Good morning, everybody. I am Bertrand Dumazy, I am with Julien Tanguy, the CFO of Groupe Edenred. We are very pleased to have you today for the presentation of our full year 2022 results. If I go to page two, the first thing is, yes, we posted in 2022 some growth of about 25%.
This growth is marked by an acceleration in Q4. 24.8% as reported growth for the total revenue and almost 30% in Q4. In fact, this growth has been fueled by a strong business momentum, also by commercial dynamism. Behind that, you have a lot of continuous innovation for Edenred. Those record full year top line growth results in a compelling financial performance.
The EBITDA is at EUR 836 million, which is up almost 25% reported and 23% like for like. We also have a record net profit group share, up 23.3% at EUR 386 million. We are also pleased to post a record free cash flow of EUR 881 million that leads to an unleveraged profile with a net debt to EBITDA ratio at 0.4x . We are able to propose to the general, is also true, in fact, in terms of sustainable development KPIs for Edenred. We exceeded all our targets in 2022. As you know, we joined the Euronext CAC 40 ESG index in September of 2022. Now when we look, you know, for 2023 and beyond, what do we see?
The first thing that we see is, yes, we're gonna continue to take full advantage of our unique platform. Thanks to this unique platform in which we invest a lot, we will be able to scale the core to grow further. What does it mean? It means more client. The second aspect is we're gonna propose more services thanks to our strategy of beyond Food, beyond fuel and beyond payment.
Finally, we will continue to invest in our tech stacks to make sure that we enhanced our value proposition, and we increase the differentiation versus the competition. To make a long story short, thanks to the growth in 2022, the investments and the ambition we have, we see a great 2023. Yes, we are, and we want to be the everyday platform for people at work.
Yes, we have strong commercial momentum to continue in 2023. Yes, we will continue to have an operating leverage and a solid cash generation. Yes, we are able to confirm our targets that we set in our strategic plan a few months ago, the plan that is called Beyond.
What does it mean? It means that, yes, we see for 2023 a like for like EBITDA growth of at least 12%, and we see a free cash flow on EBITDA conversion rate that is gonna be more than 70%. The last thing in introduction is due to our profile that is unleveraged and cash generative, we have the firepower to seize external growth opportunities, a firepower today that is at more than EUR 2 billion. After this exec sum, I propose you to enter into the details.
In 2022, as you may see, page five, our total revenue is up in reported by 25% at more than EUR 2 billion. Our EBITDA is up 25% at EUR 836 million. Our free cash flow up 70% in reported numbers at EUR 881 million. The net profit in reported is up by 23% at EUR 386 million. The strong commercial momentum that we developed in 2023 has translated into double digit like for like growth across the board. If I move to page seven, if we focus on the operating revenue, you see that in H1 2022, the growth was 17%. In Q3, the growth was 19%, and in Q4, the growth was 22%.
Yes, we have an acceleration of our growth in Q4, but we saw that in the second part of the year, quarter- after- quarter. If we go to page eight and we look at how the growth is spread, we can say that we have a well-balanced growth because this growth is double digit on every product line. In employee benefits, representing 59% of our total revenue, the reported growth is about 20%.
In fleet and mobility, that represent 28% of our total revenue, the growth reported is 30%. On complementary solutions, representing 13% of our total operating revenue, the reported growth is almost 22%. Yes, the Edenred growth is well balanced per product line, but this growth is also well balanced by geographies.
If you look at Europe, representing 61% of our total, of our operating revenue, the reported growth is almost 18%. In Latin America, the operating revenue growth is almost 34%. For the rest of the world, representing 8% of our total operating revenue, the growth is 25%. Well balanced per product line, well balanced per geographies.
In fact, you know that at Edenred we enjoy sustainable and profitable growth. This top-line growth drove further increase in profitability. If I move to page 11, here you can see our EBITDA and our EBITDA margin. What you see is, in reported, the EBITDA margin moved from 31.1%- 31.2%. In fact, if you make the computation like for like, it's an improvement of 69 basis points.
We are able to post EUR 836 million of EBITDA in 2022, knowing that initially our range or let's say, our target range was between EUR 770 million and EUR 810 million. In October, we have been able to upgrade, in fact this guidance to EUR 810 million up to EUR 840 million. In fact, we enjoy sustainable and profitable growth. Why? Because cash is king, and we want to reinvest our generation of cash. In 2022, the cash generation was at its highest. Page 13, you see on the left, the generation of free cash flow.
You see that the free cash flow in 2022 was EUR 881 million, coming from EUR 580 million, which mean an EBITDA to free cash flow conversion of 85%. In fact, we had in 2022 an exceptional event due to the change of the regulation in Germany, moving some regulated funds to non-regulated funds. If I exclude, in fact, this exceptional event, the cash conversion is 85%.
If I take into account this exceptional event of EUR 170 million, the cash conversion would have been 105%. Due to this high level of cash generation, it has a very positive impact on our net debt. The net debt moved down from EUR 816 million- 307 million.
It means a leverage ratio, net debt to EBITDA that EBITDA has decreased from 1.2 x to 0.4 x. Not only Edenred was able to deliver an historical growth in absolute value, but also in percentage. A well-balanced growth, with some acceleration in Q4.
We also have been able to deliver outstanding extra financial performance. You know that at Edenred we love being well balanced on our two legs, financial performance and extra financial performance. On the left part of this slide number 15, you see our target for 2022 on three main KPIs: Ideal People, Ideal Planet, Ideal Progress. I may remind you that behind that there are some other KPIs.
We are working with 10 KPIs, but for the three of them, what you can see is in terms of Ideal People, the diversity at Edenred is making some progress. Among executive position, which is the top 350 people at Edenred, we moved the ratio of women among those position from 31%-33%. As to Ideal Planet, you know our commitment in terms of greenhouse gas emission intensity reduction.
We had a target of -36%, and we are now at -51%. As to the Ideal Progress and our fight for balanced nutrition and against food waste, we are now at a ratio of 58%. Yes, we did well in terms of extra financial performance in 2022, and we have been recognized for that, because we entered the CAC 40 ESG since September 2022.
As you can see, all our ratings have been improving as well in 2022. That's what we achieved in 2022. Most importantly now is what do we want to achieve? What we want to achieve for the coming years is to scale the Edenred platform. Yes, we have the mission, we have the vision to be the everyday platform for people at work. This vision is based on two pillars.
First of all, we are living in a new market paradigm. What does it mean? First of all, if we look at the working world transformation, we see a surging demand for differentiated and customized employee benefits solution. In 2023, more than 72% of the HR managers, sorry, are planning to have a differentiated and personalized employee benefit strategy.
