Started here. You ready?
Yep.
All right. Great. So for important disclosures, please see the Morgan Stanley Research Disclosure website at morganstanley.com/researchdisclosures. If you have any questions, please reach out to your Morgan Stanley sales representative. Good morning, everyone. I'm Mike Cyprys, Equity Analyst covering brokers, asset managers, and exchanges for Morgan Stanley Research. And welcome to our fireside chat with LPL Financial. We're excited to have with us today Matt Audette, CFO of LPL Financial. As many of you know, LPL is a leading provider of investment and Business Solutions for independent financial advisors with over $1 trillion of client assets on the platform. Matt, thanks for joining us this morning.
Thanks for having me.
Great. Why don't we kick off with some new announcement you guys put out this morning, and that is the capability for managing cash balances a little bit different than what you've done in the past with the free credits. So maybe you could just share an overview of the new program that you guys have launched and the impact.
Yeah. Sure. Thanks, Mike. And I think, for those of you that didn't see it, what we've disclosed or announced this morning is, if you think about our core cash product, we sweep to third-party banks. Pretty common practice. We've been doing that for quite some time. And once the pandemic hit, as I think you all know, that with the amount of liquidity in the system, banks had more cash than they needed. So we're unable, like many, to place that cash with third-party banks. So we implemented an overflow capability that really sends that to money markets, to the extent that you can't send it to third-party banks. And I think a key point there is the economics on those money markets are capped at 45 basis points.
The rate environment that we're in right now, as interest rate increases, our economics stand flat at 45 basis points. What we announced this morning is implementing a new product that, at least from a capability standpoint for us, but a very common capability in industry, which is a cash product directly in the brokerage. It's commonly referred to as free credits. To the extent you have those balances in excess of margin, you invest those in a 15c3 account, the regulatory term for that. You can invest that in U.S. Treasuries. The key one for that point is it's on our balance sheet. We're not dependent on third-party banks to have space on their balance sheet for that.
So our focus is in U.S. Treasuries, very short-term U.S. Treasuries, 90 days or less, little to no credit risk, little to no duration risk, and therefore little to no capital required to do so. That's the core of what we announced. I think from an economic standpoint, it moves you more in line to what the economics that would be if we had placed those cash balances at third-party bank, right? You know, 90 days or less Treasuries, think in line with Fed funds. From an economic standpoint, you move from that 45 basis point cap on money markets over to wherever Fed funds is, which is highly likely to be much higher tomorrow. That's the headline. I think we've been working on this for a while.
We expect to have it in place by the end of the third quarter. And then balances would start moving shortly thereafter.
You have $14.5 billion or so at the end of the first quarter in the overflow balances, I think it is.
Yeah.
Maybe a little bit less today. I guess, how do you see the timeframe for that moving over? Would you envision all of that migrating over?
Yeah, eventually. So I think, I think about the product as if, if there is cash in excess of what banks can provide, eventually that cash will move over. It'll be based on trading activity, that will trigger the move. But eventually, that would move over to free credits. And then, of course, money markets are still available on our platform. So if folks want to be in money markets, that's more of an interest rate, you know, play, which those have always been available and will continue to be available. But for the operational cash, which we're talking about right now, that would naturally move over to the free credits.
Any costs associated with this program that you would flag just in terms of you mentioned you've been building this out for some time. Is there any sort of uptick to costs for the migration here?
Yeah. There's a couple of things. I think the resources and the team to implement this and support it, we estimate up to about $10 million of costs to get this up and running and support it, and then in addition, we're gonna increase the size of our broker-dealer liquidity lines just to just to manage the day-to-day liquidity, no long-term borrowings at all, just to manage the day-to-day liquidity, which could have an interest expense in the $3 million-$4 million zone, but I think to state the obvious, the economic upside on the other side of that is quite a good return.
Right. Just to clarify for everyone, this is all through the broker-dealer. You're not becoming a bank?
Correct. Absolutely.
Okay. Great.
Broker-dealer.
So it's been a volatile start to the year here, just given the macro uncertainty. Movement of markets resulted in a slowdown in organic growth for the industry overall. So I guess what is your approach to running the business in this environment here? And what might we expect in terms of organic growth in terms of restarting, re-accelerating, and recovering?
