnership with UAE's Etisalat, which has over 80 million customers throughout the Middle East.