Good morning to all. Welcome to this presentation of our 2023 results. This presentation will be built on four points. The first one is to present to you our commitments and to the results and the performance that we are sharing with the market. The second point will be the details of the figures that will be handled by Brahim. The third is the different takeaways and the calendar of our next presentation. The fourth is the annexes with the detailed figures. I'll start by sharing with you our vision of the market.
We, as previously shared, we are in this industry that is growing, still growing, with a lot of innovation all around the spectrum of this industry that covers more than multiple businesses, let's say, from the acquiring to the issuing, the switching, the risk, the fraud. So, not only the business is growing in terms of volume, in terms of number of transactions, in terms of dollar value, and therefore the generated revenue and the profit pools that are growing year and year. In addition to that, more businesses are coming on top of these figures. So we have the chance of being in an industry that is growing year after year, giving us the opportunity also to propose innovative solutions.
We have seen that even in the worst period of the past close history, and I'm talking here about the pandemic, we have seen that this has also given another dynamic to our industry. So at HPS, we believe that we have some leverages on which we are creating our value. So the first one, from a risk from health, from a strength perspective, the revenue base is diversified on more than 90 countries and also 70% coming from our existing customer, from a revenue that is either recurring or regular, that it represents more than 2/3 of our revenue. And this is giving us a comfortable visibility on what we could expect. From always a revenue perspective, a very strong growth between 15%-17% to 25%.
This is what we are looking at with a history of more than 12%, 13%, 14% digits in our past history. We will see it today. We continue to accelerate and to grow on our volumes that are either on the revenue or on the margins. This is something that we have the chance of being comfortable in and making sure that these trends are continuing. This is also giving us, or this is coming from the fact that we have built and we are continuing to build a strong product, a strong platform, but now more and more very strong and appreciated services through top-class technology, but also extremely professional services that are coming to support our SaaS model throughout the different products and the different customers that we have.
This is giving us also a strong margin, a strong EBITDA that is growing year after year with the visibility, or with the target of having a 25%-30% EBITDA by 2027 with a promise of distributing also 50% in dividends. What we have seen as well is a strong valuation of the company with a share that is, the cost or the price of the share is growing year after year with can be 3x more in the past five years. So the leverages that we are using to create the value are here. The first one is a strong composition of our revenue enabling us to absorb any turbulences in case they are present.
On another side, an acceleration of our revenue with the different actions that we are taking and we come to them on this presentation, a strong product and services and margin and shareholders that have an immediate return on dividends but also a strong creation of value in their price of their shares. We wanted also to share with you this presentation or this slide showing the different studies that have been done or the studies that have been done on different competitors and not the small ones. This study was done by Datos in August 2023. And among the products that were analyzed, there is the FIS, ACI, Paymentology, Worldline, Marqeta.
We can see here that the HPS product has been ranked as, from a product feature perspective, the richest. We know that it could be the most difficult thing to reach today to have the best-in-class from a functionality perspective. Because once we have this, we can build on everything on the top of it. Not having a strong product would not enable us to go further or to aim to have a larger customer base to give us the tools to be able to convince big names but also to have the proper price on our product and services. This fact of having the best product in the world today is the result of our continuous investment in our development, in our research and development, in the way we innovate.
This is something that we will be continuing. We believe that this edge that we have from the technology part should be there and we should continue to do that. We may also share in the future presentations the way we see the payment product or the PowerCARD product going forward. We wanted also to share with you that we have noticed that each time we are releasing a new version of our product, there is an acceleration of the revenue of HPS. From version one to version two, there was an acceleration, and we have seen that the five years after the release of version one to version two, we had 25% increase on the five years after that. On version three, it was the same with a 15% increase.
We believe that we, with the version 4, we will also see this. We in fact started to see this with the 2024 beginning of the year and the Q4 2023 and Q1 2024, we see the result of this new version. The way it is appreciated and the impact it has on the market, we see that there is a strong impact on the reaction of the market. We are continuing in investing in this platform differently, but we believe that this edge that we have will continue to be there. We don't want the competition to reach us. They will most probably do what is required to reach the level where we are, but we will be in the next step of our development when they will be there.
So our Accelerate objectives are, in a very summarized way, on the organic growth is to continue our growth between 12%-17%. This is something that we have; it's not unachievable, because we have seen that, by history, we are at an average of 14%. So it's a small acceleration that could be absolutely, absolutely with a minimum efficiency in our product and in our way of delivering this product. We have a best-in-class product. This will also help us be at maybe better prices in the market.
We have the ability we have shown that we have been able to win very big names, Tier 1 customers and, by the way we have five of the top 50 banks from an asset ranking point of view, five of the top 50 are today our customers. We have our work in the Americas has started giving results. We have the pipeline in this region is growing, and we have in some part of the Americas started to see the result of the work we have done. And we also have a backlog that is creating more than 80% by construction or by history here as well, through the revenue of each year is coming by more than 80% from the backlog.
and this is giving us also the ability to be able to invest in our resources, invest in our deliveries, and make sure that we keep our customers happy. On the latest technology that we use, our move to cloud will also help us in managing this growth, because we will be able to take advantage of all what the cloud can give us and mainly this elasticity that we may not have today because we are moving more and more on the SaaS model. And the SaaS really gives us the best it can give when we will be fully on cloud. The second pillar of this program is our external growth program that has started more than 18 months ago.
