Flagstone, the UK’s leading cash deposit platform, recorded a fifth consecutive quarter of profitability at the start of 2024, amid faster adoption of the company’s fintech solution by consumers, advisers, brands and banks, and heightened demand among consumers for competitive cash savings options.
Flagstone’s total Assets under Administration (AUA) currently stands at £11 billion having increased by more than £1 billion per quarter in 2023 as more customers looked to maximise the interest they earn on their savings.
Flagstone recorded its first quarter of profitability for the quarter ending December 2022. The company has maintained a profitable position ever since. Profits are reinvested into the company, specifically into projects to improve customer experience, platform resilience and scalability - all key attributes of Flagstone’s strategy to underpin greater profitability in the years ahead.
During the last 18 months, Flagstone has also grown its bank and brand relationships to become the largest cash deposit platform by the number of banks on its panel and the number of savings accounts available to its 600,000 customers. Today, individuals, SMEs and charities using Flagstone have the opportunity to gain access to over 200 savings accounts from 60 of the UK’s leading cash savings providers, from the largest incumbent banks to challengers.
Simon Merchant, Co-Founder and CEO of Flagstone, comments: “Achieving a position of profitability has been a priority for everyone in the business since late 2022 when customer and partner demand for Flagstone’s capability and access grew substantially. Growth at all costs has never been our strategy. Instead, we’re firmly of the view that, regardless of the headwinds we find ourselves in, any fintech serving consumers has a responsibility to pursue a stable, resilient position of profitability. A sure financial footing provides protection and certainty for customers, as well as a platform from which even more innovation can be prompted.”
Flagstone enjoys considerable potential to maintain profitable growth, thanks to its access to the £1.7 trillion UK savings market that has been scarcely disrupted.
Currently, two thirds of UK savers’ cash (over £1 trillion) is held in accounts earning 2% or less in interest per annum**, while the Bank of England base rate has been more than two times higher since early 2023. A quarter (£250 billion) of these savings are in 0% accounts earning consumers nothing.
While efforts are being made by regulators to ensure banks offer their customers competitive rates in return for their savings business, Flagstone’s own analysis finds that when consumers become more aware of the value of cash as an investment class in its own right or are dissuaded from their assumptions that savings are only for rainy day funds, their opinion on cash changes quickly. They typically tend to keep more in cash and move it more frequently to maximise returns.
In the first half of 2023 less than a quarter (23%) of UK savers switched accounts to earn more interest.*** Conversely, the average Flagstone customer spreads their savings across five accounts at any time, and will move savings between accounts seven times a year to maximise interest earning potential.
Merchant continues: “The UK savings market is in a quandary. On the one hand, there are hundreds of high-income savings options available to all types of savers on the market. On the other, the appetite to find these accounts and switch to them to earn more interest simply isn’t there among huge cohorts of the population.
“Flagstone savers see that cash isn’t simply a safe haven for the risk-adverse to keep their rainy day funds. It’s an asset class in its own right generating risk-adjusted income that’s hugely competitive versus other asset classes - all the more so in a turbulent economic environment with inflation and rates unsure which way to move.
“This creates an ideal opportunity for fintech to tread where traditional financial services can not and solve the problem of saver inertia. By making it faster, easier and cheaper to manage savings all in one place, Flagstone resets in savers’ minds what saving means to them. Whether that’s protecting their money against loss, having visibility over all their cash at once, or moving money quickly when they need, Flagstone’s fintech platform fixes problems and creates opportunities for our customers that’ll underpin our own financial resilience for years to come.”
Originally created as a platform for individual savers to access and maintain multiple cash savings accounts in one single place, today Flagstone provides white-label and API-integrated capabilities for businesses to offer their own customers easy-to-use, adaptable and competitive savings options. Flagstone partners with many of the UK’s leading wealth management firms including St James’s Place, and powers a range of savings products at financial services providers including Saga and Revolut.