James B. DeBello
Analyst · Piper Jaffray
Thanks, Peter, and good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to begin my prepared remarks by expressing how excited we are that during fiscal third quarter, Mitek's Mobile Deposit surpassed 1,000 signed banks. Achieving this milestone is a great accomplishment for the company and represents an exceptional endorsement of the quality of our Mobile Deposit products. Mobile Deposit has transformed the way in which consumers interact with their financial institutions. Among top banks, the ratio of mobile to online users surpassed 40%. In the upcoming years, mobile banking should surpass online banking, a phenomenon that we believe has been strongly influenced by the popularity of Mitek's Mobile Deposit. While there were some naysayers back in the early days when he invented and launched Mobile Deposit, it's now the #1 feature sought by mobile banking users. And we're leveraging the success of Mobile Deposit by providing financial institutions enterprise level mobile imaging solutions that take advantage of the mobile banking phenomenon. We expect Mobile Photo Bill Pay to follow a path similar to Mobile Deposits, starting off slowly and then ramping, ultimately transforming the bill-paying process for consumers. Mitek's solutions are fun, they're easy to use and convenient for the consumer. And they're applicable to adjacent industries, such as insurance. An example of the scalability of our product is the mobile insurance quotation solution that we're providing to 2 of the top 5 insurance carriers in the nation. Revenue from products across our Mobile Imaging platform contributed to solid fiscal third quarter results and one of our best revenue-producing quarters yet. Turning your focus now to the events that occurred in our fiscal third quarter, I'll begin by focusing on product-specific accomplishments for Mobile Deposit and Mobile Photo Bill Pay. I'll then discuss the launch of MiSnap, an innovative technology that enhances the user experience across all of our products. And I'll conclude my prepared remarks by summarizing several events that recently occurred and that we believe better position Mitek for future growth, including hiring a new Chief Marketing Officer, the issuance of 2 new patents and the strengthening of our balance sheet. Of course, Russ will provide greater detail on all of the third quarter financials in just a few minutes. Looking more closely now at the performance of Mobile Deposit, we now have 1,059 financial institutions signed for Mobile Deposit. Of these, 559 financial institutions have commercially deployed the product. Sequentially, that's an increase of 170 signed and 114 live during the quarter. Mitek's Mobile Deposit technology is deployed by all of the top 10 retail banks in the U.S. A recent Time Magazine article described the ubiquity of mobile banking apps, highlighting the ability to deposit a check or pay a bill using the camera in a smartphone or a tablet. In addition, an American Banker article identified remote deposit capture as mobile banking users' #1 most desired app feature. Checking accounts are often the first step in a bank's long-term relationship with a customer. Speaking on Wells Fargo's recent earnings call, CEO John Stumpf revealed, "I love checking accounts. I dream of them. When I wake up in the morning and I get here, the first thing I look at is the checking account report from the day before." Our technology here at Mitek improves the checking account experience by transforming a process that was once mundane into an experience that is easier and more fun. By offering Mobile Deposit, banks can increase customer retention and enhance their bottom line. More importantly, Mitek's technology strengthens the bank's relationships with their customers. New use cases for Mobile Deposit continue to emerge all the time. In our previous call, we discussed the major food service distributor that saved an estimated $4 million by deploying Mobile Deposit among its fleet of delivery trucks. Another more recent use case for Mobile Deposit is with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, incorporating Mitek's science into their fundraising. Now through their app, participants can snap a picture of a check using Mitek's Mobile Deposit and donate directly to the nonprofit, thereby increasing the convenience and effectiveness of fundraising campaigns. The success associated with Mobile Deposit is apparent in a number of financial institutions that offer the product to their customers, as well as in the increasing number of innovative use cases, perhaps none more inspiring than the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Enhancing the user experience is the unifying theme of Mitek's multi-product platform. This platform includes Mobile Photo Bill Pay, which I'd like to discuss next. We're seeing incremental traction with Mobile Photo Bill Pay similar to the early growth experienced with Mobile Deposit. Signed and live banks for Mobile Photo Bill Pay, as of today's call, increased to 10 and 4, respectively. During the quarter, BBVA Compass, one of the nation's top 25 retail banks, successfully launched the solution. For those on the call not familiar with this product, a customer can use Mobile Photo Bill Pay to pay a bill or add a payee to their online system directly from their mobile app by simply taking a picture of their payment coupon. Mitek's technology auto populates the payment fields, thereby eliminating the need for keystrokes by the customer and inherently reducing friction. While in the early stages, the data is promising for Mobile Photo Bill Pay. In one survey, it was reported that the banks that have deployed Mobile Photo Bill Pay are experiencing greater usage of the product than for the standard mobile device bill pay product, which requires manual entry. We attribute this to the ease at which a biller's information can be captured by the camera. Also interesting, the survey noted repeat usage for a vast majority of Mobile Photo Bill payments, whereby