iFAST Corporation Aktie

Hi, everyone. Welcome to iFAST Corporation's Second Quarter 2026 and First Half 2026 Results Presentation. Today from the iFAST team, we have Chung Chun, our Group CEO; Terence, our Group CFO; as well as members from our Finance and Corporate Communications team. So I am JP. I'm from the corporate comms team at iFAST. So what I'll do today is I'll run through the key summary and the business update. And Terence, our Group CFO, will give more colors and details on the group's financial results before we all proceed to our Q&A.

So in our key summary, I think we've seen strong growth across the board for iFAST in second quarter of 2026. So if you look at some of the key numbers we've shared here, so total revenue was at $162.04 million, that's 34.8% higher year-on-year. Net profit was up 35% year-on-year to $29.85 million. EBITDA was up 32.7% year-on-year to $48.89 million. So all these numbers are for second quarter of this year. Group AUA reached a record new high of $36.13 billion. That's 32.8% higher compared to last year.

In terms of the net inflows trend, we continue to see good momentum. So net inflows for second quarter was at $1.31 billion. That's 2.2% year-on-year growth. And regarding dividend, so our second interim dividend for FY 2026 is at $0.03 per ordinary share. That's 50% higher compared to last year.

So we've seen increased profitability driven by growth across various divisions. So firstly, robust growth in AUA across the wealth management platforms in the group. Secondly, we've also seen record profit before tax at our bank division, iFAST Global Bank in the U.K. And we've also seen growth from our Hong Kong ePENSION division.

So for the Hong Kong ePENSION division, an important milestone has been crossed in April of this year. So all 12 trustees and a total of 24 schemes have been successfully onboarded to the Hong Kong ePENSION platform. So as mentioned just now, iFAST Global Bank saw higher and record pretax profit of $1.9 million in second quarter of this year. That's a year-on-year growth of 174.5%. And the bank has continued to build on its first full year of profitability that we saw last year.

In terms of the customer accounts, they have increased by over 50% year-on-year to more than 1.5 million accounts as of end of June 2026. So as I mentioned, for second interim dividend for FY 2026, the directors declared a dividend of $0.03 per share, so that's 50% higher compared to last year. And for full year of FY 2026, the directors expect to propose a total dividend of $0.12 per share or higher, which represents a 43% increase compared to FY 2025. So this is actually an increase compared to the previous guidance given, which was at $0.105 per share or higher, and we communicated that previously in April.

As the group's overall profitability increases and the group's shareholder equity continues to grow, the directors are comfortable with increasing the dividend payout ratios gradually. We'll talk a bit more about that in the business update later. Barring unforeseen circumstances, the group expects 2026 to see healthy growth rates in revenues and profitability.

The group is embracing AI to achieve the various objectives while having a lower group headcount. So overall group headcount has peaked in the middle of 2026 and is expected to be at a lower level at the end of 2028 as we work on achieving the various objectives that we have communicated in iFAST three-year plan.

So this will pave the way towards improving profit margins from next year onwards. So looking at our group AUA trend, so we saw record AUA level of $36.13 billion. So that's 32.8% higher year-on-year and also represents a robust 10.7% Q-on-Q growth. So both the B2B and the B2C divisions have seen strong year-on-year growth in their respective AUA. So B2B still continues to contribute about 65% of total group AUA with the remaining 35% coming from our B2C division.

The other interesting thing to note is that record high AUA was observed across all the various geographical segments. In terms of the AUA breakdown by market -- so we can see that Singapore continues to be the core market with a contribution of about 69%, followed by Malaysia and Hong Kong at about 11-plus percent each and others, which is made up of China and U.K.

In terms of products, Unit Trust remain the largest product contributor at 55% roughly, followed by stocks and ETFs and bonds as well as cash account and deposits. In terms of the various products, they also saw a strong year-on-year growth, whether it's across unit trust, stocks and ETFs as well as cash account and deposits.

So I'll be going through the business updates where we are touching on a couple of key main points before getting Terence to share more on the financial results. So I think in April of this year, we talked about iFAST 3-year plan.

There are 6 strategic pillars in that plan, and management team had given more colors on those 6 pillars in April of this year. So for this quarter, what we wanted to do was to see whether any of the pillars have seen any progress.

And on this slide, we wanted to highlight these 3 points. I think firstly for Vision 2030, where we're talking about AUA target of $100 billion by 2030, which represents a CAGR of 25.6% over the next 5 years.

So we wanted to also share that, as you've noticed, AUA trends remain very strong. So we saw the 32.8% year-on-year growth in group AUA. So we will continue to work towards building a truly global business with our digital banking and wealth management platforms. And we intend, of course, to continue delivering value for clients and partners worldwide.

The second pillar that we updated just now as well is the ePENSION. So we've seen that milestone that has been crossed in April of this year. So all trustees as well as their respective schemes have been successfully onboarded. We will continue to focus on improving our service quality and operational efficiency.

On the third point here, so we communicated, I think, last quarter that we expect to see group headcount peaking. So we are confirming that group headcount has peaked as of this quarter's update. We will continue to adopt AI across the various business units and also improving profit margins, supported by operating leverage. We will expect that to be observed from 2027 onwards. And regarding group headcount, we expect that to be at a lower level by end of 2028.

So on the next slide, so a reiteration of the various pillars, the 6 key points of how the management team is looking at the 3-year plan and the longer-term trajectory for the company. So I won't go through that because we have updated 3 of the pillars already. On the next slide for the individual market update. So I've mentioned just now all markets recorded record high AUA levels across Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, China and the U.K.

In terms of the various business divisions, I think within Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and China, they've also seen strong and robust AUA growth rates, whether it's B2B, B2C or our iFAST Global Markets division. For the profit and net revenue trends, robust growth for the key wealth management centers of Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia. We continue to observe the losses in our China operation narrowing.

And the U.K., as I mentioned just now as well, so record quarterly profit in the second quarter of this year. Regarding net inflows, so they stood at $1.31 billion in second quarter of this year, bringing our first half 2026 net inflows to $2.56 billion. That's 15% higher compared to last year.

We also see a very strong momentum regarding our key product, which is Unit Trust. So subscriptions were very strong in second quarter of this year at $3.67 billion. So that brings our first half 2026 number to $7 billion for UT subscription. That's 52% higher compared to last year.

So we want to spend a bit of time talking about the bank as well because we've seen the latest progress from the bank. So record profit in second Q at $1.92 million, that's 174% higher year-on-year. So first half profit for the bank is at $2.61 million. That's 53% higher year-on-year. So for the bank, we also saw customer deposits reaching a record high level of $1.8 billion as of end of second quarter. So that's 25% higher year-on-year. So we wanted to just go back to how the bank has progressed with the deposit taking business, which was launched in April 2023.

So in the last 3 years or so, the AUA has progressed. The deposit amount has reached a record high level, as I said. And also interest -- net interest revenue growth continues to grow strongly. So we saw net interest revenue grow by 37.9% year-on-year.

The other division in the bank that's also seen a good growth momentum is actually the B2B business, which we call the business banking division. So I think in recent quarters, we have been seeing stronger business account openings and increased usage of the various services that the bank provides to its customers.

And the third point here is really to just go back to how with the deposit taking business, with the growth in customer deposits, the net interest revenue has exceeded the noninterest commission and fee income that comes from the remittance business, which we call EzRemit. So I think for EzRemit, remittance volumes were actually higher in first half of this year year-on-year, but the revenue per transaction figures have moderated compared to a year ago because a year ago, the numbers or the revenue per transaction numbers were actually higher than normal.

I think in previous quarters, our group CFO had also talked about that.

So the last point in the business update here is regarding the management team's outlook for the dividend up. So I think in terms of the approach, the group as the group's profitability continues to improve and our shareholders' equity grows, so the directors are comfortable with gradually increasing the dividend payout while maintaining flexibility to support future growth opportunities, capital requirements and also business needs.

So regarding the dividend trend. So in first half of 2026, the dividend payout ratio was at 28.9% compared to 26.3% in first half of last year. So the directors expect to propose a total dividend of SGD 0.12 per share for this year, which is at least 43% higher year-on-year. Regarding the long-term payout direction, the directors believe there may be scope to actually gradually increase the dividend payout ratio to 40% as the group's shareholders' equity moves closer to SGD 1 billion.

The next couple of slides are a repeat of what I've shared. So I won't be really going through a lot of the details, essentially second interim dividend, SGD 0.03, so that's 50% higher compared to last year. And regarding the dividend schedule on the last slide here. So the payment date will be 20th of August.

So I'll now invite Terence, our Group CFO, to run through some of the key financial results.

Thanks, JP, and a very good morning to everyone. Yes. So for the financial results, I'm not going to run through every line. Otherwise, we won't get to the Q&A. So I just want to take you through a couple of just key highlights from the latest quarter results. So I think you heard earlier from JP that I think we've had a very strong growth demonstrated in the Wealth Management division. I think we have record high AUAs across all the geographies. And of course, that very strong momentum has continued from the first quarter to the second quarter. And we have also recorded a very strong growth in net revenue that also flowed down to the bottom line, also demonstrating, I think, in excess of 30-plus percent year-on-year increases in both revenue as well as in profit.

The other highlight probably on the OpEx side, which is something that we have had a lot of questions on recently. So I think on the OpEx, I think we've tried to give you some color in terms of what we expect to happen. I think one of the items mentioned earlier by JP was that headcount has peaked, right? I think he did mention that we expect headcount to peak in the middle of this year.

So if you look at the operating expenses line for second quarter, I think we're still seeing quite strong increases on a year-on-year basis. But of course, that has moderated quite a bit from the first quarter, right? So I think some of that base effects are kind of coming off.

