Harvest Technology plc has posted its results for the first six months of 2023, during which it registered a sharp drop in profits. However, it remains confident of beating its results for 2022 by the end of the year as new projects come online.

Harvest Technology, part of Hili Group, is an information technology solutions provider to businesses and the public sector, as well as a payments solutions provider offering ecommerce processing services for retailers and internet-based merchants together with the provision of a wide range of automation and security solutions catering to the banking, retail, law enforcement and other sectors.

During the period under review, the Harvest Technology registered an operating profit of €300,000, as compared to €1.12 million during the corresponding period of the previous year.

It noted that its payment processing segment experienced a “notable decline” in revenue and profitability when compared to the same period in 2022.

“This is primarily attributable to a sharp drop in processing of certain gaming merchants due to changes in regulation,” it said. “The drop in processing for such clients started in the first quarter of 2022 and given the current circumstances, it is highly unlikely that the company will be able to recover the lost revenue in 2023.”

However, it added that the processing for clients that were not impacted by the change in regulation has increased year on year.

“Despite these challenges,” it continued, “the company is actively taking measures to improve its situation and over the past 12 months has invested significantly in its platform infrastructure.”

In fact, subsidiary APCOPAY’s new cloud-based payment platform received a certificate of compliance confirming that the it meets the highest security standards.

“This is an important milestone in the launch of the new payment platform later in 2023. Moreover, APCOPAY has also increased its efforts to strengthen and diversify its sales pipeline through various initiatives.”

Meanwhile, the retail and IT solutions segment also reported a decline in revenues, although the company largely attributed this to higher-than-normal revenues during the first half of 2022, during which period the segment had been positively impacted by the completion of a number of significant projects, which bolstered profitability.

“With regards to 2023, there is an optimistic outlook for the second half of the year, as both APCO Limited and PTL Limited are anticipated to finalise their ongoing projects, which would be expected to translate into higher revenue and profit recognition,” said the company.

Harvest Technology said it “remains committed to further investment in the organic growth of its various businesses, with a notable focus on expanding the payment processing business and internationalising the retail and IT solutions segment.”