Business

Big win for company that went from earning R2 per customer to R146 per customer in 3 years

Jonathan Hoyle

 ·12 Nov 2026

Purple Group has reported 28% earnings growth in its latest financial results, with its trading platform, EasyEquities, contributing to the climb.

The group reported revenue for its 2026 financial year of R534 million, a 9.8% increase from 2025’s 487 million.

Within this, Easy Group’s revenue increased by 14.6% to R516 million, with profit before tax rising almost 50% to R161 million.

The Easy Group also exceeded 3 million registered clients in 2026, while active clients (those with at least one funded investment account) increased by 14.8%.

The difference in revenue growth between the Easy and Purple Groups was due to heavy losses in EasyTrader, according to Group CEO Charles Savage.

EasyTrader posted a loss of R22.6 million on its HedgeBook in the year ended 31 August 2026, compared to the prior year’s R7.9 million profit.

Savage said the loss was due to the model it uses to assess risk breaking down from an “unusual market”.

“An unusual market broke the correlation assumptions our model relied on, and the risk was ours to manage,” he said.

This was particularly felt in the first half of the group’s financial year, when it recorded R21.3 million in HedgeBook losses.

“We updated the model and our hedging policy, and from March, each hedge closely mirrors the client position it covers,” Savage said.

The changes led to hedging costs of approximately R5 million, which Savage said was favourable to the risk the group had previously carried.

“Those costs are the price of removing the correlation risk that caused the loss, and we have already cut them by moving to a new hedging counterparty,” he said.

“We would rather carry a small known cost than the risk we carried before.”

The HedgeBook losses were reflected in the Purple Group’s revenue, rather than the Easy Group’s, which Savage said explained the difference in growth between the two.

Exponential growth

Savage said that Easy Group’s earnings had grown exponentially since 2023, with the profits per client compounding over the three years.

“Three years ago, Easy Group spent R241 million to earn R238 million and lost R44 million,” Savage said. “This year it spent R328 million to earn R516 million and made R161 million.”

Currently, the Easy Group earns approximately R146 per client, compared to R2 per client in its 2023 financial year.

The group also noted that the average yearly earnings per client on its platform are R311, while users who have been with the company longer have earned significantly more.

Clients who joined in 2014 now earn approximately R1,256 per year, over four times the average, while those who joined in 2021 earn only R260 per year.

The largest earner for the Easy Group was EasyEquities in the last financial year, accounting for 74% of the group’s revenue.

This revenue has been supported by partnerships with the trading platform and several financial groups, including Satrix, Discovery, and Absa.

“Satrix retail revenue grew about 25%, Capitec about 20% and Discovery about 102%,” Savage said. “Clients at Capitec and Discovery Bank grew their assets on EasyEquities by 57% and 109%.”

The EasyEquities-Absa partnership only started after the 2026 financial year ended, but pulled in approximately 16,000 clients in its first few weeks.

“Absa joined on 14 October, after year-end, with 12 million clients able to invest from its app. In the first weeks, more than 16,000 people registered and nearly 6,000 funded,” Savage said.

Purple Group financial results snapshot