# iFAST Corporation Ltd. — 1H 2025 Half-Year Results Presentation

Event: 1H 2025 Half-Year Financial Results Webcast Presentation & Analyst Briefing
Date: 25 July 2025
Issuer: iFAST Corporation Ltd. (SGX:AIY)
Provenance: automated speech recognition (asr) of the issuer's public webcast recording
Source recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd943Vh9Ons
Official record: https://www.ifastcorp.com/ifastcorp/investor-relations/
Presenters: Lim Chung Chun (Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer), Alex Leung Kin Shing (Group Chief Financial Officer)
Words: ~9,899

> Machine transcript via automated speech recognition (ASR) of iFAST Corporation Ltd.'s public webcast recording (1H 2025 Half-Year Financial Results Webcast Presentation & Analyst Briefing, 25 July 2025). Spoken words are transcribed verbatim as delivered, with human post-review for company-specific terms and figures. There is no speaker attribution: the source recording carries no diarisation, so cues are shown as timestamp and text only; timestamps refer to the recording. Not a company publication. iFAST Corporation Ltd.'s own investor relations page (https://www.ifastcorp.com/ifastcorp/investor-relations/) is the authoritative record. Copyright in the briefing rests with iFAST Corporation Ltd.; contact contact@smidresearch.com for corrections or removal.

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[00:03] Hi everyone, welcome to IFAS Corporation's second quarter 2025 and first half 2025 results presentation. My name is JP from the corporate communications team at IFAS and together with me we have Chong Chun, our CEO and Terrence, our CFO for the session together with our colleagues from the finance team as well as the corporate comps team. I'll be going through the key summary and section one on the financial results before Chongqing's introduction to present on section two, which is on the business updates. Starting off with a key summary, in second quarter 2025, our net profit increased by 37.9% year-on-year to $22.11 million. That's on the back of a 28% year-on-year increase in our gross revenue to $120.24 million. The increase in second quarter 2025 profitability was driven by growth in the Hong E-Pension business, a turnaround in IFAS Global Bank, and continuing growth in our core wealth management platform business. For our wealth management platform business, our groups assets under administration or AUA increased 21.6% year on year to a new record high of $27.2 billion. Our groups net inflows were also at a record high of $1.29 billion in second quarter of this year. So, following the initial quarter of profitability in the fourth quarter of last year, IFAW's Global Bank continues its profitable growth path. It achieved a net profit of $0.7 million in second quarter 2025, which compares favorably to a loss of $1.56 million in the previous year. So that marks the third consecutive quarterly profit for IFAW's Global Bank. The bank's profitability in second quarter 2025 was achieved on the back of the 85% year-on-year increase in gross revenue, which stood at $21.1 million. The bank's customer deposits grew 124% year-on-year to $1.45 billion at the end of second quarter of this year. The group's Hong Kong business saw a 33.4% year-on-year growth in gross revenue to $45.6 million in second quarter of this year. The increase in revenue reflected the growth of the e-pension business as well as the wealth management business in Hong Kong. The default tax for the overall Hong Kong operation saw a 17.8% year-on-year increase to $15.7 million in Q2 2025. Looking forward and barring unforeseen circumstances, we expect the group's revenues and profitability in second half of this year to show a healthy improvement compared to first half of this year. The e-pension division is expected to improve as the onboarding of the EMPF business continues to progress. The Core Wealth Management Business and IFAS Global Bank are expected to continue to grow.

[03:05] During unforeseen circumstances, the group expects 2025 as a whole to see robust growth rates in revenues and profitability compared to 2024.

[03:15] The group has a strong balance sheet with cash and cash equivalents amounting to $821.84 million as of end 2nd quarter 2025. This reflects the conservative balance sheet strategy adopted by IFAS Global Bank and the strong cash generative business model of the group's well-management business over the years. The group's return on equity in the first half of 2025 was at a healthy 24.6% level. A healthy ROE allows the group to be able to pursue robust long-term growth strategies while being able to raise our dividend payouts. Regarding the dividend payouts for the second interim dividend for FY 2025, the directors proposed a dividend of 2 cents per ordinary share, which is 33.3% higher compared to the second interim dividend of 2024, which was at 1.5 cents per ordinary share. For FY 2025, the directors expect to propose a total dividend of 8 cents per ordinary share or higher, which is at least 35.6% higher than last year's FY 2024 dividend, which stood at 5.9 cents per ordinary share. Moving on to our group's AUAs slide, as mentioned, so AUAs increased 21.6% year-on-year to $27.2 billion, as at 30th of June 2025, Q1Q, AUAs grew by by about 5.9%. The usual split between B2B and B2C is shown here with B2B contributing the majority of the AUA at about two thirds of the groups total. And the remaining one third coming from our B2C business division. Regarding the AUA breakdown by markets and products. So Singapore remains the largest market and Malaysia and Hong Kong at about the same level of about 11% each. And under others, we have China and UK, which has been growing relatively faster, especially if we look at the same numbers one year ago. And very similarly, because of the bank's progress, as we mentioned, in terms of customer deposits, that amount for AUA breakdown by products in cash account and deposits has also been growing at a relatively faster pace, which now takes up about 9.5% of total AUA. But of course, the majority is still accounted for by unit trust firstly at 56%, followed by stocks and ETFs at 21.9% and bonds to free.

