“We need growth of at least 30 percent of new business per month to get to that point,” Interactive Brand Development President Gary Spaniak told XBiz.
IBD, the processor’s parent company, reported a 19 percent growth for iBill new client sign-up transaction volume in a two-month period from June to July.
“We’re still running at a loss, but we’ve elected to go forward,” Spaniak said. “We could have claimed bankruptcy, but we didn’t.”
The company for more than a year has tried to spring back as a leading processor after a series of setbacks, including revocation of its merchant account and accusations of malfeasance from some online adult companies.
Dogged by nearly $40 million of debt to adult webmasters after a corporate takeover, Spaniak said the Deerfield, Fla.-based company has so far made settlements in the amount of $35 million.
“We’ve kept the phone lines open for [adult webmasters] who are owed — through cash settlements and promissory notes,” he said. “I want to settle everyone’s case, but in order for us to make payouts, we have to stay in business.”
Earlier this month, the company claimed success at Internext as it continued to gain support for alternative payment processes, including peer-to-peer debit card gKard.
Noting that iBill continues to process transactions for nearly 12,000 active webmasters, Spaniak said he senses a turnaround for the company, particularly because of gKard.
“We think that it’s a great product and is the wave of the future,” he said.
That optimism, however, hasn’t yet translated into full health for a company that lost nearly $3.5 million in 2004.
IBD said in a filing this week with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it expects to post “material” losses from its last quarter.
IBD made the statement as it notified regulators that it would delay its quarterly filing because it needed more time to collect, review and prepare financial data relative to iBill.
“[T]he company cannot predict the sales and losses for the period ended June 30 at this time,” the filing said. “However, it expects that iBill's losses will be material.”
David Kugelman, who heads IBD’s investor relations, echoed Spaniak’s earlier sentiments about the company and said that he too sees a brighter future for the processor, which relies on the online adult market for nearly all of its revenue.
“I’m excited,” Kugelman told XBiz. “We were approved in July by Nasdaq to go over-the-counter. This is a totally turned around company.”