We can help them doing that. If you think about the portfolio of employee benefit solutions we have at Edenred, it's more than 100 different solutions that we're able to propose. Think about that. In France, we've one single app on your cell phone called My Edenred. You can have access as an employee to eight different benefits for a total of EUR 6,000 of additional purchasing power per year and per employee. What is true in France, it's true in many countries where Edenred operates.
For example, in Brazil, you have one solution that is called Superflex. Once again, on your cell phone, it's a digital account, and you have access to five different benefits that gives you a lot of additional purchasing power. In fact, when we look at the level of cross-selling rate increase in 2022, we gain four points.
Thanks to our platform, we are able to propose more and more additional services, and we have more and more clients who are looking for those opportunities, so our level of cross-selling is increasing. What is true in fact our benefits business line is also true for our mobility business line.
When we look and we try to understand our fleet managers, you have a higher proportion in 2022, and it's gonna continue like that are super sensitive to the energy mix and carbon emission and to the automation. We have a solution for them. One example, in Latin America, where we are the number one in terms of fleet and mobility in Brazil, the number of vehicles that are managed by our software and data-powered solutions called GoHub has increased by 30%.
It's a sequential growth because it's 30% from the Q3 of 2022 to the Q4 of 2022. What is true in fleet and mobility is also true in our corporate payment solutions. If we zoom very quickly on the U.S. market, the U.S. market is a super large market in terms of payment B2B. It's a market of about $26 trillion per year. In fact, $25 trillion, out of the $25 trillion, in fact you have 81% of in fact those payments that are still made via paper checks. Paper checks are super costly for the payer and for the payee. The cost is about $26 billion.
Not only it is costly, but it not super safe because the annual losses due to check fraud in the U.S. is about $18 billion. When we interview those people, 60% are declaring that, yes, they are likely to convert from paper check to digital B2B payment.
That's the business we are in, thanks to Edenred CSI in the U.S. What do we see in 2022 versus 2021? The increase in terms of virtual cards issue has been by 38%, so the digitalization of the payment B2B in the U.S. is on its way, and Edenred is one of the player on this market. Yes, we are living in a world and on markets that are super dynamic, whether on corporate payment, but also on mobility, but also on benefits.
On those markets, we want to leverage what we call the Edenred platform advantage. What is the Edenred platform advantage? Page 23. I remind everybody that, yes, we are doing the orchestration of specific purpose payment on a platform where you have 52 million+ users on one side and 2 million+ merchants on the other side. In fact, we talk to these people, we do business with these people, thanks to our B2B2C distribution organization via 950,000 corporate clients. Our business model is super efficient by design. Going B2B means low acquisition cost, means high engagement rate, and means a high level of monetization. The multiplication of those three things makes our business model super efficient, and we are at scale with more than 52 million users.
In fact, this platform is due to four different levels of technology, allowing us to have, on one side, local relevance and on the other side, global scale. Local relevance, why? What we propose to the users and to the clients, i.e. the employee and the employer, is some top-notch digital experiences. To be able to deliver super good user experiences, we need to have the right layer of business applications. To be able to provide business applications, below that, there is another layer that we call the digital services. Those digital services, they can be developed by Edenred and managed by Edenred, but they need to be connected with the external world as well.
Finally, below that, you have a layer of what we call infrastructure that needs to be super strong because it's the foundation, the tech foundation of the digital services, so then the business applications, so then the digital experiences. The ability to build those four layers. To deliver the best and the simplest user experience is the key of the success, and the ability to make those four layers connecting to each other via API and connected to the external world is also key for the success. This platform, in which we invest a lot, allows us to get global scale but also local relevance. Thanks to that, we have an accelerated time to market. The idea is to provide more services to more clients with more innovation. What does it mean?
If I take the first layer that we call digital experiences, yes, the idea is to offer a seamless user and client experience with, for example, plastic-less. We launched our plastic-less offer, in fact a few years ago. Today we are pleased to say that we have twice more users in 2022 with a plastic-less solution versus 2021. Plastic-less solution, what does it mean? No more card, no more carbon footprint, only a cell phone, and you pay on, you know, the payment device of your merchant with your cell phone. We started in 2019 in Finland, today we have more than one client, new out of three, that is choosing only plastic-less. We have 45% more plastic-less users in 2022 than in 2021 in Finland.
Without this four-layer platform, we won't be able to deliver this service and to leverage it and to roll it out in eight countries, because we are now live in eight countries within Edenred. If I go to the second layer, that is called a business application. Business application, concretely, what does it mean? It means that when you think about our employee engagement platform, we are able to aggregate different services and to deliver that to the end user. In France, one example, ProwebCE Edenred, which is the number one employee engagement platform in France. Think about it, seven million active users in France, active users of the Edenred services, 2,000 partner brands, and an increase in volume of 25% in 2022 versus 2021. A lot of organic growth, but also some consolidation that can be made within the last few days.
In fact, we bought two companies called Enjoy MyCSE and CAP CSE. What is done in France is also done in Belgium. In Belgium, we are the number one player on the market where you have circa four million eligible users, and we are leveraging 400 partner brands. The growth we have is 40% in volume in 2022. It's also true in Romania. It's also true in many different countries where we roll out, thanks to our platform, our employee engagement services. If I look at the digital services, so the level three of the platform, where you have some connection outside the digital platform of Edenred, thanks to this API connection, we are now able to propose to our users in Europe, 33 European countries, more than 400,000 charging stations.
When you have an energy card of Edenred, in 33 European countries, you are able to charge electrically your vehicles. If you look at what it means commercially, we have an increase of 60% in customers with mixed fleet management solution in 2022 versus 2021. Once again, thanks to this four-layer platform, we are able to connect easily with some other solution and propose that to be the everyday platform for people at work. Finally, the infrastructure, i.e., what we call the tech foundations. We invested EUR 385 million in tech in 2022. When I say investment, it's OpEx and CapEx. This amount has increased by 28% in 2022 versus 2021. Why? Because those tech foundations are absolutely key to fuel the growth and to be secure and compliant.
That's why at Edenred, we accelerated in 2022 the investments, and we will continue to do so in 2023 and further the way. We want to continue to improve our fundamentals. We want to have the best platform in terms of stability, in terms of reliability, in terms of compliance. We want to be the leader in terms of data power services that we can propose to our client. With 52 million users, with a volume of EUR 38 billion of transactions, with a growth of 25%, we have tera datas that we can sort, store, and exploit for delivering data-powered services. Yes, we have a platform. Yes, this platform creates what we call the Edenred platform advantage. Thanks to this platform, we are able to increase our addressable market.
