Hello everyone, and welcome to the Plus500 Preliminary Results for FY 2021. My name is Daisy, and I'll be coordinating today's call. You will have the opportunity to ask a question at the end of the presentation. If you would like to register a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypads. I will now hand over to your host, David, to begin. David, please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. I'm David Zruia, Plus500 CEO, and I'm joined by Elad Even-Chen, our Group CFO. Thank you for joining us today. Turning to slide two, we shows the agenda for today. Once we've run through the presentation, we will be happy to take your questions. I will start today with a brief strategic overview. Just to remind you of our vision on slide four, which is for Plus500 to enable trusted and intuitive access to financial opportunities for our customers across a wide range of financial instruments, countries, and devices. This is being driven by our continuing progress as a global multi-asset fintech group, supported by organic investment in targeted acquisitions. This will help to further diversify our revenue base and drive higher customer retention.
The strength of our vision and strategic positioning was significantly validated in 2021 by a number of important proof points achieved in the year. In particular, we delivered a strong set of results ahead of market expectations. We developed and launched a new proprietary share dealing platform. We executed the group's first-ever acquisition, which ensured the diversification of our offering and extended our product offering into the futures and options on futures market, which is a significant growth opportunity for the group, in particular in the U.S., but also globally. We developed a range of new customer retention and monetization technologies. These achievements provide comprehensive evidence that we have clear vision and strategy on which we are already delivering against. Our vision, strategy, and performance are supported by a robust investment case on slide five.
We operate in a supportive market environment with access to a number of significant long-term growth opportunities. Our ability to activate these growth opportunities is the result of our powerful proprietary technology, which drives our operational excellence, our market-leading product offering, and our cutting-edge marketing approach. Supported by a robust financial foundation, these factors have ensured that we have been able to maintain a long-standing high-value customer base. This is highlighted on the next slide, which shows that last year we achieved a major milestone in reaching a total of 22 million customers registered on our platforms. This is the first time we have disclosed this number. This achievement reflects our market-leading offering and has been driven by continuing investment in marketing technologies and platform development.
This substantial latent registered customer base represent a major opportunity for continued customer retention, activation, and monetization initiatives with a view to triggering higher conversion rates. Ultimately, of course, this will enable us to access further growth in our active customer base, thereby increasing revenue and EBITDA over time. These dynamics have resulted in a number of clear differentiators and areas of competitive advantages for Plus500 on slide seven. Firstly, we have built a long track record of financial performance with over 25% compound annual growth in revenue since the IPO year, with an average EBITDA margin of approximately 57% in that time. We have remained debt-free since the business was established and have returned approximately $1.4 billion to our shareholders since our IPO in 2013. This track record is testament to the quality of our people.
Our headquarters are in Israel, a major global hub for technology and innovation, where there is a skilled and educated workforce, which is highly trained in technological development. We have fostered a high-performance organizational culture that reflects Israel's technology-based environment. This has been led by highly skilled management team with specialties, expertise, and experience in technology and finance. Our agile, customer-centric business model, with its unique edge in attracting and retaining customers through multiple channels, has ensured that we have consistently driven an attractive ROI over time. All of these factors are a consequence of the strength of our proprietary technology on slide eight, which remains our fundamental competitive advantage. Our technology enables Plus500 to respond with agility to customer requirements, fast emerging market developments, and regulatory changes.
At the heart of our technological capability is that every element of our technology is fully and seamlessly integrated and interconnected across our operations, systems architecture, product, and marketing capabilities. It has taken us many years to develop this technology with consistent upgrades, continued innovation, and introduction of a range of new features, new services, and new capabilities over the last decade. As a result, Plus500 is now a highly developed business with a long track record of innovation and a market-leading technological capability operated by highly skilled engineers and specialists. The next slide illustrates our technology stack in action, showing the main steps of customers' journey. This starts with our marketing technology, which includes artificial intelligence characteristics, and its optimization process is made as a result of its big data capabilities.
