Earnings Call: Q1 2025

May 8, 2025

Summary

Q1 gross profit reached a record above BRL 63 million at a 42% combined gross margin, while CSU DX revenue grew more than 15%, supported by HAS. Investment in AI and U.S. expansion continues; representative U.S. revenue is expected in 2026.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the CSU Digital video conference to discuss the results for the first quarter 2025. This video conference is being recorded, and the replay can be accessed at the company's website, ri.csu.com.br. The presentation is also available for download. Please note that all participants will not only be able to watch the speakers but also follow the slides during the presentation. Ensuing this, we will go on to the Q&A session when further instructions will be provided. I would like to remind you that the content presented will be in Portuguese with simultaneous translation into English. For those who wish to follow the audio in English, you can choose the language via the interpretation icon at the bottom right of the platform. Before proceeding, I would like to emphasize that the forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of CSU Digital's management and based on current information available to the company. These statements may involve risks and uncertainties as they relate to future events and depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors, analysts, and journalists should take into account that events related to the macroeconomic environment, the segment itself, and other factors could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. Mr. Pedro Alvarenga, CFO and IRO, Mr. Fabiano Droguetti, CTO, and the IR team are present at this video conference. I will now turn the floor over to Mr. Pedro Alvarenga, who will begin. You may proceed, Mr. Alvarenga. Good morning, everybody. It is a pleasure to be here with you at another earnings result. Now to speak about the earnings result for the first quarter 2025. We are going to go straight to the presentation, and I would like to draw your attention to the following. In the last five years, the company has been working intensely, transforming the business and expanding the possibilities we have in multiple businesses, multiple products, multiple geographies. I think this will be reflected in most of the results we will analyze during the presentation. This presentation began way back with a focus on our technological platform, especially when we speak about multiple payments, something that is ever more complex with new demands, new companies working in the sector with different needs and challenges. Our initial challenge, therefore, was to bring in new competencies to the platform to offer greater breadth when it came to products. Because of this, Fabiano and myself, we have devoted ourselves. We had relevant investments. If we see only what was allocated in technology, we are referring to more than 270 million BRL. The challenge was huge because, of course, we had to create a very robust, secure, scalable platform that simultaneously would be flexible to adapt to these multiple realities and products. We created engineering to bring together all of these components of the Lego, and although we had multiple pieces, they had to communicate in an integrated fashion to capture most of the benefits, the data, and other peculiarities of financial processing. Of course, this represents enormous complexity. Alongside this, we consolidated the platform, not only from the viewpoint of products, but also in terms of how to manage the processes that arise from these new components. We worked intensely reviewing our processes, thinking about how we had structured each of the products so that they would work in an adequate way. Not all were digital, so we went in-depth in each of these fronts. Obviously, we began to work precisely in terms of the right people and automation, something that goes way beyond automation per se. We have RPA and other components that can be applied that, yes, of course, will bring us efficiency gains. These gains tend to be limited if you do not have a relevant component of AI to orchestrate all of these components and leverage each of the stages of the traditional financial process. We delved into bringing new capacities to our operation for our daily work so that we could generate more results for each transaction in each platform and business. The platform changed its profitability because of these efforts. We are referring to 15 percentage points in gross margin, 8 percentage points in net margin. This may sound contradictory, how a company that invests evermore can not only preserve but also expand its results. This was a very important stage that we would like to clarify for each and every one of you to allow us to make all of the investments that we have already mentioned. There is no way around this. The financial part is complex. We have to invest more, but also generate more results and manage all of these operations. I would say that we are now at a stage where everything that referred to the evolution of our platform has been delivered. Everything that we needed in terms of our in-house processes has been delivered, and the results point to that. We knew that going through those previous steps was not sufficient. It is very complex to operate financial services day after day. We have a huge amount of documents that need to be analyzed. We have the risk of fraud that happens in each of our transactions. There are credit analysis activities that are very complex, and oftentimes our customers have difficulties in managing this, or they have very high costs to carry out these activities. Making the most of the expertise we had developed for ourselves to enhance our efficiency, we used the platform and began to direct it to our clients. We developed a platform called HAS of Hyperautomation in such a way that each of the steps that we need to organize financial services are available on a shelf for our clients to apply to their own businesses. When I say apply to their businesses, it is something extremely broad. One of the most important features of HAS is that it is not limited to onboarding or a digital account. Onboarding does not necessarily have anything to do with financial services. We had to create a platform so that the multiple difficulties that a company goes through every day managing