VersaBank (VBNK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Other directors of VersaBank here with us today. And could I ask you to please stand as I introduce you. Gabrielle Bochynek, Gabrielle is from Toronto and currently resides in Stratford. She's been a Director of the bank since 2019. Gabrielle, can you stand? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Poor Jack Gabrielle. Robbert-Jan Brabander. Robbert-Jan is from Richmond Hill and has been a Director of the bank since 2009. David Bratton. David is from London, Ontario, who has been a Director of the bank since 1993. There he is. Dick Carter. Dick is from Regina and has been a Director of the bank since 2014. Peter Irwin. Peter is from Toronto and has been a Director of the bank since 2021. Art Linton. Art is from Kitchener and has been a Director of the bank since 2020. Susan McGovern. Susan is from Gormley, Ontario, and has been a Director of the bank since 2011. Paul Oliver. Paul is from Markham, and has been a Director of the bank since 2005. Finally, David Taylor. David is from [indiscernible], Ontario, and has been a Director of the bank since 1993. He's also the President and Chief Executive Officer. We're also pleased to have many of the other officers of the bank with us here today, and I'd like to ask them to please stand as I call their name. Mike Dixon, Senior VP, point-of-sale financing; Ross Duggan, Senior VP, Commercial Lending; Nick Kristo, Chief Credit Officer; Tammie Ashton, Chief Credit Officer; Garry Clement, Chief Anti-Money Laundering Officer; Barbara Hale, Vice President, Anti-Money Laundering Compliance; Brent Hodge, Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary and Chief Compliance Officer; Joanne Johnston, Chief Internal Auditor; Wooi Koay, Vice President, Information Technology. I don't think Wooi is here. Nancy McCutcheon, Vice President, TIB Business Development; and Andy Min, Vice President, Finance and Corporate Accounting; Dylan Steuart, Treasurer; and Barbara Todres, Vice President, Deposit Services. Absent from the meeting today is Shawn Clark, Steve Creery, Saad Inam, Scott Mizzen, David Thoms and Terri Wilson. I'd also like to introduce Jon Taylor, our Chief Human Resources. Jon? Lawrence Chamberlain, our Director of Investor Relations. Tel Matrundola, Chief Strategist. And Gurpreet Sahota, Chief Architect of Cybersecurity. Thank you for being here. The shareholders' auditors, KPMG, is represented here today by Paula Foster, there's Paula. And in order to make the best use of our time, certain individuals have been asked to move and second the resolutions which are set out in the notice of meeting, and I'll call on them at the appropriate time. Moving now to the scrutineers. Shirley Tom of Computershare Investor Services will act as scrutineer of this meeting to report on the shareholders present in person and by proxy at this meeting; to compute the votes by ballot, if any; and to report to me on these matters. Prior to the commencement of this meeting, the scrutineer reported that based on the registration of shareholders this morning and the proxy submitted, a quorum has been reached. So in accord with the bylaws of the bank, I declare the meeting regularly called and properly constituted for the transaction of business, and I direct that the scrutineers report be annexed to the minutes of the meeting. Move now to the notice of the meeting. The notice calling this meeting and the accompanying material have been mailed to all shareholders of the bank, who were shareholders of record on March 3, 2022. The secretary of the meeting has provided the proof of mailing of such material. Accordingly, the reading of the notice of meeting will be dispensed with and a copy of the notice with the proof of mailing will be kept with the secretary of the meeting. Moving now to financial statements. I propose that we now proceed with the business of the meeting. The financial statements of the bank for the year ended October 31, 2021, together with the report of the auditors thereon, have been mailed to the shareholders of the bank. It is not proposed to ask shareholders to approve the financial statements. However, we would be pleased to deal with any relevant questions concerning the statements during the general question period, and that follows the formal business of this meeting. Copies of the report of the auditors on the financial statements are available for inspection at the meeting. Matters to be voted upon, first of all, appointment of auditors. The next item of business is the appointment of auditors for the current year and the authorization of the directors to fix the remuneration of the auditors. In respect of voting on the appointment of auditors, each holder of common shares of the bank is entitled to 1 vote for each share held by him or her. Please note that only those who are registered shareholders and appear on our registered shareholder list, as provided by your transfer agent, and those persons who are authorized proxy holders are eligible to vote at today's meeting. I propose to conduct the vote on the matter of the appointment of auditors by a show of hands. Please note that each registered shareholder or proxy holder present in person at this meeting has the right to demand that a ballot be conducted either before the show of hands or following that vote. Where a ballot is conducted on a resolution, I will vote for a ballot -- I will vote by ballot all proxies submitted to me as proxy holder as required by law. I will ask Andy Min to move the resolution appointing auditors for the current year and Mike Dixon to second the motion.