Once a customer has decided independently to open an account on our platforms, the operational element of our technology is initiated. At that point, customers go through a stringent, rigorous verification and onboarding process in accordance with the applicable regulation, supported by 24/7 localized customer care and a best-in-class payment processing service, utilizing a range of possible payment methods for our customers. Once onboarded, the next stage of the customer journey is the product experience, including a range of educational and training tools, new features, new analysis tools, new products, and new financial instruments. The journey is supported and secured by a robust system infrastructure with a powerful CRM platform, cybersecurity and anti-fraud protection features, and a robust risk management framework. Also, it is important to note our scalable and reliable system architecture and platform capabilities, which cater for our customers' trading activities.
The evidence of our success is in our numbers on slide 10. As you can see, we have consistently delivered growth and value on all financial and operational metrics over a long period of time. We have further added to this track record in 2021, as highlighted on slide 11. Our strategic roadmap continues to be based on expanding our core product offering, launching new products, and deepening engagement with our customers. We made progress in each of these areas in 2021. We made ongoing investment in our core product offering of CFDs, with further expansion in the range of features, functionality, and instruments and product enhancements for customers. In line with our strategic goals, we also successfully launched a new proprietary share dealing platform, Plus500 Invest, which includes over 1,500 financial instruments comprising of the world's most popular equities.
We executed our first-ever acquisition of Cunningham Commodities, a regulated futures commission merchant, and Cunningham Trading Systems, a technology trading platform provider. As a result, we have immediately expanded our geographic footprint and product offering in the significantly growing but under-penetrated U.S. retail trading market in futures and options for futures. We will continue to invest in future growth through further organic investment and by actively targeting additional acquisitions, as well as by activating potential strategic partnerships to further drive our strategic position as a global multi-asset fintech group. I will now hand over to Elad to take you through our operational performance.
Thanks, David, and good morning, everyone. Our strong performance during the year, outlined on slide 13, was well ahead of pre-pandemic levels and driven by our ongoing success in customer retention, monetization, and activation. This ensures that we maintain continued high customer engagement, including a high level of active customers on our platforms. This was fundamentally achieved as a result of the scalability of our business and our robust system architecture, which enables our platforms to handle tens of millions of transactions every year. In 2021, for example, we seamlessly and efficiently managed over 57 million customer trades on our platforms, with consistent service delivery maintained for our customers, despite many significant waves of demand, which ramps up at very short notice. Customer income, our key underlying growth driver, was around $703 million, demonstrating the high-quality revenue and earnings streams of our business.
Client deposits, a key measure of our customer confidence and trust in Plus500, remained very strong at around $2.1 billion. This operational performance translated into excellent financial results on slide 14, highlighting our clear strategic approach and robust business model. Total revenue was at the level of $718.7 million. EBITDA was at the level of $387.1 million, and margins were around 54%. This drove cash conversion to 99%, helping us to end the year with cash balances of $750 million, up from $594 million at the end of last year.
With the business remaining debt-free, as has been the case since its inception, and following our excellent financial performance in 2021, Plus500 remains in an outstanding financial position from which to invest in sustainable long-term growth and continue to deliver value for shareholders. Now, I will run through the progress we made to further develop each of our product offerings during the year, starting with our core product on slide 15. CFDs remain an attractive product for customers around the world, as well as offering the ability for customers to trade and leverage and to access market liquidity. Our product offering is aligned with regulatory requirements in the countries in which we operate, ensuring customer protection and education through elements like our free unlimited demo account and negative balance protection.
With our offering, customers have the comfort that they are trading on attractive commercial terms, and they can access everything they need through one multi-channel solution. With a long track record in innovating our CFD platform, we offer customers a wide range of financial instruments and asset classes on a global basis. We continued to add more instruments, features, and analysis tools to our core product offering during 2021 to help further deepen customer engagement. Future growth of our core product offering will be driven by further expansion of our reach and footprint through entering new markets, further developing our technology, including the launch of new associated technologies, launching new instruments, and enhancing our offering. On the next slide, you can see how our core product track record has enabled us to achieve leadership positions across certain key markets.