front office, middle office, and back office could be resolved so that we could have an offer that would add value to each of the companies. This was done. The product was made available to the market at the end of 2023 and throughout 2024. We materialized each of these initiatives. We capitalized on this. Last year, we had 7 new contracts, and these contracts, of course, generated results. As you can see in this slide, five of the contracts have been put in place, two of them in the first quarter. This means that it will drive our results in the CSU DX vertical, 3.7 million interactions managed, 15% volume in CSU DX, basically coming from our existing divisions, but from each of these new operations as well. I draw your attention to the technology. Basically, the bulk of our activities is connected to using this hyperautomation tool to the utmost. So what we do in our business vertical tends to have an extremely high degree of automation. When we speak of only five contracts, we accelerate the curve of digitization. More than 54% of transactions have taken place on this digital platform. Our revenues grew more than 15% on CSU DX. This was a unit that was going sideways in our top line. We underwent a significant transformation process that referred to profitability. We increased margins. They went to 10, 11, 12, reached 17, 18. Since the implementation of the first clients of HAS, besides speaking of the growth of revenues, we materially changed that ability for this vertical to offer us profit. We're speaking about more than 35% in gross profit and profitability of 20%. So we conclude this third step, which was very important in our strategy precisely to add this to everything we had done in CSU Pays. It's a unit that grows, it has a good profitability, and going forward, has new avenues for growth. Had we not done this in CSU DX, the offer to the clients would not be complete. A part would be missing linked to the back office. We now not only brought this to the market, but we're also bringing in results. I would like to ask Fabiano to speak more about the solution. We have brought you some cases that we can share with you to clarify what we have just said. Well, thank you all for your attendance and for the opportunity of explaining our business. HAS is the platform that was designed to be very flexible in terms of process and segments where we work. We have concrete, real examples where we had all of this implemented. There are different segments. As you can see, the processes are also different within these segments. Solutions that are already adding components, tools to aid and abet in the final result, tending towards a better quality, a lower cost and efficiency, and a better customer experience. The market battle is to offer a better experience to the end customer. I like these examples as they are very concrete in terms of results. We're going to deep dive into them and go through two of the most interesting cases, so it will be easier to understand. We're working not only with the front office in the first case of relationship with a client. We go all the way to the back office for an analysis. So we go through the entire flow of processes with the same goal in mind, with a tool that has offered us an important outlook on new businesses and very well surveyed and delivered results. We're now bringing about this new reality and these processes. The first example that I would like to share refers to quality monitoring. Any operation with a client has a cell of quality variables that identifies if that day-to-day with a client is being followed based on some quality standards. Well, the human being gets a call or listens to a recording, carries out an analysis, filling up some requirements, and identifies if the call was good quality, medium quality, or poor quality. Based on that analysis, will offer feedback to the operation so that you can have training, carry out adjustments in the day-to-day of the operation. What did we decide to do? Automate the entire process, applying generative AI. What does generative AI do? We can analyze 50% of the operation, 30%, not a small sample, and 50% is a more complete sampling. It allows us to better understand what is happening in the day-to-day of the operation. We transcribe the audio to a text in an automated fashion. Based on that text, we carry out an analysis. We automatically fill in a form for quality if the service was followed properly, if the language was correct, and it also gives us an analysis of the feeling of that call. If the words used, if AI understands the level of satisfaction of the customer at the beginning of the call, and which was the feeling at the end of the call. We assess the evolution of the call, therefore. So this analysis of feeling is also done filling in this quality form. Based on these layers of analysis, we identify those that merit special attention of supervisors or managers of the operation, offering them inputs, if they have to offer training, if they have to review the script, if they have to review the people training. The entire operation therefore becomes more efficient. We analyze at the same cost, but a much higher volume. The sampling statistically becomes more relevant in the final results. This is done in near real-time. The analysis is carried out near the fact, the original call, which also brings about a benefit. We can act on the same day. In an operation, this normally will extend for more time. This is a direct benefit. In the final account, the quality of service will improve because of the inputs of clients. The service is better, and the client ends up gaining from this. This is a very interesting case that has been put in place, and the client can see these benefits in practice and is taking these ideas to other operations, which means we're expanding the breadth of this operation. Another benefit of HAS. We can begin with a process and expand this in other processes in the company so that you can positively contaminate the entrepreneurial environment, always with those variables of quality, cost, service, with all of these benefits. We work with machine learning, deep learning, and many of these processes can also be used in logic and mechanic with other clients. This does have an exponential effect, doubtlessly. If we go to another line, here we're speaking of an agent. It's not an automated operation. We