ASX Limited (ASX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to ASX's financial results briefing for the 6 month period ending 31st of December 2021. Thank you for taking part in this virtual presentation. I hope you're all safe and well from wherever you are joining us. My name is Dominic Stevens, Managing Director and CEO of ASX. Presenting with me is ASX's CFO, Gillian Larkins. And to begin, I'd like to acknowledge that I'm speaking on the land of the Gadigal people. I pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. Before I get into our financial results, as many of you will be already aware, today, I announced that I'm beginning the process of retiring from my role as CEO of ASX. I'm now in my ninth year at ASX and my sixth as CEO, having been a nonexecutive director for 3 years before that. The last 6 years, in particular, have been a tremendous journey of transformation for ASX and the team. I'm incredibly proud of what we've accomplished over our customers for our customers, our staff, our shareholders and our industry. When discussing the future and the best time to transition, the Chairman and I agreed that after the completion of CHESS replacement, ASX will be in a tremendous position to leverage the significant foundational work put in place. This new phase for the company, which would take us to the back end of this decade, would not be something I could commit to. So it was important to begin the transition soon such that a new CEO is able to be brought up to speed as these projects completed. This will enable ASX to hit the ground running as it enters its next strategic phase in 2023 under new leadership and with long-term commitment. The work the team has done and the investment the company has made have put ASX in the best position to maintain its place as a top 10 global exchange and the preeminent financial market into media in Australia. It's been a privilege to serve as CEO, and I'm extremely proud of the company's achievements. ASX is in a strong financial and operating position. And with the transformation of critical systems, platforms and infrastructure complete or nearing completion, the company is optimally placed to go from strength to strength. In the meantime, I remain fully committed to the role and will continue to lead the company and support our customers and other stakeholders to ensure a smooth transition to the new executive leader. So with that, I'll now take you through our FY '22 half year results, beginning with an overview of the results and the market and operational drivers of the last 6 months. Gill will then take you through the financial detail. I'll then return with an update on our strategic progress, comments around outlook, provide a brief summary and then take questions. So let's begin with the financials on Slide 4. In the first half of FY '22, ASX delivered a strong result. Our revenue increased by $30.9 million to $501.4 million, a healthy increase of 6.6%. This is particularly pleasing as our largest individual business area, futures, posted lower revenues due to the ongoing effects of the Reserve Bank policy settings we discussed at the FY 2021 full year results. In addition, our listings business, which capitalizes and amortizes IPO and secondary fees had an extremely strong half, receiving $31.4 million more in cash fees than we recognized in our P&L. This result underlines the benefits of our diversified business model and its ability to deliver consistent results overall through different cycles. Our growth not only reflects a strong performance in listings, but also our securities and payments and our technology and data businesses. This was offset by a small drop in markets revenues where the lower futures revenues I referred to earlier were balanced by growth in our cash equity market business. Total expenses were up $11.6 million over the period to $163 million, an increase of 7.6%, reflecting continued investment in initiatives coupled with growth in market activity. Gill will address this in detail later in the presentation. This leaves our EBIT 6% higher at $338.4 million. This was an increase of $19.3 million and was a record EBIT performance for a half. The RBA's policy settings also continued to impact our interest income. Whilst net interest income was actually up on the prior half, it was lower than the prior corresponding period due to the fact that rates and margins were still falling from higher levels in the PCP. With interest rates close to 0 and average margins earned on collateral balances stabilizing at lower levels, interest income dropped 19% or by $5 million to $21.7 million versus pcp. This sees our NPAT higher by 3.5% at $250.3 million. EPS also increased 3.5% to $1.293 per share and ASX maintains its policy of paying out 90% of underlying earnings, which means the interim dividend for first half '22 will be $116.4 per share fully franked, also up 3.5%. So I'll now turn to the key drivers of our results in this half. First half '22 saw the busy conditions of FY '21 continued to support strong revenue growth across the company, except for the 2 areas directly impacted by recent monetary policy settings, and I'll address those in a moment. Equity markets remain buoyant, leading to strong demand for trading, clearing and settlement services. Listings was particularly strong this half, and demand for data and technical services has continued to maintain pleasing rates of growth. This is evidenced on Slide 5, by the light blue line in the chart, which shows a consistent healthy growth of parts of our business that were not impacted. Since the early days of the pandemic and the introduction of a 0 interest rate policy, including yield curve control, trading volumes of bank bill and 3-year bond futures have fallen and the returns on our own cash and participant collateral have also reduced. Encouragingly, the trading in short-term futures and the interest income line has started stabilized and have risen a touch in the last 6 months. This can be seen by the darker blue and the gray lines in the chart. Even more important is the significant change in the local and global outlook for monetary policy. Across the world, there's been material changes in expectations for short-term interest rates due to increases in both headline and underlying inflation rates. Markets are beginning to expect a normalization of interest rates as evidenced by significant trading in contracts pricing the level of short-term rates in future years. If these market predictions eventuate, we expect the trading volume of short-term rate contracts to increase and our interest income line to recover somewhat. Over the last 6 months, we've also seen bill futures volumes increase by 73%, albeit off a low base, reflecting depressed trading levels in the pcp. Slide 7 shows the changing nature of the futures business over the last few years. Strong growth in long-term rate futures versus the slowdown in short-term rate futures. In the last year, there was a bottoming out of this slowdown, as we see signs of more volatility in the short end of the curve and. After a very strong growth over the past 4 halves, 10-year futures volumes have pulled back somewhat, reflecting lower bond issuance and the risk of nature of the market over the last 6 months. However, in the medium term, the trading volume trend is clear, particularly given longer-term trends in fixed income issuance. Our electricity derivatives business continued to grow with a further 14% increase over the pcp. As can be seen on the chart, this business has increased from less than 5% of our revenue to now over 10% and is growing at a 5-year CAGR of over 15%. We see a bright future for this business as electricity derivatives are playing an important role in supporting the transition to renewable energy and decarbonization more broadly. The standout performer for the last half, driven by strong demand for equity capital market transactions was the record capital raised in the listings market. Total capital raise was circa 50% higher than any other half in the last decade, even larger than the recapitalization of the market post the GFC. The number of IPOs were the second highest on record, beaten only by the boom in late 2007. Whilst total capital raise was up 74% on pcp, our IPO and secondary listing revenue was only up 14%. And this reflects the accounting methodology to amortize IPO and secondary listing fees over 3 to 5 years, which came into effect in FY '19. Importantly, whilst we recognize $46.2 million of amortized revenue for the half, the business received cash fees of $77.6 million, the majority of which will be recognized in future periods. This gives us confidence about the consistency and quantum of earnings into the future. The equity market overall continued to exhibit high volumes during the past 6 months with ASX on-market daily value growing close to 6% on the pcp. Volumes in the half were second only to the record 2H '20 period when the beginning of the pandemic caused extreme volatility. Institutional trading value grew by almost 10% over the pcp, while retail volumes continued to be strong. Market volatility during the first part of the pandemic caused volumes in the lit market to pick up significantly with more price discovery happening in today. This effect has unwound somewhat over the last 12 months with auctions activity growing 19% over pcp. Volumes have continued to be strong into calendar '22. These flowed down to our clearing and settlement businesses with higher cleared volumes and greater usage of our broad range of sub registered services, coupled with lower rebate levels, all leading to higher revenues. Whilst Austraclear saw solid issuance, turnover was a touch lower, exhibiting a similar trend to the quieter bond futures market. These results also include the impact from our investment in Sympli, our property e-Settlement joint venture with InfoTrack. Finally, our technology and data business achieved a pleasing increase in revenue. On the data side, there was a consistent growth across almost all parts of the business leading to more than 12.9% increase on the pcp. Growth was also strong in technical services with demand from new participants establishing their operations and increased demand from existing players. Over the last 6 months, we have expanded our ALC's floor space and the number of cabinets available to customers. About 30% of this new space was snapped up immediately, and we have a pipeline we're working with to fill the remaining space. Bringing in new customers and expanding existing footprints have a leveraged effect within the Technical Services business. There are 139 customers in the ALC. This expands out into the use of 369 cabinets accessing over 1,200 service connections, both ASX and non-ASX services hosted by ASX. We also have 104 customers connected through ASX net communications infrastructure, where they access a further 466 service feeds. The most interesting part of this business is the growth in customer-to-customer connections since the ALC was put into service. The chart on Slide 10 shows the significant growth in these connections at the ALC and also through customers who connect via ASX Net, our communications network. These connectivity benefits create operational efficiencies for our customers. As a final point on business drivers, I want to address the current challenging operating environment. Over the last six to nine months, the business environment has been adversely effected by the Delta lockdown and then the Omicron wave. At the same time, there has been a significant pick-up in demand for skilled employees in technology, risk and compliance, leading to challenges in delivering BAU services and project execution. There is limited inward movement from offshore to ease these pressures and the Omicron wave has resulted in more employee sick leave and isolation days. ASX is prudently navigating this environment, with a primary focus on protecting the health and safety of staff and customers, and maintaining our critical market operations. We keep a close watch on developments and remain flexible so to adapt to the changing circumstances. Notwithstanding this, ASX has continued to deliver a range of initiatives, and I'm pleased to note the significant achievements of the team over the last 6 months. Not only have we reorganized our operating model, but we have opened the CHESS industry test environment. We've provided electronic statements for CHESS issuers. Launched Synfini, our DLT as a Service offering. Quoted our first crypto-based ETF. And we're working through our programs to address regulatory recommendations. So in conclusion, in addition to a solid financial half, ASX has delivered operationally in a difficult environment. So with that, I'll now hand over to Gill, who will take you through the financials. Over to you, Gill.

