Thank you for standing by and welcome to the EML Payments Limited FY 2022 full year results presentation. All participants are in listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you'll need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the call over to Ryan Chellingworth, Group Treasurer. Please go ahead.
Hello and welcome to the EML Payments results briefing for the full year ended 30 June 2022. I am Ryan Chellingworth, the Group Treasurer at EML. Thank you for joining this briefing. Today's presentation will be from Emma Shand, our Managing Director and Group Chief Executive Officer, who will provide an overview of the results and a business update. Rob Shore, our Group Chief Financial Officer, will provide details of the result and Emma will then provide a brief summary. Presentations will be followed by the opportunity for analysts and investors to ask questions. For those joining us via the teleconference, if you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your keypad.
For those joining via the webcast, you can ask questions by using the Submit Questions link on the bottom right of the webcast page. I will now hand over to Emma. Thank you. Emma.
Thanks, Ryan. Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us. I'd like to start by saying how incredibly excited and energized I am to lead EML Payments as Managing Director and CEO. Thank you to everyone who has reached out over the past six weeks to offer their congratulations and observations about the company. I truly appreciate your support. EML is a genuine leader in global payments and in taking on the role, I believe deeply in the opportunity ahead to continue to build on the extraordinary growth EML has achieved over the past decade. To do that successfully, I see great potential in how we can strengthen and indeed streamline, EML's operating model.
In addition to presenting the FY 2022 results this morning, I'm keen to outline some of my initial observations since being appointed as CEO and my plan to conduct a detailed strategic review of the business through September and October. The objective of this review is to ensure that our strategy for growth, both in revenue and earnings over the next three to five years, is underpinned by a solid operating model, a well-aligned organizational structure and importantly, enhanced compliance and regulatory processes. The board and I are very clear that best-in-class payments integrity, capability and performance is key to sustainable growth, not just in Europe but in all markets in which we operate.
However, let me start with some overview comments on the FY 2022 results, which CFO Rob Shore will also speak to in more detail later in this presentation. Let's now turn to slide four. Financial year 2022 was a mixed year for EML Payments. EML delivered organic growth across all three reporting segments, achieving a 308% increase in gross debit volume or GDV, which you might also like to think of as total payments transaction volume processed by EML. GDV increased to AUD 80.2 billion, a combination of organic growth and a 9-month contribution from our Sentenial Europe acquisition. Revenue was up 21% to AUD 234.1 million. While the underlying performance of the business was solid, significantly increased costs impacted underlying EBITDA, down 4% to AUD 51.2 million and NPATA performance down 1% to AUD 32.1 million.
Specifically, underlying business overheads increased 41% due to increased investment in EML's European operations, payments integrity and regulatory compliance. This will be an important focus of the strategic review we have announced today. The high-level performance across our three business segments are shown on the right-hand side of the slide. Rob will take you through these in more detail in the finance section. In summary, GDV was up versus the prior year in all segments with our general purpose reloadable, GPR segment, up 27%, gift and incentive up 21% and digital payments up six hundred and fifty-four rather, 654%. Digital payments includes the Sentenial direct debit and open banking volumes, excluding Sentenial volumes were up 10% on the prior year.
On revenue, we saw good growth in general purpose reloadable, up 30% on the prior year, which included the introduction of account maintenance fees during the year and Rob will provide more color on this later in the presentation. Gift and incentive revenues were down 3% on the prior year, as we recognized AUD 11.1 million of elevated COVID-related breakage in FY21. Digital payments revenues were up from Sentenial's nine-month contribution of AUD 7.7 million. Gross profit margins in general purpose reloadable and digital payments were both higher than the prior year, whereas gift and incentive was slightly down on the prior year as higher volumes replaced the higher breakage rate.
The acquisition of Sentenial during the year brought with it a high-quality customer base, including tier-one banks and it also enabled EML to move into some of the most exciting innovations in payments, being open banking and account-to-account payments. Industry estimates to 2025 suggest a global five-year CAGR of 30% in real-time account-to-account payments. We're also continuing to see open banking gain traction across Europe with encouraging rates of adoption. The macro environment in respect of interest rates is also encouraging. While we experienced negative interest charges on our stored float in Europe across the year, we started to see during the fourth quarter, the impact of the higher interest rate environment in key markets, benefiting EML's significant stored value float. Before I turn to the future, a few other observations about our business today.
EML continues to remain well capitalized with a strong balance sheet. We are a cash-generative business with a strong cash position of AUD 73.7 million on the balance sheet and a syndicated debt facility with significant undrawn liquidity. Finally, while there is a need for EML to transform and evolve, we are and continue to be a strong and profitable business. We're very well placed to build upon our position and right to win in the global payment sector. As a result, I'm pleased to announce that EML will undertake an on-market share buyback of up to AUD 20 million over the next 12 months. With the excess cash we expect the business to generate and our near-term focus and priorities, which I'll speak to today, we believe this is a sensible use of capital at this time.
We will be selective in when we buy back shares and we will conduct the buyback on an opportunistic basis. Rob will address our financial performance in more detail later in the presentation, including the positive impact of our improving interest rate environment, which will be of benefit to EML across our markets. Let's now turn to slide number seven. As I said at the outset, I'm highly enthused about the opportunity ahead for EML. I also understand the deep importance and urgency of the task ahead. That is, to focus on operational improvements and enhance compliance and regulatory processes in order to deliver attractive, reliable growth for shareholders. These are the keys to successfully building EML's global revenues and value for shareholders from here.
Having been CEO for six weeks, I don't have all the answers today but I understand what we need to do to get there and also what the journey ahead looks like. Since my appointment as CEO in the first half of July, I have prioritized meetings with as many stakeholders as possible here in Australia, Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States. I've spent considerable time with my executive team, employees, both long service, serving and those new to EML, as well as customers, shareholders, investors, business partners and regulators to understand their perspectives about what EML is doing well and where it needs to improve. These conversations have been broad, open and honest and have included difficult but reasonable conversations about what we can and should do better.
