Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Temenos Q1 2023 results conference call and Live Webcast. I'm Sasha, the call's call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be listen only mode, the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for question at any time by pressing star one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it is my pleasure to hand over to Andreas Andreades, Executive Chairman and Acting CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining today's call to run through our Q1 results. You can find the presentation on our website. I will run through the key developments in Q1 and the outlook for the rest of the year, and then I will hand over to Takis as usual to run through financials. All the usual disclosure is available in the presentation, but I will not be going slide by slide. Starting with our performance, we delivered a strong start to the year with excellent growth across total software licensing at 12% constant currency, ARR at 15%, and free cash flow at 20%, as well as EBIT at 11%, picking up 2 percentage points of margin. We are capitalizing on our strategic advantage that we outlined in detail at our Capital Markets Day in February.
We benefit from a cloud-native, functionally rich, and upgradable platform that is totally agnostic to the size of our client or the deployment method. The rise of cloud is driving our growth, both for our subscription revenue, where clients can deploy the software on-premise or in the cloud and run it themselves, and our SaaS revenue, where the software is deployed on Temenos Banking Cloud and run by our cloud operations teams. We had a lot of success in Q1 with top-tier banks across multiple geographies. In the U.S., we signed with Regions, the 27th largest bank in the U.S., for core banking transformation on the Temenos Banking Cloud. In Latin America, we signed a very exciting deal with a leading bank also for domestic core banking transformation in the cloud.
Our Middle East region also performed very well with a top bank in MEA expanding significantly their relationship with us this quarter. In Europe, we signed a deal with a top 10 global bank, headquartered in Europe, for the global transformation of their wealth business. It's clear we are winning with the world's largest banks on the strength of our platform. Our subscription transition is progressing well, with subscription licenses contributing 77% of the license mix this quarter. Term licenses are down to 11% of total software licenses and about 5% of total product revenues. We also delivered a strong SaaS ACV of nearly $90 million, with significant contribution from new business in particular, as well as some additional consumption from existing clients.
Together, our subscription and SaaS drove strong ARR growth of 15%. Our cash flows are benefiting from the positive working capital dynamics of the SaaS business, which minimizes the impact of the shift from term license to subscription, with the minimum cash flow point from the transition behind us. Looking elsewhere in the business, our services margin improved back to profitability this quarter as our service cost base starts to normalize. A number of projects have been completed. We have reached the inflection point in services revenue. I'm happy with the progress we made in the last few months in the services business. I'm looking forward to more improvement over the next few quarters. Overall, there was no further lengthening of sales cycles in Q1. Banks now have relatively more visibility on 2023. Medium term, they are benefiting from a high interest rate environment.
The response of regulators on funding challenges was swift and robust, this gives us confidence for the trajectory in the short term. As a result, I expect the sales environment to remain stable this year, with some banks still cautious around their IT spend. Our pipeline continues to develop positively across bank tiers and geographies, with increasing demand for SaaS and cloud, a good number of tier one deals developing in the pipeline. We are delivering on our commitment for the completion of the transition to recurring revenues in 2023. We've seen an underlying acceleration in total software licensing, which grew 14% this quarter, excluding customized development licenses. Our partners will continue to do most of the client-specific work, allowing us to focus our R&D on innovation and reusable products that create strong recurring revenues.
The investments we made in 2022 across both R&D and sales gives us a solid platform for growth in 2023, and we have already seen this in Q1 with our EBIT benefiting from these investments and good cost management. I'd also like to flag that we already reached the minimum cash flow point from the subscription transition, with the positive working capital impact of the SaaS business more than offsetting the remaining negative working capital from the subscription transition. Lastly, I'd like to remind you that we are focused on ARR as our primary KPI, given our subscription transition and growth in SaaS, which are driving recurring revenues. ARR is expected to reach more than 70% of total revenue this year and more than 80% of our product revenues.
Our strong growth in ARR is also driving increasing visibility on profit and free cash flow. With this, now I'd like to hand it over to Takis to talk through the numbers for the quarter.
Thank you, Andreas. Moving to slide 15, I'll give you an overview of our financial performance. All figures are in constant currency, unless otherwise stated. We delivered $33.8 million of subscription revenue for the quarter, with a subscription share at 77% of the license mix in Q1 2023. I expect it to be around this level of percentage of the mix over the coming quarters as well. SaaS revenue was up 30% in Q1 2023, and with the strong SaaS ACV in this quarter and from last year, we have a good level of SaaS revenue locked in for the following quarters and good visibility to hit our respective 2023 target. Total software licensing grew 12% driven by subscription and SaaS. While the headwind from the decline in customized development licenses is now behind us, there was a 2% negative impact on Q1 2023.