We have a team that is dedicated to that and this building a strong pipeline of targets. Some of them are moving faster than others. And the plan is to have by 2027 between $40 million-$80 million revenue coming from external targets that will complement our 12%-15% annual growth from the organic side. And the last pillar is our efficiency that will lead us to an EBITDA between 25%-30% that will be reached due to our SaaS model where we will be more on cost-plus logic but also cost reduction because we will have less cost on the infrastructures due to the cloud movement that we are doing.
But also our delivery center in India that we have created a couple of months ago that is being deployed now where we will be able to have resources with high quality with a proper margin. I will not talk about the cost, but we believe that what we will be having in where we are in India with the team that we have selected to run this office to be able to have very high quality resources at the proper scale that will enable us to run our Accelerate program and be able to keep the promises we are giving to our customers and to our shareholders. So in few words, and Brahim will get you into the details on the 2023 results. So 80% growth, that is a result that we expected despite currency impact or negative currency impact.
And if this currency was constant, we would have been at a 20% increase. So this is something that that is quite noticeable. And when we see the objectives that we have on our Accelerate program, we're a little bit over the the expectations. But we believe that this effort that we are doing in our organic growth will continue and will give the result expected. We have also signed Tier 1 customers, and and this is giving us a significant depth in the in the relationship we have with these customers with visibility on the revenue that we can make with this customers. In the other aspects, also, on this on the SaaS mode, here again, we have been able to enroll in our customer base interesting Tier 1 customers in North America but also in in Canada.
This is giving us the visibility that we need to enable us to make the investments that are required to be able not only to service our conventional or our traditional regions but the ability also to service customers that are far from our original bases in Australia, in Canada. And this with the deployment of our resources whenever they are needed, and especially in Canada that we have done a couple of months ago, office opened in Montreal to support our customers in North America. On the margin side, the EBITDA has grown also. And here, the exchange rate has also been extremely impactful on that. And we have also seen the, we have noticed, a total difference between the first half and the second half of last year. The EBITDA has totally changed.
The work that we have done start to be seen on our results, on the EBIT on EBITDA, sorry, and on the revenue, all around last year, 2023, with an effect on the margins, on the second half. On the technology side, very strong impact on the market when the PowerCARD release, the v4 is now in production. People are seeing it. People are trying it. People are making talk on it. And this is giving us a real edge, and we are very happy to see that the result of the work, the result of the investment has been worth it. Sorry. And the last part is our strategic, the M&A aspect.
We have, as shared previously, hired an investment bank with whom we are identifying a couple of targets. These targets are being studied under deep scrutiny, and we will be able to share more information at the latest stage. So our Accelerate program is in more than a year or two years because we are working on it. So we have a photo as of end of 2023. So from an organic growth, we are at the mark, we have checked the mark, and our average is 18.3% for a target between 12%-17%. So we are a little bit over, and we will continue to work on this and make sure that we are over delivery. On our M&A, our advisory, our investment bank is working with us.
Our team has a strong M&A pipeline, and we will be coming on that in the coming months for updates. On the EBITDA margin, we are growing the EBITDA to reach 25%-30% by 2027. And this has three; the first one is our efficiency of our existing processes, a Convergence program that limits our versions that are maintained from a software delivery but from the run as well, and the Indian office that will be able to fuel HPS with quality resources with scaling capabilities very soon. And that will give us also the ability to produce a little bit more. So the 2023 results are in line with our acceleration program and hopefully showing the road or the path for a much better performances in the next quarters.
So the outlook for 2024 and M&A exclusive will come mostly in the next publication on the M&A. So our backlog has been reduced a little bit at the end of 2023, but this is nothing to worry about. Our pipeline is extremely big and has started giving interesting results in Q1. We have already signed three, five, sorry, sorry, five contracts signed, one N+ONE signed, three in the Caribbean, one in the U.S., and one in Central Europe. We have very short-term opportunities that will be signed in the coming weeks or coming months in West Europe with Tier 1 banks. In the Asia-Pacific, also strong pipeline with the very hot customers and two more customers in the Caribbean. So this is due to the efficient work that the sales team that has been strengthened has given.
But this is also the fact of presenting an offer that is totally different from what exists already in the market and far ahead from the competition on the product side. On the EBITDA margin, it's the development on the SaaS between 2023 and 2024 is growing very much. We have never had that level of SaaS offers. And this will create an impact on our margin. But on the long term, we will see the return not long term but the medium term, we'll see the result. The Convergence program will also give results very quickly. As I mentioned before, the Indian delivery center will also boost our margins.
