ePlus inc. Price & Performance (PLUS)

Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining our 2024 preliminary results presentation. I'm David Zruya, CEO of Plus500, and I am joined today by Ladder Venk, our Group CFO and Owen Jones, our Group Head of Investor Relations. We delivered excellent results for 2024, which included strategic, operational and financial progress against our stated objectives. I am extremely proud of these results and I would like to thank colleagues across Plus500 hundred for their dedication towards successfully achieving our collective goals and strategic ambitions. Slide two shows the agenda for today. We will take you through the highlights for the year, and operating review. Followed by a round tour of our technology and product set, and then continue with the financial highlights. We will then conclude with the summary and outlook section before taking your questions at the end. There are five key takeaways for today's presentation on Slide four, we produced excellent strategic operational and financial progress in 2024, We drove growth across major customer KPIs including the number of new and active customers and the average deposit per active customer. This, in turn, led to us delivering results that were ahead of market expectations including revenue and EBITDA growth Once again, we added to our already established track record of generating a track sustainable returns for shareholders with an additional $200,000,000 announced today comprising dividends and share buybacks.

And even with such high levels of shareholder distributions, the group ended the year with an extremely strong financial position with a cash balance of approximately $900,000,000 Our strong results for 2020 build on the excellent track record that we have established since our IPO in 2013. Over that period, Class five hundred has generated $3,500,000,000 in cash for operations, dollars 2,800,000,000.0 in accumulated net profits, and of that the company has returned approximately $2,500,000,000 to shareholders which includes the $200,000,000 announced today through $1,500,000,000 in dividends and $1,000,000,000 in share buybacks. Such shareholder returns have positioned plus five hundred as the best performing share over the last eleven years in the Fotzi oil share on a total return basis, with accumulative total shareholder return of over 6000% an achievement that we are extremely proud of. Earlier this year, the company joined the prestigious Stocks Europe 600 Index an important recognition of the compounding value creation and share price performance we have delivered in recent years. Moving now to Slide six. Which focuses on some of our operational outcomes for 2024. Our ongoing focus on customer retention and product development continued to drive meaningful results in 2024. This strategy and execution are enabled by our proprietary technology A key competitive advantage for Plus500 which allows us to drive deeper engagement with our customers.

As a result, 67% of our OTC revenues was derived from customers we have been trading with plus 500 for over three years, which is the great achievement for the group and demonstrates our focus on driving higher customer lifetime values. Customer deposits reached $3,000,000,000 during the period which is a record level for plus 500 and this equated to almost $12,000 per active customer. And the strength of our mobile offering was once again highlighted with 88% of OTC revenue being generated for mobile or tablet devices. Moving now to Slide seven. It is two years since we introduced our strategic roadmap at our Capital Markets Day in September 2022. Sanjay plus 500 has successfully evolved from being a single product provider into a market leading multi asset finity group. This transformation has had a significant impact on the growth of the business and underpins our focus on innovation. Growth, and diversification through the development of new products and expansion into new markets. Fundamentally, a critical part of the group strategy is to deepen customer engagement and enhance customer retention by investing in and developing our customer retention technologies, collectively we expect the objectives within our strategic roadmap we'll position Class 500 to continue delivering compound return for shareholders for many years to come.

The group's superior proprietary technology and its ability to quickly develop new offerings such as additional product lines and services has enabled its transformation into a multi asset financroup with a broad customer base. The plus 500 of today provides a wide range of products services and instruments of course, its OTC futures options on futures, and share dealing verticals. [indiscernible] we operate in strategically attractive growing markets within strong structural growth drivers. Our OTC business covers seven asset classes, and our futures business can be split farther into a B2B institutional and a B2C retail offering. Which provides clearing and execution services across a wide range of global exchanges. We also show plus refunded customers here a client portal for our B2B customers which was launched during the year. On the right side of the chart, we can see our share dealing platform Plus500 funded invest which enables customers to buy and sell shares directly. Our overall offering provides customers with a wide choice of products enabling them to tailor their approach and trading strategies. The diversification of our business is a key part of our success and we will continue to drive this agenda over the coming years.

