Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Tyro Payments Limited Financial Year 2021 Full Year Results briefing. All participants are in listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one key on your telephone. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Robbie Cooke, Managing Director and CEO. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning and welcome everybody to Tyro's full-year results call. I am joined by Prav Pala, our CFO, who will be presenting with me this morning. Our plan today is to focus on our published full-year results for FY 2021 and our key accomplishments in the year. We will also provide an update on our trading in July and August, and we will talk about some of the key areas of focus for FY 2022 and beyond.
Prav and I will spend about 40 minutes running through our results, and then we will take questions, and we will talk to the slide pack circulated earlier today, which is also available on our website. Just for noting, a recording of this morning's call will be posted on the investor section of our site shortly after this session to ensure those who are not able to dial in live can listen at their convenience.
With the formalities out of the way, we'll get started, and if you could turn to slide 2 in the pack, please. Before I talk about our results, I just wanted to reinforce what Tyro stands for and our position in the market. We're a technology-focused and values-driven company. We provide more than 58,000 Australian merchants with payment solutions and complementary banking products, largely developed on our core proprietary technology platform.
We're creating an integrated ecosystem with payments at its core, enhanced by value-adding features and products designed to attract new merchants and retain existing ones. The majority of our customers are small and medium-sized enterprises operating in the core verticals of health, hospitality, and retail. Our purpose-built solutions have been designed with these merchants' needs and preferences in mind.
Turning to slide 3, just looking at some of the major accomplishments the team's achieved in the year. As I'm sure you know, we have strong growth ambitions. Notwithstanding the disruption that COVID caused us and many of our merchants, we continued to successfully execute against plan for the year.
There are a number of key call-outs I'd like to highlight. Firstly, completing the transformational Bendigo Bank alliance, which added more than 18,000 new merchants to our portfolio and around AUD 5 billion in annualized transaction value. Also acquiring health fintech Medipass to continue building out our health vertical.
Continuing to invest in our Tyro Connect integration hub, which, amongst other things, is providing unique data insights to some of our merchants on the Connect platform. Starting to provide the in-app payment solution for the leading tap order and pay platform, me&u, using our e-commerce capabilities.
Most significantly, lifting the transactions executed through our platform by 26% in what has been a challenged year to hit an all-time high of AUD 25.5 billion and increasing our merchant numbers by more than 80%, demonstrating the power of our solution in the market. Notwithstanding these impressive growth stats, we still only have a 3.8% share of the total addressable card-present and card-not-present market.
As can be seen from slide 4 of the pack, our five year CAGR of nearly 25% is an impressive 5x above system growth. Turning now to slides 5 and 6. We have a high conviction in our ability to continue to leverage our platform to maintain and expand our growth trajectory. There are seven core areas that we believe will drive that growth. Firstly, our focus on our core verticals and providing built-for-purpose payments tech tailored for Australian merchants in those verticals.
We have demonstrated the traction here consistently over the years. Just looking at our performance since our IPO in December 2019, our transaction value CAGR is 29%, and our merchant count CAGR is 59%. We have every expectation this dynamic continues. Secondly, we are able to drive economies of scale and are demonstrating the operating leverage in our business, which will underpin continued EBITDA growth in the forward years.
Delivering strategic partnerships only possible with a proprietary platform that can scale is another core area for growth. We've developed unique IP in our Bendigo alliance and have a keenness to explore opportunities to partner with others where we can access step changes in segment share. Is our demonstrated capability to make strategic investments to enhance solutions for our merchants, and this remains an area of focus.
Examples here are our investments in me&u and Paypa Plane and our acquisition of Medipass. On Slide 5, we highlight our nascent e-commerce offering and the opportunity to expand, particularly working with ISVs or Independent Software Vendors such as me&u, which are seen as opportunities to gain scale more quickly.
The sixth pillar for growth is cross-selling our ancillary products to our merchant base, such as our merchant cash advance loans, which are a perfect product for many SMEs. Finally, adding new core verticals. This is where the Tyro Go dongle has a key role to play. It opens up the trades vertical, provides a queue-busting solution for larger format retails, and provides a fit-for-purpose solution for micro merchants. Turning now to Slide 7, looking at our financial results at a high level, Prav will spend a bit more time on this in a moment.
It continued to be a volatile year, with trading conditions for many of our merchants remaining difficult, with unpredictable and rolling COVID lockdowns across the country. Given this environment, and as was the case last year, we maintained our focus on actions and initiatives designed to assist merchants in navigating the COVID impacts.
In addition, we had to traverse the challenge of the terminal connectivity incident in January, along with the distraction that inevitably comes with undertaking a major transformational project such as our alliance with Bendigo Bank, which was a major technical and operational exercise for the team. Despite these headwinds, we're proud to have processed a record AUD 25.5 billion in transactions for our merchants, and have delivered record gross profit and a record EBITDA result. In summary, our transaction values were up 26%.
Revenue was up over 13% at AUD 238.5 million, influenced by a COVID-impacted card mix shift, which I'll discuss in more detail shortly. Gross profit was up 28% to AUD 119.4 million. EBITDA adjusted for expenses associated with the terminal connectivity event and transaction costs was a positive AUD 14.2 million, compared with a AUD 4.4 million loss in the prior year.