We are able to enrich our business model, we are able to accelerate our sustainable and profitable growth. In the enrichment of the business model, not only the platform advantage help us accelerate our revenue generation because we are strong on acquisition, engagement, and monetization, but we are also able to decrease our cost to serve. This platform creates what we call the platform advantage, but also increase barriers to entry, as you can see, page 30. We have a large portfolio, B2B2C. Once again, 52+ million users, 2 million+ partner merchants, 950,000 corporate clients. Our technology is at scale. We invested EUR 1.9 billion since 2016. We invested EUR 385 million in 2022. It's huge and large investment, and we intend to continue to do so.
Thanks to that, we are able to propose customized solutions. We have about 250-plus programs in 45 different countries. Finally, thanks to those investments, our business volume is growing EUR 38 billion in 2022. Why? Because we are a player of trust, and we are a player that is super compliant. There is a trust aspect when you manage, you know, those huge flows of cash that needs to go back to the employees. To deliver this vision, we have a plan, and the plan is called Beyond, as we shared with you during our Capital Market Day in October 2022. Let me remind you a few things. First of all, Edenred is operating on vastly under-penetrated market. Within this market, and it's true for every product line of Edenred, Employee Benefits, Fleet and Mobility, Corporate Payment.
Within each of these business line, we also know that the SME segment is 3x- 5 x less penetrated than the large account. There is still a huge opportunity to go after more penetration, especially for the SMEs. On those markets, we want to scale the Edenred platform. Scale the Edenred platform means three things. Page 33. First of all, we want to scale the core. We want to grow further in under-penetrated core markets. It means more customers and maximization of this base of customers, thanks to the minimization of the churn, maximization of the upsell, the cross-sell, and the pricing. We know that it's gonna represent about 60% of our total growth for the coming years. The second part of the Beyond plan is to extend beyond. Extend beyond, what does it mean? It means more client.
Sorry, more, more products and services. We want to accelerate our Beyond food, Beyond fuel, and Beyond payment service offer, and we see that in 2022. For 10% of our total growth, knowing that Beyond, i.e. more services, will represent about 30% of our total growth for the next three years, we want to expand in new business opportunities for about 10% of our total revenue. Yes, scaling the Edenred platform means more clients, 60%, more services, 30% of the growth, and more business opportunities in new territories for about 10%. At Edenred, we love the managerial discipline and the simplicity. You see, page 34, that the deployment across business line is done, you know, in a very simple way and the same way for every product line.
If we move to page 35, not only we are operating on under-penetrated market on which we want to leverage our platform advantage, but to do that, we will be able to extend the total addressable market. What you see per product line is today the total addressable market of Edenred versus what we address today is 3 x bigger in Employee Benefits, 2.5 x bigger in Fleet and Mobility, and 2.5 x bigger in Corporate Payment. The markets we are addressing today are only 1/3 of the addressable markets. On those markets, the penetration is still low. On those low penetrated markets, the SME segment is the one where there is the highest potential. If I take a few examples, and I start with scale the core. Scale the core, what does it mean?
It means in Employee Benefits, for example, we have been able to increase the take-up rate, and you see the take-up rate that has increased from 5.1% in 2019 to 5.3%. More penetration, additional services, innovation. Fleet and Mobility, what does it mean, more clients? It means increase the penetration of the SME segment. The number of contract has increased by 21% in 2022.
In Corporate Payment, more clients, so scale the core. What does it mean? Developing the CSI platform ecosystem, new verticals, property management, utilities, extend our distribution network with some partners like Citi, Sage or Oracle. Our operating revenue growth has been more than 20% in 2022. If I go even deeper in scale the core, we want to harness the potential for face value increases.
If you look at what has happened, page 37, at Edenred in 2022, about 45% of our revenue has been impacted by the increase of the face value. I have two good news behind that. The first thing is 55% did not see any increase in 2022, so it will come because the pressure due to the inflation forces the employer to give more benefits.
We still have 55% that were not part of this process of maximum legal face value increase in 2022. The second good news is it takes about two years to get 85% of the growth. It's only the beginning of the process of maximization of the face value increase usage among our portfolio. Now if I move to the second part of the plan, the second part that we call extend Beyond.
I take two example, one in Portugal, one in Latam. Portugal, in benefits. Portugal, like in France, like in Brazil, like in many other countries, we are launching our multi-benefit solution to increase the purchasing power of the employees. In Portugal you have a super app. This super app is called Flexível, you have access to four universes: education, training, health, and social support. You have access to a merchant network of 2,400 merchants, public and private merchants, it gives you additional EUR 1,000 of purchasing power. What is true in what we call beyond food is also true for beyond fuel. In Latin America, we started the journey of what we call the maintenance platform. It's a multi-country platform we started in Brazil.
We are deploying in Mexico and in Argentina. We are the number one leader in Brazil. We have more than 30,000 merchants in our network, the cross-selling is about 40% between fuel solutions and energy solutions and maintenance solution. Yes, we are able to provide more services in the Food business, but also in the Fuel business and everywhere around the world. That's the strength of the global presence of Edenred. We are also able to extend Beyond through the M&A, Beyond Food. We invested into Betterway, so mobility in France. Beyond Fuel, Green Pass, a totally digital cloud-based, API-based solution to pay for your toll in Brazil and beyond payment with IPS, where in fact, we're able to expand the CSI Edenred value proposition, beyond payment with this acquisition.
To be able to offer an end-to-end integrated invoice to pay offering to our portfolio of clients. If I zoom on Betterway. With Betterway we started with a commercial partnership, i.e. the Betterway solutions are distributed via the Edenred platform. We decided to go further with the two founders of the company. In their need of financing, we invested EUR 4 million to consolidate our partnership and to accelerate the development on the French benefits market. It's a huge market. The total addressable market is EUR 17 billion. It's a low penetrating market, 5% only, and our ambition is super strong. We want to multiply that by 10 between 2022 and 2025. You know our strategy Beyond for you know for the economic performance, but we also want to accelerate on ESG.
As you know, the way we look at ESG at Edenred is, as a company, we want to be a front runner, on three dimensions. We want to be the employer of choice. In terms of, in terms of our greenhouse gas emission, we want to be net zero carbon by 2050 following the SBTi methodology. Finally, we want to be recognized as a trustworthy tech for good. We want also to help our clients to move towards this transition using Edenred solutions. For that, we have a series of KPI, eight KPIs, and we will continue our long journey for reinforced ambition on our ESG strategy. Thank you for your attention.
To finish, before we move to Julien Tanguy, to go more into the details of the financial performance, I propose you to breathe, listening to one of the last contract we sign. It is in Africa, it is in Cameroon, and it is a usage of our unique platform. A unique platform that is able to propose specific purpose money solution for farmers in Cameroon. Enjoy the show.