The fact that we are now more on a delivery of the version 4 than an investment of the version 4, we will also see a better margin, as well. So I'll give the floor to Brahim to continue the presentation, and we will be, obviously, taking questions at the end. Merci, Brahim.
Thank you, Abdeslam. Hello, everyone. So we will go into the detail of our operational performance for this year, 2023. But obviously, as explained by Abdeslam, this year is a very strong year in terms of achievements in the operations but also in terms of figures. So this first year of our Accelerate program is totally aligned with our objectives. So the revenue growth by 18%, when we were expecting a growth comprised between 12%-17%, excluding M&A.
This growth has been impacted by the exchange rate or the FX. Without this impact, the growth would be at 20%. We believe that it's a very strong performance considering what we were expecting. On the EBITDA, here again, we are aligned with what we shared with you at the beginning of the year. We have been able to maintain the profitability at the same level as last year, around 21%, with the growth of the EBITDA at 19%. Again, if we exclude the impact of the FX, the growth of the EBITDA would be around 30%, which is a very strong performance. The backlog slightly decreased, due first to a strong deployment of our main project.
So we have accelerated the growth, the deployment of our project, and we will see how this has been executed. We have also suffered from some delay on the decision on big projects or big prospects that we were expecting at the end of 2023. So if we, excuse me, Abdeslam, if you can go just on mute. So if we analyze this performance per activity, so we see that our main activity, the payments, continue to grow at a big rate, driven by the on-premise and the SaaS model. So we have a growth that is around 19%. The switching activity also continues to grow, and we will see later what are the driver of this growth. And the testing activity in France continued to suffer from a very complex, complicated economic environment.
So it's not helped to build any growth during this situation. So the most important in terms of future is that we are building year after year a more sustainable business model and more sustainable revenue for the future. So one of the objectives of Accelerate is to reach by 2027 around 60% of recurring revenue and 25% of stable revenue. So altogether, 85%. And we have been able to reach more than 70% in 2023. So the recurring business mainly includes the maintenance, the processing fee, and the switching.
So the maintenance, we have been able to increase this year, 2023, the rates that we apply to all our maintenance agreements with our customers to reflect all the inflation that we suffered during the 2022 and 2023. So this has been accepted by the majority of our customers. So we still have some of them that needs to be adjusted. But globally, the maintenance is growing to reflect this increase. We have also the new customers that have entered into the maintenance in 2023 that contribute to the growth of the maintenance for this year. The processing fee or the SaaS fee, so we don't have yet, I will say, in the figures, the impact of all the transformation that HPS is running.
So we see, since perhaps two years, a very strong acceleration of the SaaS in our business. But the fee of the SaaS are not yet here in our revenue because we have to wait for the implementation phase of all the projects to have this in our figures. So this growth of the SaaS fee do not reflect all the potential that we have in terms of revenue but also in terms of EBITDA impact for the future. The switching continues to grow, linked to the growth of transaction in the country, in Morocco.
We expect, here again, to have an acceleration of this growth in the coming years due to some initiative that HPS is running with the authorities and the government. On the non-recurring, so we have all the projects, one-off, so on-premise but also the build for the SaaS business. So this is growing. And this is what I was saying in the beginning. So we have accelerated the deployment of our project, and we see that the growth of the revenue is strong for 2023. But we have also a very strong activity with our existing customers on the upselling. And we see that the upselling is something that contributes more and more to the global revenue of HPS.
So if we go to the detail of the payment activity, so in the payment activity, we have all our customers on-premise and on-SaaS. So on-premise, the main part of the growth or the biggest contributor of the growth for 2023 is coming first from our activity with our existing customers, so on the upselling. So we have been able to have a very dynamic year with some big customers, so like Crédit Agricole in France or SIA in Italy or SBV in South Africa. But we have also all the new big customers that we signed, so for example, the Tier 1 bank in Asia or the Tier 1 bank worldwide that we are deploying the platform in different countries that are very active also in terms of upselling for this year, 2023.
We are also deploying this main project, and we have been able to accelerate this. So if you remember, we signed in 2018 or 2019, I'm not sure about the exact date, one of the main banks worldwide to deploy our issuing module for debit cards. So during the last three years, we deployed U.K., Hong Kong, and Mexico. And this year, 2023, we are deploying the same platform in India and Indonesia. So the rollout, in fact, will continue on the other countries and will deliver or will provide to HPS additional revenue in terms of professional services that we will invoice to this customer. But we'd also increase our recurring and maintenance revenue from this customer. The same on the other side of Asia.
So we signed, two years ago, one contract with one Tier 1 bank in the region. So we've deployed, in 2020 since 2021, the switching module and the acquiring. So now we are deploying the issuing platform for the bank. And this will probably continue for this year, and will be ended at the end of this year or beginning of 2025. So perhaps, before I move to the SaaS, we, this year of 2023, all the new logos that we signed were on SaaS. So we have a real trend in the market and a real interest from the prospects and the clients to our SaaS offer.