the user takes a new picture to pay an existing biller every month. I call this behavior the path of least resistance for consumers who frequently revert to the easiest method to complete a daily task. With regards to the market for our Mobile Imaging products, Kleiner Perkins' 2013 Internet trends report estimates that there are 16 billion paper bills sent per year in the U.S. Combine that with the 25 billion checks the U.S. federal government reported are written annually, and we're looking at over 40 billion bills and checks, quite a sizable market. BBVA Compass added Mobile Photo Bill Pay to their banking app in June for customers who want to manage their finances whenever and wherever it's convenient. BBVA Compass believes that providing customers this capability gives them a competitive advantage in attracting new customers. Another innovative solution enabled by Mitek's Mobile Imaging platform is Mobile Balance Transfer, which the San Diego County Credit Union launched in May. San Diego County Credit Union is the 20th largest credit union in the U.S. Balance transfer provides their users the ability to snap a picture of their existing credit card payment coupon. The app then reads and interprets the information, presents a competitive credit card offer from the credit union, and, if accepted by the user, transfers their existing balance to the new San Diego County Credit Union issued card. The leader of the credit union immediately recognized the product as a way to acquire new credit card customers and increase average balances for existing customers. In addition to investing in new products, we're also investing in technology that enhances the user experience. For example, we recently enhanced our Mobile Imaging platform by launching MiSnap, an automatic capture technology. With MiSnap, instead of snapping just one image, users simply hover their camera over the check or bill, and our technology automatically captures all of the necessary information. Now behind the scenes, the software is taking 30 images per second and performing over 1,000 calculations to optimize the quality of the image, resulting in a process that's easier for the user, produces a higher-quality image and enriches the overall experience. MiSnap is an example of the science behind our multi-product Mobile Imaging platform. At Mitek, we like to say we speak 2 languages: Math and mobile. That's to say, the technology behind our products goes far deeper than snapping a picture. In fact, one of our design goals is to make the user experience as simple as possible, while leveraging leading algorithms and machine-learning capabilities that maximize success. Our scientists have created algorithms that analyze lighting conditions, apply custom formulas to optimize focus, detect the 4 corners of the document, remove excess skew or warping, and apply multiple different binarization algorithms to convert images from 3D color to 2-dimensional black and white. Furthermore, these algorithms have interrelationships, meaning the logic engines are carefully tuned for each intended purpose. All of this occurs before reading the first character from the check, bill or driver's license. While the technology is complex, to the user, the experience is fun and easy. Our advanced technology, which is backed by patents and intellectual property, has, time and again, been a major selling point for our customers. In fact, our proprietary technology was recently awarded its 15th and 16th patents. Our 15th patent describes the process for measuring signature simplicity. And our 16th patent covers the process used in Mitek's Mobile Balance Transfer solution, which, as I previously discussed, is already live with the San Diego County Credit Union. This brings Mitek's patent portfolio to 38, of which 16 are issued and 22 pending. Earlier this month, Mitek hired Scott Carter as our Chief Marketing Officer. Scott brings over 20 years of experience in payments, financial services and related industries to this newly created position here at Mitek. Scott came to Mitek from Experian, where he was Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Global Analytics and Fraud Solutions. In that role, he was responsible for global functions in the areas of product management, as well as executing organic and nonorganic growth strategies. Here at Mitek, Scott's responsible for driving growth through the advancement of our product portfolio, our branding strategies, and our go-to market initiatives across the many industries in which mobile imaging is becoming strategic. Scott's expertise and deep understanding of risk management, analytics and big data will be instrumental in growing Mitek's revenues, both domestically and abroad. We believe Mitek's technology is disruptive. It has been a major contributor to the growth of mobile banking. CNBC recently reported that the number of customers who only bank on an app jumped 50% in a year's time. Another report forecast mobile banking usage will exceed 100 million users within the next 4 years. While these domestic mobile banking numbers are impressive, we see the mobile phenomenon extending across all industries, as well as globally. Lifestyles are increasingly revolving around the ability to access information anytime, anyway and anywhere the user wants. As a result, we believe Mitek's products, which provide a superior user experience, enabled by our cutting-edge Mobile Imaging science, will be pivotal for all companies that need to tap into this new lifestyle, attract their next generation of consumers, and engage in deeper, more profitable customer relationships. With Mobile Deposits surpassing a significant milestone and becoming table stakes for all financial institutions, Mobile Photo Bill Pay gaining in popularity and other new products gaining traction, we're very excited here at Mitek about the future of our Mobile Imaging platform strategy. And with that, I'll now turn the call over to Russ to provide more details regarding our fiscal third quarter financial results. Russ?