[indiscernible]

May I have the motion seconded?

[indiscernible]

The motion is now open for discussion. You've now heard this motion. As there is no further discussion, I now put the resolution to the meeting. And for this ordinary resolution to be passed, it must be approved by the affirmative vote of not less than a majority of the votes cast in respect thereof the shareholders present at the meeting, in person or represented by proxy. All those in favor of the resolution, please so signify by raising your hand. [Voting] Thank you. Contrary, if any? I declare the resolution carried. Move to the election of directors. In respect of voting for the election of directors, which is to proceed by way of cumulative voting, each holder of common shares of the bank has the right to cast a number of votes equal to the number of votes attached to the shares held by the shareholder, multiplied by the number of directors to be elected. And the shareholder may cast all such votes in favor of one candidate or distribute them among the candidates in any manner. If a shareholder has voted for more than one candidate without specifying the distribution of the votes among the candidates, the shareholder is deemed to have distributed the votes equally among the candidates for whom the shareholder voted. If the number of candidates nominated for director exceeds the number of positions to be filled, the candidates who received the least number of votes will be eliminated until the number of candidates remaining equals the number of positions to be filled. To comply with the provisions of the Bank Act, the election of directors will be decided by a vote by ballot. And where a ballot is conducted on a resolution, I will vote by ballot all proxies submitted to me as proxy holder as required by law. Please note that only those who are registered shareholders and appear on our registered shareholder list as provided by our transfer agent and those persons who are authorized proxy holders eligible to vote at today's meeting. So we will now proceed with the election of directors. The number of directors of the bank is fixed at 10, and it's necessary for such numbers to be elected. I now declare the meeting open for nominations for the election of 10 directors to hold office for the ensuing year or until their successors are elected or appointed. Jonathan Taylor will now nominate each of the individuals listed in the management proxy circular for election as directors for the coming year, each of whom has agreed to serve as a director if elected, and I will ask Andy Min again to second the nominations. Jon?

[indiscernible]

May I have each of the nomination seconded?

[indiscernible]

Is there any further nominations? Well, if that's the case, I declare nominations closed. Jonathan Taylor will now move the confirming resolution and Andy Min will second the motion. Jon?

[indiscernible]

May I have the motion with respect to the election of each director seconded?

[indiscernible]

Thank you. The scrutineers have distributed a form of ballot to all registered shareholders and authorized proxy holders present. Each registered shareholder or proxy holder shall record his or her vote in respect of the resolution which has been put to the meeting in the usual manner, by indicating whether they are voting for all nominees or withholding in respect of all nominees or withholding in respect of one or several nominees. Each registered shareholder or a proxy holder should then sign his or her name on the ballot. I would also ask each registered shareholder or a proxy holder, print his or her name on the ballot. The scrutineers will then collect the ballots. And I would ask the scrutineer to deliver the report to the secretary of the meeting as promptly as possible. I understand that the report on the ballot from the scrutineer has been received. The scrutineer reports that the resolution with respect to the election of directors has been duly carried by a majority of the votes cast, both in advance and at this meeting. And accordingly, I declare the resolution carried. If any registered shareholder or proxy holder is interested in the exact number of votes cast in respect to the resolution, which has been voted upon by ballot, he or she may obtain particulars after the meeting on inquiry to the secretary of the meeting. Moving now to further business. Is there any further business? If not, this concludes the formal business of this Annual Meeting of Shareholders. I would now ask Andy Min to move the final resolution.

[indiscernible]

The motion has been accepted, and I declare the formal business of the meeting terminated. So these procedures are finally over. Now to the substance, I will ask the President and CEO of the bank, David Taylor, to make his remarks concerning the bank.

