Currency Exchange International, Corp. (CXI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the 2023 Annual General and Special Meeting of Shareholders of Currency Exchange International, Corp. [Operator Instructions] And I would like to turn the meeting over to Margaret Kingerski. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Margaret Kingerski. I'm the Corporate Secretary for Currency Exchange International. Before proceeding with the formal business of today's meeting, thank you for attending today. This year's meeting of shareholders is being conducted in person, online and via teleconference. Shareholders and other appointees who are joining us online or via telephone will have the option to vote on the items of business for the meeting. Please follow the instruction on screen or as provided by the telephone operator. If you are a shareholder or an appointee, who is here in person, you will have received a ballot from Computershare when you arrived. If you have not received a ballot, please put up your hand now, and they will provide you with one. We have no takers. Thank you. Please note that if you are joining today's meeting as a guest, you will not be able to vote. Once the formal business of the meeting has been completed, management will provide an update on the business of the corporation, after which there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please reserve your questions until that time. We have the following items of business to address at today's meeting. Presentation of the financial statements of the corporation for the year ended October 31, 2022, and the auditor's reports, appointment of Grant Thorton, LLP as the auditors of the corporation for the ensuing year, election of the Directors of the corporation for the ensuing year, to consider and, if deemed advisable, to pass with or without variation, a special resolution to approve the amendment to the corporation's bylaws to allow for the alternative of book entry, ownership of the corporation's shares; to consider, and if deemed advisable, to pass with or without variation an ordinary resolution to ratify, confirm and approve an amendment to the corporation's long-term incentive plan in respect of increasing the number of shares reserved for issuance and the insider participation limit to 15% of the issued and outstanding common shares of the corporation; and any other business that may come properly before the meeting. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Randolph Pinna, President and CEO of the Corporation.

Thank you, Margaret. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Randolph Pinna. Welcome to the Annual General and Special Meeting of Shareholders of Currency Exchange International. I'm going to act as the Chair of this meeting. Before proceeding with the business of the meeting, I would like to first introduce just briefly our directors and ask each one to stand just for 1 second here, starting with Joe August, Chirag Bhavsar back here, okay. Mark Mickleborough, Jim Sardo, Chitwant Kohli, Stacey Mowbray and Daryl Yeo. Okay. I would also like to introduce [Carol Polson] who is standing for election at this year's meeting. Finally, I would like to recognize Johanne Brossard. She is stepping down from the Board at this meeting. And on behalf of the Board and myself, I would personally like to thank her for her service to the Board and the corporation. Thank you, Johanne.

Thank you.

Also joining me here today are Gerhard Barnard -- he's our Group CFO, sorry. Alan Stratton, which is Exchange Bank's CFO; and Khatuna, who is our Head of Human Resources. Okay. So now to be serious, and this is not my favorite part of today. But I'm going to go ahead and call the meeting to order. In accordance with the bylaws of the corporation, I shall preside as the Chair of this meeting. With the consent of this meeting, I shall ask Margaret, the Secretary of the corporation to act as Secretary of the meeting. With the consent of the meeting, I shall ask Kate Stevens and [Indiscernible] of Computershare Trust Company of Canada, the corporation's register and transfer agent to act as scrutineers to report on the shareholders present in person and the number of shares represented in person or by proxy at this meeting and any adjournment to compute the votes on any polls taken on ballots cast at this meeting or any adjournment and in each case to report to me as the Chair. First, the scrutineer has provided me with the preliminary report regarding shareholder attendance and representation at this meeting. The scrutineer reports that there are present at this meeting or in person or by proxy, 9 shareholders didn't present, 43 shareholders by proxy, a total of 52 shareholders representing 3,886,410 shares. This represents 60.41% of the total common shares outstanding. Accordingly, I declare that this requisite quorum of shareholders is present, and I declare that the meeting is duly and properly constituted for the transaction of business. I direct that the scrutineer's complete report on attendance be annexed to the minutes of this meeting. The notice calling this meeting and accompanying management information circular, form of proxy and the consolidated financial statements of the corporation together with the auditor's report on the financial statements have been mailed to all shareholders of the corporation. The corporation has utilized the notice and access mechanism under National Instrument 54-101 communication with beneficial owners of Securities of a Reporting Issuer and National Instrument 51-102 Continuous Disclosure Obligations. Additional copies of such materials are available at this meeting. In the back, we have our annual report in these documents, as well as on sedar.com, envisionreports.com and on the corporations website. An affidavit of mailing of the documentation required to be mailed under the notice and access provisions has been provided by Computershare Trust Company of Canada, to the company's and I direct that this affidavit be annexed to the minutes of the meeting. Accordingly, unless there is an objection, I will dispense with the reading of the notice of the meeting. No objection, okay. I propose to conduct a vote by ballot on the resolutions put to the meeting for the election of directors, the appointment of the auditor, the amendment to the bylaws and the amendment to the corporation's long-term incentive plan. Before proceeding, I would like to advise attendees, the management holds 3,679,496 shares. This represents approximately 55% of the shares that have been voted of the corporation's outstanding -- sorry, the corporation's outstanding shares. These proxies appoint management to vote as directed by the shareholders. However, if such a direction is not made in respect of any manner, these proxies appoint management to vote in the manner determined by the appointed as a proxy holder and to vote on such other business as may properly come before the meeting. As proxy holder, management intends to vote these proxies as recommended by management. In order to expedite the business of this meeting, I have requested that certain persons make and second the formal motions, and I will call on these people at the appropriate time. Shareholders may make comments specific to these motions prior to the vote, but should hold any comments on general matters until question period to be held following the company's presentation. The first, the financial statements of the corporation as of October 31, 2022, together with the report of the auditors thereon have been mailed to all shareholders of the corporation. It is not proposed to ask the shareholders to approve the financial statements, which have been presented before the meeting. However, after my remarks and those of the Chief Financial Officer on the operations of the corporation and after any formal business of the meeting, we would be pleased to answer any relevant questions concerning the financial statements. So appointment of auditors. We will now proceed with the appointment of the auditors of the company. I've been advised by the scrutineer that the proxies deposited for the meeting have overwhelmingly voted for the appointment of Grant Thornton, LLP as auditors of the company. I would like to ask Khatuna to move the following resolution. Be it hereby resolve that Grant Thornton LLP, Chartered Accounts be and they are hereby appointed as auditors of the company to hold office until the close of the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders or until their successors are appointed at such remuneration as may be fixed by the directors and the directors be and they are hereby authorized to fix such remuneration. Khatuna?

My name is Khatuna Bezhitashvili. I'm a shareholder, and I so move.

Thank you. Can I have the second?

Mr. Chairman, my name is Margaret Kingerski. I am a shareholder, and I second the motion.

Thank you. I will now call for a vote on the motion. If you are here in person, please complete your ballot and return to a representative of Computershare. Online and telephone participants should hold the instructions on screen or as described by the operator.

