Crunchfish and Swish today announce that the companies have submitted a joint application to The Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS)’s annual innovation contest, which this year focuses on innovative payment solutions. The goal in the application is to develop a prototype for an offline solution that can be used when net-based payment solutions does not work. The ambition is that the solution will provide the Swedish society with a digital equivalent to cash.

Video 2 minutes: Why Digital Cash?

Achieving the vision of an inclusive financial infrastructure requires a complement to today’s network-dependent payment solutions. It is both urgent and critical from a societal point of view for Sweden to modernize cash and make their properties available in digital form. The application to the contest is based on the strength of cash as a robust means of payment, without requirement for network connection or cloud servers and the possibility of maintaining integrity for users.

Crunchfish’s och Swish’s joint application to PTS Innovation aims to make Swish more available, including in contexts in which Swish is not used today, for example when internet connectivity is unavailable. The application is developed in Swish’s test environment based on Crunchfish’s Digital Cash solutions and has similar properties to the e-krona, with the primary difference that the application, in a future potential roll-out, would be issued and guaranteed by the banking system instead of the Swedish Central Bank.

”Swish is an incredible success story for online payments, however Swish demands that the user is online. In the PTS Innovation contest, we are digitalizing cash together with Crunchfish and will show how Swish payments could work in an offline environment”, says Anders Edlund, Head of Business Development at Swish.

”We’re looking forward to build an innovative world-class solution together with Swish, that will contribute to a robust and inclusive digital financial infrastructure in Sweden”, says Joachim Samuelsson, CEO of Crunchfish.

Background to the contest
Since 2010, The Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS) arranges annual innovation contests, contributing to turning smart ideas into reality and improving everyday life. E-commerce and the use of various payment services have increased significantly in recent years, while cash use has fallen sharply. In this development, many people with disabilities – and older people as well – experience difficulties with online shopping, paying bills, using internet banking services and getting started with online identification to identify themselves and approve payments. The gap is widening to those who are comfortable paying digitally. PTS is now looking for innovative and long-term solutions that make it possible for people, regardless of functional ability, to understand and use digital payment services in a simpler and more secure way.

Results in the contest are expected during Q2 2021. More information is available on pts.se/innovation

Om Swish – swish.nu
Swish started in 2012 as a cooperation between six of the largest banks in Sweden. Together Danske Bank, Handelsbanken, Länsförsäkringar, Nordea, SEB, Swedbank and Sparbankerna own Getswish AB, the company behind the service. Other banks have since connected to Swish. Today, almost 8 million Swedes has Swish and it has become the most popular means of digital payments among 18-40-year-olds in Sweden.

For more information, please contact:
Joachim Samuelsson, CEO of Crunchfish AB
+46 708 46 47 88
joachim.samuelsson@crunchfish.com 

Ulf Rogius Svensson, IR & Marketing Manager
+46 733 26 81 05
ulf.rogius.svensson@crunchfish.com

Västra Hamnen Corporate Finance AB is the Certified Adviser. Email: ca@vhcorp.se. Telephone +46 40 200 250.

This information is information that Crunchfish AB is obliged to publish in accordance to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was provided by the contact person above for publication on March 1, 2021.

About Crunchfish – crunchfish.com/digitalcash
Crunchfish is a tech company with a patent-pending solution for digital offline payments that can be integrated both with the payment rail or in a mobile wallet. The offline solution is globally scalable and makes digital payments more robust as the risks of disruptions and downtime are eliminated. We have also developed Blippit, an app terminal that connects to a cash register system for both online and offline payments. Crunchfish also develops gesture control of smart AR glasses for the consumer market. Crunchfish has been listed on Nasdaq First North Growth Market since 2016 with headquarters in Malmö, Sweden and with representation in India.

TietoEVRY https://www.tietoevry.com/en/ is a global digital services company with a strong Nordic presence, employing over 24 000 people within many fields of expertise all over the world today. The financial ecosystem is constantly evolving, with new technology creating both exciting opportunities and very real challenges. Within payments, TietoEVRY supplies key software platforms to banks and payment systems across the world, being an essential part in the digital payments infrastructure.

Jarkko Turunen is the Head of Business Development & Product Management at the Payment Solutions division of TietoEVRY, based in Helsinki in Finland. Jarkko has tons of experience from the payments sector as well as the banking industry, and sees convergence between card schemes and real-time payments in the market.

In this interview, Jarkko and Joachim Samuelsson talks about trends in payments, how value-adding services will be key for the payment in the future and how TietoEVRY is present in almost all payment systems in the Nordics. They also talk about synergies between different players in the financial industry and how small companies like Crunchfish with great innovative ideas can make a big market impact.This is interview 32 of 36 in the second season – Cash goes digital, a payment pandemic – out Wednesday morning at 6 am CET / 10.30 am IST. https://www.crunchfish.com/the-interviews/

UL https://www.ul.com/ is all about empowering trust. They solve critical challenges and help innovators around the world to discover new possibilities and deliver what matters — safety, quality, security, sustainability and confidence. Exactly what Crunchfish needs to establish our Digital Cash solutions.

