iFAST Corporation Ltd. (AIY) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hi, everyone. Welcome to iFAST Corporation's Second Quarter 2025 and First Half 2025 Results Presentation. My name is JP from the Corporate Communications team at iFAST. And together with me, we have Chung Chun, our CEO; and Terence, our CFO, for the session, together with our colleagues from the finance team as well as the Corporate Comms team. I'll be going through the key summary and Section 1 on the financial results before Chung Chun's introduction to present on Section 2, which is on the business updates. Starting off with a key summary. In second quarter 2025, our net profit increased by 37.9% year-on-year to $22.11 million. That's on the back of a 28% year-on-year increase in our gross revenue to $120.24 million. The increase in second quarter 2025 profitability was driven by growth in the Hong Kong ePension business, a turnaround in iFAST Global Bank and continuing growth in our core wealth management platform business. For our wealth management platform business, our group's assets under administration, or AUA, increased 21.6% year-on-year to a new record high of $27.2 billion. Our group's net inflows were also at a record high of $1.29 billion in second quarter of this year. So following the initial quarter of profitability in fourth quarter of last year, iFAST Global Bank continues its profitable growth path. It achieved a net profit of $0.7 million in second quarter 2025, which compares favorably to a loss of $1.56 million in the previous year. So that marks the third consecutive quarterly profit for iFAST Global Bank. The bank's profitability in second quarter 2025 was achieved on the back of the 85% year-on-year increase in gross revenue, which stood at $21.1 million. The bank's customer deposits grew 124% year-on-year to $1.45 billion at the end of second quarter of this year. The group's Hong Kong business saw a 33.4% year-on-year growth in gross revenue to $45.6 million in second quarter of this year. The increase in revenue reflected the growth of the ePension business as well as the wealth management business in Hong Kong. Profit before tax for the overall Hong Kong operations saw a 17.8% year-on-year increase to $15.7 million in second quarter 2025. Looking forward and barring unforeseen circumstances, we expect the group's revenues and profitability in second half of this year to show a healthy improvement compared to first half of this year. The ePension division is expected to improve as the onboarding of the eMPF business continues to progress. The core wealth management business and iFAST Global Bank are expected to continue to grow. Barring unforeseen circumstances, the group expects 2025 as a whole to see robust growth rates in revenues and profitability compared to 2024. The group has a strong balance sheet with cash and cash equivalents amounting to $821.84 million as of end second quarter 2025. This reflects the conservative balance sheet strategy adopted by iFAST Global Bank and a strong cash-generative business model of the group's wealth management business over the years. The group's return on equity in first half 2025 was at a healthy 24.6% level. A healthy ROE allows the group to be able to pursue robust long-term growth strategies while being able to raise our dividend payout. Regarding the dividend payouts for the second interim dividend for FY 2025, the directors proposed a dividend of $0.02 per ordinary share, which is 33.3% higher compared to the second interim dividend of 2024, which was at $0.015 per ordinary share. For FY 2025, the directors expect to propose a total dividend of $0.08 per ordinary share or higher, which is at least 35.6% higher than last year's FY 2024 dividend, which stood at $0.059 per ordinary share. Moving on to our group's AUA slide. As mentioned, so AUA increased 21.6% year-on-year to $27.2 billion as at 30th of June 2025. Q-on-Q, AUA grew by about 5.9%. The usual split between B2B and B2C showed here with the B2B contributing the majority of the AUA at about 2/3 of the group's total and the remaining 1/3 coming from our B2C business division. Regarding the AUA breakdown by markets and products. So Singapore remains the largest market, and Malaysia