Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Australian Finance Group Limited investor briefing for AFG 2023 half year results announcement. All participants are in a listen only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, you'll need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I'd now like to pass the conference over to Mr. David Bailey, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. I'm joined with our CFO, Luca Pietropiccolo, and you'll hear from Luca very shortly. Thanks for the opportunity to talk. Look, I'm gonna just do a spin through the investor presentation and highlight some key points which we think are worth mentioning, and then obviously open up for questions. If I just start on page three, I just want to recap on the AFG business model. We do operate in deep markets, deep financial markets. You know, a business which started in residential is transitioning through into commercial mortgages and obviously more recently, a greater focus on asset and equipment finance. We obviously offers personal loan broking services as well.
The aggregation services is a business which predominantly was the business that we'd, we listed and floated back in 2015, moving into with some level of loan distribution and some a small aspect of loan manufacturing. Over time, we've seen that business model grow and evolve to cover off most areas of asset finance, whether it be through aggregation, loan distribution, or loan manufacturing. We have a broad customer base. One in 10 mortgages now are written through our AFG brokers, it's a significant footprint on the Australian mortgage market. That's done with the support of our 3,700+ brokers across the marketplace. They use our lender panel, which comprises about 70 lenders across the country.
Our blueprint, I'm having trouble with that word. Our blueprint is fairly clear. You know, the idea or the business model is really around building distribution and then accessing that distribution with opportunities to distribute additional margin products, be it white label, and then obviously into loan manufacturing. Over time, you've seen a step through this blueprint and drive an area where, you know, at the time of listing in 2015, roughly around 7% of our profit was coming from. 93% of our profit was coming from the residential mortgage and commercial aggregation space. Such now that the business has diversified further, where we move into higher margin product and 66% of the earnings driven from the higher margin product across the business.
Underpinning all of that is obviously broker market share. We talk about the use and importance of brokers in the Australian mortgage market and something we've talked about for a long time. Brokers are the preeminent channel for distribution across the country now for residential home loans, and they represent 72% market share across the marketplace. What we'd also see is, you know, AFG share of all mortgages is that 1 in 10 sitting in the marketplace. Highlights the FY first half for 2023, first half, is really underpinned by that mortgage, sorry, earnings diversification.
We have this AFG Securities loan book of AUD 4.9 billion, which is up 22% on the prior comparative period, and we've maintained a NIM of 145 basis points. Purely in this market, really driven from a strict and intensive desire to maintain to write, basically to write business, which makes sense for us. The balance sheet which helps drive the overall business model is strong. You can see there over 60% of our cash earnings are coming from annuity style income, be it our trial book or our loan books overall. We are a capital light business with AUD 200 million worth of liquid assets in investment, we're investing for growth. We're investing in technology, we'll continue to invest in technology.
Our broader proposition is that we think that brokers will become busier in the marketplace. You know, our technology and our focus is on about how do we take time out of the broker's day to enable them to be drive higher levels of productivities. The other point probably since listing and primarily since about 2017, we've taken more of a strategic view around investments, and I'm very pleased to say today that they are exceeding our expectations as we currently speak. In terms of the financials, we do have, and it's something we've talked about a fair bit, is this competitive advantage we have in terms of our unique position in the marketplace.
We sit between lenders and our brokers and have access to a significant level of data, which enables us to drive a better level of insights across the mortgage market, which it really does help us in terms of our distribution and manufacture of new product. Our underlying NPAT A of AUD 25.6 million is a testament to the strategy which is driving through. I talked about earlier about our contribution from investments that's actually achieved AUD 5.9 million into our earnings result. We're very pleased with Thinktank, our investment in Thinktank, Fintelligence, and obviously BrokerEngine as well in terms of how it's moving and shaping our future direction. Cash realization, Luca will talk to that in a little while.
