EasyEquities owner Purple Group’s results for the 2026 financial year revealed that the company brought in R2.65 for every rand it spent.

The group reported strong results for FY26, including record revenue, profit, and headline earnings. This marks FY26 as the best performance in Purple Group’s history.

Purple Group released its results for the year through August 2026 on Wednesday, 11 November 2026.

These results revealed that South Africans put R16.8 billion into their EasyEquities accounts in the year to 31 August 2026. 

This marks a 51% increase from the year before, even as market returns roughly halved in Purple Group’s 2026 financial year.

Those deposits carried Purple Group, which owns trading and investment platform EasyEquities, to the best result in its history. 

The group said two milestones fell in the same year: Group revenue rose 9.8% to R534.2 million, passing half a billion rand for the first time, and profit after tax topped R100 million, at R112.0 million. 

Its profit before tax rose 36.0% to R150.2 million, while headline earnings per share increased 27.3% to 5.47 cents. 

Easy Group, the operating business behind EasyEquities, grew revenue by 14.6% to R516 million, while costs grew by 8.2%. Its profit before tax rose 49.4% to R160.5 million. 

“Markets did not carry this result. People did,” said Purple Group CEO Charles Savage in a press statement following the results release. 

“Rates were cut in November and raised in May, oil swung, and investors got nervous. Our clients kept depositing anyway. The market is weather. We built a house.” 

The group’s results revealed that clients earned 11.4% after fees, down from 20.5% the year before. Despite this, EasyEquities clients continued to deposit money into their accounts. 

Withdrawals fell to 11.2% of average client assets, from 12.0%. In March, the platform took in R2.5 billion, its biggest month ever. 

EasyEquities’ active clients grew 14.8% to 1.32 million, and 237,074 new investors funded an account.

R2.65 for every rand spent

The group’s press statement also revealed an interesting trend in the growth of its expenses relative to revenue.

Three years ago, Easy Group spent R241 million, earned R238 million, and lost R44 million. 

In the 2026 financial year, it spent R328 million to earn R516 million. Since the 2023 financial year, the group’s revenue has grown 29.4% per year, while costs have risen by 10.8% per year. 

“Easy Group added about R66 million of revenue this year for about R25 million of extra cost,” said Purple Group CFO Gary van Dyk. 

“Every extra rand we spent brought in about R2.65. That ratio matters more to me than any single headline number, because it tells you what the next rand of growth is worth.” 

Van Dyk explained that the clearest way to see this is by looking at one EasyEquities client. 

The average active retail client now brings in R311 a year and costs R165 to serve, which leaves R146. In FY23, that figure was R2. 

Van Dyk said the longest-standing clients are worth the most. For example, those who joined in 2014 bring in R1,256 each a year, four times the average. 

“Time is the asset,” said Savage. “People start small, keep adding, take on more products and stay.” 

FY26 drags

Purple Group acknowledged that its 2026 results had two drags. 

The first is EasyCrypto, which saw revenue fall 38.5% to R40.2 million as crypto markets turned. Without crypto, Easy Group revenue would have grown by 23.6% and profit before tax would have risen by 134%. 

Secondly, the group’s EasyTrader business recorded a R22.6 million hedging loss, compared with a R7.9 million profit a year earlier. 

The company explained that unusual market conditions broke the correlation assumptions in its hedging model. 

Purple Group changed its hedging policy in March, and in the second half the net hedging result was a loss of R1.3 million. 

“Without the hedging result, group profit before tax would have risen 68.5% to R172.8 million,” it said.

Despite this, Purple Group explained that the business underneath is growing, with funded EasyTrader clients rising 148% and trading revenue rising 43.2%. 

“We report the hedging loss in full, and we don’t ask anyone to look past it. It came off our profit,” he said. 

“What matters is that the second half shows the fix working: a loss of R1.3 million against R21.3 million in the first half.” 

Purple Group also reported that partners remain a major growth channel for its business. 

Its revenue through Discovery roughly doubled, Satrix grew by 25% and Capitec by 20%. 

Its partnership with Absa went live on 14 October, giving 12 million clients access to investing from its app. 16,000 people registered in the first few weeks and 6,000 funded an account. 

Transfers from other platforms brought in R1.33 billion from 97 institutions, almost double the year before. 

EasyRetire grew assets 27.5% to R19.0 billion, and its Two-Pot preservation rate is 81%, against a national benchmark of 64%. 

“We have spent twelve years proving what this business can do,” said Savage. “Most of the people we can help we have not met yet. Twelve years in. Still early.”