Since my appointment, I, along with EML Chairman Peter Martin, have had the opportunity to meet with the Central Bank of Ireland, the CBI. It would be inappropriate to preempt, rather, any conclusions from the CBI. However, these discussions with the regulator were appreciated and constructive. As part of the remediation program, as previously disclosed, we continue to do additional work on the sequencing and approach taken to EML's risk assessment of its distributors, corporates and customers. I have already accelerated leadership, risk and compliance appointments towards finalizing our Irish subsidiary's PCSIL remediation program in 2023. We want to leverage this in-house IP to serve as an enduring contributor to product and regulatory strategy to support sustainable growth in Europe and beyond.
Notwithstanding this program of work, it's important to understand that as this global payment sector continues to evolve and mature, regulators around the world will also adjust the way they regulate it. This is why, for us, regulatory compliance will be a continuous journey. Those companies that can become best in class in their regulatory setting will experience a competitive advantage over those who aren't. I know from experience of working in some of the highest volume, ultra-low latency markets in the world, that any business where there is a financial transaction occurring, being at the forefront of risk, compliance and regulation is reassuring for our customers and gives them the confidence to transact seamlessly and safely on our platform, as well as build trust with their end customers.
W e want to be best in class when it comes to regulatory compliance and I truly believe the work we are doing now with the CBI will provide us with a strategic advantage with regulators in Europe and globally. The reality is there is commonality of e-money, payments and data privacy regulations across all European Union jurisdictions. While there has been some external speculation around moving from Ireland, our intent isn't to seek a lighter touch regulation in other areas of Europe. Instead, we are focusing on having a world-class regulatory framework and processes in place to drive our strategic ambitions globally. In sum, listening and conversations in recent weeks have been really, really valuable. They've also helped to shape my immediate focus.
That is to ensure we have a plan that both protects the base and that has been built but also enables EML's business teams to efficiently leverage that base for growth. To do this, I am conducting a wide-ranging review of all aspects of the business over the coming months. This will culminate in a strategy for growth and a strengthened operating model that will take EML confidently to 2025 and beyond. I look forward to presenting this strategy to shareholders and our broader stakeholder community at our annual general meeting in November. An update on the implementation of our strategy will then be provided at EML's first half results in February 2023. While the strategy is underway, some initiatives have made sense for me to execute without delay within my first 30 days.
These are outlined on slide six. One, we are combining our North American and European gifts and incentive businesses to drive operational efficiency, enhance product and customer focus and accelerate new business. Two, we are separating the areas of global risk and compliance into two distinct functions to foster greater accountability, strengthen our internal control environment and expand into regulatory affairs. This is designed to also support and inform our product regulatory and go-to-market strategies in the future. I have created and filled a new position in this regard with the appointment of global chief compliance and regulatory officer. Three, today we are also announcing the disposal of our FinLabs investment, Interchecks. On disposal, we will realize 4x our original investment.
At the same time, we are set up well for future success with Interchecks as our partner, where we are jointly serving seamless customers and developing a U.S. pipeline of business. As you can see, we're making progress in the short term while also planning for the long term. Just outside my first 30 days is the announcement to return capital to shareholders via a AUD 20 million on-market share buyback, which I spoke to earlier. Central to both the present and the future is EML's culture of technology and product innovation to serve and delight our global customers. We are comfortable to be held to the highest standards of transactional integrity and operational excellence. We are well-capitalized, have a strong balance sheet and are a strong cash generative business.
On that note, let's now turn to Rob to walk you through the financial performance in more detail.
Thanks, Emma and good morning, everyone. I'm gonna take you through the financial results for the year starting on slide 8 back. As Emma mentioned, we delivered a structural change in GDV with the acquisition of Sentenial and the volumes passing through their direct debit product, resulting in GDV increasing to AUD 80.2 billion in the year, which was within our guidance range and up on PCP, significantly up on PCP. However, we've also seen organic GDV growth of 19%, which complements the acquisitive growth. Revenue grew 21% over the prior comparative period to a new record of AUD 234.1 million and it was at the top end of our guidance range.
Investors should take note, revenue for the year included the introduction of new account maintenance fee income stream or AMF, which is applied to certain European programs, where a small monthly fee is applied if the account is inactive for more than 12 months. Under the AASB 15 accounting standard, we're required to accrue this fee because our performance obligation is complete. There's a non-recurring benefit in the FY 2022 year of AUD 17.9 million on the back book of inactive accounts alongside the recurring revenue stream, which will continue moving forward. We completed the acquisition of Sentenial on 30 September and they've been consolidated for nine months and contributed AUD 7.7 million dollars of revenue from the year.
In our G&I segment, as we noted in December, the segment largely recovered from COVID with volumes in FY 2022 replacing the non-recurring elevated breakage of AUD 11.1 million that we saw in the prior year due to COVID. Well, there's a few moving parts in what's been a challenging year, particularly in Europe. Our revenue growth of 21% is positive as we enter into FY 2023. Net interest revenue continued to be a headwind in FY 2022 at AUD 1.4 million for the year and AUD 4 million lower than the prior year. In the last couple of months of the year, that trend reversed as we saw central banks raise interest rates to control inflation and we'll talk more about that later in the presentation.
Gross profit margins were slightly below expectations at just over 68% relative to our guidance range of approximately 69%. That was due to a slight shift in customer mix, which offset the margin improvement projects that we've previously noted. Underlying overheads finished at AUD 108.4 million for the year at top end of our guidance range and up 41% on PCP. This was partly due to Sentenial but mostly related to investments in our European business, including people, IT, risk and other professional fees. Our quarter four overheads were AUD 31.4 million and investors should use that as a starting point for FY 2023. Noting that like many companies, EML is seeing inflationary cost pressures, particularly in a tight labor market for highly skilled resources.
