VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Feb. 12, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Glance Technologies Inc. (“Glance” or the “Company”) (CSE:GET) (OTCQB:GLNNF) (FKT:GJT) today provided the following shareholder update.
Dear Shareholders of Glance Technologies Inc.,
A lot has happened over the past year, and I would like to share a review and outlook towards our future.
Last year saw a tremendous decrease in the price of cryptocurrencies and the stock prices of junior technology companies linked to blockchain technology, which included Glance. The year also ended with tremendous volatility for stocks in general. In addition to this, the Company experienced a damaging and distracting proxy contest, after which the Company secured a positive voting support agreement and a share trading restriction agreement with the other party to help prevent issues like this arising again in the future.
However, throughout the year, Glance continued to remain focused on advancing its technology, adding new merchants, partners, and consumers while removing obstacles in our path to success, and adapting our business model.
2019 FOCUS
Real-Time Bill™ and Order from Table™
Glance is focused on commercializing our products that we believe provide the highest value to our customers and have the strongest monetization potential. During the year, we built out over 10 integrations to some of the largest Point-of-Sale (POS) systems in North America to enable new product features.
In the past several months, we devoted development efforts to our Order from Table™ and Real-Time Bill™ feature sets. We know these products are a significant advancement of our platform and completely enhance the customer experience in a fast-casual & full-service restaurant or bar setting, as well as providing large tangible operational benefits to merchants. Glance currently estimates that, with these features, users can save an average of 10 to 25 minutes per visit in a full-service restaurant environment, blurring the line between quick service and full-service dining durations. In addition to providing a superior experience for their customers, this can also dramatically increase table turnover during peak times for restaurants, thus driving more revenue and impacting their bottom line. We have been testing these products at select locations and have secured initial launch locations. Based on our market studies and feedback, we are optimistic that there will be significant demand for these new products and we have added new sales resources while also working with resellers to accelerate the roll-out of these products.
Glance PayMe™
In late 2018, the Company announced the launch of the Glance PayMe™ platform, making it available for download to allow small businesses and freelancers to manage and accept mobile payments — via QR Code, Bluetooth proximity sensor, Pay by Photo and Digital Invoice. In mid-January of this year, the Company released an update to the Glance PayMe™ app, streamlining the onboarding process to achieve a more fluid sign-up experience and resulting in a greater onboarding completion rate. We’re very encouraged by the response to our digital advertising for this product and its resulting impact on downloads, indicating interest in the types of services Glance PayMe™ brings to small businesses and freelancers. We are also gathering great feedback on new features to add which can unlock more value for small businesses, including making payments even easier for one-time consumers. We intend to continue improving the capabilities of the iOS version of Glance PayMe™ based on this consumer feedback and, subsequent to incorporating these features into the iOS version, we will look to release an Android version of Glance PayMe™.
Glance Coin and Blockchain Initiatives
In 2018, we released our White Paper on Glance Coin, launched our “Pay With Bitcoin” feature and filed a provisional patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office directed at methods, systems and techniques for cryptographic token transfers. This patent application is for a foundational technology to lower costs and improve speed and efficiency of cryptocurrency transactions, even where the value of the transaction may be relatively small, as well as to facilitate converting between cryptocurrencies whose transactions are recorded on different blockchains. It also facilitates storing information of different sensitivity levels on differently permissioned blockchains, which can be useful when privacy is important. During the year, we also added support for Bitcoin as a payment method in our system, enabling users to quickly and easily use Bitcoin to spend at Glance merchants.
As mentioned above, 2018 saw a decrease in the value of cryptocurrencies and a rise in the pessimism around the adoption of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Glance continues to believe that blockchain and cryptocurrencies are fundamentally transformative technologies, providing significant opportunities for the early pioneers in this space. We believe that our technology and patent application make us well positioned for market opportunities when there is a resurgence in activity and adoption of cryptocurrencies and blockchain.
Anti-Fraud Technology
Fraud is a serious issue for many merchants, and unfortunately, most payment methods pass the fraud risk onto the merchant. That is why we designed important innovations in fraud prevention, which continue to perform far beyond our expectations. Fraud prevention may be one of the most important features of our intellectual property to date. Since Glance launched the current version of our proprietary fraud prevention technology, our platform has experienced less than 0.018% of its transactions being fraudulent across all of its live locations (which includes even what is called ‘friendly fraud’ whereby users mistakenly identify transactions as fraudulent). We believe our anti-fraud technology represents a significant accomplishment and market edge and we believe it is one of the requirements to unlock the benefits of mobile payments.