Yeah. I mean, I think our approach is unchanged, right? We've been through many environments like this. I think on organic growth, right, what you typically see in an environment like this is a bit of a slowdown. If you put it into a couple of pieces, I think from a recruiting standpoint or advisors changing firms, this is an environment where they spend a lot of their time with their clients, either dialoguing about the market, calming them down, giving them perspective, and it's very natural for those that we're going to move to pause, and that doesn't mean that they don't eventually move, but they usually slow down a bit just given the allocation of their time, and then I think you add to that advisors' ability to grow their own books, right?
And it's a similar point or a similar slowdown that this may not be the environment where clients are sending additional investable assets to their advisor. They may pause as well, right? So there's a natural slowdown in organic growth. I think the other thing I would highlight is just that the natural hedges in our business model, I think, shine through in an environment like this, right? So there's, of course, as organic growth slows down, as you have the mark-to-markets on portfolios come down with equity markets coming down, the offset to that is, cash allocations typically go up, right? When we've been in an up to the right in a bull market, it's been, call it 4.5% of AUM.
We released our monthly metrics for May this morning, and cash is now up to 6% of AUM. And then in an interest rate environment that's continuing to go up, the combination of those two things, as well as the trading activity, economically, are typically quite the net positive, right? So I think that's what you would expect to see in an environment like this. This is what we are seeing. And maybe one final point I would add, that increase in cash balances came in our bank sweep accounts, meaning bank demand is coming back further in this quarter. You may recall last quarter we had $3 billion of additional demand return, and then just in the month of May, another $5 billion.
So you're really starting to see the banks, I think what the Fed is attempting to do, working in cash coming out of the system on the bank side, and they're starting to come to sweep players like us that can provide the liquidity they need.
So higher cash balances and even more being allocated into the ICA with bank demand coming.
That's right.
Yeah.
That's right.
And you mentioned advisor recruiting. Maybe we could just talk a little bit about that just around the landscape, how you see that evolving. And in particular, you know, with a more favorable interest rate environment, you know, how does, you know, could we see more aggressive recruiting offers out there?
Yeah. I mean, I think the environment's always competitive. It remains competitive today. I think the things that are probably most important to note on what matters in from a recruiting standpoint is first and foremost the capability set that an advisor would be coming to. And then maybe perhaps just as important is their ongoing compensation at that firm. So transition assistance, which might have been, I think, core of your question, is important, but it's below those other two. So I think when we look at where we invest in our value prop, on our capability set and why we invest so much in technology 'cause it's so important to be able to recruit, I think remains our focus. And then ongoing comp, meaning payout rates.
I think we're typically, you know, it's the highest, or if we're not the highest, we're pretty close, so I think on the transition assistance side, I think in an environment like this, it is natural for folks to offer a lot more, our offers typically in an environment like this would go up a bit. We continue to underwrite to the same return levels we always have, and but there are certainly folks that will see this as an opportunity to go out and offer a lot more, and that doesn't mean they're gonna win, because if they don't have the capability set and they don't have the ongoing comp, there are many, many times where we are not the highest TA offer, and they still join us because of those two points.
Great. Now, earlier this year, you introduced a framework for your organic growth outlook with bookends of 7%-13% on organic growth. So I guess just given the changes in the environment and the marketplace, are you still confident with that range? Is that, and how do you think about the sustainability of that over the long term?
Yeah. And I think that range, just to ground it in, it was really the last two calendar years of our growth, meaning, you know, 7% in 2020, 13% in 2021. And I think that a couple of things to note. I think that the last year in the 13%, you had a macro that was really supportive to growth in our space, especially on the investable assets that consumers had. And I think you add to that, we had two large financial institutions join. So you had a really positive environment. And I think when we sit here today, I think we feel just as confident as we did when we laid out those bookends from a long-term standpoint that we can, that's a good way to think about our growth.
But it doesn't take away from where we're sitting, where we're sitting at the moment, as you all know, that the macro is not supportive. And I think when you, when you get down to advisors and where they're gonna spend their time, it's a natural slowdown to organic growth. I think larger financial institutions, the opportunity set there continues to be quite positive. But the time that it takes to go through that sales cycle, as you know, is really, really long. So I think we feel very confident in those bookends, but I just emphasize, in the moment that we're in right now, the macro is a big driver, which would cause it to cause those growth rates to be lower.
Yeah. The financial institution space has been a helpful driver of that. You've had a lot of success there. You recently onboarded your largest partner, CUNA. So, maybe you could talk a little bit about the value proposition that you provide that these firms find compelling.
