Swissquote Posts Solid H1 2020 Results, Beats Expectation

Swissquote has published its financial results for the first half of 2020, showcasing a 43.3 percent year-on-year jump in net revenue with a total of CHF 160.7 million.

The total half-yearly operating revenue stands at a record CHF 162.7 million, compared to the CHF 117.2 million in the same period in the previous year – an increase of 38.9 percent.

The pre-tax profit of the online trading giant also surged 132.8 percent to CHF 58.4 million, the figure was only 25.1 million in the previous year. It was generated at a pre-tax profit margin of 36.4 percent.

With a 31.4 percent margin, the net profit jumped 128.5 percent year-on-year.

Projects new expectations for 2020

These reported numbers were much higher than the bank’s expectation for the half-yearly period it published in June. With this sharp increase in the performance, Swissquote has revised its yearly forecast and is now expecting a pre-tax profit of CHF 100 million over revenue of CHF 300 million for the entire 2020.

The financial results press release detailed that the solid performance was due to the influx of new clients attracted by the increased volatility in the market. The platform added 57,258 new clients in the period, resulting in a net new money inflow of CHF 3 billion.

“This trend generated very large increases in revenues in the two most important segments – fee & commission income and eForex,” Swissquote noted.

The platform handled a total eForex trading volume of $690.4 billion and generated a net income of CHF 60 million from that, a year-on-year jump of 52.2 percent. The net fees and commission income of the platform went up to CHF 83.4 million, an 82.7 percent jump.

“The interest business continues to be dominated by negative interest rates, and in the first half of the year, it was additionally affected by the interest rate cut on the USD,” the company detailed.

Swissquote’s total net interest income for the period went down by 21.7 percent to CHF 16.6 million, while the net trading income stood at CHF 2.8 million.

Meanwhile, the Swiss company is also focusing on expansion and improving services. It has on-boarded Société Générale as the new issuer on Swiss DOTs and migrated all its Swissquoe Bank Europe customers to its new eTrading platform.