and Hong Kong are at about the same level of about 11% each. And under others, we have China and U.K., which has been growing relatively faster, especially if we look at the same numbers 1 year ago. And very similarly, because of the bank's progress, as we mentioned, in terms of customer deposits, that amount for AUA breakdown by products in cash account and deposits has also been growing at a relatively faster pace, which now takes up about 9.5% of total AUA. But of course, the majority is still accounted for by unit trusts firstly at 56%, followed by stocks and ETFs at 21.9% and bonds at 12.5%. Moving on to section 1 on the financial results for the group in second quarter of 2025 versus second quarter of last year. So total revenue was at $120.24 million in second quarter of this year, which is a 28.3% year-on-year increase. Net revenue grew by 30% year-on-year to $80.05 million. Net profit was up 37.9% year-on-year to $22.11 million. EPS was up 35.9% year-on-year to $7.31. And as mentioned just now, dividend per share at $0.02 for second quarter of this year. That's 33.3% higher than last year. For financial results for fast half 2025 versus first half of last year. For total revenue for first half of this year at $227.16 million, which represents a 26.4% year-on-year increase. Net revenue was up 23.7% to $147.76 million. Net profit was up 34.7% to $41.15 million in the first half of this year. For EPS, it's up 33.1% year-on-year to $0.1368. And for dividend per share, it's up 28.6% year-on-year to [ $0.036 ]. I won't go through the details on this slide, which talks about the results overview for the group over the last few years and first half of this year. I'll move on to PBT margin, the profit before tax margin, which is based on total net revenue. So that's grown to about 34% for first half of this year. Return on equity, it's at 24.6%, as mentioned just now, for the first half of this year. So that contrast favorably to the low ROE levels in the period of 2022 and 2023, which was largely due to the share placement related to the acquisition of the bank in the U.K. as well as on the related start-up expenses during that period, but ROE has since improved to the current levels that we see. In terms of the profit and loss at geographical segment level. So I think if we look at the second quarter of this year, so we see improvement across the various operations. So Singapore's numbers up 11.9% year-on-year to $9.92 million in the second quarter of this year. And for Hong Kong as well, up 17.8% year-on-year to $15.72 million in second quarter. China's losses have narrowed by almost half to $0.86 million in second half this year. And for the U.K. operation, as mentioned just now, it delivered a profit of $0.7 million in second quarter, which is -- which contrast favorably to the loss in second quarter of last year. I won't go through the details for the first half numbers for this slide as well as the next slide, which shows the various details for the P&L for the various operations at the group level for the last few years. The next slide shows the gross revenue at the geographical segment level. So I think we can see year-on-year growth rates for first half of this year across all the various operations, be it Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia or China. Of course, the stronger growth rates that we see came from the U.K. operation at iFAST Global Bank. Similarly, for net revenue, based on geographical segment. So I think we can see the year-on-year growth rates in the first half of this year across the various operations with a stronger growth rates coming from the U.K. as well. So wrapping up our section, this segment, it's on the dividend details. So as mentioned just now, for the second interim dividend for FY 2025, it's at $0.02 per ordinary share. And for FY 2025, the directors proposed a total dividend of $0.08 per ordinary share, which is at least 35.6% higher compared to FY 2024. And graphically, we can see what the previous numbers for the dividend trends have been for the last few years as well as the numbers that we have just mentioned for FY 2025. So I wrapped up section 1. I would now invite Chung Chun to share more on the business update. Chung Chun?

