Louis Hoch
Analyst · Spartan Capital Securities. Please go ahead
Thank you, Joe, and welcome everyone. The first quarter was another record quarter with record processing volumes and record revenue growth. After four consecutive years of revenue growth and a strong recovery over the second half of last year, we are pleased that we have carried that momentum into the New Year. Revenues were up 73% to $13.5 million with strong growth in all of our business lines. We achieved record transaction processing volumes in the quarter, with total dollars processed nearly $1.9 billion, an increase of 113% from a year ago. And more importantly, more than doubled the processing volume of any prior quarter in the company's history. This led to a 15% increase in Card revenue, a 38% increase in ACH revenue and a 61% increase in prepaid services. In addition, our first full quarter of ownership of IMS, which we have rebranded Usio Output Solutions contributed revenue for the first three months of the year that exceeded our acquisition assumptions. Consequently, the second consecutive quarter, we reported positive adjusted EBITDA. Without question, we experienced an outstanding growth quarter across all of our business lines, including the bottom-line. We believe these results clearly demonstrate that our growth trajectory has inflected. Once again, we attribute our success to our strategy to offer growing -- to the growing electronics payment market, a diverse portfolio of payment channel solutions, including ACH, prepaid card processing, and now output solutions. To improve transparency, we provide business line revenue reporting, so let me offer some high level comments by business lines. I'm particularly pleased with ACH which had its best quarter ever after battling through a year of coronavirus-induced headwinds. There is no other way to describe it other than as remarkable growth. The strategic actions we initiated as these headwinds arose have resulted in a broader portfolio products, serving more diverse end markets that provides an even stronger, more dynamic foundation for future growth. One of our early actions that is now contributing significantly to our growth is our foresight in recognizing the potential of the crypto currency market when it was in its infancy. The growth in volumes in this market are now exploding. In part due to our success in this market, ACH is on pace for a record year and remains our most profitable business line. In addition, we're seeing strong growth from new products such as pin-less debit and account [requiring] (ph). ACH is off to a great start in the second quarter, with no current signs of any let up from the first quarter's momentum, which could lead to another record quarter for ACH volumes and associated revenues. Our Card business also had a breakout quarter where momentum is picking up. Dollars processed were up 30%, while transactions processed were more than doubled. We've consistently been investing in our PayFac platform as a strategy to accelerate growth and we're now experiencing a rapid adoption of this technology by many integrated software vendors with whom we've been partnering. Greg will review our performance in more detail, but I believe we've reached an inflection point in our Card business. The pace of ISVs implementing our technology is on the rise. And we have become a leader in certain industries such as software for bankruptcy attorneys and we're getting larger deals, such as our first ever potentially $100 million plus per year ISV. There is no question that we have so much momentum that we should see sequential improvement over the balance of this year. Like ACH, our Card business is off to a great start in the second quarter and is likely to achieve another quarter of record volumes and revenues. After doubling in fiscal 2020, prepaid load volume doubled again in the first quarter driving a 61% increase in revenues. As Houston will discuss in a minute, our Prepaid business is now branching out within many government, municipal, and other similar organizations that originally turned to us for prepaid solutions for their COVID relief programs. The strong relationships we've built with these nearly 100 organizations under these programs are leading to a wealth of new opportunities within the organization to grow our prepaid solutions. I'm very pleased with the growth of prepaid over the past year, and I believe 2021 to be another year of rapid growth. As I briefly mentioned, after just four months, as part of the Usio family, Output Solution is already exceeding our expectations. I attribute this to the smooth integration into the Usio family where we experienced no disruption in operations and created numerous synergies. I remain optimistic Output Solutions will be accretive to our 2021 earnings as contemplated in our original acquisition expectations. We ended the quarter in solid financial condition with only a modest use of cash to support the nearly doubling of our business and with the expectation to be cash flow by the end of the year; we believe we are more than sufficiently funded to support our growth initiatives over the next 12 months. With a solid first quarter in the book, we have now generated steady if not even more recent spectacular sequential improvement in our performance for nearly two years and with the exception of last year's COVID influenced second quarter. Already the second quarter of 2021 is shaping up to be another strong quarter. As of yesterday, the midpoint for the second quarter, we've already processed over $1.4 billion in volume, that’s nearly 75% of the quarterly record $1.9 billion we processed in the entire first quarter, which in itself was twice that of our previous record. Furthermore, on a year-to-date basis, we're nearly at the same level as for all of 2020 with seven months left in the year. That's impressive progress. As for guidance, we're obviously experiencing a growth rate that demonstrates our previous estimate of $50 million in revenue for 2021 should be exceeded and as a result, we have exceeded our internal projections. This acceleration is so dramatic that we're refining our internal projections almost daily. Soon we'll provide more clarity, but we're forecasting a revenue range of $53 million to $56 million for 2021 with being adjusted EBITDA positive and the range being contingent on continued improvement in overall economy, continued excitement in the crypto currency marketplace, and the recovery of the consumer lending industry. Finally, I'd like to remind everyone that we will be hosting our Annual Shareholder Meeting on June 10th. The meeting will be held in person and virtually to allow for ease of participation. With that, I'd like to now conclude my opening remarks and turn the call over to Houston Frost, our Senior Vice President of Prepaid Services.