Harvest Technology plc - Business Update

On 19 June 2023, Harvest Technology plc provided an update on the outlook for its business for the current financial year.

The company explained that over the past months, the ‘Payment Processing Services’ segment, operated through the Group’s payment gateway ApcoPay, has undertaken significant investment to upgrade its payment gateway system to a cloud-based gateway which would allow the business to scale and, more importantly, offer new features and products which are required by clients particularly in the iGaming sector. The development of the new gateway has proved highly demanding and will result in higher operating costs. The new gateway is scheduled to be operational as from Q3 2023, and the target is that by end of 2023, ApcoPay’s existing clients will be migrated to the new cloud-based gateway. From this segment, the Group anticipates a marginal increase in revenue compared to the previous year, primarily due to the renewal of a contract for payment and gateway provision services with the Government of Malta. However, profitability is expected to be lower due to the impact of the additional investment in the platform as well as higher marketing expenses.

The ‘Retail and IT Services’ segment is also expected to generate higher revenues due to new contract wins in Malta. Harvest is also aiming to continue the internationalisation of the IT Services segment.

Based on the current forecasts, the Group is expecting to achieve higher revenues of €20.4 million in 2023 compared to €16.3 million in the previous year.