Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Poppy, your Chorus operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Athens Exchange Group conference call to present and discuss the second quarter 2022 financial results. All participants will be in a listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on your telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Nikos Koskoletos, CFO, and Mr. Stelios Konstantinou, Head of Investor Relations. Gentlemen, you may now proceed.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and good morning to those of you listening to us from the other side of the Atlantic. I would like to present the financial results of the group for the first half of 2022, which were published yesterday and are available in the IR section of our website, and then take any questions that you might have. Next.
Yes, thank you, Stelios, and good afternoon and good morning to all. I just wanted to note a couple of drivers that have impacted our first half performance. Obviously, on the one hand, we had the Average Daily Traded Value that increased by 12% to EUR 91 million in the first half of 2022 versus EUR 81.3 million the same period last year. We also had the average market cap that stood 12.5% higher than the respective period in 2021. If we would break that down, we see that the listed banks market cap increased by almost 50%, the market cap of the rest of the market increased by 7%.
In terms of how things are shaping up in 2022, obviously market volumes seem to be holding up for the most part, again, with regards to the first and the second quarter. However, in Q3, we've hit that seasonally low period, and it's standing at lower levels. Operating expenses have been picking up, and as we've been through management changes and some other restructurings, and there's a wage inflation pressure as well that will be more evident in the second half, as there were adjustments to wages made in June. Our utility bills, as it pertains to electricity costs, are also significantly higher. However, the impact on the group is limited overall, as electricity represents circa 5% of OpEx.
Nevertheless, every little bit is something that we are monitoring. Overall, on a reported basis, our bottom line for the first half of 2022 stood at EUR 5.4 million, as we've read in our press release and our financials versus 5.1 million last year. While on an adjusted basis, and this would be adjusting for the tax loss that we recognized last year from the sale of the PPC shares, and the one-off gain that we had this year from the judicial outcome, the increase to our bottom line stands at 10.6%. At this point, I'd like to pass it on to Stelios to go through our first half 2022 performance in more detail. Stelios?
Yeah. Thanks, Nick. Let's start with the overview of our first half 2022 financial performance from the top. The consolidated turnover of the group in the first half of this year was EUR 19.6 million compared to EUR 18.4 million in the first half of last year, up 6.4%. If we dive a little deeper, we see that trading-based revenue, i.e., from trading and post-trading, was up 8.7% on the back of a 12% increase in ADTV in the cash market in the first half of this year compared to last year.
Market cap-based revenue, i.e., from listings and services to issuers, was up 12%, mainly due to a 12.5% increase in the average capitalization of the market, even though corporate action activity, i.e., rights issue, new share, and bond listings, were significantly lower in the first half of this year, compared to the same period last year. Revenue from services, i.e., data services, IT, digital, and ancillary services, was down 5%. If we look at the revenue lines in more detail, as reported in the P&L statement, we see that revenue from trading represents 18% of total consolidated turnover, and in the first half of 2022, it was up 8.5% to EUR 3.5 million compared to EUR 3.2 million.
Revenue from post-trading made up 41% of total turnover and amounted to EUR 8 million compared to EUR 7.3 million in the first half of last year, up 9%. This increase is due to the 12% increase in clearing revenue in the cash market, while derivatives market revenue was down 8%. Now, as far as revenue from the derivatives market, both trading and post-trading, is concerned, in the first half of this year, trading activity, i.e., average daily number of contracts, dropped by 43% to 39.8 thousand contracts compared to 69.7 thousand last year.
Revenue, in turn, was only down 8%, and the average revenue per contract increased by 60%, as you can imagine, to, you know, EUR 0.218 per contract compared to EUR 0.137 per contract last year. Our fees for derivatives contracts depend on the type of investor, the product being traded, and the prices of the underlying securities, and as a result, market volumes, and our revenue rarely go hand in hand. Last year, derivatives trading and post-trading revenue in the first half of this year was EUR 1 million compared to EUR 1.1 million last year, corresponding to 9% of total trading and post-trading revenue.