But we have also suffered from longer delay or longer timelines to negotiate with some big customers on on-premise model. So we were expecting some big signature by the end of 2023, but this has been delayed and will probably be finalized in 2024. So Abdeslam explained in the beginning that we already had converted some of these opportunities in the Q1, but some others some big others are waiting and will probably be finalized in the coming weeks. So on the SaaS activity, as explained, we see that the trend of the market to go to SaaS is really strong, mainly in major markets like in APAC or in Europe and in North America.
So HPS has been able this year, 2023, to start to deploy or to sell its SaaS offer to some big customer and to new markets. So we have been able to sign with our first customer in Canada with one of the largest banks in the country. So the platform is under construction. It will be hosted in AWS and will also be managed by a dedicated team that will be based in Canada. And this will go live on September of this year. We have also been able to finalize our first SaaS contract in Australia. So it's a new region, a new country for HPS.
And each time, we enter a new country, it creates more opportunities for HPS to continue to deploy and to sell its offer to the other customers. So this first contract is very important. So again, it's on SaaS. It will be hosted on AWS in Australia and will be operated by the team that is based here in Morocco. One other important achievement that we've made on SaaS is our first SaaS agreement in EMEA with the fintech. And the most important is that it's our first customer on the Visa sponsoring offer. So as we explained last year, we have signed with the Visa an agreement to be able to act as a sponsor of their offer. And this is our first customer on this offer.
So this will allow HPS to take a fee on all the transactions that will be made on the Visa cards made by the customer of this fintech. So we expect that this business will grow within some regions with some big customers. And if we are successful in the deployment of this new offer, it will probably bring to the group very strong additional revenue on top of what we were expecting in our Accelerate program. We are very successful also in the Caribbean. Perhaps Abdeslam will explain why, but there is a conjuncture where there is, or there is a context in the region, where there is a lot of opportunities. So HPS have been able to get last year two of these opportunities.
This year, we will again conclude some other new customer in the region, and we'll reinforce our presence in the North American region, in Canada, in the U.S., and in the Caribbean. Two other topics or important achievements. The first one is the renewal of Société Générale, our first contract in Africa. So, renewed this contract for five additional years. For our customer in the Middle East and SIA, we renewed also the agreements for three additional years. So these two customer were our two first customer on SaaS. And it was important to renew the agreements and to demonstrate the confidence that we have from our markets. So our activity continues to be strong in all the regions. The growth is strong in all the regions.
The growth or the main part of the activity continues to be in Africa, Middle East, and Europe. But, and in alignment with our Accelerate program, we see that Asia start to reach very strong level in our revenue. So this is first link to all the efforts that we've done since a couple of years to implement or to create a delivery center in Singapore. And this has created more visibility for HPS in the region. We believe that the Indian delivery center that has been created at the end of 2023 will help us also to develop the Indian region and beyond all the Asian regions stronger than what we've done in the last two, three years.
Americas, thanks to the office in Canada and probably, at the end of this year or 2025, another one in the US, will be the next step or the next phase of our development. The same. The Americas in our Accelerate program is something that needs to represent more or less 15% of the revenue by the end of 2027. So on the switching activity, the revenue continued to grow thanks to the growth of the transactions linked to the growth of the number of cards in the markets in terms also of the growth of e-commerce. So we saw that, following the COVID and the lockdown in the country, the e-commerce started to have a very strong growth. And this will continue till today.
We believe that it's something that will create more revenue for the group for HPS switching in the coming years. So to continue to accelerate the growth of HPS and the switching activity, we have also decided to implement new services on top of what we offer on the basic switch offer. So we signed different agreements with Visa. And the last one was signed a couple of weeks ago to implement different services. So in 2023, we have been able to implement the new Visa tokenization service. So we have some banks that has decided to go for this service. And this is allowing HPS to invoice some additional fee on each transaction when they are using this service.
On the operations on the switch, so we have finalized the new Active platform. So this has created more availability of the platform and more security for all the markets. So this year, 2023, we had 0% of incidents or interruption of the platform, which is very strong performance for the technical team to get to this point. So if we have a look to the figures, so we saw that all the metrics are growing. So the number of cards is growing year after year. The number of transactions, the number of ATM, and the number also of merchants grow year after year. We see that the growth is stronger on the e-commerce. It's normal because it just starts.
It's also stronger in the payments compared to the withdrawal, which is one of the objectives that we were expecting at the beginning of the switching activity that we launched. So if we have looked to the past, so the withdrawal was representing more than 50% of the transaction when today is less than 25%. And we see that the payment is something that is going faster than the withdrawal. So the potential of the switching remains very strong for HPS. So I just remind the audience that today, we have 20 million cards. So for more or less 35 million or 47 million people. So it's a low level of equipment. But the number also of transactions per card is still very, very low.