Thanks, Dom, and good morning. The ASX result for the first half of 2022 is notable for the heightened capital market activities seen in both our Listings and Issuer Services offerings. Despite the continuation of the low yield environment introduced through the course of the second half of 2020, it was pleasing to see elevated cash equities trading from the prior comparative period and an increase in total ASX on-market value traded, which both assisted our markets, and our securities and payments business results for first half '22. Turning to the financials and starting with the top line. Revenue for the half is up 6.6% from first half '21, with capital market activity being the largest contributor, followed closely by equities trading and higher demand for ASX's technology and data offering. First half '22 saw total expenses for the group increased by 7.6%, the staff costs, the largest contributor due to wage growth and the inclusion of restructure costs from the new operating model installed at the start of the 2022 financial year. The impact was lessened by the lower depreciation and amortized charge for the half due to the rolloff of fully amortized technology systems. Moving through the table, the interest income line shows an 18.9% decline from the previous half as expected. This fall was largely through decreased earnings rates. However, the stronger revenue from capital markets and tech offerings in the half more than offset the interest income decline and led to an increase of both underlying and statutory profit after tax by 3.5%. This translated into the same increase in EPS with the Board declaring a dividend of $1.164 per share for the half. Now to the individual performance of our business lines. ASX undertook an operating model review in early 2021 and introduced the structure at the start of this financial year that better aligns business responsibilities and enhances our focus on customers. ASX now has 4 businesses: listings, markets, technology and data, and our securities and payments business, with all comparative restated as of first half '22. Further information on the restatement was disclosed on the 18 November market announcement last year, which is also on our website. This slide shows a 6.6% overall ASX revenue increases composed of listings increasing by 17% as a result of higher annual fee income, elevated new listings and strong secondary raisings. Markets decreasing by 2.6%, reflecting subdued features, volumes, partly offset by higher cash market trade and activity. Solid demand for our technology and data products secured a 10.1% increase on the prior half with the higher cash market trading activity, predominantly supporting the 6.9% revenue increase in the securities and payments business. Looking at this in more detail. Over half of the revenue made in the listings business for first half '22 is through the annual fee income that we charge issuers based on the market capitalization as of May 2021. Higher overall market capitalization at this stage than in the prior years, coupled with a strong number of new company listings, contributed to a 22.3% increase in annual listings revenue for first half '22. As already highlighted, the number of new listings increased by 76.5% to 150, with the total number of listings increasing by 4.5% to 2,299 entities. Initial capital raised increased by 67% from first half '21 to $29.7 billion, with secondary capital raisings increasing by 77.3% to $60.6 billion, both of which assisted the strong cash inflow for the half. The requirement to amortize initial capital raisings over 5 years and secondary capital raises over 3 years, results in a strong listings activity being less noticeable at the revenue line. On the following slide, you can see the amortized first half '22 contributions in the dark blue box to the right of the chart and the profile of the expected revenue bookings for the next few halves. Moving now to the markets business. Our markets business has seen a notable decline in futures volumes since the end of March 2020 when we entered the current period of low interest rates. Features volumes are down 8.2% from first half '21 due to the material decline in 3- and 10-year bonds, partially offset by notable growth in 90-day bank bills and its speculation about inflationary pressures and timing of RBA policy changes. The impact of this on the revenue line is not a severe due to the continued strong growth in the higher-margin electricity futures business, which has a higher average fee versus the lower fee for interest rates futures. As we shift closer to interest rate rises, the expected volatility should assist our futures income in the medium term. Equity options revenue decreased by 3.6% from first half '21. Equity options volumes continued to decline with single stock options volume down 1.8% on the same period last year, and index options down 9.4% due to a fall in institutional activity linked to lower market volatility. The 8.1% growth in cash market trading over the last half has been underpinned by the reasonably strong daily average turnover, particularly in the second quarter, with growth seen in our premium products, that being 18.9% in options and 15.7% in center point, leading to higher margins overall. Information Services saw a strong half with growth across the product suite, including increased market data usage, increased audit fee revenue and price increases effective in the second half '21, which flowed into this half's financial results. All of this activity contributed to a 12.9% increase for first half '22. Technical Services also increased with revenue coming in 6.3% more than last half. The business saw an increase in demand for cabinets by 7% as well as a pickup in demand for ALC service connections and feeds by clients. Finally, moving on to our fourth business, securities and payments. Through the operating model redesign, the previously named clearing and settlement business changed its same to securities and payments. It now includes both the Austraclear business and our share in the performance of the Sympli joint venture. This half saw the strong level of corporate actions activity give an immediate benefit to Issuer Services revenues by 9.6%. This was through both the higher trading activity and the primary market facilitation fees growth, in line with the increased initial and secondary listings. Equity Post-Trade Services saw an increase in both cash market clearing and settlement revenue contributing to an overall 13.6% rise, reflecting the increase of 5.3% in on-market value cleared, increase in message volume and less rebates both this half by just over $6 million. Austraclear, excluding Sympli, saw higher registry activity, with revenue coming in 1% more than last year and in line with second half '21. The overall average collateral balance did decline from $27.9 billion to $14.3 billion as a direct consequence of the change in RBA monetary policy and the resultant excess liquidity, which lowered demand for our service. This led to lower ASX collateral fee revenue, much along the second half '21. The overall Austraclear business now accommodates ASX's investment in Sympli, whereby you can see the overall decline in this business line of 11.3% as mainly attributable to the increased share of operating losses of this joint venture by $3.8 million versus last year. Turning now to total expenses. Total expenses for the first half '22 was 7.6% higher than first half '21. The expense uplift was mainly through the 13% increase related to employees over the last half in response to the operating model redesign, annual salary increases, heightened recruitment and additional staff working on our project and regulatory initiatives. Expenses also grew due to costs associated with ASX's technology upgrade, including cybersecurity and our digital initiatives with equipment costs coming in at 12.2% more. Administration was flat due to lower travel and marketing costs of the COVID restrictions, which absorbed an increase in consulting for projects such as our electronic CHESS statements initiative. With the heightened market activity continuing into first half '22, the expenses attached to the increased transaction volumes were higher coming in on the variable cost line 16.8% more than first half '21. However, only 8% more than second half '21, with the revenue attached to the activity more than absorbing the expense. ASIC has currently guided ASX to an estimated supervision levy lower than previous halves, which will be confirmed in the second half, with the depreciation and amortization line remaining fairly constant. With first half '21, leading to an overall increase in total expenses of 7.6% for first half '22. Since 2017, ASX has invested to strengthen our technology, risk and governance foundations to build an exchange for the future. The left-hand side of the slide reflects the full year growth composition over the last 5 years. Over the last 18 months, in particular, we have bolstered teams and updated our governance models we needed in the aftermath of the ASIC trade outage and recent operating model and regulatory reviews. This has contributed to the growth profile to date with these initiatives continuing over the next 6 months. This, coupled with the rising wage inflation for experienced technology, risk and compliance staff, in particular, means we are now expecting the expense guidance to be in the range of 7% to 8% for FY '22, an increase of 1% from prior guidance. On the right-hand side of the slide, you can see ASX has invested $54 million in capital expenditure during the period compared to $54.5 million in the pcp. This is inclusive of our CHESS replacement project as well as various initiatives to strengthen the resilience of ASX's services. Our guidance to market on our CapEx spend for FY '22 is still $105 million to $115 million. Net interest income dropped 18.9% to $21.7 million for the half through portfolio returns declining as maturing investments were placed with lower yielding investments. Investment spread income booked in the net interest on collateral balances is down due to the average investment spread being 10 bps compared to 15 bps in the prior period. Of note, collateral balances are also down by 7.2%, leading to lower interest earned on the average balance. ASX's balance sheet is strong and positioned conservatively with very little difference in the underlying components between halves. We currently have an S&P long-term rating of AA- and hold a nominal amount of debt for working capital reasons. And as you can see in the table, there has been an increase in the value of our total investments by circa $5 million for this half, mainly through the additional investment in Sympli at the start of this half. ASX has benefited from strong capital markets and equities trading activity and solid customer demand for technology data across the last 6 months. This softened the increase in expenses and the lower investment spread income, leading to positive earnings growth for this half overall. Underlying profit after tax increased by 3.5%, also leading to an underlying EPS increase of the same amount. The Board has determined a first half '22 fully franked dividend of $1.164 per share, representing an increase of 3.5% on first half '21. The dividend can be fully funded from retained earnings and represents a payout ratio of 90% of underlying NPAT, in line with our dividend policy guidance. Amid continuing mixed external conditions, ASX is maintaining its strategy to strengthen the foundations of our business while investing in both core and adjacent growth opportunities for the future. With that, I will hand back to Dom. Thank you.