Operating leverage was demonstrated in our result, with operating expenses increasing a well-controlled 7.9%, and our EBITDA margin sitting at circa 12% in the reporting period. Finally, our merchant numbers are up, as I mentioned, 81%, with more than 58,000 merchants choosing to work with us. Turning now to Slide 15, and providing some more color around our payments operations. As I've mentioned, the value of transactions processed in the year lifted 26%, AUD 25.5 billion, notwithstanding the challenges in the year.
The addition of the Bendigo alliance for the month of June added approximately AUD 440 million to this transaction value amount. This growth was assisted by a 23% increase in merchants selecting Tyro as their payments provider, which excludes the 18,500 Bendigo merchants. With the Bendigo merchants, we ended the year with 58,186 active merchants on the books, to be precise.
Merchant by vertical. Health, hospitality, and retail represented 85% of our merchants by count and made up 91% of our transaction value for the year. Our strongest transaction value growth was delivered in our hospitality vertical at 34%, with retail growing 18%, whilst our health vertical improved from a negative position at the end of the first half to 13% growth. Our largest states by transaction value contributed to the group were New South Wales at 37%, followed by Queensland at 22%, and Victoria at 20%.
All states other than Victoria experienced double-digit transaction value growth. Queensland and Western Australia were strongest at 39% and 38% respectively, followed by South Australia at 31%, and then New South Wales at 20%. New merchant sign-ups capped at approximately 1,000 new applications per month on average, with an all-time record month in May with 1,482 applications.
Our e-commerce solution grew strongly, albeit from a low base. This solution enables merchants to work with us both for their in-store and online transactions. This solution simplifies the day-to-day for our merchants by providing one point of contact together with a single settlement and reconciliation, removing the need to manage multiple payment providers. While still very much a work in progress, at 30 June, transaction value processed had increased 536% to AUD 70 million. While transaction values were up 26%, our payment revenue was only up 13.7% to AUD 230.2 million.
Now, this reflected a change in our card mix and arose from a significant drop in international credit card usage due to COVID's impact on travel, and also an increase in debit card usage. International credit cards attract significantly higher merchant service fees, and a mix shift away from transactions via these cards negatively impacts our revenue. These international cards, however, carry significantly higher interchange and scheme fee costs, and thus, a mix shift away from transactions via international cards positively impacts our profits.
International credit cards represented 0.73% of our transaction value FY 2021, compared to 3.2% in FY 2020. The converse applies in relation to debit cards. In the period, we processed more lower merchant service fee debit card transactions, which attract lower scheme and interchange fees, and as such, have a more positive profit impact. Debit cards represented 61% of our transaction value in FY 2021, compared with 58% in FY 2020.
Prav talked to our merchant service fee and merchant acquiring fees later. Of note, this change in card mix positively impacted our payments operations gross profit, which lifted 28.6% to AUD 110.8 million. With close to 105,000 terminals now in the field, we remain the fifth-largest merchant acquiring bank in the market, sitting ever closer to the four major banks.
Our focus on brand and retention continued to shine through in the year. Our prompted brand awareness has lifted to 20%, up impressively from 14% a year ago. Our customer retention rates remained very strong, with customer churn measured by transaction value at 8.7%, compared to 8% a year ago, and our churn rate metric by customer number reduced from 11.7% a year ago to 11.3% this year.
When talking to you at our half-year results back in February, I did say our key priority in the second half was to do all that we could to rebuild trust with those of our merchants who were impacted by the connectivity issue, and that has been the reality. Our efforts here have been effective.
In particular, the absence of any noticeable increase in merchant churn, together with application numbers setting record highs, are very pleasing outcomes of this effort. The event did negatively impact our Net Promoter Score, which was a +43 before the event. Our NPS fell at the peak of the event to a low of -25%. However, our NPS has improved every month since January, and we ended the year at a +21, and it's currently sitting at a +27.
Our remediation program for those merchants financially impacted by the event is making strong progress, and we are rapidly resolving all make good claims. All financially impacted merchants were invited to register with us to enable remediation claims to be assessed. As at 23 August, we've settled claims of approximately 85% of those merchants who have sought remediation, and the balance are being progressed at pace.
The remediation process remains available for claims of financially impacted merchants, and it provides a fast and straightforward assessment aimed at resolution without the cost, delay, and uncertainty inherent in legal proceedings. Clearly, this event did not sit comfortably with us. Notwithstanding 18 years of operation with no similar issues, we are building a failover solution that will see us provide all our merchants with a dongle solution in combination with their standard terminals as an extra level of redundancy.
This is an industry-first move. Turning now to slide 19, and let's talk a little bit about our banking products. Now, although our banking operations still only represents a small part of our overall business, it presents an alternative to the major banks and has strong prospects for continued growth. Our products are focused on providing our customers with innovative ways to meet their transactional banking and unsecured lending needs.
Our Tyro Bank Account is a fee-free, interest-earning transaction account. Around 4,600 Tyro merchants were actively using the Tyro Bank Account, up from approximately 3,600 a year ago. With AUD 72.5 million on deposit at the end of the year, up from AUD 49.7 million at the same time last year. Our term deposit offering, which is available through the Tyro App, held about AUD 3 million in term deposits at 30 June, up from AUD 800,000 a year back.
Our cash flow-based unsecured loan product is designed to assist SME in growing their business. Our business loan is repaid from a merchant-selected predetermined percentage of card transaction volume as generated by the individual business and is offered on the basis of an upfront fee. The innovative feature of this product is that repayment cycle up or down in accordance with the merchant's daily cash transaction volumes.