Well, thank you, Tom. Is this working? Thank you, Tom. And it's certainly wonderful to welcome you all here this morning. It's good to see some familiar faces. Some, I haven't seen since COVID began. I note that some look a little grayer than average than they did a few years ago. I apologize, my presentation will be a small presentation and apparently, the video thing isn't working here. But this is a good thing to improvise with. It's served me well over the years. It was not long ago I was flying into London, and it was an unscheduled, unforecasted deck of clouds and I ended up on top. And to land at London you'd have to do what's called an IFR approach. But thankfully, on this machine, I've got my instrument procedures placed. So I was able to do it with the phone. So I'll move through this small presentation pretty briskly, but I hope you've got lots of questions for me at the end. This is all kinds of exciting things that our bank has been involved in the last year or so that I'm sure you're interested in. So moving through the presentation. This, of course, is the usual advisory, I draw your attention to. And looking at the next slide, obviously, what's happened in 2021 is that the momentum that we were talking about earlier has continued onward, and we've been able to post that outstanding compounded average growth rate of 22%. And in 2021 had a record earnings per share of $0.96 per share. That was driven by the growth in our loan portfolio and the outstanding growth, particularly Mike Dixon's team, which is about 33% in the point-of-sale business. Not last but not least, was Ross Duggan's, 27% in the real estate area. Moving to the next slide here. This slide is one I'm particularly proud of. This represents our reengagement of financing in the north or at one time in the early years of VersaBank in the '90s, we targeted the indigenous communities in Canada's North as a market that we could make a difference in. We're very proud that over the years we're able to finance hospitals, schools, municipalities, recreational facilities. And as the photograph denotes a hydro line, and the one that I'm particularly proud of is the Arviat Health Centre, you can see it right there, that's located on the West Coast of Hudson's Bay. And as you'd expect, I was flying at the West Coast of Hudson's Bay about 500 feet off the ground. Polar bears waving at me thinking perhaps that airplane might quit and they would have lunch. I came into Arviat, and it's during the -- during the time of the midnight sun. And the kids there don't go to bed, they stay up 24/7. And I noticed there was just a lot of children there and the particular need in that community was for a birthing center. And so we put together a builder and financing to build this birthing center for the people at Arviat. But unfortunately, as time progressed, we've found ourselves heading in a pretty significant headwind from the regulators at the time, that I'm sure sooner or later will be apologizing, if I live another 50 years perhaps. And we had to curtail that business. That particular facility I was getting calls for maybe every 2 or 3 days, and I'll just give you the gist of it. I said, "So why are you worried about this. It is funded by the government of Nunavut, it's an essential service." And the person here in Toronto said, "Well, we've Googled it, and it's way the hell up there." And I said, "Well, I got news to you, most of Canada is way the hell up there ." And thankfully, those sentiments that I endured gone away again, and we're hopeful that we'll be able to make a difference again in Canada's North. You probably saw that we appointed 2 indigenous leaders. We have reengaged Roland Bailey, who is in charge of our program -- infrastructure program back in the early days. And also Robert-Falcon Ouellette has joined up with us to head up our indigenous housing project. Moving on to the next slide. Obviously, 2021 was a good year for us. All the key metrics were getting better. Revenue up by 18%. Cost of funds slid down a little bit more at 13 basis points. Our net interest margin depressed a little bit. And for those who've been following our press releases, you probably know that as to be prudent during the pandemic, we decided to maintain a little more cash than we normally would. And we don't -- we didn't -- past tense -- we didn't earn a lot on our excess liquidity. But thanks to the Bank of Canada raising rates 50 basis points, now we're likely to earn some decent return our cash assets. Flipping over to the next slide here. A big event for us last year was to increase our presence in United States. So we made a strategic decision to raise some capital in the United States. And as you can see, we were successful in raising $75 million in subordinate debt, along with receiving overall A rating, investment grade rating for the bank, A- for our subordinate debt. We also completed initial public offering towards the end of 2021, raising about CAD 73 million and listing on the NASDAQ. The main reason for wanting to improve or increase our presence in the United States, there are 2 markets that we're very keenly interested in. The first is what Mike Dixon's team is engaged in, and that's the point-of-sale finance program. I think most of you know that we've been very successful in Canada in launching an innovative new way of -- new 10 years ago, way to finance point-of-sale companies by an effect, providing them with access to our balance sheet, so they can store their loans and leases, until of course, if they go into arrears, in fact 90 days in arrears. And at that