Thanks. Hi, everyone. Now I'll go to Section 2. Section 2 and a business update will essentially highlight some key points to talk through. So the first would actually be regarding the Hong Kong overall performance. Recall that in the previous quarter, we gave an updated guidance in terms of the target for 2025. So here, we reproduce what actually happened in first half of 2025 in Hong Kong dollar. The guidance is a Hong Kong dollar because our revenue essentially are in Hong Kong dollars for the Hong Kong business. So in the first half, we achieved a net revenue of slightly over HKD 400 million and PBT of over HKD 163 million. For the full year, we have, in the previous quarter, gave updated guidance of target PBT of over HKD 380 million. At this point in time, yes, there's no change to that. We expect that the second half performance will actually be stronger because the -- largely because the ePension division is progressing in the onboarding and the ramping up is happening, and that will continue. And the bulk of the eMPF business will be onboarded by the end of the year. So correspondingly, we expect that revenue and the profitability will actually be increasing. Next slide. Regarding the bank, the bank continues its third quarter of profitability. So in second Q, it achieved a net profit of $0.7 million. This is less than $1 million achieved in first Q, but much better than the year before where we had a loss of $1.56 million. Second Q compared to first Q, we essentially have a situation where the EzRemit’ part of the business, which tend to be more volatile, saw some reduced contribution, reduced revenue. First Q is actually the seasonally busier period for the business, largely because of the Eid period in the first quarter. Eid, I think in Singapore called Hari Raya Puasa. So that led to higher volume for the EzRemit’ of the business. But overall for the bank, what's important to note is that overall the deposits continue to grow, driven particularly by the DPB part of the business, digital personal banking. So that have led to a strong ramp-up in overall deposit for the bank. So customer deposit grew 124% year-on-year to $1.45 billion at the end of second Q 2025. So for first half, we basically achieved a profit of $1.7 million for the bank compared to a loss of $3.85 million in first half 2024. So overall, iFAST Global Bank is actually progressing well, in line with what we have been shooting for. Next slide. In terms of the core wealth management part of the business, we achieved a new record high AUA of $27.2 billion. That is driven by record net inflow of $1.29 billion in the second quarter itself. And during the period, number of customer accounts that we have as a group crossed 1 million accounts. So this is a chart that we typically show, the iFAST Fintech Ecosystem. Typically, every quarter, we show this, but we have some updated numbers. So as I noted earlier, customer account has crossed 1 million. We currently have over 800 companies as B2B partners. And in terms of number of individual wealth advisers who are using our platform, that's over 14,000 advisers. There's a chart showing the profitability of the bank, as I noted earlier. And in terms of the net inflow, you can see that for the first half of this year, we had a net inflow of $2.2 billion. Second quarter itself was $1.29 billion. So that's a quite a strong momentum. The net inflow number does bounce around a bit, but I think the current trend that we have is one where the momentum has actually been picking up. Gross UT subscription, as shown on this chart, that's also trending well. Regarding the return on equity, I think earlier on, we saw a chart for the ROE for the last 5 years. Here, we actually produced a chart for ROE but for the last 10 years. So what I'd like to highlight really is that if you look at our business, it's actually a business where we generally are able to -- the nature of the business is such that we're able to achieve good ROE, especially when the different business units are contributing profitably. In some years, when certain parts of the business are loss-making, then it drag down the overall ROE. But you look at 2020, 2021, we saw quite good ROE. By 2022, there was quite a substantial drop in ROE. That was a combination of a few reasons. Firstly, we acquired the bank, the U.K. bank in March 2022. So that led to some initial start-up losses that we saw. Secondly, the overall market itself took quite a significant downturn that affect the overall business momentum for wealth management business. And thirdly, there was a share placement that we did in 2021, where we raised $100 million. So that brought the level of equity up and thereby also reducing the ROE. In the last few years, the ROE has been steadily trending up as the business continue to progress. We have the progress on iFAST Global Bank. We also have the progress on the ePension part of business where the overall profitability for Hong Kong start to pick up quite substantially. And of course, the whole wealth insurance business have been progressing as well. So in the first half of this year, we saw quite healthy ROE as a whole. So for this quarter, I wanted to talk a bit about ROE. Just to also highlight some of the overall thinking that we have as a company in terms of how we manage our overall capital. So we have a business model that is inherently quite healthy in terms of ROE because it's essentially fee income, is cash generative. The part that is required more capital would actually be the bank. So most banks, typically, you actually find that there's a limit to the ROE that they actually have because net interest income drive the part of the overall profitability. But in the case of iFAST Group, you actually find that we start the ROE -- we start with a situation where we have 100% fee income. So the fee income form the bulk of the overall profitability that we have. And the fee income part of the business essentially allow the ROE to continue to trend upwards quite well as the scale continue to improve. So if I -- if we combine the fee income of the business with the bank part of the income, then you actually find that we have a situation where the overall ROE as a group continues to be quite healthy, at the same time, it allows us to essentially be able to make a strong use of the capability of a bank. And I think what we are seeing is a situation where the efforts that we have been putting in to deliver this business model start to show up better in the overall number. The profitability of iFAST Group in the last 2 years have actually been improving. But before this latest quarter, you find that the dividend payout that we are giving have tend to be a bit more moderate. We have actually, in the last 1 to 2 years, increased our dividend, but yes, in somewhat are more moderate because we were going through a stage where we feel that we shouldn't rush while we are trying to build up the overall banking business and while the -- our ePension