Prior to the onset of COVID, our loan application process was streamlined, giving all Tyro merchants the ability to check their eligibility for a loan through the Tyro App. If eligibility was not automatically satisfied through the app, a manual review information and assessing the application with the benefit of this data. Post-COVID, and from 1 April 2020, our assessment process was adjusted, making use of our manual assessment path rather than our automated functionality.
This proactive step was implemented to ensure our credit risk in the COVID operating environment did not exceed our internal risk appetite. We returned to our automated processes in February this year. As expected, the decision to adjust the credit assessment process saw originations fall sharply in that manual assessment period.
Originations for the end of January 2021 totaled AUD 3.2 million, compared to AUD 43.8 million in the same period in the prior year. Since returning to the automated process in February, we've averaged AUD 4.5 million in originations per month and achieved a record AUD 8.1 million in originations in May. The team managed the risk within the portfolio closely over the period, with lending losses to origination sitting at 2.7%, equating to AUD 2.7 million in the year, compared with AUD 1.1 million in the prior year.
The average loan size in the year was around AUD 35,000, compared to AUD 32,000 a year ago, with an average length of six months or 6.5 months, slightly up from last year's average, which is just under six months. I'll now hand over to Prav. He's going to step us through our financial performance in more detail, and then I'll return to discuss our outlook. Thanks, Prav.
Thanks, Robbie, for that business update. FY 2021 had a number of achievements, and from a financial perspective, I'd like you to take away three themes. Firstly, the execution of our growth strategy. Secondly, the demonstration of operating leverage with scale. Finally, our capital position. Tyro is presenting its results for the first time as a group this year, following the acquisition of Medipass and the alliance with Bendigo Bank.
If you could turn to slide 22, and I'll start with the financial performance for FY 2021. In reviewing the performance, I recognize all businesses saw significant volatility in both FY 2020 and FY 2021. Our weekly transaction value update to the market was not only an indicator of the health of the Tyro business, but an insight into the overall SME sector.
While I will talk about the FY 2021 metrics where appropriate, it would be useful to review a 2-year CAGR to highlight the underlying business performance. We were already in the first national lockdowns as we started the year, rebounding from our historical growth of negative 38% in April 2020. The recovery was swift and strong, we processed AUD 25.5 billion in transaction value for FY 2021, a growth of 26% to the comparative period.
Our two year CAGR on transaction value was 20.5%, which is strong given significant COVID lockdowns in both FY 2020 and FY 2021, and it compares favorably to a five year CAGR of 24%. Breaking down our transaction value by quarters. Quarter one began to show a recovery compared to pcp, although dampened by the start of the extended Victorian lockdown from 7th of July.
Victoria accounted for approximately 24% of our total transaction value at that time. Quarter two grew 14% to PCP as lockdowns across the nation other than Victoria eased and people started returning to major cities. Quarter three continued to improve compared to normal pre-COVID quarter three in FY 2020, we grew 19% notwithstanding the January terminal incident.
Quarter four had an average growth of 85% to PCP, combining both tailwinds of recovery and recycling over the softer Quarter four of FY 2020. Our gross profit grew 28% to AUD 119.4 million, slightly ahead of the transaction value growth. Again, this represented a two year CAGR of 20%, which is almost back to our five year CAGR of 21%.
The gross profit metric is the main indicator of our business growth as revenue shifts with the underlying card mix and its associated transaction costs like scheme and interchange fees. I spoke in detail about the impacts of card mix last year, where the significant change in the card mix in quarter four of FY 2020 lowered top-line revenue but improved gross profit. The run rate of this card mix has persisted through the whole of FY 2021.
International borders effectively remained closed and premium and commercial cards did not materially come back into play. Debit card usage, therefore, continued to dominate as did competition by schemes for this card category, further lowering the underlying direct costs and driving up our transactional profitability. I will provide more analysis on this on the next slide.
However, as an overview, transaction value grew by 26%, with more than 60% of the mix being debit cards for the full year. Gross revenue on payments grew by 13.7%, contributing an additional AUD 27 million, while the underlying direct costs grew only by 2.3%, increasing AUD 2.7 million. The net FY 2021 uplift from payments were AUD 24 million.
Banking income grew by AUD 1.4 million, largely driven by fair value adjustments to the loan portfolio from FY 2020. Although small, our loan portfolio performed better than expected, with most of the merchants on a repayment holiday returning stronger after the lockdowns, paying down the loans as their businesses recovered. A fair value gain of AUD 1.3 million was recognized in the results, a swing from -AUD 2.4 million in the previous year.
We expect the banking segment to contribute more meaningfully to the results as we grow the lending book. In total, gross profit therefore grew by 28% to AUD 119.4 million, largely made up of the payments business, which contributed a net increase of AUD 24 million. A pleasing result. The main driver of the increase is the additional AUD 5.4 billion in transaction value processed.
Before moving on to expenses, I'd like to provide some financial details on a few significant events in the year, being the impacts of COVID, the terminal incident, and thirdly, M&A activity. Firstly, COVID. For FY 2021, COVID continued to impact transaction value growth, although as noted above, our two-year CAGR of 21% was a significant recovery towards our five-year CAGR of 24%. We continued to support our merchants by way of terminal fee waivers, a more meaningful way to provide actual relief.
