CMC Markets Plc (CMCX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining CMC's Full Year 2024 Results Presentation. On the call today is apart from myself is Dave Fineberg, Deputy CEO; Albert, Chief Financial Officer; Matt Lewis from Head of APAC and Canada; and Head of Capital Markets, Laurence Booth. I will begin this morning's presentation with a brief overview of some of the operational and strategic successes from the year before handing over to Albert, Dave, Matt and Laurence, who will cover the financial and operational highlights in more detail. I will then finish with a summary of our strategic progress before we take your questions. Now before we turn to Slide 3, I just -- I just wanted to answer 3 questions that I often get asked, and they are, number one, am I going to retire? Number two, am I still committed to the business; and three, am I going to selling these shares. So here are the answers. No, I'm never going to retire. I repeat I'm never going to retire. Yes, I'm still very much committed to the business, and you will see that in today's presentations. No, I have not sold shares since 2016, and I have no plans to. And just to one point really, if I leave for as long as Warren Buffett, I will work for CMC Markets for at least another 23 years. When I listed this business in 2016, I sold the minimum number of shares that I could sell, and I have not sold any shares since and I do not plan to. I have never gained any of my shares. I didn't buy more shares when they were at their lows of around 80p, and I didn't sell any shares when they were at their highs above GBP 5. Being an owner run business, I believe, is a big advantage. I get things done. I [indiscernible], and I'm definitely not [indiscernible]. Since I banned working from home a year ago, our share price is tripled. Over the last year, we have cut overhead because I can spot wastage and by having people in the office you can spot wastage immediately. My aim is to deliver value in the business not just from higher profits, but through diversity, scale, technology, a new markets via B2B and B2C platforms. I'm still very ambitious and driven by the opportunities that exist for CMC Market. And I will never dilute shareholders for a vanity acquisition because if I dilute shareholders, then I dilute myself. My interests are aligned with all shareholders. We both have skin in the game, but I have the most. I've never allowed my custodian to lend my shares, thus avoiding short selling even though it could mean that I could buy shares back at a lower price. I will always and always do my best to protect the company and all of its shareholders. I'm completely focused on driving up the value of the company. Today, we are approximately double the rate in that we were 3 years ago and way ahead of our peer groups. I'm not interested in short-term gains to push up the bonus part. Key staff have long-term shareables at best through [indiscernible] and hard work. My wealth is aligned to theirs as we increase the value of the company and the shares become worth more. I believe it is better to have lower profits on a higher rate than higher profits on a lower rate. To me, it's all about value. Being a dominant shareholder CEO gives CMC Markets a massive competitive advantage because decisions get made and things get done. But behind me, I have a strong [indiscernible] and a strong Chairman who is in the office every week, and we speak every week. Whilst I am the CEO, we will constantly invest in our technology. This in the past, has probably meant reduced profits. But I can think of 3 or 4 companies today that are struggling because they didn't invest in technology, and they are paying the price. I'm in the office every day at 7:30 a.m., 5 days a week. This business has been good to me, but I have been good to it. One thing I've learned over 3 decades is that if you do the right thing and put the company first, then everything else falls into place. And over a period of time, the rewards and value will be even greater. I love and I'm dedicated to this business, and I'm going to take it to the next level and it won't take me until I get to Warren Buffett's age. So full year '24 has been a year of substantial operational progress and strong financial performance for CMC Markets. Our financial performance in the year has been exceptionally strong with a record year of net operating income, excluding the COVID-19 effect in 2021 period. This not only reflects the dedication and hard work of our team, but also the successful implementation of our strategic vision, which has continued to transform our business away from a retail CMC provider and into a provider of financial technology solutions. Our technology is our core competitive advantage and our API ecosystem and connectivity through our CMC Markets Connect brand is central to our institutional first position, helping us to secure a number of large B2B partnerships such as that announced this week with Revolut. These technological developments have been underpinned by a program of continued product upgrades across all of our businesses as well as our ongoing geographical expansion. Full year '24 also saw the group complete a cost review designed to rationalize our cost base and drive synergies through our global operations. Those cost savings have been supported by operational developments designed to drive further efficiencies such as the establishment of a centralized treasury management division, something that I will cover in more detail later on. With our market-leading technology, continued program of product upgrades and increasingly lean cost base, CMC Markets is primed to deliver sustained profit margin expansion in the years ahead. And I'm going to hand over to Albert, who is going to take you through the financial performance in more detail. Thank you, Albert.