business, we're still at this initial stages of ramping up. But we have come to a stage where we feel quite comfortable about the overall cash flow. I think we're looking at -- based on the dividend that we declaring in second quarter, we're looking at a payout ratio of 26%, but actually in reality, the cash payout is actually a bit less because our -- if you look at our overall profit that we reported, that actually include a significant level of noncash expenses, basically the PSP, which will knock off 10% from the P&L. So while the headline payout ratio is 26%, but in terms of the cash component that we're paying out is actually less than that. So with that, we have come to a stage where we feel comfortable that we can start to increase the dividend more significantly. And as a result of that, we declare -- the Directors declared a 33% increase in dividend for second Q. And for the year as a whole, we are expecting that the dividend per share will be at least $0.08 per share. So that's where we are currently. Next slide. Yes. Here, we have included the chart for the iFAST bond. Just for information, in case of some investors are not aware, in June last year, we issued iFAST bond, a 5-year bond maturing year 2029. The coupon for that is 4.3%. And yes, we're happy to say that since then, the bond has actually been performing well. The value of the bond has actually gone up about just over 5%. So on an overall basis, I think the bond has delivered a return of just over 10% in the past 1 year. The good performance, of course, led to a declining yield. So currently, we're looking at iFAST bond being traded at a yield of about 2.9% -- something 2.9%. The key point I wanted to highlight is really the fact that I think the good performance of bond reflect improving confidence that investors have with regard to the overall financial strength of iFAST Group. iFAST Group, of course, have continued to show overall improvement in terms of profitability and the overall balance sheet strength. And I think we're seeing that recognition being reflected in the bond price. Of course, part of the declining yield rose because the overall interest rate environment in Singapore has been coming down quite significantly. But I would say that it also reflects a slight tightening of the spread for iFAST Bond. And therefore, it's actually reflecting the improving confidence that investors are having in iFAST Group. And I think having the -- a situation where iFAST bond is actually being traded at a yield that is not too high, actually brings up a situation where it allows us to look at the overall capital management for the group in potentially more efficient way. So in the past, we have tended to essentially rely only on equity capital. But where we are now, we have a situation where the bond market is an avenue that opens up for us. So while we don't really need to raise too much money, but it actually put us in a situation where we're able to make use of the fact that the capital market, the bond market is confident about our group strength, and we can look at bonds as an alternative source of capital that make our overall cost of capital more efficient. So that's where -- that's a situation that we're in currently. Yes. So this one, I essentially talked about it, so next. The third part that I'd like to highlight really is with regard to artificial intelligence. Of course, the world have been going on getting very excited about AI. We have not previously mentioned much about AI, artificial intelligence, because we are steadily putting in some efforts to lay the groundwork. But yes, the reality is that we have been quietly within iFAST Group. From a team since end of 2023, and we have been gradually laying the foundation that allow us to make use of AI to help our overall business. We -- AI is actually an area where we see many different possibilities in terms of how it can help the overall group. But I would say that it is also something where we need to be clear about how we prioritize because it does take quite a bit of resources as well to be able to ensure that we let AI help us in a real and in an effective way. So it's important that we are clear about what we're trying to achieve, and we prioritize the areas that we want AI to help us here. Next slide. Yes, the next 2 slides sort of about some of the potential areas that we have been working on. I would just like to maybe touch on 1 key point, which is where quite a lot of effort have been focused on for us in the last 1.5 years. So the efforts -- we have actually internally prioritized the AI effort on iFAST Global Bank. And the reason for that is because given the business model that we have for iFAST Global Bank, firstly, it's a digital bank. Secondly, we have what we call the truly global business model, meaning we are looking at being able to operate from one or a couple of countries, but we target customers from around the world. So in order to try to do that, it essentially means that we need to be able to transcend the language barrier. I think when it comes to banking, most banks around the world still operator on a more localized basis. But if you want a more truly global manner, you want to build a customers from around the world who are using different languages, but you want to bank with us in one or a few locations, then the use of AI will actually be very important in the long run. So an example would be customer service. Customer service, if you want customers to be able to contact us, whether it's by live chat or by call, then the ability to help the customers in multiple languages will actually be important. The ability to help customers not just on office hour, but to be able to help them 24/7. The ability to eventually be able to service 1 million customers, 5 million customers or more, I think that requires AI to be able to help us make a difference. So that's the reason why we have actually been prioritizing the AI efforts on iFAST Global Bank, including on the customer service front in terms of helping us to serve a customer at different hours to able to transcend language barrier. Of course, it's still an ongoing effort. But clearly, one of our vision is that eventually customers who call in and call in from around the world, we will be able to talk to our global customer service officer in -- there are different languages. Technology is not fully there, but it's actually progressing. And we are certainly making use of the progression in the overall technology that's been introduced by the various tech giants. We use that to apply to our overall business. Of course, there are -- as I mentioned, there are many other different areas, including the ability to use AI in fraud detection, et cetera, or mitigate the risk from fraud, et cetera. But yes, we're basically just highlighting some of the key areas of priority that we are using currently. Okay. So with that, yes, I'll end the formal part of presentation over here, and we're happy to take questions that come.