Excluding this headwind, total software licensing grew 14% in Q1 2023 in constant currency. Maintenance grew 3% as indicated and in line with the growth of Q4 2022. Total revenue grew 4%. EBIT was up 11%, benefiting from good cost management, the anticipated improvement in services, and the investments we made last year. Our EBIT margin improved by 2 percentage points to 29.7%. Operating cash amounted to $71 million, up 70% with our operating cash conversion at 1.8%. We delivered $39 million of free cash flow, up 20%. For the full year, I still expect free cash flow to grow in line with ARR of at least 12%.
DSOs ended the quarter at 125 days, down 4 days sequentially, we ended the quarter with $716 million of net debt and with the leverage at 1.9 x. I expect our leverage to decrease further by the end of the year. Moving to slide 16, subscription and SaaS revenue were really the key highlights in the P&L this quarter, with subscription becoming the significant majority of the license mix by the end of the year. As Andreas mentioned, we signed a number of deals with top-tier banks across different geographies. I would flag that the deal with the top global bank headquartered in Europe was signed in Q1 2023, and that revenue will be unlocked once we hit various milestones over the course of 2023. I would also highlight that operating costs were up 2% this quarter.
We already made significant investments in 2022 in R&D, cloud, and sales, and we will continue making targeted investments this year in the same areas. We are also benefiting from the normalization of our services cost base as anticipated with a number of loss-making projects now live. Lastly, we delivered $67 million of EBIT in the quarter, and our EBIT margin expanded 2 percentage points in constant currency. Next on slide 17, we have like-for-like revenues and costs, adjusting for the impact of M&A and FX. Although we have not done any M&A since 2019. The figures are all organic and therefore in line with constant currency growth rates. I have already outlined the main impacts on revenue and costs this quarter.
In terms of FX, we saw the dollar strength creating a headwind on revenues, in particular from the euro, while we saw some tailwind on costs, in particular from sterling and rupee. Overall, we had a small positive impact at EBIT from FX this quarter of slightly more than $1 million. On slide 18, net profit was up 11% in the quarter, a touch lower than the EBIT growth, with the impact from higher financing costs and the higher tax rate. EPS for the quarter was up 10%. On slide 19, Q1 2023 LTM cash conversion was 1.8%, well above our target of converting at least 100% of IFRS EBITDA into operating cash. We also expect our cash conversion to be at least at 100% for 2023.
On slide 20, we show the key changes to the group liquidity over the year. We generated total operating cash of $71 million and ended the quarter with $112 million of cash on the balance sheet and net borrowings of $729 million. Our leverage was at 1.9 x, I expect it to decline further by the end of the year. On slide 21, we reconfirm our 2023 guidance, which is non-IFRS and in constant currency. We are guiding for ARR growth of at least 12%, driven by the move to subscription and the strong growth of our SaaS business.
We started the year with a significant majority of our ARR locked in through committed SaaS revenue, subscription, and maintenance, and our strong Q1 2023 SaaS ACV and subscription revenue will also contribute to this. We are guiding for total software licensing of at least 6%. This combines subscription, term license, and SaaS revenue. As a reminder, we already have approximately 10 percentage points of total software licensing growth locked in from SaaS ACV signed in 2022 and early 2023. I would also flag that the headwind from the decline in customized development licenses is now behind us, This alone acted as a circa 5% headwind on total software licensing in 2022. This is an additional reason why I feel comfortable with our TSL guidance for 2023.
As a quick reminder, our confidence in our SaaS revenue growth comes from three elements: strong new logo wins in 2022 and in Q1 2023, the improved visibility on the additional consumption from existing clients, and the introduction of overage revenues in 2022, where we charge customers at a premium for consumption over the contracted volumes until they commit to more incremental ACV. In fact, SaaS revenue growth just from new logo wins in the last few quarters is higher than reported SaaS revenue growth, and this also helps the visibility for future SaaS growth. We are guiding for EBIT growth of at least 7% and EPS growth of at least 6%. We also expect our free cash flow to grow in line with ARR, so at least 12% growth for 2023, with a material contribution from growth in deferred revenue.