Thank you, Gill. I'd like to spend a little time now on what has been achieved by the execution of our technology and business strategy over the past 5 years and what this means for ASX over the medium term. In setting our strategy back in 2016, we knew we needed a pathway that enabled ASX to embrace the accelerating changes in technology and digitization. It was clear that this was the overriding business theme on which to focus. Embarking on a transformational strategy is never easy to execute and putting ourselves at the forefront of technological change would mean a significant multiyear body of work. However, this repositioning would enable Australia's financial markets to reap the benefits of world-leading flexible technology and was the right strategic path to take. This led us to implement a program with 3 technology-focused goals. We needed to transform our technology to put ASX on a contemporary platform that would enable Australia's financial markets to develop and prosper over the next decade. This would also reduce the chance of a competitor being able to leap frog ASX with disruptive technology. Secondly, we needed to increase the resilience of our technology and our operations, not because they were failing but because of the heightened focus on operational resilience, rising cyber threats and importantly, to better support our customers. And finally, in addition to upgrading our existing technology and operating platform, we would focus on finding fresh ways to leverage new technology and our significant skill base to create opportunities to grow and expand into the future. These goals were ambitious. The transformation of legacy technology, while maintaining existing service levels around the clock, is an extremely difficult undertaking. Considering the first of our goals, I'm proud of the significant progress we've made. Technology transformation is about reducing technology debt, the digitization of processes and transforming the core foundational systems and hardware that underpin the offering, not just updating a thin external layer. The transformation we've brought comes into sharp focus when we look at the renewal in our equity and enterprise technology infrastructure. Given the high profile of our CHESS replacement project, it's understandable the breadth of our overall program, which you can see on the chart on Slide 25 is overlooked. We have replaced data centers, communications networks, trading systems, risk systems, websites and more. Importantly, the average age of our infrastructure is moving to less than 5 years old as much of it will have been replaced over this period. This transformation program is moving towards completion. Over the last half, we've seen further progress across 3 of these work streams in particular. We've made available electronic statement capability to enable retail customers to access a web portal for their CHESS statements. For our new equity data warehouse, we've opened a customer testing environment and will begin a parallel run with the market in coming months. CHESS replacement remains on track for go-live and the industry test environment is open to software vendors with customers joining in the coming months. The system uses DAML smart contracts, VMware's DLT platform and connects to other ASX infrastructure that underpins the new system. It is meeting its availability and stability targets. And the team has plenty of work ahead as we now transition to the industry readiness stage. Our new CHESS system will be at the leading edge of -- globally and with a DLT system capable of managing a multitrillion-dollar ecosystem with millions of trades and billions of value turning over every day. It also means ASX's clearing and settlement systems are fully contemporary using global standard ISO 20022 messaging and operate on modern hardware across multiple data centers with improved security. So as for our second goal of resilience, I'll not spend too much time on this as we've talked about our improved performance before. However, in looking back over the last 6 years, we're particularly proud of the reduction in incidents and outages across our key systems and platforms. This is a direct result of the investment in people, new software and new hardware. As you can see, incidents have been falling for 5 years and are down 85% over the period. If you look at the last 3 years, we've had just on severity, one incident. Over the preceding 3 years, we had 5. And even more telling is going back a further 3 years before our transformation commenced, where we saw 12 severity 1 incidents. ASX continues to invest to enhance the resilience of our offering, and we're currently working on improving the excellence around software delivery. However, with the circa 90% reduction in many of our metrics, further significant improvements will be harder to come by. And thirdly, while we've had a busy program transforming the existing technology base, ASX has also been exploring opportunities to leverage our strengths and new technology base in adjacent areas. There are a number of examples where we have increased our technology focus, and I'll cover off 4 today. The first is how ASX targeted technology listings and equity capital markets related to technology. Over the last 6 years, ASX has gone from an underweight position in technology listings to being globally competitive. This not only enables the listing of domestic technology companies but also attract listings from offshore. Consistent with our view on the growing importance of technology into the future. It's imperative that ASX and Australia maintain a healthy listed market for technology companies. I see ASX's listing offering, ETFs and our technology indices working with unlisted capital and VC capital to create a globally competitive ecosystem to support this critical sector of the Australian economy. In addition to stimulating the local technology economy, the growth of this ecosystem has enabled accounting, legal, banking, advice, listings and auditing skills to also prosper. Ensuring this business is not lost to Northern Hemisphere capital markets generate significant benefit to our country. Another example I'd like to call out is our investment in distributed ledger technology often referred to as blockchain. There are many different views about public blockchains, cryptocurrencies, DFi, NFTs et cetera. However, there seems a little argument that blockchain technology will be 1 of the most important technologies in financial services over the next 10 years. ASX saw this early and has been working towards enabling the benefits of this technology in its new clearing and settlement system. We see significant value in permission distributed ledgers, allowing stakeholders to enjoy real-time immutable synchronization of their industry and the ability to further enhance the benefits of this synchronization by writing smart contracts out of these ledgers. In addition, we're also offering this enterprise-grade technology to the market for a broad array of uses. Synfini, our DLT as a Service platform, went live late last year with