For those on the phone [Operator Instructions]

Okay. Next, we're going to move to the election of directors. We will now proceed with the election of directors of the corporation for the ensuing year. The number of directors to be elected at the meeting is none. I now declare the meeting open for nominations for the election of a director and for the ensuing year or until their successors are elected or appointed. I now ask Alan Stratton to move the motion, nominating the person that specified in the management information circular delivered with the notice of the meeting.

My name is Alan Stratton, and I am a shareholder. I nominate Joseph August, Chirag Bhavsar, Chitwant Kohli, Mark Mickleborough, Stacey Mowbray, Randolph Pinna, [Carol Polson], V. James Sardo, and Daryl Yeo as Directors of the corporation for the ensuing year or until their successors are elected or appointed. Thank you.

I now ask [Indiscernible] to second the motion. .

My name is [Indiscernible]. I am a shareholder, and I second the motion.

Are there any further nominations? Okay. Done. Okay, there's no further nominations. Since there are no further nominations, I hereby declare the nominations closed. I ask Khatuna to move the resolution of electing those nominated as directors of Corporation. .

My name is Khatuna Bezhitashvili. I'm a Shareholder, I move the following resolution. It's hereby be resolved that the 9 persons nominated by management be elected as directors of the company to hold the office until the close of the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders or until their successors are duly elected or appointed in accordance with the articles and bylaws of the corporation.

I now ask that [Greg Page] second the motion.

My name is Greg Page, I'm a shareholder, I second the motion.

Thank you. I will now call for a vote on the motion. If you are here in person, please complete your ballot and return to the representative of Computershare. Online and telephone participants should follow the instructions on screen or as described by the operator.

[Operator Instructions]

Okay. Now we would like to proceed with the approval of the advance notice bylaw. On September 21, 2022, the directors adopted and amended to bylaw -- they amended bylaw, which allows that some or all of any or all classes of series of the corporation's capital stock may be booked entry or uncertificated shares. A copy of the amended bylaw is attached to the circular as Schedule A. In accordance with the articles of the corporation and the requirements of the Florida Department of State, the amended bylaw must be submitted before confirmation by the shareholders at this meeting. The adoption of the advanced notice bylaw is intended to facilitate share transactions on the part of the corporation shareholders and to reduce overall cost of maintaining share records -- sorry, share records of the corporation. The amended bylaw provides that the Board may provide by resolution or resolutions that some or all of any or all classes or series of the capital stock of the corporation may be book entry or uncertificated shares. In accordance with the articles of the corporation and the requirements of the Florida Department of State, the amended bylaw must be submitted for confirmation by the shareholders of the corporation to be adopted a special resolution approving the amended bylaw must be passed by a majority of at least 2/3 of the votes cast by the shareholders attending the meeting or represented by proxy. I would ask Alan Stratton to move the following resolution. Be it resolved that the corporation amended bylaw as set forth in the management proxy circular dated February 10, 2023, is hereby ratified, confirmed and approved. Two, the Board of Directors be authorized in its absolute discretion to administer the amended bylaw in accordance with its terms and conditions to the extent needed to reflect changes required by securities regulatory agencies or stock exchanges. So as to meet industry standards or as otherwise determined to be in the best interest of the corporation and its shareholders. And three, any Director or Officer of the corporation acting alone be and is hereby authorized and directed to pose all such acts to execute and deliver under the corporation seal of the corporation or otherwise, all such deeds, documents, instruments assurances and his or her opinion may be necessary or desirable to give effect to the foregoing resolution.

My name is Alan Stratton. I am a shareholder and I so move.

Thank you. I now ask that [Andrew Freeland] to second the motion. .

My name is [Andrew Freeland] and I'm an appointee and I second the motion.

Thank you. I will now call for a vote on the motion. If you are here in person, please complete your ballot and return it to the representative of Computershare. Online and telephone participants should follow the inspections on screen or as described by and they operator.

[Operator Instructions]

Okay. Next, the amendment to the corporation's long-term incentive plan. We will now proceed with the approval of the amendment to the corporation's long-term incentive plan. On October 31, 2022, the Board of Directors approved an amendment to the plan to increase the number of common shares reserved for issuance under the plan from 10% of the issued and outstanding common shares to 15% of the issued and outstanding shares -- common shares. And the number of common shares available for issuance pursuant to the insider participation limit as that expressed in the TSX company manual from 10% of the issued and outstanding shares to 15% of the issued and outstanding common shares. Subject to shareholder approval as set forth year-end and in accordance with the rules of the TSX, the plan will be amended to give effect to such proposed amendments. A summary of the material terms of the plan is provided in the corporation's information circular, along with the copy of the amended and restated plan to be adopted. The resolution approving the amendment and restated plan must be passed by a majority of the votes casted by shareholders attending the meeting or represented by proxy. I would ask [Indiscernible] to move the following resolution. Be it resolved that: 1, the corporation amended and restated stock option plan as set forth in the management proxy circular dated, February 10, 2023, be and is hereby ratified, confirmed and approved; 2, the corporation has the ability to continue granting options, rights and other entitled under the amended and restated plan until March 23, 2026, the date that is 3 years from the date of this resolution. Number 3, any director or officer of the corporation is hereby authorized and directed to do all acts and things and to execute and deliver all documents required as in the opinion of such director or officer may be necessary or appropriate in order to give effect to this resolution.

My name is [Indiscernible], and I'm an appointee and I so move.

Thank you. I now ask that [Indiscernible] second the motion.

My name is [Indiscernible]. I'm and appointee and I second the motion.

Thank you. I will now call for a vote on the motion. If you are here in person, please complete your ballot and return to a representative of the Computershare. Online and telephone participants should follow the instructions on screen or described by the operator.

[Operator Instructions]

I will now ask Computershare to tabulate the ballots. The meeting will adjourn for about 5 minutes to allow for this process. [Break]

Okay. We got the numbers. I call the meeting back to order. Computershare has reported that the resolutions respecting the appointment of auditor, the election of the directors, the abandonment to the corporation's long-term incentive plan have been carried by a majority of the votes cast at the meeting. The resolution respecting the amendment to the bylaws has been carried by a majority of 2/3 of the votes cast at this meeting. If any shareholder is interested in the exact number of votes cast in favor of or against resolutions, which have been voted on by poll, particulars may be obtained on inquiry from the Corporate Secretary. Now is there any other formal business that may be properly brought before this meeting? Either please raise your hand now or for those on the telephone, you can speak up now. Not hearing anything, I will go ahead and then terminate this meeting. This will conclude the formal business brought before the meeting. I wish to thank you for attending. I now ask for the motion that this meeting be terminated.

I move that this meeting be terminated, and I second that motion.