We've taken up a non-cash fair value adjustment to our FinLab investment in Hydrogen and that was AUD 7.3 million in the year and that's accounted for as a charge to the P&L. Our FinLab investments are small. They're typically cutting-edge technology companies which complement our technology platforms and they won't always deliver as the financial returns are expected. Our FinLab investment in Interchecks, on the other hand, has gone very well and with a return of about four times on our original investment and with excellent joint commercial opportunities in the pipeline as well. We're disciplined as to how we approach our FinLab investments and we no longer need to provide equity support to achieve our joint objectives.
As a result, we've signed an agreement to sell our stake to one of the other large investors in Interchecks and we'll crystallize the valuation into cash of AUD 10.6 million. The cash return from Interchecks and existing cash reserve of AUD 73.7 million as at 30 June, alongside stronger FY 2023 cash flows, will be used to commence an on-market share buyback of up to AUD 20 million over the coming 12 months. We'll conduct purchases opportunistically and shareholders should not draw any conclusions from the timing of any purchases that we announce. Moving on to slide 10 and looking at our GPR segment. Clearly been a very challenging year for our European GPR business but the results are further evidence of the resilience of the EML business model.
Our GPR segment services a range of customers across a number of verticals, including government, disbursement, employee benefits and more. We saw gross debit volume for this segment rise to a new record at AUD 12.4 billion, which was up 27% on the prior year and convert to revenue of AUD 148.1 million, which includes the non-recurring element of AMF income streams, which we introduced in the year. If you exclude the one-off element of the AMF income stream, segment growth of 15% on a slightly weaker program mix but also including the loss of establishment income in the first half of the year and weaker interest revenues for the majority of the year. All growth in this segment was organic.
As predicted, gross profit margins for the segment improved to 61% and they'll continue to benefit from the transition to in-source processing throughout the FY 2023 . The FY 2022 saw gross profit margins impacted by lower setup fees due to CBI restrictions, which was AUD 4.5 million lower than in prior year. That negatively impacted segment margins by approximately 3% alongside lower interest, because that segment drives the majority of our interest revenues. Looking at slide 11 now, our gifts and incentives segment continued its COVID recovery in the year. The segment largely services shopping malls, shopping centers globally, alongside incentive programs used for marketing or employee welfare type programs.
GDV improved to AUD 1.3 billion, which is a new record for the segment, albeit still impacted to an extent by Omicron in the weeks leading up into Christmas 2021. Although revenue declined at a headline level, as we previously disclosed, the prior year benefited from AUD 11.1 million of non-recurring elevated breakage, which we attribute to the impact of COVID. In FY 2022, with volume growth recovered, it's largely replaced last year's non-recurring breakage of AUD 11.1 million. It's a good result for the FY 2022 , 16% organic growth on last year's recurring revenue of AUD 59.1 million. Gross profit margins were stable with last year at 80%. Again, everything in that segment is organic. Slide 12, looking at the digital payment segment.
The digital payment segment includes nine months of the Sentenial business, which was consolidated from the 30 September. The acquisition of Sentenial brought EML both an established low-growth direct debit business with a very large GDV, sold as a software-as-a-service model on a low revenue yield. More importantly, it brought a high growth but currently small business focused on open banking called Nuapay. The open banking business is currently focused on Europe and it grew at 40% over the prior year, which includes three months prior to EML's acquisition. The Nuapay business has been working hard to recruit and onboard additional resources since our acquisition but it's really achieved this growth with minimal additional overhead spend, which will come online in FY 2023.
Excluding Sentenial and Nuapay, the remainder of the segment grew volumes of approximately 10%, which helped offset a weak program mix in North America. Total segment revenues increased 66% to AUD 17.6 million and they make up 8% of the group's revenue. The Sentenial and Nuapay businesses are high gross profit margin businesses with few direct costs, which led to segment gross profit margins increasing to 85% for the year. We expect this to gradually fall as Nuapay business grows faster than the SaaS direct debit products but it will remain a high gross profit margin business. The segment's strategically important to the group's growth prospects, with the open banking product, Nuapay, expected to demonstrate a very strong growth profile over an elongated future period. Moving on to slide 13 now on group overheads.
On this slide, we're presenting the group overheads excluding the non-recurring costs associated with Central Bank of Ireland regulatory matter as well as the Shine class action. These costs are non-recurring and they total AUD 16.9 million and they're excluded from underlying overheads. The majority of this amount still sits in provisions as at 30 June 2022. Underlying overheads increased 41% on the prior year, primarily reflecting the continued investment in European operations. As we said, a lot of those resources are going into the regulatory remediation plan for our GPR business. The spend increased each quarter as resources joined the group and were applied to that project. We consolidated Sentenial from the start of quarter two. The quarter four exit run rate is a starting position for investors to note going into FY 2023.
It is important to note, like most companies, we are still seeing inflationary impact on our cost base and quite tight labor markets, particularly in Ireland. Sentenial contributed AUD 7.1 million for the nine months to 1 October and we expect the cost base of that business to increase in FY 2023 as additional resources join to drive growth in Europe. We committed to invest in EUR 5 million in additional resources when we acquired Sentenial and we expect more than half of the incremental spend to be incurred in FY 2023. IT costs increased as owned IT hardware transitioned to cloud data centers and the infrastructure around our in-source processor in Europe was upgraded with its transition to a full production environment.
These investments were made in advance of larger volumes transitioning to the platform, which occurred in the later part of the year. Likewise, we incurred additional costs for regulatory audits, internal audits, external audits and other professional advisory, which drove up professional fees and risk and compliance costs in the year. While the increase in overheads is significant, the new roles recruited are essentially strengthening our internal regulatory capacity and bringing this IT in-house so we can leverage across all of our global markets. The investment's prudent but we continue to take actions that demonstrate our commitment to meeting the CBI's expectations.
We believe we're at the forefront of evolving European regulatory requirements, which all industry participants will have to work through, so this remains a long-term positive for the business, particularly as we apply our learnings to stay ahead of the regulatory curve in other markets. The outcome of the above is shown in EBITDA and NPAT on Slide 14, where we present both underlying and statutory measures. Firstly, the underlying outflows relate to the non-recurring costs of class action, which was AUD 10.5 million and various additional costs in relation to the CBI remediation project. While these costs are material, underlying EBITDA better reflects the trading performance of the business in the year.