In total for the year, we waived approximately AUD 1 million in terminal rental income for COVID-impacted merchants. The impact on loan originations was more severe. Compared to AUD 60.1 million originated in FY 2020, we made a conscious decision to restrict our automated lending. In FY 2021, we originated AUD 25.8 million, of which close to AUD 20 million was in the last quarter of the year.
As a result, interest income on loans was AUD 2 million, down from AUD 4.2 million in FY 2020. While restricting lending was the right decision at the time, this product should experience growth as we build out of the pandemic. The negative financial impact to the results was neutralized by JobKeeper income of AUD 4.5 million received in FY 2021, compared to AUD 3.9 million received in FY 2020. Secondly, the terminal incident. The terminal incident has been covered in detail over the period.
We're committed to remediating all financially impacted merchants, as well as ensuring a failover solution. The financial impact of the incident is as follows. We estimate the incident impacted our transaction value by about 1 percentage point growth in January 2021. We waived an additional terminal rental of approximately AUD 1 million. The operating costs incurred, including rebates provided, were AUD 3.3 million.
Finally, the results reflect AUD 9 million in provisioning for remediation over the next financial year. This is made up of agreements we have already committed to, an estimate of payments to merchants who have registered and are currently working with us on a resolution, as well as those who have not yet registered and where we continue to try and contact them in case they may have overlooked our comprehensive resolution pathway.
In total, the AUD 13.3 million in the incident costs compares to an indicative AUD 15 million we had provided in the half year account and has been updated for actual experience. Finally, a word on M&A activity in the second half. The last quarter of FY 2021 was extremely busy, with the team concluding a business combination and an alliance.
Approximately AUD 4.7 million in one-off expenses have been reflected in the results relating to these activities. We announced the alliance with Bendigo Bank in October 2020. Commercial completion occurred on 1 June 2021. The key financial implications of the transaction in FY 2021 were an upfront consideration to Bendigo Bank of AUD 9 million, which is carried as an intangible asset on our balance sheet. Total cost incurred in implementing the alliance of AUD 3.7 million.
By way of results, Bendigo contributed 18,490 merchants to Tyro's customer base and AUD 0.4 billion in transaction value in the month of June 2021. I will talk in more detail of the impact of the Bendigo alliance on our balance sheet shortly. In pursuing investment in the health space, we acquired Medipass Solutions on 31 May 2021 for a total consideration of AUD 22.5 million.
The acquisition saw Tyro gain ownership of the multi-sided platform linking healthcare funders, healthcare providers, and patients to streamline medical claims approval and payments. Approximately AUD 1 million in one-off expenses have been included in the results for the acquisition. Normalizing for the terminal incident costs and the one-off M&A expenses, our operating expenses grew to AUD 105.6 million, up 7.9% from AUD 97.8 million in the previous year.
As per our comments last year, we managed expenses in the first half given the external uncertainties, including a freeze in both headcount and salary increases. We increased salaries at an annualized average rate of 4.4% effective 1 January 2021 after an 18-month period. You should factor this annualization into your forecasts for next year.
In breaking down our total normalized expenses, excluding share-based payments expenses, our staff costs of AUD 75 million equated to about 71% of total operating expenses. Of this, 49% represents staff in product development and management, including information security. Sales and marketing made up 21%. General and administrative costs comprise around 19%, while customer delivery was around 11%.
The next largest category was the administrative cost category, which has gone down year-on-year from AUD 16.6 million to AUD 16.1 million, a reduction of half a million AUD, mainly due to movement in licensing costs, which were circa AUD 8 million for the year, which is up AUD 2 million on PCP. Spend with our cloud-based partners have gone up as we continue to migrate away from an on-premise footprint, reducing future capital expenditure and maintenance requirements.
We use industry-leading SaaS providers, including AWS, which is our preferred public cloud infrastructure provider, as a preference over building non-differentiated commodity services. Training, travel, and entertainment reduced by AUD 1.3 million, given restrictions placed due to COVID conditions, and savings across a number of other different categories of approximately AUD 1 million.
Given the competitive market in the technology space, we have arrangements with some of our suppliers where we can flex, in particular, development resources at comparable rates on demand. Total contractor and consulting expenses increased to AUD 7.2 million compared to AUD 5.9 million in the prior year. Marketing costs were slightly lower in the year at AUD 5.4 million compared to AUD 5.7 million last year.
We were targeting in our marketing in the year and kept investment steady given external conditions. In spite of this, our prompted brand awareness increased from 14% to 20%, demonstrating effectiveness of our brand spend over the past few years. Overall, therefore, our normal operating expenses grew AUD 7.7 million compared to a gross profit growth of AUD 26.3 million, adding a net AUD 18.6 million to EBITDA. Our EBITDA grew from negative AUD 4.4 million in FY 2020 to positive AUD 14.2 million in FY 2021, demonstrating operating leverage.
For completeness, some highlights on the non-cash items. Share-based payments expenses for the year was AUD 9.3 million, down from AUD 10.9 million last year. The notable decrease was the runoff of the one-off liquidity event performance rights granted in mid-2019 financial year. It is worth noting that the vesting of the remaining performance-based rights will only occur on meeting specific growth and profitability targets over the medium term.
The expenses assume 100% probability of vesting for these instruments. Depreciation and amortization increased from AUD 12.5 million last year to AUD 15.4 million in FY 2021. The AUD 2.9 million increase can be broken down into AUD 1.2 million from the greater number of terminals, approximately AUD 0.9 million in amortization of intangibles recognized from the Bendigo alliance, with the remainder spread across a number of asset classes.