Operating a cash flow of AUD 26.9 million. You can see the conversion there. There's a little bit of noise around there, but it's a very, very high cash realization rate. We have unrestricted cash of AUD 65 million available for protection of the business, to also help fund and identify new future opportunities. The capital light business model, which I talked about previously, so excluding the cash, we have about AUD 180 million worth of investments in liquid assets. All that comes up to interim dividend of AUD 0.066 per share, which is a dividend payout ratio of 70%, which is consistent with what we've done in the past for the half year.
Based on more recent share prices, that's a dividend yield of 8% fully franked. I just might pass it through now to the actual operations update and a little touch on really where the market is at the moment. Some of these slides that have been well documented and discussed by some of our peers and economic commentators. You know, if you look at the RBA cash rate, we've gone through an extraordinary period of increased interest rates from the RBA, which has obviously driven through to home lending rates and impacting the overall level of activity within the mortgage market. I do stress that we are coming off a period of extraordinary level of activity. You know, that's...
My comments to most investors over the journey have been this period is one out of the box. What we're seeing now is a real normalization of flow and also a normal what the Reserve Bank are trying to do is obviously normalize the marketplace. What that's driving is interesting aspects. You know we have a credit growth is obviously slowing on the back of that. Importantly, what we're also seeing is more customers, importantly, more customers are actually selecting brokers to help offset what is their biggest monthly household expense.
Against that backdrop, we've had the TFF, which, you know, when I was speaking around about this time last year and also in August, we were anticipating in reality that the level of competition in the marketplace would become a bit more balanced with the TFF requiring repayment. What we have seen is that this drive and sudden rise in interest rate has translated to funding an additional funding advantage for the ADIs and in particular the major banks, where the speed at which they are passing on interest rate deposit rates to customers are slow, and therefore that created an arbitrage environment for funding into the home loan market.
That ultimately we see as slowing, we suspect there's a little bit to work through on that pace at this point in time. You can see there what that has driven is that the ADI market share has softened on the back of the higher level of competitiveness of the major ADIs in particular. You can see what's happened there in terms of market share. Pleasingly, from an AFG perspective, whilst volumes have slowed and softened, we still remain number six on our lending panel, which on the back of the level of competition is quite a significant achievement.
The aggregation business, if I move to page 10, really just talks about, you know, the slide on the right is that, you know, our experience in rate rise cycles, and we can go back to 2001 through to 2007, is that our business is relatively resilient to rate rise cycles because it's kind of self-fulfilling is that when customers are experiencing an opportunity or a desire to move home loans to find a better rate or a better proposition, they will go to broker.
It's probably been accelerated even further through the pandemic, is that customers that have an increased number of customers have gone to broker, and those customers have been well looked after during that process, and those customers become customers for life. You know, our brokers are reporting a steady level of inquiry and interest from customers. We expect that part of our business, particularly as we work through the level of refinance of fixed rates, we expect that our good brokers will continue to be busy. It's clearly the channel preferred by customers now.
The other important thing is that we're also starting to see signs of it becoming increasingly important for customers, SME type customers, and that will be one of our focuses as we move forward. In terms of our loan manufacturing, you know, we do have 100% variable interest rates, and we don't have that fixed rate area where we're gonna have a sudden write-off. We also have an opportunity when, you know, traditionally around 90% of all customers select a variable rate, as markets steady and, you know, competition returns to a more usual level, we would expect our products to start resonating with our customers and more importantly, our brokers as well over time.
In terms of the book itself, it's something that's always performed very, very well, you know, over the journey. You know, I think, you know, we've been writing business since 2007. Our total losses on that program is around about AUD 260,000. It's driven from, you know, our competitive advantage, our ability to analyze data, understand the loan products which suit our credit appetite, but also, take best practice from a number of those similarly levels across the industry. In terms of the arrears, you can see that they are higher than they were at prior reporting periods, but still significantly below our peers and below the spin across the market.