We feel comfortable with our free cash flow guidance given the strong visibility we have from SaaS revenue and ARR growth. We are also being prudent at this stage as it's still early in the year. We still expect cash conversion to remain at over 100% of IFRS EBITDA into operating cash. We expect a 2023 tax rate of 19%-21%. On slide 22. This is a slide we showed last quarter, I won't spend too much time on it. It outlines the elements impacting our EBIT in 2023. This is for illustrative purposes only to give you a feel of the relative size or contribution of the different elements. SaaS and maintenance profit growth will have a positive impact, as well as the improving profitability of our services business through the year.
This will be offset by our investment in selected areas of the business, some wage inflation, and increased variable costs. On slide 23, again, for illustrative purposes only, we have outlined the moving parts of our free cash flow this year. A considerable part of our free cash flow growth will be driven by the strong growth in deferred revenues from SaaS, bearing in mind that any SaaS contract signed this year will contribute to deferred revenue growth. We will also have a stronger contribution from subscription, where we now also collect the second year of cash from contracts signed last year. These tailwinds more than offset the negative impact from lower term licenses. This is the last time we have this headwind from term licenses as the transition to subscription will be largely complete by the end of this year.
Lastly, on slide 24, we have our midterm targets that we have announced at the Capital Markets in February. These are for ARR to reach at least $1.3 billion, EBIT to reach at least $570 million, and free cash flow to reach at least $700 million. With that, I will hand back to Andreas to conclude.
Thank you, Takis. To give a quick summary, we continue to press with our strategic advantage of a cloud-native package and upgradeable platform that can be implemented on-premise or in the cloud. Our pipeline is developing nicely, and we are making excellent progress on our transition to subscription in a recurring revenue business. Demand for SaaS and cloud is increasing and driving our revenue growth, and our investments in 2022 have given us a strong platform for growth in 2023. I expect our ARR to continue growing strongly, which will increase our visibility on profit and free cash flow. With more than 95% of product revenues now being recurring, I actually expect ARR and total product revenue growth to converge over time. With that, operator, I'd like to open the call to Q&A. Thank you.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wish to ask a question or make a comment, may press star one on the touchstone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star two. Participants are requested to use only handlifts while asking a question. Anyone with a question may press star one at this time. The first question is from James Goodman from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much. Firstly, maybe just we could dig into the situation in the banking backdrop, a little bit more. Maybe you could structure the answer there, between, you know, the U.S., sort of regional bank situation and anything that's affecting your conversations, regarding your pipeline there. But also, you know, in Europe with the Credit Suisse scenario, could you talk about any direct impact? If you're baking in a stable environment this year, I mean, are you comfortable that that's sufficient buffer? Second question, around the successful move from term licenses to subscription. I wondered, are you still seeing really parity there in terms of the proportion of license that's unbundled into the quarter on those deals?
You know, maybe could answer that through commenting on any upsell you're able to achieve. If you're seeing any average duration sort of increase there or maybe the sort of price element more generally in terms of the impact on the quarter. Thank you.
Thank you, James. It's Andreas. I'm gonna take the first answer, then Takis will take the first question, then Takis will take the second one. In terms of, in terms of the banking market, what we are seeing, we do expect overall a stable sales environment for 2023, consistent with the assumptions we made, if you like, at the beginning of the year. Within the regional banking market in the U.S., let me say first of all that we haven't seen an impact in our business from the events, if you like, around that segment of the market. We clearly signed Regions in Q1, which is an important data point.
For sure this has been in the pipeline for quite some time, but still, it does show that banks in that segment are making decisions. What I wanted to say is that the regional banking market is a very large group of banks, very diverse. Some of them extremely conservative, with very successful franchises in both retail banking and corporate. These banks, they continue to go about their businesses and investing in infrastructure and technology and anticipating the needs of their customers. For us, it is business as usual in that segment. I wanted also to remind everybody that this is just one segment of the U.S. market that we are operating. We are selling to neobanks and fintechs.
Banking-as-a-service and embedded finance is big in the United States, and it's funding part of our growth. As well as credit unions, where we've got a successful franchise with more than 600 credit unions being already clients of Temenos. Just to wrap it up. No, we haven't seen an impact, and we continue to operate, if you like, with confidence and successfully in that part of the market. The second part of your question related to Credit Suisse in Europe. As we previously communicated, we didn't have any direct impact from that. I think your question was about direct impact. We do not.
Credit Suisse continues to use our software, and we expect that it will continue to use our software for quite some time. What is happening in Switzerland is perhaps an opportunity for us. Therefore, and overall in European banking, we haven't seen, if you like, stresses coming out of that event that would concern us as well. That's all in all on your first question. Takis?