point, the ownership of the loan or lease goes back to the original vendor. So that's the model that we've been using for at least 10 years, and we've -- it's automated. Our customers love it. And we looked into United States and didn't see that particular model available, which is kind of surprising, because there's a huge market there, $1.8 trillion market. So we thought we'd bring this new model to the United States. And in the last while, you probably saw in the press release, that Mike's team was successful in signing up the first point-of-sale customer. We've got about 3 more we're looking at. And as time progresses, I'm sure you'll see a tremendous amount of growth in the United States for this type of business. The other reason we also are looking into United States is we've launched a new kind of deposit receipt, we call it VCAD for VersaBank's Canadian Dollar deposit receipt USD for U.S. dollar-denominated deposit receipt. And sooner or later, we'll have a euro deposit receipt and a pound sterling deposit receipt. So this is another first for VersaBank, another first for the world. This is a federal bank issuing deposit receipt, using distributed ledger blockchain technology. And if you read the press release, it's on Stellar, Algorand and Ethereum. So what it does is enables our depositors to have a representation of their deposit in a digital format, but also perhaps trade these deposit receipts as a currency to settle up for purchase of goods. So it's what I believe the whole world will go to. I think it's a natural progression of banking to utilize the blockchain for this purpose and other purposes, and we're proud to be Canadians that came up with this and actually have it search landing on those blockchains. We also most recently received they call a SOC 2 audit on this, which reviewed our facilities, our digital vault, which is key to this new product. And that separates us in the world as the only bank that's got a custodial vault that's SOC 2. I think in North America, there maybe 3 others that are nonbanks that are SOC 2 for their vaults. And of course, we're the only ones that are utilizing it, not only for custodial services, but also to issue these new digital deposit receipts. The next slide is to bring up what we're doing with DRT Cyber. And I think most of you know DRT Cyber was borne out of our bank's need, desire, like all banks, to stay safe from the new wave of bank robbers that are constantly probing most corporations. So we thought we would create in-house capability to be able to keep our bank safe. And thankfully Gurpreet Sahota from Blackberry decided to join us, it was almost 4 years ago, to head up this initiative. He's the one that created the VersaVault and the other capabilities that are listed on the screen here. And as good entrepreneurs should be, we thought, well, if that's good for our bank, it's probably good for other corporations, other banks, other financial institutions, too. So we're actively marketing our products with the other FIs. We're in discussions with other financial services companies with respect to marketing them, and we think help out our industry and other essential services industries with our services. Presently, we have about 350 corporations, some of the largest corporations in Canada and the United States, some significant police departments, utilities, rail lines, all that that are our customers. The type of customer who isn't going to quibble over the price of our services, because a break-in could be devastating for them. Flipping along here to the final slide. So clearly, our time has finally arrived as the, what's that fellow's name, Orson Wells said when he was advertising, Paul Masson's wine, he said, "No wine before our time." And I wish I had paid attention to that in 1993 as launching a digital branchless bank in 1993 might have been a bit before its time. However, as time has progressed and caught up, and I think the bank that you see today is ideal for the times. We were doing a brainstorming session on Wall Street last week with a large financial services company. And they gave me a statistic that made me think. Clearly, we were finally at the right time, and they said, "You know what the retention rate is for baby boomers' wealth?" So by that, what they mean is I'm a baby boomer. I know I'm beyond my best before date. I'm not quite at my expiry date yet. And looking around, I think there are some others that might be considered baby boomers. But apparently, when baby boomers do expire and their wealth is left to the millennials or Generation Zs, the -- this large financial services company said "Well, what do you think the retention rate is for the old school banks for that wealth when it moves on ?" It's starting to move on now, just as baby boomers are expiring. So I don't know, 50%, something like that. They said 3% -- 3%. So it looks like the new generation is not sticking around with the traditional banks, the traditional bank products, they're moving on to digital deposit receipts. They're moving on to stable coins and other areas. So there's a movement definitely in the United States to bring these added features to old-school banking, i.e., in their case, they're referring to community banks, so that they don't lose their customer base. And here in Canada, we have the state-of-the-art product, that being the digital deposit receipt, to enhance the bank's offering. So it's -- that we will hold on to some of that generational shift in wealth as it moves along. Anyway, any good questions for me? Rob, you've got a question or 2 or -- yes.