The total loss provision, which Luca Pietropiccolo will probably touch on shortly, talks about a two-point provision of around AUD 2.9 million. Right at the moment, you know, even at December and also moving into January and February, you know, whilst we are seeing, like most lenders, an increased level of activity in the arrears department, we aren't seeing anything which is flag a significant change or change of view in terms of that overall structure. Moving to slide 11, you know, our diversification strategy is proven and it does provide a growth platform. Broker numbers are growing. We've had our best recruitment continue to have a very strong recruitment period. Our net trail book asset has continued to grow over the period.
You can see that how much that has grown since the time of listing, but also post-COVID. The other important part is that commercial trail book. I touched earlier on commercial on commercial being an increasing area of focus for brokers, but and for SME customers seeking finance. You can see what's happening there through through COVID, but also obviously since listing. We are seeing an increased level of appetite from brokers to not only consider how to write commercial business, but obviously customers who fit within the criteria of a true SME, trying to find solutions for their business. On slide 12, we talk about that growth platform, you know, AFG Securities have provided a strong level of growth.
You know, the level of activity in this marketplace, again, on the backdrop of being quite studious around what our required return on capital has been, has really driven a quite a period in terms of securities. It does provide a strong base and strong base for earnings in the future. It is obviously a key platform for our growth moving forward. The gross profit, we have a record gross profit for the half. That combined with a securities book and the other parts of the business are driving a strong return on equity. You can see, you know, our return on equity of above 25% represents a 12% CAGR since the time of listing.
Our business segments are well placed to continue to deliver shareholder returns. There's a slide there which talks about the net, aggregate net commission. You know, again, you know, that purple patch that I talked about during the pandemic has come off. More importantly, you can see the overall growth is evident and the trend in that growth is consistent. Our home loans margin, you can see that in terms of the contribution of the earnings. Net interest and white label trail commission continues to evolve and grow for us. Our aggregation business, I've touched on that slide earlier. We talked about the 72% market share increasing input or footprint in commercial mortgages and asset finance.
You can see the impact that the Fintelligence business has had on our, on volumes written through those joint platforms. We talk about the future and AUD 30 billion roughly of remaining fixed rate mortgages to mature, and the demand for brokers continues to increase and seeing that obviously with the market share. We do talk about that similar opportunity for brokers to start transitioning into the commercial market. We estimate, you know, if broker is residential market is around 72%, we estimate, and the numbers aren't quite clear depending on your definition of commercial and SME, around about 20%-30% are currently fulfilled by a broker.
However, you know, the trend that we're starting to see is that increasingly, embracing of brokers have an increased appetite to write commercial business to help become more of a holistic service provider to their SME clients, but also the acceptance of lenders to embrace broker through the commercial sector. Home loans, I talked about us being ranked six for home loans. You know, we talk. I've also highlighted, and you've probably seen through our mortgage index the emphasis around the competitive advantage. The market is, I've never seen a market like this at the moment in terms of level of competition for prime business. We have, we, to that point, we are seeing a softening in or have experienced a softening in our securities business.
Again, against that backdrop is there's no point writing business with at sub-submarginal returns for us at the moment. We are investing in a new lending platform. You know, we expect that to be finalized by first quarter of FY 2024. Through that, it just provides a greater level, higher level of efficiency and process completion to enable a better customer experience, be it from a broker or a lend or a broker's customer, but also enable us in, when the time comes, and the time will come, where we can start stepping up volumes at a better leverage, Funding, and look, and I will talk about that again.
You know, We have had a, the half year is probably emphasized by the $1 billion term transaction which we completed during October. The largest transaction we've done. Appetite for investors in the RMBS market remains strong. Pricing remains somewhat elevated, we expect over time that that will also normalize once investors get comfortable that we aren't facing a cliff in terms of arrears and losses across home loan books. We are seeing regular issuers in the market come back. A number of our peers have already undertaken a term transaction at prices which aren't jaw-dropping in terms of cost of funds. The important part is, you know, that $1 billion provides us with capacity.
The AUD 1 billion term deal provides us with capacity moving forward as we anticipate the market starting to open up and opportunities are created for us. On that note, I might pass across to Luca and he can run you through some financial information.
