I'm actually surprised the share price isn't higher @marty386. I mentioned on another thread yesterday about the importance of getting into stocks at the right time - The commercialisation phase. Pretty simple really, nothing ground breaking but a simple formula to make money.
Like the other one i mentioned yesterday, Peppermint’s technology is already developed and deployed. USD$9.5m and four years of development has already gone into developing the platform. It's ready to go.
Not sure if many here know, but before developing this platform key members of the Peppermint development team were the same team who built Globe Telecoms GCash. Globe Telecom is $5b market cap company listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange. So the guys behind PIL's build have a deep knowledge and understanding of the remittance and banking application landscape in the Philippines.
I wonder if PIL were launching in the US first would the market cap be so small? I highly doubt it. I think the unfamiliar nature of the Philippines market would hold some back. But it only takes a few minutes of research to see their strategy is clever and the commercialisation avenues are simple to understand.
White Label Mobile Banking Products:
PIL has already implemented its mobile banking platform at 3 of the top 10 banks in the Philippines; Metrobank, Unionbank and UCPB. Currently 44,000 people from these banks use the Peppermint platform. I would expect to see these numbers increase rapidly this year. PIL charge per transaction so as the usage of mobile banking scales, Peppermint’s revenue from this part of the business will grow alongside the growth in mobile banking.
Their recent deal with NOR is another example of how their platform can integrate with pretty much anything that requires mobile payment. The market completely overlooked this deal IMO. Not for the revenue it will bring, but for the likelihood of more partnerships like this.
Mobile Remittances:
A potential gold mine is the mobile remittance platform to capture transactional flow that is currently outside of the traditional banking system. The domestic remittance market is estimated at 534 million transactions per year generating USD$1.14 billion in transaction revenue and while there are already other mobile remittance platforms in place, the market is large enough to support additional platforms as there are still large amounts of remittances being transferred via traditional more expensive methods. The key to a successful mobile phone remittance implementation hinges on the network effect. Peppermint has entered into an agreement with marketing companies in the Philippines 1BRO and MyWeps. 1BRO has 60,000 agents and 40 business centres spread out over the country. This large network should drive adoption of the Peppermint mobile remittance platform.
Remittance is all about the 'Un-banked'. As many have said on here before, the Philippines has a population of 100 million people. 75% of Filipinos are currently unbanked (don't have a bank) but mobile phone penetration is 100%.
If you have ever spent any time in Asia you would know many people leave the rural areas (and their actual country) to work leaving families and dependents behind. These economic migrants can be based in urban areas or in other countries. There are large concentrations of Filipino economic migrants in the Middle East, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and the United States. However there is also a large amount of domestic economic migrants (moved from rural to urban areas to work) which far outnumber overseas Filipino workers.
These economic migrants therefore need to send money from the urban areas to their dependants in the rural areas. These money transfers are called remittances. It is not uncommon to find one economically active person supporting several economically inactive people in another location. Economic migrants need to transfer money to the people they support in a cost effective safe and secure manner.
Traditionally in the Philippines these remittances have been provided formally by banks, credit card companies, the postal service, microfinance organisations. Due to the fact some 75% of the population is unbanked there is also a large informal remittance network from friends, relatives, pawnshops and truck drivers. This form of remittance is expensive and can cost the person up to 25% of the value of the remittance in fees and considering most remittances are small amounts, this loss of value is material to the senders and recipients. This is a very big market for PIL to tap into.
Mobile Shopping Application:
Peppermint also has the ability to allow its mobile remittance users and mobile banking customers to pay for goods and services online or on mobile directly from their mobile wallet and/or bank account. Another revenue stream.
Micro Finance Institutions (MFI):
They have piloted a micro-finance collection service and established relationships with MFI’s and rural banks. PIL is currently in discussions with Grameen who operate across 23 countries and service 155m clients.
Sorry massive information dump but i thought i would share. It's all out there for people to find online and through broker reports etc. Really interesting company here and a good team driving the business.
PIL Price at posting:
2.8¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)