Moving to the next slide. We show here the important role that Plusrefano plays our role has evolved significantly as the group has diversified its operations and will now sit at the heart of the financial ecosystem. Connecting institutional customers and retail customers to more than 30 different exchanges and clearinghouses. Therefore, we are providing critical market infrastructure to a global customer base, which includes individual customers, institutions and other businesses. We remain extremely excited about the potential for this key part of our business. Slide 10 shows our current clearing and industry memberships the future space. With the acquisition of The U. S. Business in 2021, Plusrefunded became the owner of a futures commission merchant in The U. S. Enabling the business to become an execution venue for its customers while also offering a full suite of clearing services. The group has secured clearing memberships on the CME Ulex, the Minneapolis grain exchange, and most recently Ice Clear U. S. In January. This clearing memberships are how to obtain and allow us to enhance our holistic offering and accommodate the needs of our clients on a global basis which is a key part of the growth strategy for the Futures business.

We will continue to pursue additional clearing memberships with global exchanges during 2025. Slide 11, shows that ESG forms a core part of our business. We always strive to provide the highest level of care and service to our customers, employees, and the communities in which we operate. Customer care and education remains extremely important to us and I will cover this in more detail later in the presentation. We have an extremely talented and diverse Board of Directors who have relevant experience across a number of important business areas for Plus500. We remain committed to being carbon negative by 02/1930, and we are looking at ways to reduce energy usage particularly in our data centers. As part of these efforts, we moved our headquarters to a newer more energy efficient building during 2024. I will now hand over to Elad for the operating review section. Thank you, David.

And good morning, everyone. The operating review section will include an overview of our operating performance in 2024. As well as a closer look at our growing business. In The U. S. Futures market. We delivered an excellent progress against our strategic objectives in 2024. As shown here on Slide 13. The operational highlights for 2024 include: significant progress in The U. S. Futures market, further product launches including new OTC products based on FX, indices and equities as well as knockout options improved results from the group's newer markets, year on year such as in The UAE, and successfully deepening engagement with our customers. We delivered a strong financial performance for the year and we are well positioned to execute our strategic roadmap in the medium and long term. Through continued organic investment and accretive bolt on acquisitions. All of which are possible thanks to the strong fundamentals underpinning our business, which have enabled Plus500 to generate significant value for our stakeholders. A key part of this the portfolio of licenses, have secured globally which helps to drive the growth of our operations. We operate in more than 60 countries, have more than 30,000,000 registered customers, and we're well diversified across all of those jurisdictions.

Plus four hundred operates in a highly regulated industry in our products across OTC, [indiscernible] futures are regulated globally by EOSCO. With major regulators in each territory overseeing the local markets and ensuring compliance with applicable regulatory requirements. As can be seen on this slide, the group currently holds 14 different regulatory licenses a key competitive advantage for Plus500. Which all serve as a trusted regulatory stamp on our status as a global multi asset fintech group. On the international stage. The most recent license we obtained was from the Securities and Commodity Authority in The UAE. Which was secured in January 2025. This license enables us to expand our operations in the region and to market ourselves more widely to customers. Our portfolio of international licenses represents a unique asset for the group. Taken together, these licenses serve as an economic moat around our business raising the barriers of entry to the industry. Additionally, our expertise in obtaining regulatory licenses leaves us well positioned to secure additional licenses in new territories in 2025 and beyond. For instance, we're actively working to expand our operations in North America in Asia.

As can be seen in Slide 15, we offer our services to over 13,000,000 registered customers. In more than 60 countries, This global operation an important source of both current and future value as we focus on driving activation retention and monetization, of our global customer base by leveraging our highly innovative and agile proprietary technology. Our global offering is further enhanced by our localized solutions. Which include support in a customer's native language, and products and services tailored to the end markets in which we operate. On Slide 16, we show some of our operating KPIs. Including some regional detail as well. During the year, we identified opportunities to drive customer acquisition through increased investment in our proprietary marketing machine technology, As the group has consistently demonstrated historically, current customer acquisition lays the foundation for future growth. Making it an investment today to support the medium to longer term outlook. [indiscernible] As a result, we onboarded more than 118,000 new customers, equating to growth of approximately 30% year on year and more specifically, an increase of approximately 46% within the fourth quarter versus the third quarter, of 2024. Additionally, our active customer number also increased to just over 254,000 equating to a growth of 9%.