Thanks, David, and good morning, everyone. I'm on slide 18. As David mentioned, it's been a very solid start to the year despite a range of headwinds, and it's pleasing to be able to report an underlying NPAT that's broadly in line with last year. That profit reflects three key themes. Firstly, the continued growth of our securities book. That volume growth added AUD 8 million of gross profit, which was partially offset by the NIM compression, which contracted by AUD 6 million. Secondly, the strength of our strategic investments, which contributed AUD 6 million for the half, adding AUD 3 million year-over-year. Thirdly, offsetting this growth was our high OpEx, which had a number of moving parts, and I'll cover that off in more detail shortly.
The reported NPAT that you can see on that slide was AUD 21.9 million, which was down from the AUD 30 million last half. There is a detailed reconciliation between our reported and underlying number contained on slide 33 of the pack. As most would probably expect, while last year benefited from a growing net trail book asset, this half it has had a negative impact as our run-off rate increased given the level of market activity we are seeing. David's spoken about this earlier. In this environment, the cash generating nature of AFG is a real differentiator. This half we delivered an operating cash result of AUD 27 million. This is a record operating cash generation for a half. I will, however, highlight that as we outlined last year, the first half FY 2022 operating cash flow was negatively affected by the timing of payments.
While the table indicates significant growth on last year, it's more moderated if we adjust for that. The annuity style cash flows we have and the strength of our balance sheet gives us the confidence to declare a fully franked interim dividend of AUD 0.066 per share. This represents a payout ratio of 70% and, as David mentioned, an annualized yield of just over 8%. The dividend record date is March 7th. The dividend payment date is March 23. Slide 19. I won't talk to this slide in detail. It outlines the movement in our underlying profit before tax. I trust that the slide is fairly self-explanatory and outlines the themes I spoke to on the previous slide. I will move to slide 20.
David's mentioned the strategic importance of these strategic investments and they are critical to the delivery of our strategy, and they have performed very well in the half. The first of those investments was Thinktank, an investment made in 2018, of which AFG owns 32%. Thinktank is on the lending platform of leading aggregators and operates in both the commercial and residential space. It closed the half with a loan book of just under $5 billion, the same size as AFG Securities. Thinktank had a very successful half, and its earnings grew just over 30% year-on-year. AFG's share of those earnings was $3.5 million. In relation to Fintelligence and BrokerEngine, these acquisitions were made at the end of last year and therefore weren't included in our first half results last year.
Fintelligence, which is a leading asset finance aggregator, had a strong half, with the performance of that business exceeding the acquisition case. AFG's share of its pre-tax earnings for the half were AUD 2.8 million. BrokerEngine also had a solid start, doubling the number of subscribers in just 12 months and benefiting from plugging into AFG's broker network. You'll see that the earnings contribution was negative for the half. This reflects the impact of the way we now recognize revenue from an accounting perspective for that business. Combined, these strategic investments contributed AUD 5.9 million in profit, while we have a carrying value of just over AUD 90 million for those investments. On slide 21, as I mentioned at the onset, one of the key drivers of our half result was the deliberate investment in our business, which in turn has led to higher operating costs.
Overall, our operating costs increased by AUD 14 million year-on-year. There are several moving parts within that. Adjusting for those, our like-for-like costs increased by AUD 4 million year-on-year. To break the AUD 14 million increase down, there are four key areas. As I mentioned, Fintelligence and BrokerEngine are included for the first time, and that represents a AUD 4 million increase. Secondly, as COVID restrictions have lifted, we've reintroduced the face-to-face broker education and engagement program. While we're required to report these costs as operating costs, there is an offset in other income, so net mutual to our P&L. Thirdly, our investment in improving our technology platforms as well as higher costs associated with uplifting our data capabilities and cybersecurity, has resulted in a combined IT-related spend increase of AUD 4 million. Half of that is employee and contractor costs.