At the behest of President Paul Biya, Cameroon launched the large-scale Farmer Gateway subsidy program, the first of its kind to be based on digital technologies. Cameroon is currently the world's fifth-largest cocoa producer. The program targets cocoa and coffee farmers in the country's eight regions. Its objective is to increase cocoa production by 150% over the next decade, while also boosting coffee output. At the end of 2021, the Cameroonian government entered into a strategic partnership with Edenred, the world leader in specific purpose payment solutions to design and manage the program. The program is being led by FODECC under the aegis of the Ministers of Trade and Agriculture. It also has the support of the European Union and consulting firm, Aegis.
Good morning, everyone. Very happy to be with you to present the detailed financial performance of Edenred after this great example of the features that our platform is bringing to many people around the world. I propose we move to page 46 and to review our operating revenue performance. This performance is marked by an acceleration in Q4, driving further growth in 2022. As you can see, our operating revenue is up 22.3% like-for-like in Q4 2021, in Q4 2022. That brings a year of performance to a growth of 19.2%. You can see that we have a positive effect coming from currency, and this positive effect is 3.7% for the full year.
It leads our performance in terms of operating revenue at 22.8% with an operating revenue of EUR 1,944 million in 2022. Let's move to our performance per geography, and we start with Europe on page 47. In Q4, we delivered a solid performance in France and in the rest of Europe. The operating revenue is up 17.7% for the full year of 2022. The growth is even stronger in Q4 2022. It stands at 21.1%. In France, the operating revenue grew by 10% both for the Q1 and for the full year. This strong performance comes mainly from our Ticket Restaurant offer. Our solution is successful with both large accounts and SMB.
Regarding large accounts, we signed famous logos like H&M or Action, which is a famous discounter during the Q1 of 2022. Action has 17,000 employees in France, and the growth is also coming from SMB. We have been able to grow our clients' portfolio. On top of what we are doing with our Ticket Restaurants, the performance is also driven by the success of our employee engagement platform that Bertrand presented to you. This platform is dedicated to work on sales, and its e-commerce app is used by user that we can spend their gifts, vouchers and subsidies. In the rest of Europe, on the employee benefit side, like in France, our Ticket Restaurant sales fueled the growth, and we achieved a great gift campaign impacting both operating revenue and float generation.
In fleet and mobility, we delivered robust growth supported by our Beyond Fuel strategy. It means higher level of liters and deployment of added value services for the fleet managers. Let's move to page 48 to contemplate Latin America performance. In Latin America, our like-for-like growth for the last quarter is above 20% and allows us to post a full year growth of 18.7%. In Brazil, the growth in Q4 and for the entire year is around 16.5% like for like. We delivered a strong performance for our two business lines. In employee benefits, growth has accelerated with a strong contribution from Edenred Food and Beyond Food offers such as Ticket Super Flex. In fleet and mobility, the solid performance is supported by the continuous success of our Beyond Fuel solutions with maintenance and toll.
In Hispanic Latin America, the growth is solid at +29%, allowing us to post a full year performance of 23%. We see an acceleration in the employee benefits business line, and we have a continued robust momentum in fleet and mobility solutions with some key commercial successes deploying our Brazilian platform in new countries like Argentina and Mexico. It's time for the operating revenue. We move to page 49 and to the other revenue. Our other revenue almost doubled from 2021- 2022, moving up from EUR 44 million to EUR 87 million. As already mentioned, the successful campaign of gift card and the momentum of our food strategy are growing the float. We took benefit of interest rate increase in all geographies throughout the year, and we generated EUR 33 million of other revenue in Q4.
In 2023, we will benefit a full year impact of EUR interest rates, while interest rates in Latin America or in non-EUR zone country could start to decline. Page 50, let's look to a synthesis of our total revenue for Q4 and full year 2022 with three comments. For the first time ever, Edenred's total revenue is above EUR 2 billion. Q3 was a record quarter with total revenue above EUR 500 million. Q4 is another record quarter with a total revenue standing above EUR 600 million. I move to page 51 to another record with the level of EBITDA. EBITDA came in at EUR 836 million, up 24.9% compared to 2021 re-reported figures and up 23.3% in like for like.
This historical level has been achieved thanks to both operating leverage and other revenue contribution. The EBITDA margin stands at 41.2%, up 69 basis points like for like, demonstrating a good control of operating expenses while increasing technology investments. On page 52, let's focus on net profit group share and earnings per share. Edenred's EBITDA is up 24.9%, and net profit group share is up 23.3%. Two main topics to comment on this page. First, the income tax expense is growing at the same pace as EBITDA, moving from EUR 151 million- million. The net financial expenses, which are moving from minus EUR 19 million to minus EUR 54 million, a variation of EUR 35 million. Those EUR 35 million can be mainly explained by three events.
First, the appreciation of the fair value of Edenred investment in Partech funds. Appreciation is lower in 2022 compared to 2021. Second, the impact from interest rate increase. Our fixed rates bonds have been swapped to variable rates. Interest rate increase has an impact on interest paid. Keep in mind that this interest rate increase has also an impact in our other revenue that we already discussed. The third topic is the hyperinflation impact coming from Turkey and Argentina. Turkey is qualified as hyperinflation country since January 2022. All in all, the net result group share amounts to EUR 386 million, up 23.3% versus 2021, and the earning per share is EUR 1.55, up 23% compared to last year. After the P&L, we move to the free cash flow generation.
As Bertrand already explained, we delivered a very strong performance in EBITDA, and we have also generated a high level of free cash flow, thanks to FFO and cash generation from our business volume growth. Edenred free cash flow for 2022 is EUR 881 million. It includes an exceptional event as our Ticket Plus card in Germany has been moved from regulated to non-regulated product, impacting positively our restricted cash. Excluding this event, our free cash flow stands at EUR 710 million, and the conversion ratio from EBITDA to free cash flow is 85%. If we do dig into each line, starting with FFO, our FFO stands at EUR 673 million, up 21% versus 2021, and you know that FFO is the first stage of the rocket of free cash flow.
Regarding the evolution of total cash inflow and outflow related to working capital, main variation as follow. The float increased by EUR 264 million to be compared to EUR 198 million in 2021. This strong performance reflects the growth of employee benefits in 2022, and more specifically in Q4 with a high comparison basis in 2021. Our gift campaign has been successful in Europe this year. The working capital requested, excluding float, is minus EUR 180 million to be compared to minus EUR 343 million in 2021. Keep in mind that in 2021, this amount includes a payment of an ADLC fine. Excluding this offense, the working capital request is quite stable from a year to the other and is mainly impacted by PPS direct activity, i.e. services provided by PPS to digital banks.