Yeah, maybe let me add to Credit Suisse side, James. Clearly it's not just an important and long-standing customer, but actually we see an opportunity to do more business in an enlarged group, you know, as part of UBS whenever that happens, and to expand the business with UBS. You know, the integration will take three to four years. What we see and hear here in Switzerland is that Credit Suisse brand will be retained in quite some areas. We don't see, you know, a risk to what we currently have in terms of business with Credit Suisse today, which is largely, you know, a maintenance revenue stream.
Even in a worst case scenario, this will probably not be much more than 1% of our maintenance revenue base. Something that is definitely handled well. On subscription, bear in mind that since we announced it, all the new deals or almost all new deals that came into the pipeline were for subscription, five-year standard subscription term. Clearly this has continued throughout Q1. This is the standard default model. Now you will still see some term licensees and we're trying to convert them.
What you are seeing as term license business is what has been in there as term license before in the pipeline of where, you know, customers for whatever reason don't want to convert. As you see, this is a small part. And it's actually even lower than it looks because keep in mind on the term licenses, we also report, you know, this customized development element so that the real term license deal number is much lower than you see, you know, in the Q1 reported number. We still have some term license business throughout the year. I'm very happy with the 77% mix we achieved in Q1 and you know, that should definitely be the target for the year.
That's really helpful. Thank you. Just on pricing specifically, I mean, can you not comment on that because, you know, you switched ultimately to this new pricing, subscription format? Or can you say if pricing was a certain tailwind to growth?
Yeah. We don't, I mean, we don't look at, you know, pricing per se now because we haven't converted, you know, any deals. What we maintained in the first quarters of last year where we said, you know, we would expect an uplift on this 30%-60% range, you know, that was clearly something, you know, we would still say was the realized number. Now when, you know, subscription deals come in and clearly we, you know, sell them at a higher value because there is a benefit, you know, for the client as well. You would expect on a like for like basis, if there was anything converted, it would still be in that range.
Helpful. Thank you. Thank you both for your answers.
The next question is from Toby Ogg from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good evening, and thanks for taking the question. Perhaps just firstly just on the guidance. You come in with 12% total software licensing growth on, you know, arguably the most difficult comp of the year. As you mentioned, customized license headwinds are now behind you. You said the sales environment has stabilized and no impact from the regional banking crisis. What's holding you back from upgrading the minimum threshold of 6% on the total software licensing guidance? Similar question on the EBIT guidance as well, just given that you're trending well above that minimum threshold. Then just on the CEO search, any update on how that's progressing? Thank you.
Hi, Toby. Let me take the obvious question first. As we said at the start of the year, you know, in February when we gave the guidance, yes, we expect a stable environment, but there is still some uncertainty out there. We delivered two months later, the stable environment, as Andreas said, we still consider to be stable. I think we all agree there is still some uncertainty out there, in terms of what form or shape, you know, the economy will take, soft landing, no landing, hard landing. That's number one. We try to be prudent. Number two, I think we still stand by what we said.
There is still also a large number of large deals, tier one and tier two banks, in the pipeline and which we also have as part of our portfolio of deals we want to sign. Timing can always be something which is difficult to predict. I would say yes, it's an early success, but let's give us some more visibility on what's happening with the larger deals and there still can be volatility between the quarters. EBIT, which is, as we have seen now with Q1, if we deliver a better EBIT number, that is pure profit drops down to EBIT. EBIT guidance is linked to really the TSL guidance.
We're comfortable in making the investments we plan to do. 2% constant currency cost growth if you exclude the services cost reversal or improvement. You know, we're investing quite a bit. Cost is up 6% excluding services, which, you know, as we had said at the start of the year, will have a sizable positive impact on our cost base. If you want, the underlying investment is still being done excluding services. I think we feel comfortable, and at this point in time, I think it's the right prudent guidance we issued in February, which is still valid.
I take the second question on the CEO search. As we communicated before, the process is underway. It's led by Tibo and the board. Tibo will update the market when it's appropriate.
That's great. Thank you.
The next question comes from Josh Levin from Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good evening. Two questions from me. With regards to the Regions Bank deal you won in the U.S. Why do you think you won it? What specifically differentiated Temenos from its competitors? The second question, you know the company is a state of flux and uncertainty. You're still looking to bring in a new CEO, and then the CEO will need to devise his or her strategy. How do you manage that flux and uncertainty vis-a-vis your employees? How do you keep them focused and motivated? Thank you.