Moving ahead to slide 17. We chose customer tenure and longevity. Over recent years, we have made investments in our customer retention technologies, and premium account programs to improve customer longevity. The aim was to foster long term relationships with our customers by providing technological retention initiatives and by consistently providing our customers with a wide range of products and services, supported by our robust, secure and reliable trading platforms. These improvements are bearing fruits as reflected by the blue shaded areas on the pie charts. For example, in 2024, 88% of OTC revenue was generated by customers who have been with us for more than a year. While 35% of the OTC revenue generated by customers who have been with us for more than five years. This is an excellent achievement as the equivalent number from 2019 was just 11%. Over the next few slides, I will highlight the impact that The U. S. Futures business has had on the Group's revenues. Customer mix and other [indiscernible] Slide 18 shows how our revenue new customer mix, has evolved in recent years and how we expect it to continue evolving over the coming years. When we acquired the Futures businesses in 2021, our non OTC revenues accounted for just 1% of the group's revenue.

Since then, our futures business has established itself and grown quickly reflecting the strength of our offering both to retail institutional customers. In 2024, non OTC revenues accounted for approximately 10% of the group's total revenue. This is a great achievement given marketing initiatives only starting in late Q1 twenty twenty four. We anticipate that over the next three to five years, Our non OTC business will account for approximately 30% to 35% of the Group's total revenue. From a customer perspective, in 2024, 15% of new customers came from non OTC businesses. This is the foundation, which we will look to build on over coming years. And we anticipate it over the next three to five years non OTC new customers will account for approximately 30% to 35% of the group's total number of new customers. Slide 19 shows the progress we have made in attracting higher value customers and how that has impacted our average deposit per active customer, since 2021. For 2024, aggregate customer deposit has reached a record level for the group of $3,000,000,000 which is a significant achievement and reflects our increased scale of operations. And over the last four years, we have grown our average deposit per active customer to approximately 12,000 doors.

We have done this by strategically focusing on higher value customers, leveraging our superior marketing technologies, and providing a localized offering to customers which includes local payment solution, and excellent customer service Over the next three to five years, we anticipate the deposits from non OTC businesses will represent approximately 50% to 55% of the total. Which is consistent with the development of those businesses that I set out on the previous slide. In the next few slides, I will cover the opportunities ahead of us in The U. S. Futures market. Starting on Slide 20. Over the last few years, Plus500 has established its position in The U. S. Futures market. With a B2B institutional and B2C retail offering, both of which performed extremely well during 2024. Across our B2B and B2C businesses, we grew customer's segregated funds to approximately $350,000,000 at the end of twenty twenty four, versus approximately $300,000,000 at the end of twenty twenty three. More interestingly, as of February 2025, the total number of customers' segregated funds grew further. And was at the level of more than $600,000,000 reflecting both the onboarding of new customers and increased trading activity from the existing customers. In January 2025, we also secured a CLEAR membership, from ICE CLEAR US, which is another important milestone to our U. S. Operation and one that will allow us to enhance our institutional product offering.

In the B2C business, our trading platform [indiscernible] which offers a unique Omniset solution continue to set us apart from our competitors and customers continue to value the trading experience which we offer Indeed, the B2C business onboarded a record number of new customers during the year. The same can also be said of the B2B business, which was supported by the launch of plus 400 Cosmos, a new innovative proprietary customer portal With a whole suite of functionalities, that we offer to introducing brokers and institutional clients. Moving ahead to Slide 21. Plus500's U. S. Operation is regulated by the CFTC, and is a member of the National Futures Association. And the Futures Industry Association. Plus-one hundred's U. S. Operation also holds Clear membership, with the CMA Group exchanges the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, [indiscernible] and lately as announced with iSclear US. And we will continue to target additional CLEAR memberships in 2025. This objective will be supported by our strong financial position and expertise in applying for new CLEAR memberships. We have also become a much more established player in the futures industry in recent years. Thanks to our technology, financial strength, customer service, and strategic collaborations. Additionally, as part of our B2C offering, we're proud to have T4 Pro, our trading platform for more professional customers.