a number of companies looking to leverage the benefits, first among them KPMG, with its building assurance solution or trustworthy index for the New South Wales government. While it's still early stages, ASX is at the global forefront of utilizing this technology for permission enterprise grade solutions. So a third area where we believed back in 2016 was going to grow and be important to ASX was big data, data science and AI. Given we operate in an industry that creates a tsunami of data, we believe this is a core skill set for the organization. In addition to investing in people, we developed ASX DataSphere, which enables access to raw data, our data science platform and data science tools in a secure and governed ecosystem. Our use of this technology is growing internally for our own purposes and also for managing regulatory data requests. We're also beginning to see products built on the platform, providing key insights into fixed income markets for our customers. Over the medium term, we're confident that these capabilities will be an important part of our exchange infrastructure. And finally, another adjacency we'd be pursuing is the opportunity created by the move from paper based to electronic-based settlement of property transactions or e-Settlement. This is our Sympli joint venture. To give you an idea of the size of the opportunity, compare it with the electronic settlement of the fixed income market and the equity market that ASX currently manages. In revenue terms, the e-Settlement opportunity in property is 14x the size of the bond settlements revenue and 3 to 4x the size of the equity settlements revenue. In property e-Settlements, ASX is the challenger rather than the incumbent. However, we're now connected to all the major banks, registries and state revenue officers. We've also seen state government, the ACCC, the Australian Banking Association and the Australian Institute of Conveyancers and the Law Council of Australia all agree to interoperability as a model for the industry. Last month, it was confirmed legislation will be introduced into the New South Wales parliament shortly. Governments, regulators and the industry are spending time and money building momentum to enable interoperability. And with a more contemporary technology platform and the ability to learn from the short coming of the incumbent offering, we see be an opportunity to grow this business. It's clear the market now better understands why we saw tremendous value in this business area. Reflecting the changes in our focus, as Gill noted earlier, we've also recently reviewed our operating model. These changes better align the businesses and improve accountability and bring operations and technology closer. Two further changes, which reflect some of what I've said today are the dedicated focus on our customers and the standalone technology and data business line. We have a customer center of excellence, tasked with enhancing the end-to-end service across our lines of business to our individual customers. And this is an area where we feel we can add more value by gaining a better cross-product view of how our customers use our services. Moreover, the technology and data area is now its own discrete business, separated from the equity trading business. With an expanding data center footprint, a DLT platform and a big data platform in place, we're exploring the growth opportunities in this area. So to summarize the last 5 years, ASX has delivered a significant transformation in technology, evidenced by the decommissioning of a number of old technologies and the reduction of average age of its tech stack, delivered a significant increase in operational technology resilience, evidenced by a dramatic reduction in incidents and outages across our platforms, put technology at the forefront of our focus to create future opportunities, shown by the number of technology-related initiatives delivered or close to delivery. So how does this set ASX up for 2023 and beyond. ASX is a strong business that provides critical market infrastructure across a number of financial market areas. As such, it's important that ASX reinvests in its business and maintains a contemporary infrastructure with leading-edge technology to ensure we increasing expectation of our many stakeholders. This multiyear transformation makes ASX a stronger, more contemporary business with reduced technology debt and improved operational and technical resilience. This also lessens the probability of ASX being disintermediated by the technology of others. It also enables a whole new world of product development and service enhancement and customers who may have been reluctant to build on legacy technology will be more comfortable building on the new DLT platform, our new hardware and using global messaging standards. The technology transformation, resilience and focus has put ASX in the best place to maintain our strong market position with optionality to build our portfolio with new, interesting and sustainable ways into the future while we work to enhance our customer focus. So finally, with all that, moving now to outlook. The second half of FY '22 is actually off to a strong start. In what is typically a quiet time of the year, January has been a standout month. This has been aided by the activity in block Afterpay and the BHP unification. Compared to the prior January, on-market trading value in our equity business increased by 45%. IPO capital raised was many multiples larger. Secondary capital raise was up 70%. Clearing value was up 40%, and futures were up 1%. More broadly, markets are currently at a critical point. There is increased uncertainty and concern around the future political, geopolitical and economic outlook and the prospect of an election in Australia sometime this half. Importantly, we're seeing the problem of inflation in many countries for the first time in about 30 years. Now I cannot predict what will happen. However, in the last 6 months, inflation has gone from a transitory issue to one that many people are worried about. It's sobering to think that the last time inflation in the U.S. was at these levels, 10-year bond rates in the U.S. were closer to 8%. For ASX, these uncertainties lead us to think that the equity market will continue to exhibit volatility in volume, supporting a number of our bus areas. In addition, for the first time in a few years, moves in the short end of the rates curve are a possibility, which may support our futures business as well as improve the returns on our capital and collateral balances. After a record-breaking calendar 2021, the IPO market may take a breather over the course of 2022, notwithstanding that there's still a reasonable pipeline of business. Like many, we anticipate the operating environment to remain challenging as we continue to navigate COVID-19. Against this backdrop, we've seen a marginal increase to our expense guidance, while our CapEx guidance remains unchanged. So with that, I'd like to move to Q&A, where Gill and I can answer your questions. So with that, I'll hand back over to the moderator. Thank you.