Finally, the restricted cash is + EUR 275 million and includes a new classification of our Ticket Plus card in Germany. Here again, the main variation comes from PPS Direct as the cash managed on behalf of its digital banks is regulated. The total cash related to working capital is + EUR 359 million, of which EUR 170 million coming from the exceptional event. CapEx stands at EUR 151 million, representing 7.4% of our total revenue. Edenred is investing to grow our technology capabilities and to seize new market opportunities. Taking into account all those facts, the free cash flow stands at EUR 881 million. It has been a record year in terms of free cash flow generation for Edenred. I am now on page 54.
Thanks to the solid free cash flow generation even if we paid a full cash dividend in 2021, we've been able to get the debt to a level of EUR 307 million to be compared to EUR 860 million one year ago. Our leverage ratio net debt out of EBITDA is down to 0.4x , coming from 1.2x at the end of 2021. I move now to page 55, where you will find a synthesis of our financial position. The average debt maturity is 3.9 years, and we have no wall of debt in front of us. We do not have financial covenants, and S&P confirmed our triple B plus rating, increasing the outlook to positive from stable in April last year. Our gross debt profile.
Our gross debt level amounts to EUR 2.8 billion. The cost of debt in December is 2.2%, to be compared to 0.7% in December in 2021, because of euro interest rate increase during the H2 of 2022. I move to page 56. After a record year and with a strong balance sheet, we will propose to the general meeting of May a EUR one dividend per share, i.e. an 11% increase compared to 2021. As we did it in 2021, this dividend would be paid fully in cash. This dividend is consistent with our CapEx investment, with our M&A ambition, is in line with our progressive dividend policy. Regarding the CapEx, we will invest to further drive innovation and sales.
As explained during the CMD in October last year, we plan to invest between 7% and 8% of our total revenue every year. Regarding M&A, we have more than EUR 2 billion to invest, given current leverage and free cash flow generation. A stringent financial and strategic discipline are governing investment decisions. With a EUR 1 dividend, we stick to our progressive dividend policy. All those figures are taking into account our objective of maintaining a strong investment-grade rating. I give the mic back to Bertrand for the end of the presentation. Bertrand will share with you the 2023 outlook for the Edenred platform.
Thank you, Julien. To finish this presentation, what do we see for 2023? I propose that we move to page 58. Yes, I'm sure you understand that we are very positive for the coming years as to the ability of Edenred to generate sustainable and profitable growth. Why? There are four main reasons for that. The first reason is, yes, we are the everyday platform for people at work, and we are making the promotion of socially, economically, and environmentally virtuous solutions that are enriching connections for good. We are serving essential needs, which is, you know, a good platform for growth. The second reason is, yes, we demonstrated year- after- year, and we intend to continue doing so. We demonstrated a proven ability to identify and convert into business opportunities, macro trends.
What are the macro trends that we are seeing? First of all, the digitization of the economy, the changes in the working world, and the energy transitions. Yes, we will be able to better address those client needs. The third reason of the fact that we are looking at the future with ambition and with confidence is the fact that we have been investing, and we will continue to invest into our unique platform. We are able to strengthen our digital and technological leadership, so we are able to deliver seamless, user-friendly, compliant, and efficient digital native solutions. The fourth reason why we are very positive about the future of sustainable and profitable growth for Edenred is amid falling purchasing power, the talent war, and the need for better control of fleet expenses.
Yes, Edenred is able to take full benefit of the increased attractiveness of our solution. We are scaling the advantage of our platform. We are aggregating, orchestrating, and distributing a growing number of B2B solution, and all of those are going to fuel the future growth of Edenred. The future growth, what does it mean? It means that in our plan, 2022 is well on its way to deliver EUR 5 billion of total revenue by 2030. To do that, the first year, or let's say the next step of this journey to EUR 5 billion, is the year 2023. Yes, based on what we achieved in 2022, based on the investments that we are making, based on the ambition we have for Edenred, we are able to confirm our targets for 2023.
Targets that we shared with all of you in the Capital Market Day, saying that our EBITDA growth, like for like in 2023, will be at least 12%. Our cash conversion in 2023, i.e., the EBITDA to free cash flow ratio, will be above 70%. Thank you for your attention. Before we are moving to the Q&A sessions for 30 minutes, I would like to share with you a movie that is summarizing the Beyond 2022-2025 strategic plan of Edenred. Enjoy the show. Yes. Okay, welcome back. It's now time for the question. I understand that the first question is Julien.
Yes, certainly. As a quick reminder, that is star one for your questions today. We move first to Julien from Kepler Cheuvreux. Your line is open now, please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, everyone. I have three questions, if I may. The first one, if you can give us an update on Brazilian regulation and especially on interoperability. I don't know if you have more visibility on how it will be implemented this year. The second one on other revenue. You posted EUR 33 million in Q4. Is it fair to extrapolate that level quarter-by-quarter in 2023? Have you any idea on what will be the level of other revenue next year? The last one, in EBITDA margin, and especially on operating EBITDA margin, it was down compared to last year. Is it something that will also happen in 2023, given the high level of growth and investment in platform, et cetera? Do we have to expect something more flattish in 2023 after the performance in 2022?
Thank you.
Okay, Julian, thank you for your three questions. I propose that we start with the other revenue. Julian.
Yes. Regarding other revenue, you've seen that in Q4, we've been able to post EUR 33 million of other revenue. Other revenue are coming from two things. The first one is our capacity to grow the business volume. It means that we have more float, as we've seen it in the free cash flow. The second thing is the interest rate increase. We know that interest increase picked up in 2022, and indeed, when we look at the euro interest rates, they picked up especially in H2. In 2023, you will have the full year impact of euro interest rates that will stay at least at the level where they are today.
Regarding other interest rates, we see that inflation is still high in Europe, especially in a non-euro zone country. I think that interest rates should stay at the level where they are today. When we look at Latin America, because Brazil has been the first country to have high interest rates, they could be able to control inflation, and maybe we will have a decrease of interest rate in Brazil. However, I remind you that 15% of our float is in Latin America and 80% is in Europe. For 2023, we should have a high level of other revenue compared to what it has been in 2022.
Okay. Thank you, Julien. If we move to the Brazilian regulation. First of all, let's remember, all of us, that the PAT, which is, you know, the alimentation for the workers, has never been so strong in Brazil. Why? Because since this summer, it is part of the law. Before that it was only a decree, now it is a law. The program has never been solid like that due to the fact that it is in the law. The second part that is super positive as well for the PAT in Brazil is the fact that by law, it cannot be post-paid, it has to be pre-paid. There is no facility of payment that can be given before the emission of the card.