speak about AI operators. What are they exactly? They're robots with AI in such a way that they can carry out some tasks. Here we used AI to support the operator that is in contact with the end user. It's a person trained for the operation, but they need support, technical information, procedures, doubts that the client may have, and they can seek this support in the AI agent. The speed of service tends to be much faster. That thing of, "Just a minute, sir," and they leave you waiting, that is decreased significantly or is non-existent in a conversation. The quality of information is much better. The doubts that the operator could have are resolved by AI. He is geared to give the client the best response, bringing in necessary information on the products, on the client doubts. In this case, we had a telecom customer, and the doubts were more technical, connection with Wi-Fi, with a router at the customer's house. These doubts are quickly resolved with this indication, and this agent can adopt some actions based on a command from the operator. For example, restart if the router is in the customer's house. The operator will follow a certain script with the end customer, and AI will trigger this command to restart the router, and of course, this could resolve the problem or the reason for the contact. So time is greatly reduced, obviously, and the information that could be exchanged with the customer, of course, have a much better quality. That exponential effect that you mentioned is truly spectacular in this type of operation. As AI feeds back on itself, learns from the customer's doubts, learns from the questions, it tends to offer ever more benefits. We work with an initial curatorship. This is what was done in this case, and through time, the accuracy improves, and we can add new products to be serviced, more complex operations for the AI agent to help the operator. This is another case that is in the background. The customer does not see AI directly, but it does help in that perception of quality for the end customer. It's a win-win game here, of course. The end customer is benefited. They have more quality, less friction. They have that perception of more added value. The company that hires us to manage the process obviously benefit because they're enhancing that relationship with the user. They have less cancellations, less problems, less friction in general, and obviously, if they can serve us a greater volume, they can expand in a more efficient fashion. For CSU Digital, we have a new product that brings in new revenues, and of course, because of the product, we have higher profitability. The more the machine learns, the more efficient it gets, and that profitability for CSU Digital will, of course, be enhanced through time. There are very good outlooks in this process. Simply to resume the presentation, as I mentioned, throughout the years, we try to work with the demands, the problems, the challenges of our customer in their day-to-day work, in their operations. When we drew up those three steps that we mentioned previously, basically we had three major concerns and three value proposals for our business model. The first great challenge of financial services is to be attractive. Attractive for contracts and for end users. You have to have an offer that will allow you to attract ever more ways of usage and, of course, more companies that want to work in that segment. Our growth strategy therefore, focuses on the company's needs. Companies that create their financial ecosystems so that this will be their core business or a secondary business. We decided to work on three main fronts. The first, how to expand the active user base for the company, to give them a full portfolio, a full service operation, something that will facilitate and end friction, guarantee the best performance in financial services. This was our proposal and of course, we have made a hit here. It's not worth having a base of companies with a relevant base of users if that base is not active, if they're not committed in using the solution of bank A, which is our client, in detriment of bank B. It doesn't matter if the platform is available or not. We made strides in this agenda of seeking mechanisms to activate the user base. Once the base was active, to have more and more transactions in different modalities. That feeling has to exist, that that bank, that retailer, that insurance company, is the best option for the user when it comes to financial services. To feel enchanted, to feel attracted, to have that primacy in the industry. This is what we have been fostering ever more to preserve the user base and make sure that base is always active. Well, it's not important to have a fantastic base of financial users if that is what happens externally and if you're inside, your kitchen is completely chaotic. So on behalf of CSU and the customer, all of this had to be perfect. As revenues grow, this is how CSU expanded. When we speak about the future throughout the years, the situation is not different. The focus will always be to be more efficient, to differentiate ourselves, have financial services, but we begin to bring in other components to the market. For example, the goal that most of institutions have of having global operations. When we speak about global operations, this has become an enormous demand. Everybody that has a credit card wants to transfer money or wants to have an account to invest in other countries. We know how complex this environment still is when we need to carry out money transfers from one geography to another. There's enormous flow of initiatives in that direction. The market is positioning itself ever more to seek products that have that feature. So we're challenging ourselves to continue to change our business. When we speak about payment, we do have new products for the day-to-day. We're working on credit, but one of the main sources of investment have been the global products. When we speak about payment, we use AI in financial services, this is important, and in processes to enhance efficiency. We carried out a crusade by implementing HAS, but it's a living system and it changes day after day. I'll show you something very interesting soon. Regarding financial services, we bring about that topic of customization, and I'm going to underscore this item. It's a search of any market that works with retailers and other