Your first question comes from Andy Chuk from Macquarie.

The first question is for Dom. I just want to clarify the comment around your intention to retire this year. Is that referring to this calendar year or is this financial year?

It's calendar year. So basically, what this is effectively getting out there, giving people ample notice and so the Board begins a process now. And I'm here, I'm committed and however long that takes, I'll be here working away until we have the next CEO to take my place.

Fantastic. The next question is around electronic CHESS segment. So can you just provide some color around the EBIT impact it would have over time given that you've actually launched it now?

I think you said CHESS e-statements. Yes, so that is a service that's been launched now. I think what always has been the issue with CHESS e-statements is more about the fact that we don't have the e-mails of all the investors because they're actually held by the brokers. And so the -- that project will take a while to sort of ramp up as actually the brokers and the end customers are giving permissioning the e-mails to be sent to us for us then to actually play that out. So I don't see anything in the near-term changes on that, but we are actually talking to 2 issuers around a new model for charging for that. And I think that will play out over the course of probably more like 2023. Gill, do you have a...

No, I think we really are waiting to see the pickup, and then we'll be able to model actually what the impact will be, and that will be in '23.

Great. And just 1 last one. On the product development front, can you just talk us through new just contract types that you might be working on, in particular, are there any in the green energy space?

Yes. There's some interesting things there. The first thing is, as you may know, we are one of the people who are pitching for the government as far as the market for us ACCUs or Australian carbon credit units, I think that process goes into RFP sort of imminently. So that's something that we're thinking about. We're also -- as you know from last year, we worked on the 5-year bond futures contract, that sort of got off to a very strong start. And then with the volatility in the bond market and sort of I think the sort of like differing views of where the market would be with the RBA and investors that sort of like slowed down over the course of the year, probably as did the 3-year and 10-year bond futures. But we've got some incentives so market makers come back there and we're starting to see some volume back in that contract. So they're sort of the 2 things that are sort of front and center in the futures world. The other thing I actually would say also is that, if you look at -- I think we might have said it in the notes. If you look at the electricity business, that's actually growing quite significantly. And I think that's a longer-term trend. And it's starting to become, as you can see, more material for ASX. So if it continues on at its growth, given its current size, it can become quite a bit more meaningful over the next 5 years.

Your next question comes from Ed Henning from CLSA.

Firstly, Dom, congratulations and all the guests for the future. Just following on from the last question on the CHESS statements that you send out, just so we can get a better understanding of how much money do you actually make from mailing out CHESS statements?

Well, it's in...

Yes, I mean it's in -- yes, if you look at the issue of service assignments in there but we don't specify exactly how much.

So there is a whole range of things...

If would be helpful to get something around it just because -- while it will take time, if it does move to e-statements, you've got to imagine that line full, but we just don't know by how much.

Yes, Ed. I think what we're doing is we're -- we've obviously announced our POC, and we've still got a process to go through over the next 3 months. We have done business cases on this. And what we really need to see is you could really do that many, many times. And what we really need to see is the take-up by the brokers on this to really sort of validate what that number is. What I'd give you assurance about is it will be on a tiered subscription basis, which means that you don't have to fear that the income will run away straightaway. It will be progressive. And certainly, when we are on top of that, we will be explaining that to the market.

There's a whole bunch of things in that line of various services we charge to issuers. And they tend to bounce around a lot. And actually, I think for issuers keeping track of that is actually harder. So in the conversations that we're having with them, I think what we're trying to do is actually make it a lot easier for them and have sort of like a more all-in subscription service that provides all the services and then actually, that gives them more certainty and I guess, ASX more certainty as well. around where we're at each year on that. But that's something, as Gill says, we're probably coming in more into '23 and then we'll play out over time as actually there's more take-up of the electronic service.

We will be in a position at the full year, Ed.

