Today, investment platform Lightyear announced a record year for investment activity on the platform. Assets under management (AUM) are up nearly 20% month over month, and investment appetite remains strong despite another rollercoaster year for public markets. In 2023, the company increased its employee count by 45%, expanded its team size to more than 50 people, and released eight new products, with new launches in two countries.
2023 was the year of cash
With sterling interest rates reaching a 15-year high in September 2023 after 14 consecutive rate hikes, customers across the UK were looking for ways to get better rates and make their money work harder. Mr Lightyear analyzed that the average UK client portfolio consisted of 26% of his uninvested cash in 2023, compared to 18% in 2022. The platform earns unlimited interest on all uninvested cash, tracks live interest rates, and returns value less flat to customers. 0.75% commission.
BlackRock Money Market Fund (MMF) launched in Lightyear in August 2023, yielding 5.42% on GBP (gross), average Lightyear customer portfolio (all 22 countries) The proportion of cash or cash equivalent investments in increased to 57. %, indicating an additional desire to work harder than the average high street bank account to secure idle and accessible cash. (Yields are as of March 1, 2024 and are subject to daily fluctuations and fees).
Diversification and risk hedging were the themes of 2023 for lightyear investors
More than half (54%) of UK customers have a mixed portfolio that combines interest-earning cash with stocks and funds. The average return for the UK Lightyear Portfolio in 2023 was 29%, outperforming the S&P 500 by 5%.
In 2023, the investment platform continues to see increased interest in technology, with Tesla, Apple and Amazon being the top three most popular stocks in the UK and European light year. The most popular fund in the UK is his VUSA (Vanguard S&P 500), closely followed by IUSA (iShares Core S&P 500) and his IUKD (iShares UK Dividend).
While technology once again tops the list, Lightyear expects to see more portfolio diversification across other sectors in 2023, including cyclical sectors (discretionary goods that consumers can buy more of in good economic times) and services. (Financials, another sector that has gained interest this year is healthcare, with stocks making up part of the portfolios of more than 20% of Lightyear customers.
New products in 2023
Lightyear continued to rapidly release new and highly requested products and features, including a web platform, exchange-traded products, stop orders, money market funds, and business investment accounts. The company also added hundreds of new products throughout the year, including German stocks and ETFs, IBEX 35 (Spain's largest listed company) and UK stocks on the London Stock Exchange. The theme of international expansion from 2022 (Lightyear was launched in 19 eurozone countries) continued into his 2023 with further country expansions to Croatia and Hungary.
Nicole Quinn, partner at Lightspeed, said: “2023 was a challenging year for businesses, but despite that, Lightyear had a record year. We rolled out powerful new products and features every few weeks, and we have over 50 investment and financial From growing a talented team of tech experts to continuing to grow assets under management (AUM) by approximately 20% month-over-month, the company's performance and execution continues to impress.”
Martin Sokk, co-founder and CEO of Lightyear, added: “2023 was a great year for Lightyear in many ways. As a lean and experienced team, we were able to respond incredibly quickly to market events, reducing uninvested cash balances and We have been able to offer new products that benefit today's customers, such as transferring interest in locked money market funds. Our goal last year was to bring the platform to as many Europeans as possible as quickly as possible. Our goal this year is to dig deeper based on specific countries to ensure that Lightyear is the best place to build and invest your future wealth.”
As one of Europe's fastest-moving brokerages, Lightyear has high ambitions for 2024. With continued investment in technology that provides investment advantages to customers, the company plans to explore new product lines such as tax-advantaged accounts. Expanding its product universe to cover more stocks and funds from many exchanges across Europe and localizing the app to new languages.
