Bux Financial Services Limited, the UK arm of BUX with headquarters in the Netherlands, published its financials for 2021, reporting a 49 percent revenue decline. The annual turnover from the UK operations came in at £9.1 million, dropping from £18 million in 2020.
"The driver for the decrease in turnover in FY21 was due to client trading returning to normal levels comparable to FY2019 and stability in the market compared to the prior year," the Companies House filing stated.
In addition, it posted a net loss of over £4.2 million for the 12-month period, which widened significantly from £55,527 in the previous year.
Macroeconomic Triggers
The drastic drop in the company's revenue resulted from the vanishing effect of the pandemic on the markets and the impact of Brexit on its operations.
The UK firm stopped its marketing and onboarding activities within the EU in the first quarter of 2021. This move significantly impacted the company's revenue, but there was limited attrition of clients.
On top of that, BUX UK migrated 'a high portion of its clients' to its EU sister entity to comply with the Brexit laws, which was finished in Q4. However, the UK firm continues to be the trading counterpart of the new EU entity and will retain a 'significant part of the indirect revenue'.
2021 remained eventful for the company with changes in its top management. The UK company replaced Yorick Naeff with Salim Sebbata for the CEO role and also implemented a hybrid working model.
Now, the company has already relaunched the marketing activities for its flagship BUX X, which was rebranded to Stryk, along with CFDs and financial spread betting products. It has already established a UK-based marketing team.
Upon speaking to the global MD for Stryk and CEO of the UK entity Salim Sebbata, we learned that the CFD business of BUX (now called Stryk) is distributed across 3 entities: Amsterdam where the app is maintained and developed, London as the trading hub and Cyprus, where the EU clients that constitute the large majority of the client base are now contracted to. Overall the business is profitable.