Yeah. And I think, from a financial institution standpoint, the wealth management offering is not their core product, right? It's a very complementary and interesting product to have, but their core product set are really on the banking side, right? Deposits and lending. And I think when they're looking at how to most efficiently run and grow that offering for their clients, I think they have to. A lot of folks, not all of them, but a lot of them have to look inward on where they've made their investments. And it's very natural that they prioritize investments in their core product offering, and as opposed to the wealth management arm, right?
So when you think about where they are today, and a lot of those investments having been on the brokerage side, that in order to deliver something that's competitive, something that can arm their, their employees that are advisors with the capabilities that they need, I think a lot of them are looking at a large investment to really bring, especially the advisory side of the business, up to par, and having those, to compete with investments in their core offering.
So I think if I'm in their shoes and I'm looking at what is the best way, most efficient way I can offer the best capabilities in a cost-efficient way, outsourcing to someone like us where you can get access to all the investments we've made on our capabilities that can turn what is a fixed cost to a variable cost with us, I think it's just very compelling. But you know to the earlier point on the length of those decisions, it's not an easy decision to make, right? They have internal departments and structures and investments that they've put in place, and they're walking away from a large part of that to come to us. So the dialogue is usually very deep, very long, very thoughtful.
But as I think you can see from the last couple of years, folks are making the decision to come to us.
Another area where you guys are having some success with some of the newer affiliation models that you have. So why don't we talk a little bit about them? You have the Strategic Wealth and also the Independent Employee models where you've recruited over $12 billion of assets between those two models over the past couple of years. So what's resonating with advisors and driving that success?
Yeah, and I think that to start is really the key things that we've added to those models. So if we start with where the independent space and LPL specifically was for a really long time, our offering almost presupposed you were already independent, and if you're in, we could walk you through our capabilities, our structure, and why that would be much better, but if you were not independent, you were at a wirehouse, you were looking to break away or move out and start your own firm, you need help with that, right? You need help setting up your office, your facilities. You need help with the strategies and how to get from A to B and have your clients with you and follow you.
And we really didn't have a strong capability set that helped support that. So Strategic Wealth brings that capability to bear. Then in addition, I think where we've distinguished ourselves is once they're independent, once they're running their own small business, you know, a lot of wealth managers or success in the Wealth Management industry as an employee doesn't necessarily teach you how to run your own small business. So that's where I think a lot of people have struggled and need help. And that's where the second part of the value prop comes into play, is we couple or package our services portfolio, you know, previously called business solutions, where they get access basically to a management team to help them run their practice.
When you put those two things together, I think that's really what's been resonating in the marketplace to have that type of integrated offering in Strategic Wealth. Now we're getting to the point where we've got some good momentum. You're getting existing Strategic Wealth advisors now referring folks to us, which I think is a great sign of something that's really ramping and resonating well. Then you add to that, for everything that I just described, that someone wants to leave the wirehouse or the firm that they're at. They want to go independent. They want the benefits of that, which are increased compensation. They want not to have to move the product of the asset management arm of the firm that they work for and really own their own clients, right?
They want all of that, but they don't wanna own their own business, right? They're just not interested in that. And that's where our Independent Employee Model comes into play that offers all those things, but they're an employee of LPL. And I think we're really solving for something in the marketplace that I don't think has been solved for quite well now in that space where it, you know, the Strategic Wealth model's been out longer, so it's ramping, it's deeper into its ramp. And I think on the employee side, while the value prop is resonating really, really well, there's gonna take some time to establish us as a brand in the employee space, right? You don't naturally think of LPL as an advisor when you're looking for an employee model.
But I think that just speaks to why that ramp is naturally and was expected to take a little bit longer. But I think the value prop itself is resonating well. And I think long term, we are quite excited about the opportunity for both of those.
Another area where you're having some success with the services group, which was a more recent launch in the past, what, five years or so, looking back. Can you just refresh us on the addressable market opportunity that you see there for these services and ultimately the revenue opportunity?
Yeah. I think it's quite large. I mean, even if you just look at our advisor base currently, right? Over 20,000 advisors, you know, call it eight services with, you know, more in development. You can do the math there, right, on the opportunity set overall. And so I think we're excited about it. I think we started off with really services to help an advisor run their business, right? So the original CFO Solutions, you know, marketing, admin, and then you started to see us add additional services on top of that. But I think what's most exciting or interesting of late is in addition to helping them run small business, we've started to launch solutions to help actually help them run their Wealth Management business. Specifically, financial planning is the first service that we launched.