Moving on now to P&L, revenue from listing makes up 12% of total turnover, and this line includes a quarterly subscription fees paid by listed companies, fees on rights issues, IPOs, and other services to issuers, an amount of EUR 2.4 million, up 29% compared to the first half of last year. Revenue from data services makes up 9% of total turnover and includes a fee that we collect from data vendors for the provision of ATHEX market data, as well as revenue from InBroker. The fees that we collect from market data depend essentially on the number of data terminals to which these data vendors disseminate ATHEX market data to, and that increased by 9%. As you know, and as we mentioned before, we have been gradually increasing our data feed prices.
Revenue from IT and digital services makes up 17% of total turnover and includes revenue from digital services, infrastructure and technological solutions to the Hellenic Energy Exchange and Boursa Kuwait. This category also includes revenue from services such as Electronic Book Building, AXIAline, AXIA e-Shareholders' Meeting, colocation, and some others. Revenue from IT and digital services was down 9%, as last year's figures include a one-off item that is associated with the systems delivered. Finally, revenue from ancillary services makes up 3% of total turnover, and in the first half of this year, it was down 15% to EUR 550 thousand compared to EUR 649 thousand in the first half of last year. Ancillary services include revenue from support services to the Hellenic Energy Exchange, rents, and some others.
Moving now to the expense side. Total operating expenses increased by 5.1% in the first half of this year at EUR 10.8 million compared to EUR 10.2 million last year. If we break down OpEx, we see that personal costs are up 3.1% in the first half of this year at EUR 5.62 million compared to EUR 5.49 million last year. While all other OpEx increased by about EUR 350 thousand, i.e.
By about 7%, with the highlights being an 11% decrease in third-party remuneration and expenses, a 29% increase in utilities due to the persisting high electricity prices in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year, resulting in an EUR 584 thousand electricity bill compared to an EUR 3,64000 bill in the first half of 2021. Lastly, we have a 32% increase in taxes, which is in large part due to property tax, ENFIA, being assessed in the first half of 2022 this year, compared to the second half of 2021. Personnel remuneration expenses account for 52% of total OpEx.
Headcount of the group at the end of June 2022 is 325 compared to 233 at the end of the second quarter of last year. Earnings before interest and taxes of the group increased by 50.4% to EUR 5.37 million compared to EUR 5.6 million in the first half of last year. In the first half of this year, we booked EUR 625 thousand in revenue from tax returns resulting from a favorable court judgment concerning the return of tax and penalties that were assessed following a tax audit for fiscal years 2008, 2009, and 2010.
We have appealed to have a further the last part of EUR 270,000 returned, and we'll see what the court judgment is pertaining to that. Thus the net after-tax earnings of the group came in at EUR 5.4 million compared to EUR 5.1 million in the first half of last year, a 6% increase. For both 2022 and 2021, the nominal corporate income tax rate is 22% while the effective tax rate on consolidated earnings in the first half of this year was 21.8% compared to 9.5% in the first half of last year.
On the balance sheet, the cash and cash equivalents of the group at the end of June 2022 dropped to EUR 64.8 million compared to EUR 71.9 million at the end of 2021. Approximately 18% of the cash, i.e., EUR 11.7 million at the end of the first half of 2022, is kept at the Central Bank, the Bank of Greece, where interest rates are negative, were actually negative up until a few days ago, currently at -0.5%.
Also on the balance sheet, a further EUR 232.1 million that we report as both an asset and a liability are in fact third party cash assets that concern margins that our subsidiary ATHEXClear receives from its members in the cash and derivatives markets, and these funds are also deposited at the Bank of Greece. With these comments, this concludes our remarks for the first half of 2022 financial results of the group. Before we open the call to any questions that you might have, we would like to remind you that since we've changed the reporting on our P&L starting with the fiscal year 2021 results, we have made available on our website yearly and quarterly P&L data from 2017 to 2021 in the new formats.
It's there for you to download, and we can certainly help you if you need to find that file. Thank you for listening in, and happy to take any questions that you might have.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from a question queue, then you may press star and two. Please use your handset when asking your question for better quality. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. Once again, to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to management for any closing comments. Thank you.
Thank you all for taking the time to listen in. We wish you a great summer, and we'll speak again at the end of November for our nine-month results. Thank you all, and have a great afternoon or morning if you're from the U.S.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling, and have a good afternoon.