I'll take both questions. We won Regions Bank on the strength of our platform, our product, on the technology credentials, on the upgrade ability and functional richness of the platform, the scalability, the localization. We have a U.S. model bank that is proven, and our capability to run successful SaaS operations. In fact, if you look at, if you look at the whole of this like competitive advantage, it's our view that we are significantly ahead of our, of our U.S. competitors, the U.S. incumbents. Ultimately this is why we won it. We've got successful references in the United States, and when it comes to running mission-critical systems, on modern platform, a successful reference is clearly very important.
Now, your second question regarding focus and of employees and in general how we operate. We have a very exciting year ahead of us. We have a very exciting strategy. What is happening with the platform and the product and with winning the best banks in the world as customers is what drives our people. When quarter after quarter we are winning if you like top- tier banks that are doing quite advanced and far-reaching transformations with us, that excites people. We also have a very stable management team that is very focused and committed to the business and they're also very excited with what is happening with Temenos.
While, you may think that there is uncertainty because of a CEO transition, I'd say people take that in their stride and they say, "Well, you know, Temenos is winning and therefore I find it a very exciting place to be." That's how we go.
Thank you.
The next question is from Chandra Sriraman from Stifel. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks a lot. Good evening, Andreas. Good evening, Takis. Just a couple from my side. Firstly, I noticed a big bounce in the competitive deals. I was just wondering what drove this change, particularly in a difficult macro, I would assume you go back to add-ons to the install base. Is this the impact of the move to subscriptions, or anything else that you could highlight? My second question is on ACV growth. It's been in low single digits for the last five quarters. You have highlighted the impact of the SPAC ecosystem business . Just wondering, are you still comfortable with the 25% growth in SaaS revenues for the year? Thanks.
Thank you for the questions. I'll take the first one, and then Takis will deal with the second one. I think what is happening in the market is that the maturity of cloud solutions. I've been saying that Temenos is really creating the SaaS market for the core banking industry. We've been leading this industry for years, and people are looking at us to bring a mature cloud solution to the market that is functionally rich, that you can run proper banks, proper tier one organizations, complex organizations on modern cloud- native software.
I think what we've seen the last three or four years progressively, I think the bigger banks, okay, we had COVID, we had all of that, but I think what banks have been waiting really is for that maturity in the solution. We are crossing significant milestones in that we are actually proving the solution. We are getting to the point where top organizations are able to put their trust in Temenos. I think this is what is happening, and it's happening both across, if you like, the subscription side as well as the SaaS side of the business.
I think that subscription pricing and the subscription model, while perhaps has some impact in making the sales job easier because you are not really selling CapEx, you are selling OpEx, I don't think it's so fundamental in moving the market. Certainly the maturity of what we put on offer is moving the market. I think we are winning in a significant way. That's on the top- tier deals, the bigger deals. Takis perhaps you take the question on ACV.
Yes. Thanks, Andreas. Clearly, and we've put in this, you know, SaaS growth slide, showing the CAGR for, you know, for this purpose. What we have seen in the past, you know, we have had volatile ACV quarters, you know, depending on whether we have additional consumption from existing clients or just new logos. I'll get to that. It's hard to predict when the additional consumption will hit in a particular quarter, but we have a good idea for the full year. What you need to keep in mind and we gave the disclosure for the full year. We had new logo growth of, you know, more than 80% in 2022. The ACV from new clients was up 3 x this quarter in Q1 2023.
If you look at this, you know, it shows the underlying strength, you know, of our SaaS offering, winning new clients. I think it's also testimony to the maturity of our SaaS offering. We expect, you know, yes, there will be volatility in the future as well. If I look at the, you know, visibility we have from, you know, Q1 now and Q2 will show very good growth on ACV again. With, you know, if you want H1 2023 ACV locked in or what we plan to deliver, we have a very good visibility on delivering the 25% SaaS growth for the full year, so feel very comfortable on this one. Don't forget we also benefit from overage.
Clients using the platform, above the purchase volumes, as I explained, they pay a higher price, which subsequently then drives more incremental ACV. Yeah, another strong ACV quarter ahead, which will protect our full year SaaS revenue growth guide.
Great. Thank you.
The next question is from Knut Woller from Baader Bank. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you. Just on the deferred revenue side, it looks like deferred revenues didn't follow the total revenue growth in the first quarter. Looking at the sequential development, we learned that a $28 million decline probably also helped you to deliver the good start to the year. At least if I put it into historical perspective, the years prior to 2022, the contribution from deferred revenues was noticeably lower than the -$28 million we have seen now in Q1. You also mentioned the large deal in Europe, so why didn't we see here a stronger tailwind from this large deal in Europe? Takis, were you, if I understood you correctly, said that the revenues will hit the P&L once milestones are hit.
