ASX Quarterlies: Fintechs stand out as Biotechs press forward with clinical trials

It’s quarterlies season again as the ASX market announcements page becomes increasingly flooded with earnings lodgements.

To save you the trouble of trudging through it all, we’ve wrapped up the highlights from some of the reports that caught our eye.

PEPPERMINT INNOVATION (ASX: PIL)

Peppermint had a big quarter, signing an exclusive five-year agreement with Visa to significantly expand its digital financial offering around the world.

The partnership will focus initially on the key markets of the Philippines, Singapore and Australia.

Under Visa’s Fintech Fast Track Program, bizmoto users will be able to fund a Visa debit or pre-paid Visa card directly from their bizmoto wallet.

This will significantly enhance their ability to pay for goods and services and allow them to use Visa’s significant global payment infrastructure.

Peppermint also signed an exclusive five-year agreement with the Philippines’ largest regional cooperative federation – MASS-SPECC Cooperative Development Centre – for its 1.6 million members to use bizmoto’s Electronic Money Issuer financial services.

During the quarter, Peppermint launched a unique financial literacy knowledge-sharing platform called bizmoKarte, which aims to help individuals and small-to-medium size business owners become more confident and successful in managing financial matters.

The company’s flagship bizmoPay was also branded to bizmoLoan during the quarter, with the aim to better reflect provision of alternative non-bank finance products to customers.

In another development, Peppermint went live with bizmoto agents’ access to ECPay from any 7-Eleven outlet across the Philippines.

“We believe the recently signed Visa and MASS-SPECC agreements – along with the rebranding and refinement of our bizmoLoan product offering – will increase customer engagement and we want to deliver an attractive, ‘frictionless’ user experience so customers engage with our bizmoto ecosystem repeatedly, “ said Peppermint CEO, Chris Kain.

IOUpay (ASX:IOU)

Activity during the September quarter was strong reflecting increased transaction value written during July following cultural holidays in the previous quarter.

The myIOU BNPL business originated transactions with TTV (total transaction value) of $9.57m, delivering NTR (net transaction revenue) of $0.59m for the period.

During the September quarter, 185 new merchants operating 428 outlets around Malaysia were added to the myIOU platform.

Growth in consumer engagement has continued through the September quarter on a trend established following the launch of myIOU 2.0 mid-March.

Consumer downloads were up 39% from the last quarter, while consumer onboarding was up 39% and consumer account activation was up 34%.

The company reported Non-Performing Loans of $223k, and an NPL (non-performing loan) Ratio of 0.68% as at 30th September.

Whilst the NPL Ratio marginally increased from the previous quarter, it remains modest and is a reflection of the company’s targeted consumer acquisition process, including sophisticated credit-checking technology to authenticate customers and independently verify credit profiles.

During the quarter, myIOU’s income margin was 6.2%, consistent with the previous quarter.

The September quarter also saw IOUpay signing strategic partnerships with Pine Labs, SOGO Department Stores, and PayHalal.

Its partnership with Razer Merchant Services has also gained ground, with 292 merchants now already onboarded.

IOUpay is currently developing a Shariah-compliant BNPL offering to be marketed under the name ‘myIOU Islamic’.

Given more than 60% of Malaysia’s population follows the Muslim faith tradition, myIOU Islamic will open greater access to this large and growing community.

Looking ahead, IOUpay says it’s continuing to strengthen its brand leadership position, and is executing on a strategy to pursue new markets with recurring revenue streams.

SPRINTEX (ASX:SIX)

In the September quarter, Sprintex completed the design and testing of several new high-speed e-compressors supporting applications for hydrogen fuel cells, e-boosting of internal combustion engines and industrial processing.

Sprintex has now delivered all samples of the 6kW, 10kW and 25kW e-Compressors to Aeristech as part of the Sprintex Aeristech agreement.

Additionally, the company’s 25kW fuel cell compressors were provided to fuel cell manufacturers in August.

These systems were exhibited at World Hydrogen Expo and conference at Messe Bremen in Northern Germany in October, attracting significant interest and multiple enquiries from leading automotive and hydrogen industry vehicle and systems manufacturers and developers.