So we have, on average, six transactions per year of payments, per card. So we believe that the potential is still in front of us. And the growth is still something that will be strong in the coming years. So now if we have a look at the revenue growth, so we have reported the growth at 18%. But if we try to have a view on the normalized growth, so if we exclude all what is not linked to the business, and all what is linked also to the FX impact, we see that this growth would be at 19%. So coming mainly from the payment activity, because it's the biggest part of the revenue. But the switching activity continue also to contribute to this growth.
The FX impact had MAD 20 million less on the revenue. But we had some other revenue coming from non-business topics. So like all the subvention that we receive from the authorities for our export activity. On the cost side or expenses side, we continue also to support the growth of our activity. So this is visible, of course, on the HR. The headcount increased by 14%. And this has contributed to a growth of HR costs by 11%. This growth is also explained by the salary increase that we've done in 2022, end of 2022, if I remember well, to face the inflation. So the impact on 2023 was around 2%, compared to 2022. So no additional salary adjustment was made in 2023.
So we are more on a normalized growth that we have today. On the subcontracting, we have also here a big growth to support all the growth that we have in terms of activity. So to support first our research and development activities in some part of the work, but also to support the deployment of some major projects. So I remind you again that we work with companies like Capgemini to help us in the deployment of the major Tier 1 banks in Europe and in some other regions. So this kind of partner are very important for HPS.
Beyond the providing resources to help HPS in the deployment, it's also big names that give confidence to Tier 1 banks in the capacity of HPS to deploy their projects, but also to have big companies like Capgemini that will continue to support the activity and to develop an expertise around PowerCARD technology. On the external expenses, we have here a big growth that is coming first by all the investment that we are doing on the commercials. Beyond the travel and expenses recovery after the COVID, we have all the trade shows where we invest a lot, our U.S. meetings. Compared to 2022, the growth in terms of commercial effort is around MAD 18 million.
We have also additional costs on rental costs due to all the extensions that we've made in Singapore, Dubai, Mauritius, and Casablanca in our offices to be able to support the growth of our headcounts in all the countries where we are active. And we have also a strong growth of all the fees, first, the hosting of our platform for the SaaS activity. So, we started with the platform in Morocco with N+ONE. But today, we have multiple platforms. So we have in Europe with a company called EBRC. We have some others on the cloud, with AWS now in Canada, in Indonesia in Asia. We will have one in Australia.
So we, the costs of all these platforms impact also the global growth of our expenses. And we have also all the IT tools that we are using for our business that are growing or the cost is growing linked to the growth of the headcount of HPS. So if we analyze the EBITDA, so again, if we try to have a view of what is an adjusted growth of our EBITDA, we see that if we remove all the FX impact and all the one-off costs, the growth of EBITDA would be at 30% to reach 22.6% in terms of margin. Now, we had some one-off impacts.
So on the ESOP program, we had some costs on the legal side, but also on the social security costs for our subsidiary in France. But we had also some additional revenue coming from this ESOP, some subvention coming from the authorities in Morocco for the ESOP. So these two impacts are more or less the same. So globally, there is no impact on the EBITDA. But the FX impact is the one that has impacted the EBITDA more. So we've moved from a normalized margin at 22.6% to 20.7%. We have also another impact on the EBITDA coming from our SaaS model. So it's not in the analysis that we saw before because now it's part of the business.
So there is no, I would say it's not a one-off, but it's something that is under construction. So the SaaS model is a business that will create for HPS more revenue and more margin on the mid-term. But today, and because we starting in this model and because of also the acceleration of the SaaS over the last two years, there is an impact on the margin and the revenue. So in the example that you have on this slide, you have on the top a project that we would sell we will sell on on-premise. And the same project sold on SaaS offer. So obviously, on the on-premise, you have the build so the professional services to deploy the project.
But you have also the license fee that you will invoice and recognize from your customer. On the SaaS model, you will have the same effort to deploy. So you will have the same cost. You will have the revenue coming from the build, but you will not invoice any license fee because this will be included into the SaaS fee that you will invoice later. So during the deployment phase of the project, obviously, the on-premise will generate the double of revenue compared to the SaaS and will generate also more EBITDA margin or more margin compared to the SaaS. But after the deployment, when the project will go live, the revenue coming from the SaaS will be 2.5x the revenue coming from the maintenance of the customer.
So this has an impact on the 2023. So we have estimated this as MAD 40 million total impact, coming from our SaaS projects that are under construction. So this is an impact of 400 basis points on our revenue growth and 260 basis points on our EBITDA margin. So it's something that will lead to much more higher margin, much more higher revenue also in the future, and also higher recurring revenue. So it's in the benefit of HPS on the mid-term and long-term. But we know that this will have an impact on 2023 and 2024, where we have this acceleration.
On the net impact, so this year, we suffered from a different one-off impact and some decision on the tax done by the tax authority this year on the taxation that impacted the net income for HPS. So the first one, it's due to the dollar FX impact. So the dollar fell by 5.5% between last year and this year. So the impact represents on all the receivables and our bank accounts more or less the cost of MAD 32 million. So all this amount is recoverable with the recovery of the dollar. But in 2023, it has an impact of MAD 30 million on our accounts.