[06:23] I won't go through the details on this slide, which talks about the results overview for the group over the last few years and first half of this year. I'll move on to PBT margin, the profit before tax margin, which is based on total net revenue. So that's grown to about 34% for first half of this year. Return on equity, it's at 24.6% as mentioned just now, or first half of this year. So that contrasts favorably to the lower ROE levels in the period of 2022 and 2023, which was largely due to the share placement related to the acquisition of the bank in the UK, as well as on the related start-up expenses during that period. But ROE has since improved to the current levels that we see. In terms of the profit and loss at the geographical segment level. So I think if we look at the second quarter of this year, so we see improvement across the various operations. So Singapore's numbers up 11.9% year on year to $9.92 million in second quarter of this year. And for Hong Kong as well up 17.8% year on year to $15.72 million in second quarter. China's losses have narrowed by almost a half $0.86 million in second quarter of this year. And for the UK operation as mentioned just now, it delivered a profit of $0.7 million in second quarter, which contrasts favorably to the loss in second quarter of last year. I won't go through the details for the first half numbers for this slide, as well as the next slide which shows the various details for the P&L, for the various operations at the growth level for the last few years.

[08:17] The next slide shows the gross revenue at the geographical segment level. So I think we can see your growth rates for the first half of this year across all the various operations, be it Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia or China. Of course, the stronger growth rates that we see came from the UK operation at I-Class Global Bank. Similarly, for net revenue based on geographical segment. So I think we can see the year-on-year growth rates in the first half of this year across the various operations with the stronger growth rates coming from the UK as well.

[08:53] So wrapping up our section, this segment is on the dividend details. So as mentioned just now, for the second interim dividend for FY2025, it's at 2 cents per ordinary share. And for FY2025, the directors propose a total dividend of 8 cents for ordinary share, which is at least 35.6% higher compared to FY 2024. And graphically, we can see what the various numbers for the dividend trends have been for the last few years, as well as the numbers that we have just mentioned for FY 2025. So I wrapped up section one. I would now invite Chongqing to share more on the business update.

[09:40] Hi, everyone. Now I'll go to section two. Section two, on a business update, I'll essentially highlight some key points to talk through.

[09:57] So the first would actually be

[10:02] regarding the Hong Kong overall performance.

[10:08] Recall that in the previous quarter, we gave updated guidance in terms of the target for 2025. So here we really produce what actually happened in the first half of 2025 in Hong Kong dollar. The guidance is in Hong Kong dollar because our revenue essentially in Hong Kong dollar

[10:31] for the Hong Kong business. So in the first half we achieve net revenue net revenue of slightly over 400 million Hong Kong dollar and PBT of over 163 million Hong Kong dollar. For the full year we have in the previous quarter gave updated guidance of other PBT of over 380 million. At this point in time, yeah there's no change to that. We expect that second half performance will actually be stronger because the largely because the e-pension division is progressing in the onboarding and the ramping up is happening and that will continue and the bulk of the EMPS business will be onboarded by the end of the year. So correspondingly, we expect that the revenue and the profitability will actually be increased. Next slide. Regarding the bank, the bank continues its third quarter of profitability. So in second queues, you achieve net profit of 0.7 million. This is than the 1 million achieved in first queue, but much better than a year before where we had a loss of 1.56. Second queue compared first queue, we essentially have a situation where the easier remit part of the business, which tend to be more volatile, saw some reduced contribution, reduced revenue. The first queue is actually the seasonally busy period for the business, largely because of the 8th period in the first quarter, I think in Singapore, the higher-rise Yaposa. So that led to higher volume for the easy remit of the business. But overall for the bank, what's important to note is that overall the deposit continue grow driven particularly by the DPB part of the business, digital personal banking. So that led to a strong ramp up in the overall deposit for the bank. So customer deposit grew 124% year-on-year to 1.45 billion at the end of second Q2025. So for our first half, we basically achieved a profit of 1.7 million for the bank compared to a loss of 3.85 million in the past 2024. So overall, IFAS Global Bank is actually progressing well in line with what we have been shooting for. Next slide. In terms of the core wealth management part of the business, we achieved a new record-high AOA of $1.27.2 billion. that is driven by a record net inflow of 1.29 billion in the second quarter itself.

[14:04] And during the period, the number of customer accounts that we have as a group, across 1 billion accounts. Next. So this chart that we typically show, the IFAS FinTech ecosystem, Typically, every quarter we show this, but we have some updated numbers. So as noted earlier, customer accounts have crossed 1 million. We currently have over 800 companies as B2B partners and in terms of number of individual wealth advisors who are using our platform, there's over 14,000 advisors. This is a chart showing the profitability of the bank, as I noted earlier. And in terms of the net inflow, you can see that for the first half of this year, we had a net inflow of 2.2 billion. Second quarter itself was 1.29 billion. So that's quite a strong momentum. The net inflow number does bounce around a bit, but I think the current trend that we have is one where the momentum have actually been picking up.

