The American cybersecurity company BIO-Key International Inc (NASDAQ: BKYI) soared on Wednesday after announcing a major new contract with Egypt’s largest financial institution.
The stock price rose more than two-fold on the Nasdaq at one point before sliding back down, and is currently trading for US$2.24.
BIO-key will be providing the National Bank of Egypt (NBE) with its PortalGuard identify management platform. The Egyptian bank currently employs approximately 30,000 people.
PortalGuard is essentially designed to streamline identification processes for large organizations. It utilizes facial recognition, palm scanning and other technologies to provide “powerful, secure biometric authentication that verifies the actual person” not just their devices or credentials. It helps to solve issues posed by multi-password systems.
“This project empowers us to secure access to our critical systems today and lays the groundwork for delivering secure and seamless authentication for millions of our customers in the near future,” NBE Information Security Director, Abeer Khedr, said in a release from BIO-key.
In summary, PortalGuard essentially replaces the bank’s previous system that has multiple keys for multiple doors with a single door that requires extensive and thorough verification before it will open.
The value of this contract has not been disclosed.
$BKYI National Bank of Egypt Enhances Enterprise Security with Multi-Factor Authentication and Single Sign-On Solutions from BIO-key.
$2.70++ is key. Market is slowing down though so trade with caution.
— PlayBookTrades 🎯 (@PlayBookTrades) January 15, 2025
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BIO-key reports financial improvements
In Q3 results, the New Jersey-based tech firm highlighted an 18 per cent year-over-year revenue increase at US$2.1 million.
Gross profit during the quarter totalled US$1.7 million — an immense improvement from the US$0.3 million in Q3, 2023.
Furthermore, BIO-key reduced its operating expenses by US$46,000 year-over-year during the third quarter of 2024 and reduced its net losses by US$1.1 million compared to the 3-month period of 2023.
“At Sept. 30, 2024, BIO-key had current assets of approximately US$4.6 million, including US$1.8 million of cash and cash equivalents, US$2.0 million of net accounts receivable and due from factor, and US$387,000 of inventory,” the cybersecurity specialist explained on Nov. 14.
But, despite these improvements, BIO-key has consistently had operating expenditures exceeding revenue. For the 2023 calendar year, the company spent US$13.3 million while only bringing in US$9.1 million. Today’s stock surge may be more significantly linked to speculative trading than sound predictions about BIO-key’s financial future.
rowan@mugglehead.com
