For the moment however, progress is modest and in the year to December 31, it cut its net loss from 1.1m pounds ($2.2m) to 374,000 pounds ($736,555) on revenue 3.8% higher at 14.5m pounds ($28.6m).
Last year Gresham took over from its partner Cable & Wireless in the leading role for its Clareti Cash Reporting Service (CCRS), which provides banks with a single, consolidated view of multi-currency cash positions.
There are 22 banks that have agreed to provide data into the service, with 14 that provide near real-time data to its hub. The more banks that populate its database the greater the value of the hub service.
What it now plans is to expand its service offering of real-time cash management into the corporate market, by offering a range of Clareti software to enable its banking customers to provide real-time payment information to their customers.
At present, the flow of cash through the system is a dark and mysterious process, with a supplier sending invoices to its customers and waiting anxiously for confirmation, often well after the event, that the money has arrived.
Gresham’s software would shine light on the whole process and just as RFID enables physical objects to be tracked across locations, so a supplier would know well before the event that a customer has approved payment at a date in the future and could, if short of cash, press a ‘pay me now’ button to get a discounted payment from their bank, which would know the money was to arrive at a future date.
Gresham’s real time financial solutions currently provides 58% of revenue, with the remainder coming from storage, where banks are major customers, and staff placement.
House brokers KBC Peel Hunt forecasts that revenue this year will increase by 24% to 18m pounds ($35.4m) and that would turn the company into an extremely hot property.
