Paysign, Inc. Reports Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2020 Financial Results

Paysign, Inc. (NASDAQ: PAYS), a leading provider of prepaid card programs, digital banking services, and payment processing, today reported financial results for the fourth-quarter and fiscal year 2020.

“2020 was a difficult year for our business due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as it negatively impacted our clients in the pharma and plasma industries. The month of May marked the low point for our plasma business and we have continued to see improvements throughout the year as states loosen restrictions on businesses. While COVID-19 and government stimulus measures will likely continue to impact our business into 2021, we remain cautiously optimistic that our business will continue to rebound as vaccinations become more prevalent and business restrictions are lifted,” said Paysign CEO Mark Newcomer. “During the year we added 55 new plasma programs and experienced a net growth in card programs of 61. With $7.8 million of unrestricted cash and zero debt on our balance sheet, the company remains well-capitalized and positioned to weather any further impacts from the pandemic.”

PAYSIGN, INC.
SUMMARY OF CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL RESULTS
		Quarter Ended December 31,						Year Ended December 31,
		(Unaudited)						(Audited)
		2020			2019			2020			2019
Revenues
	Plasma industry	$ 6,298,653			$ 7,630,631			$ 23,401,068			$ 26,994,929
	Pharma industry	921,644			1,835,610			326,699			7,372,990
	Other	33,140			298,734			392,667			298,734
	Total revenues	7,253,437			9,764,975			24,120,434			34,666,653
Cost of revenues		3,541,270			4,703,409			14,817,028			15,425,178
Gross profit		3,712,167			5,061,566			9,303,406			19,241,475
	Gross margin %	51.2	%		51.8	%		38.6	%		55.5	%
Operating expenses
	Selling, general and administrative	3,792,396			3,172,799			15,091,432			11,656,681
	Impairment of intangible asset	-			-			382,414			-
	Loss on abandonment of assets	-			-			42,898			-
	Depreciation and amortization	578,117			435,361			2,124,762			1,483,140
	Total operating expenses	4,370,513			3,608,160			17,641,506			13,139,821
Income (loss) from operations		$ (658,346	)		$ 1,453,406			$ (8,338,100	)		$ 6,101,654
Net income (loss) attributable to Paysign, Inc.		$ (4,311,158	)		$ 1,883,779			$ (9,141,562	)		$ 7,454,319

The following additional details are provided to aid in understanding Paysign’s fourth-quarter 2020 results, versus the year-ago period:

• Revenues decreased $2.5 million (25.7%).
  • Plasma revenue decreased $1.3 million (17.5%), primarily due to the impact of COVID-19 which resulted in a decrease in plasma donations and dollars loaded to card. Average revenue per center declined 25.7%. We added 36 new plasma centers during the quarter, exiting the year with 340 centers. This compares to 285 centers at the end of 2019.
  • Pharma revenue decreased $0.9 million (49.8%), primarily driven by the change in accounting estimate that occurred in the third quarter which impacted the recognition of settlement income during the fourth quarter compared to the same period in 2019.
• Cost of revenues decreased $1.2 million (24.7%). Cost of revenues are comprised of transaction processing fees, data connectivity and data center expenses, network fees, bank fees, card production costs, customer service, program management, application integration setup and sales and commission expense. The decrease was primarily due to the decrease in transaction volumes.
• Gross profit decreased $1.3 million (26.7%) due to the reduction in revenues, and the disproportionate decrease in cost of revenues. Gross margin was 51.2% compared to 51.8% in the same period the prior year.
• Operating expenses increased $0.8 million (21.1%) from the fourth-quarter 2019 but decreased $0.6 million (12.4%) compared to the third-quarter 2020. The year-over-year increase was primarily related to an increase in staffing and compensation, professional services, stock-based compensation, technologies and telecom, depreciation, amortization and rent costs, slightly offset by a decrease in travel.
• Net income decreased $6.2 million to a loss of $4.3 million. The overall change in net income attributable to Paysign, Inc. relates to a $4.0 million tax provision for recording a valuation on our deferred tax asset and the aforementioned factors.
• Adjusted EBITDA, which is operating income plus depreciation, amortization, stock-based compensation, impairment of an intangible asset and loss on the abandonment of assets, and is a non-GAAP metric used by management to gauge the operating performance of the business, decreased $1.8 million to $0.8 million due to the aforementioned factors.

