A decade after listing on the ASX, Brisbane-based payments technology company Change Financial (ASX: CCA) has built on its maiden underlying full-year profit in FY25 with a 17-fold increase of the result in the latest financial year.
Change Financial, a company with global operations providing payment solutions, card issuing and testing to banks and fintechs, has posted full-year unaudited revenue of US$18.2 million ($26 million) for FY26, up 21 per cent on the prior year.
Underlying EBITDA of US$3.3 million ($4.7 million) is up from about US$200,000 in FY25 with the result meeting the company’s upgraded full-year guidance and representing a landmark year for the company which was founded as ChimpChange in 2011.
The latest announcement comes on the heels of the company earlier this year reporting a maiden half-year net profit of about US$600,000 ($900,000) in the first half of FY26, its first period of statutory profitability from continuing operations.
Revenue for the full year grew at a three-year compound annual growth rate of 28 per cent to FY26, up from US$15.1 million in FY25.
The result caps a remarkable turnaround for a company that listed on the ASX in 2016 under its original moniker ChimpChange, raising $15 million as a millennial-focused digital banking app targeting the US market.
A decade on, the business has pivoted entirely, shedding its consumer banking roots to become a card payments infrastructure provider serving banks, fintechs and program managers across the Asia-Pacific region.
The company has built a payments-as-a-service (PaaS) platform and accumulated US$51.4 million in losses on its balance sheet through to the end of December last year, making the recent swing to profitability a milestone for long-suffering shareholders.
The company says in Australian and New Zealand its PaaS business posted a record month in June for active cards as well as the number of transactions and gross transaction volume through its platform, while June was also a record month for PaaS revenue.
Change Financial says the FY26 result has been driven by disciplined execution and growing demand for its cloud-based card issuing and processing platform.
The company carries no debt and expects to be net cash flow positive in FY27. However, Change Financial is not providing specific FY27 revenue or EBITDA guidance, citing uncertainty around the timing of PaaS client ramp-ups and potential churn among legacy on-premises clients.
The path from ChimpChange to profitability has been a long one for the company which was founded in 2011 by Ash Shilkin.
The original US digital banking business has been largely wound down, with discontinued US operations generating a loss of just US$41,000 in the first half of FY26, down sharply from US$814,000 in the prior corresponding period.
“Change enters FY27 with strong momentum in its Australian and New Zealand PaaS business,” says the company.
“PaaS clients already signed and onboarded are growing strongly, and a pipeline of contracted clients currently onboarding will add to revenue in FY27 and beyond, with a number of further PaaS deals in the final contracting stage.
“As Change continues to scale, the company expects continued margin expansion across its PaaS operations and PaaS is expected to be the key driver of future growth.”
Change Financial expects some churn in its legacy “on-premises” clients in the current financial year as they migrate away from Change.
The on-premises clients are financial institutions and fintechs that license and deploy Change’s payment software, specifically the Vertexon card management platform or PaySim testing software, directly within their own private servers and internal IT environments.
“These clients operate on legacy versions of the Vertexon code base with the majority of the revenue generated from (Latin America),” the company says.
“Change is in discussions with the remaining two key on-premises clients in South-East Asia to upgrade to the Vertexon PaaS platform, with one client having already partially migrated to Vertexon cloud.
“These client movements are driving some short-term impacts on revenue and creating uncertainty in one-off and legacy Vertexon revenue for FY27.”
The company says it key focus this financial year is on signing new clients and accelerating delivery of the product roadmap.
“The company is rapidly adopting agentic AI which is significantly shortening development and release cycles, enabling Change to release new products and features to market to drive growth,” it says.
“The company is also actively exploring M&A opportunities that are strategically aligned and drive shareholder value.”
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