Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the OFX Group Limited FY24 full year results call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish 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 conference over to Skander Malcolm, CEO and Managing Director. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Cameron, and thank you everyone for joining the call. As Cameron mentioned, I'm joined by Selena Verth, our Chief Financial Officer, and Matt Gregorowski, who leads our Investor Relations program with Morrow Sodali. Selena and I will take you through the pages, and then there'll be some time for Q&A. The presentation will cover four things: firstly, our fiscal year 2024 results and the performance drivers. Secondly, our financials in more detail. Thirdly, the strategy for the larger OFX, including why and how we will be more valuable in the future. And finally, our fiscal year 2025 and medium-term outlook. Let's move to Slide 4 in the pack. Fiscal year 2024 was a solid year financially. Our net operating income was AUD 227.5 million. That's the lower end of our guidance range and up 6.3%.
However, we were able to deliver underlying EBITDA of AUD 64.6 million, which was in the middle of the guidance range and up 8.2%, excluding the impact of our Paytron acquisition. It was a year that illustrated both the challenges and strengths of our business. Our challenge is to deliver net operating income growth regardless of the prevailing macroeconomic conditions. Our strength is that we have diversity in our global revenue streams and levers we can pull to generate returns regardless of the economic conditions, thus delivering value for both our clients and shareholders. A few of the highlights of our performance include: our pivot to B2B is well and truly operational, with just over 70% of our revenues now being B2B.
What is especially pleasing is that we are getting real traction attracting new B2B clients, with revenue from new clients one year up over 20%. A healthy signal for future revenue growth, as B2B clients tend to grow revenue in years 2 onwards versus consumer, who tends to generate a significant revenue contribution in the first 18 months. While inflation persists, disciplined cost control, as well as the synergies we have realized through the Paytron integration, has been our underlying core... Sorry, our underlying operating costs were up 7.4%, delivering EBITDA growth of 3.4%. If we exclude the impact of Paytron, our underlying operating costs were up just over 5% and EBITDA up 8.2%. So excluding Paytron, we generated operating leverage, which augurs well for fiscal year 2025.
The cash generation and balance sheet quality continues to be a source of real strength for OFX and provides us with growth options. Moving to Slide 5, the second aspect of our strategic pivot to generate global growth has also well and truly taken effect, with around two-thirds of all our revenue now generated outside of Australia. Structurally, this has been accelerated by the acquisition of Firma, which doubled our North American revenues, and by the organic growth in EMEA, which last year was up 16% across all segments and 26% for our B2B segment. Global growth is important for a number of reasons. Firstly, that is where the TAM is, so the demand we can tap into is substantially higher. Secondly, we generate healthy NOI margins offshore. Thirdly, there's enough scale offshore, which drives EBITDA margins up.
Then finally, the diversity of revenue sources reduces the risks associated with macro factors in any given market. As Slide 5 shows, we're seeing that diversity and especially that growth in EMEA. We'll talk later about the sub-regions, and specifically the largest contributor to growth and returns, our corporate segment in those sub-regions. We're pleased overall that we now have reasonable scale in North America as well as APAC, and are growing into that in EMEA. Turning to Slide 6, I'll share more detail on our main segment performance and their drivers, starting with B2B. B2B is our main focus and represents two-thirds of our revenue, which is largely recurring in nature. It's good to note that we've delivered 27.6% growth on a three-year CAGR base.
Fiscal year 2024 was up 4.8% versus fiscal year 2023, which was naturally disappointing, but not driven by factors that we believe will persist through the cycle. That annual growth was softened by specific factors. Firstly, difficult economic conditions in Canada and Australia, softening revenue growth in our two largest sub-regions for the corporate segment. Secondly, a decline in revenue from our OLS segment. I'll unpack what happened in the corporate segment shortly, but in OLS, when we acquired Paytron, we decided to deprioritize product and platform development programs on our existing platform, as it will be delivered through our new client platform. Further, we moved our leader of the OLS segment to a new role, leading the Paytron integration, which naturally impacted the momentum .
In future, a new client platform will provide enhanced products and services for our OLS clients, and we will assume management of that segment within our corporate segment, and as such, report it in corporate in our financial reporting going forward. That said, we feel as enthusiastic as ever about these crypto clients. There is no question that e-commerce and embedded payments will continue to grow, and our capabilities, as well as our experience in working with large e-commerce platforms and CSPs, means we can be a strong player going forward. I'll talk to our enterprise segment shortly. Moving to Slide 7, we see momentum building in our corporate segment, three of the five largest sub-regions growing at 14%+. Overall, new revenue growing at 26%+, and transactions growing overall, despite headwinds in Australia and Canada.
