Equals Gp Regulatory News (EQLS)

21 June 2019

FairFX Group plc

("FairFX" or "the Group" or "the Company")

FairFX gains Credit Broker Licence

FairFX Group, through its subsidiary Spectrum Payment Services Ltd, has been granted permission by the FCA to provide credit facilities acting as a broker. Clearing this key regulatory hurdle allows the Group to offer a wide range of loan products to both its business and retail customers.

As FairFX will be acting as a broker, the loans will be provided by FCA authorised third party lenders. There will be no credit risk to the Group and the loans will not appear on FairFX's balance sheet. 

Having achieved this regulatory status, following significant investment in its digital banking platform in 2018 and 2019, the Group expects to launch an innovative, highly digitised revolving credit product in partnership with iwoca - an award-winning specialist lender to SME's - in the coming months. It is intended that this will help small and medium sized businesses to apply and receive a decision in minutes and immediately receive funds. Business customers will be able to choose to receive funds directly into their account or onto prepaid card, either virtual or physical, which will be issued by FairFX Group under its Mastercard membership. With the benefit of FairFX's membership of Faster Payments, funds could be spent directly and immediately; for instance, in cases where stock needs to be purchased or an urgent invoice be settled.

This development represents another step forward in the Group's strategy to assist businesses, and in particular SME's, with their cash-flow and growth ambitions. The Group has a pipeline of further innovative products and services set to launch later this year and beyond.

Adam Rigler, Managing Director of Banking Products at FairFX, commented: "I am delighted to be able to make this announcement as it is a key milestone on our journey to offering a full range of services to our customers. We now have a clear road ahead to roll out our card-based revolving credit product in the near future, which will radically simplify the process of applying for a receiving funds for a small or medium sized business."

Ian Strafford-Taylor, CEO of FairFX Group, commented: "This announcement is another major step forward in our strategy of providing a full range of products to our SME customers. We have been working hard on the banking platform, with teams both in Chester and in London, since we acquired CardOne Banking in August 2017. Achieving direct membership of Faster Payments and now this regulatory approval are the tangible output of these efforts, and we will have more exciting product developments to announce in the coming months."

-Ends-

For further information, please contact:

About FairFX Group

FairFX is a leading challenger brand in banking and payments that disintermediates the incumbent banks with a superior customer experience (CX) and low-cost operating model. Our business enables personal and business customers to make easy, low-cost payments both domestically and in a broad range of currencies and across a range of products all via one integrated system. The FairFX platform facilitates payments either direct to Bank Accounts or at 35 million merchants and over 1 million ATM's in a broad range of countries globally via Mobile apps, the Internet, SMS, wire transfer and MasterCard/VISA debit cards.

FairFX provides money movement services to both personal and business customers through four channels: Currency Cards, Physical Currency, International Payments and Bank Accounts. The Currency Card and Physical Currency offerings facilitate multiple overseas payments at points of sale and ATM's whereas the International Payments channel supports wire transfer foreign exchange transactions direct to Bank Accounts. For Corporates, FairFX has a market-leading business-expenses solution based around its corporate platform and prepaid card. This service can yield significant savings on a Corporate's expenses and procurement both domestically and overseas, through better controls and improved transparency. The platform also streamlines the downstream administrative processes and integrates into accounting software, thus saving costs. FairFX offers retail and business bank accounts with all the functionality you would expect from a bank, namely faster payments, BACs, direct debits, international payments and a debit card.