Finally, our investment in Paypa Plane in the first half, as well as a change in the accounting treatment for our investment in me&u to equity accounting, meant we recognized about AUD 1.1 million in share of losses from associates. You should factor this non-cash item into your forecast for next year as well. On the next slide, I provide an update of our key operating metrics trend over the last six years.
This visual summarizes the profitability drivers on one page. If you could please turn to page 23. I spoke about the card mix as a key call-out in our half-year results. If I broadly group the card types into four categories of debit, standard credit, commercial, and international, the significant mix change from last year was a drop in international and a rise in debit.
International cards generally have higher scheme and interchange fees as set by the card schemes, which creates higher gross merchant service fee but a lower gross profit margin for Tyro. On the other hand, debit cards act in reverse, reducing gross revenue but increasing our margin, relatively speaking. The changes in the mix of other categories was immaterial. For FY 2021, the theme remains unchanged.
The only difference is that the card mix change impacted the results for the full year rather than one quarter only last year. To provide some specifics, in the last quarter of FY 2020, international cards had dropped from 4.5% of total transaction value to 0.8%, while debit cards had increased from 56.6%- 61.5%. For the full FY 2021 year, debit cards were 60.9% of total transaction value, while international cards were 0.7%. Anecdotally, merchant service fees for international cards average circa 2.6%.
The average direct costs for these cards, however, are also just around 2.5%, leaving a very narrow transaction margin. For debit cards, including EFTPOS, the range in the last year for MSF was between 39 basis points and 75 basis points, while the direct costs were between 9 basis points and 29 basis points. The average margin for debit cards was approximately 38 basis points.
Our overall transaction margin for payments therefore increased year-on-year by 1 basis point. You can see these dynamics play through on the trend lines on the page. Our direct costs decreased sharply from 53.7 basis points to 42.4 basis points, driven by the full-year impact of the swing from expensive international cards to cheaper debit cards. 45% of our portfolio is priced on a cost-plus basis, where we pass along any change in the underlying costs to the merchants.
For merchants on this pricing structure, the reduction in direct cost was priced through with a corresponding decline in the merchant services from 89.5 basis points to 80.8 basis points. Of the remaining portfolio, where Tyro takes a view on the merchant card mix in favor of a more simplified and predictable pricing structure, the cost reductions were accretive to gross profit.
As a proportion of transaction value, our gross profit improved from 46.4 basis points in FY 2020 to 47 basis points in FY 2021. We manage unit margins closely, and the result of 47 basis points is a positive result when you consider the challenges presented by COVID, as well as the support provided by Tyro to its merchants by way of fee waivers. Tyro's business model is one of scale, with operating leverage coming through in line with the growth of the business.
Operating expenses as a proportion of transaction value continues to progressively decline from a high of 62 basis points in FY 2017 to now circa 42 basis points in FY 2021. The gap between the gross profit and expenses line has consistently narrowed over the past few years and was delayed due to COVID in the last quarter of FY 2020. Operating leverage can now be seen with the positive EBITDA results demonstrated in FY 2021.
Please turn to the next slide for a summary of our financial position. We leveraged our strong capital position to complete investment in Paypa Plane and me&u during the year, the alliance with Bendigo Bank, and the acquisition of Medipass. Our balance sheet structure at 30th June 2021, as a result, is quite different from 2020, and it is worth spending a few minutes on our financial position.
Our cash decreased from AUD 122 million to AUD 104 million, a reduction of AUD 18 million. AUD 39 million if you take out the banking business, which included deposits increasing from AUD 50 million to AUD 75 million and loans increasing from AUD 12 million to AUD 15 million. Notable cash investments during the period were AUD 18 million in terminal purchases to cater for BAU growth, the Bendigo device swap-out, and to maintain a buffer of stock given COVID disruptions.
AUD 13.5 million was paid in cash for the acquisition of Medipass, representing 60% of the total consideration. The remainder was paid for in shares. AUD 9 million for the upfront consideration of the Bendigo Bank alliance, and finally, investments in associates of AUD 2.5 million. The investments with Bendigo and Medipass gave rise to significant intangibles and goodwill that you see on the balance sheet. For Bendigo, the alliance does not meet the technical accounting definition of business combinations.
The customer contracts and relationships acquired based on the initial agreement term of 10 years have been recognized as an intangible asset totaling AUD 112 million with a corresponding upfront liability taken on the balance sheet. This treatment is as a result of the alliance being structured with a view to gross profit sharing over the agreement term. Of the intangibles, the guaranteed component and the upfront consideration totaling AUD 50 million is a deduction to our prudential capital.
For Medipass, we acquired 100% of Medipass on 31st May 2021 for a total consideration of AUD 22.5 million. Other than minor adjustments, the acquisition was classified as AUD 5.5 million for internally generated software, AUD 2.9 million for customer contracts and relationships, and AUD 13.7 million in goodwill. I highlight that the purchase price allocation is provisional only, and this will be subject to a possible reset in the next financial year.
As mentioned, the intangibles and goodwill are a deduction to our prudential capital. Our capital ratio reduced from 162% last year to 73%. The ratio is more efficient and remains solid to allow Tyro sufficient capacity to continue growing both its payments and banking businesses. Our banking balances grew compared to last year.