Our licenses clearing memberships, strong balance sheet, partnerships and innovative platforms leave us well positioned to generate continued value for all stakeholders. Overall, our expansion into non OTC products was a key pillar of our strategic roadmap and one against which we are delivering real progress. I will now hand back to David who will take us through the Technology section. Thank you, Elant. Turning to Slide 23. Since Plusrefunded was founded in 02/2008, proprietary technology development has been a key enabler for the group. And provided an invaluable foundation for everything that the company has delivered since. Developing and maintaining our own proprietary technology enables our system architecture to be extremely robust while keeping a high degree of flexibility. Most importantly, our global customer base benefits from this framework we maintain a global presence with localized and tailored offerings and this will not be possible without a strong technology enabled foundation. Over the next few slides, I will cover the various aspects of our technology stack, in more detail. On the next slide, Slide 24, I will cover the various proprietary technology components which we have produced and which continue to bring new innovative solutions for our customers. Our technology supports all our domains such as operations, product, marketing capabilities and customer service.

This means our technology delivers a broad range of services within each of these areas such as search and data analytics, payment processing and customer onboarding solutions. Our domains are built using our own technology. And they are integrated and optimized with one another giving a holistic view of our systems. Our system architecture Therefore, enables us to operate with agility in highly regulated markets, and underpins our global best in class multi asset offering. Moving ahead to Slide 25. Our proprietary technology allows us to support our customers at every stage of their journey from customer acquisition to our established CRM system, to payments to our proprietary cashier all the way through to our unique trading solutions and product offering. Plus 500 is focused on developing and delivering the most innovative and established technology which provides our global customer base with a localized intuitive and secure trading experience.

We are a market leader in the mobile space, and disposition is enabled by our proprietary technology, It provides our customers with a reliable robust and seamless trading experience across mobile devices tablets and the web. We offer over 2,500 different underlying global financial instruments across more than 60 countries and in 30 languages, via our product portfolios of OTC [indiscernible] and futures. As you can see on the slide, the graphic user interface and general user experience across our product offering is seamless which reduces the learning queue of for customers and enables higher levels of customer satisfaction. [indiscernible] stack for The U. S. Futures market available across various platforms, serves both retail professional, and institutional clients This includes plus 500 futures, [indiscernible] and plus 500 Cosmos along with advanced clearing, risk management, middle office, and Execution Technologies. For retail clients, our mobile technological solutions offer an intuitive training experience making futures trading accessible to all applicable customers. We also provide access for our Trading Academy for a fully informed trading experience. For institutional clients, we offer enhanced control over the end to end process [indiscernible] lead industry innovation with the customer portal featuring advanced risk management tools, and trade monitoring services.

With this, advancement, Plus500 I founded has established itself as a key market infrastructure provider in the futures industry. On to Slide 28. We are pleased to announce today the launch of our new proprietary multi asset trading platform for the Japanese market. We now offer OTC products across FX bearing, [indiscernible] equities, and ETFs as well as knockout options. The Japanese retail trading market is large and well established and offers significant potential to plus Plus500 over the medium to long term. To that end, we will continue to invest in our offering in this market as we did during 2024. Turning to Slide 29. The mobile trading space has become more and more important for retail customers and we work extremely hard to maintain our leading position in this field. We provide our customers with reliable and robust trading platforms across mobile devices and tablets. Many of our customers have a mobile first approach to trading. Plus five hundred's customer experience is seamless between mobile tablets, or web, and each interaction is designed to have the same look and feel. This provides a more consistent trading experience for our customers which is extremely important to us. As a result, 88% of OTC revenue was generated from customers training with us on mobile or tablet devices and 84% of OTC trades took place on mobile or tablet devices, in 2024.

Slide 30 presents some of the educational tools we provide as part of our customer centric approach. We provide our customers with more than our trading platforms. For example, we also provide them with access to Plus500 insights and to our CLASS five hundred Trading Academy. Class insights is our proprietary big data analytical tool that is designed to provide customers on our OTC trading platform with access to real time and historical trends and content, using data on the group's extensive customer base. During 2024, we relaunched our Trading Academy for our OTC customers to include new educational materials including webinars on different railing strategies.