During the quarter, Sprintex also delivered supercharger systems, mainly for Jeep vehicles, following customer interest generated at marketing events earlier in the year.

INCOME ASSET MANAGEMENT (ASX:IAM)

Debt capital raising specialist Income Asset Management has reported Q1 record distribution and placement fee revenue, delivering an equally record quarterly underlying revenue total of more than $2.1 million.

Bond trading revenue also had a hand in the more than 40% jump in underlying revenue, topping $2.13 million compared with $1.52 million in the final quarter of 2022.

IAM says the over 20% jump in new bond clients helped lift Assets under Administration (AuA) across bonds and cash by 14.8% to over $2.3bn QoQ.

Last month bonds AuA accelerated past the $1bn mark, with group AuA now over $2.45bn.

IAM CEO Jon Lechte says that rising cash rates have reinvigorated bond and debt markets, with Q2 promising a “very significant pipeline” of new-issue transactions.

“IAM is the only sub-institutional bond broker who is both listed and full service, able to source and execute demand at scale – with complete transparency at a fair and equitable cost.”

PHARMAUST (ASX: PAA)

Dual-listed PharmAust has dropped in its Q1 update, reporting the first patients have been locked in for its widely-anticipated study of Monepantel (MPL) impacts on Motor Neurone Disease (MND) trial.

Following strong financial backing from FightMND, the largest independent funder of MND research in Australia, PAA says that as of September, the clinical-stage biotech is sitting on some $2.2 million of funding, “enabling the pursuit of various preclinical and clinical commitments” (with an additional $173k received from FightMND in October, not included).

Elsewhere, PAA says it’s in confidential discussions with potential licensing partners for its canine cancer treatments and that Phase 2 trials continue in canines with B-cell lymphoma in Australia, New Zealand and the US.

KAZIA THERAPEUTICS (ASX:KZA)

During the September quarter, the oncology-focused drug development company reported positive interim data from an ongoing study of paxalisib brain cancer treatment in combination with whole brain radiotherapy at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Data from an initial cohort of nine patients showed all responding to therapy, with a favourable tolerability profile – which Kazia says is an “enormous potential indication with a very high unmet need.

The study has now expanded to Stage 2.

In addition, final data from Kazia’s phase II study of paxalisib in newly diagnosed glioblastoma with unmethylated MGMT promotor status reported overall survival of 15.7 months, “which compares favourably to the figure of 12.7 months associated with temozolomide, the existing standard of care,” the company says.

The Global Coalition for Adaptive Research, who sponsor the GBM AGILE pivotal study of paxalisib in glioblastoma, informed Kazia during the quarter that paxalisib had not graduated to the second stage – but the company is confident that the study is still a promising path to registration for the drug as Kazia is blinded to the data until the study completes in 2H 2023.

The company closed the quarter to September 30, 2022 with a cash balance on hand of $5.3 million.

ELSIGHT (ASX:ELS)

In a major breakthrough for the drone industry – and Elsight who deliver AI connectivity for drones – the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued its first Type Certificate (TC) to a commercial drone operator in the US during the quarter.

“The drone market in the US continued to grow and expand significantly under the waivers-only scenario, it is therefore reasonable to assume that the issue of the first FAA TC will be a strong catalyst for mass deployment of commercial drone services for that market moving forward,” the company said.

Elsight says it’s well positioned to participate with the expected growth in the industry by having “Halo” embedded as a critical component in drone design by manufacturers.

And it certainly looks like they can achieve that. During the quarter the company brought the total number of its “Design Win” partners to 67, plus 16 partners placed repeat orders adding up to US$255K – including Air Methods’ wholly owned drone subsidiary, Spright – who placed its first commercial order after signing a five-year agreement with the company towards the end of June.

Repeat orders are expected during the remaining term of this agreement as Spright is not only seeking to become the largest drone operator in the medical delivery space in North America, but they will also become an official Halo reseller in the United States, which would increase the company’s distribution opportunities in that region.

Share prices today:

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Peppermint, IOUpay, Income Asset Management, Elsight, PharmAust, Sprintex, and Kazia Therapeutics are Stockhead advertisers, they did not sponsor this article.