We had taken steps to restrict our lending originations after a record AUD 60.1 million in originations in FY 2020, given the COVID uncertainties. This was turned on, although cautiously, and we ended up originating AUD 25.8 million in FY 2021. Almost AUD 20 million of these originations were in the last quarter, with May 2021 being a record of AUD 8.1 million. As mentioned, we are looking to accelerate growth of this product into FY 2022.
Deposits have been growing steadily year-over-year at moderate interest rates, and it provides Tyro with stable and cost-effective source of funding as it ramps up lending growth. The Tyro Bank Account grew from AUD 49.7 million in FY 2020 to AUD 72.5 million at 30th June 2021. In addition, we grew the term deposits product from AUD 0.9 million in FY 2020 to AUD 3 million in FY 2021. There are two other call-outs on the balance sheet.
An increase in current liabilities includes a provision for remediation of approximately AUD 9 million, based on a combination of agreements reached with our merchants and our modeled estimate of the quantum where we are yet to hear from the merchants despite regular attempts.
Additionally, for your FY 2022 capital planning, the step-up in capital expenditure expected comprises purchase of terminals and dongles to fund the FY 2022 growth, investments in new strategic projects internally to drive future growth, and finally, the move to our new premises on 55 Market Street early in the 2022 calendar year. That concludes the financial review for the year. Recapping the key takeaways.
One, executing on our growth strategy. Organically, we added AUD 5 billion in transaction value driving our top-line growth with an additional AUD 0.4 billion from Bendigo in the month of June alone. In addition, we continue to invest strategically, investing in Paypa Plane, me&u. We completed the alliance with Bendigo Bank, and we acquired 100% of Medipass Solutions to accelerate our presence in the health payment space.
Our banking business is still in early stages, but provides a strategic value add to our merchants within the payments ecosystem. Secondly, operating leverage demonstrated through economies of scale and the agility with which we can implement effective cost control measures when required. Our normalized EBITDA increased by AUD 18.6 million in the year, primarily attributed to the growth in our payments business.
Finally, a more efficient and prudent capital position. Our capital has allowed us to pursue opportunities during the year, carry on delivering despite economic disruptions, and sufficient to support our growth ambitions into FY 2022. That is the financial update for the year. I will now pass back to Robbie for a trading update. Thanks, Robbie.
Thanks, Prav. Look, just to wrap up, if we could turn to slides 26 and 27. Look, although this COVID and lockdowns do remain unpredictable, I mean, our experience has been that the businesses rebound rapidly as normality returns. That was our experience last year, and it's definitely how things are playing out in the offshore markets currently. We remain optimistic, particularly as vaccination rates increase. It is an exciting time to be at Tyro. We've achieved a lot in the last year, but it's the opportunity in front of us that remains large and exciting. We have a mix of features and products in train that will continue to build out our payments ecosystem.
Products such as Tyro Go Dongle, which I mentioned, which will open up new verticals such as trades and micro-merchants, and provide queue-busting solutions for larger retailers. We're currently assessing our next generation terminal, which presents some exciting opportunities, including an MPOS capability. We're currently looking to extend our merchant cash advance product and make it available to a wider cohort of Tyro merchants with larger balances and advances available.
Look, with the digital claiming capability that is now available from the Medipass acquisition, including state and federal compensation funds, we have an opportunity in combination with our existing health solution to create a leading unified claiming and payments platform for Australian healthcare practitioners. As I mentioned earlier on, we've created IP, both technical and commercial, in creating our payments alliance model for Bendigo Bank, which has potential application to other market opportunities.
This is an area we remain keenly interested in exploring. Finally, we do definitely have an appetite for further bolt-on acquisitions, whether large or small, so long as they present an avenue to gain scale, leverage our platform, enhance our market position, or supplement our ecosystem. In terms of outlook, we're not providing specific profit guidance for FY 2022.
We do take this opportunity to discuss some early trading indicators, and we'll provide an update on this at our AGM in early November as well. Look, just stressing that these data points are unaudited. The highlights I'd call out, we've maintained our customer acquisition momentum with 2,205 new merchant applications received since the 1st of July. Our transaction value to the 20th of August grew 24% on pcp to AUD 3.64 billion.
Finally, our payments business gross profit for July was AUD 10.2 million, up 34% on last year. All those metrics are trending nicely in the right direction. We're definitely optimistic on the outlook. Look, that ends the formal presentation, and we'll move on to Q&A.
Your first question comes from Bob Chen with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys. Just a few questions from me. In terms of the merchant acquiring net promoter, that looks to be pretty robust. Can you talk a little bit about the types of merchants that you're bringing on? Are they sort of larger or smaller? As well as which particular verticals you're seeing it coming from?
No, great question, Bob. Thanks for the question. In terms of the mix of the merchants we're getting, there has been no dramatic shift in the mix. We've got a nice cross-section. We've got some nice large opportunities which are in progress at the moment. In terms of what we signed up in the last two months, very consistent mix with what we've seen in the past. It's in that SME space predominantly. We are over-indexed in still in the hospitality space. No dramatic changes. We've stayed pretty focused on the verticals we're playing in at the moment, and it really is not until we've got our new dongle solution that we can start pushing into some adjacent spaces.
We still have an appetite, Robert, as we've talked about in the past, to look at the accommodation vertical, but clearly that's remained a little bit challenged. It is in appetite, but it's probably one that we won't start proactively pursuing, until probably calendar 2022, just given how the world's looking at the moment.