But more importantly, I think on a Q-on-Q basis, we're actually seeing a bit of a flat lining of expenses as well. I think OpEx across the group was up something like about 2% or 2.2% Q-on-Q, right? So I think that's something that we expect to make more progress on as we talk about headcount related to 2028 being lower as well as some of the margin expansion we expect to see going into 2027. I think related to this also the other observation on the operating leverage. I think this is something that we would expect to show or demonstrate as a wealth platform that scales up with AUA. And of course, as net revenue increases, we then expect to see some of that flowing through in the PBT margins.

So I think you will see a slide on the PBT margins where that number, at least on the Kitline side doesn't really show up, but it kind of -- it's also because we have this very sizable business in the Hong Kong side of things on the ePENSION division. So of course, on the PBT margins, if you were to look at the individual geographies, I think you will then very clearly see that for the likes of Singapore, Malaysia, even for the U.K., which is actually a deposit-taking business, you will see that actually we have made quite good progress on the PBT margins in those markets.

Of course, Hong Kong has its own specific nuances because of that ePENSION project. And of course, we have talked about the headcount just very briefly earlier on, right? So I think these are some of the key highlights from the financial results. Not wanting to go through all the key numbers from each side. But just one point to perhaps on the ROE side as well, right? So this is on Slide 24. I think we continue to generate or demonstrate very high levels of ROE, so 27.2% even for a business that has a bank within the ecosystem.

So just as a reminder, we make in excess of 95% or rather almost 95% of our net revenue coming from fee-based income sources. So the net interest income at the bank is still currently just over 5% of our overall net revenue.

So moving on to the geographical segments on Slide 25, right? So I think you can clearly see the strength in the Wealth Management divisions from Singapore, Malaysia, even Hong Kong was continuing to demonstrate very good growth year-on-year.

The kind of an unusual number there for Malaysia. I think Malaysia has demonstrated really strong growth in the second quarter. So I just wanted to highlight also that there was a bit of a benefit from some IT development revenue that has come in, in Malaysia. But even if you take that out then I think Malaysia Wealth Management stand-alone also demonstrated very good growth.

I just want to point you to the tax expense line, just as a reminder that since the bank became profitable, I think we have started recognizing a deferred tax asset at the U.K. bank entity. So we have continued to recognize that. And therefore, you can see that the tax expenses have not grown as quickly, right, as the growth in PBT right? So this is really the deferred tax asset that we have started to recognize actually since the fourth quarter of 2025.

So just moving on very quickly to the last slide in this section on Slide 28, right? So again, this is the different geographies demonstrating very good progress. I just want to point you to the U.K. line, right? So the U.K. line has a bit of a lower rate of growth there. You can see on the net revenue side. So that plus 3.8% actually, this is a combination of very good growth on the deposit taking business.

So we saw over 36% growth in net interest income at the bank. Of course, on the EzRemit division, which was actually the largest business within the bank, that is now a smaller part of the bank's net revenue contributor. So this actually -- this business actually experienced higher than normal margins in the year ago period, right? So I think you will see some of that coming off in the third quarter and beyond.

But based on the second quarter's number, if you compare that on a year-on-year basis, you're still seeing a bit of a decrease, even though transaction revenue -- transaction volumes were actually higher, right? So you put that together, you're actually looking at not a very strong growth number for net revenue, but actually that kind of -- it's not a true representation of the underlying business right? So I just wanted to make those points before we move on to the Q&A.

Yes. Thanks, Terence. So we'll now move on to the Q&A segment. So as always, we have attendees here at the board room as well as those who have joined us virtually. [Operator Instructions]. So does anyone want to start the Q&A session?

I would like to ask about the Hong Kong [indiscernible]. So how are you going to recognize the...

Also business, we are, at this point in time end of this year -- in terms of revenue, it will be soften, it will be earning revenue in terms of a percent...

[indiscernible].

I think you're referring to the previous AUA. Hongkong's AUA [indiscernible] We're quite conservative in our opinion. So we essentially look at our existing wealth management platform, also we have the business coming up and we basically assume some growth. But generally speaking, we didn't assume a big growth on the business side. So as we mentioned, this is a scenario analysis that we put up. It's not actually a projection target, but we basically a possible scenario for how those numbers actually arrive at assuming [indiscernible]

And on the payment side, you received the premium license in almost a year, but you haven't launched. So where are you going to launch?

Yes. We expect to launch it in the fourth quarter of this year. [indiscernible] the owner license in Malaysia. So that's not [indiscernible]. They do on small stake in iFAST as a shareholder, but operations-only.

And do you expect to receive license in Singapore or Hong Kong?

Singapore, we have been and we are hoping to make a lot more progress [indiscernible]. Hong Kong, we don't have [indiscernible].

And for China, we still targeting breakeven next year?

We are [indiscernible].

And [indiscernible], the iFAST [indiscernible], is it more like you expect any revenue...

Segment of the business that provides support to Hong Kong business. I think we give a chance to other people. I think [indiscernible].

I think previously you mentioned that you update [indiscernible].

We haven't officially [indiscernible].

[indiscernible].

[indiscernible]. This whole thing has been delayed because [indiscernible].

[indiscernible].

In terms of contribution from Chinese residents [indiscernible] given that there's a lot of Chinese offshore I guess it's part the Chinese overall deposit actually quite small percentage currently.

I think you probably see some of that because it is a service that a lot of Chinese services something that they would like to actually have that -- but I think in terms of the actual contribution to us to actually a small percentage. And more importantly, on an ongoing basis, it's about doing a business that doesn't violate the regulation.

I think the iFAST Global Bank caters to consumers who actually want the money offshore. And there are some actually official regulations that officially allow deposits to be sent from Chinese bank, overseas and that's within the limits of USD 50,000. And we don't go beyond any official limits and so on. So that being the case, we [indiscernible]

Another question on trade receivables. It has been higher than last year with [indiscernible].

Maybe I'll take this question because we typically have a lot of discussions on trade receivables. I think previously, the main item in there, as you will see from our financials, which we have really split out in the first quarter was actually the margin financing receivables, right? So I think once you take that out, you can really see that impact from the -- what is essentially a new business to us.

I think we're quite one of the last few brokers to get into margin financing. But of course, yes, that line has grown quite strongly. I think the rest of the trade receivables other than the BAU that we have from the traditional wealth business, I think, of course, the Hong Kong project that we have done or we're still working on does have an element of our receivables position.

So that, of course, as the business has scaled up, of course, with revenue growing as well, that has also grown. But I just want to mention earlier, I think this division we also talked about, which is the EzRemit division. So this division is actually a remittance business. It is also a prefunded business because that's the nature of how remittance works, right?

So I think on this part, earlier, I think we made the comment that while we have seen some declines in the margins on the business, we are actually executing more remittance transaction volumes, right? So with that, I think you can also see there's been some addition of working capital. So on the working capital side, that actually adds to the receivables position by nature of how remittances are accounted for. So actually, that has also been a contributor to that increase. So I think it's a combination of all these different businesses. And yes, so I just wanted to give some color on the trade receivables.

That the AUA is up by 33%, to what degree is the increase in AUA due to revaluation versus organic new customer money?

The changes in AUA is essentially a function of the net inflow and the market effect. So these are essentially the 2 components. And if you look at the net inflow, which is a number that we release every quarter and then you just do the sums in, you'll find that the rest are essentially changes in market effect.

The guidance on headcount decrease till 2028, can you give us a sense of in terms of percentage of the total current workforce and also the nature of the headcount decrease, how much do we need to pay out so-called termination, rationalization-related expenses versus natural rolling off of [indiscernible]

I think, firstly, we're not looking at a huge percentage in terms of reduction. I think we're making the point already is that last 5, 10 years, we have been growing. Last 5 years particularly, headcount is growing quite significantly, so as we grow, then, expenses continue to grow. And that growth was really sharp in the last 2 years as we as we've been hiring for the eMPF. As that happened, then wealth management side, also, we have a more liberal hiring policy as well. But given that the most difficult part of the growth process in terms of execution has happened, then we feel that there's room for us to essentially, yes, gradually reduce the number. So while we say that we're big, we are not looking at a very sharp reduction. It does take account of that too. That's the first point.

Second point is, actually, we're not doing any retrenchment. I think the group that I personally mentioned on my presentation that we generally have a no retrenchment policy. We expect that headcount reduction will happen solely through the fact that, firstly, some of the positions are on a contract basis. As that expire, then we won't renew as many.

Secondly, natural attrition. I think every year has a certain level of resignations, natural attrition. Each time that happens, we take the chance to review the number, and over time, that will allow us to achieve a certain reduction that we are aiming for. I know that in today's world, businesses generally look at retrenchment as something that is part and parcel of business or even a good thing quite often, because shareholders tend to reward management when you announce that they are retrenching. But at iFAST, we believe that management of headcount should be done properly, and that is part of the required things that ensure that we have a certain corporate culture that allow us to really grow wealth in the long run.

I'm sure. I guess any update on the U.S. link that [indiscernible] mentioned to me? That's what it means on the line item. It's there. I guess what's the update? Let's launch...

Yes. So that is something that, yes, so we -- first couple of years, we were waiting for the licensing and so on, and last year, it was approved, and then in the last 9 months, we've been basically getting ready, doing the testing and so on. So internally, we have started to route some of our transactions with iFAST U.S. securities directly. So that has started to happen this month in a gradual basis. But it's not something that we are trying to rush in a big way. We want to make sure that everything is fully tested very well before the bulk of the transaction go through. But essentially, yes, we're starting to actually route transactions through that, and we do expect that activity going forward will happen a lot more.

Having said that, I also want to remind shareholders that we are not actually directly trying to target U.S. customers. This is more a link that allow us to directly access the U.S. exchanges without having to go through another broker. That will also position, that is, that will also be more competitive over time because we do have additional, that will also sort of open up the possibility of having different kind of business models for us as we go.