Yes. I think at the full year, we'll give you more information on that. That's sort of -- it really is in the next few months ahead of us.

Okay. No, that's good. Next question, just on the D&A outlook obviously down this period with some roll offs in technology, but then you've got CHESS coming on next year. Should we anticipate to pick up from that? How should we think about the outlook for D&A in '23 and beyond?

Yes. So certainly, we have talked about this in the past that D&A will certainly go up in '24. However, not by sort of a back off the envelope calculation on what has been said in the market, how much this is costing divided by 10 years because, of course, there are other systems that are still coming off, and we've talked about this before, Ed. So look, it will increase in '24, not necessarily '23 because it'll only have 2 months. It will only be May and June of that year. So it will in '24 and once again, we'll be able to do that when we get closer to the time about that outlook because we do have to look at all the other projects that we have lined up. Other projects are going live in that time that will have an amortization profile. Also the older ones will be coming off.

Okay. The next question, if you go to Slide 7 and you talk about the falloff in the short rate futures. Is there anything that can stop or has changed in the market where there's less participants that could stop that short-term line heading back up to its historical average. If you do get volatility back in the market.

It's a good question. Look, I don't think -- I think the effect here is the effect of -- if you think about it, what are futures contracts for, therefore, hedging and speculation. And so if you've got a policy that says actually rates are going to be 0.1 and they're going to stay 0.1 for the foreseeable future. That massively reduces the amount of hedging people want to do because they think, well, I don't need to hedge it because I -- it's assured. And the speculators will move to something anything else because actually, they know that, that's not moving. Now I think the really interesting thing, and we had a bit of a hint of it maybe the last time we spoke at this event. But certainly, over the last 6 months, I think monetary policy in the world is sort of like come to life again and even more recently in this country and people talking about that, that is something that's going to be moving again. There's going to be speculation about it. I think it's really interesting what's going on in the world at the moment around inflation and how that plays out over the next year or 2. Obviously, I don't have a crystal ball. But what I'd say is if you thought maybe a year ago, could monetary policy just be dead for the next 5 years. I think my gut feel is that, that mean has probably changed around to. It looks like there's going to be some interesting times ahead. And maybe that's not in the very short term. But certainly, I would say it feels to me like it's closer than it was than the last time we spoke at this meeting.

Your next question comes from Nigel Pittaway from Citi.

First question is on interest income. I mean, obviously. You said that interest income will recover somewhat if interest rates rise. But I was just wondering to get a bit more color about how you're thinking about the leverage of your earnings to interest rates at the current time given I think, correct me if I'm wrong, for the most part, you can't invest beyond 12 months?

Yes. Maybe Gill, I could start or -- okay, why don't you? Yes, exactly. So I think there's -- Nigel, I think there's 2 things there. There's sort of like there's 1 that's quite easy to understand, and that's sort of like effectively our net capital. And if rates go up as percent and there's sort of a little bit north of $1 billion of net capital, you can sort of very easily model the effect of that. The second one is a little bit more subtle because what it is, is sort of like the margin on short-term securities versus repos, all of those things and that has actually been crunched in because there's so much excess cash in the system, a lot of money left overnight in the ASA accounts, which means that actually, it's hard to earn in the short end. So as that unwinds, that actually may lead to higher returns on those sorts of assets. And that's being earned on the -- I think it's $11.8 billion at the half, it's that piece of the number. So you've got sort of 2 effects running there. But I think we're sort of down at sort of like very little margin and very little outright interest rate on both of those numbers. And I think it's sort of -- the optionality is very much the other way in that those could rise over time rather than fall any further than where they are. Did that make sense, Nigel?

It does. I mean it sounds like there's a bit of a lag impact. If interest rates go up, it takes a while for that to flow through. Is that the right way to think about it?

Probably not too much. I think the average investment would probably be -- it will be less than 3 months. So I think the lag probably is more like a -- it's only a few months lag. So if rates went up tomorrow, we would probably have money invested out across the curve, and that would sort of roll off over a few months and get reinvested over a few months at high levels, if that helps.

Okay, that's great. Second question then is on the sort of commodity stroke electricity futures, you're obviously showing that they have grown as a proportion. And I think you said there is a chance they can become more meaningful moving forward. But given you are expecting a recovery in the interest rate futures, how meaningful would you think those sort of electricity futures will be in a sort of fully recovered interest rate future's environment.

I'd like to start off.

Are you starting?

I'll start off. I think what we mean by meaningful is the number that we're printing for that business alone is actually becoming a larger number. We're at the point, and I think we've said this before, Nigel, of disclosure, not quite there yet, but very close. So that's what we mean by meaningful in that it's becoming a meaningful business in its own right. You raised a very good question and proportion to future, so would absolutely be the timing of what goes on in the market versus actually the size of that commodity piece, but I'll hand over to Dom.

I think maybe, Nigel, if you look at the net income in future, and then you say if electricity is x percent of that, you get a bit of an idea that, that's now starting to become a meaningful number. And so if you say electricity sort of the growth in that market, sort of like north of 15% for the last 5 years. If you actually take that out another 5 years, that then starts to become a more meaningful number. So it's sort of it's now not just growth on a small number. It's a growth on a meaningful number, which can get you to an interesting outcome. And I think there's a real sort of tailwind behind that with what's going on in the world around renewable energy and decarbonization and also with what we'd like to do on the ACCU front or whatever in that market, I think that only sort of adds to that business line that there's probably some real opportunities for ASX sort of over the next 5 years or so in that area.

Okay. And then maybe just finally, obviously, you've talked about Synfini, and that's recently launched. I mean do you think that will ultimately be a material contributor to revenue? And if so, when is that likely to be?

I think it can be. I think -- and this is the thing. It's very hard when you're at the nascent part of what is -- it's very easy for me to talk to the point that actually blockchain and DLT is going to be a very important thing going forward. But actually, how that plays out, I think the world is still trying to sort of work out sort of apropos of my comments. So I see it growing. And I think it's sort of what we can provide is this sort of technology. But we've also -- we're already quite connected into an ecosystem. So if I go to the -- I can't remember what the slide is, but the 1 around technical services. And you look at that and that's sort of looking at over sort of like a sort of 7- to 9-year period, I think how the interaction of the connectivity has left us actually growing a whole lot of connections between not just customers to ourselves but customers to customers. I see that as being where this thing goes. It's a long-term thing that actually allows connectivity and synchronization of industries or like synchronization of whatever the technology is registering or the ledger is looking at, and that then can be accessed by a whole lot of people. I mean if you take the CHESS example, CHESS at the moment really just connects to the layer that sits around it of clearing settlement participants that sort of CHESS in the future or this technology in the future can really connect to anyone who actually has the permission rights to actually access it. So that is sort of like a more of a longer-term ecosystem thing. So is it next year? No, I think there'll be small numbers as we grow and try to start actually get people excited by the technology. But actually I see it as being a slow burn, but a very important strategic think going forward that actually, we have that technology. That technology is out there in the market. It's working. It's also the same technologies working overseas, doing things like repos. I think Deutsche Börse is using it for other applications. So there's certainly a lot going on in the space. And I just think it's as far as a strategic thing for ASX to be involved in, in being what I would say is sort of like a world leader in this type of permission blockchain, I think, is a really important thing going forward and something that like the company can take benefit on out into the future.