In Australia, we saw a strong US dollar and very range-bound AUDUSD, along with shifting expectations on the economy and interest rates. This meant that ATVs declined 4%, and thus annual growth in revenue was 1.1%. Whilst fiscal year 2024 growth was below the long-term CAGR, new corporate revenue growth was over 20%, and we continue to see improvements in our onboarding of new clients. The launch of our new client platform to all new OFX and Paytron corporate clients will further strengthen our growth in Australia. Canada also saw softer revenue performance, down 3.5% overall. We saw growth in the third quarter, but a strong US dollar and dampening economic expectations drove a decline in the fourth quarter.
We have not seen any further trader exits, and margin continues to recover, with fourth quarter margins being higher than at any time in fiscal year 2023. ATVs did drop sharply in fourth quarter, however, have recovered in April, thus the corporate revenue in Canada was up just under 25% in April, on a versus the prior corresponding period. Note, April does have three additional trading days in fiscal year 2025, but revenue growth is still up even adjusting for this. The integration of Firma in the fourth quarter was a very big effort in Canada, but it's complete now and seeing high performance well. Elsewhere, corporate growth has been good, with the sub-regions of the UK and Europe being our standouts, delivering just under 19% and over 140% growth, respectively.
Our teams in EMEA are well organized, clear about their target clients. They drive consistent commercial and risk management, and continue to see opportunities. We've completed the largest single transaction in OFX history, which was a corporate client from Europe in December. A wonderful example of the region driving teamwork with global functions and having very high ambition. It's also important and encouraging to see the U.S. corporate growth at over 14%, different to Canada and healthy. Despite the challenges, the combined North American team drove just over 30% growth in new revenue, which is a very healthy signal of what is to come. Moving to our enterprise segment on Slide 8, it's wonderful to see the revenue growth at over 32% and a three-year revenue CAGR of over 20%.
Given the investment and hard work our team has put in, we have learned a great deal here, particularly how to win and activate smaller clients, and it's terrific to see traction building, especially among the more recent wins. The pivot to focus on smaller opportunities and to activate them quickly is working. We've seen strong growth from our established clients, too. The pipeline is healthy, with 10 prospects added during the year, taking the total to 77 in the pipeline, and we're delighted to have 3 new enterprise clients in North America, with activation underway. As we've previously said, this segment will grow its contribution to OFX over time, generating EBITDA accretive returns. Moving to our high-value consumer segment on Slide 9, we delivered AUD 68.4 million in revenue, down 4.4% versus prior corresponding period.
We've seen consumer volatility has been lower than in prior years, which in turn has driven down activity in some high-value use cases, particularly large purchases, property, and wealth transfers. We have seen an improvement through April, with consumer revenue up just under 15% versus prior corresponding period. Naturally, we took all our marketing spend and redirected to focus on the corporate segment a couple of years ago, which is part of the revenue decline due to a small drop in active clients. But we nevertheless retain and support a valuable consumer segment, which has grown at over 6% on a three-year CAGR basis. So in all, good execution and some momentum in key areas that point to a stronger fiscal year 25. Now, let me hand over to Selena to walk us through the financials in more detail.
Thank you, Skander. Moving to Slide 11, we've continued to grow revenue, net operating income, and underlying EBITDA. Fee and trading income is up 2.1%. Strong growth from EMEA, up 16.6%, while APAC and North America have softer growth at 0.3% and -1.9% respectively, driven by Australia and Canada, where we were impacted by a strong U.S. dollar, as Skander has mentioned. Secondly, we are seeing strong new corporate revenue, up 26.5% with growth in all regions. Net operating income of AUD 227.5 million is up 6.3% on fiscal year 2023. This is up more than fee and trading income due to strong interest income for the year at AUD 8.7 million, as we generate interest on our cash balances.
You may also remember from the first half results presentation that NOI also includes a AUD 3.7 million tax relief, which has offset the lower North American fee and trading income. These items, along with pricing increases, have driven the higher NOI margin up five basis points... EBITDA is AUD 54.6 million, up 3.4% and excluding Paytron, up 8.2%. This has been driven by a stronger second half underlying EBITDA of AUD 32.8 million, higher than the first half 2024 at AUD 31.89 million, which also included the AUD 3.7 million escrow payment. Second half of 2024 underlying EBITDA is up 3% on the first half of 2024 and 8.7% on the second half of 2023. We'll take you through our operating expenses.
While they're up 7.4% to growth rate, as we highlighted in the first half, has slowed, and on our our core underlying expenses to up just 5%, excluding Paytron. This has been driven by productivity programs and a successful integration of Firma, which we will walk through later. And as Skander mentioned, in excluding Paytron, there was a positive operating leverage. Our tax rate was 18%, and this is lower than our guidance tax rate of 24%. This is due to AUD 1.5 million of prior year R&D tax credits, as we highlighted in the first half. And also, as we highlighted in the first half, the escrow release, which is a non-cash flow item, further reducing the tax rate. We expect the future tax rate to be between 21%-24%, but it's dependent on R&D spend.