The second thing is that no discount is possible anymore. That's the second part of the law that is super positive for the PAT program and for issuers like us in Brazil. As to the interoperability, as I explained the last time we talked, the concept has been launched, and nobody knows exactly what it means. That's why the new government, and you know that there was some general election in Brazil, and the majority is now in the hands of the PT, the left part of the political stage in Brazil. This new government decided to build a commission to discuss about the interoperability. The commission has not been nominated yet, and so there was no first meeting of this commission. Knowing that obviously, the association of the issuers is part of the commission.
To your question, anything new on Brazilian regulation? The answer is no. There is positive facts and the fact that the commission will sit in the coming month to discuss about interoperability. Your third question was about the EBITDA margin and the operating EBITDA margin. In fact, if you look at the EBITDA margin, as we said, with the published numbers, the EBITDA margin is increasing. If you look at the like-for-like number, EBITDA margin is increasing as well. Why? Because we are a scale business, i.e., the more volume we bring to the platform, the more profitable we are. You see that the volume, the business volume, has increased by more than 25% in 2022, reaching an historical level of EUR 38 billion.
What we also said, we also said that when times are super good, our job is to invest to accelerate the growth of Edenred. The investments at Edenred, knowing that we are a digital company, are mainly in technology and in sales. We need salespeople to fuel the growth. In technology, 60% of our technological investments are OpEx investments, i.e., to pay some developers and digital engineers. What we did in 2022 is in fact to accelerate our rate of investments. As you see, we increased our technological investments by 28%. In fact, even more in the Q4 of 2022, we accelerated our investments. Why? Because we know that it works. We did it, for example, during the COVID.
During the COVID, we accelerated our investment by 6%, whereas, you know, everybody else was totally frozen. We saw the immediate effect of these investments. We had only one quarter with negative growth, the Q2 of 2022, Q3 back to growth, Q4 even more growth. In 2021, we reached a level that was higher than the level of 2019. Now in 2022, we post an historical growth of 25%. To make a long story short, if we did not accelerate our investments in sales and technology, we could have posted an even higher EBITDA margin because we are a scale business. To fuel the future growth, we took the decision to accelerate those investments and especially in Q4.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Who's next?
We're now moving on to Paul Sullivan of Barclays. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Just a few from me. Firstly, how should we think about the shape of growth in 2023? Obviously, you have the buildup of volume growth from '22. You've got the face value follow through, but clearly that's balanced by tough comps and oil price headwinds. How should we think about that? Secondly, in aggregate, can you quantify how much inflation contributed to growth last year and in Q4, and specifically fuel? Are there any face value changes to note so far this year? Just a couple of follow-ups on Brazil. Whilst that commission is sitting, does that mean sort of interoperability is pushed out, or is there no change until we get clarity from the government?
On, on margin. You're very clear on the tech investment and I, you know, I get it. How should we think about, you know, operating margins this year? Should we think about sort of stability, given that tech investment will clearly be a feature this year too?
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you, Paul, for those four questions. I propose that I start, and Julien, you stop me anytime you want to add something.
No problem. Let's do that.
If we start with, you know, the shape of growth in 2023. We said that the EBITDA growth will be a minimum of 12%. As you know, it's, it's a floor. For the last eight years in a row, we did better than the floor that we gave. Even if the floor is higher, strategic plan after strategic plan. I'm sure you'll remind our first plan that was called Fast Forward, and we said minimum eight, and we did it. The second plan on a higher level of EBITDA, we said minimum 10, and we have been doing it at the exception of the year of the COVID. Here on the much larger base, because the EBITDA was multiplied by two in six years, we said minimum 12%.
How it's gonna happen, many positive trends, many tailwinds and a few headwinds. The net of both is very positive. The tailwinds, as we said, penetration and especially on SMEs, we have a sale machine that we are tuning every day, in which we are investing also every day. This engine is gonna continue to produce a lot in 2023. More client acquisition. The second thing is more services. You see that our innovation engine is at full speed and we have more to come. We have many plans in which we invested in fact in 2022, and we will start seeing, you know, the first introduction on the market in 2023.
This, let's say level of innovation that has been fueled by investments, plus, in fact, the cross-selling machine that we put in place, will generate more and more revenue coming from what we call Beyond. Expect the maintenance to grow very strongly in 2023. Expect our data, so, powered products such as GoHub, for example, to grow quickly in 2023. Expect our employee engagement platform in many countries in Europe to accelerate, in fact, their growth.
The ability to give purchasing power, the ability to keep the cost base under control, thanks to our fleet and mobility, the ability to provide tools that help talent retention for our clients and efficiency, for example, in corporate payment, when you look at the cost of non-digital B2B payment, are going to be huge engine of growth for Edenred in 2023. There are a few headwinds in relative terms. The first one is in fact the slowdown of the economy. It's difficult to read for now. A few months ago, everybody was talking about recession. Now everybody talks about slowdown. We don't know yet how it's gonna play. We know that if there is a slowdown and a less robust, let's say labor market, it could have an impact on Edenred.
The truth is, as of today, we don't see it. We stay cautious, but we don't see it in the performance of the Q4 and in the performance of the first few weeks of 2023. The second thing is, obviously the war in Ukraine, that could have an impact in the Eastern European countries. We don't know what's gonna be the outcome. We don't know the duration of the conflict. We know that it could have a slowdown on the eastern part of Europe. The truth is we don't see it as of today. Maybe it will come, but we don't see it as of today.
To make a long story short, based on the momentum, based on the foundations of this momentum, and based on what we see in the first week of 2023, we know that the 12% is a bare minimum. Your second question is inflation in Q4, as to the face value increase and as to the fuel. First of all, you know that 11% of the revenue of Edenred is dependent on fuel price evolution. The fuel price evolution for us is mainly the price at pump. That's the first thing to bear in mind. If you look at the positive impact of fuel price increase in 2022 for the entire year, in fact it was about 2%.
Knowing that your question was specifically on Q4, in Q4, if I remember correctly, Julien, I think it was 0.9%.
Yes, it's below 1%.
Yes. Why? Because the basis of comparison between Q4 2022 and Q4 2021, in fact, was less positive, as we said, in fact, during our publication of the H1 2022. Full year 2%, Q4 0.9%. Face value increase, in fact, it's only the beginning. As I said, 45% of our revenue when we take it one by one, were done in a country where we saw some face value increase. This face value increase has happened during the entire year of 2022, some in the middle of the year, some at the end of the year.
We didn't see the full effect, first thing, and the second thing is, as we said and we explained, based on our observation, and we are a very good observer of what has happened for the last 20 years on our markets, we know that it takes two years before having the full impact of the potential, knowing that the potential is 85% of the legal face value increase. To make a long story short, in 2023, we will benefit from those 45% that have just started to be implemented. Hopefully, the 55% that did not get any face value increase due to the pressure coming from the inflation and the need for purchasing power probably is gonna be another engine for the growth of Edenred in 2023.
