Intercede awarded Middle East contract worth more than £1m

AIM-listed software and service company Intercede has been awarded a contract by a Middle Eastern country for its MyID solution worth more than £1m.

The country will use MyID to power the issuance of mobile government identities to its citizens. Under this programme, any citizen with an existing national identity card will be able to generate a new government digital identity on their smartphone via a government app. Using Intercede MyID software, this digital identity can then be used for accessing a mobile eco-system of government services, healthcare, banking and e-commerce.

Intercede said this is a strategically important project that exploits many of the new technologies the company has developed over the last two years. It was secured through an existing Intercede regional channel partner and is expected to be the first of many such orders around the world.

On top of the initial new order value of more than £1m, the contract is expected to generate recurring annual fees. Around half of the initial contract value is expected to be received within the next 30 days, with the rest received in Intercede's financial year ending 31 March 2019, based on the company fulfilling certain commercial milestones.

Chairman and chief executive Richard Parris said: "I am pleased that the recent investment we have made in new mobile identity technology is starting to generate significant orders. We have used the last two years to develop a competitively differentiated mobile identity platform in a market with high barriers to entry. Through our network of partners, Intercede is now in an excellent position to capitalise on this lead in multiple geographic territories.

"As I stated in the Intercede's 2017 annual report, establishing Intercede at the heart of critical eco-systems is central to our strategy. This contract is the manifestation of that pledge and is a top tier reference customer for other nations to follow."

MyID solution operates across multiple deployments and is designed to create and secure trusted digital identities that ensure not only multi-level security, but also a frictionless user experience.

At 0840 GMT, the shares were up 6.7% to 28.80p.