Today, UL is back in our interview series, this time represented by Houssam Soubra, Principal Advisor & EMV Global Solutions Lead. Houssam is extremely knowledgeable and experienced within EMV and mobile payments, and since January 2021 he has been giving bi-weekly masterclasses to the Crunchfish team, providing us with new insights and deep knowledge in these fields.

In this interview, Houssam and Joachim Samuelsson talk about entrepreneurship and the concept of surrounding yourself with masterminds in order to succeed in approaching the market as an entrepreneur, as described by author Napoleon Hill in his book Think and Grow Rich, written almost 100 years ago but still relevant today https://www.amazon.com/Think-Grow-Rich…/dp/1585424331. They also talk about that UL provides Crunchfish with certification and compliance processes for payment services, as well as the importance of being able to see the big picture in the complex global payment ecosystem.

This is interview 33 of 36 in the second season – Cash goes digital, a payment pandemic – out Friday morning at 6 am CET / 10.30 am IST. https://www.crunchfish.com/the-interviews/

ACI Worldwide https://www.aciworldwide.com/ is a global software company that provides mission-critical real-time payment solutions to banks and financial networks, transferring 11 trillion USD on a day, having 18 of the top 20 largest banks in the world as clients. Resilience is a key feature of their switching platform, making sure it works 24/7. They have a transaction-based business model, where volume is key.

Kaushik Roy was the business head of ACI Worldwide in India, and has recently transferred to become Head of Product Management in the emerging Asian, Middle Eastern and African markets. Kaushik understands that the current online payment services needs to be redesigned to cope with tomorrow’s digital payment volumes and this is why he thinks that Crunchfish’s Digital Cash is such an interesting solution. In addition to great conversations about the future of digital payments, Kaushik and Joachim Samuelsson discussed his love of soccer, and his wish to go and see the northern lights.

This is interview 31 of 36 in the second season – Cash goes digital, a payment pandemic – out Monday morning at 6 am CET / 10.30 am IST. https://www.crunchfish.com/the-interviews/

Today, on February 19, Västra Hamnen Corporate Finance has published an updated analysis on Crunchfish titled “Crunchfish: Partners and Patents”. The analysis is available as an attached document and through this link.

In the analysis, Västra Hamnen writes: “Yesterday’s full year report from Crunchfish shows how the company’s focus is evolving more and more towards digital cash. Crunchfish has released a string of press releases recently, detailing new partnerships and patents in this area. Its ambitions have now grown far beyond instant payments in India and the Nordic area. The company has patented solutions that would facilitate offline digital cash payments for any digital wallet anywhere, irrespective of whether the underlying payment structure is a card network, an instant payment network, central bank digital currency, or a combination of these.”

In the analysis, an unchanged share price interval according to the DCF model of 25,30 SEK – 40,10 SEK per share is stated. The full analysis is available on Västra Hamnen’s and Crunchfish’s websites.

In connection with the publication of the Q4 report, an interview with Crunchfish’s CEO Joachim Samuelsson on the theme “Solving for the future” was published. This interview is available here:

Furthermore, a live interview on the theme “Digital Cash Partners and Patents” with Joachim Samuelsson and Alf Riple, head analyst at Västra Hamnen, was done. This interview is available here:

As a service to the company’s shareholders and with the purpose to increase transparency, Crunchfish has commissioned Västra Hamnen to conduct analysis of the company. The analysis includes an independent review of the company, its products, markets and competitors as well as a financial scenario that serves as a basis for an estimate of a motivated market cap of the company.

For more information, please contact:
Joachim Samuelsson, CEO Crunchfish AB
+46 708 46 47 88
joachim.samuelsson@crunchfish.com

Ulf Rogius Svensson, IR & Marketing Manager
+46 733 26 81 05
ulf.rogius.svensson@crunchfish.com

Västra Hamnen Corporate Finance AB is the Certified Adviser. Email: ca@vhcorp.se. Telephone +46 40 200 250.

About Crunchfish – crunchfish.com
Crunchfish is a tech company with a patent-pending solution for digital offline payments that can be integrated both with the payment rail or in a mobile wallet. The offline solution is globally scalable and makes digital payments more robust as the risks of disruptions and downtime are eliminated. We have also developed Blippit, an app terminal that connects to a cash register system for both online and offline payments. Crunchfish also develops gesture control of smart AR glasses for the consumer market. Crunchfish has been listed on Nasdaq First North Growth Market since 2016 with headquarters in Malmö, Sweden and with representation in India.