I will now hand over to Elad who will take you through the financials before I return with the summary and outlook section, Thank you, David. Shown here on Slide 32, are some of the financials and operational highlights for the period. The group delivered revenue and EBITDA growth year on year. Ahead of market expectations. Which is an extremely good performance, especially given the underlying trading conditions seen during the year. Our focus on attracting and retaining higher value customers enabled by our marketing technology investments, led to increase year on year in both the number of new customers onboarded and in the average deposit per active customer. To approximately 12,000 doors which itself reflects a group record of $3,000,000,000 of total customer deposits during 2024. On Slide 33, we can see the financial performance plus 500 has delivered in recent years. The group generated revenue of $768,000,000 in 2024. Representing growth of 6% year on year. The EBITDA delivery was also strong. With the group generating an EBITDA $342,000,000 This robust delivery combined with the ongoing share buyback program during the period, led to a basic earnings per share of $3.57 representing growth of 13% year on year.

I will now take you through our financials in more detail. Starting on Slide 34. [indiscernible] As I've mentioned, group revenue grew by 6% year on year. Which is an excellent result in the context of how financial markets performed during 2024. This result was also significantly ahead of market expectations. Both selling and marketing costs and general expenses increased in 2024. Due to increased scale, of our global operations. Slide 35 shows our cost base in more detail. The group's cost base is heavily weighted towards variable costs. Which accounted for 70% of total operating costs. The flexibility within the group's cost base is a key part of its overall financial strength and is a significant source of resilience through different market cycles. In 2024, our technology and marketing costs increased as we invested in our marketing machine capabilities and accordingly the number of new customers we acquired increased by approximately 30% to more than 118,000 laying the foundation for growth in future years. In addition, commissions and fees grew by approximately 50% which are directly linked to increased levels of activity within our futures business. In summary, there are parts of our cost base that increased during 2024 a headline level.

But it is important to understand the strategic elements driving these changes and associate them closely with the future direction and long term success of the group, On Slide 36, we can see the Group's balance sheet. Our strong financial position enables all of our activities giving us the optionality to invest both organically and inorganically. And to enhance our shareholder returns were appropriate. Slide 37 presents the cash flow statement. Plus500 remains a highly cash generated [indiscernible] supporting by a lean cost base and proprietary technology. Since our IPO in 2013, our average operating cash conversion has been approximately at the level of 100%. In 2024, cash generated from operation $120,000,000 $321,000,000 and cash and cash equivalents at the December 2024 stood at approximately $900,000,000 after having returned approximately $350,000,000 to our shareholders, during the period. On Slide 38, we show our disciplined approach to capital allocation across the group.

We seek to balance between maximizing shareholder returns making strategic investments to drive future growth carrying out Walden acquisitions, and developing a sustainable business over the long term. We illustrate on the slide the two broad categories: One, which is approximately at the level of $550,000,000 which includes the regulatory capital working capital [indiscernible] and risk management funds and the other is surplus capital. Which was approximately the level of $340,000,000 at the end of twenty twenty four.

Both categories are there to support the ongoing day to day activities of the group. Including our growing clearing businesses, future growth and enhanced returns to our shareholders. Which I will cover now on Slide 39. Our shareholder returns policy stated at least 50% of net profits are to be distributed to shareholders via dividends and share buybacks and at least 50% of those distributions will be made by 23% corporate tax rate. For both interim and final distributions. The Board will also consider executing on a half yearly basis special share buybacks or dividends.

Dependent on fiscal year results as well as on investment and growth opportunities. Accordingly, we're pleased to announce today on additional shareholder returns of $200,000,000 comprising $110,000,000 in share buyback programs and $90,000,000 of total dividends. Which equals to a dividend distribution of more than one door point $22 per share. Thank you all. And I will now hand back to David.

For his final remarks. Thank you, Elad.