segments. The advent of AI tools that are commercially and technically feasible brought about several opportunities, and we have made the most of those opportunities to offer to our customer our higher, more personal relationship. Not something that is clusterized or in a group, something personal. This is a very interesting challenge. We set forth to ourselves, we embraced it, we now see the first result. This goes much beyond working with marketing. We now work on personal marketing. This changes the rules of the industry. There are very successful companies following that direction. That technology that is complex to operate, we are going to put it at the disposal of customers that would have more difficulty, that would take longer in incorporating this type of technology in their offer to their end user. This is a highlight in payments that is going beyond that frontier. We have marketing campaigns. Many have nothing to do with our objective. I have just bought something and they continue to pursue you. This is a great challenge. Now, let's speak a bit about. Let's try to be didactic here to show you that many things have happened, but we are just at the beginning. We are incipient. We speak about automation. We have interesting results using classic automation, RPAs with BPM. That was our starting point. We automate a process. We had a human being doing input from one system to the other. We automate the system to be more productive and to reduce the number of errors. Ensuing this, we had the idea of offering the first AI component, and I am using AI under a larger umbrella. We use machine learning, one of the techniques, and it puts at our disposal the learning of processes. We have a process that is performing in a classical fashion. I use the machine learning to learn more from the process to identify bottlenecks and much more. Now, the next stage where we are working more on presently, we have an example of the use of generative AI in a quality process, for example, and we want to incorporate even more processes, bring that technique, that set of tools that is available from big techs and see how we can bring that into the reality of the process of our customers offering a true benefit. We have a quick case here. We developed in our human resources, a work of screening and, based on this technique, an HR professional formerly could analyze 10 or 15 curricula in a certain period. Now they can analyze 1,000 in that same time frame with interesting accuracy. We have worked with a pilot, and we will begin to expand this. This is how we would like to evolve. The next frontier, of course, is to use the AI agents, incorporate them in activities that are more complex. We no longer have a process where we had a binary decision. If the result is X, they follow one path. If it is Y, they go through another process. We have several different ways of entry, and everything is taken into account with the help of the agent. The operators are more automated, and they will be ever present there. This is a frontier that we will reach very shortly. We begin with HAS using classic automation. When we see this path ahead of us, the impression is extremely wonderful that we can attain significant results. We already spoke about personalization and AI applied to means of payment. This is an initial focus that we set forth, transforming the interaction with the customer from being operational to being more personalized, more consultative. The AI advisor is a product that we are developing precisely to help with the experience of operating credit cards to be more personal. We can mention cases for customers that have more than one credit card. We say the best use would be to use credit card A and not credit card B, already an interesting experience. Or we can propose other products. We have acquired a trip, so we have an offer of insurance for that trip, and we use that relationship with the customer in a highly personalized and smart fashion to add value. We already use this extensively, and we have applied it ever more in the detection of fraud. Well, the market is not using AI for fraud detection now. The recent experiences tell us that the thieves, the bandits, have become more sophisticated, and we have to keep up with them. We have to be one step ahead to avoid financial losses. In this arena, formerly, we looked only at the monetary transaction, debit or credit. We now look at more transactions. A change in a registry, for example, could be the beginning of a fraud that will take place. So AI helps us to identify fraudulent transactions. The sophistication of the attacks are more complex. They're deeper, and we have made significant investments to help our customers to avoid financial losses. Let's speak a bit about geographic expansion. We have the privilege of working in an industry in a country that is highly complex. It has a more challenging financial history, high inflation, and other problems, and we learn to deal with that. Each Brazilian finances had to adapt to that. But nowadays, there are solutions that are quite differentiated when we compare this with other geographies. We discussed this at other calls. We decided to go to the U.S. because we understand that we offer value to an important market niche that is very relevant, with a huge potential for penetration, and we have the necessary expertise to apply this with speed and directly. When we identified that, we went to the market and saw the potential. Now it's hard work to have the right partners in the American market. There are different payment arrangements, of course, and this is how we can have a more ready-made penetration and, in doing this, adapt our solutions to specific legislations, different specs on products that tend to be different, deal with the technical issues. But that is the path we're following. We're beginning to work with that concretely with investments we made this year and with significant expectations until the end of the year. Those who follow the calls, this is a slide you have seen. You will see that several of the activities have progressed to on hold. We have increased investments, our focus here, and we understand that there are ideal moments to work with this agenda because the Brazilian banks that are there are demanding this type of solution, and the present-day customers of CSU as well, as well as other North American