Thank you, Peter, and good morning, everyone. I would like to begin by turning to Slide 5, which looks at our key performance indicators. Before going through the numbers in detail, I would just like to bring to your attention to some of the changes we have made to the presentation of our financial and business performance metrics. [indiscernible] at the half year results, that we are looking into better aligning our KPIs to the strategic position of our business, which is increasingly moving away from being a predominantly retail safety provider to a provider of fintech solutions. We have made this change and are no longer reporting metrics such as trading active clients and income retention to more reflective of the business performed historically, but are no longer relevant to give sufficient insight on how we view the performance of the organization and our broader strategic goals. Turning to our financial performance. Net operating income was GBP 332.8 million, 15% uplift on prior year. This was driven by a particularly strong performance in our training business in the second half with both retail and institutional segments performing well. Our net revenue mix remained broadly consistent with the levels seen through 2023, with trading revenue continuing to account for the majority of our income and approximately 88% in sterling terms. Our adjusted profit before tax was GBP 80 million, up 52% on prior year. However, once the one-off items such as impairment and restructuring costs were included, profit before tax came in at over GBP 63 million, which is a reflection of the net operating income performance along with the steps taken to streamline our cost base and drive efficiencies, which Peter will cover in more detail later. Our earnings per share for the year was 16.7p, up from 14.7p per share for the same period last year. The full year dividend is up 12% at 8.3p per share, reflecting a payout in line with our dividend policy of distributing 50% of after-tax profits. The net operating income performance was driven by the strong performance in the trading business already mentioned as well as 152% increase in interest income, offset somewhat by investing net revenue, which was down 10% in sterling terms, but only down 3% on a constant currency basis. While our profit before tax of GBP 63.3 million represents an increase of 21% year-on-year on an adjusted basis and stripping out one-off costs related to the impact of the impairment of tangibles and restructuring costs related to our cost cutting program. Profit before tax grew to GBP 18 million, an increase of 52% from prior year. Our adjusted operating expenses, which exclude variable remuneration, increased by approximately 15% to GBP 249.5 million, driven mainly by wage inflation and the nonrecurring items I just mentioned. Variable remuneration was also up on last year, in line with the stronger financial performance of the business. Our PBT margin came in at 19%, up 90 basis points from prior year and this is a metric we are focused on improving going forward as we look to leverage our scale and drive efficiencies through the business. Group's balance sheet and overall regulatory capital remains strong. Capital resources increased to GBP 340.1 million with increases in retained earnings for the year being partly offset by the proposed final dividend distribution. Our total OFR ratio was down in the year at 312%. But nevertheless, remains a strong announcement and is reflective of the high level of capital resources that exist within our business. Our total available liquidity increased GBP 445.4 million with increases in both own funds and nonsegregated client and partner funds. The latter was driven by a small number of high net worth institutional clients. Our block cash has remained broadly stable year-on-year, whilst margin requirements of brokers were up midyear due to the growth of client exposures and the resulting increase in our overall hedge position. The net result is available liquidity of GBP 193.2 million, which reflects the movements I've just outlined. With the launch of new product initiatives, further technological advances and the expanding opportunities created by our diversification strategy, combined with our program to rationalize costs, we are confident in the business' ability to generate robust levels of income on a leaner cost base. Whilst the potential price certainty in the financial markets remaining, the good momentum seen in H2 has continued, and the business has made a solid start to full year '25. Having now reached the peak of the investment cycle, we will continue to seek opportunities to further drive cost efficiencies and leverage scale of the business to deliver margin expansion while remaining committed to a disciplined level of investment over the medium term. We're, therefore, expecting to achieve net operating between GBP 320 million to GBP 360 million in financial year '25 and a cost base, excluding varying remuneration and nonrecurring charges, of approximately GBP 225 million. We are forecasting an effective tax rate of 26%, which is consistent with the prior year. And with that, I would like to hand over to Matt, who's going to talk you through some of the work he and the team are doing on the invest business.