Secondly, is also the deferred revenue momentum the reason why you're still sticking to Q1? Because if we strip out deferred revenues, then the underlying momentum from new business was apparently then not as strong as the reported numbers suggest. Is that a fair way to look at things? Thank you.
Thanks, Knut. The way we look at it is, you know, deferred revenues comparing it to the recurring revenues, because this is where you pay ahead. Deferred revenues grew actually 11% on the current side. If we do it across current and non-current, the growth was 7%. This compares to, you know, recurring revenues on an LTM basis growing 9%. It's not, you know, far off. There can be always deviations, you know, depending on what kind of, you know, advanced cash collections we had. That was maybe a bit higher in the year.
Clearly we would expect, you know, deferred revenues to, you know, largely track on a yearly basis, as we have seen last year, the growth in recurring revenues, you know, above that. We would expect to see clearly some acceleration there. I think one, two percentage points delta can always happen in a particular quarter. Now, the European deal, you were referring to. Clearly this is, yes, we signed that, but there was, you know, we didn't talk about, you know, the Revenue Recognition, if you want. Clearly that will be dependent, as we said, on some milestones throughout the year. So there was very limited revenue from this deal in Q1. Obviously also then limited cash.
Okay. Do I understand it correctly, Takis, that this is already included in the deferred revenues?
No. It's not included.
Not yet. Okay, not in the deferred revenues. Okay, got it. Thank you. Just getting the math done on sales and marketing costs, which had only been up 3% despite the solid total software licensing growth. How can I square that? Thank you.
Yeah. I think, you know, on the individual costs and, you know, the IFRS costs are always, you know, a bit, you know, difficult to read because there are some, you know, restructuring costs in there. There is obviously also the IFRS costs included in there. If you look at, as I mentioned, you know, the, if you want the sales and marketing costs underlying showed quite good growth. There is nothing, you know, specific in there. Clearly we have, as Andreas mentioned, we had invested ahead quite a bit last year. Still do incremental hirings. What definitely has increased on a year-on-year basis is, you know, travel. Now there is quite a bit more travel, which is included in our guidance.
We'll continue to selectively hire, you know, senior sales people, especially to maintain the strong trend we have seen with the larger clients.
Okay. Thank you, Takis.
The next question is from Frederic Boulan from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. If we can get an update on what are you seeing from a competitive standpoint versus some of the main U.S. players? I think you gave us a very useful, contrast and compare the CMD, but just to, you know, maybe give us an update on what you're seeing. Any particular player, whether that's the incumbent, some of the last generation ones, being more impactful? Then looking at your mix, you want tier two at 45%, so that's improving. If you can maybe discuss your expectations on that going forward, if you, if you expect to see that dynamic continuing this year? Thanks.
For, for a competitiveness, if you like, for the U.S. market, as I said earlier, I believe that what we've managed to achieve in the U.S. is to be well ahead of our competitors, improving a modern core that can run successfully at scale with American, if you like, localization, American regulations. And also the maturity of a SaaS operation that can run successfully large operations. When we talked at Capital Markets Day about our SaaS business running 150 million account installations. Now these kind of sizes of operations, they are extremely rare if at all existent in a modern SaaS business.
It's this advantage that we're pressing ahead with in the United States. This would apply to all U.S. incumbents, and it would also apply also with respect to newcomers because they haven't proven this. When we compete for a mission-critical application like core banking, having proven it is vital. It is about the maturity of what we offer. It is about the modern technology, the scale, the localization, and having done it successfully in other banks.
Fred, let me take the second part. Clearly, yes, we have seen, you know, a high percentage in terms of competitive deals, but that's a result of what we said before. We won, you know, against competition, quite some larger new deals, new logos, which obviously help this ratio. I would not read too much into one particular quarter. You know, we usually look at this, and this is why we disclose the numbers on an LTM basis. Which, you know, can smoothen, you know, the quarterly volatility. Given our large installed base, you know, we always said maybe 60% of the business should come, you know, from your, from add-ons, from the installed base and 40% from, you know, new logos.
You know, very happy that, you know, we keep winning new logos, especially, good logos and with large deals. Probably that won't be the case in every quarter, considering, timing is difficult to predict.
Okay, thank you.