[15:33] Gross beauty subscription that's shown on this chart, that's also trending well. Regarding the return on equity, I think earlier on we saw a chart for the ROE for the last five years. Here we actually produced a chart for ROE, but for the last 10 years. So what I'd like to highlight really is that if you look at our business, it's actually a business where we generally are able to, the nature of the business is such that we're able to achieve a good ROE, especially when the different business unit are contributing profitably. In some years when certain part of the business are lost making them and drag down the overall ROE. By we look at 2020-2021, we saw quite good ROE. By 2022, there was quite a substantial drop in ROE. That was a combination of a few reasons. Firstly, we acquired the bank, the UK bank, in March 2022. So that led to some initial startup losses that we saw. Secondly, the overall market, instead of took quite a significant downturn that affect the overall business momentum for wealth management business. And thirdly, there was a share placement that we did in 2021 where we raised $100 million so that brought the level of equity up and that was reducing the ROE. In the last few years, the ROE have been steadily trending up as the business continues to progress. We have the progress on the FOS Global Bank. We also have the progress on the e-pension part of the business with the overall profitability for Hong Kong start to pick up quite substantially. And of course, the all well-mentioned business has been progressing as well. So in the first half of this year, we saw quite healthy ROE as a whole.

[17:53] So for this portal, I wanted to talk a bit about ROE

[18:00] just to also highlight some of the overall thinking that we have as a company in terms of how we manage our overall capital. So we have a business model that is inherently

[18:17] quite healthy in this ROE because it's essentially fee income, it's cash generative. The part that is required more capital will actually be the bank. So most banks typically you actually find that there's a limit to ROE that they actually have because that interest income drives the part of the overall profitability. But in the case of IFAS group, you actually find that we start with a situation where we have 100% fee income. So that fee income from the bulk of the overall profitability that we have and the fee income part of the business essentially allow the ROE to continue to trend upwards quite well as the scale continue to improve. So if we combine the fee income of the business with the bank of the income, then you actually find that we have a situation where the overall ROE as a group continues to be quite healthy. At the same time, it allows us to essentially be able to make strong use of the capability of a bank. And I think what we are seeing is a situation where the efforts that we have been putting in to deliver this business model start to show up better in the overall number. The profitability of IFAS group in the last two years have actually been improving. Before this latest quarter, you find that the dividend pay out that we are giving have tend to be a bit more moderate. We have actually in the last one or two years increased our dividend but in summer are more moderate because we were going through a stage where we feel that we shouldn't rush while we're trying to build up the overall banking business and

[20:33] e-pension business. We're still at these initial stages of ramping up. But we have come to a stage where we feel quite comfortable about the overall cash flow. I think we're looking at,

[20:49] based on the dividend that we are declaring in second quarter, we're looking at a payout ratio of 26%.

[21:02] We have a ratio of 26%, but actually the cash payout is actually a bit less because our,

[21:11] if you look at our overall profit that we report, that actually include a significant level the subsequent level of non-cash expenses, basically the PSP, which will knock off 10% from the P&L. So while the headline, P-L ratio is 26%, in terms of the cash component that we're paying off, it's actually less than that. So with that, we have come to a stage where we feel comfortable that we can start to increase the dividend more significantly. And as a result, the director declared a 33% increase in dividend for second queue. And for the year as a whole, we're expecting that the dividend per share will be at least hit cents per share. So that's where we are currently. Next slide. Here we have included the chart for the IFAS bond. Just for information, in case some investors are not aware. In June last year, we issued a five-year bond maturing year 2029. The coupon for that is 4.3%. And we're happy to say that since then, the bond has actually been performing well. the value of the bond have actually gone up about just over 5%. So on an overall basis, I think the bond has delivered a return of just over 10% the past one year. The good performance of course led to a declining yield. So currently we're looking at a first bond traded at a yield of about 2.9, something 2.9. The key point I pointed to highlight is really the fact that I think the good performance of BON reflect improving confidence of IFAS group. IFAS group of course have continued to show overall improvement in terms of profitability and overall balance its strength and I think we're seeing that recognition being reflected in the bond price. Of course part of the declining yield arose because the overall interest rate environment in Singapore has been coming down quite significantly. But I would say that yield so reflects a slight tightening of the spread for IFAS-born. And therefore it's actually reflecting the improving confidence that investors are having in IFAS group. And I think having the situation where IFAS-born

[24:49] is actually being treated at the U that is not too high, actually brings up a situation where it allows us to look at the overall capital management for the group in a potentially more efficient way. So in the past, we have tended to essentially rely only on equity capital. But where we are now, we have a situation where the bond market is an avenue that opens up for us. So while we don't really need to raise too much money, but it actually put us in a situation where we're able to make use of the fact that the capital market, the bond market is confident about our group strength and we can look at bonds as an alternative source of capital that makes our overall cost of capital more efficient. So that's a situation that we're in currently. So this one I've essentially talked about it. So next. The third part that I'd like to highlight really is with regard to artificial intelligence. Of course, the world has been going on, getting very excited about AI. We have not previously mentioned much about AI, artificial intelligence, because we are steadily putting in some efforts to lay the groundwork. But yeah, the reality is that we have been quietly within IFAW's group, form a team since the end of 2023

[26:53] and we have been gradually laying the foundation that allow us to make use of AI to help our overall business. We, AI is actually an area where we see many different possibilities in terms of how we can help the overall group. But I would say that it's also something where we need to be clear about how we prioritize because it does take quite a bit of resources as well to be able to ensure that we can let AI help us

[27:34] in a real and in a effective way. So it's important that we are clear about what we're trying to achieve and we prioritize areas that we want AI to help us in.