Thank you, Chung Chun. [Operator Instructions] And of course, we also have some attendees here who have joined us. So we do have a couple of questions already. So maybe we'll just start with those who are here filling a few questions.

[ Mikko ] from CGS. I've a few questions. First of all, I think across the region, Singapore, Malaysia, we kind of see a steady growth in AUA, but I think most of it is in cash products. So I just wanted to understand if this is probably a more lower margin kind of business. And where do we see the growth coming from going forward when we are comparing to our targets of reaching $100 billion by 2028? That's my first question. Second question on -- or maybe I'll just take it question by question.

I think firstly, it's true that the cash part have actually increased quite a bit, partly reflecting iFAST Global Bank, but also, I think within Singapore, the cash that we have in [indiscernible] has actually been growing quite strongly. But just to clarify, actually, cash is not really a lower-margin business. From our perspective, actually cash is a product, whether it's with the bank or even in Singapore, it's a product that actually give a higher than average overall margin. But in terms of the growth of different asset classes, actually, if you look at the equity market for the last couple of years, one of the interesting thing is that the strong performance of the equity market have been largely driven by U.S. market. So while that has itself boosted the overall business that we actually have, but historically, we find that one of the other factors that influence the overall vibrancy of our business quite a bit is the performance of the overall Asian market. So in the last 2 years, while U.S. market have been hitting the records all the time, you actually find that the Asian market, including China, hasn't performed that well. And typically, when this segment started to perform better, then you actually find that the overall wealth management business that we have become more vibrant, a bigger growth in overall equity funds, et cetera. And overall, there will be faster growth rate and so that has tended to be the case. So over the long run, we still expect that the various segment of the asset classes will be able to grow, whether it's equity fund, fixed income fund or cash management product and cash. So that's the expectation that we have.

Second question on Hong Kong. I think with the guidance unchanged from the first quarter kind of suggests that the second half revenue recognition will be much stronger. So I'm understanding that there were some teething issues for the onboarding process for the eMPF project previously. I'm just wondering how that has played out over the past 2 to 3 months and if the margins from the Hong Kong business will be significantly impacted in the second half. Also just a little add-on is also the fact that you mentioned about how ORSO was supposed to -- we were previously expecting ORSO to start in the second half in terms of contribution. So just wondering where we are on the front of the rollout and whether this is one of the reasons why we expect your contribution from Hong Kong to kind of -- in terms of margins to probably slow down in the second half probably to ramp up this side of the business.

Yes. Firstly, with regard to the teething issues that you were mentioning, I would say that while operationally, on an ongoing basis, there will always be some little operational hiccups here and there. But I think the teething issue that the market was observing previously, that has actually been reduced, right? So the overall eMPF business have been progressing in terms of the onboarding and the ramp-up. So that is actually continuing. And as a result of that, you find that the overall onboarding of the eMPF business will pretty much be in line with what has been recently expected or planned. So that's where things are. Regarding the ORSO business, so on this part, the original plan start of the Hong Kong ORSO business was around -- originally, we were actually looking at second quarter in terms of what was original planned since a year ago. But along the way, ourselves and our business partner and the various parties decided that given that the priority for this year should really be on the eMPF business, so the decision was actually made to delay the live date of this ORSO part of the business. So as a result of that, the current expectation is that the Hong Kong ORSO business will not be contributing in the second half of this year. It will start to contribute only next year. But that has all been taken into account when we do the guidance for the overall Hong Kong business. So it doesn't negatively reduce the guidance that we had issues in the past.