So globally, the net financial income, due to FX, is around MAD 23 million, so impacting the margin by more or less 2%, compared to last year. We had also, in 2023, a tax audit, from the fiscal authority or the fiscal authorities. And this has led to a non-current income of MAD 14 million. And perhaps the most important is that the tax authority in Morocco decided to revise its corporate income tax. So we are moving slightly from 2022 to 2026 on the export activity from a tax of 20%-35%. And the same on the local activity. We will be moving from 30% or 31% to 35% by end of 2026. So this had an impact on 2023 compared to last year.
So where we had an increase of tax by MAD 8 million compared to the basis of last year, so impacting the margin by 0.7%, compared to 2022. On the cash, so this year is, I would say, a strong performance year in terms of cash considering the strong business growth and all the investment that we are doing to build the future growth of the group. So because of the SaaS acceleration, and because also of the very big contract that we are signing with our customers, we had some stress on the cash, because of all this transformation that we are running. But despite all this impact, we have been able to have a positive operational cash flow by MAD 45 million.
We had also the impact of the FX movement during 2023 by MAD 90 million by MAD 15 million in 2023. On the financing, so we had positive impact coming from the ESOP plan, where we have been able to collect MAD 55 million coming from the capital increase linked to the stock option plan. For the backlog, so as explained in the beginning, so we have a slight decrease of the level of backlog. First, we have an impact of lower sales due to some project or prospect that has been postponed to 2024. So we were expecting to finalize some big deals by end of 2023, but this has been delayed, and will be finalized.
Some of them have already been finalized on the Q1. But some of the others will be finalized in the Q2. So this has impacted a little bit the backlog. But we had also the acceleration of deployment of the main project that also contribute to reduce the level of backlog. What is important also to notice in this performance is the contribution of the recurring and stable revenue in the backlog. So this is something that is important. And we see, as explained in the beginning, that the SaaS is growing very fast in the backlog. So even if it's not delivering today yet the revenue in terms of SaaS fee, we see the potential in the backlog.
So we moved from 90% of the backlog for SaaS in 2022 to 26% in 2023. So in one year, we have been able to increase the backlog of SaaS by more than 7%, more 7% of total revenue. And perhaps a quick and final word on the M&A strategy execution. So we, as explained in our previous calls, we have a clear strategy on our M&A activities. So we have defined the different targets that we are looking at. So it can be for geographic growth or consolidation of our market share, or it can be also to expand our technology or our services or our business in payments. So we have different priorities.
Thanks to all this work that has been preparatory work that we've done, we have been able to screen different targets with the help also with the investment bank that we hired in 2023. And today, we have on the table 30 prioritized targets that are generating between EUR 10 million-EUR 25 million of revenue. So we are at different stage of discussion or maturity regarding these companies. Some of them very advanced. Some of the others are at lower stage. But we believe that all the work that we are doing will make or will allow HPS to achieve its objective by 2027, as explained in our Accelerate Plan. So to conclude, very few words on what is important on this 2023 year.
So the first one is that we have been able to achieve a very strong performance in terms of growth. So we were expecting organic growth comprised between 12%-17%. We have been able to achieve more than 18%. This is something that is aligned with our Accelerate program. And we see that we are successful in the execution of this program. So we are successful in terms of figures that we are delivering. But we are also successful in all the assets that we are building to support the future of the business of HPS. So in terms of M&A, in terms of SaaS transformation, all of this is very important to continue to drive the growth of HPS on the coming years.
The other point that is important is that we continue to be very active in terms of market penetration. So one of the main objective of accelerate is to have more diverse and more balanced situation in the different regions of the world by accelerating the revenue and the growth in Asia and in America. So this year, we have successfully expand our geographic presence in Canada and India. So our commitments remain very strong to be global and to accelerate our market penetration in the coming years. Obviously, in the middle of all this activities and achievements, we have our product. And the version 4, we have a very positive return and feedback from the market and from the industry.
So we believe that the v4 is a technology that will make the difference and will create bigger gap between HPS and the other competitors. So this is also what allows HPS to have opportunities with these Tier 1 banks, thanks to all the innovation and the functionality that we offer to these customers on the technology of HPS. So globally, we have a very strong year. This comforts HPS in its outlooks for 2024 and beyond. So we are today aligned with our Accelerate program and the growth that we and all the objective that we shared with you. And this is something that is maintained. And we believe that it will create long-term value for all the shareholders. So thank you for your attention. I will now open the floor to the questions.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Webcast viewers may submit their questions or comments in writing via the relevant field. So far, there are no questions over the webcast.
Yeah. So, I don't know if everyone is aware that there is a chat for the questions. Okay. It seems that there is no question.
No. There is Brahim. There is the first one.
Oh, yeah.