Underlying EBITDA of AUD 51.2 million was approximately AUD 800,000, 1.5% below the bottom end of our guidance range, which came in there as a result of slightly lower GP margins and overheads coming in towards the top end of the range. Underlying NPAT was at the top of the guidance range, AUD 32.1 million owing primarily to the write back of share-based payments relating to executive and employee short and long-term share options, of which none are now expected to vest, lower tax rates and foreign exchange gains going into NPAT. Moving on to Slide 15 to look at our balance sheet. We remain in a very strong balance sheet position with AUD 73.7 million of cash on hand and AUD 50 million of contract assets or brokerage.
At least 40% of this will convert to cash within 12 months. As gifted incentive volumes improved in FY 2022, this led to a working capital outflow into the contract assets as compared to the inflows that we saw in FY 2021 while our volumes were impacted by COVID. Accounting standards also required us to accrue for the completed performance obligation in regards to recent industry standard income streams and that's taken up into the contract assets. We split out cardholder assets of AUD 2 billion and a liability owed to our cardholders of the same amount. These are the amounts held on behalf of our customers in cardholder float, where we self-issue these products under our own licenses.
It's less than our total size of AUD 2.2 billion, which includes the North American business where it's issued by our partner bank. We'll talk more about that when we talk about interest in a moment. Trade receivables fell back from December highs as we collected delayed receipts of AUD 8.6 million from two customers. We don't have an issue with receivables because we typically sit on client funds which can be offset. The balance has risen, though, compared to the same time last year with the acquisition of Sentenial, their balance sheet coming onto our books, as well as slower collections in Europe towards 30 June. Intangibles increased with the acquisition of Sentenial and the valuation of their software and goodwill being brought onto our books.
We also in the period capitalized AUD 10.1 million of internally generated softwa re. Associated with the acquisition of Sentenial was also the drawdown of $48.2 million of interest-bearing borrowings from our banking syndicate in the period and that sits under non-current interest-bearing borrowings in our balance sheet. The contingent consideration liability now solely relates to Sentenial, as we've reduced the expected earn-out payable on PFS to nil in the year, as they fell behind the FY 2022 performance targets and they look unlikely to achieve the tough FY 2023 targets. Subsequent to year-end, we've received a decision from the independent expert on the disputed FY 2021 earn-out and he's confirmed our position that no earn-out will be payable for that year before.
As at 30 June, we have provisioned for AUD 17.8 million in relation to the expected future costs of the PFS regulatory matters and the legal fees associated with the class action. As mentioned earlier, we've entered into an agreement to sell our FinLabs investment in Interchecks with carrying value that crystallizes 4x gain and it generates a cash inflow in excess of AUD 10 million in the FY23 year. Slide 16, looking at cash flow for the year. Operating cash conversion percentage of EBITDA, which we regard as a key metric, was 50%. It was within but at the bottom end of our guidance range and it was suppressed in FY 2022 by the AMF project, which will provide a boost to FY 2023 cash flows as these fees are applied to cards and the accrual is released.
The operating cash conversion metric is important and we track it closely. This year is unusual but it is just a timing difference between the two years. Adjusting for the AMF project, the operating cash conversion percentage improves to 77%, which is far more in line with our expectations, given the post-COVID working capital reinvestment for the gift and incentive business as its volumes recovered. Our cash flows are expected to improve in FY 2023 as the AMF income stream converts to cash and the working capital investment for the GNI segment stabilizes. We retain significant undrawn committed debt facilities under our multi-currency syndicated debt facility, which has several years left to run.
The borrowings under this facility were in euros, which was a strategic choice given the domicile of the acquisition and our cash flow generation but it's also one of the lowest cost currencies to borrow. Turn to slide 17 on interest. As we look towards FY 2023, the interest we generate on our stored value flow, which exceeds AUD 2.2 billion, will be important. If you look back on our results from several years ago, interest was a much more significant core revenue stream. Falling central bank interest rates have been a headwind for some years now. Throughout the first three quarters of FY 2022, we saw a decline in net interest revenue as long-term bonds reached maturity and we incurred increasing negative interest on liquid euro deposits.
For FY 2022, we've received net interest income of $1.4 million compared to $5.3 million in prior years. That was a $4 million headwind in FY 2022. Quarter 4, we saw this trend reverse and it reversed quickly. We had interest income of $800,000 for the quarter. This has continued into July, the start of FY 2023. We started FY 2023 with a monthly interest income of half a million dollars in July, which is before further interest rate increases in the U.K., the Eurozone, U.S., New Zealand and Australia have all taken effect. We expect central banks to increase interest rates again throughout FY 2023 and the group will be a beneficiary of that. Now I'll hand back to Emma to go through the outlook for FY 2023.
Thanks, Rob. I mentioned at the start that I'm highly enthused about the opportunity ahead to continue to build on the extraordinary growth EML has achieved over the past decade. At the same time, we are looking to strengthen and streamline EML's operating model and execute with clear strategic intent to deliver customer and shareholder value in the medium to long term. As we look to FY 2023, I want to provide our investors with our current outlook. We expect to provide FY 2023 guidance at the AGM and slide 19 provides some of the high-level themes our investors and analysts should consider. On revenue, our FY 2022 revenue included the introduction of account maintenance fees, of which AUD 17.9 million represents the non-recurring element relating to the back book of inactive cards.
The starting point for revenue is therefore AUD 216.2 million. Across our three business units, we continue to see growth opportunities. Excluding the one-off AMF piece, revenue growth was 11%. In the general purpose reloadable segment, we have signed new contracts in the government welfare, employee benefits and on-demand pay areas that are scheduled to go live in FY 2023 and we see further opportunities in this space. It's important for investors to be aware, however, that parts of our European business may continue to be subject to growth restrictions until we have progressed through our remediation satisfactorily. In Gifts and Incentives, FY 2022's seasonal trading peak in December was impacted by Omicron. In FY 2023, we anticipate recovery in this space with limited COVID impacts.