According to Investment Trends, we remain the largest CFD provider in Germany and Spain. We were also ranked as the fastest-growing trading platform in the U.K. and the most chosen CFD platform for mobile app in both Australia and Singapore. We also have a leading position in both app installs and rankings. On slide 17, you can see that there is a substantial untapped customer demand potentially available outside of our current geographic footprint. We will continue to target new potential markets to launch our core product offering through obtaining operating licenses in those markets, either organically or via acquisitions. Target markets include various countries in the Americas, Asia, and the Middle East, with new regulated markets in which we do not currently operate and where there is a huge growth potential being a particular focus.
Slide 18 gives some context on the growth outlook for our futures and options and futures product offering both in the U.S. and globally. There were record derivative volumes traded last year, 50% of which were futures contracts and 75% of which were commodities and equity futures. In addition, crypto continued to move into mainstream with, for example, the launch of Ether, Micro Ether, and Micro Bitcoin futures by the CME last year. We believe that this is a major strategic opportunity for Plus500 as we look to expand in this significant potential market, which is being driven by the substantial management focus and continued investment in technology and people.
Supported by a clear regulatory framework, Plus500 is a real opportunity to be a technology disruptor in this market where the competitive environment is fragmented, the utilization of technology is relatively limited, and the range of asset classes for customers to access is becoming increasingly broad and accessible. On slide 19, you can see how we plan to disrupt this market. With this integration of Cunningham and CTS now well underway, we have already recruited a number of R&D specialists with a specific focus on leveraging our best-in-class technology to optimize the acquired business. Ultimately, this will enable us to deliver market access to the millions of potential U.S. customers looking for new trading opportunities and ideas. We can also cater for higher potential trading volumes as a result of our strong financial foundation and balance sheet.
We are therefore very confident that we will be able to offer accessible futures and options and future products to a mass retail audience, delivering on a major market opportunity for our business. I will now hand back to David.
Thanks, Elad. On to our new share dealing platform, Plus500 Invest, on the next slide. This product offering provides more diversification, acts as a customer retention tool, and gives us access to new marketing opportunities. At this early stage, the product is already live on over 15 countries across Europe and was recently launched as a dedicated mobile app for Android. With continued organic investment being made in Plus500 Invest, it will be rolled out soon on iOS and in additional target markets in 2022. New equities and ETFs will be added, helping to drive the further expansion of the group's product range in the future. Slide 21 provides some highlights on the main developments of our technology during the year.
For those who are not familiar with our business model, let me say that Plus500 is a technology company with a high-performance entrepreneurial culture and a strong track record of more than 13 years of developing the most innovative technologies in our space. On the back of our plan to incrementally invest approximately $50 million in our R&D capability between 2021 and 2023, we continue to invest in this area during the year. This was evidenced by our ongoing recruitment of talented engineers, programmers, web designers and product managers at our R&D centers in Israel. Also, during the year, the operations team implemented additional technologies to enable new payment methods and develop additional tools to support product launches and further improvements in customer service. We continue to invest in systems architecture to support customer requirements.
The implementation of Google Cloud services provides further flexibility, security and scale to the platforms, additional server capacity and redundancy, as well as enhanced data analytics, data processing and business intelligence capabilities. Our platforms have consistently delivered the capacity to support significant volumes, including the multiple volume spikes, which have rapidly and sometimes instantly arisen on demands in recent years. All this activity ensures that Plus500 continues to lead the industry across the mobile and tablet space. Over 83% of our CFD-related revenue were generated from mobile or tablet devices, and more than 79% of CFD-related customer trade took place on mobile or tablet services in 2021. Moving to slide 22 on KPIs by region. Importantly, all metrics remains well ahead of pre-pandemic levels.
Our active customer base remains robust at over 407,000, supported by another strong year of new customers onboarded of over 196,000. The development of our customer base over recent years has been driven by continued significant investment in our marketing technology, as well as an ongoing focus on initiatives to drive customer retention, monetization and activation. Average revenue per user in 2021 was strong at over $1,760, while average user acquisition cost was at the level of $877, with ongoing investment in strategic markets to help us attract high value customers.
