EasyEquities Philippines Goes Live in SEC Sandbox with GCash

South African investment group Purple Group has taken its Easy Equities retail investing platform to the Philippines, a market of more than 115 million people, as it looks to build a new growth engine on top of a strong first-half performance.

In its interim results for the six months ended 28 February 2026, the group said EasyEquities Philippines is now live in a regulated sandbox, with early users transacting in production. The platform has partnered with GCash, which has more than 97 million registered users and around 80 million active users. Purple Group’s internal path to scale assumes 1,000 users in April, 10,000 in May and about 10,000 incremental users per month thereafter, with a working assumption of 500,000 active users in the Philippines by the end of 2027.

The group said the Philippine opportunity is not reflected in its interim earnings, meaning it could become a meaningful source of future upside. Purple Group is not the first South African fintech to enter the country: GoTyme Bank, a joint venture between Tyme and the Gokongwei Group, launched in the Philippines in October 2022 and had 8 million customers by the end of 2025. Tyme has since rebranded its South African operations to GoTyme, and GoTyme Bank South Africa CEO Cheslyn Jacobs said new-market launches will now always use the GoTyme brand.

Financial highlights

Group revenue rose 8.8% to R258.5 million in the six-month period, while operating expenses increased just 0.5% to R161.1 million. Profit before tax climbed 33.3% to R78.7 million and attributable profit rose 21.2% to R40.6 million. Headline earnings per share were 2.86 cents, up 21%, and net asset value per share advanced 14.9% to 52.10 cents.

The core Easy Group delivered revenue growth of 18.5% with costs up only 1.6%. Active clients reached 1.24 million and total client assets surged 41.2% year on year to R94.9 billion. The group highlighted operating leverage as a key theme, with revenue growing 11 times faster than costs.

EasyRetire Retail client assets increased to R2.1 billion from R0.7 billion three years ago. Purple Group’s 1% transfer campaign offered clients cash back for moving retirement funds to EasyEquities, and transfer clients have arrived with seven times the assets of the average retail client. “South Africa has an enormous pool of retirement assets sitting in incumbent funds. We are early in a very large opportunity,” the group said. CEO Charles Savage added: “The 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.”