[27:52] The next two slides, some of the potential areas that we have been working on. I would just like to maybe touch on one key point, which is where a lot of effort has been focused on for us in the last one half years. So the effort, we have actually internally prioritized and the reason for that is because given the business model that we have for IFAS Global Bank, firstly is digital bank. Secondly, we have what we call a truly global business model, meaning we are looking at being able to operate from one or a couple of countries, but we target customers from around the world. So in order to try to do that, it essentially means that we need to be able to transcend the language barrier. I think when it comes to banking, most banks around the world still operate on a more localized basis. But if you want a more truly global manner, you want to serve customers from around the world who are using different languages but you want them bank with us in one or a few locations then the use of AI will actually be very important in the long run. So example would be customer service. Customer service everyone, customers will contact us whether it's by live chat or by call, then the ability to help the customers in multiple languages will actually be important. The ability to have a customer not just on office hours, but to be able to help them 24 by 7. The ability to eventually be able to service 1 million customers, 5 million of all, I think that requires AI to be able to help us make a difference. So there's a reason why we have actually been prioritizing the AI efforts on IFA's Global Bank, including on the customer service front in terms of helping us to serve a customer at different hours to be able to transcend language barrier. Of Of course, it's still an ongoing effort, but clearly one of our vision is that eventually

[30:36] customers who call in can call in from around the world. We'll be able to talk to our Robo customer service officer in their different languages. Technology is not fully there, but it's actually progressing. And we are certainly making use of the progression

[31:00] in the overall technology that's been introduced by the various tech giants.

[31:08] We use that to apply to our overall business. Of course, as I mentioned, there are many other different areas, including the ability to use EIS in front detection, et cetera, or litigate the risk from fraud, et cetera. But yeah, we're basically just highlighting some of the key

[31:33] areas of priority that we're using currently. Okay, so with that, yeah, I'll end the former public presentation over here and we're happy to take questions Thank you, Chongqing, and for the Q&A, those of you who are in the call, you can either type your question in the Q&A box or you can raise hands and we will unmute you so that you can hear you ask the question. And of course, we also have some attendees here who have joined us. So we do have a couple of questions already. So maybe we'll just start with those So I hear any questions.

[32:18] We've got some GIS. A few questions. First of all, I think across the region, Singapore, Malaysia is kind of seeing the steady growth in your EEA. But I think just most of it is in cash products. So I just wanted to understand this is probably a more low margin kind of business. And where do we see the growth coming from moving forward, we are comparing to our targets of reaching 100 billion by 2028. That's my first question. Second question, or maybe I just take it question by question.

[32:55] I think firstly, yeah, it's true that the cash part has actually increased quite a bit, partly reflecting our first global bank, but also I think in Singapore, the cash that we have in your trust account and how to see. That's actually been written quite strongly. But just to clarify, actually cash is not really a lower margin distance. From our perspective, actually cash is a product whether it's a bit of the bank or even in Singapore, is a product that actually give higher than average overall margin. But in terms of, the growth of different asset classes. Actually, if you look at the equity market for the last couple of years, one of the interesting thing is that

[33:47] the strong performance of the equity market have been largely driven by US market. So, well, that has itself boosted the overall business that we actually have. But historically, we find that one of the other factors that influence the overall vibrancy of our business quite a bit is the performance of the overall Asian market. So in the last two years, while US market have been hitting records all the time, you actually find that Asian market, including China, hasn't performed quite as well.

[34:30] And typically when this segment start to perform better, then you actually find that the overall well-matched from businesses have more vibrant, bigger growth in overall equity funds, et cetera. And overall, there will be faster growth rate as well. That they have tended to be the case. So yeah, so over the long run, We still expect that the various segments of the asset classes will be able to grow, whether it is equity fund, fixing help fund, or cash measurement product and cash. So that's the expectation that we have. We have a second question on Hong Kong. The ending with the guidance unchanged from the first quarter kind of suggests that the second half revenue recognition will be much stronger. I'm sorry, understanding that there were some leading issues for the onboarding process for the MPF project previously. I'm just wondering how that has played out over the past two to three months and if the margins from the Hong Kong business will be significantly impacted in the second half. Also just a little add-on is also the fact that you mentioned about how also was supposed to, we were previously expecting also to start in the second half in terms of contribution. So just wondering where we are on the front of the rollout and whether this is one of the reasons why we expect your contribution from Hong Kong to kind of in terms of margins to probably slow down in the second half, probably to ramp up this set of the business.

[36:07] Yeah, firstly, with regard to the dating issues that you were mentioning, I would say that while operationally ongoing basis, there will always be some little operational hiccups here and there. But I think the dictating issue that the market was observing previously, that has actually been reduced, right? So the overall EFPF business have been progressing in terms of the onboarding and the rampart. So So that is actually continuing and as a result of that, you find that the overall onboarding of the MPR business

[37:01] would pretty much be in line with what has been

[37:08] recently expected or planned. So that's, yeah, where things are. Regarding the also business, yeah, so on this part, yeah, the original plan, start of the Hong Kong also business was around, yeah, originally, you know, we were actually looking at second quarter, that's what was originally planned since a year ago. So along the way, the, yeah, our self and our business partner, the various parties decided that given that the priority for this year should really be on the EMPS business. So the decision was actually made to delay the live date of this wholesale part of business. So as a result, the current expectation is that Hong Kong also businesses will not be contributing in the second half of this year. You will start to contribute early next year. But that has all been taken into account when we do their guidance for the overall Hong Kong business. doesn't negatively reduce the guidance that will issue the bank.