Average user acquisition cost is expected to rise steadily over time as our customer profile continues to shift to higher value customers and as we start to invest in attracting customers to the new products and target customers in strategic geographies. Elad will now take you through our marketing investment starting on slide 23.
Thanks, David. We have a multilayered and diverse approach to marketing, fundamentally driven by our technology. With the support of key strategic partners such as Google, we operate multiple marketing initiatives in paid search and organic search, as well as running numerous content marketing and PR campaigns. I'd like to note that Plus500 is considered to be a leader within the marketing technology space, and our superior technology is being optimized every year to deliver continuous improvement in our results. The value for our marketing strategy can be seen by the revenue trajectory of our long-term customer cohorts outlined in the graph on slide 24. We chose cumulative revenue per customer from the date of their initial deposit to the end of 2021.
You can see the 2015 customer cohort on the long dark blue line has generated total revenue of around $5,000 per customer on a cumulative basis over seven years, while 2015 AUAC was the level of approximately $1,200, demonstrating the strong ROI delivered over the years. This highlights the long-term value delivered by our approach to an investment in marketing. The next slide shows the return achieved from our investment in marketing technology in recent years, with each bar chart showing cumulative returns from annual customer cohorts. For example, the graph on the right shows that we have already generated revenue of $444 million in two years from the investment of $221 million we made in 2020, with much more to come in the future. I will now hand back to David.
Thanks, Elad. Over the last year, we have placed an increased emphasis and investment on developing new retention and monetization technologies. On slide 26, you can see some examples of initiatives related to these technologies, many of which were introduced in 2021 that we are currently running. These include tailored and multichannel customer notification strategies to drive retention, conversion and build trust with customers. We have also launched a new premium account for customers, which offers features such as professional trading webinars, weekly analysis research, and additional tools. We also make sure customers have a sight of important news and market events which can present them with compelling trading opportunities. Turning to slide 27, we show the average position duration on our platform since 2017 against the total number of new open positions.
You can see that in 2021, the average position duration increased against a record year in 2020. This is clear evidence that our retention strategies are having the desired effect and that our customers trust our offering to cater their long-term trading needs. The next slide is further evidence of our success in customer retention in our core business. As you can see, our customer relationship remains high quality and long-term, with nearly 80% of our revenue for 2021 coming from customers trading with us for more than one year. This strong level of customer loyalty gives us great confidence that our customers are using our platform on a sustainable long-term basis, and is the consequence of our continuous investment in our product offering, our consistently innovative mindset, and our ongoing customer-centric approach.
With these factors in mind, we see significant long-term potential from the 2021 customer cohorts going forward. I will now hand back to Elad.
Thanks, David. I will now discuss risk management and regulation, starting on slide 30. We have a robust risk management framework with three lines of defense, which is implemented across the business with ultimate oversight of the board. We aim to ensure that our risk exposures are aligned with our risk appetite across our product portfolio, with market risk being managed through internalization. We targeted hedging, as took place in 2021, to cover any remaining exposure which may be breached predefined risk limit. This is supported by real-time monitoring technology embedded in the group's platforms, which is driven by specific tailored algorithms and sophisticated technology. This approach aligns our interests with our customers, helping to deliver a more stable revenue stream over time. As evidence of this, our revenue represents around 98% of customer income that has been generated since Plus500's IPO in 2013.
We are currently investigating and testing a more holistic, automated hedging capability, and will provide information on this approach if and when it is implemented. Finally, on this slide, it is worth noting that at the current time, our view is that approximately $450 million of our capital is being retained for regulatory and other purposes, including working capital, hedging, and clearing requirements. Clearly, with around $750 million in cash balances at the year-end of last year, we had substantial headroom over and above this required level of capital. Now turning to regulation on the next slide. We thought it would be interesting to show you the established global regulatory network in which we operate across our product offering.