A portion is amortization, as we've increased our level of investment, and a portion is associated with general uplift in IT spend, as most businesses are experiencing. Finally is the investment and growth of our securitization business, which resulted in higher OpEx. There are a couple of elements to that increase. Firstly, as we've grown the size of the book, turn out costs have increased. That represents about an AUD 1 million increase year-on-year. Those costs will step down over the next three years. Elsewhere, we've had a tale of two halves within AFG Securities within the past six months. As our settlement volumes remained elevated in the first quarter, that quickly transitioned to a higher level of refinance and new business. Associated with the unprecedented levels of cashbacks being offered by major lenders.
We've met that activity with higher FTE numbers to provide the level of service that's expected from our brokers. As we deliver our new lending platform later this year, we expect to realize a number of efficiencies in that part of the business. If I recap, of that AUD 14 million increase, AUD 4 million relates to higher costs from our strategic investments, which we should expect to continue. AUD 3 million relates to our broker engagement program, which is offset with sponsorship income. AUD 3 million relates to higher turnout costs and non-cash amortization. That leaves us with AUD 4 million, that's about a 9% increase half- on- half. That really relates to higher employee costs, both super and wage inflation, and higher level FTEs to provide the level of service that our brokers expect. I'll move to slide 22.
If I turn now from the P&L to our balance sheet. The balance sheet and cash flow-generating nature of AFG is a real strength. It's particularly pleasing to have a stable annuity-style cash flow business as we work through the current market cycle. It's a real point of differentiation. It gives us an advantage to respond to market opportunities as they arise. If I focus on the chart in the middle, which shows the cash that we hold in the business. In total, that's AUD 272 million in unrestricted and restricted cash. As David mentioned, that's complemented by a further AUD 182 million in high-performing investments and other liquid assets. That includes our trail asset of AUD 103 million, which are annuity-style cash flows. In total, AUD 454 million in cash, high-performing investments, and liquid assets.
Those liquid assets are complemented by AUD 47 million in debt while generating about the same each year in operating cash flows. It would be a remiss of me not to mention our ACL provision when I discuss the balance sheet. On our ACL provision, the assumptions that we've used are holding. We take a very balanced view to avoid volatility in our P&L. We tested in January and the ACL provision remains sound. As David mentioned, we've got a wealth of data that supports our credit decisions, and that's proven with only AUD 260,000 of write-offs over our time. We will proactively manage it, and as you would expect, we've resourced up in that section of the business. We'll continue our vigilance in that area.
Our return on equity remains a healthy 25% and reflects the disciplined approach that we have within AFG to writing business. With that, I'll leave it there and hand back to Dave to provide an update on our outlook.
Thanks, Luca. If I move to slide 24, I think the flavor coming through here in January is really replicated by the fact that on the basis of the last two years, where brokers were effectively tied to the desk due to COVID restrictions and due to customer demand, what we saw in January was some very softer numbers coming through. You know, the general feedback is, like most people across Australia, brokers took holidays and customers also took holidays. They took the opportunity to take some holidays. The January numbers are probably more consistent in terms of levels of activity of what we achieved and what we experienced in the years leading into the pandemic. From that perspective, we're starting to see some things normalize.
The securities numbers are probably well discussed previously and highlighted via our mortgage index are soft. That's primarily around the competition, again, in the marketplace. We do, as we turn forward, we do expect some of these headwinds to begin to slow. We're starting to see, you know, obviously the pay down of the TFF. We talked about the bank deposit margin. It's interesting to see the ACCC becoming involved in that process. You know, their report's due out in December. My gut feel is as they start rolling up their sleeves and getting into that program I would expect there'd be a number of lenders turning around or banks turning around and saying, "Well, there's nothing to see here.
Look at our rates. There's gonna be a higher level of margin compression for the majors as we move through this interest rate cycle. It would appear, whilst there might be a couple to come, we're probably nearing the end of that process. That means cost of funds, you know, we start to return to a normal rhythm around margins and so forth moving forward. That structural disadvantage that we've seen, probably prominent over the last nine months, we expect it to fall away. Against that, you know, we turn to page 26. We see some other things which sort of highlight the importance of brokers. Broker market share, we expect to continue to be strong.