Thank you, Albert, and good morning, everyone. Firstly, I will walk you through the key performance of the combined investing business in FY '24 from Australia and the newer jurisdictions of U.K. and Singapore. We will then do a deep dive into invest Australia given the maturity and size of this business. . Looking firstly into the wholesale and institutional segment, followed by the overall performance in FY '24. I will then conclude with an update on our strategic initiatives in the region. FY '24 net operating income made up of investing net revenue and interest income was ahead of prior year, coming in at GBP 45 million. The growth in interest income has more than offset a slightly softer investing net revenue. The chart on the bottom left shows how the segment mix of the business has evolved over time. The retail segment has increased to circa 70% after our successful integration of the ANZ book in early 2023. The ANZ partnership started as a B2B white-label arrangement back in 2018. And as I'll discuss in the next slide, the B2B segment is an attractive and important part of the business in terms of current contribution, but importantly, future growth opportunities. Finally, the chart on the right shows the value of assets under administration, which at the end of FY '24, sat at GBP 40.5 billion. Pleasingly, this is higher than FY '23 driven by growth seen in the second half as a result of market performance and the stable cash holdings. The AUA holding is comprised of circa GBP 35 billion of domestic shares, GBP 2 billion of international shares and GBP 4 billion of cash. We will now do a deep dive into the B2B segment of the Invest Australia business. The wholesale and institutional segment is made up of over 120 partnerships with Tier 1 and 2 banks, investment houses, financial planners and advisory firms, servicing a combined total of 270,000 underlying client accounts. In FY '24, this segment contributed circa 30% of brokerage revenue for the business. Aside from the current revenue contribution, we see further upside from this important strategic segment by extracting further value from the existing book. Firstly, international trading is a key focus area for our partners and intermediaries moving forward. Working with our partners, we are confident we can replicate the success seen in the retail segment, driven by our decision support tools, ease of access, attractive pricing and all around best-in-class offering. Secondly, we have plans to roll out our physical crypto offering to our partner and white label clients later in the year, a new and exciting offering that has seen strong uptake and trading turnover since its launch to our retail clients last September. Thirdly, we see further opportunities to enhance the returns earned through our centralized treasury management system on the sizable cash holdings we maintain as mentioned in the previous slide. Finally, given our successful track record in partnering with major banks and financial institutions empowering their stockbroking and investing platforms, we are well placed to develop new partnerships in the region. I am pleased to note that we are in advanced talks with a major institution in the Asia Pacific region, on which I'll be able to share more details over the coming weeks. I will now talk you through the FY '24 performance highlights for Invest Australia. Net operating income made up of investing net revenue and interest income was in line with prior year at GBP 44.5 million. Importantly, underlying performance in local currency grew 9%. This uplift was offset by a negative FX impact due to a weaker Australian dollar year-on-year. Looking further into each component, investing net revenue was GBP 33.9 million, 11% down year-on-year. The bulk of this decline was due to the weaker Australian dollar. Underlying performance in local currency saw a more modest 3% decline. The impact of lower domestic trading was largely offset by strong international trading. Our strategic initiative to boost our international offering is paying off with foreign exchange revenue from international trading up 40% year-on-year. Our customers enjoy the ability to trade across 15 international markets on our award-winning integrated web and mobile platforms at market competitive prices, supported by an extensive range of research and decision support tools. In addition, H2 saw the launch of physical crypto trading for our retail customers, further adding product diversification through our investing net revenue. Client opt-in numbers and turnover volumes since launch have exceeded expectations and coincide with increasing acceptance of crypto as an investment asset class by the general investing community. Interest income came in at a meaningful GBP 10.6 million, up 63%. Lastly, on this slide, the chart on the bottom left demonstrates our active client levels finished at 208,000 for the year. While this represents a minor 4% decline against prior year, we have increased our domestic market share compared to our direct competitors, consolidating our position as the second largest retail stockbroker in Australia with over 16% market share. Our ability to attract new customers remains strong with 58,000 new accounts opened in the year. Overall, the Invest Australia business contributed circa 13% to total group net operating income. I'll now give an update on progress of the strategic initiatives of the Invest business. Our strategic expansion occurs on 2 fronts: product and regional expansion. In terms of product expansion, as previously mentioned, physical crypto trading went live for our retail customer base during the year, directly contributing to our FY '24 net revenue. Throughout FY '25, we intend to launch this offering to new geographies into our white label and partners segment. In terms of regional expansion, Invest Singapore was successfully launched in September last year, building off the success of the fully featured Australian offering. As this business continues to develop, we'll grow the customer base through new product offerings and targeted marketing investments, such as our recent collaboration with local sports personalities to increase our brand awareness in the local market. Furthermore, Singapore provides access to the wider Southeast Asian institutional and partnership opportunities. We continue to innovate and provide our valued customers with a secure, user-friendly, fully featured trading platform supported with a range of research and analytical tools, including our very owned thematic investing, education and content platform Opto. Our pursuit of excellence is publicly recognized, having just been awarded Canstar Broker of the Year in 2024, our 14th year in a row winning this award. This year, we additionally achieved a clean sweep across all the different investment customer profiles. I will now hand you over to Dave for a trading update.