IOSCO, that's the International Organization of Securities Commissions, sets global regulatory guidelines and approaches, and these are implemented by its members, including each regional regulator as applicable. Plus500 has maintained a highly robust, customer-centric approach to compliance, supported by our expertise in the applicable regulatory standards and our long-standing relationships with regional regulators in the markets and industries in which we operate. With an established global regulatory network outlined on the next slide, we remain well-positioned for potential future changes to the regulatory environment. Global regulatory alignment has continued in the market in which we operate, with recent regulatory changes being mirrored across various territories. The most recent regulatory changes in the CFD industry were implemented by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in Australia in early 2021.
We are supportive of and complying with these changes, which are expected to enhance the CFD trading landscape and provide additional protection for our customers. The impact of these regulatory changes on our operational and financial performance is in line with our initial expectations. Our portfolio of operating licenses was further strengthened with the addition of a new license in Estonia, granted by the Estonian Financial Supervision and Resolution Authority last week. This new license will further support our business across European markets in our core product offering, and is supported by the establishment of a new local operating subsidiary in Estonia. Our portfolio of licenses is an increasingly valuable asset for Plus500, given its scarcity and the growing complexity of obtaining new licenses. We are currently actively looking to broaden this portfolio with applications in process for several licenses in additional markets. I will now hand back to David.
Thanks, Elad. The next slide covers our progress in the areas of governance and sustainability during the year. There were a number of independent non-executive director appointments made to the board during the year, including the appointment of the renowned global economist and business leader, Professor Jacob Frenkel, as Chairman of the Board. These appointments have ensured that the representation of women on the board is well ahead of the 33% target set by the FTSE Women Leaders Review framework. In addition, through their global networks of contacts, these appointments have enabled greater access to the new growth markets, in particular the U.S. We remain focused on our key priorities in ESG, in particular customer care and organizational culture. Customer care and protection are supported by measures such as negative balance protection and maintenance margin protection on our CFD platform.
We continue to introduce educational and training tools and features on our platforms to help inform customers of the potential risk involved in trading. On organizational culture, we operate working environment which empowers ongoing improvements in employee development through training, learning, and career progression. This culture has helped to drive employee attraction and retention and has ultimately led to enhancements in the capability of our technology. I will now hand back to Elad.
Thanks, David. Now moving to the financial overview, starting on slide 35. Since our IPO in 2013, we have generated a total of $2.4 billion cash from operations, supported by an average operating cash conversion of 99% since that time. This has supported our approach to shareholder returns, for which we have delivered around $1.4 billion through dividends and share buybacks. We are delighted to announce today our further attractive shareholder returns of $200.2 million for the year. This includes dividend payment of $120 million, which comprise of a final dividend of $37.8 million and a special dividend of $22.2 million, both of which we announced today and are to be distributed in July 2022.
In addition, we distributed an interim dividend of $60 million in November 2021. Our shareholder returns for 2021 also include share buyback programs of $80.2 million. This comprise of a new program announced today to purchase up to $55 million of the company shares, which includes a special program of $29.8 million. The program of $12.6 million was announced in August 2021 in respect of H1 2021, with an additional program of $12.6 million announced in October 2021 as part of full year 2021 final program. The special dividend and the special share buyback program are directly related to the benefits relating to Plus500 accreditation as Preferred Technological Enterprise by the Israel Tax Authority.
Our shareholder return policy is to return at least 50% of net profits to shareholders as a normal return on a half-yearly basis, with at least 50% of this distribution being made by way of dividends. In addition, the board will continue to consider paying special dividends and conducting special buybacks at year-end. Now, let's look at the financials for the year, starting with our income statement on slide 36. Revenue was driven by consistent levels of customer income during the year, which resulted in a strong EBITDA performance, which was also supported by our lean and flexible cost base.
Net profit was at the level of $310.6 million, and basic earnings per share was at the level of $3.06, supported by the updated corporate tax rate of 12% for Plus500, following the achievement of the Preferred Technological Enterprise Accreditation, which has now been successfully extended up to and including the year of 2026. Our lean and flexible cost base on slide 37 remain well-controlled. 72% of our costs were variable and therefore positively correlated to enhanced performance and higher volume. Marketing investment remained at a relatively high level as planned at around $172.1 million and will continue to be made to ensure that we can capture opportunities to drive attractive return on investment.
