Louis Hoch
Analyst · Spartan Capital Securities. Please go ahead
Thank you, Joe, and welcome, everyone. I'm pleased to report all-time record revenues for both the fourth quarter and the full year of 2020. Revenues were up very strong 27% in the fourth quarter, leading to positive cash flow. We also record a positive net income and earnings per share in the quarter. Revenues for the year were a record $32 million, a 14% increase over fiscal 2020 with double-digit growth achieved, despite a dip in the second quarter due to COVID. 2020 was our fourth consecutive year of revenue growth. Over the second half of the year, we had very -- we had a very strong recovery and are headed into the new year with tremendous momentum. Revenue growth is being driven by strong transaction volumes, with an all-time record for dollars processed in the fourth quarter of $920 million. Prepaid volumes more than doubled and card transactions nearly doubled in the fourth quarter as compared to the same period in 2019. ACH is bouncing back with strong sequential growth compared to the third quarter and will be back to year-over-year growth in Q1 of 2021. The fourth quarter also included one month of IMS revenue, which we acquired in December and is performing to expectations. Results clearly demonstrate the strength of our diverse payments channel strategy, offering ACH, prepaid card processing services, and now output solutions to the growing electronics payment market. This year we've been -- we began providing segment and revenue to improve transparency. So, let me offer some high-level comments by segment. In our ACH business, we're seeing a continued recovery from the low point in the second quarter of 2020. We have taken proactive steps to expand our product offerings, which is offsetting the weakness that we had experienced from our non-bank lending market, which unlike many of our markets, have still not fully recovered from the pre-pandemic levels. For instance, PINLess debit has been growing very rapidly. Most recently we have introduced account inquiry as a means to help our customers comply with the new not to know your customer compliance rules which went into effect in March of this year 2021. Additionally, we're taking ACH into new markets such as crypto, and we're bundling ACH with other services like our prepaid card products, for example. The net result is we expect ACH to have its best quarter ever in the first 3 months of 2021 with the potential of a record year. ACH remains our most profitable business segment. Our card segment is also gaining momentum. As Greg will review the payback business has inflected with growth from all three revenue streams, new ISV partners, new merchants from existing ISVs and organic growth at the merchant level. The new implementation process recently introduced are not only resulting in more activations, but they're bringing on more volume at a record pace. In fact, in the first quarter of 2021, we began to board merchants from ISV that is now our largest card account, potentially representing over $100 million in annualized processing volume. Our focus on developing vertical expertise has also paid off with two of the three largest bankruptcy law software vendors now being Usio accounts. With similar successes being experienced in other verticals, such as property management, franchising, parking management and others. We continue to invest in our card business to capitalize on this momentum by strengthening our infrastructure, integrating our new EVPP product and further building our sales organization. We expect 2021 to be a great year for our card business. Prepaids doubled in 2020. Usio is now a leading provider of prepaid cards to government entities and other organizations providing support --- including support for COVID and other government disbursement activities. Again, Houston, will go through the results in more detail, but it's clear that our unique and innovative prepaid programs are finding growth opportunities that leverage our proprietary technology and our commitment to high levels of service. Finally, let me say I could not be more pleased with the seamless integration of IMS, which we acquired in December and subsequently rebranded as Usio Output Solutions. Over the past 4 months, they have been on board. They have performed flawlessly even beyond our expectations. Cross selling was seen as a growth opportunity and we've already sold Usio Output Solutions into legacy Usio accounts and Output Solutions have like -- likewise sold Usio electronic payment solutions. Part of the expansion of PayFac sales team will be to bundle our services including Output Solutions for sales at the enterprise level where we will develop a robust EVPP solution on the Output Solutions platform, which will play an integral part. We remain optimistic about Output Solutions and will be accretive to our 2021 earnings. The fourth quarter was a strong finish to a tremendous -- a year of tremendous progress and growth. More importantly, it was another quarter of sequential improvement that stretches back to 2019 interrupted only by the COVID affected second quarter. Consequently, business momentum has never been better. Already in the first quarter, we have noticed several important developments that we expect to help sustain if not accelerate that momentum. Prepaid continues to sign new agreements in card transactions and volume growth have inflected as activations improved. Output Solutions is growing, but probably the most exciting development has been an ACH where penetration into the crypto currency vertical is leading to exponential growth. In particular, our exclusive agreement with Voyager has us on pace to set another record for quarterly dollar process volume that could top our previous best quarter by more than 50%. This will provide a tremendous start to a year in which we believe our revenues will achieve $50 million and yield positive cash flow for 2021. And to fuel that growth, we ended up the year to strong financial position which will enable us to continue to invest in our technology, sales and marketing initiatives. With $5 million in cash and cash equivalents and no debt as December 31, 2020, we believe we can sell fund operations for the next 12 months. As always, our comments are based upon no further deterioration in the economic conditions precipitated by the coronavirus pandemic. Conversely, we should -- should we see conditions improve, this would aid in the -- in some of the implementations process as potentially have a beneficial impact on our non-bank lending customers. So, we're extremely excited about the upcoming year. Through the hard work and dedication of many committed Usio employees, we have positioned ourselves to capitalize on the increasing adoption of electronic payments. We've stuck to our plan. And now the goal is to leverage our investment into above market growth to create value for our shareholders. With that, I'd like to conclude my opening remarks and turn the call over to Houston Frost, our Senior Vice President of Prepaid Services.