Statutory net profit after tax is AUD 31.3 million, down 0.4%. This does include AUD 3.4 million of one-off pre-tax costs relating to the sale integration of Paytron transaction costs, offset by a contingent consideration revaluation. We have a strong balance sheet, and our net cash float balance is AUD 80 million. Moving to Slide 12, we continue to see margin expansion versus fiscal year 2023 at 59 basis points. This was relatively in line with our first half margins of 60 basis points. We've experienced higher same-currency transactions, and it is pleasing to see FX currency margins of 71 basis points, up from 64 basis points at the end of fiscal year 2023. You can see from the margin walk, increased pricing in the book by two basis points.
We watch the market closely and have an excellent pricing engine that we can use to test price elasticity. If there is more elasticity for the service that we offer, we will price a higher price. We've worked hard to ensure the cash balance could generate interest income with the rising interest rates. We generated AUD 8.7 million of interest income, up from AUD 3.4 million in fiscal year 2023, and the second half of 2024 of AUD 4.4 million is up 3.6% on the first half of 2024. Second half of 2024 is a normal run rate, as it included the last rate rise at the very beginning of the half. This will grow as client funds grow and will reduce if interest rates decline, which is looking most likely in fiscal year 2025.
It's really pleasing to see the North American margins have net growth 2 basis points throughout the year. At the first half of 2024, we were down 1 basis point, even including the escrow amount. The team's done a lot of work in the second half of 2024 to manage our pricing discipline and deliver an overall margin increase. We continue to look at pricing and our price elasticity. We have also spent a lot of time this half considering our pricing strategies for our non-FX products that will be released in the second half. Moving to Slide 13, our underlying operating expenses were AUD 162.9. And as we highlighted, the half year results, the growth has slowed.
Overall, underlying operating expenses are up 7.4%, but when adjusted to Paytron, which was not in the fiscal year 2023 expenses, expense growth is 5.1%. Employee expenses are up 7.1%, but the second half of AUD 54.2 million was AUD 4 million lower than the first half of 2024, or down 7%. As you may recall, we have been running a productivity program, and we successfully completed the Firma integration. This has resulted in a net FTE reduction of 20 year-over-year, with the year-ending FTE at 690 employees. Promotional expenses have increased over fiscal year 2024. The second half of 2024 of AUD 8.6 million, lower than the first half of 2024 of AUD 9.8 million. We're encouraged by the investment and have seen our new corporate revenue up 26.5%.
Our investment in the information technology expenses were up AUD 2.2 million in fiscal year 2024, due to running two platforms as we migrated to Firma. We will start to see some of these expenses reduce in fiscal year 2025 as the migration is complete. We also continue to invest in cyber security and our data and privacy infrastructure. We're really pleased to announce we've obtained the ISO 27001 certification for our Australian business. A great achievement, a testament to our investments in the space. Bad and doubtful debts are higher than we want them to be at AUD 3.7 million. We did experience some fraud in North America late in the second half. We commend the team on identifying it early, doing a full review of the portfolio to ensure we don't have any similar situations, and implementing further controls to improve other aspects.
We continue to remain vigilant and invest in this space and expect bad debt to be more around 1% of revenues on an ongoing basis. Moving to Slide 14, the team has done an outstanding job completing the migration of Firma. Just under 2 years ago, we announced the acquisition of Firma and committed to a two-year integration timeline with synergies of AUD 5 million+ and a 30% EBITDA, EPS accretion by year ywo What we have achieved is outstanding. Both Skander and I have been involved in many integrations in the past, and we could not be prouder of the team. They delivered the integration in 2 years on time, and they've delivered a true integration. Not only the two platforms, but all other functional systems, over 90 vendors and 7 offices.
It's created scalability for our North American business, corporate active clients 34% higher than pre-acquisition, and the synergies are better than expected, at AUD 7 million+ run rate. EPS accretion is up 30% versus fiscal 2022, so an outstanding outcome for shareholders. This is a great example of the scale and synergy that can be achieved when combining similar businesses. Moving to Slide 15, our intangible investment in fiscal year 2024 was AUD 15.4 million, which is within the guidance range provided. Our investment in fiscal year 2024 were focused on payments and continuing to improve our payment speeds and corridor efficiency. We've also had the payment engine ready to connect to our platform in early fiscal year 2025.
The client experience is always a focus, and we did lots of work this year on the corporate experience, which has improved our conversion cycle, delivering strong corporate new revenue up 26.5%. Risk, data, and security are critical areas for investment. Teams continuing to invest in our cyber protection, data privacy, and storage tools. While the bad debts are higher than what we wanted, these are lower than the industry benchmark. Also, a huge milestone for the business was achieving the ISO 27001 certification, which provides all our clients and partners additional reassurance around our cyber defenses. The area we are investing more over time is product. We're excited to launch the Paytron platform for Australia corporate clients early in fiscal year 2025, to provide more products to solve business needs while delivering non-FX revenue stream.
