PCS eyes IP tax benefits as revenues soar

Plastic Card Services (PCS) has recorded its best ever start to a financial year after revenues for the first five months soared almost 43%.

Macclesfield, Cheshire-based PCS achieved total sales of £2.4m for the period from May to September, up 42.7% on the £1.7m it recorder between May and September 2013.

The revenue boost comes on the back of a number of significant contract wins, particularly for the new Card Shield product, for which PCS holds the exclusive worldwide manufacturing rights.

This means PCS gets the added benefit of a reduced rate of corporation tax on any profits from these accounts under the HMRC's Patent Box scheme, which will ultimately see tax on profits from patented inventions fall to 10% by FY 2017.

Managing director Rob Nicholls said: "The patent holder came to us via UK Trade & Investment and we contributed the knowledge and manufacturing processes to help bring that product to market.

"The development work started around 18 months ago and we launched Card Shield around six months ago. It works by killing any signal in the 13.56MHz range that all contactless signals are based on, so you can use it as a security device to prevent card skimming."

Because the technology is only effective within a distance of around 3mm, it can also be used to prevent card clash with things like TFL's Oyster cards simply by keeping your payment card and Card Shield on the opposite side of your wallet to your Oyster card.

Nicholls added that PCS will be taking the technology, which can also be used to safeguard new Biometric and e-passports, to the Cartes Secure Connexions trade show in Paris next month, where it will be exhibiting for the first time.

PCS has taken on four additional sales and account staff on the back of its recent contract wins and is targeting a turnover of £7m in 2015/16, up from a projected £5.7m this financial year.

Nicholls said that the firm's current growth was in line with expectations and added that PCS was investing around £100,000 a year in R&D to bring other new patented products to market.

"It's about investing in new innovation to keep value in the business," he said.