[38:40] I think that's all I have for now. Okay, thank you, Wigong. And perhaps I'll just take some of the questions online, which are quite similar to some of the questions that have just been raised. So firstly, I think from Jayden on the e-pension business, how many trustees have been onboarded so far, and where's the progress on the remainder? Are costs for this project expected to be higher in the second half or would they be steady on the first half levels? The first trustee was onboarded starting June last year and since then pretty much every month there's a new trustee that's actually being onboarded. So that has been something that's ongoing. And yeah, for the next few months as well, we actually expect that every month, there's pretty much one additional trustee being onboarded. And that's part of the, that's largely in line with what has been planned

[39:50] in the last one year. Yeah, as far as cause of concern, has actually been increasing for us for the eMPF power business because we've been adding more heat count have been hiring. The heat count will continue to grow in the next three, six months

[40:17] as we continue to get ready for higher volume. By the same time, we expect that in the second half of this year, the revenue will be increasing further as well as onboarding increases. So that's why on the overall basis, we expect that profitability in second half will be better than in the south.

[40:43] Thank you, Chongqiu. So, Alan also has a few questions pertaining to the on-call e-pension business. So, as for e-pension contributions, in second quarter, we saw an uptick versus first quarter, where we previously expected the uptick to happen in second half. Could you share more on why this has been brought forward and also how will contribution from e-pension trend in the next two quarters? Hi, Terence here. So I'll just share a bit about the revenue we've been recognizing on the EMPF project. So I think as we guided previously, it's sort of a link to certain milestones. And of course, the onboarding rate is one of the key milestones that we are looking at to recognize revenue. So as we progressively onboard more and more trustees, then this is where you see that bump up in revenue recognition. So I think the, yeah, in the first quarter, I think generally there was less onboarding activity. I think that sort of picked up in the second quarter. And I think revenue aligned with what we've been seeing so far is that in the second half of this year, this is where we expect to see the largest trustees being onboarded under the the MPF. So that's where we expect to see that bump up in revenue. So hopefully that answers the question. Thanks Terrence and from Xiaoguang also pertaining on the Hong Kong business. Can we have a bit more colours on the net margin? I suppose it's related to the specifically to the Hong Kong business itself. Are we expecting any steep increase in operating costs for the E-Pension project and where can we expect the peak of the operating expense especially for the E-Pension business? So operating expense is expected to be higher in third queue over second queue, fourth queue over the queue. That's the kind of ramp up that we actually expect to see currently. But suppose as noted, even with that, we expect that the profitability in the queue and fourth queue

[43:11] will likely still be able to grow. Yeah, because revenue increases will be sufficient. And yeah, so if I look into next year, I think we expect that the year as a whole, we'll still be able to see increases in revenue and profitability. The year 2006 should see further growth compared to 2005, which is why we have guided for a target of double digit growth in 2026 compared to 2025. also has a question on could you share more colors on the build up of trade receivables and if that is worrying? Yeah, yeah I just shared some color on the trade receivables. I think as we have explained before that I think the business is no longer just a clean vanilla so-called wealth management business that we've been running all these years. So I think the bank is definitely one of the new businesses that come in, so it's consolidated as part of the group. And the bank does have receivables related to, for instance, the remittance business, even some of the investments some of the crew interest and all that does flow into that line. Even on the wealth management business, we have also launched margin financing. So it's a new service then of course margin receivables as they grow would also add to the trade receivables line. And of course, I think on the Hong Kong business, that's where we have also seen some trade receivables coming in. Of course, then that will be sort of set by the cash collection that we've been doing. So I think overall from the previous quarter to the end of the first half, I think we're actually seeing that number come down a bit. First, we actually released some of the working capital and remittance business. So there was a bit of extra working capital that led to a slight build up in trade receivables for the first quarter. So that's all the drink and then we released some of that. So I think we actually saw some decline in the second quarter. So just to give some colour on quite a lot of different factors that go into that number.

[45:33] I'll carry on with a couple more questions still related to Hong Kong, especially on the expansion. So from Ernest, is there a deadline whereby you have to onboard all trustees by October 2025? That's the first one. And the second question, in the worst case scenario, what happens if you are unable to onboard all trustees by the deadline? The other that MKFV have said has been that all trustees will be onboarded by the end of the year. So that continues to be the other that they actually have. have. I suppose in the worst case scenario, we're not all able to be on board by December, then I think it you know just mean maybe a delay of all months and that will essentially yeah be in the account situation. I would say that it doesn't fundamentally change the overall financial picture too much. It will be pretty much still in line with our work. Okay, we'll probably move to a couple of other questions. I think Benjamin has raised hand. Is that right? Hi, Jun, hi, GP. Okay, great. Thank you, I have just a few questions. My first one is on the core of information business. I think we saw a very strong net inflows this quarter. I just wanted to check whether this strong inflows was mainly in May and June or was it RDB also see strong inflows in April? So like IE, was there good inflows to buy the dip from the retail? I think the all three months were essentially quite strong. And are you seeing like EUA outflows from the US markets to Asian markets?

[48:05] I think in terms of where the inflows go to in terms of which asset class or which equity market. Typically, you see some fluctuations, some volatility from month to month, quarter to quarter. A bit difficult to pin down exactly what truly is the trend. Okay, no worries. My second question is on the Hong Kong PBT. I think you mentioned that We will see a step up in second half this year. I just wanted to understand how we should think about it. Would it be a step up in Q3 and Q4 would be flattish, or would it be a gradual ramp up? So Q3 slightly higher and then Q4 even higher. I think likely Q3 is higher and then Q4 would be higher than Q3.