As we guided at the half year, we expect the overall investment envelope to reduce to approximately AUD 18 million fiscal year 2025, which will be less than 8% of revenue. Some of our core infrastructure work is now complete. We are shifting the investment, so 40% is focused on delivering product to our clients. Example are the multi-currency corporate cards, global expense management, accounts payable workflow solutions, and accounting software integration, which Andrew will talk about later. Turning to Slide 16, we continue to have a strong balance sheet. Our net cash held position is AUD 88 million, which is both the cash held for our own use and deposits we hold with financial institutions. We hold some of this cash as collateral for our trading lines and bank guarantees.
Collateral and bank guarantees were AUD 19.8 million, down from AUD 26.4 million at the end of fiscal year 2023. Reduction in collateral and bank guarantees is a combination of lower volatility, but also integration allowed us to combine our Firma trading lines, freeing up over AUD 6 million of cash. This resulted in our net available cash balance of AUD 68.2 million, being up AUD 0.8 million, or 1.2% on fiscal year 2023. You saw our cash flows from operating activities generate a high cash conversion rate of AUD 64.6 million underlying EBITDA, generating 15.6% cash flow from operating activities. We funded the Firma acquisition using a AUD 100 million five-year corporate debt facility . We've paid down AUD 24 million in fiscal year 2024, with our loan balance now at AUD 44 million.
Our net debt is a positive cash flow position of AUD 11.8 million, given our strong cash generation. We are on track to repay the debt facility by the end of fiscal year 2026, subject to no other value accretive growth opportunities emerging, which require funding. We announced our share buyback program for fiscal year 2023. It is part of our active capital management strategy, which returns value to shareholders, while also providing capital flexibility to execute on growth investments. In fiscal year 2024, we deployed AUD 14.3 million on market to purchase 8.6 million shares. Turning to Slide 17, we look at the pictures of the future. Our capital allocation principles are to drive sustainable growth, return to shareholders in the most efficient form. We generate a lot of cash, and we deploy that in four ways.
A healthy cash generation allows us to leverage our balance sheet to purchase assets, i.e., M&A, and drive EPS accretion. So as a good example, we levered up to 2x EBITDA to take on debt for the acquisition and are on track to pay this down by the end of fiscal year 2026, as mentioned. We continue to invest in our platform and product capabilities. As I've already discussed, we invested AUD 19.4 million in fiscal year 2024 and expect this to be more like AUD 18 million in fiscal year 2025. We continue to look at organic ways to add products or scale to our business. Last year, Paytron was a great example of this. It is delivering product and platform enhancements that were already on our roadmap. Our investment in TreasurUp is also a good example.
An investment that provides us with access to the rich financial product roadmap and thought leadership. We are always looking for value accretive opportunities, and we use a combination of cash, debt, or where it makes sense, equity. As we have already mentioned, our on-market share buyback program is a flexible return of capital for shareholders. We are renewing the buyback program in fiscal year 25, and it will run for another 12 months. Andrew will now take you through the strategy and our fiscal year 25 outlook.
Thank you, Selena, for that excellent description of our financial results from H2 FY24. Moving to Slide 19, we have never felt more energized or confident in our strategy. Put simply, we can deliver better experiences for clients and thus generate a faster growth business by solving for the pain points they experience in and around payments, not just payments. Because we've demonstrated we can execute well through the cycle, we know that we can generate good returns. Our focus will remain scaling in developed markets, where we see the largest TAM, combined with the strongest opportunity for our blend of growth and returns.
Our ideal client profile, or ICP, is a small or mid-sized business, is exposed to cross-border flows, and who generates FX turnover between AUD 1 million and AUD 10 million. Of course, we'll support the clients outside of those parameters, too, but this will be where our commercial, marketing, and product focus will be. As we solve more pain points around payments for our ICPs, we'll provide more products and services, including cards, subscription services, and more. We'll deliver this primarily through digital means, designing everything to be as simple and intuitive, self-serve, digitally as possible. However, our experience and the research we have done is clear, that when clients experience a problem, they want a human to solve it, and we will be there 24/7 in ways our competitors clearly are not. Our commercial teams will also support clients who wish to de-risk their flows through simple risk products.
As we deliver that, we expect to grow revenue from non-FX faster than FX revenue, partially because non-FX revenue is off a very low base, and partially because demand for those products and services, when integrated with FX, risk management, and delivered digitally, is huge. Moving to Slide 20. This transition to OFX 2.0 started, of course, with an external lens. What do clients and prospects want and why? What we were seeing and hearing from our clients was a desire to develop more product to complement our outstanding FX offering. They told us that, for example, cards would make their corporate expense management payments easier as more SaaS vendors build in US dollars. And it would also simplify their payments as well as reduce their costs. We were building these capabilities when we acquired Paytron. The combination has been outstanding.
