You’re a leader in the healthcare market, with latest financial figures showing turnover of 2.5 million euros. What are the strengths of XIRING in this sector?In its Health activity, XIRING is supporting the French national healthcare industry’s move to a paperless system with its terminals which can be used to generate and sign e-medical claim forms and update medical cards. The programme is designed to speed up reimbursements and support the fight against fraud by ensuring the authentication of patients, secure access to medical information and increased confidentiality of transferred data.
XIRING first entered the healthcare market in 2002, and has since developed a complete range of dedicated solutions for the French market certified by the GIE SESAM-Vitale and designed to meet the specific needs of healthcare professionals. Currently, 38% of our revenues come from healthcare. Last year, XIRING announced that over 12,500 pharmacies were using ‘le Point XIRING V2’, the company’s second generation remote service for updating the French Vitale health card. Operated by XIRING, the ‘le Point XIRING V2’ network is now one of the largest machine-to-machine GPRS networks in France.
At the start of the year XIRING announced a target turnover for 2009 of 30 million euros, is that realistic?
As a listed company on the Paris stock exchange, XIRING gives a full year forecast to the financial market once a year. At the beginning of the year, XIRING announced a target turnover for 2009 of €30 million, with a possible variation of +/- 10%, depending on the pace of banking solutions deployed in the second half of 2009, and a target operating income in excess of 7%. In April 2009, XIRING announced a turnover of €4 million as of 31 March 2009, which is in line with the company’s roadmap. To date, XIRING has always achieved, and indeed in some instances surpassed, its financial targets.
XIRING provides strong authentication solutions such as the widget for online banking. What has the widget done for security, and how will it impact on authentication in the future?
Remote Card Authentication solutions are based on the use of the EMV bank card coupled with a card reader. The card, used in the device, generates a one-time-password based on the secrets stored securely on the card’s chip, and the card cryptographic mechanism. Pocket-sized, portable EMV-compliant smart card readers offer the best answer to online authentication challenges today - at least in those countries with EMV.
XIRING has experienced particular success in the UK with its range of Home Chip and PIN readers, boosted by the introduction of the Faster Payments Services (FPS) earlier this year, as the banks’ systems were not up to the challenge of receiving a payment instruction from a variety of different channels and strongly authenticating that person to prove they are who they say they are within the 15 second transaction processing time limit introduced by FPS. In total, 21 million bank card based strong authentication solutions have been delivered in Europe to replace the static password for online banking services and to secure e-commerce payments. Of these, XIRING has issued more than 10 million solutions to date.
Are there any new products or innovations in the pipeline?
Unfortunately XIRING can’t disclose details of products to be launched this year. However, with research and development at the heart of the company, XIRING will maintain a high level of innovation and also widen its range of solutions and services to meet its customers’ expectations.
How is the international recession in the banking sector affecting your business?
First of all, it is pertinent to note that XIRING’s customers are retail banks as opposed to investment banks. Despite everyone feeling the effects of the financial crisis, retail banks must continue to equip their online banking customers with the most effective fraud protection solutions. British banks, for example, which have generally speaking been seriously impacted by the crisis, continue to equip their internet users with two-factor authentication solutions at a sustained pace. As use of the internet in continues to grow, as does internet banking, banks have an obligation to develop their online banking services and encourage growth and sales of financial products online.
What challenges has XIRING experienced as a result of the economic climate and how has the company adapted?
XIRING is keeping to its strategy, as previously touched upon. Even those at the brunt of the financial crisis in the retail banking sector still need to equip their internet banking users with appropriate fraud protection solutions. XIRING is very well positioned in this developing market space. According to Mastercard, 21 million Europeans were equipped with strong authentication solutions by the end of 2008; we expect this figure to reach 60 million by the end of 2010.
Turnover is down compared with the same period in 2008, can you return to the growth margins experienced last year?
XIRING actually outperformed the operating margin target announced at the beginning of the year 2008 (above 7%) and the revised target announced last September (above 8.5%). For the full-year 2008, operating income amounted to €3.5m. This corresponds to a margin of 12.4% on turnover and represents 62% growth, which is highly satisfactory.
Cambridge University researchers reverse-engineered card readers from NatWest and Barclays. They discovered that the technology was vulnerable to sophisticated phishing attacks. Is this a concern and how can the security be improved?
XIRING has experienced particular success in the UK with its range of Home Chip and PIN readers, boosted by the introduction of the Faster Payments Services (FPS) earlier this year, as the banks’ systems were not up to the challenge of receiving a payment instruction from a variety of different channels and strongly authenticating that person to prove they are who they say they are within the 15 second transaction processing time limit introduced by FPS. In total, 21 million bank card based strong authentication solutions have been delivered in Europe to replace the static password for online banking services and to secure e-commerce payments. Of these, XIRING has issued more than 10 million solutions to date.
Are there any new products or innovations in the pipeline?
Unfortunately XIRING can’t disclose details of products to be launched this year. However, with research and development at the heart of the company, XIRING will maintain a high level of innovation and also widen its range of solutions and services to meet its customers’ expectations.
How is the international recession in the banking sector affecting your business?
First of all, it is pertinent to note that XIRING’s customers are retail banks as opposed to investment banks. Despite everyone feeling the effects of the financial crisis, retail banks must continue to equip their online banking customers with the most effective fraud protection solutions. British banks, for example, which have generally speaking been seriously impacted by the crisis, continue to equip their internet users with two-factor authentication solutions at a sustained pace. As use of the internet in continues to grow, as does internet banking, banks have an obligation to develop their online banking services and encourage growth and sales of financial products online.
What challenges has XIRING experienced as a result of the economic climate and how has the company adapted?
XIRING is keeping to its strategy, as previously touched upon. Even those at the brunt of the financial crisis in the retail banking sector still need to equip their internet banking users with appropriate fraud protection solutions. XIRING is very well positioned in this developing market space. According to Mastercard, 21 million Europeans were equipped with strong authentication solutions by the end of 2008; we expect this figure to reach 60 million by the end of 2010.
Turnover is down compared with the same period in 2008, can you return to the growth margins experienced last year?
XIRING actually outperformed the operating margin target announced at the beginning of the year 2008 (above 7%) and the revised target announced last September (above 8.5%). For the full-year 2008, operating income amounted to €3.5m. This corresponds to a margin of 12.4% on turnover and represents 62% growth, which is highly satisfactory.
Cambridge University researchers reverse-engineered card readers from NatWest and Barclays. They discovered that the technology was vulnerable to sophisticated phishing attacks. Is this a concern and how can the security be improved?
It is not a concern for us and the research has been widely discredited, including by APACS.
What does the future hold for Xiring?
XIRING has a strong presence in high growth markets. For the Healthcare market, XIRING aims to maintain its leadership position in SESAM-Vitale business solutions by building on areas of growth such as the deployment of the Vitale 2 healthcare benefit cards, upgrades to the SESAM-Vitale system architecture and the integration of additional insurance benefits. For the Banking industry, there remains strong potential for the two-factor authentication solution market and this is underpinned by the growth in e-commerce and remote banking and the associated security requirements.
XIRING has a strong presence in high growth markets. For the Healthcare market, XIRING aims to maintain its leadership position in SESAM-Vitale business solutions by building on areas of growth such as the deployment of the Vitale 2 healthcare benefit cards, upgrades to the SESAM-Vitale system architecture and the integration of additional insurance benefits. For the Banking industry, there remains strong potential for the two-factor authentication solution market and this is underpinned by the growth in e-commerce and remote banking and the associated security requirements.
(Smartcard News Ltd, 2009)
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