financial institutions that feel that challenge, seeing that the sophistication of the global market is a challenge for them as well, and they're seeking alternatives. We're referring to small and medium-sized banks and cooperatives. This is the ideal profile of customers for CSU. The difficulties of our first potential customers are incredible. They're difficulties that seem to be simple, but in the present-day situation of the North American market, they are concrete difficulties, and they are able to resolve them directly. We can be more expeditious, more agile in our interventions. It's an operation that is difficult to imagine that it will not work out. There are no miracles, of course. We need to open up work fronts to increase the number of users for our different pillars. The Brazilian market is quite agitated. We now have a new credit modality, the consignado. The legislation has been changed to open up the market more to break with the dominance of some players. Now, the global card, which is a reality in some operations and ever more present in the Brazilian market, we're also embracing these acquirers. We have some acquiring customers. We would like to expand this. Open all of this up so that first pillar of growth and volume will use our entire portfolio, identifying important avenues for growth, reinforcing the use of HAS and engaging loyalty because we can offer interesting loyalty work with AI solutions. With all of this, we believe that that first pillar has been addressed as is on an interesting path. We've already discussed the other ones, and the potential for work here, of course, is always very interesting. This work and service is what addresses a very robust pipeline. Last year, we had 14 new contracts. That's significant, of course, and we want to intensify this, open up this funnel for other customers, other segments. To speak about the quarterly results. In general, the company is under constant expansion of its business. This strategy contributes directly to this continuity of our movements, even in years where the economic situation was difficult in Brazil. We had some sectors focusing on the retailer banks, had high default levels. We have worked very successfully at a continuous pace in the company. We have CSU DX, a unit that grows continuously, even in more complex quarters, they do have increases, but it is a continuous movement with evolution in each of our verticals, and this is not different in CSU Pays. We work through payments, through banking, through loyalty, and this guarantees the movement. AI, as we mentioned, will be a catalyzer of this vertical. It will boost transaction volumes, and we imagine continuity and expansion in the future. DX is somewhat different in this composition. It was a unit that demanded a great deal of transformation. We had several analog processes. This transformation was carried out gradually through the years, and it is now in a new era. This is our expectation. The transformation was more than 15% in a quarter, and this backs up what we were saying. We have new contracts still being implemented. This is a good initial outlook, and expansion is what we imagine will happen going forward. To speak about profitability, the company benefited directly from the digitization, the transformation we have mentioned in the call. We reached the highest value of gross profit in this historical series, going beyond BRL 63 million, a very healthy margin of 42% in our business combination. We are at good levels. This is where we imagine the business is running through time for CSU Pays, and DX is a factor of change in this structure. The more successful we are, the more PaaS becomes relevant for everybody. This margin will continue to grow. We tend to see evolution going forward also in DX. This happened in DX, but now it has happened more materially as it happened in CSU Pays. The combination of those two factors allows us to present ever better results. We end this quarter not only from the viewpoint of throughput or revenue, but EBITDA net income with very good performance of very close to or above the main historical indicators of the company. What would I like to draw attention to? To invest in AI, in new products, new geographies. Obviously, this demands more expenses at the end of the day. We hire data engineers, we hire experts in AI, we hire commercial people or technology people that are focused on the North American market. We have deployed significant efforts in terms of that. Were we not doing these efforts, the indebtedness of the company would be either higher, but we're highly confident that each of these initiatives have enormous market potential and bring us that potential outlook of growth, profitability, and others. This is simply a temporary effect, and this is what we are underscoring in this presentation. As conclusion and to be able to open up for the Q&A session, it's always important to keep in mind that CSU is a company that delivers results. It's not different from startups that are concerned with a result that will materialize in 5 or 10 years. We want to generate results in the present. Those results, if they're sound and robust, will guarantee the longevity of our business. We're maintaining a very precise and stringent management of result, of cash, precisely to allow us to always create new cycles of expansion. Those who look at the historical series of our results will see that every year the company generates growth, it improves its performance, generates sufficient profit, because this is a very important feature. Obviously, we have to be one step ahead of our competitors. We have to be at the forefront of renovation. There are many novel things that have generated results and new things that will bring us even more results. AI is an important front. We're going to extract value in DX or Pays from these investments, as well as the international expansion that is still at a pre-operational stage, but it brings us an affirmation of what is about to come once it is fully operational. This discipline of bringing together results, cash management, and growth has allowed us to expand in attractive remuneration for investment. This is a company that pays dividends in general, more than BRL 250 million in the history of the company, a 50% payout that has been maintained. We paid out BRL 6.9 million, and until May 15, we will pay out BRL 18 