Most lenders I speak to these days are saying, "We accept that brokers are where customers want to access our products." We start seeing that in broker share and also reflected in the fact that bank closures continue, bank branch closures continue across the marketplace. Our expectation is that brokers will be busy, and that margin will be normalized over time. We suspect, also suspect that might still take the six months leading in to start being realistic. We've already started to see signs of those margins of prices to customers coming back. You know, one major bank has reduced the level of discounts, which is the first time I've seen in a number of, probably sort of 12 months.
The number of the dollar or the size of the discount available to consumers off the standard variable rate seems to have softened in various LVR bands. We do expect and continue to see some level of tightening across that. The other underpinning piece is net overseas migration, which has always been a good supporter of our business. Also within, people moving to Australia need somewhere to live. We are seeing, starting to see, you know, based on the last six months, the level of investment, whilst it's flat quarter-to-quarter, we are starting to see a higher level of inquiry around investor.
You know, these customers are, these migrants are looking somewhere to live, rental properties are at a premium, and we expect over time that that will now drive a higher level of activity in that sub-sector of the marketplace. Moving to page 27, you know, our strategy to build scale and expand into higher margin lending services is working and, you know, we are experiencing areas of diversification, which helps supplement other parts of the business where the market may be softer. You know, the residential and commercial trial book, we can't underestimate the value of that to the business in terms of the cash flow and it's at, you know, actuarially assessed cash flow that washes through the business of AUD 200 billion. You know, our securities business is AUD 5 billion.
On top of that, we have another AFG Home Loans loan book of about AUD 9 billion, which also drives additional margin into the business. The strong cash flow generation ability of the business remains strong. You know, our credit quality, we feel comfortable around our credit quality in terms of our loss provisions. Over the journey, we've returned around AUD 200 million to shareholders, demonstrating and reflecting the strong cash flow capability of the business. We've grown our broker broker market share, or sorry, the number of brokers on the business. That we are seeing signs of that continuing with some good broking groups in the pipeline looking to join AFG.
We're very, very pleased with our strategic investments and how they are proving up in terms of the broader proposition around the AFG stable. Finally, we want to talk about the re-emphasization of the earnings diversification. You know, the next phase for us is, you know, we wanna double down on our data and the data that we have available to us to develop and create further insights and identify customers which fit our criteria. You know, we continue to support our brokers to take share, the fixed to variable element washing through is an important platform for us.
You know, the cash flow generation capability underpins our ability to grow and provide an opportunity for us to look at other opportunities in the marketplace as some businesses may become more challenged. You know, the disciplined approach to margin management and credit quality, I won't move away or apologize for that. That's something we are fastidious about because it underpins our position in the marketplace, but also our ability to attract investors in the longer term from an RMBS perspective. All in all, the technology investment will continue, we'll continue to endeavor to de-deliver efficiency to our brokers, particularly as the broker share starts to grow. The asset finance and commercial markets is the next phase of our ability and desire to grow into other sectors and other platforms.
With that in mind, I might just pause. We've gone for. Oh, my goodness, we've gone for 50 minutes. I'm gonna open up for questions. Go ahead. Sorry.
If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you'd like to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Ming Fan from Barrenjoey. Please go ahead.
Hi, David and Luca. Good morning. Thanks for providing the really helpful disclosure today. It's been very clear. Two questions if I may. On page 15, you've put in a pretty interesting chart on the funding cost rates versus the lending rates for majors. You've spoken a lot about it on the call about the structural disadvantage that you and your non-bank peers have in a higher interest rate environment. Understanding that you are expecting the competition to ease, does it make sense to continue writing prime loans when the disadvantage is so large? Similar to that point, how do you make sure you're not facing adverse selection, particularly when your higher margin products are relatively new to market?
