Press Office

In 2019 Asseco Poland conducted 64 R&D projects. The vast majority of them has been financed by the company's own resources, which confirms its high potential in developing and implementing innovations. In addition, it has implemented 4 projects with the use of the EU funds.

Currently, the largest R&D project is the construction of the Asseco Innovation Hub in Rzeszów. This emerging, modern R&D centre will be a place where teams conducting research and development in such innovative fields as artificial intelligence, telemedicine, electromobility, the Internet of Things or drones' control systems will be gathered. Their findings will be used to develop proprietary technologies and IT products for the power industry, telecommunications and media, healthcare, banking, agriculture, enterprises, public administration - said Grzegorz Warzocha, Director of EU Projects Office, Asseco Poland. Projects related to broadly defined IT security will also be developed there. The whole value of the project is over PLN 65 million net (gross is over PLN 80 million), of which over PLN 26 million will be provided by the Ministry of Investment and Development from the Intelligent Development Operational Programme. The implementation of this investment will translate into increased innovation and competitiveness of the whole region - he added.

According to the Rzeczpospolita daily, the innovativeness of Polish companies has been constantly growing. The Central Statistical Office's (GUS) research showed that in 2016-2018 over 26% of manufacturing companies and 21% of service providers carried out research and development activities.

Asseco Enterprise Banking Platform - Digi Trade has been recognized in the category of products using artificial intelligence. The solution is a response to the growing trend of using the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology in Trade Finance. With OCR support, the application enables, among other things, quick and effective recognition of invoices and commercial documents, and simplifies the decision making regarding granted limits.
It is estimated that currently the operating costs of banks in the Trade Finance area amount to USD 12-16 million. Digitization of processes may reduce them to USD 8-13 million in 3-4 years, said Marta Mróz-Sipiora, Product Manager, Asseco Poland. For this cost reduction to be possible, banks will need modern solutions, such as the Asseco Enterprise Banking Platform - Digi Trade, which allows, among others, for secure and fast electronic transfers of orders, interactive communication with bank employees and has individual document templates, she added.
The winners of "Trade Finance and Supply Chain Finance Awards 2020" are selected from among banks and service providers from 94 countries.

Fifteen years have passed since Asseco began its international expansion. It was in 2004 when Adam Góral decided to purchase a large block of shares in the Slovakian company Asset Soft. This is how Asseco was created, which is now present in over 50 countries around the world. Jozef Klein, President of Slovakian company Asseco Central Europe and Asseco International, has been involved in the Group's development from the very beginning. On December 12, 2019, official event was held to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Polish-Slovakian cooperation.

It can be said that Asseco is a Polish-Slovakian project that we continue to develop thanks to, among other things, our long-standing cooperation with Josef Klein. This year marks the 15th anniversary of Asseco's entry into international markets. For me, this is still only the beginning, and ahead of us there are still many interesting acquisition projects and opportunities to create innovative products and services, said Adam Góral.

The last days of this year have turned out to be very exciting.
The Management Board of Cyfrowy Polsat has made us a proposal to begin talks on closer cooperation in the area of development and operation of IT systems by Asseco Poland for the Group's individual companies. Asseco Poland has both the products and the substantial potential to lead the Cyfrowy Polsat Group to the best IT solutions, so we were very satisfied with this proposal.

Adam Góral received the title of "Visionary of foreign expansion", awarded in the "Polish Company International Champion 2019" rank, which is organized by PwC and Puls Biznesu. Additionally, Asseco was distinguished in this ranking in the "Investor" category. The awards were received on behalf of the company by Adam Góral, President of the Management Board of Asseco Poland, and Artur Wiza, Vice President of the Management Board of Asseco Poland. The official gala was held on December 3, 2019 in Warsaw.

It is amazing that Poles, despite the fact that they suffered a lot in the previous system and are still unappreciated, are highly motivated to show the world that it is not the place where they were born, but passion and faith that makes it possible to achieve increasingly more successes - said Adam Góral.

The "Polish Company - International Champion" competition promotes the activity of Polish companies on world markets. Thanks to foreign investments and export activity, domestic companies are transformed into global entities, effectively compete on foreign markets and build Poland's brand.

The Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Technology holds honorary patronage over the plebiscite.

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For the purpose of assessing the financial and business position of Asseco, the key information are the basic figures published on a non-IFRS basis. They supplement the data reported in accordance with IFRS*. After three quarters of 2019, non-IFRS operating profit amounted to PLN 885.5 million and was higher by 19%, while non-IFRS net profit amounted to PLN 270.2 million.

We are satisfied with our results and the dynamic development of Asseco on international markets. In particular, we are pleased with the double-digit increases in revenues and operating profit. We see a positive impact of the implementation of our strategy, which is based on international expansion and diversification of our business. Asseco International achieved a 13% increase in sales to PLN 2.0 billion and improved its profitability. The Formula Systems Group also achieved a higher margin with a double-digit increase in revenues. Acquisitions carried out during the reported quarters give us interesting prospects for development on new markets as well as for expanding our offer of innovative IT products. We generated PLN 893.8 million in revenues in the Asseco Poland  segment. We are pleased with the signing of new, long-term contracts with public sector institutions and enterprises with a total value of several hundred million PLN. We also observed an increase in sales in the health sector, thanks to the implementation of new, important projects related to the digitization of this area. In addition, we achieved very good results in the banking sector, despite the high base of revenues generated in the same period in the previous year, said Rafał Kozłowski, Vice President of the Management Board of Asseco Poland.

The revenues of the Asseco Group are diversified by sectors, and in the first three quarters of 2019 they were the following: 39% (PLN 3.0 billion) generated by banking and finance, 38% (PLN 2.9 billion) by general business and 23% (PLN 1.8 billion) by public administration. Asseco is also geographically diversified and presents its results broken down by three segments: Formula Systems generated 62% of the Group's consolidated sales revenues (PLN 4.8 billion), Asseco International - 26% (PLN 2.0 billion), and Asseco Poland - 12% (PLN 0.9 billion).
Currently, the Group's order backlog for 2019 at the revenue level amounts to PLN 10.1 billion and is by 14% higher than the backlog presented in November 2018.