I had a couple of questions on Hong Kong side. So as you were mentioning also onboarding will happen towards the end of the year. So then the AUA of roughly $3 billion or so that we're expecting, would that come into the second half? Or would that be pushed into?

So if the timetable is as per the latest target and expectation, then we expect that the AUA will add on to the number at the end of the year, add on to the group at the end of the year, even though the actual revenue contribution, we don't expect to see too much of it for this year.

And then next on Hong Kong in terms of the PBT, given the first half performance and second half, even if we assume it to be flat year-on-year. So still on a full year basis would be about 11% growth, which is in line with the guidance that has been given about a double-digit growth. But is that how we should be thinking about Hong Kong side? Is that kind of assumption of 11% growth year-on-year, PBT?

I suppose that's a possible way of looking at it. We have indicated that we expect or we target for Hong Kong to see double-digit growth this year compared to last year in terms of revenue and profitability. So that target remains the target that we have indicated.

Any other questions?

Mr. Lim, what is the biggest risk facing the business at the moment?

Well, I would say that -- yes, we have gone through quite a bit and we have gone through quite a bit of a difficult time last 1, 2 years, especially as we onboarded the eMPF project. I think for a while, the eMPF project onboarding was seen by the industry player is something that entails quite a bit of risk. But I think we have gone through the most difficult part. And going forward, it's about continuing to improve the service level and so on.

From where we are, I suppose some of the normal risk, in terms of operational risk, IT risk, et cetera, remains and so on. And yes, that is something that, of course, we continue to work on strengthening and so on.

The other risk that they play is something that most people will think about will be the fact that we now operate as a bank. So previously, we as a group, we have a business model that doesn't require a big balance sheet that is cash generative, but given that now we hold the bank within the group, so you start to see that the profile of the group starts to shift somewhat is a business whereby the balance sheet start to expand and bank level that requires capital start to move up and so on.

And I think there are some banks are not managed well in terms of the balance sheet. And when that happens, then that introduce an element of risk to the group. So for us, we are very mindful that for a bank, if we take the bank in the wrong direction, then that will itself introduce quite a bit of risk to the group itself, which is why right from day 1, we've always emphasized that we take a business model for the bank that actually tries to minimize the balance sheet risk. We don't lend to risky customers and so on.

We basically have a business model for the bank that ensures that our balance sheet remains very liquid. And the assets that we own are actually very high quality, essentially mainly sovereign bond, Bank of England deposits as well as investment grade bond, of which the bank investment-grade bond will be the main one. Yes. So the risks are there if we go off track from what will be the right path. So I think it's something that we're always mindful about. And so if we continue to manage it in a very prudent manner, then I think the rates will be something that will be manageable.

We will take one last question from our physical attendees before we move to our online attendees because the questions are piling up.

Just a question on the operation in China. So can you share a bit with us what is the momentum currently, in terms of number of accounts? Where should we be at the end of this year in number of accounts and what type of customers in terms of segmentation?

I think the China business is a business where if you look at the numbers in recent quarter, the growth is there. The growth is actually in percentage terms are growing quite well, quite nicely. Having said that, it remains a small percentage of the group's business. It is a business that we expect to continue to grow. And yes, we hope to get to a point not too far away where we actually start to achieve that level. The exact number of accounts and so on, we don't separately break it down, but it is a significant percentage of the accounts that we actually have. And so that's something that we will continue to -- we believe we will continue to track in the right direction. The growth is still there.

The growth is still there?

I think Jayden from Macquarie raised hand. Jayden, can you hear us?

I can. Can you hear me okay?

Yes. We can hear you.

I have a few follow-up questions. So just on the Hong Kong revenues, I know that you reported on a combined basis. But if you look at Page 19, I think the total revenue for this quarter was lower than last quarter. Now we noted that obviously, the AUA in Hong Kong has gone up. But can you be sort of clear on what the driver was as to why revenues were sequentially lower? Was it from wealth? Or was it from the contract? Or was it from something else? That was my first question.

Yes. I'll take this question. So Jayden, as you know, I think the wealth numbers, you can see -- I think they're quite strong across the board. So that includes Hong Kong and the growth of AUA and so on. So I think you can clearly see it's not related to the Hong Kong wealth business. But I think in terms of how we think about the ePension business, the revenue recognition, I think we did see some uplift from the very high onboarding we went from a sort of a lower rate to a higher rate, I think in the fourth quarter and also in the first quarter.

So I think that has come off a bit in the second quarter because now we are operating at a more steady-state type of revenue recognition process. But of course, as what we have been trying to communicate, it is still a very high level of revenue that we recognize, right? So I think we are not seeing any material change in revenue recognition. I think overall, put together with the wealth business, there is a bit of a flat lining that you can see on a Q-on-Q basis on that measure.

That's very clear. I had a couple of more questions. So I think before, you mentioned about the desire to have the contract labor sort of rolling off naturally, right, as the terms come to an end. Would you be able to share with us roughly what the terms are for the typical contracts where you do have staff helping you out with the project? I'm just trying to get a sense of how soon we'd start to see things materially roll off or if it's going to take still some time.

Well, for us, the majority of our staff are essentially still permanent staff, but there is a certain percentage that's on contract, it could be 1-year, 2-year contract. And the exact number and percentage is something that we manage on an ongoing basis. But we expect that the way the terms are and we will be able to gradually manage down the overall group head count over the next couple of years.

As I mentioned, we're not looking at a big further reduction and so on is something that in line with normal good practice, we always ensure that things are managed in a manner that allow us to control all the processes very well.

And then my final question is just on the bank. You made some comments before talking about how the liquidity is managed prudently. I just wanted to get a sense on sort of how you manage the liquid assets. If I look in the annual report for the bank, about 1/3 of the investments, if you like, are in instruments that are B1 to Baa3. Can I just confirm these are to corporates and not to the Bank of England or other central banks. And how do you sort of manage the credit risk for this given that you're sort of not really set up to do lending, right? And you just sort of look at managing the liquidity as such. Just wanted to understand on this particular point as it's come up as a question with some investors recently.

Yes. Maybe I'll answer this part. So if it's on the investment side of things, then it will be on the bond side. So these are all liquid. I think in terms of liquidity, it's a T+1, T+2 type of instrument. So it's not lending any sub investment-grade individuals or companies on a bilateral basis. These are all securities.

Okay. Thanks, Jayden. We'll go through some of the questions we have in the chat box. So I think I will take these 2 questions from [ Mano ]. So quite high level. So first, which segments of your business do you see offering the fastest rate of growth going forward?

Okay. So if I broadly look at the group business in 3 different segments. One is our core wealth management business as an investment platform all these years; 2 will be the bank and 3 will be the e-pension part of the business. So if I look at all 3 segments, I expect all 3 segments to grow further. But if I were to rank in terms of the order, in terms of percentage, growth rate, I would say that probably the bank will grow at a faster percentage, mainly because firstly, it starts from a low base.

If you look at the current level of the bank for us at a deposit level of SGD 1.8 billion, in the banking context, it's actually still a very small number relative to the opportunity that we are looking at relative to the potential that we can see given our overall ecosystem and business model, we are expecting that, that can have the highest percentage growth rate for us.

I would say that the wealth management platform itself will continue to have a pretty robust growth rate. So that's why the 2 parts together, we are continuing to essentially see that we are looking to achieve 100 billion AUA by 2030.

And Mano's other question, I think you talked about just now, but his other question is which segment or geography worries you the most in terms of possible setbacks?

I think every segment has its own consideration. Every segment has its own level of risk and the risk are a bit different in nature in different segments. But as I noted earlier, I think that the banking business is something that is relatively new to the group, and we are mindful that we need to manage it in a way where, yes, we don't take too much balance sheet risk. And yes, as long as we do that on the top, then I would say that we are quite comfortable with the risk of the business.

Other than that would be the operational risk, IT risk and so on that it's an ongoing thing, ongoing process. It's something that internally we have to keep improving. We have to keep strengthening our overall management of the risk. So these are things that may not keep me awake every night, but there are some people in the group that awake every night because of all the different considerations.

So we have a few questions related to the net inflows trends. So I think we had this one from [indiscernible] prior to the results call. So he sent these questions. So the iFAST Global Bank deposits are up by about SGD 200 million to SGD 1.8 billion. So what are the drivers behind the increase in iFAST Global Bank's AUA? Is it one-off? Do you think it's sustainable?

Yes. If you look at iFAST Global Bank's deposit trend, you'll find that 2 years ago, yes, between 1 to 2 years ago, the growth rate were actually quite robust. But sometime second half last year, we did enter into a period where the deposit growth actually slowed down somewhat. And recently, that momentum started to improve again.

And I suppose part of the reason why the deposit growth slowed during the second half of last year was firstly because there are some changes in interest rate environment, meaning interest rates were generally declining last year. And at the point when we are trying to build the overall size of the bank and then you have an environment of generally declining interest rate and then we -- along the way, we're also adjusting the interest rate downwards as well. That actually led to some slowdown in momentum. So that was one reason.

The other reason was the fact that as markets were doing well and so on, we did see some money moving to wealth management platform side of the business. So that was the reason why the momentum slowed down somewhat in the second half of last year and maybe early this year. But in recent times, we are starting to see some improvements in the momentum again. That momentum is being seen in both the personal banking business as well as the banking -- business banking business segment that we used to call digital transaction banking. So that momentum on the business banking has picked up as more of our corporate customers start to use us for our payment services and so on.

Yes. So those momentum that we -- improved momentum that we saw in recent times, we expect that, that should continue as we move into the second half and beyond. So that's where things stand currently. So in fact, we will probably be targeting for a faster pace of growth than what we've seen in the first half of this year going forward for the bank.