Look, yeah, I'm probably clear, or hopefully I'm relatively clear that we are writing some prime business, but it's prime business that is not stuff which fits the normal box that a, an ADI might look like. It's still prime, but it requires some workaround. Through that, Ming, we're able to charge an additional, some additional points because the loan itself, in terms of how it's structured and what the customer is trying to achieve, means that we can charge a premium on prime rates. That's the type of business we're probably accepting at the moment into that space. You know, we are a business which is about delivering solutions through our brokers so the broker can deliver solutions to the customers. Not everyone...
Not every customer is a teacher, or a police person who has a wife or a partner with two kids, living in the suburbs of Sydney or across the country. That's probably the first response on that. In terms of credit quality and self-selection, you know, I guess one of the things I'd like to call out is that, you know, we are in a rather envious position in terms of, you know, we do see a lot coming through our system. We do see a lot coming through from our lenders and through our compliance division, which provides us an insight. We are able to monitor and review our brokers' activities at a different level compared to any other lender in the marketplace. That, you know, is a nice contrast to a self-selection dilemma.
Great. Thank you. Maybe just moving to slide 31 on the upfront payout ratio that's continued to increase up 80 basis points year-on-year, which is basically equivalent to a 12% revenue hit over the past 12 months. It's obviously a function of competitive pressures. Are you expecting these trends to ease or at least not go up as quickly? Maybe you can touch on how effective the other income line and potentially this Fintelligence acquisition can offset this.
Yeah, I'm happy to have a go at that. Ming, I think that in terms of the upfront payout ratio, there's probably two elements to that. One, Dave's talked about the competitive nature, and obviously that's something that we need to face into. Whilst we're investing in our tech, we've definitely seen us having to forego some ratio there. In terms of the other income, the quality of that continues to strengthen. Our fee income is strong. BrokerEngine fee income is also strong, notwithstanding the accounting adjustment that you've seen in the half to definitely provide some support to other income. That's continued to strengthen over the past few years.
I think some, you know, at risk of stepping into a CFO area where I haven't been a CFO for a while. You know, there is a little bit of a noise in our commissions income around the fact that we're in terms of mix. You know, there's been a period where AFG Home Loans, you know, obviously with AFG Home Loans, we receive a higher level of commission because it's a white label. When the mix of that reduces, and so we write more through the broader lender panel, obviously the take home component of that commission changes.
Great. That was very helpful. Thanks, guys.
Okay.
Thank you. Once again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Your next question comes from Tim Lawson from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks, gentlemen. Thanks for. Hey, how you going? Thanks for taking my questions. Just a couple. Obviously we can see the book growth at the period end and the trends in sort of run off and settlements over the half bit. Can you talk sort of what you're seeing, sort of later in the half and where sort of run off rates may have stabilized to, if you're seeing that, and just on the sort of amount going into the bucket in terms of settlements as well?
I think it's fair to say the full half is. You can probably split between two halves, if that makes sense. The level of activity and level of competition probably started really peaking in September, October, which therefore means that settlements through that period were softer than the first half of the first half of the half, if that makes sense. What we're seeing right now is particularly on the back of, you know, that softer Christmas period. We're seeing a softer start to the second half of this financial year, primarily on the back of a lack of pipeline. You know, the types of loans that we're seeing coming through is the ones I've just mentioned to Ming.
The volume is softer as things start to normalize, and the expectation is over the next six months, we'll start seeing those things normalize and start seeing those volumes start returning with some new product initiatives we're also considering. It's reasonable to say the most, one of the busiest departments in AFG Securities at the moment is in the retention team and discharges. The run-off is elevated half-on-half. We'd expect that to be maintained over the period from for the next three to six months.
Is it fair to say that the second quarter is higher run-off than the first quarter?
Yes. I think, you know, if I look at some of our peers who have already reported out their results, you know, what we're seeing is not dissimilar.
Yep. Yep. Maybe just on margins, maybe just how much sort of repricing you've done over the half and where you're sort of seeing. I know you don't like to call it exit rates, but the trends into the next half would be helpful.
