Webull has set its sights on signing up a million SA clients within the next three years, putting China’s retail share trading platform on a collision course with Purple Group’s EasyEquities.
“We think there’s a great opportunity here. There’s definitely an appetite for it,” said Ricardo da Silva, who has been tasked with setting up the platform in SA.
“Being able to access real shares from SA, you often have to send your funds offshore, and there’s a cost element to it that eats into your investment capital, right? It eats into your returns. And we want to come and change that and provide that opportunity to easily do that in an affordable way.”
Da Silva’s comments to Business Day Spotlight, a podcast that has hosted some most high-profile names in SA such as Lincoln Mali, CEO of Lesaka and Alex Thomson, co-founder at Naked Insurance, are likely to make waves in boardrooms of EasyEquities, which is credited with opening up equity trading to for ordinary people.
EasyEquities has attracted partnerships with big brands such as Capitec and spurred banks such as FirstRand’s FNB, and Standard Bank to rethink their equity trading strategies.
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Still, EasyEquities would up against a $7.4bn platform that has made a splash overseas, riding the meme stock wave and zero-commission trading frenzy, It has the determination and deep pockets of private equity outfits such as General Atlantic, Coatue Management, Lightspeed Venture Partners and J Rothschild Capital Management behind it.
“EasyEquities is a fantastic platform. They’ve done extremely well in SA. They’ve shown us the opportunities that are here. But at the end of the day, we do operate in quite a different space to them,” da Silva said.
“Our platform combines institutional-grade tools with low-cost investing. I think what we bring that’s significantly different is a platform that is technology-driven and offers lower investment charges. While there will be an overlap of clients, I assume, I do think we’re targeting a different kind of client than they are.”
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