million, referring to the 2024 results. Once again, I draw your attention to the capital markets. The company has brought in a very attractive result to our investors, more than 5% of total return, a price appreciation, and dividend yield from each company. The return is important and well above the Bovespa, the stock exchange of Brazil. We are working to bring more light to these projects. We have brought in important investors, and this is something that is gradually materializing when we speak about capital markets. Even though we doubled the company's valuation, although we have very attractive returns, ROIC and ROCE, we still have a certain price asymmetry vis-a-vis other players, both in Brazil and abroad. Very well. That was the presentation. We will now go on to the question and answer session. Thank you. We will now go on to the question and answer session for investors and analysts. Should you wish to pose a question, please click on the raise hand icon at the bottom of your screen and wait for new instructions. If you want to send your question in writing, give us your name and the company name as well. Our first question comes from Bernardo Guttmann from XP. He asked, "In the presentation, you spoke about the phases of evolution of HAS. With these new capacities, can we expect that you will have new business opportunities? In the future, will all of the DX operations run on a hyper-automated process, not only DX, but also Pays?" Not something we can expect. We are working with that. It is natural. All new technologies have that adoption curve. We have gone through the curve at a very fast pace because of the benefits. But the idea is to bring that roadmap into the operations of Pays and DX to bring about more efficiency, a higher risk control. Because at the end of the day, what will change for our customers, those who hire us, is the level of quality that we deliver and that they add to their product. It is the only way to be successful in the market. Now, if they are successful, the entire chain will benefit. That is my viewpoint. I want what Pedro wants. It is inevitable because that is what the market is demanding. Were we not to do this, customers would not see value in our sector, and the investments carried out so far have shown that what we are harvesting at present is very positive. Nothing will deter us from this task, and perhaps we will speed up even further. Thank you. Our next question also comes through text from Alexandre, a physical investor. The revenues of DX were good in the quarter. Can we expect that you will maintain that growth in coming quarters, and is it linked to HAS? Thank you, Alex, for the question. I will begin here, if you allow me. In fact, that expansion does come from HAS. More than BRL 8 million as total revenue for DX from new customers because of those products. So materially, all of this is due to HAS. Now, once again, this is a product with significant capacity of adapting to multiple businesses and multiple processes. It is a product that, at the end of the day, is focused on bringing about quality, time of resolution, efficiency, and productivity. When we speak about the market moment, obviously in Brazil, we have gone through these moments, and there's enormous concern with inflation, with interest rates, and much more. That ability to generate effective savings in the day-to-day, or to limit how much you have to spend additionally to scale up your business, this is that the entire market needs. We have no difficulties in speaking about our commercial relationships with customers in our base or new customers that we are prospecting because of that characteristic of our products. We have a non-inclusive way that is going to demand less investments from that company that wants to contract this solution. It is a product that offers efficiency very rapidly. This brings about the potential for enormous commercial success. The pipeline is large, and our outlook is to continue closing contracts as fast as possible to open up a relationship with industries we had no relationship with, to continue working arduously quarter after quarter to speed up that expansion of CSU DX. Yes, we do want to continue at a very fast pace to expand revenue. We also are interested in margin. It's not revenue for the sake of revenue. We want to maintain our levels and our quest for expansion of margin as well. Thank you. Our next question is through text of Mr. Gustavo Adolfo. When do you think that the operation of CSU Digital in the United States will reach a break-even position? Is there anything to speed up that process in the North American market? Thank you for the question. It's a bit difficult to give you the right response for some markets. When we speak about the American market, we're working arduously to have a feasible product this year still. We're speaking about the third and fourth quarter, where this product would be ready to go to market. Of course, a product that is launched always brings about the concern of doing the official launch in a very gradual way. First, we will do this with friends of the family. We will run this in-house, run the solution, carrying out the correction of errors that, of course, will occur in this operation that is very complex. Until then, we will make that launch with a first customer so that, in fact, we can begin the test process. That customer will not change the entire operation overnight. They're going to test everything in a controlled environment. The expectation is to have a representative revenue only in 2026. Of course, to rush as much as we can to shorten this period. Until then, we will be very disciplined in terms of expenses. We have made important decisions on other fronts, other products, other functionalities. We're going to work quarter after quarter to continue to grow our profit, even with these higher investments. Regarding M&As, I think that, yes, it's a very interesting alternative, perhaps to speed up our agenda. There are initiatives that could be a block for us because the companies already have a license to operate. They are putting up their flags, their organization. They have a minimum organization, structurally and commercially. We have looked at smaller institutions, but M&A is always a black box. It is always very difficult to have a quick alignment. You have to find the right company. They have to want to sell, I have to want to buy. I would not consider this in our projections. When you are analyzing and modeling this, the main growth will be organic. Yes, we do think about M&As. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next question through text of Mr. Pedro Fagundes of Newfound Capital. Thank you for the call. Two technical doubts. Could you explain the reason why gross revenue dropped this quarter? Regarding the reduction of gross revenue, this refers to payroll remuneration. There are two impacts. First, that is concentrated on billing, basically, and it will begin to migrate to costs on payroll. When you begin to reorganize the remuneration process, you decrease the alíquota on gross revenue and consequently you increase the amount paid because of payroll. This had an impact on the company, BRL 1 million of negative impact, but it does have that mixed effect. It enhances the relationship between net revenues and gross revenues, but it also impacts the payroll. This year, that impact has been captured fully. The impact will be the same throughout the year, but for other years, we do have other revisions to carry out in that line item. We are working arduously to make adjustments in that difference in our results. There is a clause, this transfer is automatic, and in other cases, we have to negotiate this. Thank you. Thank you very much. I will now read the question of Bruno Lided that also responds to Pedro's second doubt. Good afternoon, and congratulations for the results. Can you speak about the effective IR rate and if you expect any variation going forward? Good question. Excellent question. Throughout the last nine months, we have worked on reviewing our internal processes for the closing and control of investments in technology. There is a benefit foreseen linked to what we call the Lei do Bem. This is an incentive for companies to innovate, to bring about ever more innovations, and to invest on people who have that ability to create new products or new solutions and to think out of the box. This is a benefit for the company. We have always made the most of this incentive, Lei do Bem. This is linked to the investments the company makes. We perceived that we are using this benefit less, which is incoherent because we had an increase in CapEx in the last few years. We had difficulties in the documentation. The demands changed. There was a relevant change in the government of the demands changed in terms of documentation, evidence, and other initiatives. We used this less during 2024. This drew our attention. We have changed our in-house processes completely. We brought in specialized consultants that have rerouted how we control that type of investment, control the evidence. We are speaking about presenting documentation to the Receita Federal, basically, and this change made us go back to using this incentive more and also extrapolate those values compared to what we had before. We have been very successful in this dynamic with the Receita Federal, and we have an improvement in effective alíquota. When we speak about coming quarters, yes, the expectation is to continue using this incentive. There's no reason for this aspect to be retroactive. We're always subject to evaluation assessment, but we're quite sure of this. We did this in the first quarter, and we imagine that we will fiscally make use of this incentive as in previous years. Thank you. Our next question from Mr. Pedro Fagundes once again. Nowadays, there's an effort to reprice the new vertical to compensate for the effects of collective bargaining and others. Are you focused on volume? Yes, we are transferring this cost to customer. In some cases, that transfer is automatic, as I mentioned. In other cases, we negotiate this, and in some cases, we end up focusing on volume to offset this effect. But in most cases, we're transferring this different to each of the companies. Part of this effect refers to a temporary mismatch. Sometimes it happens on the anniversary of the contract. So in the second and third quarters, this recomposition will be higher than in the first quarter. We're going to have to sit at the negotiating table to speed up this. Sometimes we use HAS as a tool to improve the profitability from that customer to be able to face this demand. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next question come through text from Mr. Henrique, Physical Investor. Good afternoon. I congratulate the company for the results. What are you going to do in the United States and Brazil with HAS? We have not found in the United States, we researched this. We did not find a company with an offer similar to ours. There are parts of the offer being delivered to several companies, but in an integrated way, the way we built this tool, there is nobody that can do this directly, which increases our appetite to operate in that geography as well with HAS and not only in means of payment, which is the door of entry. It doesn't mean we're comfortable with that. We have that roadmap of technological evolution to continue to bring novelties to the product and the platform. So we will continue to use it. These are expectations. We're never going to be alone in the market. Companies can resolve problems with components that are partially implemented. But the way that we propose to do this with the results that we have, it will be difficult to find this. We can have consultancy companies, process reengineering companies, but this demands a longer and more costly process, usually involving the IT segment of the company working with integrations. HAS is for the short term with highly effective results. I think this is what sets us aside. Thank you very much. We would like to remind you that should you wish to pose a question, click on raise hand or write in your doubt in the chat, including your name and company that you represent. The next company comes from Facebook from Alexandre, Physical Investor. There's an impact on EBITDA because of recurring expenses with new projects and international forays. Will the other quarters maintain this level? Thank you, Alex. As we remarked during the call, in fact, very clearly, we're trying to speed up our innovation agendas. We have very diverse teams, technology, data, among other fronts, and of course, the international expansion. Obviously, this demands a higher level of investment. We understand that for some