Your next question comes from Andrei Stadnik from Morgan Stanley.

I wanted to ask 2 questions, if I could. Firstly, around -- you made the comment around electricity derivatives and decarbonization. Can you explain the connection and how the electricity rates you provided, how they're being used for decarbonization and any other growth options or initiatives you see around that?

Yes. I think where it comes from is like if you think about what's going on, take sort of decarbonization in a general sense, maybe in 10 years' time, how many of us will actually derive their -- the electricity, the power that drives their transport around is going to be probably less about carbon and oil and more about electricity. So there's a lot of growth we see in the electricity market over time. And then the other thing I would say is that given sort of the solar energy things we have on people's roofs, the wind power and all of these things happening, that actually leads to volatility in the grid, which means actually the second to second, an hour to hour pricing of electricity becomes more important and to have a very liquid and tradable market in that area becomes important. And then people like who provide storage into the market, who'd be looking to maybe grant caps against that or people who are operating the market, but don't want to see the prices go up when electricity spikes because of some particular reason. So it's just this risk management thing and what ASX and the cap fall market, the swaption market, the futures market can stand in the middle of that and actually provide that liquidity and price discovery for people as all of those markets grow, if that's helpful.

Yes, that's really helpful. And my second question, I wanted to ask around wage inflation. So staff costs were up 13% on pcp, what can they do to control wage inflation? Or is that just something that's too difficult, given the broader tech squeeze and they need to deliver on projects. So is there anything you think you can do on that front?

Sure. So I'll take it first. Once again, Dom, we both have a view on this. I think in the first sense -- look, for the half, we actually printed a good expense number. As you well know, it's normally high in the first half and it comes down in the second half. What we saw in the second quarter was as -- we certainly had the same issue that is published in the press, just about jobs and wage growth. And certainly, we noticed that as we were replacing the vacancies that we had, we certainly had to pay a little bit more money than what we normally would. We have thought through that, and that's why we have raised the guidance by 1% prepared that there is necessarily inflation on the wage front in the market right now. And I think it will be strange to not actually know that. And so we've reflected that certainly in the guidance. If I just come back, we were helped this half. Certainly, you'll see there in administration, we have had a number of projects underway. I think you're aware, there have been some regulator reviews and the like. That's actually been absorbed in our administration line actually because of the lower T&E travel just through COVID. So we've actually printed a pretty good half, but we do think it would rise in the second half. Dom?

Yes, I think I agree with everything that Gill says. The interesting thing, Andrei, that I would point out is that, look, everyone is talking about this. And I think if you said what is the point year end of this, it's probably technology, risk and compliance are 3 areas where actually there is pressure. And certainly, those are 3 things that we are deep in here. So certainly, certainly, there are pressures out there and we're -- as Gill said, we're managing those.

Yes. And I think you did ask about outlook and whether we can manage that. I feel that we are but yet, that's the price that everyone is paying right now in the aftermath of COVID and paying for talent. So we're just part of the same issue, I think.

Your next question comes from Kieren Chidgey from Jarden.

Just a couple of follow-up questions. Maybe just starting on the futures business and some of the mix trends that are happening there. Obviously, you've talked about sort of the good growth in electricity contracts coming through. But I see that average fee per contract this period, I think, $1.52 is sort of well up on where it was pre-COVID around $1.40. How much of that is due to the contract mix from things like electricity contracts as opposed to changes in the participant mix due to COVID and sort of how much of that, I guess, do you see unwinding as futures volumes grow and we get some of those more trading orientated participants coming back?

Look, I think it's more of just the contract changes going on there. I think there are changes around. There's a little bit less -- in fact -- now if I think about -- you're talking about since the beginning of COVID, so you're going back quite a way there. If you look at the prop traders who actually get greater rebates, as you know, Kieren, that's actually come down a bit. Others have gone up a bit, so you've seen that generally come through. And then I think there's a little bit on the reduction in short-term interest rates and actually the increase in electricity over that period would have actually helped move that along a little bit as well. So a little bit of both of those effects over that time period.

I would agree with Dom. Certainly, this half has been more marked by the fact, obviously, we're not paying the rebates that we have in the past because futures volumes are down. And so I think that skews that average fee as well.

Yes. Okay. All right. And just, I mean, also related to the futures business, and I guess some of the interest income, there was a question on that earlier. But from a balance point of view, as we see, hopefully, a further recovery in volumes, should we be anticipating a more sort of stagnant participant sort of collateral balance just given the likely shift away from 10-year bond back into shorter dated contracts?

That's a hard one because yes, I guess it goes to open interest or whatever. And we've seen the bond market grow and grow and the open interest in the 10-year futures grow and grow. A lot of that also, Kieren, is to do with the open interest around the SPY contract because as I think you suggest correctly, it's the 10-year bonds and the SPY are the most sort of like volatile or the biggest value at risk or whatever as opposed to sort of like the bank bills. So yes, you're right, if that sort of picks up, it won't actually have as much effect on the collateral balances if a whole lot of trading or in fact, open positions or outright sort of like net longs and shorts moved out of the 10 years, that would have had an effect. But I think it's probably more -- there's a little bit going on between the short end and the long end, but I think it's probably more that the short end recovers rather than like there's a whole bunch of trading in the 10 years that will move to the short end. I think it's more that there's just a lack of trading in the short end, and that will pick up if monetary policy starts moving again.

Okay. Got it. And maybe just a final question, sort of going back to some of the comments you made around carbon and sort of ACCU type opportunities. Can you just sort of elaborate on what you're actually doing there? I know there is a process being run by the government on that front in terms of carbon exchange, but sort of what role you hope you might play there.