Actually, this is for [indiscernible] I was with a U.S. company back in the '80s [indiscernible] and when I met you and to see everything progress from 1992, '93 but more importantly, just the last 5 years, and I've got grandchildren, some of us have [indiscernible] that are millennials now or their kids. And you're absolutely right. I had no idea that the figures that you just stated, but there's no question [indiscernible] global funds, change in mentality towards everything. And I commend you because you stuck right with it and the Board and I just congratulate you on what you've just done, just an outstanding job. I'm very proud of you.

Well, thank you, Robbie. Yes, it's -- we're only a tiny little bank, so it's sort of behooves us to make sure we are innovative and ahead of the curve to bring some new products to the marketplace and hopefully make some extra money for our shareholders, particularly in the United States, where it seems like a vast opportunity for us with the new technologies that we've been able to develop and the partnerships that we're working on. Yes, sir.

I'm [Paul Durnan] from Burlington. I don't necessarily want to discuss the new technologies, which look very interesting, quite frankly. But what I want to talk about is rising interest rates. And I happen to remember 1989 to '93, and maybe you do, too. So this -- like mortgages renewed at substantially higher rates and other kinds of things could we see the food prices going up, the gasoline prices? And I'm a little bit afraid of some financial institutions that got squeezed, if you remember. Go ahead.

Yes, absolutely. I certainly do remember that, I was working for Bank of Montreal at the time in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. And when my mortgage came up for renewal, it went from something like 12% to 18%. So that made it very, very difficult for people to renew their mortgages. I think as you're alluding to, there's a tremendous amount of inflation that's going to be recognized fairly soon in Canada. And it puts a lot of stress on consumers on their ability to repay debt and mortgages. So I think probably in 2023, we may very well be in a recession, and we banks better do something to prepare for that. Our bank isn't as vulnerable as a normal bank would be in that we don't do residential mortgages for one thing. We don't have a portfolio of residential mortgages. We do interim construction. They're usually 2 to 3 years outstanding. It looks like that business will hold in there in that -- that's projected to be a massive influx of new immigrants to Canada this year, some in the order of 400,000 people. So we're thinking our interim construction portfolio will stand up well, and that there will still be a need for new residential units. The point-of-sale business right now is booming, particularly in the home improvement area. I would expect, in 2023, that will slow right down. But that's normally what you see is consumer spending slowing down in a recession. Now from our bank's perspective, we have sort of a counterbalance, and this is terrible to say to a recession, in that a large portion of our deposits come from the insolvency industry at very low interest rates. So while others are sort of suffering and -- that probably means more insolvencies. We're just coming off a 35-year low of insolvencies. I'm guessing in 2023, you might be at a 35-year high, which, of course, is not good for the Canadian economy, but it's very good for us with respect to raising economically priced deposits. And the other area that I was alluding to that our bank will do a little better on is that we keep, prudently, a fair amount of cash. Our treasurer Dylan, where is he? There he is, he keeps a fair amount of cash. And for the last 4 or 5 years, we've earned almost nothing on that cash. But now 1-year government Canada bonds are north of 2%. So we were -- that's -- that means our bank will make more than it used to. So generally speaking, we're -- I think as recession -- I would not say, proof, at least recession resilient as a bank can be. Good question. Yes, sir.

Can you talk about the security business and the revenue opportunity [indiscernible] ?

Well, we'd like to think it's tripling and quadrupling. We're sort of just new in it, and we completed that acquisition, Digital Boundary Group, and that gave us a good sized customer base. What we're trying to do to get the -- our products out in front of our target market is partner with other financial services companies that already have the relationship. We think we have state-of-the-art products for other FIs. It works for us extremely well. And it worked for the other FIs, particularly the small ones. We're talking about community banks in the United States. So, we're working on developing a sort of reseller relationships with the large U.S. So it could be quadruple what we're doing now. I would like it to go more and more, it's a tremendous market and the products that PREIT's been able to develop, we think are state-of-the-art. Last week, I was at a brainstorming session with one of these huge financial services company on Wall Street, and there was nothing that came out of that to disrupt my view that we have the state-of-the-art products, and they should be out there for the smaller FIs, not for the big guys. The big guys have their own stuff, and they've got very sophisticated methods. But for the smaller community banks, about our size, we think we have a good product offering. Yes, sir.

Do you have no wealth management or insurance or stock brokerage services?

No.

All of that is for other banks?

For other banks. We're highly specialized. We try to, unfortunately, use the word that you often hear about us bankers is we're greedy bankers. So we just look around and we see a niche market where we think we can make a difference with our software and we go after that. We leave the vast array of banking products for the larger banks. And we just hope we can do a little better job in some niche market where we're focused such a point -- point-of-sale is perfect.

Okay. So most things are online. You don't have many physical offices around here.

