Equals Group plc (LON:EQLS), a technology-led international payments group focused on the SME marketplace, today providedd a trading update for the three months to 30 September 2021 (Q3 2021).

The record start to Q32021 that the company reported at the time of its Interim Results announcement has been sustained throughout the remainder of the period, generating revenues of £11.7 million.

This marks a continued acceleration in Group trading and represents a 33% run-rate increase on the prior quarter (Q2-2021: £8.8m); a 62% increase on the prior year comparative period (Q3-2020 £7.2m); and a 47% increase on the pre-Covid comparative period (Q3-2019. £8.0m).

Revenue growth is broad based across all products augmented by the strong demand for the Group’s ‘Equals Solutions’ proposition, the new multicurrency product aimed at larger businesses. This performance further underpins the Board’s confidence in accelerating momentum and maintaining growth moving into the final quarter of the year.

Let’s mention that the Group had a solid H1 2021, with Group turnover – representing the quantum of underlying transactions through its platforms, up by 48% overall and by 65% in the B2B segment.

Group revenues amounted to £16.9 million, up 23% (H1-2020: £13.8 million) and within that, the B2B segment grew by 25%.

When expressed as revenue over turnover, the Group’s margin averaged 73 basis points (‘bps’) against 88 bps in H1-2020. The Board is comfortable with this change, as it had already anticipated the product shift would increase turnover but at a lower margin. This was more evidenced in Banking Services where the aggregate return reduced to 50 bps from 69 bps in H1-2020.

The Equals Spend B2B expense platform, whose customers are corporates, continues to recover strongly from the impact of the pandemic with revenues 63% higher than H1-2020 and 21% higher than H2-2020.

Gross profit amounted to £10.2 million, up 17% (H1-2020: £8.7 million).