In digital payments, we will benefit from a full 12 months contribution from Sentenial. With the additional investment that we're making into open banking that Rob spoke to, we expect faster growth there. We will continue to benefit from central banks in developing markets raising their interest rates. Based on an annualized run rate for August, we expect this to exceed AUD 10 million. Gross profit margin should be in line with FY 2022. In terms of overheads, as Rob indicated, investors should use our Q4 FY 2022 run rate of AUD 31.4 million as the basis for FY 2023 costs. Noting we expect further inflationary pressures may impact us. We do expect our operating cash flows to improve as the AMF income starts to convert to cash.
We expect cash conversion to start to return to more historical levels, particularly as the working capital investment in gifts and incentive business stabilizes as volumes recover post-COVID. Before I open to Q&A, I want to briefly recap on a few points today, specifically turning to slide 20 and what I see as the main areas of opportunity and focus for the business moving forward. Firstly, we need to protect and expand the base. We'll look to continue to expand our footprint with our largest customers. For example, PCSIL, Correos and the U.K. Home Office. We'll focus on launching our newly contracted programs, including Up Spain and the Bono Cultural Joven, among others. We're absolutely well-positioned to capitalize on structural trends towards on-demand pay and multi-disbursement optionality, giving our customers and end users choice of payment, timing and destination.
With open banking, we'll leverage our investments to drive growth in faster time to value. In gifts and incentives, the combination of our North American and European businesses will enable a renewed focus on our customers and innovative product design to drive up-sell and new business opportunities. We are also laser-focused on strengthening our foundations for growth. I am passionate that as we cultivate and foster a culture of best-in-class regulatory compliance and transactional integrity, a key deliverable will be successfully completing our Irish-led remediation program and leveraging that effort and IP to scale our business in Europe and beyond. As I mentioned at the start of the presentation, we are conducting a strategic review which will help to chart a new course for the company over the next three-five years.
This is to ensure that our strategy for growth in both revenue and earnings for shareholders is underpinned by a customer-centric, streamlined and strengthened operating model and a structure to effectively execute for growth. We have already taken some early steps to improve operating focus, elevate a culture of regulatory compliance to support sustainable growth and in optimizing balance sheet strength. I look forward to reporting the outcomes and initiatives from our strategic review to shareholders at the AGM in November. To wrap up, I want to thank EML's board of directors, the wider EML team, our customers, partners, investors, regulatory bodies and dynamic payments ecosystem participants for your support since my appointment. I look forward to charting the next course together and in creating long-term sustainable value for shareholders and stakeholders alike.
Thank you for dialing in today. We'd be delighted now to take any questions you may have. With that, I'll hand back to Ryan to introduce the first question.
Thanks, Emma. Operator, we are ready for our first question.
Thank you. If you'd 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 Garry Sherriff from the Royal Bank of Canada. Please go ahead.
Welcome, Emma and good morning again, Rob. Three questions, please. Firstly, one on staff engagement, the second on cash flows and the third on M&A. If I look at the employee engagement scores and also the turnover rates, they both seem to be at four-year lows or highs, if you're talking about turnover. I just wanted to try and get a sense from you what feedback you're getting from staff over the last six months, where those issues lie and whether you believe, you know, you're at a nadir or do you think that those metrics might continue to deteriorate near term?
Thanks very much, Gary, for the question. I actually see this as a real opportunity for EML. We're obviously in a bit of a talent war at the moment and I think we have great people. The people that I've met across so many jurisdictions in the last few weeks, it's been really comforting to me. They're highly competent. They're really charged for change, I would say. I think this actually gives us a great opportunity. They also want strategic focus and direction, to be quite frank. I think if we are really laser-focused on our customers, if we understand exactly where it is we wanna play and we can structure the business in an efficient way. That is some of those areas like internal and business process improvement. We just need to work on them.
We need to work through our remediations of issues that some might say cloud. For me, you know, I also see that as an opportunity for us just to be better, you know, high integrity in our payments and that's just gonna change the culture, quite frankly. I think, we're already starting to see great results of attracting some good talent. I've already started to enhance our people and capabilities and leadership within our Irish entity. I must say, early signs are that I'm not having any trouble at the moment recruiting people but we have to expect, you know, we're in a bit of a talent war. It's a higher inflationary environment but yeah, I'm really pleased with some of the conversations I've had and people reaching out to me wanting to join. So that's great stuff.
Thank you. The next question, probably more for you, Rob, just talking on operating cash flows and the cash balance. Both of them seem to miss the market's numbers. You've got a cash flow bridge there on page 16 of the presentation. Just trying to understand better that AUD 28 million in payment to segregated funds. Can you maybe just provide more detail on what happened here? You know, how it happened and I guess what's been put in place to ensure something like that doesn't happen again in the future.
Yeah, no problems, Garry. The 28 million dates back all the way back to July 2021. It related to something we uncovered in terms of the amounts that have been removed from the float prior to our ownership. We announced that in July 2021. The money went back in in August 2021. It's a fair way back. That money does flow back to us because those balances are inactive. Some of them are inactive for a long time. They've brought the monies already flowing back in. If the card reaches six years post inactivity, it expires and the cash can be pulled back out of the float. Some of that's come back in. Other parts of that will be collected via AMFs in some part or over the forthcoming periods.
The vast majority of that comes straight back to EML over the next three years from here.
Okay. Sorry, was that when you said that those amounts that had been uncovered had been removed before you owned it. Sorry, was that in relation to PFS? Did I hear that correctly?
Yeah, that was in relation to PFS. There's some details that you can go back to in the announcement we made in July 2021 that cover all that detail.