They built their platform designing the solution for the pain points and the non-payment jobs first, and then the payment. So as we set about to integrate, we had very complementary skills and products. Paytron had developed a very sleek and easy-to-use custom user interface, a digital wallet, and physical cards and virtual accounts. We had a wallet, but we were stronger in the foreign exchange FX payments. We did just under AUD 40 billion in turnover last year, and with it, all the associated rigor. Tier one banking partners, mature risk and compliance programs, service delivery globally, strong onboarding excellence, and terrific regional teams. So addressing those client and prospect needs at competitive price and ease of use came very naturally to us. But where the opportunity really arose is to satisfy more of those needs.
As you see in the middle of this slide, like AP, AR, expense management, and all the workflows that are associated with it. Naturally, we had both done integrations with accounting software, but the new platform, with its deeper workflow integration, stronger configurability for clients, and the extra products it offers, makes it much more attractive to target ICPs and the accountants who support them. And then finally, bringing all that together, offering clients the ability to de-risk their cross-border flows differentiates us from most of the recently launched competitors and will be at the heart of saving our clients a great deal of money over time. Moving to Slide 21. I'm absolutely delighted to share that our new client platform will be live for all Paytron clients and all new OFX corporate clients in Australia by the end of Q1.
It's a beautifully designed, simple to use platform, taking what Paytron has built and ensuring it meets the scaling requirements we have developed in OFX. It will be branded OFX and allow clients to do their usual FX payments, but in addition, access a digital wallet, which can be linked to cards. It will allow the client to take advantage of integrated AP workflows, ingesting invoices, and linking these through accounting software programs, as well as providing capabilities for employee expense management. We chose to offer it to all new corporate clients in Australia first, as Paytron has secured the necessary licenses and partners to make it live here. But during this calendar year, we'll be integrating the full range of OFX services and ensuring all global licenses are in place to commence global rollout from the fourth quarter of this fiscal year. Moving to Slide 22.
This is how it creates economic value for our shareholders. On the left, you can see the revenue profile of a typical Paytron client. In fact, this client used to be an OFX client. They loved our FX and our service, but we couldn't supply the cards or the digital wallet they wanted, so they went to a competitor, who happened to be Paytron. The revenue they generate for Paytron reflects the extra services and products. In this case, they generate more than 2.5 x the revenue from non-FX as from FX. As you know, a typical OFX client generates 90% of our revenue from Spot FX, so this represents a huge opportunity. To illustrate this, we've shown you two major competitors on the right-hand side and how they generate revenue from FX versus non-FX.
They are both public companies, and the first competitor offers digital wallets, targets primarily consumer, but also serves the B2B segment, supporting micro-businesses with its consumer product. They generate just over 40% of their revenue from non-FX, and it is growing at roughly twice the rate of their FX revenue growth. The second competitor targets B2B clients, which are typically smaller than our ICPs. They offer the same products we see through Paytron, although are less streamlined into small and mid-sized business workflows. They're generating just over 55% of their revenue from non-FX, and that portion of their revenue is growing 4x their FX revenue. The third example is Paytron itself. It's a good example of why targeting non-payment jobs first drives the adoption of products and services in addition to FX.
Moving to our outlook on S lide 23, the conviction we have translates to a healthy growth and returns profile. We expect to grow our net operating income at least 10% per annum over the next 3 years as we build out the products and services and continue to drive a strong commercial and marketing program. We expect that at around 3 years, we'll see the effect of more products and services being available, maturing globally, as well as our OLS clients growing again, which means that we'll increase our annual net operating income growth rate to be at least 15%. We expect our EBITDA margin to grow from around 28% to 30% or more at that point, as new products and services are EBITDA accretive. The board and management are very excited by the stronger growth and returns profile.
Moving to Slide 24, these are the reasons we are confident in these growth assumptions. On the left, you can see the organic growth rate over the three-year CAGR, along with the growth rates for fiscal year 2024, and the actions we are driving for our outlook for fiscal year 2025. Firstly, the growth rate in fiscal year 2024 is substantially lower than the long-term average, especially for our two largest sub-regions, Canada and Australia, in our corporate segment, driven by the factors we've discussed. To put it into perspective, I've already shared that the growth in corporate in Australia was less than the long-term average CAGR. But Canada also, prior to the acquisition of Paytron, saw corporate revenue CAGR from fiscal year 2020 through fiscal year 2022 at 14.6%. We've already seen growth improve through 8.