Thank you, Matt, and good morning, everyone. We're going to take you through the performance of our Trade division in the year as well as covering our institutional first positioning and how the strategic direction is benefiting the group. Beginning with Slide 15. As Albert mentioned earlier, FY '24 was a very strong year for trading business. Trading net revenue increased by GBP 26 million, representing an 11% increase against the prior year due to a strong second half performance. As you can see from the chart on the right-hand side, this growth has been seen in parallel with the continued expansion of our B2B and Institutional segment, which continues to grow as a proportion of our overall turnover. Our increased levels of activity with this higher value segment has, in turn, driven increase in revenue per active client of GBP 717, which is up 18% to GBR 4,685. [indiscernible] was a record high level for the group, reflecting the growing proportion of trading volumes generated by this high-value institutional clients. Our product rollouts and technological upgrades have continued throughout the year. And the strong financial performance is reflected in this investment as well as our institutional first positioning and strategic pivot towards this more valued customer segment. The positive development seen across our trading KPIs reflects what has been a very strong year for the business. Now I would like to now turn to the next slide, which looks at our increasing volumes for our B2B clients in a bit more detail. As demonstrated on this slide, the group's strategy of diversification and placing a greater focus on institutional clients and the B2B sector continues to build momentum. Across both the training and investment business, the level of assets under administration within the B2B segment continued to grow. This institutional first position is underpinned by our CMC Markets Connect API ecosystem, which provides the foundations for expansion. The power of this technology is proving critical in securing a number of large B2B partnerships such as Revolut. This builds on an already extensive network of partnerships that we have in place and our ability to provide larger institutions with complex bespoke build, cements us further as a partner of choice and reinforces our deep understanding of the financial sector and the technical superiority. This growth in the B2B is set to continue. It is our expectation that we will reach an even 50-50 split across both our investing and trading businesses in the coming years. This institutional first approach is not radical, it is logical. As can be seen in the turnover spreads and the continued rise in contribution to the group. Our B2B flow on the trading side is typically lower margin due to narrow pricing and less predictable flow. The margin opportunity is far higher. The investments in this area benefits all areas of the company. As we enhance our product offering, drive down latency, we enhance our real-time data monitoring in consumption. With that, I would like to hand you over to Laurence, who is going to cover our Connect ecosystem in a bit more detail.

