In a year overshadowed by the Covid-19 pandemic, NRD Companies seized the opportunity and strengthened its leadership in the E-Registries market while enhancing its consulting services
NRD Companies, a global group of information technology companies, specializing in the creation of GovTec and FinTech solutions and the provisioning of subject matter consultancy services, has recently released its 2021 annual report. The company’s revenue in 2021 of €6.35 million was only slightly down (9.2%) from 2020. EBITDA was €368 thousand compared to €602 thousand in the previous year while operating profit amounted to €0.1 million.
Mindaugas Glodas, CEO of NRD Companies explains that three main factors contributed to the financial performance. “The size of our contracts decreased due to Covid-19 travel restrictions and our inability to deploy our experts worldwide in support of our clients. Secondly, as a company operating in the Eurozone, notable fluctuation in USD/EUR rates had a significant adverse impact. Lastly, we decided to divest ourselves from the hardware resale business and focus on high value subject matter consultancy services. We have been able to offset the decline in certain revenue streams with higher revenue from customers in the registries, financial sector and government sectors.”
A unique business model
NRD Companies, announced that revenue from the E-Registers segment has been growing since 2019 and in 2021, accounted for 33% of its income. The company’s business model includes providing an array of E-Registry solutions through its state-of-the-art Unified Registry Platform (URP), an internationally proven BPMN and SOA based integral platform for building advanced registry solutions under various jurisdictions.
URP’s diverse modules include the Business Registration Solution (BURSEG), a modern web-based solution that serves as an intuitive platform where businesses/individuals and government meet for customer- centric business registration and other related services. Other modules include BOREG, a Beneficial Ownership Registry solution, LIREG, a licensing solution, and TRANSEC, a Secured Transactions Registry solution. With more than 150 E-Registry related projects implemented in 33 countries, NRD Companies is considered to be an industry leader in market share by country.
“This is our business strategy and main competitive advantage. Entering a country via our diverse E-Registries solutions provides us with a good understanding of the national digital ecosystem and thus allows us to expand our offerings to other e-gov services and systems such as corporate registries, licensing, secured transactions, industrial property registration and many others. Later, we supplement our offering with modern and user-friendly public e-services, simplified and remote client onboarding, and modern online payment methods so that the Government institutions can become truly digital customer orientated modern institutions.” – stated Glodas.
2021 — A year of accomplishments
Beyond NRD Companies’ numerous international projects in 28 countries, the realignment of company activities last year included a flurry of local activities in Lithuania with clients including the Bank of Lithuania, The National Land Service, and the State Tax Inspectorate.
The newly created Consulting Division was tasked with developing competencies in addition to offering E-Registry related consulting services in new areas such as Digital Identity, Civil Registration, e-Government, and e-Services for the benefit of citizens.
As an example of its consultancy projects, NRD Companies completed developing an action plan for implementing a unique ID system in four Member States of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS): the Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The OECS unique ID System seeks to facilitate cross-border movement of people and goods and refine e-governance systems.
And in Guyana, the national Government chose NRD Companies not only to create a strategy for modernizing the organization of state ICT infrastructure but also to provide invaluable consulting services. Following the implementation of the recommendations, the state ICT infrastructure would become the basis for government e-services that will benefit every citizen, particularly those living in remote and underserved areas. In the long run, it will set foundations to contribute to UN Sustainable Development Goals, such as lower poverty, better health and well-being of the population, reduced inequalities, increased gender equality, and others.
Another development in the past year and as part of a strategic restructuring in a cluster of companies owned by INVL Technology, NRD Companies sold most of the shares of NRD Bangladesh to NRD Cyber Security.
Conclusion
A spokesman said:
“The purpose of the products and services being developed by our group is to help growing economies reduce the digital divide and increase financial inclusion. These objectives are inline with the UN’s sustainable development goals, giving citizens access to a range of financial and e-government services.
“Our recent technical assistance project in the Philippines, to streamline and digitize business registration procedures at the local and national levels, emphasizes this goal. It seeks to improve the enabling environment for businesses and support inclusive, private sector-led economic growth. Impacts of the project will include, amongst other things, an increased number of registered businesses at lower cost to the private sector, an enhanced anti-money laundering (AML) regime, the implementation of compliance routines, and the development of modern tools for monitoring and ensuring gender equality.
”NRD Companies will continue to adhere to its objective to remain a leading E-Registries solutions provider alongside providing accompanying advisory solutions needed to transform developing countries” concludes Glodas.
ABOUT NRD COMPANIES
NRD Companies is a global IT and consulting group of companies, specializing in governance and economic digital infrastructure development. Headquartered in Norway, the group unites companies operating in Fintech, GovTech, and practice-based consulting areas in aiding countries to reach UN sustainable development goals. NRD companies have a successful track record of implementing projects, such as e-service delivery platforms, national post digitalization, tax administration platforms, and other digital solutions, in all 5 continents. The Group is a recognized leader in the industry and is controlled by the INVL Technology UTIB. NRD Companies is a parent company for the following subsidiary corporations: Norway Registers Development AS, NRD Systems, NRD Rwanda, ETRONIKA, Infobank Uganda. More information: www.nrdcompanies.com