And the other question is, are you seeing a noticeable increase in net inflow in the Singapore market? And maybe I'll just link it up to the other question from Kelvin. Has iFAST net inflows been affected by the recent regulatory penalties on Futu in China?

The net inflow for us has been quite robust so far this year. And I think in recent months as well, it continues to be robust. I think after the some announcement from the China side in June, I think I would say that for us overall, momentum has continued to be strong. In fact, July so far has been a very strong month in terms of net inflow.

So the overall business for us, continues to see the good momentum. The net inflow, I think the question about net inflow in the Singapore, I think the Singapore platform has seen a pretty strong net inflow. Some of that does move into Singapore equity, if that's a question. Singapore equities generally have seen some improved momentum in the last few quarters, but the net inflow that we're getting actually goes into all the various asset classes not just Singapore.

Just a couple more questions online. So one question from [ Reggie ], which is there's been a significant increase in customer accounts. Can you give some information where these new customers are coming from? Are they from the bank, the wealth side and why the huge increase year-on-year?

The customer accounts, the biggest increase comes from the wealth management platform. I think the bank side, we have seen some improving momentum as well. I think in terms of the overall increase, the bigger proportion still come from the overall wealth management side of the business. That includes from the B2B side of the platform business, both B2B and B2C.

I think on the B2B side of the platform business in recent times, we have some of our business partners that have seen quite a very strong growth in account opening, and that has accelerated the increase in the customer account number for us in the last 6 months particularly.

Just 2 questions on this, Chung. So the first one is regarding the incorporation of iFAST Corporate EU Holdings in Ireland. Any significance or strategic plans to highlight here?

We announced that because we need to announce. But I suppose as a group, when it comes to our business, one of the questions that I've been asked about in the past, is do we see ourselves expanding to other market when it comes to the banking business.

Today, our bank license is in U.K. So my answer has been that yes, given that we operate our business increasingly on truly global business model, we don't think that we need to have too many banking licenses. But having said that, we feel that there's still certain jurisdiction where we want to, at some point in time in the future, work towards being able to have a banking license. And yes, so the 2 that we mentioned was -- one is actually somewhere in European Union. Given that EU and U.K. are just next to each other, there's quite a good level of synergy, especially when it comes to the business banking side of things and given that if we have a banking license in one country in European Union that has a potential to look at it for the whole of Europe. So that's the reason why we start to take the step of starting the possibility of getting some banking license somewhere in EU in the future.

So the process has started that's why we incorporate the entity. But we would like to say that we expect this to be a process that takes some time, typically, a bank license doesn't get acquired in a very short time. It's a long process in terms of the path towards getting there. So it's a process that we have started, but you should have the expectation that it's going to take a couple of years before you get to something.

And the other jurisdiction that we talk about in terms of potentially trying to have a banking license sometime in the future will be back in our headquarter, Singapore. Again, that is something that we're not sure how long it will take. We haven't formally started this, but at the back of our overall long-term planning next 5 years, so on, then we feel that there's something that we should try to see at some point, work towards as well.

And just one last question before we go back to our attendees here. So congrats on the results. Higher EPS guidance is good news to shareholders. So what prompted this big revision upwards in EPS guidance so quickly after the initial guidance? Wonder if this has to do with fundamental earnings strength and visibility tracking stronger than we had expected at the time of the higher guidance or any other reasons regarding this change?

So if you look at what we have been doing in terms of dividend payout ratio in the last couple of years, you'll notice that we've been paying out about 25% of our earnings as dividends. And that has been a ratio that we have been using, and that's a ratio that we continue to use when we were recommending the first quarter dividend.

But yes, as we progress and as we look forward and as we see our overall earnings and shareholders' equity continue to grow, and then we do more detailed projection for the future in terms of what we expect for profitability, cash flow and balance sheet projection over the next 3 to 5 years, then we feel that we are comfortable with gradually raising the dividend payout ratio. It doesn't have to just stay at 25%.

So if you look at the first half of this year based on what we are recommending, what we have declared or proposed, it works out to about 30% in terms of dividend payout ratio. So it's a number that we're comfortable for this year. And that's the reason why we have decided to declare a higher dividend. And we feel that since that's a position that we have taken, after deeper analysis internally and so on, then we should be stating our policy for this year in terms of our dividend right now, and that's what we're making the...

Any more questions from our attendees here in the boardroom?

I have just one question on the Macau side of things. Has it started contributing already? [indiscernible]

Yes. It Started contributing. So it goes into the net inflow for the group in terms of AUA. And so that's a good part of the business has started, and we expect that to continue to contribute more. Having said that, of course, it's not a huge percentage of the overall business of the group for Hong Kong at this point in time. But it is an area that we expect to continue to grow further.

Can you remind us the AUA on the Macau?

The AUA goes into our group AUA.

We did mention at the end of last year AUA, it was about SGD 70 million. So I think that number you can tell is not very large. And I think we have made some progress since then, but it's not a number that we would like to come back and update. I think the ORSO is probably the one that will have a bit more of a material impact. So I think that's the one that we have been providing a bit more color on.

Just want to be clear. Remind me again how much of the AUA has the iGB deposits been contributed? Has the iGB deposit contributed? Is there a figure or?

Yes. For the iGB, we've disclosed that amount is SGD 1.81 billion as of fully recognized under AUA.

So just to conclude on the eMPF business. So the way we should think about it is revenue is relatively flat, maybe come down a bit because we are -- because the onboarding revenue start to decline, but cost is also rolling off, hence, overall PBT should still be growing on an absolute basis. Is that the way we should be thinking about?

If you look at -- I think quarter-to-quarter, sometimes there are some slight certain items and so on. But on a year-on basis, we expect that to continue to grow this year as a whole. And then going forward, we expect to see some growth as well in revenue, just that on the eMPF part, it's not going to be a huge percentage. But cost is the area that we look at that overall profitability can continue to be healthy. There's some growth but again, not huge percentage on the eMPF part on its own. But taken together, in terms of all the different measures we are taking for ePension as a whole and the group, then I think the increased efficiency in terms of cost can actually keep growing strong for the next few years.

Maybe we'll just wrap up with one last question that we have online. Okay.

Just one last question on the bank, actually. So if you look at the past few quarters, we see that the net interest revenue, as you highlighted also in the slide, net interest revenue has been exceeding the noninterest side of the bank. So is this how you expect it going forward as well?

Yes. Because when we acquired the bank, the main business of the bank was essentially the [indiscernible] and the bank when we acquired it didn't have a strategy of trying to build the deposit base. They see the deposit as a working capital to support the EzRemit business. But since we acquired the business model have been enhanced to include personal banking as well as business banking, which will attract more deposits and grow the net interest income.

So yes, so in previous quarters, you see some overall fluctuation in revenue and profitability, partly also because the EzRemit business tend to be a bit more volatile on a quarter-on-quarter basis. But as we move forward, given that net interest margin is becoming more important than EzRemit business and even the business banking and personal banking itself will bring some noninterest income, fee income on its own as well.

So on an overall basis, I think you should see a better consistency in terms of growth as we move on. So that's the way to see it.

So about iFAST Global Bank, now we are at SGD 1.8 billion AUA targeting SGD 15 billion by 2030. As we make this progression, we are currently investing the bank's assets in financial products. Do you expect business banking eventually to make a bigger percentage of the overall bank contribution?

Otherwise, the regulator will say that, you're a bank, but you're not helping business activities, in terms of lending to businesses and mainly collecting deposit and investing in financial products have such concerns?

That, it's not something to our understanding that is a concern for the regulator. I think the regulator primarily as a starting point, they are most concerned about safety, safety of the bank, safety of customer deposit, robustness of our overall business model.

And even we are not lending to SMEs and so on, it doesn't mean that we're not contributing because quite a bit of the deposit goes into Bank of England goes in the government bond and it goes into buying investment grade other banks. So that in itself will bring its own benefit to the U.K. economy. Yes. So all in, I would say that we don't think that's too much of a concern for regulator because priority is safety.

Okay. One last question online from Edward. I think going back to your, Chung Chun. So what's the business strategy for future banking licenses?

I suppose you are talking about what's our strategy, once we get the license in the additional jurisdiction that we are aiming about. A bit too early to discuss this topic in detail, but I will say that the overall direction will probably not change in a big way. We are essentially a wealth management and digital banking platform. So even when we do get additional licenses in other jurisdictions, we will focus in those areas.

There are no more questions. I think we can conclude this results briefing.

Thank you everybody.

Thank you very much, everyone. Thank you.

Welcome to iFAST Corporation's Fourth Quarter 2025 and Full Year 2025 Results Presentation. My name is JP from the Corporate Communications team. And together with us, we have Chung Chun, our Group CEO; Terence, our Group CFO; as well as members from our iFAST Finance and Corporate Communications teams. I'll start with a key summary. So in FY 2025, the group saw some major milestones as total revenue crossed $500 million for the first time. So that's up 34.4% year-on-year to $514.72 million, and our net profit hit $100.01 million, which is a 50.1% year-on-year increase. In fourth quarter of 2025, total revenue for the group grew 45.7% year-on-year to $151.74 million, and net profit for the group grew 70.4% year-on-year to $32.86 million.

The increase in 2025 profitability was driven by growth in the Hong Kong ePension business, continuing growth in our core wealth management platform business as well as the achievement of our first full year of profitability for the iFAST Global Bank. For the group's core wealth management platform business, our group assets under administration, or AUA, increased 27.9% year-on-year to a new record high of $31.98 billion. Growth was seen in all the various markets that we operate in with Singapore continuing to be the main contributor. Our group net inflows was at a record $4.72 billion in FY 2025. The group's return on equity in 2025 was a robust 28.3%. A healthy ROE allows the group to be able to pursue robust long-term growth strategies while being able to raise dividend payouts.