Thank you, Dave, and good morning, everyone. I am Laurence Booth, the Global Head of Capital Markets at CMC. And I would like to take a moment talking you through our CMC Markets Connect brand. CMC Connect is the underlying point of connectivity throughout our business. It brings together our micro services layer and powers our front end, direct to our customer. The business has come a long way since our first partnership in the Middle East, which was more than 30 years ago. Today, we currently boast more than 400 institutions with marquee partnerships in all of our major geographies and a strong pipeline across new and existing regions. Our target audience is diverse from large institutions down to retail customers, but our service is institutional in terms of pricing, execution and scale. With a single connection, we offer access to global markets via our multi-asset investing and trading technology through API connectivity or white label solutions. Connect brings together all our brands in StrikeX, Opto, markets, Markets, CapX and Invest, and provides point of connection between our front-end services and back-end technology solutions. This vast array of financial services enhances the success and thus the duration of the customer. Our fully customizable API and white label solution allows institutions to extract more value from their existing client base by providing a premium investing and trading experience across an extensive array of instruments. Our partners can white label the Invest or Markets offering, customizing the platform to their needs. CMC hosts the infrastructure and the seamless connectivity through our Connect platform. As you can see from the graphic on the left-hand side, our one connection API provides the link between our clients and the market, whether by around B2B relationships and our white label partnerships, all direct to the customer. A layer down from these sub-brands, such as Opto, are our micro services, which make up our content. This is one of our key differentiators because as we talk to our partners, we can cherry pick from our vast suite of services, which are now completely unbundled. We provide a customer-focused build with API connectivity, making the platform scalable and bespoke. The ability to build and scale our offering provides our clients with the flexibility they need to manage their business for success. This unbundled approach also enables CMC the flexibility to quickly move with new trends and requirements within the market. And we talk a lot about execution services here. But I also want to expand upon our content hub within our sub-brand, which is Opto. Opto is our content and thematic investing app. Opto began as a publisher of financial news and analysis, quickly building a loyal audience of over 100,000 subscribers. It is now a platform for education, thematic thought leadership pieces, analytics and portfolio construction. Opto simplifies the discovery of investment opportunities with over 50 disruptive themes that are shaping our future with AI technology at the heart of our platform. This allows investors to align their portfolios with the themes and innovations they are passionate about. Opto is the perfect complement to our Invest offering, providing content, education for customers with unparalleled insights, simplifying the discovery of investment opportunities and helping individuals on their investment journey. Opto is not tied to CMC's execution service. It is entirely fungible with third-party platforms and is focused on the delivery of insightful thematic investment opportunities for our subscribers. Data science is an adjacent opportunity for CMC. CMC Connect turns over more than $4 trillion of flow annually, more than 8 billion trade data points daily and has more than 550 terabytes of storage going back more than 10 years. Storing now to analyze later provides a business with the potential opportunity of monetization presenting a further potential revenue stream for the business. And finally, to close, I would like to leave you with some remarks about our approach to building long-standing relationships. There are more than 4 billion people in the world with investable assets. CMC Connect is all about reaching as many of those as possible, and we see the optimal room through powering our partners. Our institutional business presents a huge opportunity to grow at scale. With our partners, we can expand our reach and presence across the globe. This business is not about client churn. It is about investing in our partnerships and monetizing those appropriately through the [indiscernible] of time by providing a superior quality of service, product innovation, technology and a foundation built on trust and confidence. This is both an exciting and natural evolution for CMC Group. With that, I will now hand you back to Peter.

Thank you, Laurence. Underpinning our strong financial performance is our diversification strategy, which has continued to deliver growth and open up new opportunities for the business around the world. This strategy is based on a program of continuous product development, a sustained commitment to providing market-leading financial technology and further expansion of our reach across both new geographies and markets. In financial year '24, we have made significant strides across each of these areas. In terms of our product, we have continued to diversify our offering with options rolled out on our trading platform, cash equities for institutional clients and further upgrades to our invest offering in both the United Kingdom and Australia. Laurence has already spoken to our technology in some details. Our CMC Markets Connect brand API ecosystem has proved critical in securing several B2B partnership wins including that recently announced with Revolut. Our ability to provide larger institutions with complex bespoke builds cements us further as the partner of choice and reinforces our deep understanding of the financial sector and our technical superiority. We remain committed to a disciplined level of continued investment over the medium term, leveraging technology to drive innovation, thereby delivering exceptional value to our partners. Full year '24 has also seen further expansion across new regions and markets most notably with the launch of our CMC Invest Singapore platform. We have expanded our operations in the Middle East with our subsidiary in Dubai's International Financial Center. We have placed a renewed emphasis on our European operations and have an enhanced footprint in the U.S. through our [indiscernible] Opto. Through continued and targeted regional expansion across the world, CMC continues to unlock new opportunities, delivering sustained value creation for shareholders. I would like to look now at some of the work we have been doing internally on efficiencies and costs. So a central objective for the management team for a financial year '24 has been to drive efficiencies within the business and leverage the group scalability with the ultimate goal of delivering sustainable profit margin expansion. As we announced at the half year, the business has reached a peak of its investment cycle. And in second half of '24, we completed a global cost review. This has delivered synergies through a merging of support functions and streamlining of reporting across business lines, which has enabled us to manage down head count. This reduction in head count will generate annualized savings of circa GBP 21 million from financial year '25 onwards, with a one-off cost of GBP 4.3 million taken this year. Operationally, we are also leveling up our approach as our efficiency program extends beyond costs to all areas of the business. This includes our new centralized treasury management division, which is something I'm extremely passionate about, is something which has become increasingly necessary over recent years as the group has continued to expand and diversify. With offices in 12 countries, a large stock broking business, cash settlements and expanding B2B and institutional partnerships, we have become a technology-based multicurrency global organization, which requires not just a focus on technology, but also on treasury management services. As part of this, we have linked all of our overseas offices to a single treasury management system to centralize all foreign exchange transactions and cash balances onto one real-time platform. All currency and cash movements are now centrally managed by the treasury team, who would then lock in foreign exchange profit, whilst also managing our cash with prime brokers, banks, exchanges and partners to optimize capital market returns. This ensures our cash and trade settlements are as efficient as possible and is an amazing value add to the business generating additional income through optimization and efficiencies. We will share further details on this in the years ahead as this side of the business continues to expand and mature. As you can see, following years of strong investment, we are now in a position to leverage our operational strength to show more efficiently and to continue to see opportunities to rationalize the cost base as we focus on managing the business for margin improvement. As we look to the year ahead, business is well positioned with significantly diversified revenue streams and our institutional first approach, providing significant room for growth. Combined with new product launches and further technological upgrades planned for financial year '25, we remain confident in the business' ability to generate robust levels of income on a leaner cost base resulting in a sustainable improvement in profit margins. I'm very excited about the next financial year and the future for CMC Markets. Thank you for your time today. We may now open the lines for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Ben Bathurst from RBC.

