In the Card Issuing arena, the Australian Fuel Card business has benefited from high fuel prices experienced in the first half of the year, which are around 20% up on the corresponding period last year. In addition, the card base in Australia has continued to grow and is around 4% up on the same period last year.

The two Card Issuing acquisitions that were made at the end of 2005 have performed well. Both are slightly ahead of the internal expectations that we had for them at the time of acquisition, and both are demonstrating double digit profit growth compared with the same period last year, before they were acquired by ReD.

The Fraud Prevention & Payment Processing businesses have also done well overall in the first half of the year, with profit expected to be slightly up on the same period last year. The European business has had a very strong first half with particular success in the mobile telephony sector where new contracts and contract extensions have been signed with 3, O2 and Virgin Mobile. Card Not Present transaction levels processed by ReD are up 27% on the same period last year.

The Board is encouraged that trading in the first half of the year has continued the momentum of the first quarter, as reported in the AGM statement on 28 April, and remains slightly ahead of internal expectations at this stage. This performance augurs well for the full year.

It is expected ReD's Interim results for the six months to 30 June 2006 will be published in early September.