Canada, for example, was up 25% versus prior corresponding period, as I mentioned earlier. We're confident that the factors we can control, margin, service delivery, and new products will continue to improve. In addition, fiscal year 2025 has an extra 3 trading days. As the enterprise continues to grow faster than the rest of B2B, it will become a bigger part of the mix and thus drive B2B growth overall, as well as accretive EBITDA margins. And then finally, the Paytron platform continues to grow strongly, largely driven by non-FX revenue. And even though it has only been in business in Australia, it's growing well and will contribute to our growth overall. On the right are the main assumptions underpinning the outlook, along with the usual tailwind and headwinds. Overall, we have better visibility to fiscal year 2025 drivers.
Because of our experience in fiscal year 2024, our team is executing well, and the rollout of the new client platform, initially in Australia, energizes hugely. Thank you for your attention, and I will now pass back to Cameron to handle the Q&A.
Thank you. If you do wish to ask a question, please press star then one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star and then two. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before asking your question. We do also ask that questions are limited to two questions per person, and you are welcome to rejoin the queue if you have further questions. Your first question today comes from Cameron Holbrook at Wilsons Advisory. Please go ahead.
Cameron, hi, Selena. Great results, well done. Let's start with the first one. For FY 25, its implied EBITDA is a bit above AUD 70 million. Correct me if I'm wrong, Selena, but just wondering how we think about Paytron within that, and beyond, given, you know, it has been a profitability drag this year.
Yeah. So the Paytron, the lovely thing, we love the platform, and hopefully you've got some nice images there to kind of start to see what it will look like. As we start to put new corporate customers onto that platform, so obviously all new revenue will go onto that platform as well, but we are managing the two as one, so we won't separate out the cost of the Paytron platform going forward. It truly is part of what we do. We're really excited about the how many streams it will bring. We're excited about the experience for our new corporate customers. So that's how that will kind of play out as we go along. We haven't given specific guidance for EBITDA in fiscal year 25, but we have given you the medium term, what that will look like.
Yep, that's helpful. And then the last one is, I've saw a peer of yours make moves again on pricing in the last couple of weeks. They may very well be one of the peers that on one of the final slides that Cameron's talked about before. Are you able to comment on whether you saw this as being an increase, and does that open the door again to OFX 25 to look at pricing increases as well? Thank you.
Yeah, I mean, as you say, Cam, the tailwind on margins is healthy. The actions we took in 2024, as Selena touched on, give us a good exit run rate. And we see. We continue to see competitors looking to expand margin where they can. The other thing I'd say, Cam, that's really different in fiscal year 2024 is the combination of margin and onboarding excellence means that we're that's what's really driving that growth in corporate new revenue, because the margin differential is kind of disappearing. So prospects look at it and say, "Well, you know, similar price, and OFX, you know, has gotten significantly better at pulling through those prospects." The back book, we have pricing algorithms that look by currency corridor. We look at, you know, the amounts that our corporate clients are moving.
We look at a whole range of factors, and we're constantly testing and calibrating. To your point, against the backdrop of increasing price, it does give us flexibility to continue to test different price levels, and we've been successful in 2024 as a result of doing that.
Okay, thank you. Well done again. I'll jump back in the queue.
Thanks.
Thank you. If anyone would like to ask a question, you can register by pressing star then one. Your next question comes from Lafitani Sotiriou from MST Financial. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Another follow-up question on Paytron. So can I clarify, so you'll be live for new clients in Australia in this quarter. Can you talk us through what the roadmap is to roll it out to other jurisdictions and also to address the back book?
Yeah. So thanks, Laf. So what's happening is we have effectively taken the new client platform, which was what Paytron had developed, and we are adding effectively the OFX middle office services, and any product gaps that Paytron hadn't developed. But what that means is the Paytron brand will be replaced by the OFX brand on that platform. So all prospects will be onboarded onto an OFX-branded site. The Paytron clients have already been notified and have already signed up to the platform that's now going to be OFX and not Paytron. And then to your question, what we're doing is all our marketing in relation to our corporate prospects will point those prospects to the new client platform. So all new Australian corporates will go onto that new client platform, and that'll be done this quarter.
What we're doing at the same time, as I mentioned, is looking at all the products and services that OFX platform has traditionally provided. So think all the different payments that we operate, all the service delivery that we operate, all the fraud tools, all those types of things, and we're working on adding them to the new client platform so that, you know, by the fourth quarter, our goal would be to start offering and moving all the other Australian existing clients onto that platform as well. And that, that's our goal. At the same time, we're also looking at our other regions, and we're in active consideration right now as to how we're gonna do that in other parts of the world.
The factors that drive that are things like licenses, that we need, being ready from a service delivery perspective, to offer what is fundamentally a substantially enhanced set of products and services and so on. We should have a decision on where we're gonna go to next by the half, and, we'll let the market know, where that's going to be. And obviously, as part of our plan in acquiring Paytron, we have set out a roadmap internally, as to when we would hope to get all that complete globally. And we're progressing well, as I mentioned in the announcement. The integration is going very well.