Okay, no trouble. The final question in relation to M&A takeover interest. You previously advised the market of interest from potential bidders. Are you still fielding or receiving inbound engagement from potential bidders? I guess the follow on from that is, are any of those bidders working in conjunction with Tom Cregan?
I'll take this one. I think what you should be aware of is we're absolutely focused on evolving this business and really setting up a platform for growth. Of course, there's always interest in the market and as and when anything comes across our table, we have an obligation on shareholders to consider all offers. If there is anything to report, we'll obviously, you know, make sure we're fulfilling our continuous disclosure obligations. I think you must know that we're really focused on what we need to do, how we need to execute well and we'll have more information for you around that in November at the AGM.
Great. Thank you both.
Thanks, Garry. Talk to you later on.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Tim Plumbe. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Just two questions from me if possible, please. Firstly, maybe for Rob or Faye, just around the sales pipeline. I think at the first half 2022, this was about AUD 13.6 billion, 439 deals. Can you maybe talk a little bit about how that pipeline has progressed over the last six months, how we should think about current conversion rates versus the historical of 40% and any discussions that you've had with customers given the pending CBI remediation, et cetera?
I mean, I think when you look at the pipeline, Tim and you're looking at that number, that it will move around. The pipeline, all deals are not equal. You're always gonna have bigger deals that are in the pipeline. They get one and the pipeline drops. It's not necessarily a bad thing if the pipeline moves around. I'd say there's no change from prior periods. We're not seeing any deterioration or improvement with either EML or with the underlying macroeconomic conditions. I'd say same as and we can update some more at the AGM and provide some more color then.
Got it. The second question, just around interest income. AUD 10 million tailwind, given what you've seen in August. How should we think about that number if you were successful in terms of moving cash into bonds, across the European part of the operation?
Yeah, good question, Tim. In July, we had about AUD 500,000 of interest but we also had some headwinds from negative interest rates on Euro because that was before the Eurozone improved their interest rates by 50 basis points. Just on that Euro move, you know, you're talking about you were running just short of AUD 1 million for August because of the expectations. That's how you get to that kind of AUD 10 million plus for FY 2023. We'll then benefit from further interest rates if it plays out as everybody's economic predictions are. I mean, it doesn't matter who you read, they're all predicting further rate rises throughout this year. We're optimistic about beating the AUD 10 million. We'll see how that goes.
With regard to the Euro bonds, that's a wait and see, because obviously, we need approval to do that. It would be quite beneficial to the group in terms of interest income and we'll keep working with the CBI to demonstrate why we can get that approval. At this point, that's not included within the ten and that's an upside opportunity if we can convince them of that.
Understood. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Ed Henning from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys and thanks for the questions. Just a couple from me. Firstly, just a clarification question, just on FY 2023 outlook. Just when you're referring to gross profit expected to be in line with FY 2022, that's margin or gross profit dollars?
Definitely margins.
Yes. Excellent. Just on the account maintenance fees and in particular, the non-recurring aspect, can you sort of maybe give a bit more color on which quarters they fell and how much fell in each quarter?
Yeah. They fell into Q3 and Q4, slightly more into Q3, slightly less into Q4. I think it was maybe just under 10 and around about 8. Ten in Q3 and 8 in Q4, roughly. It relates to the back book, essentially. We've got a lot of inactive cards from history that's picking it up on those. But it is a recurring revenue stream. You know, there will be AUD 5-10 million of recurring AMF in the FY 2023 year, because every single day another account is reaching 12 months of inactivity and so it does recur continuously moving forwards.
Yeah. That was my next one. The balance, removing that non-recurring part should, I guess maybe even have a little bit of growth attached to it as you go into FY 2023 and beyond.
Right. Yeah.
Excellent. That's it from me. Thanks.
Thanks, Ed Henning.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Brendan Carrig from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Emma and Rob. I might just do a quick follow-up on the AMF fee. Can you just confirm if there is any more non-recurring fees to come through in FY 2023? Or has the back book transition or implementation now been entirely complete?
There's still a small amount of other programs still to go but it certainly won't be anywhere near the materiality of the FY 2022 . They'll just happen as and when we are able to convert those terms and conditions over. It will be fairly immaterial by reference to the FY 2022 non-recurring fees.
Okay, that's clear. Two more questions. Just firstly, one for you, Emma. On the strategic review, is there anything specifically that you would say is off limits? Or are you coming in with a, you know, pretty blank sheet and, you know, everything's up for review?
Thanks, Brendan and good morning. I will be taking a business-wide review, so you can expect it to be quite wide-ranging. I do wanna say it's focused on growth but also how we can adjust the operating model just to be more efficient and be aligned internally. Organizationally, just better aligned to what our strategy is guiding us to over the next three to five years. I think there is a real opportunity for us to look at each and every part of the business, whether that's, you know, whether it's technology, our people, our processes, those vendor systems which we use, our product packaging. It's really quite wide-ranging. I think it'll have both strategic and tactical elements to it.
Okay. More of a review of an efficiency of what's already there, as opposed to looking at underperforming elements of the group to sell them off or divest?
I think, you know, the results today make it very clear that the underlying business is very strong. We do wanna protect the base. I think it's a solid base from which to grow. Frankly, we also wanna look at other areas we can move into. Are there product adjacencies that provide us a good opportunity to sort of exploit any gaps in the market? We're hearing from customers that they really wanna understand our product roadmap. They want us to be thought leaders in our respective business areas. What else could we look at, you know, that we're not already exposed to? I think there's a great opportunity.
It's kind of my background to look at strategy over a three-five year term and just be very clear about, you know, what sort of share of the market you're looking to penetrate and then how are you gonna organize effectively to execute.
Okay. That's helpful. Just last one, maybe for you, Rob. Just on the growth cap in the GPR division. Look, I appreciate you aren't able to tell us any specific numbers in terms of what percentage that cap is. But I'd just be appreciative if you could give a bit more detail around how we should be thinking about sort of that $6.1 billion second half GDV as a bit of a base, given that there is the Correos, you know, couple of hundred million dollars expected to come through. An y, I guess, you know, the portion of that that might be affected by the growth cap and the portion that might still be able to continue to grow in that sort of AUD 6-6.5 billion as a half year run rate.
