{"id":856299,"date":"2026-04-08T15:02:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T13:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=856299"},"modified":"2026-04-08T15:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T13:02:10","slug":"south-african-companies-targeting-asian-country-with-over-115-million-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/856299\/south-african-companies-targeting-asian-country-with-over-115-million-people\/","title":{"rendered":"South African companies targeting Asian country with over 115 million people"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Purple Group is expanding Easy Equities into the Philippines, aiming to capitalise on the massive population in the East Asian nation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its latest interim results for the six months ended 28 February 2026, the group said that EasyEquities Philippines is now live in a regulated sandbox with early users transacting in production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country has over 115 million people, and the group’s partner, GCash, has over 97 million registered users, of whom 80 million are active. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group sees the path to scale as 1,000 users in April, 10,000 in May, and approximately 10,000 incremental users per month thereafter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group’s working assumption is 500,000 active users in the Philippines by the end of 2027, with incremental growth thereafter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, Easy Equities will not be the first relatively young South African financial company to head to the Asian nation, with the Tyme Group also heading there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

GoTyme Bank launched in the Philippines in October 2022 as a joint venture between the Gokongwei Group and Tyme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the end of 2025, GoTyme hit 8 million customers in the Philippines. Such is the success of the Filipino operations that the Tyme Group’s South African operations were rebranded to GoTyme. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cheslyn Jacobs, the CEO of GoTyme Bank in South Africa, said the brand will now always launch as GoTyme when it launches in new markets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upside for the Purple Group <\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

The Purple Group said that the opportunity in the Philippines is not reflected in its interim earnings, making it a powerful source of future growth on its already strong financial results. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the group’s latest interim results, its revenue climbed by 8.8% to R258.5 million, but its operating expenses were tightly controlled, rising by just 0.5% to R161 million. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The centre of the group’s results was the Easy Group, where growth is accelerating. The Easy Group’s revenue increased by 18.5%, while costs edged up only 1.6%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Active clients grew to 1.24 million, while total client assets surged to R94.9 billion, up 41.2% year on year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe numbers are doing the talking. The question coming into the year was simple: could we compound on a record FY2025? The answer is now clear,” said Purple Group CEO Charles Savage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A key theme in the results was the emergence of operating leverage as a driver of performance, with revenue growing 11 times faster than costs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group also noted that EasyRetire Retail is a standout performer, with EasyRetire Retail Client Assets up from R0.7 billion three years ago to R2.1 billion today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group said its 1% transfer campaign, which offered 1% cash back for moving retirement funds, gave clients a direct financial incentive to bring their retirement assets home to EasyEquities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Transfer clients have now been arriving with seven times the assets of the average EasyEquities retail client.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“South Africa has an enormous pool of retirement assets sitting in incumbent funds. We are early in a very large opportunity,” the group said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, the Purple Group reported profit attributable to ordinary shareholders of R40.6 million in the current period. Its basic and headline earnings per share increased by 21% to 2.86 cents per share. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Metric<\/strong><\/td>H1 FY25<\/strong><\/strong><\/td>H1 FY26<\/strong><\/td>% Change<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/thead>
Group Revenue<\/strong><\/td>R237.5 million<\/td>R258.5 million<\/td>+8.8%<\/td><\/tr>
Operating Expenses<\/strong><\/td>R160.3 million<\/td>R161.1 million<\/td>+0.5%<\/td><\/tr>
Profit Before Tax<\/strong><\/td>R59.0 million<\/td>R78.7 million<\/td>+33.3%<\/td><\/tr>
Attributable Profit<\/strong><\/td>R33.5 million<\/td>R40.6 million<\/td>+21.2%<\/td><\/tr>
Headline Earnings Per Share<\/strong><\/td>2.36 cents<\/td>2.86 cents<\/td>+21.0%<\/td><\/tr>
Net Asset Value Per Share<\/strong><\/td>45.35 cents<\/td>52.10 cents<\/td>+14.9%<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Purple Group has joined the Tyme Group by expanding its core business to the Philippines. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":856302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[21507,23854,16787,24615],"class_list":["post-856299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-easy-equities","tag-gotyme","tag-purple-group","tag-tyme-group"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856299"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":856325,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856299\/revisions\/856325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}