Thank you, Margaret. If there are any -- to the contrary, please raise your hand or click the raise your hand button on the phone or on your teleconference. I heard -- nobody is wanting to continue. So we're going to declare this motion carried and the meeting is now terminated. Thank you. So now I will do a presentation. So this is the better part. So again, thank you for coming. I'm going to go ahead and get started on the first slide here. And we are having people online, so we've got to do it all in [Indiscernible] . First, most importantly, we have a great team of management and a strong very diversified, great Board of Directors. Here -- everybody listen, I'm not going to read them all. A lot of the people are here. I think all of our directors are here, so thank you for that as well. And we're -- after this, we are going to have a little social hour here where we're going to have some snacks and where we can interact and answer questions you may have. So I want to talk about the business. Now I look at some of our shareholders that I know have been around almost as long as I've been around the business. So I thank you for that. But I do want to -- there are some newer folks, so I do want to just go over what we are doing and make sure we understand it because sometimes you might say, well, this is a complicated business, but it really is not that complicated because all we are doing is exchanging one country's money for another country's money. Now we do that besides the cash or what we like to call currency, we also do foreign exchange payments, which is converting a digital currency from one country into a different currency somewhere else in the world. And we do that both in the spot market, which means that now, let's do it today versus a forward, which is we agree on a rate to do it in the forward like 30-day, 60 days out. Checks are going away somewhat, but the idea of clearing foreign checks is also one of our services. So cash, payments and check clearance. How do we do it? We utilize our own proprietary software. CEIFX as we nicknamed it or here in Canada EBCFX. And we do this with all of our relationships and products in our core banking is our core way to do it. When we move money, we have to use another bank. We use major banks in New York, here in Toronto as well as elsewhere. Where do we do it? We do it through our wholesale channel, which is our banks and financial institutions, and we're going to talk in just a second on that because I know -- I've had a lot of questions about what the hell is going on with the banks in the U.S. and we do deal with corporations directly. Also only at CXI Exchange Bank of Canada currently does not deal with consumers. It only deals here in Canada, B2B, bank or bank or bank to business, not consumers. But in the States, we have a very successful brand. CXI is across the country, and we have our own company-owned stores. I think we're up to 38 stores now. We have an online store that -- that we can reach 75% of the U.S. population. We have licenses in enough states to hit 75% of the population. We intend to grow that to 95% leaving like North Dakota out and Alaska out, but most other states will have a license, so we can reach the most of the population. This is our structure here. We like to show you that our software is the key element of distribution both in our retail consumer area. Our customers use our software in their bank branches, that comes to us right through. And then we have API. A lot of people don't know what an API is. But basically, it's an integration of our system to another bank system. And that integration allows for what's called a straight-through process where you can accept their transactions straight through to us, and we push it straight through to the clearing [Indiscernible]. Our online store is the same software, but it allows consumers to do their transactions directly [Indiscernible] bank. Most important in both U.S. and Canada is our compliance. We have great relationships with our U.S. regulators that are both in Florida and all the states around as well as federally, out of Washington, D.C. and here in Canada. These are all the names of list that we check to make sure that we're in compliance, so our regulators keep us -- we're in good standing with our regulators because we are proactive and ensure that our systems in real time check the most common list that are required, OFAC, The Office of Foreign Asset Control is a very big important list in the U.S. INTERPOL that reports around crime around the world and the fact that our system is -- all transactions come through our online system, get clear through our compliance, but we have a robust compliance engine at the heart of our software, and it's checking all the list. Once it clears, the compliance verification system gives an approval, and it can be processed. Again, where the structure, we -- our parent company is CXI is doing wholesale currency exchange with banks. It's doing the consumer division and as a wholly owned subsidiary, Exchange Bank of Canada, which does the same cash, checks, and wires, but it's doing it only with businesses, as I said. One unique attribute that I'm very proud of accomplishing. We as a team were successful in becoming one of only a handful, 3, I think may be 4 banks total have the right to sell dollars, to distribute dollars on behalf of the U.S. government. So any bank, even Royal Bank, if they want to get dollars directly from the Fed, they have to get the license to do it. Royal Bank of Canada and Scotia and all of these banks up here and banks all around the world use someone else because there's only a few banks. Bank of America is the incumbent. They've been doing it forever. And now us and maybe 1 or 2 other banks are now also competing in that space. This has huge potential, and it supports -- someone today asked the question, well, you made a bold statement saying Exchange Bank of Canada, could be bigger than CXI? Well, it's a bank. So it has the respect of the world because we're a Canadian bank. And then why this is one engine that CXI doesn't have, that most foreign exchange shops around the world do not have is the ability to source dollars at cost. We don't pay basis points. We just ask the demand, pay them with the digital dollars and we take physical U.S. cash and sell it around the world. We are complementing that business by saying we can sell you Mexican pesos. We can sell you euros. And so we are a full-service foreign exchange bank. In the U.S., I already told you about our consumer division. We're currently licensed in 39 states. We do intend to add about 6 more states, so we will have access to 95% of the U.S. population. I told you about our APIs and all of that. We have integrated into Fiserv, which is the largest bank software, core software provider. And what is the core software? That's the actual, your checking account, your savings account and all of that, your online banking. By tying into their core system, allows the banks to straight through process their wires, utilizing us as the facilitator, the actual process to send it overseas. And I already told you about our Consumer division, we're happy to be back in growth mode. We did have to shut down. We were over 48 stores back before the pandemic. We had to shut, I think, 12 or 13 stores. And now we've added back because our larger competitor did fail during the pandemic, and we were able to get back some of their best locations. And so we are back into a growth mode there. Here's the stats. I'm very proud to say that we made $66 million last year. That's the highest the company has ever made. Of that, revenue $12 million was from payments. Our goal is to diversify our revenue stream from cash because some people say cash is going away. Cash usage just so you're aware, the Federal Reserve as reported in the last 2 years in a row, cash usage is going up. It's going up at a faster pace because there's distrust in people -- cash is queen. Some say king. I say queen, so I get to take it over. Okay. Here's our volume. I have never seen our company be over $10 billion, 14 -- almost $15 billion in foreign exchange volume and we see that continuing to grow. Our transacting locations that are net, where we have all of our customer, our own stores, bank branches, online stores and so forth. We have over 18,000 locations and our asset size has continued to grow. A lot of the same information, but it shows you the revenue by business segment. So again, banknotes is still our #1 revenue engine. We're not abandoning banknote by any means. We are investing to diversify it, to continue to focus on payments because the digital foreign exchange will continue to grow for -- in the world. Our revenues by country, still Americas CXI still dominating, Canada is starting to grow. So -- thank you. Here's our stats. I'm not going to read through that. All this is in the annual report. By the way, the annual reports in the quarter, you please take one home. So see if there's anything we want to specifically talk about here. Okay. Here's a graph showing how our performance has been going over time. You can see that we are continuing to grow our revenues and our profits. This is our strategic plan. If you've listened to me on the call, I keep repeating. We have 4 areas of focus. And I want to just take one second to talk about our strategy planning process. The Board has been very good and oversight in helping management guide the strategic plan and direction of the organization. We are very focused. And now we have 4 areas that we feel is going to grow the company for the next few years quite well. We will continue our core business with CXI, started with servicing banks and credit unions in the state. We succeeded here in Canada to get some very good customers as well, and that will not go away. Both Exchange Bank of Canada and CSI want to dominate and service as many banks as we can. The global expansion of wholesale bank notes, the FBICS program that bad relationship is the big driver of it. Some people think, well, that means CXI doesn't have customers internationally. We do. Being in Miami, we have some clients in the Caribbean, Jamaica, certain islands that we have approved in our trading. So both CXI and Exchange Bank of Canada will continue to be very selective because these are new geographies that very selectively expanding country by country and each country select banks that we will approve. Sometimes, we have not approved. We thought we were going to do business, and we recognize the risk was too high and it is not the right time for a customer. Very big. Those are the 2 areas that you can see continued significant growth. The payment business, though, is also huge. Here in Canada, especially, we have developed foreign exchange relationships with corporations. Over 1,000 corporations now use Exchange Bank of Canada regularly. Some of them every week are doing transactions with us. And so that business will continue to grow, and we are investing this year as well as next year into hiring more people, more relationship bankers to grow that payment business. In the state, we're doing it through the APIs with that core systems where the banks could process their transactions. They don't have to leave their systems. And we nicknamed it one platform, one provider. [Indiscernible] bank just use platform. We've already integrated into it, and we can be your one provider. So that's called OPOP, and that in this space is very successful as well. So both Canada and CXI in the U.S. are continuing to see great pipelines ahead for increase wider payments. And then last is our consumer offering. With the failure of our larger competitor, CXI -- very proud to say CXI is the largest nonbank foreign exchange to provide currency exchange provider in the United States, and probably here in Canada. This consumer offering is a very important element. It's a diversification from not just -- if all the bank consolidated down to 4 or 5 like they have in Canada, we could see ourselves losing some business. So for us, we feel it's very important to have a direct-to-consumer channel that allows people to not have to go to their bank. Our stores are up in malls. Our online stores open 24/7. So this is an alternative to dealing with your bank. But where then we use deposits? They're in the banks. So this is a natural choice of [Indiscernible] get the currency they get it through us. Some people say, no, I want to go get it myself. I don't want to wait for the bank or pay everything at the bank. But to expand, to see and think that [Indiscernible] to double and triple, we need to ensure that we have the infrastructure. So these are the 4 revenue engines that's going to take our stock up and our business up because our earnings will continue to grow. We need this infrastructure. And this is a year in 2023. I know it was talking about '22, where this is our looking forward. 2023 is our year. We are implementing a very good software system called Oracle's NetSuite. We're implementing an improved treasury management system called Kyriba. We are doing a thing called [Indiscernible], which is to our compliance. We're automating our compliance functions even further. Our Miami facility, is busting at the scenes. We will be moving our Miami office to a very well built, what the landlord calls the safest building in Miami, very good facility. I just was there last Friday on my [Indiscernible] where I got sunburn and [Indiscernible] so I saw this is really excited. Our Orlando office is -- will be either moving or expanding. So there's a lot of infrastructure work going on right now in L.A., Miami, Orlando and even here in Toronto, where we are preparing ourselves for the next wave of growth. There will be some cost to that, but we are confident our profitability will still be very impressive. I already told you about OPOP, one provider, one platform. This will explain it. Again, this is our target market. This is very important to understand. We are looking at the medium-sized banks. The very large banks, like a Citibank or something will not use us for a wire transaction. Now that same type of bank would use us for cash. And that's our natural cross-sell. We have lots and lots of bank customers using us for currency exchange or check clearing. But now that we're integrating into the core system, it allows us get additional FX from our existing customers. To onboard a big bank, a medium bank or a small bank, it's all about the same work. So that's why our focus. The medium ones have the demand, higher volume demand. And -- but it's not as competitive, we would never be able to price a major top 10 bank in foreign exchange. So this is our sweet spot. We do have lots of these smaller banks there, that's what not have started. It's not that we were not going to accept them. But our sales efforts are in this marketplace. Okay. So this is about the global institutions. This is where we see huge growth because of this engine that we've got with the Federal Reserve. So you're aware, we are still -- things move slowly here in Canada, as you know. But we are in continued talks with Bank of Canada. We have requested from Canada Central Bank to have the same sort of relationship with the U.S. Central Bank, the Federal Reserve. We are intending to continue to expand country by country by country selectively. Each country needs Board approval. Now the Board has given an overall approval to what's called a [Indiscernible] countries. [Indiscernible] are the major world countries like Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Brazil, Mexico. The major long-standing. [Indiscernible] countries are smaller ones, but they're pretty big, like Poland, the Czech Republic. Those are countries that would be in our radar. Down south, there's huge demand for dollars. We're seeing up in Costa Rica, I know someone's going to Costa Rica, and we intend to hopefully do business in Costa Rica, hopefully, we have customer banks in the Dominican Republic, et cetera. Okay. So this is our consumer focus. And I do -- I'm going to talk about our reorganization [Indiscernible] heard about it, but right now, we have the Chief Operating Officer that had, for the last since we started this company in the old company before this company that worked with me was our Chief Operating Officer ran everything. We focus now him on only this consumer direct channel and we have 3 areas that we do. We have our own company stores and great key markets around the United States. We have an agent program which has really taken off in this last year because of the closure of our competitor, we are now -- this is a fact, we are the only provider of foreign exchange in all airports in North -- with the exception of Toronto Airport Pearson Airport where CIBC also has a desk. We don't do business with CIBC Bank. But every other airport that has the currency exchange, we are facilitating the currency processing, either through our own branded locations like if you go into JFK, Terminal 3, which is the Delta terminal, JFK Terminal 7, which is the British Air terminal, you will see our brand. In areas like Miami, you would think would be our own, but it's not. It's been our long-standing customer, which has the exact same words as our name. Instead of Currency Exchange International, they're called International Currency Exchange, ICE and -- the CEO and I have known each other for probably 20 years. We have a great relationship. Our colors -- we didn't choose to choose the same color, but we even had the same colors. And we're friendly. And between the ICE airport locations where we are a wholesaler, and in our agent locations where we are the front line, we have a very unique position there, but it's not just airports. We've always stayed away from airports. In fact, that's how we got this deal JFK came to us and said, "Hey, our long-standing vendor is now out of business, we want to propose." And I told them, we don't do airports. But we're JFK. We're one of the busiest airports in the country. Well, thank you, and we know that, and I recommend [call overnight]. They're great. We know those guys, and they are ready to take over your for, well, we want another bid, we want another bid. I said, "Wait, you want to bid from us, it has to be on these terms. We don't pay rent." What do you think they did? Hung up the phone. A month later, they called back and said, "Talk to us, what's your plan?" And the idea was to do a 3-way process relationship where the airport has the rent -- the location. A local operator operates it using our software, our money, our brand, our oversight, our compliance, but we are 3-way and its revenue share. No minimum. Guarantees, no, no, no. We are in this together. If you want a great year, and we have a great year, we're all going to be happy. If we have a pandemic, the operators are not going to go out of business because the [Indiscernible] like it did with your last vendor. And they accepted that, and it worked. True story, I got a call in October of last year, and the head guy said, this was the most profitable year ever for JFK in foreign exchange last year. Now for us, we were saying this is our busiest year too. The difference wasn't the fact the volume was so high. The difference was they got to cut. They got a nice cut. Because volume was high, they got a ton of money. And I don't -- remember this in February when volume's lower, then you won't have as big of a check, but we're now all in this together, and we can ride the ride, the nice signs and we could all feel the pain in the slower times. This is an example of our locations where Minneapolis, JFK-Terminal 8, I think Terminal 7. And this is the new -- this is the company store and these are our agent stores. They're all pretty much the same. I do know landlords have to approve the look and feel of each one. The beauty is in this location and this location, CXI did not even pay for that booth, okay? We started the agent program with the Duty Free Americas, so between the U.S. And Canada, there are 20-some-odd Duty Free stores. All of those Duty Free Americas stores are using our software, our process. And so it's a great agent location. So when this opportunity came and I was successful in negotiating a good deal with these guys, that broke the ice. Airport after airport starting to come in. But guess what? San Francisco International Airport, still [indiscernible]. Now they are the busiest international airport, more than JFK. There's still more to become hopefully. Okay. The business foreign exchange, we are focused here in Canada on the small- to medium-sized market. We're now just like at CXI, we're seeing that the midsized corporations are -- is that sweet spot. They're really big ones, the Pfizers and all these types of companies are taken care of well by the big banks. But the small ones are definitely not taken care of. They say, "Go online. Don't call me." And in the midsized are maybe getting some service. We are high-focused, service-focused bank here, and we continue to focus on that marketplace at the small- to medium-sized. Sorry. Thank you. I was going a little to that. Our payment revenue, look, it's at 20%. I'm really excited to see that the cash is -- that our payments are catching up to the cash. These are our focus here. And yes, we will look at acquisitions as another way to boost our market penetration. Technology, we keep harping on it. That is our secret sauce. My old boss, when I worked for Bank of Ireland, used to call it the Coca-Cola recipe, but it's basically the fact that why big banks as large as a big bank in New York City uses us exclusively is because of our system and compliance, the ability to integrate and all of that. Our online store is great. We have good cybersecurity. We have a strong team. We have more IT people than we do in CXI sales team. People are the key. And let me tell you about the restructuring. This is the -- I realize, it depends on my call. I thank Johanne again. I was a little resistant to a major change in the organization. However, now that it's done, it has proven to be very accurate and correct. The best way to grow this business to the next level was for us to assign good, strong leaders, what we are calling, managing directors of the 3 main areas of revenue. Right now, CXI has its wholesale bank relationships. And I'm proud to say that Wade Bracy, who's worked with me the entire time of CXI and worked with me previous at the old business, is now Managing Director of CXI's Wholesale division. I told you Matt Schillo is now -- he was our COO of everything. He had, I think, too much on his plate, especially during this last year. He has now focused strictly on those 3 channels and consumers. Our own stores, the agent stores and the online store. So Matt Schillo is our Managing Director of our Consumer division. And back in the backstage, Devenish is our Managing Director of Exchange Bank of Canada. And so with those people running their business, I have more time to focus on overall group strategy, new products, potential mergers and acquisitions and really focus on growing this business to the next level. We have a lot of experienced people. Our management team, most of you and I worked together for almost 20 years. We have a long-standing relationship with all of our management and our Board. We have people who've been on the board for 11 to 12 years. So it's -- I'm very happy to know that we have an experienced team together. There's our stock price. It goes up and down as you know. Here's a -- this is an interesting statistic, 28% management owned. About half of all stock is owned by a corporation, funds or investment brokers. Most of you are here or some of you are here. And then we do have a smaller pool of retail investors. We want to be the preferred financial services provider of foreign exchange solutions tailored to our customers' needs. This is our strength. We are strong. Our balance sheet, thank God, we didn't dividend a bunch of money prior to the pandemic. We were able to bleed for 2 years before we had a boom year. Our technology is our biggest strength. The opportunities are huge. We're going to continue to build scale and efficiency and improve our process so we can have more of that revenue fall to the bottom line. And that's it. So now I'm going to happily answer any questions, clarify anything.