What the government is looking for is for someone or -- in fact, or a group of people to be or group of organizations to be effectively end market to create a market for ACCUs. So almost like a spot market in the trading of those units. Then there is also the registry of those units as well. So this sort of the registry of that. And then also a few futures market perhaps over those units or perhaps the cheapest to deliver of those units because they all have their own idiosyncrasies, they're all sort of a little bit different. So -- and I think what the clean energy regulator is working through what the best structure for that might be -- and also, they'll have an RFP out effectively as to a whole bunch of people who are on their shortlist to move forward as to pitch for that opportunity.

Okay. And ASX is sort of a participant in that process?

That's correct. ASX is in that mix. And I don't expect that to change anything in our numbers in the immediate term. But I think it's more -- all of these things are just growing things if we -- again, if we look at in the medium term, carbon and carbon credits will just be a bigger part of life, I think.

Yes. And then just finally on DLT. I'm just wondering if you could give a quick update on when you think you'll be in a position to outline a bit more detail to the market around the revenue model there as sort of you go live early next calendar year?

Yes, I think that is -- that will be reasonably soon, I think because it's -- we're -- obviously, with these things, their discussions with regulators, and then sort of consultation with market. Obviously, there's been a lot of consultation going on. So I would expect perhaps next time we speak, that there will be -- we'll be able to give you more on that. So again, not too far away as the CHESS project sort of like comes towards completion.

The next question comes from Matt Dunger from Bank of America.

Yes. Just noting the lower FTE at the end of the period, can you talk to the trajectory for FTE in the context of your cost guidance? And also Gillian, I think you called out some restructuring costs. How much were these? And what was the ongoing impact in the first half?

Sure. So in the first instance, the restructuring cost, it really was the operating model redesign or review that we went through at the start of the year. And the -- it was just the cost associated with people associated with that. So that's what it is. Also from an expense perspective, can I just add that was probably about 1.5% of that 7.6%. So I just want everyone to know that's a nonrecurring expense. Two, you talk about FTEs, there is average and then there's spot. And certainly, from an average perspective, we certainly were up tight, but there's churn in those numbers, too. And so as you know it's never straight lined. So I think you said it was below, but actually it was above.

Just, yes.

Yes, just, but it's the average.

Sorry, I think the end of period first half '22 was above -- was below second half '21?

Sorry, I missed that. Sorry, Dom was talking. Sorry, could you say that again?

Sorry, I think the FTE at the end of December was below the June half year.

Yes. So look, average, it's a bit up, but from a spot, I think the other thing that we're obviously seeing as well is with people movement and that sort of thing, we do have a bit of a vacancy rate actually coming through too. So there is about balance between the vacant rate and actually the highest salaries that we're then having to afford for people to come in. So I believe at the end of December will be part of that vacancy rate. I absolutely would be going with average FTE not spot.

Okay. And does that have any impact on CHESS time lines, just to be clear?

No, no, that actually doesn't. That line doesn't have an impact on us. I'll give you more of a flavor. Actually, I'll give you more of a flavor. We have vacancies across the group. And so you are talking about back-office functions, as Dom said before, risk and compliance. It's the whole slew. So we can categorically say it's not tied up with the CHESS program.

Your next question comes from Eric Johnston from The Australian.

So one of the questions I was just -- just wanted to find out, you spoke about your retirement, why now with timing because you do have a lot of sort of technical builds underway and sort of balls in the air on that front. So are we -- are you pulling the plug too soon, so to speak?

Thanks, Eric. No, I'm still here, and I'm still here for some time yet. I think what this is more about, Eric, is it's like giving people ample notice around this. And with the project, I mean, ITE, the industry test environment is open. There's hundreds of thousands of transactions sort of like going through that as we speak. The broader customer group over the next few months, we'll be bringing into that. And that gets sort of like towards the middle of the year, you're in a stage where effectively CHESS as a project has been delivered into that environment and then it's sort of transition and testing and all of those things happening. But -- so when you sort of think about it, and 1 of the things if you things if you were listening through the full presentation, Eric, today tried to sort of like point out or take you through all the things that we've been doing as a sort of like a strategic project over the last 5 years or 6 years. And what that is, is that transformation piece when you look at it, is all of these things that were replaced out of which the last one is CHESS. And the second last one is the equity data warehouse, which is also an industry testing, is just about to go into parallel run, so it's a little bit ahead of where CHESS is. All of those things are coming to a close. And that doesn't mean we're not doing more sort of like revitalization of various things we do, that sort of this is an ongoing thing, but this is actually the CHESS thing and all the related things around that and some rebuilding of older infrastructure like secondary data centers, communication systems and all that. That's been a sort of like a big project. Where we're getting to is we go into the next stage. The next stage of that is actually capitalizing on that. And that's a really exciting stage for ASX. And that is sort of we're '22 now, we're -- that's sort of '23 and beyond. And so if you think about '23 and beyond and think about the fact that I've now been here for 9 years. I've been CEO for -- I mean, my sixth year of CEO here. The '23 to '28, I don't see that I'm the person who can commit to that '23 to 28 time line because I've already done my -- a significant amount of time in the organization. And so in comes in with the Chair, it's actually the thing we should be thinking about here is what's the right thing for ASX over the next 12 to 18 months as we move into CHESS. And so when you actually look at what we've talked about here and look at the count of factual is the right thing for me to stay right to the very end of that and through all that testing. And then as soon as the flag goes down on the next new strategy of ASX, you actually change drivers. Is that -- or is it actually you want to have a crossover period before and you hit the ground running when all of that is completed. And so I think that's what we thought was the best thing for ASX as opposed to what's the best thing for Dominic Stevens.

And just quickly sort of follow-up. So you think all the foundations and the groundwork, you've got that in place at the moment.

Yes. Well, if you look at the slide we put out there, it's just a tremendous amount of technology that's actually being rolled out over the last 5 years. And then if you look at what's happened on the resilience of the organization, the reduction in incidence. And also just the -- I tried to, in that last piece sort of talk about the optionality of the organization in focusing on technology and our listings business and focusing on technology with DLT on focusing on technology and e-statements -- or sorry, e-Settlements in property. These are all things that actually are going to be things that are going to be the interesting thing to talk about in ASX from 2023 to 20 -- or the end of the decade.

There are no further questions at this time.

Okay. With that, thank you. And I'd just say for anyone or any investors on the line or I know I will be speaking to analysts this afternoon who -- just given the news of today who want to have a conversation, please feel free to call us up and we can set something up. So thank you, everyone, for your time here, and thanks, Gill. Thanks, everyone.

Thank you, Dom.

Bye-bye.