The Board of Directors is proposing a dividend of $0.025 per ordinary share, which is 56.3% higher for the fourth quarter and final dividend of FY 2025. With that, total dividends for FY 2025 amounted to $0.084 per ordinary share, which is 42.4% higher compared to FY 2024. Looking forward and barring unforeseen circumstances, the group expects 2026 to see healthy growth rates in revenues and profitability. As a global digital banking and wealth management platform, the group is increasingly looking to make progress with a truly global business model, which means attracting customers from around the world while operating only from a few key markets. Of particular significance will be the group's ability to leverage on our presence in Singapore, London and Hong Kong, which are 3 of the top financial centers in the world.

Our B2C division, which is called FSMOne in Singapore and Hong Kong will be repositioned as FSM Global as part of this truly global business model. The group is targeting to achieve an AUA of $100 billion by 2030. This implies a compound annual growth rate or CAGR of about 25.6% or higher over the next 5 years. For the overall Hong Kong business, which includes both the wealth management pie and the ePension business, the group is targeting double-digit growth in revenues and profitability in 2026. Also pension administration business is expected to start contributing in second half 2026, while the Macau ePension business is expected to show substantial growth. iFAST Global Bank will be building on its milestone of our first full year of profitability in 2025 and targets to continue to see robust growth rates in 2026 and beyond.

For FY 2026, the Board of Directors expects to propose a total dividend of $0.105 per share or higher, which is at least 25% higher compared to FY 2025. Our group AUA slide, as you can see, has been growing well. So it increased 27.9% year-on-year to a record high level of $31.98 billion as at 31st December 2025. That's also 4.2% higher Q-on-Q and comprising about roughly 65% in the B2B division and the remaining 35% from the B2C division. On the next slide, the AUA breakdown by markets and products. So Singapore remaining the largest contributor in terms of contribution by market at 70.3%, followed by Hong Kong and Malaysia at roughly about 11% each, and others at 7.2%, which is made up of China and the U.K. AUA breakdown by products. So Unit Trusts still remains the largest contributor at 56.2%, followed by stocks and ETFs, which is at 24.1%, bonds at 11% and cash account and deposits at 8.6%.

I will move on to the Section I, which covers the financial results. So firstly, starting with the fourth quarter numbers. So in 4Q 2025, total revenue was $151.74 million, which is 45.7% higher year-on-year. Net revenue was at $102.35 million, which is 57.7% higher year-on-year. Operating expenses was at $64.69 million in 4Q 2025, which is 58.2% higher year-on-year. Net profit at $32.86 million in 4Q 2025, which is up 70.4% year-on-year. For the full year results, FY 2025 versus FY 2024, so total revenue at $514.72 million, which is 34.4% higher year-on-year. Net revenue was at $339.65 million in FY 2025, which is 36.7% higher year-on-year. OpEx was at $220.7 million, which is 33.2% higher compared to FY 2024. Net profit for FY 2025 was at $100.01 million, which is 50.1% higher year-on-year. The results overview for the group on the next slide for the last 5 financial years.

Looking at the PBT margin for the group, the profit before tax margin based on total net revenue. So for 2025, it was at 34.8%. Return on equity is at a record high based on the annualized return on equity rate since listing at 28.3% for 2025. Looking at the P&L based on the different markets. So firstly, for 4Q 2025, Singapore was up 40.5% year-on-year in the quarter at $14.22 million. Hong Kong, 53% up year-on-year to $20.11 million. And also the other trend, which has continued is the U.K. banking operation, which registered its fifth consecutive quarter of profits at $1.1 million for 4Q 2025. China's losses have been narrowing. And in 4Q 2025, that's actually narrowed by 19% to $0.88 million. I won't go through the FY 2025 comparison on the P&L basis.

On the next slide, you can see the P&L breakdown for the last 5 financial years. The next couple of slides shows you the gross revenue, firstly, at the geographical breakdown level for the last 5 financial years and the net revenue level on the next slide, again, for the next -- for the various markets for the last 5 financial years. I'll wrap up with the dividend information. So as mentioned just now, the Board of Directors is proposing a dividend of $0.025 per ordinary share for the last quarter or the final dividend of FY 2025. That will be subject to approval by shareholders at the company's Annual General Meeting, which will be held on 24th of April 2026.

So the proposed final dividend, if approved, brings the total dividend for FY 2025 to $0.084 per ordinary share, which is higher than the $0.059 in 2024. The next slide shows you graphically how the trend has been going on for the dividends. The key point here is ORSO for FY 2026, the Board of Directors expects to propose a total dividend of $0.105 per share or higher, which is at least 25% higher compared to FY 2025. I'll now invite Chung Chun to carry on for the business update.

Hi, everyone. Yes, I will give some update on some of the achievements for the year as well as some forward plans for the group. Yes, the first part really is just to highlight a few of the key achievements that we have made for the year. Firstly, of course, AUA hit a record high. We -- in 2025, we actually have a growth being seen in AUA in all the markets that we're actually in. Singapore continues to be a strong performer. It is the business division that we -- the country that we started with, but it continues to be in a position where we are able to continue to see a lot of growth. And in fact, we see that going forward, there are a lot more opportunity that we can actually capture. Some of the numbers, I won't run through in detail. I think you can see the numbers and charts are self-explanatory.

Next slide is net inflow trend. You can see the overall trend has been growing over the years. Net inflow number on a quarterly basis may bounce a bit, but overall, you can see that has been positive. This one will be the gross unit trust subscription that we actually have. Unit trust continue to be our core product as an investment platform. So for the Hong Kong business, we previously gave some guidance about what's expected for Hong Kong. And the last time we updated our guidance was in April 2025. Back then, we guided that gross revenue will be HKD 1.2 billion or more and PBT will be HKD 380 million more. So the actual results, gross revenue is about there. The PBT is slightly higher than our targeted guidance. So we ended 2025 with HKD 402 million in terms of PBT for Hong Kong business as a whole.

2026, we continue to expect some growth, and we are targeting double-digit growth. So in the last couple of years, we have tended to give more detailed guidance for a different part. And the reason for that was because of the fact that the Hong Kong ePension division is new and is a substantial project. So we wanted to give investors a better feel of roughly what to expect. Now the project is -- the onboarding has substantially been completed towards the end. So going forward, I expect that there will be further growth, but we are not giving exact guidance here, but just at this point in time to, in a sense, indicate that we expect the growth to continue. Next page. iFAST Global Bank, that's a bank that we acquired in March 2022. So we had 3 years of losses initially as we built out the services as we work through the changes following the acquisition and so on. And in the meantime, it's been progressing well.

2025 is a year where we see the first full year of profitability in Sing dollar is about SGD 3.1 million in pretax profit for the bank. So we want to build on this achievement that we have made and we're aiming for something far more interesting in the years ahead. So at the beginning of each financial year, in the last few years, we have been giving our 3-year plan. And so right now, at the beginning of 2026, we are giving an updated 3-year plan for the group, right? So basically, we summarized in 5 main points here. The first point really is that, yes, we are a digital -- global digital banking and wealth management platform. And what we'd like to be able to do is to be able to make more substantial progress with what we call a truly global business model. I think this is a term that we have actually been using the last couple of years. Each time I try to explain a bit more what we are basically envisioning, just so that investors can understand our strategy better.

I'll elaborate a bit more on this later on. Second point would be the group target AUA. We are targeting the $100 billion by 2030. So you're looking at it if the group achieved $100 billion by 2030, then there's a CAGR of 25.6%. Given the opportunity and the effort that we've been putting in, we believe that, that is something that, yes, is achievable with good execution. The AUA numbers for us include the wealth management platform numbers, the core business that we have. It will include the deposit numbers for Bank. And the new part that is coming on board, the Hong Kong ORSO business, which is the other part of the retirement scheme, the older part of retirement scheme that's actually there that we expect to start contributing second half 2026. That will add on to the AUA. The eMPF, of course, doesn't add on to A part of the business as well as our Macau ePension services, those will add on to the AUA as well.

Macau has actually started contributing for a couple of months at the end of last year. These are some small initial number, but we expect that, that will grow significantly more. Third point regarding the ePension and here, I'm referring more to the eMPF. As I mentioned, the onboarding is substantially already completed. So we are at the tail end of the onboarding. And lots of work continue to be needed. But I would say that probably we have seen probably the toughest part of this project, which is really 2026 as we ramp up the resources required to do all the onboarding as all the onboarding happened from different trustees, each with its own unique kind of initial operational considerations and so on. That has been a busy year and heading year. Of course, lots of work remains. We still need to ensure that the overall quality of the services and operational efficiency can continue to improve.

Yes, but probably the most uncertain part of what to expect on the day-to-day property has been seen. Now it's looking of further improvement in efficiency. Point #4, yes, so we started as a wealth management platform. And then along the way, we bought the bank, we add a global digital bank to the overall ecosystem. So we are a global digital banking and wealth management platform. And increasingly, we have been looking at what we call a truly global business model. And for that to work very well, we actually find that there are certain additional services that we need to steadily try to develop. One of the areas is, in fact, in the area of payment. I think you'll be aware that we already have some payment services within the group, debit card, for instance, in FSM Singapore as well as the iFAST Global Bank, we have a debit card services.

The Global Bank have a division called EzRemit, which is in the remittance business, mainly in the Middle East. That helps with the movement of money across borders and that's important in helping us to be able to provide a full range of payment services efficiently and smoothly. So as we move forward, we expect that there will be more work to be done in terms of some of these payment services. Several months ago, we announced that we have received in principle approval for E-Money license in Malaysia. We are in the process of also applying for license in a couple of the markets that we're in, including Singapore. So yes, we expect that as the quarters ahead progress in the years ahead, we'll continue to be introducing more and more services that will actually make it -- make us a lot more complete and a lot more attractive as a global digital banking and wealth management. Point 5 really is to continue to broaden the fintech ecosystem that we have.

