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FairFX Mobile Banking Achieves Year of Profitability

April 25, 2018         By: Steven Anderson

Profitability; it’s not always easy to achieve, and for a lot of businesses, it never really happens. When it does, sometimes it takes years to get there, and it’s usually a cause for celebration. FairFX recently dropped word our way about its efforts in mobile banking, and how 2017 proved a great year for the company: its first full-year profitability.

The company’s revenue hit right around 15.5 million pounds sterling (about $21.609 million US as of this writing), which was up from 10.2 million pounds sterling (about $14.224 million US) the year prior. Best of all, the key figure: that 15.5 million pounds sterling of revenue represented 11.9 million pounds sterling ($16.594 million US) in profit, giving it that crucial first year of profitability.

Great news, of course, but what drove the company to that profitability? A hefty new slug of customers certainly helped, as the company added 73,237 customers to its roster. That brought the new total to 728,985, which means the company added better than 10 percent of its customer base this year alone. That’s no mean feat, and the company also cited “substantial growth in scale” as well as diversification of its operations as further reason.

That diversification not only included the acquisition of Q Money Limited, which opened up an e-money license for the company, but also digital banking operation CardOne Banking and even a new membership with Mastercard, allowing for a much simpler supply chain.

All good news, and just the kind of thing the company’s shareholders are likely happy to hear about. Such gains, despite a field that might best be described as “highly competitive”, are certainly worth noting. The fact that it pulled in that many new customers suggests that the company is doing something right, given the levels of competition on hand here. There are a lot of mobile banking alternatives—some banks are exclusively mobile, especially in the UK—out there, so any mobile banking alternative that’s pulling in more customers is likely doing so to the detriment of a competitor.

FairFX’s first year of profitability is likely welcome news all around, and hopefully, the company can keep it up. There’s still a lot of shakeout waiting to happen in this market, and astute competitors may be able to build fortunes here.