I did want to start because the first question I'm going to ask for you, because I said it earlier, what the hell is going on with the U.S. banks? How does that affect you? Well, our risk office, our payment folks, our operations people have gone thoroughly through our banks. They -- the report I saw today actually felt like we were about to loan money to some of our bank customers. We really went through their balance sheet to see if there's any losses that might cause them to panic. And we've identified that our risk in this situation is very, very low. There are a couple of banks that were questionable. So we went ahead, lowered and we entered the trading day, because we trade during the day and they're supposed to pay it by the end of the night, so we would be holding back. So there are a couple of guys we did tweak. But overall, so far -- and it's a sad thing to say, but so far, the banking situation has been good for CXI. Because Signature Bank who failed was bought by Flagstar, which is our customer. And so we didn't have the other bank, and now we got one. But it could go the other way, so we don't -- I don't want to sound that, no, there are no worries. But most importantly, I want to make sure you know that risk is top of mind. The preservation of our capital is that big -- this balance sheet, all of that, we wanted to see keep growing. And so we don't want an unexpected loss due to this situation that's occurring right now. So our Chief Risk Officer, Dennis Winkel, is leading this oversight and has done a very good job utilizing all the people that are needing to be involved, like the frontline salespeople, like the wire processing people, the treasury. And we will continue to monitor this. We promise the Board of Directors today, we will be giving our Chair of the Risk Committee on the Board a weekly report confirming that we're monitoring and still, everything is in the same situation as now. And I, as part of my monthly CEO report to the Board, will continue to include that focus there. So that's answer to your first question. Now I would like to have any other questions I may answer. Yes, sir.

