Licensing deal with US cash machine giant boosts i-design

SHARES in Scottish advertising software firm i-design soared yesterday after it signed a licensing deal with one of its customers.

Cardtronics, a US-based ATM firm which operates over 37,000 cash machines worldwide, has acquired a licence to incorporate the Dundee-based firm's software, joono, into its estate.

Shares in i-design, which have made considerable gains in recent weeks, rose 9 per cent or 3.5p to close at 42p.

The agreement is the Scottish firm's second contract with Cardtronics, following an initial agreement signed in May last year which covered the deployment of i-design's earlier software on about 3,000 cash machines in the US and UK.

The company said it could not put a financial value on the new deal at this stage, as that would depend on how many of its machines that Cardtronics uses for joono.

Chief executive Ana Stewart said: "We welcome the extension of our relationship with Cardtronics, the world's leading non-bank operator of ATMs. We believe that our technology remains unrivalled in our marketplace and see significant potential for further expansion."

I-design, which floated on Aim four years ago, saw revenue grow 57 per cent to 1.4 million in the six months to the end of March, bringing it close to breaking even.

Since then, it has signed a major contract with Barclays and launched joono in June.

Robert Sanders, an analyst with i-design's house broker Arbuthnot Securities, said: "While no financial details on the contract have been disclosed and we are making no changes to our forecasts, in our view this contract will help i-design move closer to break-even.

"Given the prospects for further sales traction with both ATM owners and third party advertising, we are increasing our target price to 50p (from 45p] and are happy to maintain our strong buy recommendation."