So I think that the opportunity set here is quite large, not only because of the number of advisors and the number of solutions we have, but we're broadening out beyond just helping them run their business, and starting to help them with services and offerings within the planning and advice side of their practice.
Great. I wanna come back to some of the cash and ICA dynamics that we were getting to a little bit at the start. So we've seen the ICA balances steadily increase the past couple of months. So maybe just give us a little bit of an update on the market for new ICA contracts and how you see that evolving as the Fed continues to tighten as you kinda look out over the next 12 months.
Yeah. It's starting to come back pretty quick, right? And, like I said a little bit earlier, right? We started the last few quarters, maybe a little bit at the end of last year, but specifically in Q1, where you started to see demand come back, right? We still have, as you noted earlier, you know, $14 billion or so in that overflow account. But even in the first quarter, having $3 billion come back into the sweep capabilities or sweep products was a first big move, and then this quarter, and specifically May, another $5 billion. So those are signs of a market that I think is really coming back.
I think it's, you know, it is really driven by the amount of liquidity that's been put on their balance sheets, whether it's, you know, consumer saving rates were, you know, at all-time highs, the Fed's balance sheet being at an all-time high. And I think those are the things that led to them just having too much cash, to need and want to take cash from sweep providers like us. And I think we're starting to get into an environment where you're just having the opposite occur, right? Inflation's up, spending levels are down. You know, loan growth is moving up and down, but still up from, you know, I think pandemic lows. And then ultimately the Fed itself, right?
If they've got a $9 trillion balance sheet going down to, you know, you pick a landing point, that's effectively coming off the balance sheets of the very banks that were looking to place the Sweep too. So I think it's setting up for a pretty positive environment. I think May's probably a good, you know, a good proof point of that.
What are you seeing in terms of demand on the duration extension side and your appetite there in this sort of backdrop?
Yeah. I think that demand or appetite remains the same. I think the 50%-75% fixed range is something, is a place we would wanna be if, you know, if the supply, if you will, from the banks is there, I guess. Demand in the way that you pose, framed the question. It's starting to come back as well, right? I think we're able to renew some fixed contracts that matured last quarter. The $5 billion that came on in May, that was a mix of both fixed and floating. So there's certainly positives on the fixed rate side as well.
Great. Another topic that gets a lot of attention from investors these days is around deposit betas and cash sorting. So, I think historically your deposit beta was maybe around 15%, but you correct me if I'm wrong there, through the cycle. Just how do you expect that to trend this cycle? And how do you think customers may react just in terms of migrating cash balances to higher yielding alternatives?
Yeah. And I think you got it right. In the last cycle, our, our betas were 15%, you know, pretty low, early in the cycle, and then, you know, maybe maxing out around 25% deeper into the, the cycle that ended, towards the end of 2019. So our, our expectation is something very similar or the same this time, right? We're not seeing anything that would cause us to think differently. We've had three rate hikes so far. And just like the last cycle, you know, our rates, have not moved. I think if, if you look at the last cycle, moving up to 100 bps, 100 basis points is when we started to move, which I suspect will happen, from a rate standpoint tomorrow. But I think the headline is we don't expect deposit betas to, to be different, meaningfully from, from the last time.
I think on the cash balance and cash positioning point, I think that the thing I would emphasize is the cash that we are talking about is largely operational cash, right? Our balances are typically when they're fully deployed or the lowest in the space, call it 4-4.5% of AUM. You know, if you look at what we've seen the last few quarters, we've started to, that cash has started to build. As volatility builds, you get folks that are a little bit more defensive, a little bit more cash on the sidelines, even as rates have gone up, right? So end of May, we were at 6% of AUM, and those balances went up, you know, $5 billion. So it's really not rate-sensitive cash. If folks have a rate-sensitive cash allocation, that would be somewhere else.
This is really operational cash to facilitate rebalancing, facilitate paying of fees, customer withdrawals, things of that nature.
Right. So along with higher rates comes higher cash flow and earnings for you guys at LPL, right? We've seen 75 basis points hikes this year. Maybe we get another 50 or so, tomorrow. So just how do you think about reinvesting the additional cash generation?
