Irish software company Norkom, which creates technology that helps corporate firms fight financial crime, this morning reported that revenues rose 53pc for the first six months of 2007 to reach €17.6m.
During the half-year Norkom continued to execute on its merger and acquisition strategy with the purchase of Digital Harbour in July for €26.7m, which resulted in 10 new clients for the company.
However, Norkom also attributed much of the half-year performance to organic growth, which included nine new client wins from the tier 1 US financial services sector.
The company says it is continuing to evolve its channel partner strategy and has established new relationships with IBM, eFunds and Bearing Point.
“A strong financial performance has been achieved across all our regions at a time when the company has been involved in growing new markets, completing a complex acquisition and raising further funds on the public markets,” said Norkom founder and chief executive, Paul Kerley.
“In the past couple of years Norkom has invested heavily in building out its senior management capacity across all our markets in anticipation of the organic and acquisitive strategy that we would pursue. It is good to see those investments now paying off.
“Such success is tangible evidence of our strategy at work as we consolidate our position as a global market leader and gain recognition as a provider of innovative enterprise-wide financial crime and compliance solutions dedicated to the financial services sector,” Kerley added.
Kerley said the global market for financial crime and compliance solutions continues to grow by an estimated 24pc annually, rising from US$480m in 2007 to US$917m by 2010.
“This growth is fuelled by a number of factors including an increase in international anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regulation, for example the introduction of the third EU Money Laundering Directive, which enters into force on 15 December this year.
“In addition, more stringent worldwide enforcement of such regulations has resulted in over US$222m being levied in fines to 20 institutions for failing to prevent money laundering in the past two years,” Kerley added.
“On top of these penalties, the true impact to those organisations affected is many multiples greater again due to the costs associated with operational disruption, reputation damage and business recovery,” he said.
By John Kennedy