Yeah, no problem. The 500 million is the global volumes for the GPR segment. Of our group, the PFS Ireland business is approximately a quarter. It is a very important element of our business. At the moment, it is not constrained by material growth cap. It can continue to service its customers and growth opportunities through to the end of the restrictions. Restrictions are at the moment in place until December 2022. At that point, we'll have more to add to the conversation, I suppose, when we've got a bit more information from the CBI at that point. We can't really comment on the future because that's still some months off. We'll be able to provide a bit more color. We're certainly not constrained at the current run rates, the current growth rates at the moment.
It will come down to a decision which will be early December. You certainly should expect to hear more from us as events unfold or no later than the AGM.
Okay. No, yeah, that's actually helpful. That's clear. Thank you very much. I'll leave it there.
Thanks, Brendan. We've just had one question. We've had a question come through on the webcast. What was the earnings contribution from the AUD 18 million from back book with inactive cards?
That converts 100%. That was AUD 17.9 million of earnings contribution as well. Same as the interest in FY 2023 will also convert at 100% as well.
Thanks, operator. We'll take the next question from the teleconference, please.
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 Peter Drew from Carter Bar Securities. Please go ahead.
Morning. Just a couple of questions. I guess a follow-up to the with respect to those AMFs. If you back that out of the second half GPR, it looks like revenues were flat. Can you just maybe provide a bit more detail on perhaps what happened in the sort of various verticals in the second half in GPR?
Yeah, sure. No problems. You understood it right. It was definitely a more challenging second half on an ongoing basis but there's a few reasons for that, which includes, you know, versus half one or versus half two of the prior year, we received less establishment income. So that's both setup fees when we launch, which we charge customers when we're launching new programs but also the timing of card sales, where we're selling them plastic or we're selling them tokens on mobile products. We also had headwinds from interest coming through in the second half as well. So it was reasonably flat in half on half in the same year but it was definitely down on the prior period.
In terms of volumes, there's always gonna be things moving around in terms of mix but the establishment income sort of is the cream on top of the result and create a bit of movement when you're looking at relatively small changes. I think when you look forward into FY 2023, you'll see improved interest income of which the GPR segment will be the biggest beneficiary and you'll see a stabilization of the AMF income stream. Hopefully, we'll see over time, as the regulatory matters sort of eases, you'll see the establishment income come back to normal. Does that help?
Yeah. Yeah, it does. Thanks, Rob. I mean, with respect to the I mean, what's implied is the recurring component of the AMF, the base, which seems to be AUD 5 million. Does that fall into the first half of the year or is it sort of realized equally across the year?
I think the number will be between 5-10. I'm not giving guidance now for the full year. We'll do that in November. But as a rough guide, I'd say 5-10 for FY 2023 and it should be spread equally over the full year, 12 months, because cards are becoming active every day. There's no real seasonality in that business. You should see that fairly evenly spread over the year.
Just on G&I, second half revenue conversion margin seemed a bit lower than expected. I guess, how do we, how should I think about that into FY 2023, you know, on a full year basis?
Yeah, sure. The GNI revenue yield is always impacted by seasonality on volumes. You get your volume predominantly come through in the first half because it's the run after Christmas but your revenue gets spread reasonably equally between the two halves. Your yield will move with that. It's better to look at the yield over the full year because that will give you a better indication of how that segment is performing. Drop from last year. Last year benefited from AUD 11.1 million of COVID breakage, higher breakage rates and they had no volume attached to them. That elevated the breakage rates or elevated the revenue yield in the prior year relative to this one. Whereas this year we replaced that with volume and revenue. You inevitably drop your revenue yield.
We've also seen the continued shift towards the incentive segment or incentives volumes growing, which we've been talking about for several years now and they're typically lower yield than our shopping centers.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Rob. Probably just the last one, just to be clear on OpEx growth. You're kind of exiting FY 2022 at sort of an annualized AUD 125. Is it right to assume that is the base plus some level of inflation plus that investment in Sentenial?
I think that's a fair assumption you should work on for FY 2023. I mean, we'll give guidance at the AGM, so there's a bit of water to go under the bridge before we're ready to give numbers. That's not a bad starting trend. The biggest challenge will be availability of resources vendors in terms of finding sufficiently skilled people to join the team, particularly in certain sort of departments or in certain jurisdictions where there's some quite challenging to get labor at the moment.
That's great. Thanks. Thanks, Rob.
Thanks, Peter. Appreciate it.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Tim Plumbe. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Just two questions from me, if that's all right. Just following on from Brendan's question, is there a way for us to think about the organic GDV growth within the European part of the GPR business?
I'll take that one on notice and I'll come back to you at the AGM probably or before that if we put something out. We haven't given any great specifics on the individual. That's quite detailed on the individual segment and region. Leave that one with me. It is still growing.
Got it. No, that's fine.
Yeah, that's definitely. In the coming weeks.
Right. Just the second one, if I can just check with the outlook statement there. We're saying flat GP margins, around 68%. If I took consensus numbers, just if I'm thinking the right way. AUD 263 million of revenue, I apply 68%, that gives me about AUD 179 million. I've got to take off AUD 125 million, AUD 126 million, which gives me like AUD 53 million of EBITDA. On top of that, I need to factor in cost inflation and any further investment in Sentenial. With this statement, firstly, is that the right way for me to be thinking? Secondly, with the business efficiency programs, I think originally they were slated for the second half of 2023. Should we be thinking of those benefits predominantly coming through or coming through FY 2024 now?
Is that the right way to think?
It's the right way to think about it. It's the right math to do without commenting on your numbers and specific assumptions you've put in it. You're right on the efficiency project. Some will come through through FY 2023. Some of them were always in margins, which will be helpful. Some of the efficiency projects regarding overheads will inevitably be delayed given the work that's required on the remediation project through FY 2023. We'll be able to provide a bit more color when we give guidance, which will give you a bit more flavor to that.
