Japanese financial services giant, the Monex Group, which operates numerous retail brokerages, has published its financial results for the first half of its 2020 fiscal year this Monday.
Monex Group’s 2020 fiscal year ends on March 31, 2020. Therefore the first half of the fiscal year spans from April 1, 2019, until September 30, 2019. The Group operates TradeStation in the United States, Monex Inc. in Japan, Boom Hong Kong, and cryptocurrency Exchange Coincheck. It also has a subsidiary in Australia.
For the first half of the 2020 fiscal year, total revenue of Monex Group was ¥26.17 billion ($240.7 million). When measuring this against the first half of the 2019 fiscal year, which had a total revenue of ¥26.79 billion, H1 of 2020’s figure is lower by 2.3 percent.
Total expenses also fell on a year-on-year comparison, dropping by around 4.0 percent from ¥25.96 billion in the first half of the 2019 fiscal year, down to ¥23.971 billion in the most recent period.
US Leads in profitability for Monex Group
Breaking down these figures into geographies, the company’s operations in the United States, which are conducted through TradeStation, produced the largest profitability across the five segments (US, Japan, Asia Pacific, crypto asset, and investment).
In the US, online brokerages are now increasing their competitiveness by offering zero-commissions. In order to keep up with this trend, TradeStation launched “TSgo,” a new offering with free stock, ETF, and options trading on web and mobile, as Finance Magnates reported.
Furthermore, the broker will further strengthen its offering of asset-based services, the report said. In the first half of the 2020 fiscal year, due to an expansion of its customer base, TradeStation managed to achieve a profit of ¥600 million.
Taking a look at the Japanese segment, which focuses on the operations of Monex, Inc., profit for H1 of FY 2020 was around ¥400 million. For the upcoming periods, the broker will focus on creating a new asset-based revenue stream through asset management advisory services and an asset investment management service.
Cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck, which has struggled to achieve profitability since it was acquired by the Monex Group, posted a quarterly profit before income taxes of ¥9 million. Although this is less than the ¥142 million quarterly profit achieved in Q1, it is only the second time the crypto exchange has reported a quarterly profit.