We have no retail offices whatsoever. We have no interaction with the end customers. We use partners for that. So on the deposit side, the IIROC member brokerage firms send deposit money to us each day. And then as most of the accounting firms that look after insolvencies send us deposits each day. So we don't actually interact with the poor bankrupt people who's money we've got the account open for, thankfully. And on the lending side, our 20 or so partners that provide every financing from hot tubs to motorcycles, they interface with a customer, and then they just sell us the loans electronically. And they just go into our balance sheet, unless they go in arrears. And we don't have a collection department, never have had one. So that just goes back to our partner to do the collecting. We stay away from that stuff. Yes. And just want you to imagine, back in 1993, when I had the opportunity to create a bank with the whiteboard, there's certain aspects to banking I wanted to avoid, and that was interaction with bad debtors who didn't want to pay us back. So we're trying our best to figure out how we could avoid those situations. And this is the bank you see. I've almost got 3 decades of negligible losses under our belt. Next year, it would be 30 years. And the model has worked. We've also been able to carve out probably the best net interest margin in the country. We're averaged around 3%, which is kind of like having your cake and eat it too in the banking world, you get a nice fat spread. But you don't have that really messy business of having to dial up Mr. Jones and say where's the payment on that motorcycle, which I didn't want to get into. Yes, Greg.

[indiscernible]

Yes.

There's been a lot of [indiscernible] recently critically on stable coins and a question of whether a tether is a true tether. I was shocked to find out recently that there actually has increasing interest in stable coins that are actually not tethered to cash, but derivative-type relationships to simulate cash [indiscernible]. What's the prospect for this to [ph] roll up? And when you talk to businesses and their willingness to use cryptocurrency [indiscernible] necessarily at some point, this is going to be a massive shift of the product?

Yes, I believe it will be. I think it wads just the classic case. There was a vacuum. The consumer, the millennials, the generation Zs, wanted some sort of stable coin. And the proof is about $150 billion of stable coins presently out there, maybe more because it seems to go up every day. And as you say, they are theoretically tethered to some assets. But not too long ago, U.S. TC was unable to prove in the New York court that it was tethered to an asset. They were saying it was in Hong Kong somewhere. But they paid a $24 million fine for not being able to prove that. I think an unregulated industry that's taking hard-earned people's money, not regulated at all and promising that it's tethered is just an accident waiting to happen. I mean we see that all the time. When money is flowing to somewhere that in Canada, the IIROC members aren't having a good look at. It usually ends up badly. And the regulators, particularly in the United States, have recognized this, the Biden report that came out not long ago, New York regulators recognized it. And they're saying, music to my ears, that this type of business should be handled by federal banks and perfect. And that's exactly what we expected. That's why we developed that 3 or 4 years ago to make sure this would all happen. So, I would say the winds that are -- have changed, are on our back. They want us to do exactly what we're doing. There are some intricacies that we face and other banks will face when they start raising deposits in this fashion. One is in the AML area. Of course, because these digital deposit receipts, we know who we are issuing them to, but thereafter, they go on and on through the chain. Thankfully, the OSC said that the cryptocurrency exchange is operating here in Ontario should become IIROC members by April 2023, that's music to our ears, because our deposit distribution channel are all IIROC members, and we love them all to be able to handle our digital deposit receipts. So bottom line is, I think it's an accident waiting to happen. I think the regulator knows it's an accident waiting to happen. And the big question I asked while I'm in New York is, "Well, how come the regulators really haven't come right down on them. And the answer is there's a whole lot of voters money that's tied up in these digital, so-called stable coins. And if they reduce something precipitous, there might have been a whole lot of unhappy voters. So they have to sort of edge it over to banks, where it should be. And maybe some of them will migrate to us, who knows? There'll be some sort of a change because the regulators aren't going to put up that much longer. Good question, Greg. Well -- and if you have any more techy questions, there's a guy over there. His name is Gurpreet Sahota. That's our guy, right. He's the guy for the detailed questions. Gurpreet and [indiscernible] attended a number of blockchain gatherings in New York. The attitude that you're seeing me present today is what I gathered from discussing this sort of stuff in New York. We're -- here in Canada, we might look like we're way ahead of the game. In New York, we're not very far ahead of the game. This -- they only did the bank to issue a digital deposit receipt in this fashion. But there's others that have got closed loop testing going on, and they're right in it. So we might be a bit ahead of the game in the United States. In Canada here, we'll probably be alone for a while. Anyway, that's it for questions. Thank you very much. It's good to see your smiling faces in person here. And hopefully, next year, we'll have some more interesting things to announce, and there'll be more humans to talk to. Thank you.

That concludes our presentation. I want to thank you all for taking the time to attend VersaBank's Annual Meeting of Shareholders today. Thank you.