That's something that has been an ongoing thing. The next chart -- yes, the fintech ecosystem, I think in the subsequent pages is a chart. Maybe you go a few pages forward the fintech ecosystem. Yes. So this is a chart that we show how we have been broadening the fintech ecosystem that we have and that's an ongoing progress for us. I'll go back to -- yes, to this slide. Just to elaborate a bit more about this truly global business model that we have actually been talking about. Traditionally, when we think of businesses in terms of expanding to different places, different country, we think in terms of going there fiscally, set up the operations locally and then further grow from there. We were doing quite a bit of that in the past because going from Singapore to Hong Kong, Malaysia, India at the time in China.

I would say that, yes, as we did that, it is something that is -- takes a lot of effort and new market in set of new business operation from scratch, it typically take quite a number of years before we're able to make money. But we are -- we have been living in the Internet world. The world has been living through Internet world. In the last 25, 30 years, business models have been changing globally. I always like to use an example of Netflix, Spotify, they operate from one or 2 countries, but you have customers from around the world. In your case, hundreds of millions of paying customers through subscription from around the world. We have believed more and more in the last few years that when it comes to the financial sector, there's no reason why a truly global business model cannot happen. Banking and wealth management are essentially services that doesn't require physical movement of goods. So no reason why things cannot be on the basis of a truly global business model.

So this is something that we started talking about last few years. And as we did so, I think a lot of the planning revolved around iFAST Global Bank and to some extent, the Singapore business and so on. But we're in a phase where we feel that there are actually still quite a bit more things for us to do. in terms of being able to make this truly global business model a bigger part of the overall business. So with that, we are basically now articulating it a bit more clearly to say that yes, for this truly global business model, we feel that the 3 key centers that will make a bigger difference to this effort will be Singapore, London, Hong Kong. These are 3 key centers where we have substantial presence in, where we continue to improve on the services that we have developed. London, of course, is a iFAST Global Bank. And that today, we already have a situation where money can be transmitted from iFAST Singapore, Hong Kong, London to and fro instantly at no cost for our customer.

And yes, we will continue to build on some of this work that we have done, introduce more services and that will make the whole ability for us to build our global business progress faster. As a group, we started 25, 26 years ago with our B2C business, FSM. At that time, we called it FSMOne. Now we call it FSM. And along the way, we sort of realized that as we try to grow our business as we roll out the services all obvious communication. While we have been thinking in terms of global customers as a potential, but in terms of the manner by which we position ourselves by which we put out all the different materials and article and communication, we probably were talking more to the Singapore, if I take FSM Singapore. So we're talking more to the 6 million people that are in Singapore.

I think it's time that we try to more effectively communicate to not just 6 million people, but maybe 1 billion people that's actually out there somewhere in the world that potentially can use Singapore FSM. So we have Singapore, iFAST Global Bank in London, Hong Kong, I think we feel that we can accelerate this truly global business model better, and that is a very important part of our aim for the next few years. So in line with that, we're also repositioning FSM Singapore and FSMOne Hong Kong to basically FSM Global to communicate that message more clearly that for global customers, they are our target client. That's how we started iFAST Global Bank instead of calling it iFAST Bank.

We started by calling iFAST Global Bank and with that have majority of our customers being nonresident for iFAST Global Bank. For us in Singapore and Hong Kong, we have been quite well entrenched in terms of the services for our customers here. And that part will continue to grow, but we also want to target the bigger addressable market. Next. So this is a chart that I showed earlier our fintech ecosystem. Yes. So that really is the part that I want to run through. The next sections are on some performance trends. I think the are self-explanatory. So we leave it to. At this point, we'll open the session up to questions and answers.

Yes. Thank you, Chung Chun. And we'll move to the Q&A segment. And we have investors and analysts both present in the board room as well as on Zoom. So maybe we'll just open the floor to those who are here in the boardroom first before we take on some of the questions that we have in Zoom, yes, any questions? Yes.

I have a few segments of questions that I want to split it up, but maybe I'll just start firstly on Singapore. I just noticed that actually the quarter-on-quarter performance in Singapore has actually been quite well. I think profit before tax was up 27% quarter-on-quarter. So what is some of the drivers that you have observed in the last quarter? And when you talk about the opportunities to grow -- continuing to grow in Singapore, are you referring more to the B2B or the B2B -- B2C segment, yes. So that's for Singapore.

Singapore overall have had a strong year, strong growth momentum throughout the year. And in fact, Singapore has been -- if I take the wealth management part of the business, then Singapore has actually been the best performer. So the growth is actually coming from both businesses. Both segments have actually continued to be strong. And yes, which is why as well I have been saying that despite the fact that there's the biggest part of business is technically the most mature, but we continue to see a lot more opportunity to come. Yes, so the overall momentum is there, the growth is there. In terms of profitability, also sometimes it also depends on in that quarter to what extent is some additional costs or otherwise, that makes some difference. But overall, the growth momentum.

Maybe just the second part, I wanted to understand on the Hong Kong side of the business. I mean, yes, there's kind of like a rough guidance for double-digit growth across revenue to profit before tax. I'm just wondering if we can see some form of operating leverage throughout the year that will hopefully flow to a stronger profitability growth. And because we just looking back at the fourth quarter in terms of quarter-on-quarter trend as well, the contribution from Hong Kong kind of quite flat, although the revenue has grown quarter-on-quarter. So just wondering where do we see profitability today? And the second part of Hong Kong business on top of the pension scheme is on Macau. I'm just wondering what is the AUA we have seen so far and how far we think it can grow to for the Macau side of things?

Yes. On Hong Kong, if I take the -- yes, the ePension business, revenue been increasing because onboarding increases, then the revenue goes up accordingly as well. But this project is such a critical project because pension scheme of Hong Kong. And a big part of the effort along the way has been to ensure that there are sufficient resources that is put in to ensure that things -- the delivery of services are as smooth as possible. So along the way, the headcount has been ramped up quite substantially as well. And I would say that the headcount will probably be hitting the peak in the next couple of months.

So all that additions in headcount lead to the increases in the operating expenses. yes, after ensuring that things are smooth, the delivery services are smooth and up to par and continue to improve on the processes, then I think as we get into the second half, there is some room for us to work on having better operational efficiency. Yes. So we mentioned double-digit growth, but I don't want to be guiding for or shooting for a very huge number simply because our priority is to ensure that things are as efficient as possible. But I think you see the healthy Macau. Macau is something that just started I think, yes, the initial number is something like SGD 70 million we should see numbers.

Thanks for the questions. We have quite a few in the Q&A on Zoom. So maybe we'll just go for those questions. I think maybe I'll continue a bit on some of the things that I think Chung Chun has covered already. So I think on the ePension, any guidance on timing of operational optimization and when can we see the fruits of that effort? I think Chung Chun has covered a bit of that. The other related question was how much of the contract has already been recognized with regard to the ePension?

I think the communications that we have made on the ePension project, yes, I think we have mentioned it's a 7-year contract, right? So we do know the full extent of revenue, and we have been phasing out the revenue aligned with, I guess, the work being done, right? And I think a lot of the work has actually -- we're sort of increasing the efforts of the business, as I think you've heard from Chung Chun earlier, where we have onboarded the largest trustees, and we're now at the tail end of the onboarding. And I think we've also mentioned that even after the trustees are onboarded, right, there's still a lot of operational work to be done because that's where I think we'll get to a point where 100% of the MPF scheme is actually administered on that platform and work done by us.

So those are the things we've communicated. In terms of the exact percentage of how much of the contract has been -- we have recognized so far, I don't think we are able to then communicate because that would have some implications in terms of how you see the -- our -- I guess, the next couple of years of revenue. So we'd like to not have to say anything about that. But I think in terms of the revenue profile, then we can say that it's sort of aligned, right, with the level of work being done, which, as you know, is at a pretty high level at this point of time. Thank you.

We also have a few questions from [ Kelvin-san ]. So [ Kelvin ] wrote congrats on the great results. So thanks for that. And he has 3 questions. So I think first, why was there a big Q-on-Q jump in U.K. earnings despite flat revenue? Was it because the bank cut back on social media marketing?

Yes. I think for U.K., the increase in profit despite relatively flat revenue, partly also because of the cost. I think earlier part of the year, we over-recognized local [indiscernible] cost. And yes, when we get to the fourth quarter, then we release the numbers. So that sort of lead to some of the profitability numbers.

[ Kelvin's ] other question. Can you elaborate on the new services mentioned on Slide 48, which is for the U.K. commentary, which will help U.K. deposits accelerate in first Q 2026. I think we wrote, yes, from first Q 2026. So that's one question. The other one was why was net inflow lower Q-on-Q in 4Q? Was it mainly because of lower bank deposits?

Yes. So regarding the net inflow -- you're talking about net inflow for the group is it?

That's right, yes.

Net inflow for the group was I would say the bank deposit side is not the big part of the change because the group number is actually a much bigger number. But on a net basis, the net inflow was lower, I would say, mainly because there's probably a bit more redemption by customer. Gross inflow was actually very strong. But when the markets are high -- are rising, sometimes you also see a tendency for some investors to take some profit. So that lead to some increases in redemption. But on an overall net inflow basis, it continues to be very healthy, almost $1 billion. And of course, the overall AUA actually quite -- the first part of the question was on the new services for the U.K. market. New services for U.K. market.

In January, we rolled out the services called BACS. BACS is basically a service that allow the customers in the bank customers in U.K. to basically be able to make the monthly bill payments, et cetera, for utility, et cetera, a lot more easily. I think in Singapore, I think the bank a bit of a gyro, but I think something that payment is a bit more in a batch way where once you sign up for that service a whole chunk of your monthly payment can actually come on to that. So that's a service that before this wasn't in place, but that's actually now in place. That includes, I think, some of your monthly salary that you're actually getting. So you can actually start to directly credit the salary onto the iGB more convenient.

