Eckoh wins two sizeable US call centre contracts

Eckoh has won two US contracts, worth collectively around $7m spread across three years, while also extending its US distributor agreement with telecoms group West Corp.

One of the new contracts, the second major deal won via the reseller agreement with West this year, will see Eckoh provide secure payment services to a global insurance company in the Fortune 500, valued at a minimum of $2m evenly across three years.

The client will employ AIM-listed Eckoh's patented CallGuard tokenisation solution, which eliminates sensitive credit card data from the contact centre environment, across 5,000 US-based contact centre agents employed by the corporation.

Expected to generate at least $1m a year and possibly double that, the second contract was won directly by Eckoh and will see it provide a variety of contact centre infrastructure support services to a major US telecommunications company, beginning in July.

Eckoh has also updated its channel distributor arrangement with West Corporation, removing West’s exclusivity arrangement in order to extend its presence and partnerships in the US midmarket arena.

Chief executive Nik Philpot said the two major contracts, particularly the second, illustrated the progress being made in the US thanks to the PSS acquisition.

"We are now trading as a unified entity in the US, which is comprised of the business lines Secure Payments and Customer Contact Solutions mirroring that in the UK, and it is satisfying to see such substantial deals being won from both sides of the operation."

He added: "The integration of PSS is nearing completion and these sizeable contracts demonstrate that the business rationale for being part of Eckoh is yielding returns at every level. We expect the substantial progress and growth achieved by the Group since the acquisition to continue throughout the remainder of the current financial year and beyond."

Broker Berenberg said while the first deal will not materially change the outlook for the group, management indications that the pipeline that West has helped generate is still “significant” would suggest "further contract wins could be on the horizon".