Let's now move to the summary and outlook section starting on Slide 41. As we have shown, 2024 was another excellent year for Plus500, which included further strategic operational and financial progress. And we extended our track record of delivering significant returns for our shareholders which goes back to our IPO in 2013. This has propelled us to be the best performing share on a total return basis since our IPO in 2013, to the end of twenty twenty four.

And partly reflecting this track record, Class 500 joined the Stocks Europe six hundred Index in January of this year As mentioned earlier, which is a testament to the growth and success of the business. Putting everything together, that we have talked about today, shown here on Slide 42, is our compelling investment case plus 500 is established a strong track record of growth innovation, and sizable shareholder returns leveraging our proprietary technology we are focused on attracting and retaining higher value customers while ensuring that our customer offering remains cutting edge relevant, and diversified. Our robust balance sheet underpins our growth objectives and enables us to deliver attractive and sustainable returns to our shareholders. The Board and Executive Management team established a strategic roadmap that clearly outlines Plus500 five hundred's growth plans and we are focused on continuing to execute it successfully.

And to finish with today, Slide 43. The opportunity to drive growth scale, and compounding value creation is significant and we have strong fundamentals underpinning our business. We are attracting and retaining more customers while putting great focus on customer longevity. We operate a flexible business model and cost base and our agile organizational structure is able to respond to customer needs rapidly and to succeed. Moreover, the size and attractiveness of the addressable markets in which we operate our disciplined approach to capital allocation the returns we generate and track record of value creation leaves us strongly positioned to deliver for all stakeholders. In the medium to long term, we will continue to invest in our strategic roadmap initiatives and our class leading technology to deepen customer relationships and invest in our people. We will also focus our efforts on continuing to drive the diversification towards the non OTC parts of the group. This is all supported by our robust financial position and highly cash generative business model. Thank you for listening, and that marks the end of our presentation. We will now move on to take your questions. [indiscernible] Participants can also submit questions through the webcast page using the Ask a Question button.

I would like to remind all participants that this call is being recorded. We will pause a moment to assemble the queue. The first question is from Edward James at Cansel Fitzgerald. Please unmute yourself and begin with your question.

Thank you for taking my call. I've just got a couple to start with. So firstly, just on the non OTC business, you're pointing to that being 30% to 35% of total revenue in sort of three to five years. That would essentially imply even if the if the OC business is flat that the business that you're targeting in the region of kind of 6% or 7% CAGR on the customer income number assuming trading performance is is flat. Is that how we should be thinking about that new piece of information. So just any color you can provide around that. The second question is just on customer retention. [indiscernible] number of new customers is clearly growing very substantially and well ahead of the number of active customers. So I just wanted to get an indication of where the churn has stayed flat, gone up a bit, gone down a bit, So any color you could provide on that would be very helpful. Thank you.

So hi, good morning, all. Thanks also for the questions. It's a lot. So as for the first question, very much you've indicated well. We provided for the first time also a reference for the non OTC line of business. Now obviously included the vast majority there is the futures, which brings all together the line of business of the B2C together with the B2B. And as you all know, we were in a great achievement also to launch the PFP, the Plus500 futures platform with increased level of customers in the year of 2024. And you also the level of performance from the B2B side, from the client money, point of view of the segregated client funds. That has increased from $350,000,000 to even more than $600,000,000 by the beginning of twenty twenty five. Now, as we're looking for the reference for the next three to five years, where expecting to see additional also membership, additional jurisdictions and additional venues to join also the FCM that we're having in The U. S. And very much that will drive the performance to the OTC So the OTC from the CTP perspective as you kind of ask for customer train performance, we always indicate that on the longer term perspective, it should be neutralized.

And you've seen that [indiscernible] It's a de minimis number of about 4% and so over the years. And as for kind of the few futures, of course, it's without any CTP. So that will be an upper level of performance on the back of the strength that we are also delivering with the OTC. Performance. As for the churn, actually, you've seen today an increase level of or an improvement associated with all of our retention technological capabilities that reduced the level of churn. Right? And that was one that we're very proud of. It's associated with three different dimensions. First of all, the wallet size. The wallet size has increased dramatically from the average active per customer of about $12,000 So it shows also the quality and the level of sophistication of the customers and their capability. It shows as well the level of activity that they bring altogether to the table And it's a reflected number also from client money and other kind of metrics. And at the end of the day, yes, the customers are more active. And we were although the year of 2024 was accommodated or associated with the five year low VIX, very much we still delivered an improvement on the churn, which is not the irrelevant KPI.