Yeah. I think the, you know, our capital framework is focused on organic growth first and foremost. I think that's where we would look. I think from a spending standpoint, if that's the key part of your question, I think the first, you know, early in the cycle, I think from our standpoint, having those economics drop to the bottom line and improve margins up from what historically, when interest rates are zero, end up being the low point of your margins, is what we think makes sense. And I would, you know, rule of thumb that on, say, the first 100 basis points, right, would largely fall to the bottom line.
I think once we get above that, I think there we'd be very thoughtful about whether there are incremental opportunities to invest more, whether it be in technology capabilities or in people to support the services group or to even further improve the service experience. Anything that we think could drive long-term organic growth, I think is something that we would look at. We'd be very balanced, I think, especially in an interest rate environment where both interest rates are going up and cash balances are going up, to balance really continuing to expand our margins while at the same time potentially spending more if it's going to drive value, if it's gonna drive long-term organic growth and improvements, right? Especially in an environment where other smaller firms would be challenged to do so.
Other firms may not have the vertical integration, the self-clearing capabilities that we have. And if this is a moment in time to really further differentiate ourselves and drive that long-term value, I think that's something we would think about doing.
Great. We're gonna open up for questions in just a minute to get your questions ready. Before we do, let's talk about capital management. So you're gonna generate significant incremental cash flow, as we're talking about, from higher rates to your balance sheet, quite strong leverage starting at the low end, relative to your target range. So, you know, how do you think about capital deployment plans here?
Yeah. Our approach is unchanged. I think, like I was just talking about, organic growth would be first. That'd be the first area we focus. I think second after that would be M&A. And, you know, M&A is not something you can just choose to do every single quarter. Things have to match up and line up. And if they did that, I think we'd be quite interested. And then after that, you're getting to returning capital to shareholders. And I think when we look at where, you know, our stock trades, we think it is a good return and a good buy. So if you've got the incremental cash you're describing naturally flows down to that level of return, I think we'd be interested, certainly focused on returning capital, more capital to shareholders.
So we'll just have to see what that environment looks like when we get there. But, you know, sitting here today, we think that's a good use of capital.
Dividends? Any thoughts around hiking dividends from here? What's sort of the right framework for thinking about dividend payout ratio or dividend growth, would you say?
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think we like the flexibility of share purchases and that you can make, you know, given that framework, if opportunities for organic growth come up and M&A comes up, share purchases is a natural lever that you could move up and down in that environment, but dividends are also important, and I think what you've seen us do, and you go back a long time ago, right, five, six years ago, I think we had a payout ratio that I think was, you know, I know for me, not comfortable, as the CFO. And I think we've gotten to a place where we're now at a pretty steady and quite manageable payout ratio.
And I don't wanna be in that range, where we've got the flexibility to go across the capital allocation that I talked through, but also have a dividend that, that's compelling for shareholders. So that's how we'd approach it.
Okay. Questions in the audience here? No? Maybe we could talk a little bit about M&A. So you recently did the Waddell & Reed acquisition. You've done some others over the years. So I guess as you look out, how meaningful could M&A be for LPL?
I think it depends on how far we look out. So if we look out really, really far, really long, I think it could be a really meaningful part of our growth story. And it's a little bit back to what I was talking about earlier, from a size and scale standpoint. You just look at our industry. There is not the, you know, the list of players that are large or close to us is relatively small, meaning you've got a pretty fragmented industry. And I think if I'm sitting in their shoes, or walking in their shoes, the investments that I have to make in capabilities, right, that most of them don't have, the self-clearing capabilities and the economics that we have.
I think we're just gonna be able to create a value prop that's really challenging to compete with, right? So if I'm sitting there and I'm trying to grow organically and I'm losing a lot of folks to someone like an LPL, I think that's a tough place to be, right? And I think we can get to a place where we can offer a price that's compelling for us and compelling for them in a situation like that. And if I think about that over a long period of time, I just have to imagine that consolidation is really gonna pick up, right? So whether we're the winner of that, always hard to know. How quickly that happens, hard to know.
But I think the environment sets up that I like our chances of doing something pretty meaningful over the long term.
Now, are these smaller deals that you're envisioning, or are they more mid-size? Because, you know, when we look at some of your mandate wins and some of the recruiting, sometimes it can be a little bit of a, you know, gray zone. Is it an acquisition, or is it an onboarding or mandate win? Maybe you can kinda help unpack some of that?