The next question is from Mohammed Moawalla from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Great, thank you. Hey, Takis. Hey, Andreas. Two from me. Firstly, just on the investments, you talked about sort of investing significantly in 2022. What sort of gives you the comfort that sort of that rate of investment was sort of sufficient as you sort of look forward? How would you sort of think about potentially any revenue upside or top line upside? Would you be kind of inclined to invest that away or drop to the bottom line? Just related to that, you know, to the comment you made that, you know, Q1 saw sort of, you know, kind of lower rate of OpEx growth. Do you expect that sort of pace of OpEx to perhaps increase as we move through the year? Or should we sort of assume this run rate?
The second question on the top line, you sort of talked about not really seeing much of a kind of an impact from what's sort of going on at this stage. As you sort of maybe help us kind of understand the different deal flow in the pipeline, where they are at different stages, how have you sort of risk appraised that pipeline and maybe some of the assumptions you have taken around sort of close rates, you know, over the course of the year? That would be great. Thank you.
I'll start with Hi, Mohammed. I'll start with the last one, because your questions were quite a few, so I'm not sure I remember the first one. I'll start with the last one. As I said, we expect a stable environment for sales and closing rates in the year. Clearly, we see different dynamics across the world. We had a very strong MEA, Middle East, Africa business in Q1, and we expect that to continue. The U.S. is growing very robustly. We talked a little bit about Europe. We expect Europe to improve in the second half, and also the comps are getting easier in the second half for Europe.
We are, if you like, operating the funnel and the pipeline on a weekly basis, and we are looking at it. As I said, when we reported Q4 that we look at it on a portfolio basis and we want to have enough cover in our pipeline to be able to deliver on our forecast. Not much different, if you like, to what we have usually done. Given what we have in the funnel at this point in time, feel confident about the balance of year.
Hi Mohammed, let me take the cost one. While, you know, the headline numbers in terms of cost growth may look, you know, low, the underlying, I think, is still a healthy rate of investment. Yes, we had mid-teens plus cost growth last year, also on an underlying basis. But what you need to keep in mind is clearly there is, you know, about a $15 million-$20 million tailwind on services costs, which will not reoccur this year. That's providing, you know, ample headroom for investing. We got wage inflation around 5%, maybe a bit more.
This is, this is offset, you know, to efficiency gains across the organization, which we do, you know, not as part of a large program, but clearly, you know, when it, when it comes to that efficiency gains across, you know, leases, across, you know, other costs and so on. We have, you know, plenty of room for investments, as I mentioned, simply from the tailwind from lower services costs and then still have some on top, which we can fund. Clearly, you know, we've got variable costs growing, especially on SaaS. SaaS is growing quite substantially. That's, that's on that one.
In terms of, you know, run rate of costs, no, costs will obviously increase sequentially and then, you know, more throughout the second half of the year. Clearly the $159 million is, you know, is a good number, but it will increase. You will also see Q2, Q3, Q4, cost increase on a year-over-year basis. We feel comfortable with the cost growth, you know, for this year. Again, keep in mind, you know, $15 million+ , $15 million-$20 million of tailwind from last year in services.
Okay, thank you.
The next question is from Michael Briest from UBS. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Good evening. Just trying to dig in a little bit onto the Regions Bank deal. It was announced at the end of March. Did it make it into ACV for the quarter? Would that be the full scope? I mean, the way the deal is described, it feels like quite a substantial renovation of the client. Thinking back to something like Commerce Bank, that was a multi-year program. Can you maybe talk about how much of the business is already in the book, if you like, and how quickly it converts to revenue? Traditionally, we'd see sort of months plus of delay between signing and revenues. And then in terms of the headcount, I think last year, Takis, it fell by 5% through the course of the year, so it is full-time employees.
Can you talk a little bit about the phasing of that? Because that might have implications for the cost base if you had a lot more people on the payroll in Q1 last year than this year. Is headcount growing again? If you can address maybe Andreas, that the attrition was quite high last year still, how much that's come back down by? Thanks.
Hi, Michael. Yeah. On, on the Regions deal, this was a SaaS ACV deal signed in March. That has been in the ACV number we reported. As we always said, you know, there is a time lag between, you know, the ACV deal being reported and then once we start recognizing revenue, once it is live on the platform of about one quarter. No revenues from Regions recognized so far.
I'll take the headcount and attrition question. First of all, let me say that we've seen a quite a significant reduction in attrition during the second half of last year. In fact, this continued even lower in Q1 of this year. Very comfortable with the way it's trending. We in Q1 of this year, we've as part of our SaaS, if you like, development plans, we've changed a lot the way we are operating in our development organization and also in India. We've changed the way we organize the squad teams and so on and so forth. While this was not a cost exercise because any headcount reduction that we had as a result of that, we've invested back in capability almost immediately.