Your third question was as to the interoperability in Brazil with the commission. I explained that to you, to all of you many times. We love Brazil. We have been in Brazil for the last, in fact, 47 years now. We started in 1976. We saw many political alternances. We know that things can take much more time than what it is said initially. I'm sure you remember a few years ago, it was said that maybe the cash coming from the PAT program would be regulated. We had many conversation with the authorities to explain us and the other issuers. It took about three to four years, at the end of three to four years, the commission said, "No, no.
Things are well done, there is no need to be regulated by the Central Bank. As to the interoperability, no, we don't have more clarity. We know that it's gonna take some time. Why? Because nobody knows exactly what it means. That's the first thing. The second thing that I want to reiterate here is whatever happens, we are super confident. Whatever the outcome, we are the number one leader. We are the one who is growing the fastest. We are the one who is investing the most. We demonstrated that we are super agile, we love, you know, being creative and innovative. Whatever the outcome, we will get adapted to that, we will probably be able to leverage the huge network that we have in Brazil. Why take, you know, some change that could come as a threat?
It's mainly an opportunity when you are a leader. We have many assets in our hands. We are the one who can invest the most. Maybe, 20 years from now, we, with the best network that we have, we will get some revenues from that. To make a long story short, there will be clarity on the concept, maybe. When? We don't know. We are an active player for the education of the people who decide in Brazil. Whatever the outcome, we are super confident in our ability to transform any change into opportunities. The last thing I want to say is the journey we did all together for the last six years is to multiply the opportunities and to divide the risks. Divide the risk is, yes, six years ago, our level of dependence to Brazil was high.
It's not the case anymore. Brazil is more or less 20% of our total revenue. In Brazil, more than 50% of our revenue is in fleet and mobility, which is another way to answer the question. I don't like this way. I like looking at things as a huge field of opportunities for a super agile, super dynamic, and ambitious player like Edenred. Your fourth question was as to the evolution of the margin. Julien, the margin.
The margin. As we already explained, in 2022, we decided to invest in order to prepare the future growth of the company. You've seen that we've decided to invest more than EUR 380 million in tech, knowing that, as Bertrand explained, we have those four layers on the platform that are very important and that are built in order to simplify the use of our solution with a complexity that is hidden by the four layers. Those investments, if you compare to what we plan to do and what we presented during the Capital Market Day, are higher.
Around EUR 25 million have been invested on top of what was planned in Q4, knowing that 60% of those investments are OpEx. It means that in the P&L, you have around EUR 15 million that we decided to invest and that have an impact on the EBITDA margin. It's around 90 bips in terms of EBITDA margin. I.e., if we had not decided to invest those EUR 25 million, the EBITDA margin would have been 90 bips above what it is today. Now regarding 2023, we have a very good sales momentum, as we said. We have positive tailwinds, such as interest rates, and our float is growing thanks to our BV growth.
Our ambition is to keep on investing, and we will benefit from the very strong top line ambition to fuel this investment. Regarding the EBITDA margin, I believe, as Bertrand explained, that we are a scale business. It means that we will be able to grow the EBITDA margin in the coming years, thanks to the level of investment we are doing today.
Another way to say it, Julien and Paul, is due to the fact that we are a scale business and a well-run business, the EBITDA margin in 2023 will improve. By how much, we don't know yet, because it's gonna depend on the pace of investments on top of the regular investments that we want to make.
Superb. That's very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Up next we have Edward Stanley from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my questions. I feel like you've answered the margin question thoroughly, I won't harp on that. I'd like to ask about the balance sheet, please. Obviously a very strong position for net debt. Could you give a bit of a summary of where you are in terms of M&A and how active that is? You've always spoken about your discipline in that area. At what point in terms of the strength of the balance sheet or might I even say inefficiency, would you potentially consider larger return to shareholders? Thanks.
Ed, thank you for your question. Yes, we are totally deleveraged, which is, you know, super positive, in time where the interest rates are going up, which is probably the best tribute to the quality of the growth that the Edenred platform is able to generate. It gives us, you know, some firepower. Once again, what is the vision? The vision of Edenred is, you know, to go beyond and to go beyond it means develop and commercialize on our platform more and more Edenred product and services, also the ability to have Edenred product and services distributed by some other digital platforms. That's why the four layer and the API connection is absolutely key, also the ability to distribute on our platforms product and services that are developed by some other people.
Betterway is a good example. Green Pass has been a good example as well. We will do that more and more. What does it mean? It means that on top of investments, we need to be able to buy companies to contribute to, you know, this Beyond strategy. We are super pleased to have EUR 2 billion more of firepower. As you said, it's not because we have the firepower that we're gonna use it systematically. We will use it with the same financial discipline, i.e. the right adequation to the strategy, the right adequation in terms of synergies. We love to build business that are profitable and sustainably profitable.
Yes, thanks to the firepower and thanks to the ambition of growth and the strategy we have, you will see Edenred probably to be more acquisitive in the coming years, but keeping, you know, the same financial discipline. At what level could we consider to give back more? First of all, as you see, we have the dividend that is growing by 11%, which is in line with our progressive dividend policy, which is also in line with a growth company like us.
If, for whatever reasons, we don't find the right targets answering the financial discipline and the strategy we are looking for, yes, we could consider some share buyback knowing that 50% of our shareholding structure is in the U.S. and the share buyback is something that is, let's say, more enjoyed on this part of the Atlantic as compared to Europe. First, we want to make sure that we have enough firepower to invest into the growth of Edenred via internal developments, but also by acquisition.
Very clear. Just one follow-up if I could, and the allocation point.
Yes.
You've been clear on. Could you perhaps give some color on how you see public and private valuations right now? You know, are the prices being asked by companies realistic, i.e. is the ground more fertile for you to make those investments? Is it just that you continue the same policy as before and you continue to be disciplined, but there's no real change from the previous situation over the last year or two?
Mm-hmm. Maybe Julien.
Yes. When we look at the multiple on the market, it's fair to say that multiple, especially in private equity, are declining but very slowly. If you compare the level of multiple this year compared to one year ago, it goes down, but only with a low level. We don't see on the private equity market what we see with a public company. I would say the decrease of the valuation we've seen from November 2021 to the end of 2022.
I think that because deals will have to be done, we should have a kind of a convergence between private and public in terms of multiple.
Okay.
Great. Thank you.
We still have many people, in fact, in line. Let's make sure that you ask the right level of questions. Not too many, if I may say so, to make sure that everybody has a chance to ask a question. Who's next?