Okay. And can I unpack the guidance you provide for NOI over the medium term? Is it, is it moving from 10%-15% partly driven by when you think you'll get the main impact from Paytron being rolled out, given that there's a, as you've stated, a material revenue increase potential just by, through the cross-sell opportunity, or is that how we should be thinking about it? Is that why we've got to step up from 10%-15%?
Yeah. I mean, that's one of the key factors, probably the largest, but the other one, Laf, would be, as I mentioned briefly, is that you've got enterprise growing faster, so as a proportion of all that starts to come to become a bigger factor, once we have, you know, set up the new client platform, we can get back to growth on OLS as well. That will be a factor. So those three are the biggest driving factors in getting us from 10 to 15. And obviously, throughout, you know, this year, we'll be picking up experience on moving existing Australian corporate clients, for example, onto the new platform. We'll get better knowledge on uptake of the new products and services. So that's really kind of how we thought about it.
All right, great. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Owen Humphries at Canaccord. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys, and well done on the results. Consistent execution here. I just wanted to just dive into the NOI guidance for next year. Just looking at the NOI trends on an underlying basis over the last kind of four halves, then looking forward to FY 2025, it kind of jumps up from around that 113 up to 125 per half. Can you just talk us through the drivers here? How much is, of this growth is driven by new products, market movements, price? Just, just have a feel what's the basis of that 10%?
So you can see, we tried to lay it out for you guys on that presentation-
Slide 4 of the drivers there. Look, if you look at our portfolio, if you have a one basis point change in margin, that's over AUD 3 million incremental revenue that you generate. We really like what the teams are doing. We always tread cautiously, though, but in particular, the work that North America did in the second half is absolutely excellent. So obviously, margins can generate that extra revenue. Obviously, new revenue, we've seen some really nice new revenue from our corporate business. We're also continuing to work on, make sure we pull as much through as possible. The non-FX revenue, we've given you examples there of what customers look like. We're really excited to launch with new Australian customers, you know, this quarter and get going and see how big that can be.
And then obviously, you've got, last year, we had it twice in the year, so three less trading days. So what we like about the year ahead is they're all things we can control, we can measure, the operational execution to really help drive that growth rate towards the 10% range.
Good one. Just on Firma, the AUD 7 million, can you just talk about, I know there's kind of more of a run rate exiting FY 2024. Can you just talk about how much is realized or how much was the tailwind in FY 2025 from the synergy?
Yeah. So the AUD 7 million, we originally said that two was revenue and three was cost. To be honest, the cost has completely exceeded our expectations, which is excellent, and the revenue is still to come. Like, there is some great synergy there, but it's still to come in fiscal year 2025 and beyond. And really for that, it's because of the access to the U.S. licenses. It's only once we're fully migrated, we will have access to that, can generate that additional revenue synergy. If you look at the expense synergy, you know, bank fees, you can already see it coming through. Staffing, there was excess capacity, not when we did the integration, and the final integration happened in February, it was clear that there were some roles that no longer needed to exist.
So I'd say that that run rate into fiscal year 2025 is even larger, even though you already see the 20, over the net 20 heads down this year, because some of those exits only happened late in fiscal year 2024. Office closures have been going, and that's already in the run rate for fiscal year 2024, and the vendors are going to tip up and, become even more in fiscal year 2025. Some of them we could not turn off until we'd finished in February. So a decent amount of it in fiscal year 2025, as it run rates in fiscal year 2024 as it fully run rates in 2025.
Good one. And just a really quick one, just to understand why you guys don't want to give EBITDA guidance, given you've given NOI guidance and the cost of capital?
Well, we give you an envelope to work within, and that's what we work within as well. You know, we did say in the medium term, EBITDA margins of 28%-30%, and we do try and target positive operating leverage to figure out what that might mean. We're always looking at the levers in the business. We're making sure we're spending the right dollar for the revenue that it generates, and, you know, if we see a huge opportunity or a growth opportunity out there, we'll go after it. But you kind of have it in a barrel there about right.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from James Bisinella from Unified Capital Partners. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for taking my question, and congratulations on a strong result and a very well set out strategy. So just one from me. I guess, just looking at your average cost per head at that number, AUD 160,000 annually, just wondering if there's potential sort of to cut costs over time as you grow by outsourcing or focusing on lower cost geographies?
Yeah, it's one of those strategies that you're always looking at. So we do. You know, there are certain roles that we do have in lower cost geographies at the moment, but it's not substantial in any way, shape, or form. You've also got to get the right scale and also make sure you're not getting a lot more management over time, but leadership in there to be able to manage the offshore experience, so there is tipping points for that. We're always looking at it. At the moment, we have current resourcing strategies predominantly in the regions that we are in. But it's something that we're always looking at.