[49:04] All right, got it, thank you. And my last two questions very quickly. On the easy remit, I think we saw lower volumes Thank you to how much did FX volatility contribute to this lower volumes?

[49:21] I would say it's more of a function of the seasonal factor because easier for us the market is pretty much a Middle East market when a majority of the workers are Muslims. So during the Eid festival or Ayurveda Posa period, then you find that a lot of them were sending money back home, home country in March for instance. So that actually boosted the overall performance during that quarter. So that was the bigger factor during the quarter. Got it. And my last one is on dividends. Over the medium term, is it on a target payout ratio or is it more on an absolute dividend per share? I'll say it is more of an other payout ratio. And the target remains 25 to 30, like last time? at this point in time, we are looking at that 25 to 30. I think, yeah, it's a function of how much we've built up

[50:48] the overall balance sheet for the, how big is the overall shareholder equity as balance sheet get bigger and bigger, then we're probably a few more comfortable about being able to increase the PR ratio. At this point in time, we are still looking at 25 to 30%. Thanks, thanks, Hyunjun. This is my question.

[51:12] Thanks, Benjamin. So since we're on wealth management as well, we have another question from Jaden, which is on the wealth platform. Are there any private funds or anything else that differentiates the platform versus other peers, either in the B2B or B2C space? in terms of differentiation, as a business, there are certainly many different areas of differentiation that we actually have. I think there's always been one fundamental core thinking that we actually have. In order to ensure that as a business, we're able to continue to be at the forefront of the industry, continue to be competitive, continue to be a market leader, that is important that we have sufficient level of differentiation. The differentiation varies between B2B versus B2C. If I take B2B, the differentiation is not just in terms of product. Product is actually one of it. I would say at this point in time, the private funds isn't something that is to be effective for us. A bigger part of the differentiation for B2B really is the overall ability to deliver on and the overall services for the various business partner that we work with. Because business is really one way. We are making available a whole range of product across different asset classes. By the same time, we're also delivering various support in terms of IT support, operational support,

[53:14] support in terms of being able to help them the business efficiently being able to collect the advisory fee efficiently, being able to advise a client across different asset classes ranging from mutual funds to ETF to bonds to stocks and cash and being able to help the client, perhaps even diversify where they hold their assets in terms of which jurisdiction, not just Singapore, but Hong Kong as well and UK as well, et cetera. So it's all this different area of our differentiation and making sure that we're the best service provider. So that's one broad example of how we look at the business on the B2B business. B2C has its own unique set of consideration, but certainly, yeah, the ability to give a holistic place for clients to invest across their different set classes and making it easy for them to handle all the different things and see it, creating it in the same location. That's why I'm so open.

[54:42] I'm Ben from Business Times. So I've been looking at your business, seeing that the buses are narrowing quite drastically in this half, I guess any sort of reason for that and is there any sort of forecast now to solve when the time is returnable?

[54:58] So the reason why the losses have been narrowing is because

[55:05] firstly, we have been clear about ensuring that we manage the cost properly. We have gradually been reducing the cost somewhat. Second part is there has been some gradual improvement in the revenue from the China part of business as well. Because for us, we look at China Power Business, it's about being able to help the declines and the business partner both onshore in China as well as offshore Chinese client and Chinese money. And in recent times, I think the offshore part actually have actually been progressing and more rapid rate. So it's a combination of those factors that allow the losses to narrow. We are aware that there's still a level of performance that is not good enough. We certainly want to work towards profitability. I think the current expectation is that we will be able to narrow the losses further in the quarters ahead and eventually get into profitability. We have Jovi who has raised hand. Jovi, Jovi can you hear us? Hi, can you hear me? Hello. Yes, we can hear you now. just following up on Ben's question from earlier. So are you able to give an example forecast for when China will be able to be given or are you just keeping it up for now?

[57:13] Yeah well in the past we have given some actual targeted time frame and so on. We in the past unfortunately didn't manage to meet it. So as of now I'm not immediately placing a certain specific period, what I would say is that we are actually making progress in terms of being able to reduce the losses and we see the profitability coming up in the horizon, but we haven't been down that exact period.

[57:57] Okay, no worries, I understand. Thank you. Just one other small question here. So some analysts have looked at small and mid cap stocks here. They've named IFAS as a potential beneficiary of the funds to be launched by the three chosen SM managers by MES. So what are your thoughts on this? Are you able to comment at all? Thanks. Well, we would like to believe that we should be one of the more interesting companies outside of the STI component on the MSE stocks We are making good progress in terms of growth. We continue to have a pretty strong growth plan. We're clear about our strategy. We see a lot of business opportunity

[58:52] on an ongoing basis and we're working towards it. So in an environment where the interest in the overall Singapore market improve that we certainly believe that we should be benefiting. I think we have been seeing increasing levels of interest from investors, from farm managers, we've been getting increasing number of requests for meetings and so on. So those are positive signals from our perspective. We'll take a couple questions. Thank you, Jovi, for your questions. We'll take a couple of questions from Reggie. So, Reggie has a few very supportive and kind comments to the management team with regard to the results, but let's move to first his question. Can you give an update on the progress of the China desk?