I've got questions in a couple of areas, if that's okay. Firstly, just recapping investment of recent years into strategic initiatives. I wondered which one area would you say has provided the strongest return so far, evident within the NOI performance that we've seen in the second half of 2024? And then secondly, on Revolut, how will the economics of that partnership work for CMC in the first instance? Will it be a revenue share on a transaction basis? Or will you be charging a recurring fee for your services into that infrastructure? And when do you expect revenue to start peering? And then thirdly, I just wondered are you still considering a launch of CMC Invest in New Zealand for FY '25, which is something that I think you've spoken about in the past.

Thanks, Ben. [indiscernible] will cover the strategic initiatives one, I'll cover some of the Revolut points and then we'll hand over to Matt for the New Zealand side.

Yes. So thanks for the question. So on the strategic initiatives, obviously, you know we've been quite busy here at CMC in the last few years, investing in both our technology and product. That is a whole of offering investment that we've made here by diversifying the product offering to move more away from your traditional safety and FX product, what we've done is we've expanded our total addressable market and clearly being able to attract some good partnerships there. The institutional part of the business is where we've seen a much wider uptake for that product. And I think that means we're really seeing some early signs of some positive returns on their investment. But we're quite optimistic about the future and how that shapes up and really looking to generate further partnerships with more diverse product offering.

Yes. So regarding Revolut, obviously, we've said before, this is obviously a huge partnership for us. None of the numbers are in the consensus. So therefore, we're not divulging the economics of the relationship. This, for us, obviously, from the technology side, this is an evolution of our API suite that Laurence covered throughout the presentation. So -- there will be obviously more detail in due course. But at the moment, there's no numbers being disclosed. Matt?

Ben, thanks for the question. We've had a presence in New Zealand with the derivative side of the business for 20 years now. We absolutely have interest in taking the Invest business and platform to New Zealand. We're likely to be there, an FY '26 launch for that, though, while we I guess, customize our offering to be more cater for the local market there.

Next question is from Stuart Duncan at Peel Hunt.

I've got two questions, if it's okay. First of all, you've spoken about this sort of increased volumes coming through the institutional side. I'd just be interested whether you had to change any risk management processes given growth in that area and the different nature of the client base? And then secondly, on the balance sheet, given the level of profitability of the business is expected to deliver and the point you make about content of the investment cycle, whether you had any thoughts about what you actually start to do with the capital and the cash you will be accumulating over the next year or 2?

Yes, sure. So I'll pick up the risk management [indiscernible] will pick up the capital point. So obviously, this is -- like I said in this slide, this is not a radical change. We've been building this throughout. As you know, we continue to invest in the company, in the infrastructure. So this is a path we've been on for some time. Increasing the pricing streams that we're able to offer, the shape of the liquidity, fundamentally driving down latency. So that's been the core focus for the area. So from our side, it doesn't matter if the flow is coming from an individual or an institution. We receive thousands of orders per second through our system. We know it could scale. We've been trying to test it, like we saw through the whole COVID period. Our system didn't go down. Service was operational throughout. So that high-grade service, [indiscernible] shape liquidity is what we offer. So there's no change in the risk management side. It continues to evolve in line with the flow we receive. And as Laurence pointed out, that data consumption and monitoring that we have is a real USP for the company.