On the financial profit, actually, from 2021 to 2022, what made the profit go up so much higher? I know you're not an oil company, so.

So you meant from '21 to '22? During '20 and '21, we were losing money and everybody was locked down, especially in this country. When I had to travel here during the pandemic, I felt like I was going to jail. I'm serious, but it seemed like that. What happened in '22 is, again, our competitor died, so there was less competition and then the world was eagerly traveling. Interestingly, you'll learn -- to know is in '22, they're still -- including to this day, there are still COVID restrictions. If you are not a vaccinated Canadian, you're not allowed to come to America. Now I'm not going to get -- talk about policies. So -- but there's still opportunity for more international travel because of the restrictions. So what happened in '22 is most worlds stopped the restrictions. And everybody that's been wanting to travel started travelling. For us, it was overwhelming. It -- I actually think we could have done better, because we actually have backlogs, just like -- you all heard about how Pearson was all backed up and delays and delays. Unfortunately, we actually are a bit delayed. I went -- in our Miami facility, we had no more room to put tellers to process the transactions. And we quickly huddled and said we're going to convert the conference room, because we have a nice conference room, put in cameras, put in the security. There, we have another vault to handle. This year, we're prepared for, hopefully, touchwood, nothing bad happens overseas that we hope to have even a busier year. So we don't know, but what -- basically, it was just a rebound of the world reopening. Good question. Yes, James.