[59:50] The China desk is a thing good to progress since we started it. I think the overall business that that we are generating from the overseas Chinese money

[01:00:10] have actually been growing. We had some staff who joined us from China office relocating to Singapore and that certainly have helped as well, they have been able to help us grow the business more rapidly. Having said that, we are also mindful that what we are seeing today is still not too big a number. I think the potential would actually be far more than what we're seeing today, and we will continue to put in more effort and additional initiative to ensure that the growth for us can accelerate further. Yeah, and Reggie's other question was with regard to the announcement we've made on a new subsidiary in Guangdong, what is the background relating to the incorporation? Yeah, I believe you're referring to the announcement that we have created a subsidiary in Fosan in Guangdong, China. The reason why we have created that subsidiary is essentially because we are, it's for the purpose of our Hong Kong EMPL business. So we are currently the employees that we have for the EMPL business are essentially in Hong Kong and in KL. But recently we decided that in addition to Hong Kong and KL, we should actually hire some employees in China, especially in Fosan, Guangdong. The reason why that location is chosen is also because there's a location where there are one or two big trustees from Hong Kong.

[01:02:18] One or two of them have quite a number of their backroom employee while they've been located there. And as we move towards onboarding the business

[01:02:33] further than there's opportunity for us to hire some of the experienced staff that they actually have in that location. So that's, yeah, so basically the FOSAM business is for the purpose of helping us to recruit additional staff

[01:02:57] for the Hong Kong EMPS business so that we don't have to hire as many in the place of Malaysia, for instance, and diversify our overall hiring. And I think that will be something that will be good for our business. We'll take a couple of questions on the UK business. So from Royston. So Royston asked a couple of questions. The first one also, which we have kind of answered. So his question on the bank, as for IFAS Global Bank, are there new products to be released for the digital transaction banking and digital personal banking divisions? and how will these contribute to higher net interest income or fee income?

[01:03:47] Firstly, on the digital person banking, in terms of products and services, back at the end of March, this year we launched the debit card services. So that has actually helped to

[01:04:10] help the digital personal banking division in the acquisition of clients. It helps us to increase the number of clients, particularly UK residents. And with that as well, that has actually helped us to grow the deposit base at a faster pace. So that's something that is relatively new and we expect that to continue to contribute to further growth. As we progress further, there will still be other other services that we will be adding on so that we can become a more complete service for that different client. One additional thing that we are looking at is this service that we call BEX service in UK where it allows customers to be able to pay for their monthly utility bill, etc. more easily or faster. Things like that are work in progress for us. We hope to be able to introduce some of that by early next year. And yeah, so it's an ongoing effort for us to broaden the range of services that we have so that we become more appealing to a broader range of services. On the DTV, additional transaction banking. So previously you got digital transaction banking. Now we sort of call it digital, call it business banking.

[01:06:07] So transaction banking is part of the business banking.

[01:06:15] Transaction banking has in the last two years been catering mainly to the customers the customers who are electronic money institutions, EMI's, those are in the payments business.

[01:06:33] But as we move on, we want to broaden the customer base, including to the various SMEs,

[01:06:42] SME customers who want to use us for payments services as well as for deposits, et cetera, including SMEs who are from Asia, for instance, who actually find that it's quite often difficult to get a bank, to help them to open a bank account. So these are all the different additional efforts that we're putting in to broaden our overall service and to be able to grow the overall business banking at the longer period. The other question on the bank is from Benjamin Ong. So can you share IHAS Global Bank's profit potential and how will we achieve it? I suppose if we talk about profit potential, then it's my view is the sky's the limit, right?

[01:07:45] I'm not saying in the short term we can achieve that, but if you think in terms of the true potential, it's massive. I've always been saying that the most and the least competitive part of the financial sector is actually banking. For the simple reason that the number of new players going into the industry is actually limited. Right. How many retail banks are there in Singapore? Right. You have a few three million local banks. Now you have two new digital banks. This is for the retail banking. And yeah, you have three new digital banks. And I think these are the million ones that you had. And if you look at the overall financial sector,

[01:08:59] I've also funded making the remark that I believe that DBS bank itself makes more profit than all the local non-bank financial institutions

[01:09:13] in Singapore put together. Right, if you can take all the local Singapore company in stock broking and insurance sector, wealth management, fund managers, et cetera. You add up all their profit. I don't think they can match DBS on this one.

[01:09:36] And if you talk about most banks around the world, you're talking about them making huge amount of money.

[01:09:45] So if you have a right business model, you know, it take into a segment of the banking sector where the service has not been as well developed where customers are underserved, then certainly there is a huge level of potential. So we call our bank, IFAS Global Bank, because we want to operate from one or a few markets, but we are back into potential customers from around the world. And yeah, how big is that market? I think, well, DBS bank makes 1 billion a month today, right?

[01:10:34] I'm not saying we are aiming for 1 billion a month, but I suppose in my lifetime, if we can make 1 billion a year from the bank, I think that is at least something that we should be shooting for. That's how I look at the potential.

[01:10:55] Okay, thank you, Chok-Chun. And we have a few more questions online, but maybe just to turn back to whoever is here, any questions? If not, I'll go back to the questions online. So in terms of expanding your AI capabilities, Can we expect a significant impact on the K-PACs?

