- Leading UK bank challenger reports £45.6m revenues up 19% YoY and £3.2m Operating Profit
- Pioneering fintech increases small business focus and prepares final application for full banking licence
- Company identified as ‘unicorn’ by independent industry report with indicative $1bn valuation
London, 9th July 2019: Cashplus, the leading digital challenger to banks, has reported record revenues of £45.6m, up 19% Year on Year, and an eighth consecutive year of Operating Profit for the financial year ending March 2019.
Since it was founded in 2005 Cashplus has opened more than £1.6m customer accounts. It now serves 7% of all new UK businesses and expects to comfortably hit 10% share by 2024.
The company is in the final stages of applying for a full UK banking licence and plans to rapidly grow its SME credit business post-approval as it unlocks more than £250m of lending capital, currently held as safeguarded funds under its e-money licence.
During the year, Cashplus was named a ‘unicorn’ as part of an independent analysis of the Digital Banking sector. Analysts at Keefe Bruyette & Woods (KBW) estimated the implied value of Cashplus at £760m (US $1.002bn)*.
Rich Wagner, CEO Cashplus said: “This is another outstanding performance for Cashplus, maintaining Operating Profit and rapid revenue growth against a backdrop of growing losses for many other UK fintechs. Our focus on a fast, smart, simple banking services platform that work for customers and deliver sustainable returns, continues to deliver and we’re delighted with our progress against our priorities. We’re on track to submit our final bank licence application in the next month, we’ve continued to improve and expand our products with more industry firsts, and we’re delighted to be recognised as a unicorn, when measured like-for-like against peers.”
Cashplus announced a string of industry firsts in FY18/19 including the UK’s first credit card gambling block, the UK’s first degradable bank card and the first credit card payment tracking and categorisation feature.
The company continues to push for improvements in banking options for small businesses through early adoption of Open Banking solutions. Its suite of Application Programming Interface (API) tools connect customer accounts to a range of accounting and payments software directly from the Cashplus platform, saving them time and money and creating new revenue streams for Cashplus.
In June, Cashplus also submitted its application for the BCR Capability and Innovation fund, a £10m government-administered grant, with a bid to develop a game-changing data platform that will allow start up businesses to build a credit score, opening up lending to an estimated two million UK firms along with Cashplus personally committing nearly £100m of lending to SMEs post approval of its banking licence.
*Source: Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, ‘Digital Banks – Dawning of an Age?’
