NXT-ID Inc
(NASDAQ:NXTD)
President and CEO: Gino Pereira
Podcast: Play in new window
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS:
WSA: Good day from Wall Street. This is Juan Costello, Senior Analyst with the Wall Street Analyzer. Joining us today is Gino Pereira, the President and CEO of NXT-ID Incorporated. The company trades on NASDAQ, ticker symbol is NXTD. Thanks for joining us today, Gino.
Gino Pereira: My pleasure, Juan.
WSA: Great. So for some of our listeners that didn’t catch our interview a few years back, can you give us a history and overview of the company?
Gino Pereira: Sure. NXT-ID is a company that specializes in biometrics, payment technologies, miniaturization, and sensor technologies, as well as encryption, so that’s kind of our core competence. It’s come out of a long history with doing work for the Department of Defense and the National Institute of Health and we’ve taken that kind of background and devoted it to new products, particularly in the mobile space.
WSA: Great. Can you bring us up to speed on your most recent news? You had a patent allowance on some password encryption services.
Gino Pereira: Right. We have a broad range of technologies — payment technologies — which you can see in a product that’s available today called Wocket. It’s available at www.wocketwallet.com and it’s a digital payment device that is designed to replace the wallet that you have in your pocket today, but ensuring that all of your payment cards are encrypted and secure within that wallet. That’s one iteration of our payment technology. We have other iterations that are coming out, such as a card only, or potentially making payments directly from a phone, etc.
The other side of our technologies tend to do with security and tokenization. The patent that has just been allowed is a technology that allows us to — you know when you make a transaction it’s all fine and good to potentially encrypt the transaction, but what would be really nice is to know that both people that are at either end of the transaction are really who they say they are and there’s nothing in the middle. That’s the ideal, and that’s what our patent does. It essentially verifies that the people at both ends of the transaction, before you send it down, are authorized people to be part of that transaction.
WSA: Right, certainly. So in terms of the key trends that you’re focusing on right now in the sector, how are you positioning the company with some of your products, such as the Wocket Smart Wallet, to capitalize?
Gino Pereira: So there are 13 million people a year that are victims of identity theft and 55% of those cases come from a lost or stolen wallet. So Wocket definitely helps to address identity loss due to a lost or stolen wallet. It’s a technology platform and it demonstrates a lot of the strengths of what we have technically as a company. What we found that has a lot of appeal, on a similar basis, is a standalone multipurpose credit card, debit card, loyalty card, or smartcard, if you like. Rather than a wallet as a whole, it’s less expensive and functionally it’s fairly similar. So that’s a product that we’ll be launching this year and we actually have signed a contract with a distributor called World Ventures Holdings that is a large international travel club with half a million members and they will be purchasing the card from us for the use of their members.
So we have a purchase order from them for $15 million for delivery this year. And we’re actually talking to a number of other organizations that have the same benefits, some type of membership or subscription basis, where our product is a good fit. So we’ll continue to roll out that model because it’s a really good scalable model for us. In addition, our payment technology is also applicable to be applied on phones and smart watches as well. So we’re taking that and we’re speaking to significant manufacturers in that space today with a view to putting our payment technology on their devices.
WSA: Right. And what are main factors that you feel make NXT-ID unique from some of the other players in the sector?
Gino Pereira: Well I think what makes us unique is we actually have a broad range of capabilities. Not only do we have payment technologies with a particular patented antenna that we’ve designed that allows us to make payments — digital encrypted payments — at almost all terminals in the United States, but then we also have the biometric side of our technology, which allows us to verify people beforehand. So I think we have a very complete solution.
WSA: And what are some of the key goals and milestones that you’re hoping to accomplish over the course of the next six to twelve months?
Gino Pereira: I think this year you’ll see us developing more and more strategic partnerships with large companies. So World Ventures is the first in that stage, and we’re working on engaging with larger global companies. Some of the milestones for this year are you’ll see an increasing number of those types of distribution or partnership deals being done by us.
WSA: Good. Perhaps you could talk about your background experience and that of the key management once again, for some of our listeners that didn’t catch the last interview.
Gino Pereira: Sure. I am a Chartered Accountant by background, I also have an MBA in Finance from the UK and I’ve spent almost all my career as an executive in finance or operationally. I’ve worked in the Far East, Europe, and the United States and I’ve been an executive in large multinational companies. I’ve done about five or six startups as well and I left that world to become an entrepreneur a number of years ago. My partner, David Tunnell, who is our Chief Technology Officer, I worked with at a previous company. He has a deep background in biometrics and encryption. He formally attended the National Cryptologic School, where he also did lecture in cryptology; he has worked in that field his entire career, and holds numerous patents in that area. And Vincent Miceli is our Chief Financial Officer with a broad and deep background with public and very large private companies. In addition, I would like to mention our advisory board consists of William Fields, the former CEO of Wal-Mart. We have Larry Flanagan, who is the current CEO of AARP Member Services, and formally Chief Marketing Officer of MasterCard International, and Ken Moy, who is currently in charge of digital payments at Subway, and who was formally the Chief Emerging Payments Officer at MasterCard, as well.
WSA: Great. And in terms of investors and the financial community, what are some of the key drivers that you wish perhaps they better understood about the company or your sector?
Gino Pereira: I think the key driver for us is understanding the breadth of our technology, that we’re not a one-product-company necessarily, just based on Wocket, which is the first product that we’ve introduced. We have a number of technologies and products that we are bringing to market over the next 12 months and, as I say, we have purchase orders for some of those and they’ll see a number of products emerging from us.
WSA: Great. So once again joining us today is Gino Pereira, the President and CEO for NXT-ID Incorporated. The company trades on NASDAQ. Ticker symbol is NXTD. Currently trading at 50 cents a share, market cap is about $15 million. Before we conclude here, Gino, to recap some of your key points, why do you believe investors should consider the company as a good investment opportunity today?
Gino Pereira: I think if we look at our historical share price, we’re trading close to our historical lows. The company is a new company, it’s a young company, and it’s evolving. Our business prospects are better than they’ve ever been in the history of the company.
WSA: Well we certainly look forward to continue to track the company’s growth and report on your upcoming progress. We’d like to thank you for taking the time to join us today, Gino, and update our investor audience on NXT-ID. It’s always good to have you on.
Gino Pereira: Great. Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure, Juan.