And so that is a gyro in Singapore happening or that service is being introduced and more U.K. customers who actually use us and use us as a primary bank account as well that happen that we expect that the inflow from the U.K. resident will actually start to improve. We are also in the midst of preparing to launch some additional service that will help us to with the global payment services. As you are aware, the majority of customers are actually nonresidents of U.K. So for them, they give money in iGB account. As of today, not all of them are able to enjoy the convenience of payment in the other countries that I think an important part of the vision that we have as a group that we have for iFAST Global Bank has been that one bank account in iGB, leave money there, but you can actually spend around the world. That's been an important part of the vision that we actually have.

Today, that can happen only to some extent. The full service is not really rolled out yet, but we are in the process of rolling out this additional service that will allow customers to leave money iGB but make payments in various countries around the world. We -- yes, we will give further detail in the next 2 months as we roll out service but that's expected to be one of the additional service that will have as a driver for the overall business of iGB as well. The other comment I'd like to make as well regarding the last 6 months as well is that along the way, actually interest rate environment changes. As interest rate environment changes, we actually find that yes, there's some money that actually move in or out and some of those changes happen.

And also in the past 1 year, there's been some gradual reduction in the global interest rate environment for U.S. or U.K. And our deposit rate over the last 1 year as well, there's been some gradual downward shift. So as some of these things happen and some of the older deposits that is some that was renewed and so on. So in the short term, that may lead to some additional outflow. But of course, we are watching the situation all the time and then we respond with some tweaks in interest rates accordingly. So tweak interest rate as well as additional services are some of the things that we do on an ongoing basis. So that will help ensure that we can continue to grow. But on an immediate basis, on a quarterly basis, then sometimes some of lots of momentum in the overall deposit growth. So that's basically some of the effect that we actually see.

We have a couple of analysts in the Zoom Q&A who have raised hands as well. So we'll start with Jayden from Macquarie.

Well done on a good fourth quarter result. I just wanted to ask a little bit about the guidance. I think you mentioned that you're looking at sort of a CAGR of 25% in the AUA to hit the $100 billion. And then we've said that we think that the dividends will grow by at least 25% in 2026. So is there any sort of view on the payout ratio because that would suggest that earnings, AUA sort of grow at the same rate -- how are you sort of thinking about that? And if there's any further operating leverage because you also highlighted that the ROE has been expanding because the top line has been growing strong. So I just want to sort of understand this view on the guidance a little bit better as a starting point.

Yes. Yes. So the AUA guidance, yes, we have mentioned about $100 billion. So we are basically working out mathematically to show what the percentage is in order for us to achieve $100 billion by 2030, and that number is actually 2 to hit that. So we feel that with good execution, we should be able to achieve that. So that's part of the reason. And then for 2026, yes, the dividend, there's a guidance on the expected dividend payout. So we said $0.105 or better. In the sense that also reflects our expectation on further increases in profitability for the group. The payout ratio for us, I think, in recent time, I've been talking about a number of 25% to 30% that we're comfortable with. I think over time, as our balance sheet gets bigger, we think that we can go higher than that number.

But at this point in time, we have the ambition that we have for the bank in terms of the growth, we want to see we're still at a stage where we want a lot more growth. So as far as dividend payout is concerned, we are basically just balancing some of this thinking. One part is we do want to increase the dividend payout. The other part is we have big ambitions. So we want to have enough retained earnings within the group. And so on a shorter-term basis, payout ratio of 25% to 30% is something we are comfortable with, right? As we go forward in the years ahead, then we can look at increasing but on an EBITDA basis, we're not assuming a big increase in payout ratio.

Yes. I guess what it means is that if you're looking at 25% growth in dividends and the same payout ratio, you're sort of telling us that earnings are going to grow at 25%, right? Am I reading that correctly?

We are -- technically, we're not exactly seeing that. But I suppose, internally, we are shooting for those kind of quantum in terms of potential growth.

Yes. And if I could just ask maybe a couple more questions, just 2 more. The first is, so if we say that we're going to have this growth in the AUA, we go from $32 billion to $40 billion, let's say, it's 25%. How much would come from ORSO? How much would come from the organic business? And is Macau sort of recognized as AUA? Or is it like the MPF in Hong Kong?

Yes. we expect that -- yes, also assuming it does happen by second half that can potentially add 7% to the growth rate, right, for AA. So that will actually help the overall growth number for 2026. 2026 growth in AUA quite a robust number. Yes, of course, having said that, yes, I just want to also mention that this is our current target in terms of having that being rolled off in the second half. In terms of timing, sometimes there are some dependence on the need to ensure the overall efficiency of the whole ePension business. But at this point is the current target.

And just my final question, which is related to this. If we do get this ORSO contract and we add 6% to 7%, is that going to be sort of supported by the existing cost base? Or would we see an additional step-up in the OpEx sort of similar to what we had with ePension?

There will be some increase in cost, but it won't be too big an increase. I think we already have some existing costs that is actually supporting this. So on -- in terms of overall increase in cost, it should not be too much.

Thanks, Jayden. And now we'll move to Aakash who raised hand from UBS.

Congratulations on a strong year. So I think the first question is just if you go back to the early days when you started talking about ePension, I think you had said that after the ramp-up phase is complete, the revenue for the business should largely remain flat for the remaining years of the project or it should probably increase by inflation is what you had said, right, irrespective of any other factors like AUA or other things. Just wanted to check if that expectation is still in place. That's the first question.

Yes. So I think that statement is true when we go into 2027 and subsequent few years. But for 2026 because if you look at it on a quarterly basis, it has been that significant ramp-up in the revenue and so on. So on an overall year basis, then it should go beyond the single digit. It should go into double digits. But once you get to 2027, then that statement by single digit and will be true for ePension business excluding the part of the business, right? So if you take and Macau, then that will add on to the ePension business. So we hope that, that can then add on overall growth in revenue and profitability in 2027.

Great. That's very clear. That's helpful. Secondly, on -- so more specifically on 2026, I understand that the growth rate would be higher for this business. Is it simply because -- sorry, let me rework. So the Q4 revenue that we saw for ePension, is it fair to assume that would be the run rate for 2026? And then we can try and calculate what sort of increases double-digit growth we see. Is that a fair expectation for 2026?

I think -- yes, on the revenue side, I think probably that can be taken as a bit of probably a logical way of looking at it. I think so if you think in terms of the output and the work done and we have already onboarded the largest trustees going to the first quarter of 2026, right? So I think in terms of trying to justify a much higher level of work done from that point, I think it will be quite difficult from a revenue recognition perspective. But I think that being said, I think we also talked a bit about the optimization of expenses and so on. So I think we have already heard earlier Chung Chun mentioned that that's not a priority, at least for the first half of 2026, right, where we are focused on getting the job done well, right? And then probably in the second half, I think that's what we said earlier, right? That's where we can potentially look at some optimization and probably the benefits will then be seen further out over the next, I guess, 2027 and so on.

Okay. Understood. That's very clear. Sorry, just on this one, do you have any updated thoughts on what is the likelihood of this project getting extended after the 7 or the 10-year term expires?

Yes. I think it's too soon for us to be commenting on this at this stage.

Okay. Very clear. One more question, sorry. So just from the net inflows that seems to have obviously stepped up quite significantly in 2025. Now if you just look at the broader landscape, the banks have obviously been seeing billions and billions of dollars in wealth management inflows. I'm just wondering if that segment, which is the family offices, is that also benefiting you? Or if yes, then what is the portion of this inflow coming from that family office segment? Or is it still very much your traditional customer base, which is largely individuals, right, whether we look at B2B or B2C?

We're seeing some benefit from the family office segment, but I would say that, that isn't really the core segment for us. I think our client base tend to be a lot more spread.

Makes sense. And sorry, if I may ask just one last question, a quick one. So on payments, you talked about starting to offer more services. I'm just trying to think if -- is this mainly to facilitate your customers in your core geographies? Or is it going to be a bigger, fuller service like Revolut or Wise? And do you see any increase in expenses because of this investment?

Yes. So the thinking about payment is that -- 2 areas. One, we want to be able to help the customer move money cross-border easily. That's important for this global digital banking and wealth management model that we're actually talking about. So moving money cross-border, that's one part. The other part is we want them to retain their money with us, whether we have the bank or the wealth management platform. And as they do so, we want to be able to allow them to use that money to spend, right, in the various countries that they're in. So that is the other part of actually the thinking for us. As we roll out the payment business further, there will be some increases in revenue for us. At the same time, there will be some increases in cost. I would say that the payment business on its own on it on meaning, if we just try to look at it as a payment business on its own, then I would say it's not exactly an easy business because it is an area that many players have been competing in.

So if we look at the on its own payment business on its own, then trying to really make it a highly profitable business, is not necessarily so easy. But in our case, because we see it as part of a complementary service for the digital banking and wealth management platform, then that improved the picture substantially, both in terms of the ability to scale up these services as well as in terms of the overall business economics of this part of the business. Yes. So I see it as something that will help us to increase the revenue overall. It also will help us as an overall group to increase our overall profitability. But if I look at it in terms of the pure payment part of the services, then yes, it may not be something that will lead to a huge increase on it.

Next question, we'll move to [ Benjamin ].

Financial Alliance, how does all fit into this truly global business model? And is the strategy going forward to the small financial advisory firms to boost this model alone?

