Mint Payments makes a big investment in growth

Mobile payment company Mint Payments (formerly Mint Wireless) has used a A$10 million capital raising to plough millions of dollars into the recruitment of extra sales, marketing and development staff.

The company said this was warranted, given what it saw as a growing number of sales opportunities and product development initiatives.

As a result, the company has produced a lopsided financial report for the six months to December. Revenue rose 32 per cent to $1.1 million.

However, as a result of the big increase in expenses the company made a loss of $4.4 million for the half - a blowout from the loss of $1.6 million it suffered in the previous corresponding period.

The bulk of the revenue growth came from a deal with the accounting software and services company, MYOB, which offers Mint's mobile point of sale terminals to users of its MYOB PayDirect service. The deal resulted in $30 million of payments going through Mint's platform.

During the December half Mint entered into commercial arrangements with Beyond Bank and Auscabs.

The company also obtained product certifications during the half for contactless, Eftpos and chip and pin payment processing.

After the latest result the company has accumulated losses of $31.6 million.