Digital solutions to protect organizations against increasingly complex online fraud and stringent compliance regulations, and enable consumers to transact safely and securely online, have led to strong YoY growth

SINGAPORE - Media OutReach - 10 December 2019 - GBG (AIM: GBG), the global technology specialist in fraud and compliance management, identity verification and location intelligence, announces its unaudited results for the six months ended 30 September 2019.

For the first time in the organization's 30-year history, international revenue outside of the UK has increased from 35% to 57% of its total business. This is spurred by continued growth from new logo wins and existing customers across all focus geographies.

In the fraud space, GBG has built on existing commercial relationships and won new customers in Europe, including BNP Paribas, Arval and Standard Life. In the APAC region, GBG has extended business with AmBank in Malaysia and Citi in Indonesia and Taiwan.

In November 2019, the group announced the appointment of three senior leaders, to align to the business' strategic focus on increasing its footprint in the region.

Recruitment in APAC continues for sales, marketing, product and technology to grow its key markets in Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Singapore and Australia. The APAC team now counts for over 25% of global headcount.

Overall, GBG's YoY revenue growth is strong at 62%, with the full-year outcome for both revenue and profit expected to be in line with expectations.

Enhancing products and data offering continues to be one of the main drivers to achieve revenue growth. In APAC, exclusive partnership with NavInfo Europe provides address data within mainland China. Data sets are expanded to provide better global and APAC specific identity access, checks and match rates with Indian Driving License and UK Educational Data.

Investments are made to develop four new fraud solutions through GBG's in-house R&D, including its flagship Instinct Hub now as a platform solution, Predator 5.0, machine learning and orchestration, with launch announcements upcoming.

On M&A, good progress has been made with integrating the two recent acquisitions made by GBG. Both VIX Verify greenID and Harmony RightAddress product lines in Australia are growing well with sales, data and product integration delivering benefits, similar with IDology in the US.

Vix Verify's successful performance has been driven by growth of key accounts, such as TabCorp and HSBC, and winning new business, including Victoria University and KC Securities. Cross portfolio solution adoption picks up momentum -- with Australia's diversified financial services group, FlexiGroup, expanding its adoption of GBG's solution to include fraud portfolio in addition to its current identity portfolio.

Chris Clark, CEO at GBG says: "I am pleased with the progress we have made against our strategic objectives in the first six months, which has seen us deliver good growth. This was driven by a strong organic performance (helped in part by the accelerated timing of some contracts for our Fraud division), the successful integrations of our acquisitions and ongoing investment to support our differentiation.

"We had a strong organic growth performance across each of our three key solutions of Location, Identity and Fraud across our core geographies. This performance has also been supported by the successful integrations of VIX Verify and IDology and we are excited about our future prospects and how these businesses will develop and strengthen our propositions. So far the second half of the year has begun in line with our expectations and we remain confident in meeting full year market consensus."

June Lee, Managing Director, APAC at GBG says: "APAC continues to drive strong revenue growth through investment and expansion into new key markets namely Vietnam, Thailand and Philippines. For our existing markets in Australia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, the focus will gradually lean into new segments like insurance and ecommerce, in addition to finance and banking."

"Growth requires an ongoing maturing of our APAC tech ecosystem -- development of new symbiotic tech and data partnerships within this region remains a priority."

GBG offers a series of solutions that help organizations quickly validate and verify the identity and location of their customers.

Our innovative technology leads the world in location intelligence and fraud detection. Our products are built on an unparalleled breadth of data obtained from over 200 global partners which helps us to verify the identity of 4.4 billion people globally.

Our headquarters are in the UK and we have over 1,000 team members across 16 countries. We work with clients in 72 countries including some of the best-known businesses around the world, ranging from US e-commerce giants to Asia's biggest banks and European household brands.

To find out more about how we help our clients establish trust with their customers, visit www.gbgplc.com/apac, follow us on Twitter @gbgplc or LinkedIn.