iSignthis, Novatti, Visa model Aussie fintech

George Lekakis
The ASX-listed scrip of electronic money services provider iSignthis Ltd rallied heavily on Monday after the company revealed a dramatic rise in monthly transaction volumes.

The Melbourne-based fintech, which is the best-performed financial services stock this year, said that it processed A$ 1.1 billion of transactions on behalf of merchants in August.  That represented a 160 per cent increase on the A$400 million worth of transactions processed in June 2019, the company revealed in a filing to the ASX.

Most of the company's revenue is derived from fees collected on merchant transactions processed through its platform.

Soaring transaction volumes are being driven by growth in the number of businesses signing up to accept transactions processed by iSignthis.

The company said that the number of new merchants joining its service grew by 270 in August - up 28 per cent on the 210 who subscribed in June.

iSignthis chief executive John Karantzis told Banking Day in August that the company had applied to APRA for an ADI licence as part of a strategic push to take on PayPal and the major banks in the card-not-present payments market.


The company recently forecast it was on track to post its maiden operating profit in the second half of 2019.

The ISignthis share price rose 20 cents or 14 per cent to a record close of $1.56 on Monday.

The group's market worth has risen tenfold this year to $1.5 billion.

Meantime, another listed payments company Novatti announced that it had secured a principal issuer licence from Visa that will it enable to issue prepaid cards to business customers.

Novatti's locally listed scrip rose half a cent to 20 cents.