Okay, great. You mentioned there in your closing comments that you said created IP with the model that you have with Bendigo Bank and you're sort of looking at other market opportunities. In relation to that, what other opportunities are there? Are there further opportunities for these types of alliances with other books of merchants?
Yeah, look, Bob, the Bendigo transaction, there was a lot of technical work that went into that to enable us to provide that solution. As I think most people know, there's two sort of paths that you could go down. There's an alliance model like we've done, and then there's another model out there in the market which would involve more of a incorporated JV sort of structure. We genuinely believe the alliance model is a preferable structure.
It really does align both parties to the right outcomes. I think we've got the model from a commercial view correct, in the Bendigo transaction. Also the technical solution, which we've invested in, is able to be redeployed elsewhere. Whilst, nothing in train at the moment, Bob, we genuinely believe there are other opportunities in that space. Whether they come to solution, time will tell. We have the tech, we have the commercial model, and we have the appetite to actually look at those type of opportunities if they were to arise.
Okay, great. Just finally, obviously Bendigo coming online from first of June, that was pretty good. I believe, I think Melbourne would have been impacted partially by lockdowns. If you sort of normalize the lockdowns, what sort of volumes would you have expected from that Bendigo book?
Sorry, Bob, you just broke up there in the last bit of that. I caught the first bit, but I didn't catch the last sentence.
Yeah, no, I was trying to get a sense of what sort of TTV that Bendigo book could represent.
Oh, okay. Yeah.
if you normalize the lockdown.
Look, the July numbers, AUD 440 million in transit value, are pretty representative. We're very confident the business will generate the AUD 5 billion. The book for Bendigo is more skewed to Victoria and less so to New South Wales. Victoria is the largest market for Bendigo. Queensland is the second largest, then New South Wales is third. It's probably in a little bit better space, just given how the world's sort of playing out at the moment. The best measure I can give you, Bob, is that sort of AUD 440 for July. Look, in a normal world, AUD 5 billion in annualized transaction value would be the run rate you'd expect from that business.
Okay, great. Thanks for that, guys.
Our next question is from Brendan Carrig with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Just a quick one. Just on the investment side or on the OpEx side of things, I note that expenses were a little bit lower versus expectations. Is there anything you'd like to call out there? I think you had been flagging that you were expecting maybe expenses were going to jump up with additional hires. Can we expect more of an annualization impact or were there some additions sort of towards the back end of the period?
Look, Brendan, I might just start first with that, and maybe Praveen might comment as well. Look, in terms of the hiring, we definitely are in the market to bring on more engineering team members. We have some significant projects which we've called out for the year, and that will require more headcount. You will see an expansion in the headcount, definitely. That's what we've called out in that capitalization number as well. It picks up those sort of three big projects. The dongle, the new terminal, and eCom.
As Praveen called out in his note, we did put through pay increases for the team after a period where everybody worked with us through the COVID period. Those increases were just under 5% and kicked in from the 1st of January. The other call-out I'd just make there, and I'll hand it to Praveen, is we've changed our review cycle now, so we will be doing reviews on a calendar year basis. You would expect to see in the 1st of January a bit of a pickup in them as well or increases at that period. Prav, maybe I'll hand over to you.
Yeah. Great. Thanks, Robbie. Hey, Brendan. Just a couple of things, just to recap. Salary increases, obviously, for this year was after an 18-month period, that will run through into the whole of next year. As Robbie mentioned, the expansion in headcount. A number of these have been flagged against strategic projects, though. There will be a view taken on capitalization versus expense.
As I mention always, about 35% of our expenses are in some sort of a variable state, so sales, marketing, as we grow our business. That will continue in that equation in line with merchant number growth and applications growth. Marketing was one as well. We effectively kept marketing steady this year, just given all the external uncertainties in the year. Now, that one we have flagged previously as well. It is an area where we would be investing more. I'd probably model that into your forecasts as well.
That's clear. Just another question. On the churn. Year-on-year, the numbers were sort of fairly stable, but it looks like there was a bit of an uptick in the half. Nothing major, but just a little bit. Do you think that was sort of off the back of the connectivity issues and things have stabilized now, or can you just provide a bit more color just around the churn side of things?
Yeah. Look, if you look at merchant count churn, those numbers are excellent, right? The slight variation has come through in the transaction value churn. That is really just the way we measure that and the way we capture that. If a merchant's been inactive for six months, they become part of that stat.
With the COVID lockdowns, that number has increased a little bit. I'd suggest to you, Brendan, there's nothing systemic in there in terms of merchants departing. It's more the environment we're operating in. If you're trying to look for an indicator in terms of the impact of the incident, I'd say merchant count churn is the number to look at. I've got to say, I am very comfortable with that sitting.
I think by stepping in, leaning into that, and actually doing the right thing and getting behind the problem and providing the right response, I think we've managed as a team to come through that very strongly. I think we've kept our reputation intact. We've kept our merchant base intact. It's all about doing the right thing, which is one of our core values.
Yeah. Okay. Then the last one I had is just a bit of a follow-on from Robert Chen, just on the merchant additions, which I think is definitely the highlight. Can you just maybe talk to the difference between May and June? Obviously very elevated in May, that 1,400 number that you mentioned. June, maybe some impact from the Vic lockdowns that were starting and pre New South Wales. Just trying to get a sense of where you think that that run rate might be or was exiting in a more normal pre-lockdown environment.