When you talk about the competitive outlook right off the industry, travel. Like, if you're familiar, like, how do you think the industry will snap back, as people are now kind of more financially in a better environment, are you seeing competition start to creep back in? Or were you worrying about something happening…

So I'm going to answer that in 2 because we have cash and payments. Payments is very competitive in all has. And the new fintechs of the world may still have that. So I'll save that one for a second. So on that cash, currently, we have not seen any competitor activities. In fact, we're seeing some of the other financials and institutions retracting from, where the largest processor in the world, BofA, has actually closed some smaller banks because they require a minimum revenue threshold per relationship. And so if you're a smaller bank, you only do a little bit of FX and you don't have a loan with BofA or whatever, they've actually closed the account and recommended us. And that's -- we picked up 2 banks in the last 6 months from Bank of America closing, so we haven't seen it. Now global exchange out of Madrid, Spain is bidding on that San Francisco Airport. So I don't think our little monopoly of airports will stay forever. Although guess what? Global has already reached out to us and said, if we're in San Francisco, we want CXI to be our wholesaler. So on the banknote side, luckily, because I think a lot of people feel that banknotes is not an area where I want to invest and continue to grow, so the potential competitors have not come here. The largest U.K. currency exchange was just put up for sale. And so they're not expanding over here to do cash services. So that's cash. On the payment side, we compete with everybody. We compete with banks. We compete with other money service businesses or other foreign exchange shops. And now the new competitor is all the -- is this. It's -- that's the new competitor in the payment space. So what insulates us is that we are a full service specialty foreign exchange bank. You -- I would think, if you're wiring $0.25 million, if you want to buy your condo down in Florida, you're probably not going to do it on this. You're going to want to talk to your banker, get the best foreign exchange rate and send it down. So it is a very competitive market. So nothing's changed there. And we all know if the interacts and the Fed now and all of this movement to money-now situation is really going to eat at our business. Currently, we are continuing to see that the big banks are not giving the attention. They're forcing everybody online, which is what a lot of people don't want. And so we are there to take care of that for them. And in the States, getting the market is just -- it's all about automation. As you integrate, you have a straight-through process, a decent rate, good service, you can continue to grow. So I don't think there's any major change in this competitive landscape from where we were to where we're going. I don't see foresee any serious new entrant that said, "Oh, this company is coming to town, we better worry." But that's a great question. Does that answer your question?

Yes. Can I just have one more follow-up?

Sure.

On the airport side that you mentioned, the new model you've got, for example, JFK, you mentioned JFK is happy about the results. Do you just feel like at some point, the competitive dynamic changes and you have others, like, overall change that might be willing to sit under a more traditional model? Does it feel like the airports want to go back to that kind of fixed spread type of arrangement? Or is there...

That's good. I don't know the answer to that. Because, again, the beauty of the revenue share is you expand and contract together. And at least for the JFK first, because he was the only one that called me, by the way. The other airports would say hey, great, but he was the first one where we have the dialogue at the beginning. And so he called and said, "Hey, so far, we're really happy." And he was warning about February and said, there. So I don't know the answer to that. I have suggested -- it's a small industry globally of foreign exchange providers, but I suggest that you -- even our competitors that they too should not accept this -- what airports used to always require, which is minimum guarantees. We could be closed and you still got to pay me x per month. So -- and I believe all of those operators have understood that makes a lot of sense. And so I would like to think that this is the new model. And with this work-at-home and all of this, all the landlords are reevaluating how they have and keep their tenants in place and the revenue share is the fairest way for all parties involved. Yes, sir.

So you talked about your infrastructure growth, right, you need it, of course. So do you think you're ahead of? Behind? Or right on track from where your revenues are now versus where your infrastructure…

And ahead of...

So you got to put the infrastructure in place to grow the company.

Right. We have an infrastructure and what we're trying to do is improve the automation and business intelligence.

Exactly. So are you ahead in terms of everything you need for the next...

That's what we're doing right now.

So you think you're on track?

We're on track. We are putting in the foundation to allow for our company to triple. And I mean I have -- Gerhard's here. He's our CFO, he's relatively new. I'm so happy to have him on Board. So I don't know if you want to explain what you're...

You could see how many -- how much -- as Randolph said, that old main suite, Oracle main suite, optimization of the accounting system, so we can actually start putting out information like that. And then we've got integration between [ Kyriba ] which is a great management system, and main suite our accounting system, so we can [ paint the eye ] interplay with those 2. But the beauty of that is in our world, we also deal 100-plus banks. And what [ Kyriba ] offers us is integration direct into those backlogs of those banks. So we can definitely stop putting daily transactions closed, on a -- I'm not saying overnight, but on the daily basis. All that in the management system, through our aging, un-aging balances, with a program straight into our accounting system, but that doesn't help if you don't have a proper compliance. So that's where -- unless we're -- unless I would aim out in --[indiscernible] somewhere in [ Kansas ]. So we can really bring the safety and soundness of the bank and then very intelligently, with the information, [ figure ] the connection, make better, quicker decision on the stock. That all takes time, as you can imagine. If you can run a few million lines of GL transactions to do an update that is really core and proper to be an agent, as I like to call it. And then we start putting servers on it as we develop intelligence [indiscernible]

He likes cars. But to answer your question, this is the year that we are taking what has been working for us to next level in terms of automation. We're actually looking at artificial intelligence. There's another system we're looking at. We're in compliance. If there's a hit where our client goes up, and then a human has to go in and say, oh, let me look at this. I'll look at this and this and this. Okay, I can -- that flag went up wrong. The name was the same, but look at the birthday, it's wrong. It's the wrong date or something and then you clear it. This system keeps track of that. And then so after 6 months of activity that it will start spitting out, saying we were hit, that we cleared it for you, but it's still -- you may want to say, well, maybe I better look again. But it will pre-clear stuff and alert you to it. And these are the new ones that we need a human to look into. But by putting in artificial intelligence into some of our processes will allow us to continue to scale and not keep having to add people. As you're saying, what you saw, like in this first quarter results, you're seeing the cost come, but we had a big catch up. One, we have inflation. And to retain staff, you haven't realized how tight the labor market is, it's extreme. And we had to do a midyear raise last year, and then at year-end, we still had to do another raise. And so there is -- this is our building year. Now again, we're not wanting to go red or anything like that, but in the efficiency, that -- how much falls to the bottom line. This year, a lot of -- there will be some extra nonrecurring. We have consultants helping us with NetSuite, consultants helping us with [ Kyriba ]. We have consultants helping us with all this automation, with compliance and there's a lot of investment. And then when we move our office in Miami, while the landlord is mostly likely even paid a lot of the build-out, we will still have to pay some costs into ensuring that our facilities themselves, well, you heard about the system. So we'll have the right facility that can handle the traffic, the physical traffic, because money actually comes in boxes. And with some surges, they actually come in crates with U.S. dollars. And so we need the facility, we need the system, but most importantly, and that's why I'm so excited that we got people now. I mean, most of them, we need to see more help, but the managing directors are all in the right spot. I'm so happy to have Gerhard as our Group CFO. So happy that we all agree that Alan is the bank CFO as he was sitting in an interim status for a little bit. And so we have -- at the bank, we have the right team. At the group, we have the right team. We're putting in the right system. We're going to ensure sure we have the facility, so the next years ahead can really use those turbos. Actually, we put another turbo on. But did that answer your question?