Yeah, look, in terms of margins, there's always this monthly margin noise around, which we've talked about previously, Tim and others, just around, you know, we've had like nine months worth of interest rate rises, you know, which generally only happens in a normal world, maybe once every or three times or four times a year. That just does create noise in terms of our NIM on a month-to-month basis, which is why I don't really want to talk. We like talking about NIM from that perspective and exit rate. What we're seeing is that the exit...
I'm sorry, the NIM that we're achieving at the moment, if you take out the noise of those monthly increases, promulgated by the RBA, is something similar to what we're seeing, with, as what we've reported. In terms of rate rises out of cycle to customers, we did that one, I think it was in June. We hadn't done another one. We've just followed the RBA since that time.
Yep. Yeah. Okay. Just with the, obviously slight change in business mix with the Fintelligence acquisition, can you just talk a little bit about the sort of outlook and disaggregate the trends you're seeing, in the aggregation margin?
Yeah, yeah, sure. The Fintelligence business is obviously asset finance. The asset finance business works on the basis that, you know, the broker who introduces the loans gets a commission up front from the lender, and then there's basically volume-based incentives from the lenders based on what you're writing and how you share in that. That, depending on the lender chosen, can move from 70 basis points to around 250 basis points. An element of that is sometimes shared with the broker. It does, and it's, and we're not talking 90 odd percent, we're talking on average, roughly around 50%-60%, somewhere in that mark is what's shared in terms of the volume bonus with the broker.
The economics of a over time, as we grow that space will help modify the payout ratio at a high level. There's also fee services which are charged to the broker to use the platform.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
All right.
That's all my questions. Yep. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Tom Strong, from Citi. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys, and thanks for taking my questions. Just had a question on the securities business. I mean, just given in light of your comments made earlier that, you know, the run-off is likely to stay elevated or difficult in the second half across probably both the securities and the white label business. To what extent is that run-off gonna keep pressuring your payout ratio and the commissions given this is a higher margin flow?
I'm not sure it impacts the commit payout ratio, Tom, in terms of... You know, the broker gets 65 basis points up front, or AFG receives 65 basis points up front irrespective of the deal, and where it's come from. The payout ratio is, you know, I think it's, the average is around about, the weighted average is around about, historically around about 94%, 95%. The amount we pay out to a broker is, and this makes sense because, you know, under best interests duty, is... The amount the broker receives is not different irrespective of the lender. I'm not quite sure I might understand the question.
Is there a difference in terms of the average commission received in terms of the different products?
Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. Clearly, yeah. The white label commission, and this probably going to an earlier question, has an extra amount up front, and obviously an extra trail, none of that gets shared with the broker. You know, if we're writing less of the AFG Home Loans business, clearly what that means and translates into is that we are paying the mix. We're actually paying more of the revenue that we're receiving.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. No, that's understood. Thank you. Just in terms of the NIM, as you said in the result pack back at 1.45%, returning to more normalized levels. I think you sort of inferred that the monthly NIM is sort of not too far from that. Is there any benefit from, I guess, the normalizing BBSW cash that we sort of saw through the half, just noting that one of your peers had quite substantially higher exit NIM calling out that sort of tailwind.
Yeah. Look, I mean, that's been factored in and, you know, we're using some of that, to be honest, Tom, in terms of the retention. you know, we're probably different to some of our peers in that, you know, we made the strategic decision to from a credit appetite focus predominantly on prime, and that's probably where we're seeing obviously most of the run-off rate. you know, as we look at each of those customers, you know, that normalization on BBS or cash to bills differential, you know, we're utilizing for, want of a better term, to retain customer timeline. Does that make sense?
Yeah. Yeah, no, that's clear. Thanks very much.
Okay. doesn't seem to be any more questions, so, I might wrap this up. I really appreciate everyone making the time. I know it's a busy day for all analysts in the marketplace today, and, look forward to catching up with you on the, on the road, over the next week or so. Thanks very much, everyone.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.