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11 July 2022

Cornerstone FS plc

("Cornerstone" or the "Company" or the "Group")

Trading Update for H1 2022

Significant increase in H1 revenue and on track for substantial full year growth

Cornerstone FS plc (AIM: CSFS), the cloud-based provider of international payment, currency risk management and electronic account services to SMEs, provides an unaudited update on trading for the six months ended 30 June 2022.

As announced on 20 April 2022, the Group achieved its highest ever quarterly revenue for the first three months of the year. Cornerstone is pleased to report that this momentum was sustained into the second quarter with revenue exceeding that of the first quarter. As a result, the Group expects to report total unaudited revenue for H1 2022 of approximately £1.9m, representing growth of 129% over the first half of 2021. Accordingly, the Group remains on track for delivering substantial revenue growth for the full year, in line with market expectations.    

Revenue generated by clients that the Group serves directly continued to increase during the first half to approximately 75% of total revenue compared with 28% for the first half of the previous year. A key contributor to this was the Group's Asia team that was brought on board in the second half of 2021. This change to majority direct revenue has had a positive impact on the Group's gross margin, which is expected to improve to approximately 61% for H1 2022 from 38.1% for H1 2021 and 51.6% for FY 2021.

As noted in the Group's final results announcement on 30 June 2022, the Group had bank balances of approximately £0.28m at the date of the approval of the financial statements and convertible loan note facilities of a further £0.45m that are available to be called on 20-days' notice (£0.1m of which cannot be called until 13 January 2023). As a result, and with the Group carefully managing its cash resources, with the support of its professional advisers and its key stakeholders, who are creditors of the business, the Board believes that the Group has sufficient access to funding to continue as a going concern until the end of the current year.     

As a result, the Board remains confident in the Group's prospects and looks forward to updating the market on further progress in due course.

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About Cornerstone FS plc

Cornerstone FS plc is a payments focused fintech business that makes managing currency simple for SMEs. It provides international payment, currency risk management and electronic account services using a proprietary cloud-based multi-currency payments platform. These services are delivered directly and via white label partners on a SaaS basis to UK-based SMEs that engage in international trade. Cornerstone also serves some high-net worth individual clients.

Headquartered in the City of London with offices in Tunbridge Wells and Dubai, Cornerstone is admitted to trading on AIM under the trading symbol 'CSFS'. For more information, please visit www.cornerstonefs.com.