Cost and Controls
As previously disclosed, management has been in the process of prioritizing its expenditures to improve efficiency. Significant changes have been implemented to better utilize its cash resources. Specifically, the Company has reduced costs related to external advisors and restructured our team to focus on our core technologies and sales and marketing of our new features. We will continue to review and prioritize our expenditures to best use our cash resources.
Assets
As a result of our efforts to better utilize our cash resources, Glance has sufficient capital in the bank to achieve our immediate goals and continue to build out our technology platform. In addition to our cash resources from previous financings, Glance owns a significant number of shares in a number of companies including The Yield Growth Corp., Loop Insights Inc. and Euro Asia Pay Holdings Inc. - all of which have raised significant amounts of capital. Glance has the option to raise funds through liquidating its shareholdings in these entities when appropriate.
Partnerships
In 2018, Glance signed agreements with several partners including Merchant Advance Capital Limited Partnership and Fobisuite Technologies Inc. Glance also ended its partnership with Brewhound Inc. Glance continues to seek new partners with complementary technology and we are exploring licensing opportunities of our technology into geographies and verticals in which we currently do not have a presence.
Summary
By removing our corporate distractions, adding new products and capabilities to our technology, growing new merchants and consumers, opening our products to new segments, and improving capacity for monetization, we feel we have made solid progress. We are convinced that our new products are dramatic improvements over conventional ordering, payment, & loyalty experiences. Based on our experiences in testing these new products, we are confident that products such as these will become the dominant form of payment and we are working hard to ensure that Glance is the leading company to deliver this future.
We value all of our merchants, users, and shareholders, and we thank you for your continued support. I know I speak for everyone at Glance when I say we are excited and grateful to have you with us as we continue to move forward.
Sincerely,
Desmond Griffin
CEO
Glance Technologies Inc.
About Glance Technologies Inc.
Glance Technologies is the owner of Glance Pay™ and Glance PayMe™, a pair of complementary smartphone payment applications that enable merchants to provide their customers with quick secure payments, digital rewards, and a better overall customer experience.
For more information about Glance, please go to www.glance.tech.
For more information, contact:
Paola Ashton
VP Business Development
(833) 338-0299
investors@glancepay.com
Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking information or forward-looking statements (collectively "forward-looking information") within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information is typically identified by words such as: “may”, "believe", “thinks”, "expect", “exploring”, “expand”, “could”, "anticipate", "intend", "estimate", “plan”, “pursue”, "potentially", “projected”, “should”, “will” and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. These forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties, relate to, among other things, the discussion of Glance’s business strategies and its expectations concerning future operations, the expectation that “Order from Table™” and “Real-Time Bill™” will be successfully launched, Glance’s estimates with respect to the time saved on average by a user using “Order from Table™” and “Real-Time Bill™” and Glance’s expectations that restaurants will be able to dramatically turn tables over faster with “Order from Table™” and drive revenues, Glance’s expectations regarding the demand for “Order from Table™” and “Real-Time Bill™” features, the development and launch of the Android version of Glance PayMeTM, that Glance’s technology and patent application make it well positioned when blockchain and cryptocurrencies see a resurgence in adoption and activity, that Glance has sufficient capital in the bank to achieve its immediate goals and continue to build out its technology platform, that Glance has the option to raise funds through liquidating its shareholdings in The Yield Growth Corp., Loop Insights Inc. and Euro Asia Pay Holdings Inc., that products such as Glance’s new products will become the dominant form of payment. Although Glance considers these forward-looking statements to be reasonable based on information currently available to it, they may prove to be incorrect, and the forward-looking statements in this release are subject to numerous risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause future results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. Such risk factors include, among other things, risks that Glance’s software and applications may contain security problems, security vulnerabilities, or defects in design or manufacture, including “bugs” and other problems that could interfere with the intended operation of its software, risks related to the volatility of customer demand for Glance’s products, and the possibility that the expected benefits from the launch of new features will not be realized, regulatory risks related to cryptocurrencies, risks related to the adoption of blockchain technology and use of cryptocurrencies, unforeseen costs and expenses, risks related to Glance’s ability to liquidate its shareholdings in The Yield Growth Corp., Loop Insights Inc. and Euro Asia Pay Holdings Inc., and the Company’s ability to raise additional capital needed to fund operations. The forward-looking information in this press release is also based on certain estimates, forecasts and projections, as well as expectations, beliefs and assumptions, including, among other things, that Glance will be able to achieve its business and technology development objectives. For additional information with respect to these and other factors and assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements in this press release, see the section entitled “Risk Factors” in the most recent Annual Information Form and Prospectus of Glance, which may be accessed through Glance's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Glance cautions investors that any forward-looking information provided by Glance is not a guarantee of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Undue reliance should not be placed on such forward-looking information, as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which they are based will occur.