June was a very strong month as well. I'm very comfortable with how we exited the FY 2021 year. It would not be unreasonable to expect New South Wales to see a bit of a slowdown with what's going on at the moment. The thing I'd sort of call out for you, Brendan, is when we came through the first wave last year, we definitely saw a softening in applications in March and April last year. It actually came back pretty strongly.
Our takeaway there was even though things were still a bit constrained in April last year, people were starting to look at their businesses and looking for efficiencies and looking at a a number of their business solutions, and we benefited from that. I've got to say, I'm quite bullish on the apps numbers. Obviously, I'm looking at them every day. We're seeing healthy trajectory. I'm not feeling uncomfortable on the new apps.
Yeah. No. Maybe just, what was keeping May so high? I agree, June was still a good month. I think that probably seems to be a reasonable exit point anyway. Putting that aside, was there anything specific in May that made it that record month?
Just the crack of sales team, Brendan. They did a great job.
Cool. All right, excellent. I'll leave it there.
Your next question is from Michael Aspinall with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yes. G'day, Robbie and Prav, a few from me. You showed headcount increasing. Is there a large part of that Bendigo Bank deal? What are your cost expectations just in adding Bendigo Bank to the platform for next year?
Look, the headcount wasn't so much driven by Bendigo. There was some extra headcount there in terms of key account management team members and customer service team members. Not predominantly through Bendigo. Look, the best guide I can give you on the Bendigo expense base is what we called out back in October last year. I haven't got the pack in front of me, if you go back to that pack, we called out what the view on the operating expenses would be.
Look, the headcount increase, as I sort of pointed out, we are looking to increase, to some extent, our tech team, because we've got some projects that we want to execute, and we do want to invest in those because we see them as key competitive advantages in market, particularly things like the Dongle project and eCom and the new terminal. Look, the best I can give you, because we haven't gone line by line with the Bendigo one. Have a look back at that pack from October. It gives you the best line of sight.
Okay. No problem. This might be one for Prav. How are you accounting for the Bendigo gross profit? From memory, they're still retaining a trailing share of gross profit. Do you take all of that through the P&L or a proportionate basis?
Yeah, that's a good question. From a technical accounting view, obviously, we're capitalizing the intangible, and we're capitalizing the commission payable. That's how it will come out in the statutory accounts. It hardly affects FY 2021, but a good one for FY 2022 onwards. When we actually normalize our results, obviously the profit share, we put it back up above EBITDA because that is the commercial substance of it. That's what we've done in FY 2021 June results as well.
Okay. Is it in gross profit, though? The 100%?
It's in gross profit. The 100% gross profit minus the revenue share is in gross profit.
Okay.
The gross profit is a lower number.
I'm just trying to reconcile that contributing or Bendigo contributing in July with, I mean, gross profit growth was 34% in July, which is well ahead of turnover growth of 25%. Can you just talk to what is behind that there?
Yep. The July growth last year, that's in the payment space. I think in pcp, we had about AUD 9 million in gross profit, of which AUD 1.5 billion in July last year was JobKeeper. If you notice, we went negative in growth from April last year right up till June, and then it slowly started recovering. Obviously, in July this year, there's a combination of still soft because of the lockdowns and July being New South Wales and Victoria in lockdown. The Bendigo book came back up with a total transaction value growth, I think, that we had mentioned about 22% for the month of July.
Yeah. Sorry. What was the driver of gross profit growth being higher than turnover growth?
Oh, right. Okay. It literally is a card mix. Effectively, as I mentioned in my spiel, the debit cards continue to be the key trend this year, as well as the underlying costs of debit cards decreasing through the year.
Okay.
Compared to July last year.
Yeah. When did the change in the cost of debit cards come through? Just trying to think about when we start cycling that.
It came through towards the end of the first quarter last year. This year.
That's good.
It came through by September 2020.
Okay. We'll start cycling it kind of halfway through this half.
Yep.
Yeah. There's just last one from me. There are quite a few new competitors emerging. We've heard from Woolworths on Wpay and Zeller being in the press quite a bit. What are you seeing on the competitive front in acquiring customers?
Yeah. Mike, look, the thing I love about the payment space in Australia is it's a hyper-competitive market, right? You wouldn't be in this space if you didn't enjoy competition. Tyro is well used to, there's a number of players that have been in market we've competed with very successfully over the years.
I've got to say, with the numbers we're seeing coming through the business in May, June, and through July, August, very comfortable about our position in market. I think our solution, because of the way we've focused on the verticals we work with and work in, we have got the best product in market. We've got the best solutions in market. We'll just keep focusing on our game.
I'm very happy for the multitude of players out there, but we'll keep focusing on what we do really well, which is having that proprietary stack, innovating and providing features which are right for the vertical we want to actually have a very strong presence in. I think we keep doing that right, and we keep doing things like Tyro Connect, where we provide value adds, and we provide merchants with the ability to do things a little bit differently, use their data better. I think they're the things that will make a big difference for our business and keep us winning share. As I said, still very small with 3.8% of the TAM. There's a lot of opportunity there.
Okay, great. Thanks. That is all from me, guys.
There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Mr Cooke for closing remarks.
Thanks. Look, I'd just like to thank everybody for the time. I know we had quite a few people on the call. I think it was over 250 people. Look, appreciate everybody's time and interest. We'll call it for the day. Thanks.
This concludes your conference call for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect your line.