Absolutely.

Good question. Thank you. Yes. Chris?

Randolph, my question's on the fintech. Congratulations on building that relationship. It sounds like that business is potentially a large opportunity and you're taking a more conservative and reasonable approach to the business and the Moneycorp being quite [ recognized ].

Correct.

So just trying to understand with that in mind, what the potential addressable market and market share could be down the road? I think money for capital is at nearly $50 million revenue business and still growing. So what's kind of the realistic…

Well, a little bird at the big bank at the world's largest one told me just recently over a beer that the revenues from their wholesale banknote operations was about $400 million, that is the net revenue on that. That's the price. If we could carve out 20% of that, that would be awesome. We are being very conservative. We're a young bank. We're only 6 years old. Both the Board and our regulator, all, "What country are you going to?" So we're not going into Africa anytime soon. Well, there's a lot of, actually, volume there because Africa has a lot of all those -- tons of countries in Africa, they do a lot of cash. And we know that, that's a market where Moneycorp has been very successful making a good bit of money. We're not going there, not now. Right now, we're focused on Central and South America and the Eurozone and where we're finding already interest and better margin is in the non-FATF of Eurozone, places like Poland, like the Czech Republic and Hungary. And -- but we have because it's FATF country. And I believe we've onboarded the Singapore bank. So we just -- they approached us. Again, right now, if you're a big bank, like, I'm a monster bank in this country. I'm done dealing with Bank of America, I want to go direct. Sorry, there's a big process. It takes about 2 years to get your license in there. And if you qualify, you could -- they don't just give it out to anybody. You have to qualify, and then you can get your license. Or here's a list of 3 banks that we recommend to consider. We won't tell you which one, and you talk it out. But we are, right now, on a referral sheet on the Fed and a Singapore Bank approach to us and our sales team, the sales managers right back there, light's off. It's right behind him, that approved that after their due diligence. We will still be going, I've never been, but I want to join them. But we're going to do our due diligence visit because all of our high-volume customers, it's required that we do an on-site review to ensure every paper we got was what really what it was. The non-FATF, the Board and management have agreed that we will go before we start doing business. And so in one of our visits, we thought we were taking a new country and a new customer in that country. and the due diligence visit said, not now. They were not ready for us or we weren't ready for them and so we passed. And so we are being extremely conservative. And I know that didn't answer your question, how big and how fast and all of that. We are going to take it country-by-country, customer-by-customer, because the preservation of capital, as I said before, is #1. And just as important this preservation of capital is, preservation of our reputation and our relationship with our primary regulators, that is not a regulator to us. They're a bank. We do business with them. The OSFI here in Canada and then [ Fintan ] and our state regulators in each of the states are our regulators. We have a strong relationship, and we don't want to jeopardize that. And so we will preserve our capital, carefully grow. As we get more experience, as we have our systems in place, our improved systems in place, we can then turn on the next booster. But right now, we be taking it conservatively. But you will see us -- maybe an easier way to answer it, you'll see us at about 3 countries this year. The Board put in my goal is that I should have 2 new countries, and I think I've already satisfied that, and I've got 2 or 3 more in the works. But we're not going to do it. We're not going to underprice it. We don't want -- this isn't a race to the bottom with price. We want a fair price. I don't want to rip them off, but I want to give a fair price that we know it's very profitable for us, fair for them and country by country, customer by customer. So I don't know if that helps to answer your question, but that is the mindset of the Board and I. Okay. I'm getting a time warning here. I didn't know we had one, but yes, sir.

Can you talk about that due diligence process a little bit in terms entering those countries?

Sure. And I've got the Chief Compliance Officer right behind me. So if I misspeak, he will stand up.

Obviously, you want a functioning exec, just functioning, moving on, et cetera. Money sort of aside here, I think 100% retention rate among their international payments customers…

We haven't gotten started yet.

Yes. They might touch that a little bit, but I'm curious, it seems, like, a sticky relationship once you have it. Do you have metrics like that to maybe touch on? Or how are you guys thinking about, again, like due diligence thing and entering into new…

Customer retention and due diligence are 2 different topics. So let me first answer what you said about the onboarding. So FATF countries, which are made like Italy, that's -- I have an Italian passport. So personally, I want to see us get a bank like UniCredit or something like that in Italy. Because it's FATF and if our Chief Compliance Officer, will get the comfort, all those questionnaires and all the review of all their documents. So what is that, we look at the bank itself and in their compliance program, the compliance officer. We do a full review of the bank and its compliance network, because the biggest risk in our business is AMF, money laundering. We do not. We don't know how many times, especially in Miami, we turned down customers because we don't want any dirty money, okay? So we will go through a thorough process to get them approved. I do know Moneycorp, they're not a bank. So they are looser on that, and that's why they've been able to go really fast. And their risk appetite is they're -- again, a couple of guys on the place, so they say, let's do it, and they do it. That's not like that in here at all. We will first agree and management has to agree. We don't always agree. So we try to make sure we agree. Once we've agreed, then we present it to the Board. And the Board then say, "Okay, you do it. Randolph, do whatever you want." The Board is very thorough, and will send it back and say, "Hey, you forgot about that. Catch that, maybe just forget about that. I wanted you to look at this a little deeper." And so we have that process. And then if it's FATF, so, like, if I get the Italian bank, we could start, but our rule is within 6 months, someone's got to go to Italy. Damn it, I'll have to go. Okay. So that's it, non-FATF, which was a good thing we put in place because our first non-FATF country, we went and visited and we found out, we were happy we didn't do that first time trade. And so we chose at this time to pass and we'll maybe circle back as they feel they can be a better presentation to make us more comfortable. And the Central Bank, they'd be able to provide some oversight or insight to getting us more comfortable, but we will do that. So that's the compliance program. And so that's why it is a slower process and Moneycorp is looser and hence, they do it faster. Now once you're starting to do business. When a better bank, in my opinion, a Canadian-based bank comes and says, here's an offer in money price per price, they will likely want to have an additional relationship. Will they dump Moneycorp or Bank of America? No. There's a thing in banking called vendor concentration risk. And so he -- even here in Canada, most of the big banks only use one vendor, which is Bank of America. And we are already having some of the banks talking to us about how we can be their backup vendor and get 20%, 30% of it. Over time, we hope to flip it the other way, where we're getting the majority and their other vendor gets less. So I don't think 100% retention for Moneycorp, one, I don't know if it's true, but it isn't going to last because we're coming.

