“Januworry” is traditionally a time when South Africans come face to face with financial reality — and for some of them this leads to an investment in stocks, according to share-buying platform EasyEquities.
Purple Group CEO Charles Savage told Business Times that when the group launched EasyEquities 11 years ago, the conventional wisdom was that first, South Africans were poor investors, and second, no-one had the time or money in January to think about investing.
But in fact January had become EasyEquities’ biggest month in terms of deposits and new registrations.
“It is almost like people wake up with a New Year’s resolution to start investing, and invest more every year,” Savage said. “Obviously, there are sectors of society that cannot afford to invest. But for our 1.1-million customers, January is their most active month.”
He said the vision was to make it possible for anyone to get into the stock market regardless of economic background or level of financial literacy.
The real innovation was to give everyone access, and to get access you needed just R1 to be able to invest in anything: in Amazon, in Naspers, in Capitec or Google. We fractionalised shares, and [this] made all assets and shares available to everyone
— Charles Savage
“The real innovation was to give everyone access, and to get access you needed just R1 to be able to invest in anything: in Amazon, in Naspers, in Capitec or Google. We fractionalised shares, and [this] made all assets and shares available to everyone.”
He said the group was looking to deploy the R200m capital on its balance sheet to strengthen the business.
“We can’t let that money sit on our balance sheet and earn interest rates; that is not good enough. So we are looking for acquisitions that will help us accelerate our business and products, give us access to new markets and customers, and help us build an income statement for a future group,” he said.
EasyEquities is aiming to expand into Kenya and the Philippines in the year ahead.
Savage said EasyEquities will also get into property rental and was exploring partnerships with real estate players, just as it partners now with such companies as Capitec, Discovery Bank, Telkom and Satrix. “Partnerships are part of our DNA.”
He said EasyEquities, with its offering of fractional shares, tax-free savings products and crypto assets, had lived up to its vision of appealing to the widest demographic possible. Its average customer was a black South African aged 32.
Easy Group’s revenue for the year ended 2025 grew 25% to R450.2m and retail revenue increased 32.2% to R318.1m, reflecting a growing investment appetite.
“In the first year, our customers deposited R100m over 12 months, today, our customers deposit R2bn a month. We had had 10,000 customers 11 years ago; now we have 1.1-million customers. The simple trend is more South Africans are getting educated and are becoming better investors, and on average people are increasing their asset profile by 30% every year,” he said.
Savage was optimistic about the group’s outlook, saying South Africa was experiencing a “Goldilocks scenario” because the government of national unity had achieved a measure of political stability and the gold, copper, silver and rare-earth markets were booming.
“It is the biggest bull run they have seen in decades, and South Africa is resource-rich. The resource bull market run, which I don’t think anyone saw coming, is playing into our hands. I can’t think of a better place to be than South Africa. We have economic tailwinds that are going to fuel a super decade,” he said.
While the frosty relations between South Africa and the US remained a risk, the country’s status as an investment destination had been boosted by its exit from the Financial Action Task Force grey list.
“We have eradicated the deficit in the budget, and I think we have more of that to come; that is going to fuel more good news and more investment in the year ahead,” Savage said.
“I’d love to see every South African invested in the companies that run this country. The rand is one of the more volatile assets in our country, equities are less volatile. If we are more comfortable owning [cash], let us get comfortable in owning the companies that hold up the rand.”
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.