Either with more senior people or different skills, different SaaS skills and so on and so forth. A lot has gone there, and I'm very pleased with the way that has developed. Perhaps the headline headcount number might actually not show much growth this year, but the inflation number, the salary inflation number that Takis talked about will flow through to, if you like, the total salary cost, employment cost, as it were, of the business.
Okay. Takis does that mean that the full scope of Regions Bank is in this year's this quarter's ACV, there won't be more in a year or two, as far as your unless you successfully upsell?
Yeah. Keep in mind, you know, there is just one part of the bank we're doing right now. As with every large bank and every large client, we always have the ambition to do more business, yeah, over the course of the year. I think there is, you know, let us, let us get to that, you know, in terms of what is the size, you know. It's only I think, you know, if you look about we only do, you know, the systems for customer records and deposits. Every large bank has a lot more business lines.
As we have seen with other large tier one clients, tier two clients over the course of the years, you know, once you're successful, you know, you can generate a lot more business than the initial one.
Understood. Thank you.
The last question comes from the line of Justin Forsythe from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Hey, thank you so much for squeezing me in here. Good to talk to you, Andreas and Takis. Just a couple from me if you don't mind. Understand the Regions Bank win, obviously a big win, 27th largest bank in the U.S. according to your numbers. I guess can you talk about the competitiveness there? Was there an existing core processing platform in the background there, or was that insourced? Just around the market sizing, like, have you done any of research around, for instance, the number of banks who look to migrate their core and on a given year, say, I don't know, is it low single digits, mid-single digits, et cetera, within the U.S.? How many of those are coming from incumbents versus an insource solution, meaning competitive takeaway versus not?
The other question was around Europe. you know, I think you did call out a little bit of the weakness there. I think you also mentioned during the call that, you know, there was less concern in the environment in Europe. You also, though, highlighted the CMD that you had pretty high win rates against competition. I mean, can you talk a little bit about the dynamics there? Does that just mean there's not deals out there to win? Do you expect the environment to be more robust in 2Q, 3Q, 4Q ? and just your thoughts on the European market going forward. Thanks a lot.
Okay. I'll try and take them in turn. Of course, there was an incumbent in Regions. We're not privy to disclose the incumbent vendor in the bank. Let me say that, as I said earlier, this was a highly competitive bid, and we came out very, very strongly with that. Now, let me say that the bank, as you would expect, has existing relationships with most U.S. incumbent vendors for other software. The relationships with incumbent players were there.
As far as the U.S. market is concerned, we shared in Capital Markets Day a lot about the size of the opportunity as well as the segments of the market that we're competing with. I believe I was very clear that we are focusing on particular segments of the market and not the entire U.S. market, and that continues to be the case. I have to say that out of all the regions in the world, I see more growth and more activity today in the United States than I see in Europe or in Asia. We are confident about the level of activity in that market. Moving over to Europe, we do have, as you said, very competitive, if you like, win rates.
I can confirm that. If you like, the slower development of Europe is not a win rate issue for us. It's more an evolution of the market and the point at which the market is embracing what is happening with cloud, the rise of cloud and the rise of new technologies, and at the pace with which banks are actually embracing this and moving forward with bigger projects. As I said, we do expect an improvement in the European comps for the second half of the year.
Justin, maybe to.
Yeah.
To add.
Sorry.
Keep in mind Q1 2022, we had Mirabaud signed in Europe, which was quite a sizable deal. Europe had a particularly difficult comparison base on top of it. Yes, you know, H2 clearly should be better for Europe.
Got it. That's really helpful, both of you. Really appreciate it. Just wanted to clarify a little bit that first question. I guess my point was understood that the third party spend market is quite robust within the U.S. and globally, as you correctly called out in the CMD slides. I guess what I was getting at is, you know, that market in reality, given you don't have, I guess, as much share as you might in Europe is kind of prerequisite on banks churning their existing vendor or if it's insourced, moving to someone like yourself. I guess was trying to get your view, if you have one, as to how often banks you believe are doing that in the U.S., because it feels like that would be your, you know, the biggest part of your opportunity going forward.
Okay, now I understand the question better. The top- tier banks, as in the top money center banks, if you like, are mostly insourcing technology. Below that, let's say below the top five or six banks in the United States, most of the rest of the market is actually using third-party software. They are quite used to working with vendors.
Okay. Got it. You don't have a view on the % kind of churning each year?
Very difficult to say.
Got it. All good. Thank you both. Really appreciate the time. Cheers.