Great. And then one follow-up, okay? You mentioned on the call to software integration potentially. Are those maybe more needle-moving like Jack Henry, Pfizer, or how are you guys kind of -- I guess what shape might those take on, I guess, as we move on?

That's part of the OPOP strategy. When you say needle-moving, it depends how far you're talking about the needle. But yes, we do anticipate that we are payment growth. You've been seeing 50%, 60% payment growth in revenues, and we feel that, that's one catalyst to continue that type of growth rate. Obviously, when it's a small number, like $8 million or $10 million, it's easier to grow 50% versus our cash business is already $50 million, to grow that another 50% is harder to do. But yes, the integrations we have done. In fact, we've already just completed another one. We have the integrations prioritized. And the one that we're currently working on, which is Finastra is a -- will be a nice opportunity for us. But I can't tell you, oh, we're going to get 5 banks. Because when you integrate with the core processors, doesn't mean you start, use the bank, still to sign our contract. We have -- the integration is just that straight through process. The rail, if you will, the rail, you still have to go through that onboarding process, agree on the price and all of that. And then once they're on their core and it's been approved, we're in their system, they could just click, send through CXI. Did that answer your question? Okay. Yes. We're running low on time. I was told. But yes, hey. Okay, I'll try to be quick. I know I talk too much sometimes.

First, I want to say thank you, as a shareholder. I appreciate your stewardship.

Thank you.

The Board's stewardship and the management's stewardship during a very tough time, especially with COVID. Some of the restrictions you all had to deal with are obviously challenging and even with the current environment, so thank you. But that being said, on the retail company-owned stores closed, I think, for a few...

Let's call them done. I can't remember the exact number. Yes.

Okay. My question is, what did we learn from those closings in terms of criteria for picking new ones? I know you opened a couple of them in last year, so you both kind of hit New Jersey, right?

Correct.

So what is the financial characteristics that we're looking at so that the leases obviously get expensive. What do we learn and how are we thinking about that? And then I've got another one…

Okay. Real quick, the retail is very easy. We did -- the Board and management have agreed that we are taking a more capital-return focus, return on investment. And it's not just the cash, because it's time to do any project and open a new store and so forth. So again, we don't like to give guidance, but we anticipate each of our stores should make about $100,000 profit after all the expenses are paid per store. And so what we learned was when we were going through the situation of which stores do we keep and which ones not. It started first with the rent. We told the landlords, our largest landlord, Simon Property Group, accepted our offer, but we've cut rents in half. We said we're bleeding. We either got to close, and we're going to write you a check and just get the hell out here and save the payroll and all of that or here's our plan to get back to where you want your rent to be is we have this 4-year plan. We're cutting rent in half, and we're going to go up by $500 every 6 months and we had this escalating scale to go up. And so in new stores, I've been at this - I've been doing this now for 32, 33 years at least. And so I know where the good spots are. And so with the ex-Travelex locations, we were able to cherry pick, like, the best one has been the Orange County, the South Coast Plaza in Orange County, California. And that was -- we opened and within a week, we were already profitable. And so we are selective with that. And now that Matt is no longer doing everything operationally, he's very focused. He's done a very good job doing that. And so our learning is to only choose places that you know you can have a good return that meets our capital threshold, and we are really pushing for more variable rent and fixed rents and we will only go in with low rents. So there right now, we're looking at a store in Philadelphia, a big mega mall up in Philadelphia. Travelex was there for 20-odd years. And I believe it's Simon Property Group, I think it. So they know our thing, but Simon is the mothership, the local management will tell you this. And so we're still in that stage where local manager said, "Oh, we want our $7,000 a month." We said, "Oh, we only started $3,000," or whatever. So maybe that's probably more detail than you need, but that's our process around it. Minimum, we've got to make that and then we want a low rent and escalate up to earn our business. Yes.

So the next one has to do with the agent relationship. You've got a strategically very unique situation with AAA and Duty Free. So I think you got about 125 AAA. So the question is, it seems to me that there are other low penetration rates relative to the size of the opportunity. What kind of onboarding can you expect to look at each year of the new -- of those agents and potentially others?

So that's why we're expanding our licensing is AAA is a nationwide club. And so certain states, we don't have the license yet. So you will see a lot and AAA is a very decentralized model. So we have only got maybe 30% of the total potential revenue out of AAA. Other -- you picked up on a very accurate thing. That's another area that you're going to see growth continuing, not just with -- we're licensed in some states, but just getting through the process of getting them up and running has been slower because of them and then the new states as well. And so that is a continued growth area. But we do see that AAA is a great agent relationship. Duty Free has another potential. We're trying to finally get them to wake up on the Southern border. So all the Duty Free between Mexico and the U.S. don't do currency exchange rate. It's the same company, but during the pandemic, they were worse -- hurt worse than us because they had the big stores. And so they're finally coming back to life, so to speak, if you will. I mean, they're still live, but they're finally getting back, a management that could say, okay, I can do a new project.

So it's -- so your -- it's imminent, but you have to obviously work with Duty Free. You want to open those stores, but the restrictions are on their end, not yours?

Yes. And it's not a restriction. It's just they're handicapped with trying to just get back their normal business going like it normally does. And so adding the currency service is less important than the core's promotion that they're going to be doing or something like that.

So how do you see the you the Southern boarder if you don't -- like, how do you see that, I mean, panning out over the next year? How long would it take to maybe get those -- oh, you got to know it.

It's up to them. That's -- we are not paying rent or payroll. We're not -- these are their people, their locations. And so we are at their mercy. And the sales manager's a lady down in Florida that manages that relationship. Duty Free America, I don't know if you knew, is based in Hollywood, Florida. And so she's been down here just recently, just a couple of weeks ago. So she pushing them. It's just -- they have a million priorities. We're also, just so you're aware, we realize that there's a lot of FX with Duty Free America because they're an American company, but all -- they're Northern stores, all the North -- orders they sell so much Lemax beer, true story. And they've been having to do foreign exchange with their bank and not us. And we're in the process of trying to get them onboarded for their wire system for doing wires. And so we have hungry sales people. If you noticed in the annual information circular, you could see some of them are making more than me. And I love it because the more they make, the more we make. Thank you, [ Yale ]. Let's take one more, otherwise, we're never going to get to eat that cheese or whatever we got back there. So any more questions or...

On the phone.

Nothing on the phone or online.

Okay. No one has submitted. Last chance. And then we're going to socialize so we could talk more one-on-one, but I thank you again for coming. I thank you for your support and being a shareholder, and we're always available to answer your questions if we're allowed. Thank you.