Regulatory News

FairFX, the e-banking and payments group, is pleased to announce that in accordance with article 135 of the articles of association of the Company and pursuant to a resolution of the board of directors passed on 26 June 2019, it has, with effect from 26 June 2019, changed its name to Equals Group plc.

Trading in the Company's shares under the new name and TIDM, "EQLS", will commence at 8.00 am today. The Company's current ISIN and SEDOL will remain the same.

The decision to change the Company's name reflects the evolution of both its operations and product offering, which have diversified in recent years beyond the heritage foreign exchange businesses of international payments and travel money, and further into integrated money management solutions for consumers and businesses, covering banking and payments.

Since 2017, the Group has almost tripled in size in terms of turnover and its operations have broadened into three significant businesses - FairFX, CardOneMoney and City Forex. The unification of these businesses under a new, distinctive brand will provide further benefits for the Group in terms of supply chain management and efficiency. Whilst foreign exchange expertise and revenues continue to be integral to the Group, the increasing importance of non-FX related activities necessitated a change to a new umbrella brand identity, under which all the services of the Group can be represented. The Group believes this will approach will also optimise customer acquisition, retention and engagement.

A key part of the Company's strategy is to focus on providing solutions to the Corporate SME market, building upon the success of its Expense Management platform, which gives customers better control of employee expenses and business spending. Execution of this strategy began with gaining an e-money licence in early 2017, followed by the acquisition of CardOneMoney, the digital banking services provider, in the same year. Thereafter, the Group has been investing in its Banking platform in 2018 and 2019. As a result, the Company, through its subsidiary Spectrum Payment Services, was granted Bank of England settlement accounts and direct access to the Faster Payments scheme. Further, the Group recently announced it had been granted a Credit Broker Licence which is another part of our roadmap, which will manifest in more product announcements in 2019.

The Equals brand will be rolled out across the various products according to a detailed plan across the rest of 2019, such that by year end all Group products will have a unified look and feel, which will in turn optimise cross-selling of products - a key focus for the Group.

Commenting on the name change, Ian Strafford-Taylor, CEO, said: "The inspiration for the new name comes from a simple piece of insight: that our relentless focus on solving everyday problems by applying our ingenuity equals a better way for our customers to manage their money. Ultimately, we're helping them to save time and money with a more human touch; an approach which has built great customer loyalty in our business. With a series of new products set to launch in the second half of the year, which will strengthen our position in the SME money management space, it's a truly exciting time for us and our customers to be moving forward as Equals."

The Company's new website with its AIM Rule 26 requirements is now live: www.equalsplc.com. Shareholders will be unaffected by the change of name and existing share certificates should be retained as they will remain valid for all purposes. Any new share certificates issued from 27 June 2018 will bear the name Equals Group plc.

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About Equals Group

Equals 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 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 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, 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.