SMALL CAP IDEA: Why SSV Capital is like an 80ft bamboo tree

Ankur Ghosh uses the bamboo tree example to explain SSV Capital PLC’s rapid progress in recent months, as it reached a series of milestones leading up to a key turning point over the summer.

“For the first three years there is no visible activity to show that the plant is growing,” explains Ghosh. “And suddenly, in the fourth year, it shoots up to 80 feet high.”

For SSV, a lot of “underground activity” has taken place since its inception in 2020; work that has laid the foundations for what is happening in the here and now.

Thus, in recent months it has completed its listing on the JP Jenkins stock exchange; managed the smooth rollout of SSV SmartPay, its disruptive payments platform; and is set to launch its state-of-the-art SSV Real Estate offering and SSV Funds operations.

“Research and development, and strategizing these businesses, allowed us to go out and start raising money from July last year,” Ghosh says.

‘We have been very disciplined in our approach; The team behind me, very intelligent people, have been fantastic.’

The launch of SmartPay has been highly anticipated and could revolutionize the current infrastructure.

While contactless technology has been a boon for the consumer, with nearly 90 percent of the population using it for transactions, it is far from an optimal solution for merchants, who pay fees of up to 3 percent on each transaction.

SmartPay’s use of QR codes will reduce these charges by up to 70 percent as it takes advantage of the UK’s new Open Banking framework to bypass traditional APIs developed by Visa, MasterCard et al.

The exact acceptance of the soft launch is confidential. However, according to Ghosh, hundreds of early adopters are using SSV SmartPay in the soft launch phase, generating “hundreds of thousands of transactions.”

Meanwhile, smartphone apps began appearing in Apple and Google stores late last month and early this month as part of the rollout.

In July of this year things should accelerate. “We are talking about a large-scale promotional launch, where we are trying to adopt five to ten thousand merchants and therefore one million to two million transactions,” explains Ghosh.

“Now how these transactions will help merchants by reducing their significant transaction fees and increasing cash flow.”

The initial plan is to forge partnerships with existing payment solution providers, thereby serving as a conduit for business development.

This approach allows SmartPay to gain a foothold in a wide range of merchant categories without the need for a large dedicated sales force.

With up to 10,000 traders, SSV will have captured only a small slice of the UK market. In the longer term, the vision is much more ambitious: capturing 5 percent “and more” of the market, which would roughly equate to more than 50,000 merchants.

This would create a business with material income.

Outside of the payments ‘vertical’, there is a lot of activity. SSV Real Estate, its prop technology business, is preparing to launch.

It aims to democratize the way people invest in high-yield commercial property, offering a range of tools designed to diversify an investor’s portfolio, reduce associated risks and potentially increase profit potential.

And with everything SSV does, there is a sustainability twist to its methodology.

“We will adhere to strict guidelines on people, planet and prosperity,” says the SSV CEO. “We will be investing in commercial projects not only here in the UK but also in India and expanding into Australia and the US.”

SSV Funds will see the launch of its first fund in Luxembourg “within the first quarter”, which like cutting-edge technology will have sustainability at its core.

Progress has therefore been considerable of late, but reflects the cautious approach to strategy development that is now being implemented.

‘These are exciting times. But it’s only the beginning. There is a lot to do,” says Ghosh.