US Update

RNS Number : 1847U

Eckoh PLC

14 October 2014

 



For immediate release

14 October 2014

Eckoh plc

("Eckoh" or "the Company")

US Update

Strong business and contract momentum from new US business

Eckoh plc (AIM:ECK), the global provider of secure payment products and customer service solutions, today confirms that its new US business continues to gather sales momentum, securing a new three year contract with Cooperative Response Center Inc ("CRC") to implement its secure payment solution CallGuard.

New US contract win

CRC is a leading contact centre and software provider with offices in Minnesota, Tennessee and Texas providing services to electric utilities, including round-the-clock dispatch and customer care, and monitoring of security and medical alarms. CRC serves over 300 members and associate members in 41 states, representing over 5.2 million consumers.  The solution is expected to be live before the end of the year.

By deploying Eckoh's CallGuard solution, any CRC consumer making payments through the contact centre agent will automatically have their card payment data shielded from the agent, their desktop and the call recording system.  This highly innovative solution assists organisations in complying with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards ("PCI DSS") and removes any risk of agent fraud within a contact centre.

US business update

Since Eckoh's AGM statement in August 2014, the Company has continued to make excellent progress with the development of its US business, investing in both people and infrastructure.  Sales and product training with our exclusive reseller, one of the leading providers of business process outsourcing and communication services delivering services to over 80% of the Fortune 100, was concluded by the end of August.  Since then a significant sales pipeline has been developed, including a number of multi-million dollar prospects.  Whilst our US business is still at an early stage of development, the initial signs are extremely promising and have the potential to exceed our initial expectations.

The implementation of our new technical platform into data centres in Dallas and Washington DC, which links to the telephony platform of our reseller and enables the hosted CallGuard service to be offered for sale, was completed on schedule at the beginning of October. We are now able to offer CallGuard as either an on-site installation or as a hosted service in the US giving our customers complete flexibility.

The Company therefore remains confident that the investment currently being undertaken in the US will result in significant profits for the Group in the medium term. Interim results for the six months ending on 30 September 2014 will be announced on 25 November 2014 and will report a significant increase in revenue and margin compared to the previous year, in line with market expectations.

For further enquiries, please contact:

Eckoh plc Nik Philpot, Chief Executive Officer Adam Moloney, Group Finance Director www.eckoh.com	Tel: [phone]
Buchanan Jeremy Garcia, Gabriella Clinkard www.buchanan.uk.com	Tel: [phone]
N+1 Singer Shaun Dobson	Tel: [phone]

Notes to Editors:

About Eckoh plc

Eckoh plc (AIM: ECK) is a global provider of secure payment products and customer service solutions, working with organisations in over 10 countries around the world.

Eckoh has a range of secure payment products that are designed to help merchants become compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards ('PCI DSS') and to reduce the risk of fraud by eliminating card data from contact centres and IT environments. Eckoh's CallGuard product can be deployed on the customer's site or hosted in the Cloud. It allows Contact Centres to take card payments from customers without their agents seeing, hearing or accessing card data in any way. Eckoh has been a PCI DSS Level One accredited Service Provider since 2010 and currently process over $1 billion in card payments annually.

Eckoh's customer service solutions enable payments, transactions and enquiries to be processed without the caller needing to talk to a contact centre agent. This significantly reduces our clients' costs, whilst freeing up their agents to deal with more complex enquiries. These solutions are delivered over the phone, web and mobile devices. Eckoh is the largest provider of such hosted services in the UK.

For more information, visit: www.eckoh.com or www.eckoh.us

 

END

 

 

CNTGGGWPUUPCPUW