Equals Group PLC COVID-19 Preparations / Trading Update (3645G)
March 17 2020 - 3:00AM
UK Regulatory
TIDMEQLS
RNS Number : 3645G
Equals Group PLC
17 March 2020
For immediate release 17 March 2020
Equals Group plc
('Equals' or the 'Group)
COVID-19 Preparations
Trading Update
'Robust contingency plans working for COVID-19; 2020 revenues to
date resilient;
cost reduction and cash conservation measures introduced
Equals (AIM:EQLS), the B2B focused e-banking and international
payments group, provides the following statement regarding the
Group's actions to deal with disruption and economic uncertainty
from the COVID-19 outbreak, together with an update on trading in
January and February 2020.
COVID-19 preparations
A potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is an interruption
to business continuity if any or all of the Group's offices need to
be closed or if Equals staff are unable to travel due to government
advice. The Group is well placed to mitigate the potential impact
of COVID-19 on business continuity because of significant
investment over the past 18 months in new networking and security
technologies which have improved our connectivity, resilience and
also protect our customers from threats.
All Equals employees are enabled to work in a secure way
remotely either using encrypted company devices or securely via a
web browser on their personal devices. All systems that support
this were tested last week and Equals currently has 50% of staff
working remotely in rotating shifts and can move to 100% as and
when required.
For remote working, customer and company data is accessed via
secure Equals servers. Recent investment into cloud telephony also
allows the Group to switch its entire phone system between any of
its sites and allow staff to continue receiving calls on their
personal smartphone or other devices with no compromise on call
recording or customer data security. The Board believes these
capabilities places the Group at a significant advantage to many of
its competitors.
Trading Update
The Group has four main business lines: International Payments
(representing 43%); Other corporate products (representing 20%);
Retail banking and similar (representing 19%) and lastly, Travel
cash and retail cards (representing 18%). All percentages are based
on trading in January and February 2020.
Group revenues to the end of February 2020 have been resilient
and were 33% higher than the same period last year. Whilst
Corporate revenues are still robust in March to date and account
for the majority of revenues, there has been a market slowdown on
travel cash and retail card revenues in the last week as COVID-19
has had adversely impacted the travel industry.
Given the unknown impact of COVID-19, the Group is taking a
conservative approach and is implementing cash conservation and
cost reduction plans across its business, in addition to those
previously announced earlier this year.
Ian Strafford-Taylor, CEO of Equals Group, said: "As COVID-19
spreads around the world the health and safety of our colleagues
and customers is our top priority right now. We have and will
continue to follow government advice and have implemented
contingency plans to minimise disruption to the Group.
In the first two months of 2020, our corporate revenues have
been resilient reflecting the investments made over the last couple
of years. The smallest part of our business, travel cash, has been
adversely affected by COVID-19 and, as such, we have moved quickly
to address our cost base accordingly.
Our plans for business continuity are now in full effect. Our
sites in London and Chester are functioning as normal, maintaining
our exceptionally high levels of encryption and security that meet
our customers' needs. We will continue to monitor and assess the
impact of COVID-19 as the situation develops and will update the
market further as and when necessary."
This announcement contains inside information.
- Ends -
For more information, please contact:
Equals Group plc
Ian Strafford-Taylor, CEO Tel: +44 (0) 20 7778
Richard Cooper, CFO 9308
www.equals.co
Cenkos Securities plc (Nominated Advisor
/ Joint Broker)
Max Hartley / Callum Davidson Tel: +44 (0) 20 7397
Nick Searle (Sales) 8900
Canaccord Genuity (Joint Broker)
Bobbie Hilliam / David Tyrell Tel: +44 (0) 20 7523
Alex Aylen (Sales) 8150
Buchanan (Financial Communications)
Henry Harrison-Topham / Steph Watson Tel: +44 (0) 20 7466
/ Toto Berger 5000
equals@buchanan.uk.com www.buchanan.uk.com
Notes to Editors:
Equals is a leading challenger brand in banking and payments
that disintermediates the incumbent banks with a superior user
experience 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 Equals
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.
Equals provides money movement services to both business
customers and, to a lesser extent, retail 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, Equals 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. Equals 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.
This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the
London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct
Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United
Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution
of this information may apply. For further information, please
contact rns@lseg.com or visit www.rns.com.
END
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