Purple Group, the owner of popular trading platform EasyEquities, increased its active retail client base 50% to 763,233 in the year to end-August despite the recent turbulence in global markets and the cost-of-living crisis.
EasyEquities endeared itself to retail investors at the height of Covid-19 when lockdown restrictions confined people to their homes, leading to explosion in the user numbers.
“For us, it was a year that was much tougher than previous years in that there were a couple of factors that influenced customers’ ability to invest, most notably the return to work and inflationary pressures associated with fuel prices,” CEO Charles Savage said in an interview.
“But it was a good year if you think about what we achieved. We onboarded as many customers as we did the year before: about 250,000 active customers joined the platform in the past 12 months.”
But the active client base still fell short of the 1-million milestone the trading platform was hoping to achieve by the end of the review period.
EasyEquities plans to launch a life insurance product for investors, as well as securitised lending based on the assets that clients have on its platform. To build scale, it has also formed a partnership with Capitec Bank, Discovery Bank and Telkom in an effort to increase customer numbers on EasyEquities.
“Over the course of the next few years, we will launch more and more products,” in an effort to increase revenue, Savage said, adding that the company runs a yearly survey, which asks its investors about the products and services that they desire.
Launched in 2014, EasyEquities is credited for democratising the SA investment landscape.
Its investment coverage was expanded to include SA unit trusts and UK and European shares and exchange traded funds (ETFs), adding to already extensive offering of US, Australian and SA shares.
EasyEquities clients maintained a net inflow during the year, adding 15% to their investments despite the pullback in markets from October 2021. The investment return for clients averaged 4% during the review period, compared with 21% previously.
Group revenue increased 33.8% to R274m but profit attributable to ordinary shareholders dropped 0.8% to R44m. Group operating expenses rose 38.1% to R213m, driven by a 50.4% increase in new active clients and an investment of R37m to build capacity for future client growth.
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