Great. Thank you. Yes, indeed. Once again, we kindly ask in the interest of time to limit yourself to one question. Up next we have Justin Forsling of Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Thanks a lot, guys. Appreciate you having me on here. I wanted to hit a little bit parsing through the employee benefits strength we saw in Q4. Maybe just walking a little bit through the growth algorithm because you hit, you know, that 23% like for like growth. Can you parse out what benefit you saw from face value increases versus growth at existing customers versus new customers? Also, I think you called out in the past that gift card was, you know, driving a more difficult comparison in Q4 within employee benefits, and so it sounds like that actually had quite a strong period. Maybe you could just hit those kind of four different impacts. You know, obviously, I think the implied for 2023 previously was a low double digit.
Given the face value increases, are we expecting a similar in 2023, or is that re-rating a little bit higher? Just one side question, if you will, on the accounts payable integrations that you called out, like Sage and NetSuite. Perhaps you could just talk a little bit to the competition within that for AP automation and card issuance. You know, what is the market share like within those different platforms, and how do you expect to expand that over time with the, you know, high level of competitions that exist within those platforms? Thank you.
Okay, Justin, you make my life very easy with one question which is made of many, many sub-questions. I'll answer all of them, but I will be much faster. Okay? As to the employee benefit in Q4. First of all, for Edenred, Q4 is the biggest, every year. It's in fact the biggest quarter due to exactly what you say, the end of year gift campaign. That's why, you know, every year, because you start from scratch every year, it's gonna be a question of innovation, but also commercial momentum. We didn't know because Q4 2021 has been super strong. We have been a little bit, let's say, cautious because it has to be done every year from scratch. In fact, in Q4 we did super well.
Super well on gift, which is a super good news as to the acquisition of our offers to the market, but also a super good news as to our sales and marketing momentum and aggressivity on the market. Yes, we did 23% in employee benefits like for like. One of the main driver was a super successful gift campaign. I have to say that year- after- year, the sales force of Edenred is impressing me in the fact that they are always thirsty to go beyond in terms of in terms of gift campaign. We'll see how it goes in Q4 2023, but we know that we have a super successful engine on that. The second thing, it's everything else that I explained. We are penetrating more, especially on the SME segment.
The 20% more contracts we demonstrated in fact, in fleet and mobility, it's even higher on benefits. The penetration engine is going full blast. I have the feeling that there is still so much that we can do, a lot. Once again, those segments are three to five times less penetrated. The second thing is more clients. The second thing, as I explained, the cross-selling is doing better in 2022 versus 2021, and we are not there yet. We increase our cross-selling rate by four points and in 2023, we will do even better because we are getting smarter, we have much more things to offer, and we are helped by the willingness of the employers to compensate for the falling down of the purchasing power due to the inflation.
We will benefit also, from that, i.e., a context that is very favorable to Edenred due to the purchasing power, but also the talent war. There is a need for qualified people everywhere around the world. There is no, not enough labor force, our solution are a way to attract and retain talented people, and it's gonna last for a long, long time. Plus the fact that people are looking for customization. The generation Y and Z is very much into, "Okay, let's do things together, but when it comes to my benefits, let's make sure that it is, you know, customized and personalized." The digital solution of Edenred are a fantastic tool for the HR director to answer those needs.
To make a long story short, those engines that are structural but also due to our innovation and commercial momentum will continue in 2023. Is it going to be double digit? Yes. Is it going to be at 12%-23%? It's too early to say. Your second question is as to the AP integration. The market is mainly in the U.S. It's a huge market. The need for digitization is gigantic due to the size and to the cost of non-digitization. You have thousands of players in the U.S., so market share doesn't mean anything, depending on how you segment the market. If I take, you know, only, for example, the invoice automation, we are with IPS, one of the leader, but it's a sub-segment. It's a large market.
There is a lot of space for many players. There are a lot of players. We will continue to grow organically at 20% and more, and we will consolidate as well, because at some point of time, today it's a land grabbing game, and at some point of time it's gonna be a consolidation game as well to make sure that the platforms are at scale. That's the name of the game. Focus in the U.S., focus on our sub-segment, and play the game of the organic growth and consolidation.
Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. Had to laugh at your comment about questions within questions.
Yeah. Thank you, Justin.
Thank you. Our last question today comes from Mourad Lahmidi of Exane. Please go ahead.
Thank you and good morning, gentlemen. One question on my side. On the other revenue line, is it fair to expect the performance of Q4 to be multiplied by four in 2023?
Mourad, no, you cannot do that because first of all, the quarter of Q4 is the biggest in absolute value. You cannot take EUR 600 million. To make it simple, it was EUR 580 million or something like that.
No, no, we are talking of other revenue.
Sorry. other revenue, Julien.
We did EUR 33 million in Q4. As I said, when you look at the interest rates in 2022, euros picked up only starting in July, i.e., at the beginning of last year we still had negative interest rate. I think that interest rate will stabilize and will stay at the same level in 2023 compared to Q4 2022. Maybe you should also consider that in Q4 because we have this gift campaign that is very strong. We have a lot of float to invest, so we have a positive impact on other on on other revenue
The multiplication by four of Q4 other revenue is maybe a little bit strong. However, we don't know how interest rates are going to evolve. When you look at what happened last year, every two months, we had big news regarding interest rates. When we did the computation in June, taking into account the level of interest rate we had, we did not expect to reach EUR 87 million of other revenue in 2022. I'm very cautious with the capacity we have to forecast this kind of revenue. However, I really believe that other revenue will keep on growing in 2023, and they will keep on growing strongly.
Maybe, Julien, one thing we can add is structurally it's a super good news for Edenred. The business is growing fast, the business volume is growing fast. We put this money at work, for the first time for a certain number of years, you are able to put this money at work and to generate some revenue. It's here to stay. Positive interest rates are here to stay, the increase of business volume year- after- year is here for many years as well. The growth in 2023 of other revenue is going to be super solid, it's not only in 2023, it's for the years to come.
Thank you very much.
Maybe a few words of conclusion on my side. First of all, thank you for having spent the last one hour and 36 minutes together. You understood that the performance of Edenred has been super solid in 2022. First of all, it's an historical rate of growth at 25%. It's also historical in terms of absolute value, with a business volume of EUR 38 billion, and the fact that we generated more than EUR 2 billion of revenue in 2022. It's also historical in the sense that it's well-balanced per geographies and per business lines. It's also an acceleration in Q4, and it's also a performance that is well-balanced between the financial performance and the extra financial performance.
After the year 2022, we engaged into the year 2023 with a balance sheet that is totally unleveraged, with a strong track record, with a lot of momentum on our products and services. Bear with us. More to come in 2023. Enjoy the rest of the day. Bye-bye.