Total SG&A expenses were at the level of $334.1 million, the major element of which were this marketing investment, as well as processing costs and payroll expenses. Turning to the balance sheet on slide 38. Our business has never traded any debt, and our balance sheet remains very healthy. Plus500 therefore remains in a great position to continue to invest in growth opportunities and business continuity. Slide 39 covers the cash flow. Plus500 remains highly cash generative, supported by low level of capital expenditure due to our automated processes and technological capabilities, with 99% operating cash conversion achieved in 2021.
With net cash generated from operations of $405.5 million and after the completion of the share buyback program totaling to $64.9 million and dividend payment of $144.9 million, cash balances at the end of the year increased significantly to $749.5 million. I will now hand back to David.
Thanks, Elad. Let's now look at the outlook on slide 41. The board continues to expect that Plus500 will deliver sustainable growth from all of our product offering over the medium to long term. This expectation is supported by our significant operational and financial momentum over recent years, which validates Plus500's strategic roadmap.
Future growth will be enabled by ongoing investment in developing our position as a global multi-asset fintech group, in particular, through further organic investment by actively targeting additional acquisitions and through potential strategic partnerships. The positive momentum achieved in recent years has continued to date in 2022, driven by the underlying strength of customers' income. Consequently, the board remains confident about Plus500 prospects for 2022. That's it from us. We will be happy to take your questions now. Feel free to ask us questions directly over the phone or post them on the webcast facility, and Rob, our head of IR, will put your questions to us. Thank you.
Thank you very much. If anyone would like to register a question via the telephone, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure you are unmuted locally. That's star followed by one on your telephone keypad to register a question. Our first question is from Ian White, from Autonomous Research. Ian, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thanks, good morning, and thanks for the presentation. A few questions from my side, please. First of all, when you talk about rest of the world opportunities on slide 17, what specific launches do you have in the pipeline there, please? I understand that you can basically already offer the CFD product in third countries already. So just wondered if you could clarify the specific opportunities you're considering to expand the scope of the business, please. Question two.
Uh-
Yeah. Sorry. I'll go one at a time. Sure.
Sure. No worries, please.
I was just gonna say, question two, customer acquisition costs, I think have increased quite significantly in Q3 and Q4. Just can you talk us through what you're seeing there, and what's driving that increase, please? And finally, I think I'm right in saying that there's an ongoing legal case involving the group in Israel, where a customer has alleged some malpractice with the trading platform. Can you provide us with an update on that, please? What is the potential risk to the group, and when do you expect that to be resolved in one way or another, please? Thank you.
Good morning, Ian and all. As for the question with respect to the other regions and where we expect to expand ourselves, we did indicate also within the announcement this morning that we're currently looking to extend operations into the Americas, very much also into Asia, with respect to the regulated areas such as Japan, for instance. Also within the Middle East, very much we're familiar with the regulation applicable within the UAE and other regions. Those are the main places that currently we're working at. I hope that answers your question. As for the average user acquisition cost, indeed, we saw an increase associated with the recruitment of the new customers.
I must admit it's aligned with the strategy of the company. We commented on that also from the beginning of the year and also before that. You could have seen that we've been within our level of H2 or Q4, the associated cost also in H2 2015, and very much the 2015 ROI. You could have seen the level of return of more than 500 of the lifetime value associated with those customers. Not only are we bringing more valuable customers from the strategic jurisdictions if it's from the U.K., Germany, Spain, Australia, and so on, we do see an increase of the average of the deposit from those customers.
Along the way, we also see an increase of their duration in the system. You could have seen that 79% of the revenues of 2021 was associated with customers that are with us for more than one year. It's a record number. It reflects kind of the longevity of those customers, the duration that they are staying within the system and how much they are also potentially to generate for us. We have the full comfort to say those customers that we're bringing today with a greater level of cost will generate for us also a greater level of revenue. It costs money, obviously, to bring valuable customers, and it's fine because we're looking for the longer term. Plus500 is well-established.