structures, we're well anchored. Depending on the area, we have no visibility of new increases. But when we speak about the American market, for example, when we begin to generate more revenues, more results, there's no other way. We're going to have to have more expenses. Our expectation is that this operation will generate a great deal of expenses, and we have to have people to support this. Our agenda will still have an evolution. What I would like to clarify is that these evolutions will only take place with the company's revenue evolution. We are not going to increase expenses unnecessarily. We do have that rigor of preserving our results and enhancing them and have higher investment. Therefore, we will have a financial management of the company as a whole because that ability to self-finance ourselves is very important, and we have had this throughout the company's trajectory. They're one-time events. It's important to underscore that. They will only materialize if we continue to advance as we have in our results generation. Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Alexandre. Which are the difficulties that you imagine to implement in the U.S. market? Why would Americans hire CSU Digital and not a local company? Very good question. Well, the main difficulty will be commercial. Evidently, we don't have the same track record there that we have in Brazil. Now, to open up our agenda to the executives of these companies will be the initial challenge, more than a technical or product challenge. We understand we're well-positioned. Now, how to overcome this? Bringing in specialized people from the North American market. We're beginning to structure a team to have this access, and we have a pitch. We're going to have a winning pitch, and we truly believe in that. But there is that challenge of having them open up their agenda to listen to us. That's the main point. Of course, as with any new geography, we have to build a reputation, and that reputation can be built initially with Brazilian customers that live in the U.S. This is our initial starting point. They know us, they know who CSU is, and how relevant we are in the national market. So this is a complementary strategy to facilitate that entry point. When we look at the demands and in the initial conversations we have had, the demands are very easy to resolve. We have expertise, we have the right portfolio, we have the necessary flexibility to service these customers, something that is not common in the American market. And of course, we have competitive costs. Most of the operation will continue on with the cost of Brazil. So that cost and flexibility component, speed and integration and delivery, those ingredients will bring about success for us there. But of course, the initial challenge is to have them open up their agendas. I would say that evidently we have looked for local resources to break with this first cultural barrier. This is something that I'm adding to what was said by Fabiano. And what we're using broadly on this front is to bring in our partners with us. We have a relationship with banks, with banners, flags, and they're not only technological partners or project partners, but also in this commercial agenda. There are some important strategies, and we'll see. Through time, we're going to make adjustments in the route. There is a last factor that has helped us open up doors, is that CSU is a listed company, and I felt this personally. I have heard from our partners, customers, and potential customers that this is a game changer in the discussion. Thank you very much. Our next question is from Carlos, a physical investor. He asks, "Pedro, how have you structured the pricing of CSU DX products like HAS and AI and digital solutions in different markets? The present-day dynamic, has it allowed you to scale up with a healthy margin? Can you change your price policy?" Our contracts pegged to DX refer to volume. The more interactions, the more back-office operations we have to manage, the better we can generate revenue. There's no mystery here. It's basically looking for companies with that commercial structure. Companies with a high volume of users and users with a high volume of demand of different natures, so that we can generate scale, have volume, and as we use AI. If they don't have scale, it wouldn't make sense when we speak about HAS. It wouldn't make sense to use the platform. We have to have volume because this generates a cost. We're looking at customers with a high volume. On the other hand, that volume has a healthier margin. The competition is not in that red ocean that we had in the past for DX when we go from the analog to the digital. I'm not disputing the market with traditional BPOs, which was to offer labor to service their demand. It's completely different what we do at present, and this is what enables us not only to have a healthy margin, but to scale up that margin through time. The gain here is technology. This is how we set ourselves aside from competition. This is how we generate more results regarding the price policy. We don't need to change our price policy at present. What I am proposing for the customer is to generate savings. If he's spending 10, he's going to spend 7 when operating with CSU. This is my flexibility, the value, the incremental value I generate for the company. Once again, this is associated to how much technology we can use in that operation. The more technology, the more attractive we will be from the price viewpoint, and for us, the profitability will be higher. It will be case by case. This is not a policy. We have to look at the project as a whole to define the best price strategy, but we do have to generate savings. Otherwise, they're not going to float on this process. Efficiency is not that important because they would have to change everything. Very well. Thank you very much. With this, we would like to end the question and answer session. I will give the floor to Mr. Pedro Alvarenga for the closing remarks. Thank you very much for your attendance. In fact, we do have that commitment of continuing to have evolution generating profit for the company. I'm quite satisfied with the participation, with the questions. Should you have any additional doubts, our IR team is at your disposal through email or the main telephones available to you. Thank you very much and have a wonderful day. Thank you all.