[01:11:24] The K-PACs are already,

[01:11:33] the K-PACs in AI are already part of the numbers that you're seeing for the group as a whole. So this particular slide shows that for 2025, we're looking at 27 million in K-PACs. So part of the expenses in K-PACs, part of it would actually be in the actual expenses that are being expense of, you know, on a monthly basis. So yeah, so we won't be expecting a major ramp up in key packs or expenses because of the AI. Certainly not, no, nothing like what we're seeing all the the other AI players around the world, early pumping billions of dollars every year. So in our case, we are of course not operating at the level of the tech giant. We are essentially writing on the capabilities that they have been building to build applications applications and capabilities for ourself to service our customer. So the nature of how we use AI is quite different. We want to make sure that we can serve our customers effectively and more efficiently on an ongoing basis. So the level of spending is completely different from the other big AI news that you hear about. A couple of questions on the wealth platform side. So on your margin financing business, which asset classes and markets do you cover? Yeah, so as opposed to, I think what's common is stockbroking. We actually offer margin financing on all WSH products. And I think one of the key differences is that our margin financing product is actually more targeted with the high net worth segment, so it's the AI clients as well. And another question related to the website, very specific to BONSE-BOMOFT. Could you give us an update on the BONSE-BOMOFT business? How significant can this lead for the group? We see the bonds-bound business as something that helped to lay the foundation for a much bigger overall fixed income business. So our vision has been that we want to be in a position to make trading in bonds almost as seamless as trading in stocks. So stocks, you have stock exchanges around the world, but bonds, you don't actually have bond exchanges, certainly not for individual investors. So, BONSOON1's vision is to create something as close to that as possible. And as we're able to do that, then we expect that the overall level of bond business that we're doing as a group in a different market will improve. So that's how we actually see it. And so in the long run, we certainly expect that the fixed income business will grow by many fold, right, because once you improve the manner by which bond investors can buy and sell the bonds, make it a lot more transparent, you see the different level of prices can, you know, buy and sell instantly instead of having to ask for a quote and things like that. Then the volume will be at a much higher level than what's generally been seen by us and by the industry today. So the potential in our view will actually be very substantial. Can I ask a question for you? So for this bond market, once the global vision that you laid down to take off, does that require your own balance sheet to wear some of this bonds of specific trading? or do you think you can make use of your partner's balance sheet to provide that liquidity of course for people to buy and sell? No wonder. Yeah, so perhaps just to give some background, I think prior to this recognized market operator license, so I think since actually 2016, we have been running a program called Bond Express. So of course, this is where we warehouse a small number of bonds and then we then sell that to customers in a lot of sizes. So they can diversify quite a bit when you're investing in bonds. So I think the difference now is that with the RMO, it actually allows for clients to cross trades with each other. So they can actually match buys and sells, because that's a function of the RMO. And of course, for us to also continue making some prices there, then we continue to do that. But if you look at what we have put on our balance sheet under other investments, the help for trading,

[01:17:09] the size of the help for trading securities, they've actually not increased quite a bit over the years. So we are still doing that function, but we are not putting a whole lot of resources into this because it is, I think as more participants are in the marketplace, then generally there's a lot better liquid. You know, yeah. Thank you, Terrence. And one last question in the Q&A box that we have from Alan. So it's back to the Hong Kong e-pension business. So can I check if the headcount hired during the onboarding stages could see a significant reduction once onboarding is completed and the trustees are getting more comfortable with the digital platform? I would say that, yeah, I think it is true that onboarding period is one of the most difficult period because during this period,

[01:18:09] you suddenly have to do a whole new set of processes,

[01:18:16] whole new set of clients come onboard and then we have to rush to ensure that everything is done in a timely manner and so on. Once onboarding has been completed, then the processors should become more manageable

[01:18:36] steadily. So the implication for that really is that over time, then there is room for us to work on ensuring that we have better efficiency and effectiveness. So that means there is actually room for us to be able to reduce our income for us for this EFPF public business. Having said that, of course, at this point in time, we're not in a rush to think about when we can reduce the hate count because the key priority is to make sure that

[01:19:15] everything can be as smooth as possible. We will make sure that we can deliver the services as well as possible. Yeah, but once our onboarding has happened, we are meeting our SLAs nicely and so on, then we will be gradually looking at improving the overall efficiency.

[01:19:38] And one last question from Benjamin. So it's related to Hong Kong as well. Would there be a penalty in case of delays in onboarding the trustees by 2025?

[01:19:54] Yeah, for us, for us it's not, We don't on our own directly have any potential penalty unless the delay is caused by us. So the third answer to that is we are not expecting that. Of course, having said that, as part of overall business, we have a different service level equipment, different SLAs to meet. So if you're not able to meet the SLAs, then there will be some penalties involved. As part of overall planning and projections and so on, we typically will build in some provisions early for some potential penalties. We do have questions from Q&A box. We'll wrap up, perhaps, with Heidi. And Heidi here from your meeting. I just wanted to check on the ORS, whether there's any new additional trustee, or is it just the one major one? And then for them, last time in the fourth quarter, you mentioned that Macau potentially has something different in the project than the update. Yeah, in terms of additional trustee for HOSU, as of now, they still that one major one. On Macau,

[01:21:20] we have just very recently

[01:21:26] started to see some Macau business. I would say just early July, some of the business started coming in, but I would say that you should expect an actual contribution from the Makao Club and business will be coming in gradually and slowly as it does the size of business in the short term you won't be a significant percentage but that has actually started to contribute starting this July. Okay we don't have any more questions make any box and from our media partners and analysts here so Yeah, check, you should wrap up. Yeah, we have that. It brings us to the end of our results briefing. Thank you everybody for joining us. Thank you everyone. Bye bye.