It has the deep pockets and a very strong balance sheet, which is without any debt with more than $750 million, and we can very much cater that. As for the third question, that litigation case, you are right to say that it's out there and outstanding for the last few years. That litigation is very much associated solely with the Israeli regulated subsidiary, which represent approximately 1% only of the group's operation. Very much that case is associated with a very minimal potential effect to the group, and we don't see any material impact to come and any associated provisions already within the account as reviewed by our auditors, PwC and the legal advisors.
That's helpful. Thank you. Just one clarification on question one, please. When you're talking about Japan and the UAE, am I right in thinking these would be new CFD licenses to offer leverage products? Am I on the right lines there, please?
That's true.
Thanks very much.
Appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Martin Price from Jefferies. Martin, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for the presentation. I just have two questions, if I may. First on the U.S. rollout, I was wondering if you could provide us with some more detail on the launch timeline from here. I'd just be interested to know when you expect to have platform functionality in a position that would give you confidence in ramping up marketing expenditure. Secondly, I was just wondering if you could provide some more detail on the appetite for future acquisitions, specifically, I'd just be interested to know which assets or new capabilities are of particular interest to you. Thank you.
Sure. Hi, good morning. Referring to the U.S. acquisition, as you recall, Plus500 purchased both the Cunningham Commodities, which is the regulated FCM, and CTS, which is a technological entity operating the T4, which is a trading platform offered as a white label to other FCMs. We currently work in all verticals to enhance the business. First of all, we have amended many of the procedures and the actual business of both Cunningham and CTS. We already working on increasing the current base of customers for both. There are B2C areas and B2B areas in both companies that we are enhancing.
In parallel to this, we are already developing a new platform, a simple to use futures trading platform with a look-alike of Plus500, which will be rolled out in stages gradually in the States. Once ready, we have prepared a marketing plan that we will initiate, and we will start spending on marketing in the States only later on, once the product is ready. I hope that answers the first question. Regarding the second one, of course we are actually looking for additional acquisitions with the cash balance of approximately $750 million at the end of the year. We have the appetite and we believe that we should conduct some.
We are looking at bolt-on as well as more larger potential acquisitions, if it is in the CFD area with new licenses in new geographies, or if it is in new areas, meaning new products that we would like to learn to enter using acquisition.
Got it. That's very helpful. Thank you, guys.
You're welcome.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from Vivek Raja from Shore Capital. Vivek, your line is open. Please go ahead. Hello, Vivek. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Forgive me. Can you hear me now?
Yes, we can hear you.
Sorry. Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I had a couple, please. The first one was a follow-up to the U.S. opportunity. Just thinking about the sort of rollout and investment plans you've got there, and obviously the costs you've already incurred for acquiring the entities there. Can you just give us a sense of what sort of timeline you expect to make a payback there? You know, what sort of time period you think is realistic for that? Then the second question was, I'm just wondering within the sort of overall CFD business, whether you're seeing much change in terms of flow, in terms of the assets that clients are trading, say FY 2021 compared to 2020 and then pre-pandemic. That's it.
Thanks.
Hi. So as for the payback, very much, we acquired the Cunningham Commodities and CTS with a very minimal level of investment, with a view that Plus500 technological means and capabilities will be the one to lead the way. Now, as you could have seen, also, the operational strength of Cunningham over the years is very much there. They generate revenues on a consolidated basis of approximately $20 million plus minus. So very much we do expect to see that level of return, but that's a kind of a side kick, I would say. The logic and the view here is for a much greater scale of operation.
That's why we entered that market, not for the $30 million or $50 million level of revenue recognition.
We are for the bigger picture, and we do have the view and the ability, as we've done with the CFD framework, historically a decade ago. We do believe that we'll be the disruptive player within the futures and options segment in the U.S. to enlarge it, to expand it, to bring retail audience from the U.S., and to provide them the best retail technological capability to trade on those various asset classes. I believe it answers also your second question. The intention or the view of the retail customers or the sophisticated accredited customers is obviously aligned with whatever is with the increased level of volatility or movement, and so in the market.