2020 Year Milestones

• As of December 31, 2020, we had approximately 3.5 million cardholders and 360 card programs.
• We added 55 plasma programs, five new pharma programs, and one additional corporate incentive program.
• We remediated all material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting disclosed in our 2019 Form 10-K.

COVID-19 Update

The outbreak of a novel coronavirus and the incidence of the related disease (COVID-19) starting in late 2019 has continued, spreading throughout the United States and much of the world beginning in the first quarter of 2020. In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic. While the disruption is currently expected to be temporary, there is uncertainty about the duration. The COVID-19 outbreak and government stimulus measures to help individuals and business most impacted by COVID-19, has had and will continue to have an adverse effect on the company's results of operations into 2021. While we remain cautiously optimistic, given the uncertainty around the extent and timing of the potential future spread or mitigation of COVID-19 and around the imposition or relaxation of protective measures, management cannot reasonably estimate the impact on the company's future results of operations, cash flows, or financial condition.

Material Weakness Remediation

We implemented our remediation plan for the previously reported material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting, described in Part II, Item 9A, of our 2019 Form 10-K, which included taking steps to improve the design and methods for testing internal controls, adding resources to carry out such practices, and instituting new procedures for managing system user access and change control. As previously described in Part I, Item 4, of our Forms 10-Q for the quarters ended March 31, 2020, June 30, 2020, and September 30, 2020, our remediation was ongoing throughout 2020.

The following actions contributed to the remediation efforts:

• Strengthened the technology department, including hiring a new chief technology officer and creating and filling a new information security manager position.
• Secured technical training on COSO’s Internal Control – Integrated Framework, cybersecurity and regulatory compliance.
• Engaged a SOX advisory accounting firm to aid in refining our narratives and independently test the design and operating effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting.
• Substantially refined process narratives and created risk-control matrices as a basis for the design of our internal control over financial reporting, including IT general controls.
• Defined and implemented multiple user roles to enhance access controls to our core processing platform.
• Refined the change-control process for system changes, including forming an IT change review board and implementing software monitoring of production system changes.

As of December 31, 2020, management concluded that the remediated controls were operating effectively and the deficiencies that contributed to the material weaknesses had been effectively corrected.

Other than the changes related to our remediation efforts described above, we made no changes in our internal control over financial reporting during the quarter ended December 31, 2020, that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

Fourth-Quarter and Year-end 2020 Financial Results Conference Call Details

At 5:00 p.m. Eastern time today, the company will host a conference call to discuss its fourth-quarter and year-end 2020 results. The conference call may include forward-looking statements. The dial-in information for this call is 877.407.2988 (within the U.S.) and 201.389.0923 (outside the U.S.). A replay of the call will be available until June 25, 2021, and can be accessed by dialing 877.660.6853 (within the U.S.) and 201.612.7415 (outside the U.S.), using passcode 13716772.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release may be deemed to be forward-looking statements under federal securities laws, and the company intends that such forward-looking statements be subject to the safe-harbor created thereby. All statements, other than statements of fact, included in this release, are forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements include, among others, that the pandemic continues to have a meaningful impact on the company’s business and operations; the company’s optimistic outlook in the recovery of the pharma and plasma industries; the company’s ability to return to year-over-year growth; the company remains well-capitalized and positioned to weather impacts from the pandemic; and that the company expects an upturn in the second half of 2021 resulting from vaccinations becoming more prevalent and business restrictions being lifted. We caution that these statements are qualified by important risks, uncertainties, and other factors that cou