There is a question from Raja.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. So, question from Raja. Do you expect headcount to continue to rise at double digits in 2024? Should we expect a decline in outsourcing costs now that part of v4 is completed? What will be the corporate tax for HPS going forward? Okay.
So the headcount, it will be a very positive sign if we continue to rise at double digits in 2024 because it means that our revenue is growing fast also. So the headcount is very linked to the growth of the activity. This year, yes, our objective is to be, in terms of headcount, growing at double digits. So we are doing all our efforts to be able to achieve this. This is why also we have opened India office. So it's not only about costs as explained by Abdeslam but also by the fact that the qualified resources are available in the region. And this is something that will allow HPS to support the growth that we expect for 2024 but beyond 2024.
Should we expect a decline on outsourcing costs now that part of v4 is completed? Not really. The main part of outsourcing today is on deployment of big projects. So we have some outsourcing costs on v4. But because of the acceleration of deployment of this big project and some other big projects that are coming, not sure that outsourcing costs will decline. But I think that it's better to analyze outsourcing costs with HR and not outsourcing costs alone. We as HPS, it's for us one cost. It's the cost that is supporting the growth of activity in terms of human resource. It can be contractual with HPS outsourcing, or it can be salary of HPS in the HR. But for us, it's the one and the same cost.
The corporate tax rate for HPS so it's growing slightly till 2026. And in 2026, it will be 35% on all the activity, so on the export and the local activity. We have another question from Sam. Has the renewal of SaaS contract of Société Générale been done on the same commercial terms? Yes. I'm not sure if we have increased some metrics. But I think that the metrics are the same. And the commercial terms are the same as we had in the previous contract. Question from Hamza. What is the guidance for the payout for 2024? So, I know I'm not sure to understand, Hamza. Are you referring to the dividends policy? Please rephrase the question. I will ask when it will be rephrased. Okay. Question from Floris.
What is the correct effective tax rate to use for the business long term? So it's 25% after 2026. And I'm talking under the control of Aziz. In fact, if you add also all the tax corporate rates that we have in other countries, we can go with 30% as correct effective rate for our figures for the next years, for the consolidated one.
Yeah, yeah. Okay. So 35% for the Moroccan entity. And globally, for the consolidated figures, 30% can be a fair approximation of the tax rate applicable to the group. Okay. Next one is from Lamine, BMCE. What about your currency hedging policy, given its impact on the financial results?
So as explained, the biggest impact of the FX is on, I will say, on our assets in dollars. So this is on the bank accounts. So all the foreign bank accounts that we have, we have a direct impact when we reevaluate the amount in cash that we have in this account into the Moroccan dirhams. And this is something that will be recovered when dollars go up. But at the end, it's an impact that is fully integrated in our revenue. And the other one is all on the asset that we have. So we have all the projects or the work in progress for our projects. So we have projects signed in U.S. dollars.
So at the end of the year, when we have a progress of 50% of this project, this 50% has to be reevaluated at the right rate or the right level of currency. And this will have also an impact on our figures. And the last one is all the receivables in U.S. dollars or in euros that will be impacted also by the currency exchange. So today, we didn't find any appropriate solution to minimize the impact on the financial results of HPS. On average, we believe that the impact when I say on average, over three, four, five years, the average is of the impact is really small because we have some years with some big wins in terms of currency and some others with losses. Okay. The other one, Sam.
What initiatives are you running with the authorities to help accelerate growth in the switching activity in business? Okay. So one of the main ones is to have more active brands or payment brands in Morocco. I will say a scheme, what we call a scheme in our industry. So a scheme is like Visa Mastercard. So the scheme is not only just a logo, but it's all the rules and all the animation of the payments in a country or in a region. So this is something that is missing in Morocco.
The central bank in Morocco in association with the World Bank are looking on how to accelerate the payment switching payments in Morocco but also the mobile payment in Morocco to accelerate also the financial inclusion. So we are also in the discussion to see how HPS can help to facilitate or to accelerate the payments globally in Morocco on the card but also on the mobile. And this is something that will have a positive impact on the switching. So we are working closely with the authorities, with the central bank, to see how we can help on the subject. There are some other initiatives, not on the central bank side, but on the authorities.
So where we can see some opportunities for the switching for HPS on the switching activity. But it's not yet mature to be shared with the agencies. Lamine, how much should the investment budget be for 2024? And what should it cover? So Lamine, I don't have figures in mind. But today, there is no specific investment expected for 2024. So it should be aligned with all what we do every year, for all our tools that we are using, etc. So I don't have in mind any specific investment except Aziz if I'm missing something. No. I just add that excluding M&A, there is no specific investment budget that we can have. Yes. Okay. Question from Raja. Can you share some color on the financial losses reported in 2020 okay.
So it's linked to the FX impact. So on this, we have EUR 26 million of loss on the financial. So on this EUR 26 million, we have three that is linked to the cost of the debt of HPS, the current debt of HPS. We have EUR 32 million that is linked to the reevaluation of all our receivables and our foreign bank accounts, in terms of loss. And the rest is coming from the real losses or real benefits in terms of currency exchange that has been registered in 2023. But the main impact is coming from the potential losses on the FX by around EUR 30 million for 2023. Sam, how much of the headcount growth in 2024 will be linked to the sales team?