Was in 2020 with the commodities, was in 2021 with the indices and other kind of asset classes. Everything is also very much visible on the Plus500 trading platform. We do provide all the customer sentiment, all the popular reference point for the instrument. There is always kind of a bit of variation between the asset classes. The beauty of Plus500 is actually to be a multi-asset fintech group to cater all of those asset classes on a one omni set of solution rather than just to potentially be that financial advisor.
Many thanks.
Thank you. Next question comes from Shailesh Raikundlia from Liberum. Sam, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. This is Shailesh Raikundlia from Liberum. Thanks for taking my questions. I had three. One is a follow-up on the previous two questions, really. Just on the additional revenue opportunity. Obviously, you have highlighted the U.S. acquisition and the share dealing. I was just wondering whether there is any way of giving some sort of magnitude of sort of the additional revenue potential that you have there, particularly in 2022 and 2023, on top of obviously the CFD, which has been doing very well. So just a sense of, you know, the sort of step change in revenues we would expect once both those businesses are up and running to their full capacity. The second question is just on the costs as well related.
Obviously, back in end of last year, you highlighted the fact that you're accelerating sort of your investment to transition to the multi-asset platform. Again, I was just sort of trying to get some sort of quantification about the additional costs that we're talking about there. Or do we look at that as just business as usual for the short term, and then that fall off back in 2023? Just a sense of, you know, a bit more detail on the cost side. Finally, just highlighting the sort of $450 million of regulatory capital that you have disclosed this morning. As you said, I'd highlight about $300 million of excess capital.
I appreciate the fact that some of that will be used for bolt-on acquisitions, but does that sort of signify that in the medium to long term the level of capital you are happy to hold is around $450 million-$500 million, or should we expect high levels of capital returns in the absence of acquisitions? Thank you.
Hi. As for the US, I believe we just also answered it kind of for the shorter term of the next few months before we launch our short midterm new solution and platform and application. We very much are going with the run rate of Cunningham as indicated just now with the $20+ million. Once it will become more established, we very much disclose it as another stream of revenue. Till then, I believe from a materiality point of view, it's less there kind of to split it. As for the third question, and David can take the second one.
Very much, the $450 million takes into account the first component as for the regulatory capital itself, as for the hedging and clearing activities, working capital and so on. Yes, indeed, within the year of 2022, Plus500 set for itself certain strategic ambitions to go into additional verticals. Therefore we do have the buffer for new acquisitions and as may be applicable, we'll of course announce and provide more information.
Yeah, regarding the cost. The increase in the investment is incremental. It doesn't happen all at once. Part of this is already embedded in the numbers of 2021. Of course, over time, we will incrementally and gradually increase it. It's also expected to come with an increase in revenues over the medium to long term. Of course, I can comment as well that, as indicated this morning within the announcement, that we're continuing to spend and to invest in the technological development as for the $50 million of investment in our R&D centers in Israel. Very much, we're aligned with that strategy, and we'll continue to invest in the new technological means.
Great. Thank you. That's great. Thank you.
Okay.
Pleasure.
Thank you. As a final reminder, if anyone would like to register a telephone line question, please press star followed by one on your keypad now. We have no further questions on the telephone line, so I'll hand over to Rob to take any webcast questions.
Thank you. Just one question on the webcast. Have the changes in Apple's privacy regulations affected marketing efficiency or costs?
Sorry, can you come again? I didn't hear you so well.
Yeah. Sure. The changes in Apple's privacy regulations, have they affected-
Yeah.
Marketing efficiency?
Yeah. Sorry. No, the answer is straightforward. No. We have mitigated it technically. We found solutions as soon as the issue was raised using a third-party provider, and we know to do the tracking in quite similar level to how it was done prior to the new changes. There is no effect on the actual marketing methodology or performance or costs.
Great. Thank you. No, no other questions on the audio cast.
Thank you. We have no further questions, so I'll hand back over to the management team for any closing remarks.
Thank you everyone for the questions. Maybe just to sum up, we further strengthened our strategic position with a strong performance last year. With a positive start to 2022, leaving us well-placed to deliver sustainable growth over the medium to long term. Thank you, everyone.
Thank you very much.