Okay. Thank you, Mikko. And perhaps I'll just take some of the questions online, which are quite similar to some of the questions that have just been raised. So firstly, I think from Jayden on the ePension business. How many trustees have been onboarded so far and what is the progress on the remainder? Costs for this project is expected to be higher in second half? Or would they be steady on first half levels?

Yes. The first trustee was onboarded starting June last year. And since then, pretty much every month, there's a new trustee that's actually being onboarded. So that has been something that's ongoing. And for the next few months as well, we actually expect that every month there's pretty much one additional trustee being onboarded. And that's part of the -- that's largely in line with what has been planned in the last 1 year. As far as costs are concerned, cost has actually been increasing for us for the eMPF part of the business because we've been adding more headcount and have been hiring. The headcount will continue to grow in the next 3, 6 months as we continue to get ready for higher volume. But at the same time, we expect that in the second half of this year, the revenue will be increasing further as well as onboarding increases. So that's why on an overall basis, we expect that profitability in second half will be better than in first half.

Thank you, Chung Chun. So [ Alan ] also has questions pertaining to the Hong Kong ePension business. So as for ePension contributions in second quarter, we saw an uptick versus first quarter, where we previously expected the uptick to happen in second half. Could you share more on why this has been brought forward? And also how will contribution from ePension trend in the next 2 quarters?

Terence here. So I'll just share a bit about the revenue we've been recognizing on the eMPF project. So I think as we guided previously, it's sort of linked to certain milestones. And of course, the onboarding rate is one of the key milestones that we are looking at to recognize revenue. So as we progressively onboard more and more trustees, then this is where you see that bump up in revenue recognition. So I think in the first quarter, I think there was -- generally, there was less onboarding activity. I think that sort of picked up in the second quarter. And I think very aligned with what we have been saying so far is that in the second half of this year, this is where we expect to see the largest trustees being onboarded under the eMPF. So that's where we expect to see that bump up in revenue. So hopefully, that answers the question.

Thanks, Terence. And now from [indiscernible], also pertaining on the Hong Kong business. Can we have a bit more colors on the net margin? I suppose it's related to the -- specifically to the Hong Kong business itself. Are we expecting any steep increase in operating costs for the ePension project? And where can we expect the peak of the operating expense, especially for the ePension business?

So operating expense is expected to be higher in [ second Q -- third Q over third Q, ] that's the kind of ramp-up that we actually expect to see currently. But I suppose as noted, even with that, we expect that the profitability in 3Q and 4Q will likely still be able to grow because revenue increases will be sufficient. And yes, so if I look into next year, I think we expect that the year as a whole, we will still be able to see increases in revenue and profitability. 2026 should see further growth compared to 2025, which is why we have guided for a target of double-digit growth in 2026 compared to 2025.

Alan also has a question on, could you share more colors on the buildup of trade receivables? And if that is worrying?

Yes, I'll just share some color on the trade receivables. I think as we have explained before, I think the business is no longer just plain vanilla so-called wealth management business that we've been running all these years. So I think the bank is definitely one of the new businesses that has come in. So it's consolidated as part of the group. And the banks have receivables related to, for instance, the remittance business. Even some of the investments that does some of the accrued interest, and all that does flow into that line. Even on the wealth management business, we have also launched margin financing. So it's a new service. Then, of course, margin receivables as they grow, we'll also add to the trade receivables line. And of course, I think on the Hong Kong business, that's where we have also seen some trade receivables coming in. Of course, then that will be sort of offset by the cash collection that we've been doing. So I think overall from the other -- from the previous quarter to the end of the first half, I think we're actually seeing that number come down a bit because we actually released some of the working capital at the remittance business. So there was a bit of extra working capital that led to a slight buildup in trade receivables for the first quarter, so that's all the bank, and then we released some of that. So I think we actually saw some decline in the second quarter. So just to give some color on the -- quite a lot of different factors that go into that number.

I'll carry on wth a couple of more questions still related to Hong Kong that you mentioned. So from [ Ernest ], is there a deadline whereby you have to onboard all trustees by October 2025? That's the first one. And the second question, in a worst-case scenario, what happens if you are unable to onboard all trustees by the deadline?