Do you think the sales team are sufficiently staffed for the future growth? Abdeslam, I don't have the figure in mind. I don't know if you have any feedback on this.
So, today, the sales team globally, sales and pre-sales, it's a team around 50 people. Would this be enough? It's, we are most probably not at the optimal. But, we will not double this number. I think adding 10%, which means five people on the sales team globally, should be enough to cope with the plan that we have.
So, Hamza. So, the guidance, the payout, you were referring to the dividends.
So we, I think that we have announced the EBITDA that will be paid in 2024 on 2023 is MAD 6.8 per share, which represents more or less 50%+ of the net profit of the Moroccan entity or HPS S.A. Question from Yassine of Attijari Gestion. Can we have the guidance for the EBITDA margin in 2024? So it has been shared by Sam in the presentation. So we will share with you the presentation. It will be on our website. So we expect to have an EBITDA margin flat year-on-year, so more or less 21% in 2024. So as explained, we have big growth that will contribute to the growth of the EBITDA margin. But on the other side, we have some impact.
We have the investment on the Convergence program. But we have also this transformation of our business from on-premise to SaaS that is having impact on the short term on the EBITDA. So this impact will be converted into higher margin in the next two years. But today, it will lead to have a flat growth of EBITDA margin in 2024. Next one, from Lamine. In which businesses in HPS is HPS targeting new acquisitions? So all our acquisitions will be in the payments. So the one of the main or clear decision that has never changed is that HPS will remain in the payment. And this is our own business. So we all our targets will be in the payments. So we have different priorities, as explained in the presentation.
You will be able to see this in the presentation. So obviously, in priority one is to continue to consolidate our market share or to grow in some new regions and, first priority on SaaS. But we have also some targets that will bring to HPS new services, like we did in the past with ICPS, with IPRC that brings new services on top of our SaaS offer, or to grow on payments on new businesses that we are not providing today. Next one, Hamza.
Yep. I'll just add on the previous question of the sales. So, an interesting point on the sales side to enable us really to achieve and to incentivize better the sales team is we changed also the remuneration model of our sales team.
So that will boost not only the sales but the recovery, as well and the collections of funds. We believe that the structure of the sales team has been a little changed to boost it. But also, that means that we know how sales are sensitive to revenue. So this will be an important point on the sales team.
Okay. Thank you, Abdeslam. Yep. So next one is from Hamza. You said that the target is to have payout of 50% in 2027. No, no. 50% is for 2024 paid in 2024 for the 2023 results. This is what I said. It was not for 2027. So I don't know if it's clear. If it's not, I'm not sure to catch the question. Next one from Sehouti. And, or it's yeah. Under the name of Sehouti.
How do you consider the level of your EBITDA today compared to similar companies in the sector? So it's very different from company to others. And it's also linked to all the investment that your company will do, in terms of innovation also. So if you consider some companies that are today investing less than 5% of their revenue on the product or on the innovation, and they're doing 30% EBITDA margin, it's very different to HPS, with 22% EBITDA margin with 14% of the revenue dedicated to the product. So, in average, I would say that we are in the same levels. You can find some others that are very much low-level EBITDA but with the bigger revenue. So I would say that it's, we are not, it's not bad as a performance.
We believe that we can do better. This is what we are trying to achieve by 2027. We believe that, comprised between 25%-30% should be a normalized EBITDA for HPS, considering all the investment that we are doing in the research and development every year, and all the other investment that we are doing, every year. We believe that between 25%-30% is the right level for our business. Next one from Hamza, RMA. When can we expect an announcement regarding M&A to be made? So as soon as it's signed, you will be informed. So not before, for sure. So as explained, the execution of the strategy is moving on the right pace.
We have put on the investment side, I would say, the right tools to be successful in this strategy. So we have put in place an internal team that is managing the M&A and is focusing on M&A only. We have hired one of the main worldwide investment banks to help HPS in this strategy. And we have today 30 targets that are under discussion at different levels. So we believe that we will be able to achieve something during this year. So it's part of our objective. But I will not share any additional information before we have something concrete to share with the markets. Next one from Raja. Testing revenue have been consistently contracting over the past four years.
Would you consider disposal or termination of this non-core activity? Abdeslam, do you want to take this one?
Yes. So this is a priority that we have taken for this year. It's unfortunate that we have not, most probably, taken the attention that is required to decide either to boost it, to make it grow, or to take other decisions. So this is a priority for this year. And we will come back in previous in next publications on this matter. Bye.
It was, yep. It was the last question, except if someone will add something in the chat, it's now. Okay. It seems that it was the last one. So I would like to thank you for your attendance, and expect to see you soon, and to have a great announcement to share with you.
Thank you all. It was great having you today.