I would say that is not so linked to this global business model, especially on financial alignment. Perhaps I talk about our thinking on this acquisition -- proposed acquisition of a 30% stake in Financial Alliance. This part is very much about the B2B business that we have in Singapore. Yes, actually, traditionally, we do -- we have invested in some other FA firms in Singapore as well. We basically take a minority stake. But actually, there are quite a number of different companies are actually there. But increasingly, the thinking now really is we want to mainly focus on having a stake in a company that will be one of the bigger company, especially one that has a potential to become a listed company.

So it is a vision that ourselves as well as financial alliance themselves to potentially become the first listed FFO in Singapore. From our point of view as a platform, we -- what we want to see is a thriving industry, industry where the financial advisory firms are able to grow well, they're able to try. So we have gotten to the stage where I think you do see some consolidation in the market because I think you have KKR actually came in to buy [indiscernible] and so on. So there's some consolidation. But at the same time, of course, there are also quite a number of new companies that get created. So as we look ahead in the next few years, we feel that one of the scenario that will actually emerge is that there could be, say, 2 big FA firms, right, that actually may emerge, one of whom could be could become a listed company, perhaps supported by.

At the same time, there still be a lot of other FA firm, but we think that there could be -- there are 2, 3 big FA company that actually merged. So we basically want to be playing our part to help company like financial alliance achieve their dream of a much bigger business of becoming a listed FA firm that has much bigger long-term potential. So that is the broad thinking that we should have. I think at this point in time, the business is still mainly local, I would say, financial lines. So we talk about truly global business model, I tend to refer to the various other parts of the business, not specifically on the financial lines.

Thank you, Benjamin. And we still have a few questions in the Q&A on Zoom. So I think [ Ryan ], he had 3 questions. One of it is related to the one that Benjamin just asked on FA Corp. So we'll just move to his other questions. What gives you confidence in tripling AUA in just a few years? I think you alluded to a bit of that.

Yes. So tripling look scary, but if you just think in terms of the CAGR is 25.6%. So I think that with what we have been planning for the expansion of the ecosystem and so on, we feel that with good execution, I think it can be reached.

The third question from [ Ryan Mitch ] was on the tax rate. So tax rate was lower than expected in 4Q and the full year 2025. What caused this? And should we expect the effective tax rate or what should we expect from that effective tax rate going forward?

Yes. So I'll answer this one. So in the fourth quarter, yes, we actually have a deferred tax asset recognized at the bank, right? So I think this comment as well inside Section 8 of the financials. So I mean, for background, the bank when we acquired it had, I think, in excess of, I believe, the number is more than GBP 40 million of losses. right? So these are past losses and the tax rules allow us to then offset this against future profit. So I think the bank has just turned profitable. So the bank has recognized a small deferred tax asset of -- from that amount. So I think just to be clear, the GBP 40 million of losses then translates to something like a 25% tax rate, about GBP 11-plus million of deferred tax assets that can be recognized.

On the topic of U.K., just add on to that. So in terms of what was recognized in 4Q, it is GBP 1 million.

Yes. So we recognized GBP 1.08 million.

In 2026, we expect that there will be some of that benefit that will actually be seen as well. The exact amount we from now on an EBITDA basis, maybe you can think of that similar amount spread over the year '26. At this point in time, maybe there's some guidance in how to look at that.

Okay. From [ Regi ]. So we have a question on U.K. So the iGB, the iFAST Global Bank deposits hardly grew in 4Q. So why? And also has the bank been more successful in attracting new customers since the launch of the multicurrency account and the debit card that the bank launched in March of last year.

Yes. So in terms of the deposit number, I explained earlier that in 3Q and 4Q last year, the deposit number slowed -- the deposit growth actually slowed for a couple of reasons. One is, I think some movement back on to investment into the wealth management platform. That's one. Two will be actually changes in interest rate environment. So changes in interest rate environment because along the way, there are some sudden changes in interest rate environment, including in Hong Kong dollar [indiscernible]. So some of this led to some short-term movement in deposit number in as well as out. There's also the fact that yes, for whole year, actually, the deposit rates have actually been declining because interest rates generally have been declining.

So as that happened, then sometimes in the short term and some of the original fixed deposits, et cetera, mature, there are some that doesn't get renewed and so on. So that lead to actually some changes in yes, in the deposit growth. But of course, as all these things are happening, then we're always reviewing and clicking what needs to be done in terms of interest rates, et cetera. And that will -- that together with the additional services that we are rolling out as well as that we will be rolling up that will help us to ensure that the growth momentum will come back. But on an immediate basis, in some of the quarterly number that you see some of this loss of momentum. I think that should be the way to look at this routine.

I take a pause and see if there are further questions from our analysts and investors here. [indiscernible].

So moving back to the spoke about supporting one of the bigger will there be any plans to increase that stake from 30% to a bit more moving forward in the next couple of years?

We don't rule out the possibility of some increases in the stake or changes in the stake. And the reason is because I think AI Corp themselves so they also have an ambitious plan. They want to grow further. It is possible that along the way, they may want to make some acquisition of other firms on their own and so on. And as they do so, they may participation from us, for instance. And as we do so, then yes, it's possible that our investment in the entity can increase. Yes, so that should be the way to look at it. But the intention is that, that will remain a minority stake.

Okay. And going back to the Zoom Q&A. So Ling, I had this question, but I think Chung Chun and Terence have kind of answered. So we'll move to the next question from Andrea. So asking a bit more about Hong Kong also. So she would like to ask if there are any updates to share on contract wins and how many have been clinched and how many more in the pipeline? And how can we think about sizing and pricing of each contract?

Yes. I think there are a number of ongoing discussions and potential wins in the pipeline and so on. But nothing very chunky that we are ready to announce. But in the meantime, of course, if you look at Macau, it is something that's additional that has started and that actually is growing in the current year. Macau itself is also looking to introduce -- to make the pension scheme [indiscernible] I think in probably a couple of years' time. And as that happens, we expect that the opportunity for Macau will be increasing. And yes, since we have started rolling out services there, I think we're well positioned to be able to write on more of the group. The Hong Kong side as well, of course, is a big existing market. And we expect that there will be more additional contract wins along the way. At the appropriate time, yes, then we will update accordingly.

We have a question from [ Susan ]. So thanks for her comments as well on the results. So could we get some color on which region is the driver of the high net inflows?

I think Singapore is the biggest contributor.

Last couple of questions, at least from the Q&A in Zoom. So I think we'll go to [ Kim Chuan ]. So truly global business model, any consideration of secondary listing in Hong Kong or London?

On an immediate basis, we don't have any consideration for secondary listing for Hong Kong or London all then we'll be making inquiries about the global listing that SGX has announced in terms of whether existing company can consider and things like that. That's pretty much where things are, but nothing firm or concrete. But I think if we do want a secondary listing, we feel that we should go for the biggest and most liquid. Otherwise, may not really make sense.

Yes. And one question from [ Benjamin ]. What does putting FSM Singapore and FSM Hong Kong under one umbrella, which is the FSM Global that Chung Chun talked about. What does that mean in practice?

In one umbrella. You're talking about Hong Kong and Singapore?

Yes, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Okay. It's not exactly one umbrella. It's still 2 separate jurisdiction. It's just that for both Singapore and Hong Kong, it's just calling FSM. We want to use the term FSM Global. It's really to better send the message that targeting global clients. In terms of the legal structure, it doesn't actually change. we are renaming that repositioning that for Hong Kong and Singapore because these are 2 top financial centers and it's very suitable for us to use these 2 centers to target global customers. We are, at this point, not doing so for FSM Malaysia because for Malaysia, I think the focus will still be more on Malaysia -- so that's the thinking.

Sorry, a related question. I mean, aside from just changing the name, you could talk a bit more -- does that mean that new features will be added? What's the investment cost?

I think the call really is the additional message, additional services, additional marketing to this new group of potential clients. So I was actually mentioning that when we launched a iFAST Global Bank, we get a lot of majority actually non U.K. resident in terms of client because we are talking to the nonresident. But I suppose the way we have been conducting our business for this year in Singapore and Hong Kong. We are talking to them essentially at the back of the team of the mind of our people, we are assuming they're talking to Singapore or Hong Kong. I think when you're not talking to the global clients more directly than the growth from this group of client isn't as good.

Yes. So in practice, what that means is there will be more messages, that directly communicate to the nonresident clients in terms of what they need to do with opening account with us, they invest with us different languages, for instance. I think we do have our Chinese website, but I think it's time for us to upgrade some of those things as well. In fact, it's not just Chinese, it's actually multi-languages. U.K., we actually are able to support many different languages. But in Singapore, as of today, we only have Chinese and Singapore and English. And even then, I think we haven't done as well as we should be. So languages, the message to the nonresident who are not as familiar with the payment to pay in Singapore, but we have IQ are more directed to them, et cetera, and the different marketing activities that reach out to the global customers better. So these are in practice the bigger difference.

Also ask a follow-up question. I mean in terms of customer acquisition, is there room to improve or sort of lower the friction in terms of customer sign-ups to global bank? At the moment, it seems like it's quite a tedious process global bank [indiscernible].

For sure, there's room to improve and it's an ongoing effort. I think we do know that when it comes to signing up customers who are not local customer, right? The process typically doesn't look as efficient as local customer.

U.K., is it?

Yes, for U.K., let's say. So it's like in Singapore, right? Singapore has an opening account here, now can use pass and then it will be done in 5, 10 minutes. So in U.K., there are some of this improvement kind of consideration. But if you are flying from other country, then the collection of information and so on tend to be something that takes sort of a longer time. But it's an ongoing process for us to try to keep improving the processes for the account opening for different parts of it. I think we are making some steady progress and so on, but certainly quite a number of areas still to improve.

Thanks for your questions, [ Lee ]. So any more questions from anybody? If not, we'll wrap up this quarter's results. So thank you for your attendance, and happy Lunar New Year in advance to everybody, and happy Valentine's Day, I suppose.

Thank you.