The target that eMPF have set has been that all trustees will be onboarded by the end of the year. So that continues to be the target that they actually have. I suppose in the worst-case scenario, we're not all able to be onboarded by December, then I think it just means maybe a delay of a couple of months, and that will essentially be the current situation. I would say that it doesn't fundamentally change the overall financial picture too much. It will be pretty much still in line with how we are guiding.

Okay. We'll probably look at a couple of other questions. I think Benjamin has raised hand. Is that right?

I have just a few questions. My first one is on the core wealth management business. I think we saw very strong net inflows this quarter. Just wanted to check whether this strong inflows was mainly in May and June or was it -- or did we also see strong inflows in April? So like, i.e., was there good inflows to buy the dip from the retail?

I think all 3 months were essentially quite strong.

And are you seeing AUA outflows from the U.S. markets to Asia markets?

I think in terms of the -- where the inflows go to in terms of which asset class or which equity market, typically, you see some fluctuation, some volatility from month-to-month, quarter-to-quarter, a bit difficult to pin down exactly what truly is the trend.

Okay. No worries. My second question is on the Hong Kong PBT. I think you mentioned that we will see a step-up in second half this year. I just wanted to understand how we should think about it? Would it be a step-up in Q3 and Q4 will be flattish? Or will it be a gradual ramp-up, so Q3 slightly higher and then Q4 even higher?

I think likely Q3 is higher, and then Q4 will be higher than Q3. That's likely the same.

All right. Got it. And my last two questions, sorry, very quickly. On the EzRemit, I think we saw lower volumes in Q2. How much did FX volatility contributed to this lower volumes?

I would say it's more of a function of the seasonal factor because EzRemit for us, the market is pretty much a Middle East market, where the majority of the workers are mostly, so during the Eid festival or [indiscernible] period, then you find that a lot of them were sending money back both in the home country in March, for instance. So that actually boosted the overall performance during that quarter. So that was the bigger factor during the time.

Got it. And my last one is on dividends. Over the medium term, is it on the target payout ratio? Or is it more on an absolute dividend per share?

I would say it's more of a target payout ratio.

And the target remains 25% to 30% like last time?

At this point in time, we are looking at 25% to 30%. I think -- yes, it's a function of how much we build up the overall balance sheet for the -- how big is the overall shareholders' equity. As balance sheet get bigger and bigger, then we probably feel more comfortable about being able to increase the payout ratio. But at this point in time, we are still looking at a 25% to 30%.

Thanks, Benjamin. So since we're on wealth management as well, we have another question from Jayden, which is on the wealth platform. Are there any private funds or anything else that differentiates the platform versus other peers, either in the B2B or B2C space?

In terms of differentiation, I suppose as a business, there are certainly many different areas of differentiation that we actually have. I think there's always been one fundamental core thinking that we actually have. In order to ensure that as a business, we're able to continue to be at the forefront of the industry, continue to be competitive, continue to be a market leader, that is important that we have sufficient level of differentiation. The differentiation varies between B2B business versus B2C. I think B2B, the differentiation is not just in terms of product. Product is actually one of it. I would say, at this point in time, the private funds isn't something that is to be a factor for us. A bigger part of the differentiation for B2B really is the overall ability to deliver on the overall services for the various business partners that we work with because the B2B business is really one where we are making available a whole range of products across different set classes. But at the same time, we're also delivering various support in terms of IT support, operational support and support in terms of being able to help them perform the business efficiently, being able to collect their advisory fee efficiently, being able to advise a client across different asset classes ranging from mutual funds to ETFs to bonds, to stocks and cash and being able to help the client perhaps even diversify where they hold the assets in terms of which jurisdiction, right, not just Singapore but Hong Kong as well and U.K. as well, et cetera. So it's all this different area of our differentiation and making sure that we are the best service provider. So that's one broad example of how we look at the business on the B2B business. B2C has its own unique set of consideration. But certainly, yes, the ability to give a holistic place for clients to invest across the different asset classes and making it easy for them to handle all the different things and see it operating in the same location, that's [indiscernible].

[indiscernible]. I think looking at our China business, seeing that the losses are narrowing quite drastically in this half. I guess, any sort of reason for that? And is there any sort of forecast now to sort of when the China business will turn?