Shares in SafeCharge are down almost 1% despite it producing an improved full-year pre-tax profit of $26.6m, from $22.9m, and said it had made a good start to 2017.

Statutory revenues for specialist in advanced payment technologies rose to $104.1m for the 12-month period, up from $99.8m. Its total dividend was 16.47 cents, from 11.30 cents previously.

Following a successful year and building on the strong trading and operational momentum achieved in Q4, the group has made a good start to 2017,” it said. Transaction volumes continue to grow in our core payment processing and acquiring platform and the Group has a strong sales pipeline.

SafeCharge said it continued to generate significant free cash flow, which was being returned to shareholders through via dividends.

The directors look forward with confidence to 2017 and beyond,” it said in a statement. Looking ahead, SafeCharge said it expected 2017 revenues to be about $115m-$118m, with adjusted EBITDA of about $36m-$38m. “This will be driven by continued growth from our existing client base and over $1bn in annualised processing volumes from new clients due to start processing in 2017.” Shares in Safecharge were up 0.64% to 231p each.