Great. [indiscernible] The next question is from Zach Wirtz at Autonomous Research. Please unmute yourself and begin with your question.

Hi there. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got three, please. The first one is on the non OT operations. So, yes, thanks for the disclosure around new customers and revenues. Was wondering if you could speak a little bit about the profitability of the non OTC operations and whether you're seeing any progress there? That's the first one. The second one is on the recent clearing membership you obtained from Iceclear US. Can you speak a little bit about the strategic benefits you see there? I'm wondering if it helps you access any additional client base or if there's a strategic benefit in terms of the ability to service existing clients, for example. So I'm thinking things like margin offsets or collateral efficiency, for example. So that's the second. And then the final one is on Crip What share of activity or revenues were crypto related in the fourth quarter? Or any additional color you could provide there would be great. Thanks very much.

Hi, Zach. Good morning. So as for the profitability area of the non O OTC, I believe we're all familiar, right, with the industry as a whole, the margins, which are associated with the futures. Which are more kind of towards the 15%, you may say. Now from our side, due to the fact that we're bringing again our technology, our lean cost structure, our operation of the clearing, not just the execution as opposed to some of our peer group that you are familiar with them. Very much will be able to drive a higher margin. Now as we didn't indicate on it, of course, not within the announcement and not within the deck, compliance perspective, we won't refer specifically, but we will just say that we very much aim for a higher margin, not the one that is accommodated by the other FCNs that are doing only execution.

Again, they are having 10% to 15%. We believe we can deliver much higher. Margin.

Isaac, for your second question. So as we obtain more and more clean licenses we are able to cater the needs of more existing and new customers out there, specifically institutional ones, So we are in discussions with the, many potential customers that have that are raising requirements and we'll be able to cater this onboard them and increase the revenues It comes together, it aligns with our strategy in the last few years, we built new fundamentals in The U. S. And our growth will not be linear from here. Is from now on, once we obtain new licenses, we use the technology that we build and some of the existing customers and we expect it to push our revenues and operation further.

And as for the third question associated with the crypto, so crypto four Plus500 is not an asset class specifically that drives a great value of the revenues, but more as a marketing tool. So very much it was a de minimis number from the revenue recognition perspective.

That's great. Thanks very much. Appreciate it.

There are no further questions on the webinar. I will now hand over to Owen Jones Group Head of Investor Relations to read out the written questions submitted via the webcast page.

Morning. Thank you. We have a couple of questions on the written function.

The first one relates to plus 500 Cosmos.

The question specifically says, how long did it take us to develop [indiscernible] and how does it compare to other customer portals the market already? And the second question relates to geographic expansion. Which regions or countries are we looking at specifically for the next round of geographic expansion?

Thank you, Owen. So for the first question, in Cosmos came again to cater the need of our customers, The initial phase or the initial version is up. And is being used by our customer or more correctly to say by our IBs introducing brokers They use it. They provide their feedback. And, they're very much appreciate what we have developed for them. It's not, there is not an end game here. But rather it's a process. We have a roadmap for the next few years We are going to add more and more features more and more abilities over the time, the cosmos will be the best tool out there in the industry.

And as for the second question for the GEOs, to that extent very much we also indicate to bring altogether new licenses and new memberships It means that on the back of the great achievement that you could have seen just last month that we declared kind of new licenses from ESCA from The UAE.

And also the ICE membership to come.

Altogether, we can say that our additional license either in North America, either in Asia, and other locations that are about to come also in the year of 2025, both through organic means and also through bolt on acquisitions. So very much, Plus500 has shown to the market over the years that those licenses are very scarce and each one of them is a testament to our ability to bring altogether the entities value that the market is after and very much our operation is after for greater expansion.

Great. Thank you both. There are no further questions on the written segments. So I'll hand back to the moderator to close today's call. Thank you.

That concludes today's call. Thank you and have a nice day.