E-banking group Equals Group (LON: EQLS) posted a jump in first half turnover in their update on performance for H1 2019.
After its last update, where the Company announced it was to change its name from FairFX (LON: FFX) to Equals Group – in order to better suit its updated range of services – the Company today posted a 17.5% rise in turnover for the first half, up from £1.1 billion to £1.3 billion. The impact of lower margin products providing the bulk of growth was offset by the positive impact of supply change rationalisation, which saw revenue margins improve modestly.
Corporate expenses product usage grew 34.7% to £102 million, while international payments turnover increased 14.4% to £636.3 million year-on-year and banking turnover rose 36.7% to £358.6 million; this latter trend was expected to continue with the positive effects of improved payment functionality and the Company’s recent Credit Broker licence.
The group did note, however, a dip of 8.9% in travel money turnover, which was down to £158 million due to the cancellation of some low margin travel cash affiliate partnerships. The impact of this on revenue is expected to be ‘minimal’.
Equals Group statement
In its statement, Company CEO Ian Stafford-Taylor attached the following comments,
“The performance of Equals during the first half of 2019 clearly demonstrates the success of the Group’s strategy and its diversified and evolving business model. The wider regulatory permissions we now have both in the UK and the US combined with the depth of our connectivity to the payment networks will enable us to continue our growth in 2019 and beyond.”
Reflecting on the update, and providing further insight into the group’s strategy and outlook, the Company’s statement continued,
“The Group has continued to deliver on its strategy in the first half of the year which has resulted in further strong growth. The Group’s ongoing investment in technology has led to improvements in Customer Experience (CX) and new products being developed, which will underpin further expansion of the business in the second half on 2019 and beyond. We have also successfully completed our rebranding which reflects the diversification of the business over the last two years.”
“In addition, the Group has now entered into a contract with Metropolitan Commercial Bank (MCB) which gives access to the US market. Utilising MCB’s US regulatory status means Equals now has US domestic clearance accounts and can service both retail and corporate clients for international payments. Furthermore, now the regulatory process is complete, work can commence to launch our “Equals Spend” Corporate platform in the USA later in 2019.”
Investor notes
The Company’s shares were up 2.76% or 3.45p to 128p a share 10/07/19 11:41 GMT.
Elsewhere in the e-banking and fintech sector, there are updates from; PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL), Nationwide (LON: NBS) and Klarna Bank.
