PCI-PAL trading update: ARR jumps 27% as FY26 beats forecasts

PCI-PAL PLC has delivered a punchy FY26 trading update, with the secure payments software group saying both revenue and adjusted EBITDA are expected to come in ahead of current market consensus.

The update covers the financial year ended 30 June 2026 and is based on unaudited management accounts, so investors will still need to wait for the full audited numbers. Even so, the direction of travel is clear: PCI Pal is growing its recurring revenue base, holding on to customers, and entering FY27 with what management describes as strong momentum.

The original company announcement also gives a useful read-through on the group’s investment strategy, particularly around partners, marketing and product development.

The key numbers from PCI-PAL’s FY26 update

PCI Pal is a global cloud provider of secure payment solutions. In simple terms, its technology helps organisations take payments securely across customer communication channels such as voice, chat, messaging, social media and email.

Here are the main figures from the FY26 trading update:

Metric	FY26	FY25	Change
Annual Recurring Revenue	£24.4 million	£19.3 million	+27% organically
Annual Recurring Revenue, constant currency	Not disclosed	Not disclosed	+29%
Contracted ARR	£27.5 million	£22.2 million	+24%
Contracted ARR, constant currency	Not disclosed	Not disclosed	+26%
Gross Revenue Retention	96%	95%	+1 percentage point
Revenue	£24.6 million estimated	£22.5 million	+9%
Revenue, constant currency and comparable basis	Not disclosed	Not disclosed	Approximately +14%
Adjusted EBITDA	Approximately £1.1 million	£2.3 million	Lower year on year
Year-end cash	£4.0 million	£3.8 million	Higher year on year
Debt	Debt-free	Not disclosed	Debt-free at year end

Annual Recurring Revenue, or ARR, is the annualised value of recurring subscription-style revenue. For a software business, it is one of the more useful forward-looking measures because it gives investors a feel for the size of the repeatable revenue base.

PCI Pal’s ARR rose 27% organically to £24.4 million, or 29% on a constant currency basis. Constant currency strips out foreign exchange movements to give a cleaner view of underlying growth.

Contracted ARR, or CARR, increased 24% to £27.5 million. This includes contracted recurring revenue and is important because it helps underpin future revenue visibility. Management specifically says the higher CARR supports high levels of revenue visibility into FY27.

Ahead of market forecasts

The headline point for investors is that PCI Pal expects to beat current market consensus for FY26.

The board says current market consensus is £23.7 million of revenue and £0.85 million of adjusted EBITDA. Against that, PCI Pal expects revenue of £24.6 million and adjusted EBITDA of approximately £1.1 million.

That puts expected revenue around £0.9 million ahead of consensus, while adjusted EBITDA is roughly £0.25 million ahead.

Adjusted EBITDA means earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, with additional adjustments. PCI Pal states that its adjusted EBITDA is before non-operating expenses, depreciation and amortisation, foreign exchange movements, and share option charges.

For retail investors, the useful point is that adjusted EBITDA gives a view of operating profitability before several accounting and non-operating items. It is not the same as statutory profit, and the statutory profit or loss figure was not disclosed in this trading update.

Why adjusted EBITDA is down despite the beat

One nuance matters here. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be ahead of consensus, but still lower year on year.

PCI Pal expects adjusted EBITDA of approximately £1.1 million for FY26, compared with £2.3 million in FY25. That decline reflects continued investment in the business, which the company says had been previously indicated.

Chief Executive James Barham said PCI Pal made a deliberate decision at the start of FY26, as part of a new three-year plan, to increase investment across its partner go-to-market model, marketing capability and product development resources.

That is the trade-off in this update. The positive is that these investments appear to be supporting stronger forward-looking growth metrics. The caution is that higher investment has reduced adjusted EBITDA in the short term.

For growth software companies, that balance is often the central question: is the business spending more because it has attractive growth opportunities, or is it spending more just to stand still? This update points to the former, but investors will want to see the full results and FY27 progression to test that properly.

Customer retention looks healthy

Gross Revenue Retention, or GRR, increased to 96% from 95%.

GRR measures how much existing customer revenue is retained before upsells or expansions. A high figure suggests customers are sticking with the product, which is especially important for recurring revenue businesses.

PCI Pal says the improvement reflects strong customer retention, including the resecuring of two of its largest customers on new multi-year contracts. It also points to high reliability from its global cloud platform, with uptime exceeding 99.999%, and strong partner relationships.

That customer retention point is a notable positive. A company can win new business, but if existing customers leak away at the same time, the growth engine becomes much less attractive. Here, PCI Pal is saying the core customer base remains sticky.

AI payments angle adds interest

The RNS also highlights demand from AI-powered voice and chatbot environments.

PCI Pal says it has seen strong demand for its core secure payment solutions across traditional human-to-human interactions and increasingly within AI-powered voice and chat bot environments.

This is a useful strategic detail. The company is positioning its platform as an independent payment and compliance layer for secure, regulated payment orchestration across voice, chat and other digital conversational interactions.

Management says it is beginning to see incremental new business opportunities through standalone conversational AI partners. That could become an important growth channel if AI-driven customer service continues to expand.

That said, the announcement does not quantify revenue from AI-related opportunities. The size of the opportunity, conversion rates, margins and timing are not disclosed. Investors should treat the AI angle as strategically interesting, rather than as a separately proven financial driver at this stage.

US momentum is a key watchpoint

The US is called out as particularly strong.

James Barham said momentum in the US has been supported by partner activity and increased direct marketing. He also pointed to a growing number of enterprise customer wins during the year and a stronger sales pipeline.

That matters because enterprise wins can be valuable for a software business, especially where they bring recurring revenue and partner expansion potential. However, the number of enterprise wins, the value of those contracts and the size of the sales pipeline are not disclosed in the RNS.

So the signal is positive, but not yet fully quantified.

Balance sheet position

PCI Pal ended the year with £4.0 million of cash, up from £3.8 million at the FY25 year end. The group remains debt-free.

For a growing AIM software company that is increasing investment, a debt-free balance sheet is helpful. It gives management more room to invest without immediate reliance on borrowings.

The RNS does not disclose free cash flow, operating cash flow, net cash movement detail, or any guidance on future funding needs. Those will be worth checking when the full FY26 results are published.

What investors should take from the update

This is a strong trading update from PCI Pal.

The positives are easy to spot: ARR up 27%, CARR up 24%, revenue and adjusted EBITDA ahead of consensus, GRR improving to 96%, cash higher, and no debt. The company also appears to be gaining traction through partners, particularly in the US, while keeping a foot in the fast-developing AI customer interaction space.

The main caveat is profitability. Adjusted EBITDA is ahead of expectations, but materially lower than FY25 because PCI Pal has chosen to invest more heavily. That may be the right call if it accelerates durable organic growth, but investors will want evidence that the spending continues to translate into ARR, CARR and ultimately cash generation.

For now, this update gives PCI Pal shareholders a cleaner growth story heading into FY27: stronger recurring revenue, better retention, and management confidence in continued organic growth.