Stuart, on the cash side of the balance sheet. So we're always focused on maximizing shareholder returns. And you see that in terms of maintaining our dividend policy of paying out 50% of after-tax profits. So we're a growth business that pays healthy dividends. But I would say with the cash, our cash balances really power our growth initiatives. And as we've mentioned throughout this presentation, we see huge opportunity, tremendous opportunity for the business as we look forward over the short and medium term. And that cash balance will really help us take advantage of those opportunities. And as I say, we're always focused on overall shareholder returns, and we are maintaining our dividend policy of paying 50% of after-tax profits.

And just to add to that, on a broader note, our TMS, our centralized real-time treasury management system allows us to sort of monitor cash clear [indiscernible] lock-in foreign exchange profit. So we can optimize the amount of cash that's within the business, not just to earn additional interest return on that, but to make sure that we have additional use of the balance sheet. And I can't talk enough about our treasury management platform. It's my background. But the amount of scale that it gives us as a business going forward. It just underpins our whole institutional offering.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Portia Patel at Canaccord.

I've got two, please. Firstly, I understand that you don't want to provide specifics with respect to Revolut, but it would be useful to understand how B2B partnerships in the trading division are being monetized more generally. And secondly, it would be useful if you could explain why gross income retention in the trading business is no longer a relevant metric since it has been such a key factor resulting in earnings volatility historically?

Yes, sure. So in terms of the -- so we're talking about the institutional side, generally how we monetize that. So like I said before, in terms of the products we offer, the increasing turnover across the various asset classes. So we obviously manage business across the world, so we net everything off. So that, for us, -- there's no change in our risk appetite. And in terms of the -- sorry, in terms of the commercial offering, it can vary across the different institutions. But there's nothing fundamentally different in how we manage the institution side. The gross income side. So yes, we did have that historically. But like we said before, the both business is diversifying. It's not so much a relevant metric like the percentage of client income. So that's why we're not disclosing anymore.

Yes, apologies for that. Thanks for covering that, Dave. Yes, so Portia, specifically on your question, so as we outlined earlier, gross income retention historically has been relevant for the retail side, with the trading side of the business. But if you look at the transformation that's going on with our business today, the increasing relevance of the B2B flow and a different type of revenue generation that we have there really dilutes that metric as a storyteller for the performance of the business. We're also getting different types of clients, different business trends coming in. So client retention is more of all losing its relevance to really give that indicator. Now I say that, we're not fighting it. It's -- if you look through our accounts, you can working it out quite quickly. But what we are trying to do is more shift the focus to the right metrics that we see assessing the performance of the business.

And I think just to add to what Dave and Albert said, that metric, it's only relevant if you're a CFD-only type organization. The transformation we're seeing now institutional clients coming through. It's not a relevant metric for us going forward. But you can work it out. It was very good last year.

There are no further questions on the webinar. I will now hand over to the Investor Relations team to read out the written questions.

We've got 1 question from Ben Williams at Hanneman Partners. So Ben asks, when did you start building the tech, which eventually allowed you to sign this deal with Revolut and will customers see these CFDs as a Revolut product or will they know the CMC brand?

Yes, sure. Yes, I'll start with this one. Thanks, Ben. Regarding the technology Revolut, this is just an evolution of our already existing API coactivity. So there's nothing fundamentally new. Like we've often said before when institutions come to us, every one is different. There are some that we really hate to for those where we need to do slight tweaks to the technology, but this is no different. This is just an extension of our API offering.

He has to add to that. So I think that the real evolution or the point where we've reached now in our journey is that all of our services have been fully unbundled. So -- and we've really bolstered those services as well with the addition of listed futures and options, cash equities, OTC options, et cetera. So now we have a much broader suite of products within that API universe to cater for more B2B partners. So it is a continuum of what we've always had in the wheelhouse. We have just improved that micro services layer and made sure that everything is attainable through that single API connection.

We answer the point about where our brand will be seen by Revolut clients.

No. So this is all within the Revolut app.

It's not wide. It's a connectivity from Revolut platform to our platform. Clients, their clients, slightly old day and said deal when we did that. Their clients think that they're dealing with Revolut, but we actually see all the flows. And we're empowering.

We have no more questions coming through on the e-mail. So [indiscernible], if you got anything else on the line?

There are no more written questions. I would now like to hand back to Peter Cruddas, Chief Executive Officer, for closing remarks.

Yes. Look, thanks everybody for connecting with us today. Actually, I think this is the best the company has ever been. I think the presentation really does explain really where we've come as a company and the opportunities that we have in the future. So look forward to catching up with some of you on the road, and thank you for your interest and support. Bye-bye.