Eckoh wins three US contracts totalling $2.5m

AIM-listed secure payment provider Eckoh won three US contracts worth $2.5m over the next few years, while it expects the revised market expectations for the year will be achieved.

Chief executive Nik Philpot said trading performance at the end of the first half of the year had been “strong” and that the company remains confident that the revised market expectations for this financial year will be met.

Two of the contracts are for the company’s secure payments solution charged on a software-as-a-service basis, reflecting the shift in in its US pipeline to focus on software-as-a-service style pricing model, which generate greater revenue visibility, long-term client relationships and higher gross margins.

The first two-year contract is with a large manufacturer and supplier of nutritional supplements, which is the first time the company has sold a hosted secure payments solution in the US market.

The second three-year contract is with a Fortune 500 financial services company - a long-standing customer of Product Support Solutions, which Eckoh bought in November 2015 - marking the first success in cross-selling the company’s secure payments solutions with PSS customers.

Both deals are expected to start by spring 2017 and will begin to generate recurring revenue in the new financial year.

The third three-year contract is with a large telecommunications providers. Eckoh will provide its browser-based agent desktop Coral, which simplifies a call agent's operating screen reducing call handling time, to over 3,000 contact centre agents in a new facility to be opened by the end of the year.

Philpot said: "It is exciting to see the contract momentum in the US market building and for Eckoh to be increasingly securing contracts of greater value and with brand leaders in their fields.

“In addition, the move to a software-as-a-service price model will over time build a base of recurring revenue in the US comparable to the UK operation and we would expect this to underpin the growing value of the company in future years.”

Shares in Eckoh were up 2.22% to 36.80p at 1503 BST.