A good question, michaelhp, and a bit lightly dismissed I...

A good question, michaelhp, and a bit lightly dismissed I thought. As a holder of both companies (much more $ in ISX though), I'd like to offer an opinion. The way I see it is that there is room for both companies to do well. Each operate in a similar way but currently in different markets. I am confident that both can grow and become profitable. Why can't they be like a CBA and WBC?

As hotmix87 a poster on ISX wrote "KYCKr is a Know Your Business provider, which is a sub category of KYC. They don't do retail level identification, as they focus on remediation of KYC data for banks etc. Very different".

I don't have any expertise so I compared Paterson's reports on both companies.Some differences that I have picked out are from the reports are:
KYK:
The key differentiator of the KYK platform is it directly sources authoritative data in real-time from the company registries, allowing clients to ensure they have the most up to date client information on record."and "KYK primary focus is on the larger international banks and companies with large Customer Books and the greatest KYC issues."
and "while there may be little barriers to entry in actually obtaining the information from the business registries, the key differentiator provided by KYK is being able to source the information from multiple registries globally in real-time. This wide breadth of registries offered by KYK allows institutions a one stop shop solution of registry and identification needs, and the real-time nature of data allows customer books to be the most up-to date and held in the best standing with regulators.
Additionally, KYK’s ability to cleanse and remediate the current customer’s books is a competitive advantage not offered by the Company’s peers. We believe KYK’s software should be attractive to financial institutions and its key differentials and advantages should be clear to compliance officers and senior management."

To me, ISX are very different - they have a great range of patents, an E-MONEY LICENSE, PAYDENTITY, and focus on credit cards, forex, gaming, and merchants.

Paterson's, ISX:
"E-MONEY LICENSE
ISX awarded an e-Money Institution (EMI) license by the Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC). This license allows ISX to provide the following services within the European Economic Area (EEA):
 Execute payment transactions (including credit transfers, direct debits, through payment cards)
 Issuing and / or acquiring of payment instruments, including credit / debit / virtual cards
 Issuance of e-Money, being digital cash stored on an electronic device, virtual card or remotely at a server
 Money remittance; FX services; Credit for a maximum of 12 months; and Ancillary services
ISX expects to focus on the first three services initially.
(now) finalising commercial arrangements with Visa Inc., MasterCard Worldwide, JCB and other card schemes.
As an interim measure, ISX has already identified partnership opportunities where it may use the technical and payment settlement infrastructure of other EEA based payment service providers, while contracting and servicing merchants under its own license. Merchants can therefore be contracted directly with ISXPay to enable faster access to settlement fees.
The E-Money licence is the last significant hurdle in the execution of ISX’s strategy and allows it to offer its full range of services including: Paydentity, payment gateway, card acquiring and card issuing services in the EU. This will also complement the partnership that ISX has with NAB for card acquiring services in Australia and New Zealand.
and
"WHAT CAN INVESTORS EXPECT FROM XM
XM is a retail FX market operator that generates c$12bn in daily turnover. It is the second largest operator in this sector next to Saxo Bank. It is gargantuan in size and the commencement of operations on the ISX platform is a significant endorsement of ISX’s technology and approach to identity verification for high volume highly regulated online merchants, as well as a faster cheaper payment processing and fund settlement system."

Hope that is useful.