James, I just maybe build on what Selena said there. In fact, the bigger productivity drivers that we've been seeing and driving ourselves, one is voluntary attrition now is at all-time lows for the company. And that actually drives a lot of repeatability and quality in the tasks, so you're not redoing a bunch of tasks, and you're getting a lot more efficient. The second thing is we've been deploying AI and various automation tools, especially when you're doing a lot of different payments. If you're driving things like straight-through payments, automatic reconciliation, that's where you're getting productivity. You don't have to send the job offshore.
I mean, a lot of these things are actually better done with software, and there's been a real drive to that in the last couple of years, and those are tangible investments that Selena touched on. To talk about scalability, that's really where it is. Look, finally, we genuinely have looked at, for example, in our technology team, you know, where do we have resources that are expensive, contracted, for example, and where do we have FTEs? And in fact, we've largely found, especially in the last sort of 18 months, the technology team has more and more built own quality program, very, very, skilled engineers. It's just cheaper than some of the expensive contractors.
candidly, you know, three or four years ago, we kind of had to go there because that was where the technology market was. It's not the case now. The great thing is the value proposition of working with FX in technology is you are now shifting to a lot more product deployment. You know, we make payroll, we generate earnings. So the value prop in technology, which is a big piece of our costs, is significantly better than it was two or three years ago. So kind of everything that Selena said, plus, you know, more digital automation.
Great. Well, thanks a lot, James. Thanks for taking the question. Thank you. Your next question is a follow-up question from Cameron Holbrook at Wilsons Advisory. Please go.
Hi, team, good day. One more just around the integrated platform launch. As we look a little bit further out, do we begin to look a little bit of a different revenue model here, Skander or Selena? Rather than perhaps volume-based business, can OFX begin to move more to a more recurring subscription-type model? Thanks.
Yeah, I mean, I think that's one way to look at it, Cam. But, you know, already, as you know, there's a high level of recurring revenue through the volume that we attract. But as you say, when you can attach that to subscriptions, revenue from other sources like exchange and interest income, it just is generally revenue that is less, let's call it, origination intensive than just volume. So I think that's a reasonable profile, but it'll take a little bit of time to get there, Cam, and that's why we've kind of said, look, it's a couple of years away. But those examples that we shared of the competitors, you know, that is real. That is what they're actually generating. That's the public company.
So we, you know, we are certainly confident and high conviction we can get there.
Yeah. Understood. And just looking at the FX volatility you provide on the Aussie dollar on Slide 27, second half 2024 was obviously quite muted, and I think, you know, Q4 in particular was really quiet. How should we think about FY 25 from an FX vol perspective, given we'll have federal elections around the world and potentially the beginning of a rate cutting cycle? Are they expected to be incremental tailwinds, FY 25? Thanks.
Yeah. Look, our base case is we haven't assumed a lot of volatility. We're definitely not in the business of predicting volatility. It's a very difficult thing to do. But as you say, typically the types of events that cause volatility are things like elections or, you know, geopolitical events. And we know, for example, obviously, the U.S. election, we're probably gonna get an Australian election, we're possibly gonna get a U.K. election, we're possibly gonna get a Canadian election, all in fiscal year 25. Some of it might go into 26. And as you know, that tends to benefit our consumer business. And it's quite interesting because I was looking back at some of the numbers.
You know, some of the, some of the things we've heard is that, you know, oh, the, the active client decline in consumer means just not going to benefit. But, you know, by way of example, back in first half 2021, we had about 118,000 active clients, which generated about AUD 26.9 million in consumer revenue. Fast forward to the second half of 2022, we lost about 10% of those active clients, but we generated about 37% more. In other words, AUD 36.9 million in revenue. So it's not necessarily active client driven. It's much more kind of what are those use cases? And we're finding over and over again, that on the larger value use cases, clients keep coming back to us. Things like the recent Canva share sale, we were well subscribed into that.
So we're feeling, you know, if that volatility happens, as we've highlighted on the tailwind, that could be a tailwind. You know, even our currency assumptions are not in the sort of extreme case in our base case.
Extremely helpful. Thank you both.
Thank you. That does conclude our question and answer session for today. I'd like to hand back to some closing remarks.
Thank you, Cameron, and thanks, everyone, for dialing in. Obviously, over the next week or two, I hope to be able to catch up with you individually. But I'll just leave you with my concluding remarks, which was that, you know, fiscal year 2024, we've learned a lot. We're able to pull the levers. We emerge stronger than when we entered. And we're particularly excited about the kind of medium-term future and the investments that we've been making to create new revenue streams, better client experiences going forward. Thanks very much.
Thank you. That does conclude the call for today, and now disconnect your lines.