Yeah, Rob, I'll just chime in here because I think it's important for everyone to understand that we wanna make investments in the business. To the extent we have work to do on the remediation program, we wanna actually build that IP in-house and have that sort of inform our decisions as it comes to, you know, what's coming over the horizon with regulatory strategy. You can absolutely assume that the payments landscape in respect of regulations will continue to evolve. We need to have a very clear view as to what the horizon looks and how that should influence our product design, our roadmaps, the type of segments and verticals we go after. We'll have more information for you at the AGM but should also think about, you know, investments we're making now.
Some of the efficiencies that we look to extract. I mean, they're gonna take time. We'll have some more information with you as to our plan over the coming years in November. Yeah, thank you for the question.
Understood. Thanks, Emma. Thanks, Rob.
Thanks, Tim.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Ross Barrows from Wilsons Advisory. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. Hi, Emma, Rob, Ryan. Thanks for taking the question. Just on professional fees. Rob, likely a question for you. Was that increase from around AUD 4 million to around AUD 9 million this year with a, I guess a second half skew to this current year? I'm just trying to get a feel for how these may vary or, you know, can you help us understand, I guess, if any of those fees are tied to specific CBI dates, then they drop off or even a higher level view, is there an expectation that they could normalize back to, I guess, pre-CBI engagement levels? Thanks.
Yeah. You're looking at the number from the annual report and you pulled out your AUD 9 million.
I was just looking at slide 26, actually, the briefing data in the back of the deck.
I'm just looking to catch up to where you were looking at. Some of them will definitely drop off. Correct. Some of them won't. It's a mixture of different things going in there that it's kind of hard to say that they're tied to a particular milestone. Some would be, majority wouldn't be, majority would be continuing. What you will see as the shift over the FY 2023 year is that a number of these costs are being brought in-house away from external advisory. We're trying to bring more of the resources required to complete the project in-house such that sort of own the IP more so at the end of this project. Emma, do you want?
Yeah. Ross, I mean, it's what I spoke to before. It's the fact that, previously and in specific respect to the CBI, remediation, we had relied extensively on external advisors. I guess the shift now is that we still rely on external advisors but they'll become more sort of subject matter experts to us. Rather what we wanna do is really own and embed, the improvement in our processes and our governance and all the areas which are obviously part of that remediation program. There's a lot of work stream. I've made a lot of progress and there is already a lot of intel in-house. We really, you know, want to extract value over the long term from that expertise. As I said before, we want that to support the business strategy.
We want it to support our product strategy, our go-to-market strategy and, you know, outline what opportunities might exist for us to, you know, expand the base, as I said. Whether that's products, geographies, whatever, we'll be looking at that and speak to you more about that in November.
That's helpful. Thanks.
Thanks, Ross.
Thank you.
We've got one final question that's come through on the website. Could you give some more detail on Sentenial's performance? How did direct debit and the open banking parts of the business perform compared to your expectations? And what needs to happen to drive volume growth for open banking?
If I kick off, I want to give some numbers in terms of the expectations of the business. The direct debit business we always expect to be flat. We're not seeking to grow that part of the business. We're putting all of our focus into the open banking side. The open banking side performed really well. Volume growth has increased 40% over the prior year but they actually accelerated in the second half of that. That's before we've really put new resources in. As you apply more resources, we'd expect to see faster growth and we'd expect to see faster conversion to revenue. What we've got is a very large contracted customer base that we need to convert to revenue generation.
The resources that we're seeking are mostly people that are to white glove experiences to help our customers actually use open banking and adopt open banking for more of their volumes. Our contracted opportunity is huge. We've got some very large customers and it's now about getting that consumer adoption over to the open banking product. It is pretty pleasing when you look at any industry survey, any payment survey and you could Google payments and you'll find open banking, an explosion of open banking articles. It is the opportunity for payments over the next five years and we're very excited about the opportunity.
Yeah. I'll just add to that, Rob. I mean, it's a really exciting space. I think when you look at the Sentenial Nuapay acquisitions, there's obviously two areas to that business. One is quite compelling in itself in that there's connections with a lot of the tier one banks, as I mentioned in my prepared comments. That side of the business is sort of very rich customer base, which we can maybe leverage for other areas of our business. Then when it comes to Nuapay and the open banking side of things, it's really gonna become the backbone of embedded finance experiences for many, many years to come. I think with Nuapay, they've already been well-recognized in the marketplace. They've won a lot of awards for their payment solutions.
You know, I'm sitting down speaking with a number of folks in the ecosystem there in London just a week and a half or so ago. You know, the adoption is you know it's occurring. It's obviously you know a new payment form. We see a lot of opportunities there. Even if we look into what Mastercard and Visa are doing, you know, they've invested in this space. I think that's exciting, how that evolves and how that plays into other innovations in and around digital currencies and assets and so forth. It's definitely something we're you know pretty excited about and look forward to that being a growing area of our business.
Thanks, Emma. Thanks to everybody that's asked a question. With that, I think that's all the questions we've had come through. Thank you very much. I'll just hand back to Emma for some final comments before we close the conference.
Yeah. Thanks very much, Ryan. I'll just reiterate, I'm extremely excited and pretty energized actually the opportunity to take EML into a next chapter of growth. Obviously, I'll just reinforce my comments. We wanna strengthen the base and it's a good base, so we can build from that. We can also look at firming the foundation for even further growth and scale in the future. I'm really looking forward to working with the global EML team. We've got some fantastic people. The board of directors are supportive of investing in the business for future growth. I'd say it's a good chapter for EML and I'm really excited.
I'm really looking forward to meeting more of you in the Australian community in the coming weeks and months and certainly having a presentation at our AGM in November so that you can understand better what our future plans are and how we're looking to execute. Thanks very much for your time today and all the questions and have a good day.
Thanks very much.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.