Yeah. Well, I think the larger the firms get, I think the more thoughtful they're gonna be, especially if it's, like in the financial institution space, right? That's not obviously M&A, but it can feel like it based on the amount of integration that occurs, the process on their side. It's almost like selling a subsidiary even though it isn't, vs a lot of times the smaller firms could be just the owner of the firm is also the largest advisor at the firm, right? So there's some, in some cases, like we've one of the deals that we've done, they just continue as an advisor, but now they're, you know, now they're at LPL as opposed to running their own broker-dealer. So there's a wide range of things that could occur.
And I think inherent in your question, what you highlighted in your question, the great thing for us is if M&A doesn't come to play or doesn't come to bear, we can continue to recruit from those firms. If M&A does happen but not with us, we can still recruit from those firms, and there's probably a catalyst where folks are gonna be more apt to move in that environment anyways, or we could have an M&A where, you know, we are the acquirer, so there's just lots of ways for us to be able to grow in an environment like this over the long term.
And when you think about rates going higher, does that slow or accelerate the sort of movement of M&A in the industry? Cause you go back a couple of years, I know there were some competitors owned by sponsors that had some degrees of leverage. And now with rates going higher, you know, that's an added revenue pool that comes back for some of those competitors out there. So how do you see that taking shape?
Yeah. I think it's a net positive on our side, right? 'Cause I think for the smaller firms, it's just a synergy that we would have in the transaction. For the larger firms, I think to your point, the cost of their debt structure and the cost of the way that they have to fund growth just goes up and up, so I think it's a net positive.
Great.
From our perspective.
Okay.
Yeah.
Any questions in the audience? Yep. We have one right over here.
Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Matt. My question, so we saw one of the presentations yesterday, and a lot of the way they're converting customers starts with self-directed or maybe employee stock options and then goes into offering as well investment banking products and so on. I know it's a different segment that you tackle mostly and more affluent customers, but in the end, the customers will be advisors. But what's missing in the product set, in the product offering in terms of maybe as you think about millennials or new generations, they're more engaged or they do more self-directed? Is there anything missing, maybe like a robo-advisor or maybe anything else that could be interesting to develop or acquire?
Yeah. I think nothing material missing from an offering standpoint. I think from a, you know, self-directed or robo-capability, we have a robo-capability that's available for advisors to use for their clients. I think what you naturally find is it is the relationship with the advisor that matters the most, meaning that the amount of money in that robo-platform is quite small, and I think it's really about the relationship with the advisor. They're not an asset manager. They're almost like their personal CFOs, right, helping them from a planning standpoint, and things of that nature. And then when they're investing the assets, the key is just to get, you know, access to the best asset management or funds or capabilities that they need to do so, so I think that ends up being the focus.
And while we're always looking at products and capabilities, there's nothing that jumps out, I think, that we feel we're missing.
Other questions in the audience? Maybe, is that a question there? No? Okay. Maybe we could talk about technology investments. You've made some enhancements to your core workstation, ClientWorks, over the years. What's resonating with advisors and helping drive some of that organic growth there?
Yeah. It's really the core of what they do on a day-to-day, making that easy and efficient. 'Cause every moment, every minute they spend on, call it back office or processing or anything like that, as opposed to talking to a client, talking to a prospect, is just a lesser use of their time, right? So when we think about our investments and capabilities, it's really just about making that process more and more efficient, and, you know, from an advisor desktop standpoint, if you will. Another area that, you know, I think our space hasn't invested in as well in the past, like the self-directed space had, is really the investor portals, what they see and what they use.
For so long, it was the relationship was really the investor with the advisor that we were not part of. We were not front and center; perhaps is a better way to say it. And, you know, not surprisingly, the expectations of those investors has come up, from an access and a technology standpoint. So we do lots of investments there as well. So it's probably those; they're probably the two broad categories I would highlight. So, it's just really about making, you know, the advisor and their day-to-day as efficient as possible, and then making sure that their clients get an experience that they expect.
Are there certain capabilities on the technology standpoint as you kinda look at your platform today that you think you have opportunities to maybe fill in or, or enhance or take further?
Yeah. There's no big missing piece. I would just say when you look at the individual components from a, you know, proposal generation standpoint to setting up a new account to moving money around, just across all things that are somewhat basic capabilities, making those much more efficient is really the key. And it may not sound as important as I say it, but like, when you look at where the independent space came from, like, those were just not the core things, you know, long ago that you invested in, right? It was a great opportunity to move to independence, you know, in many cases, double your payout, double how much you bring home. But maybe the technology wasn't as great as where you came from.
Maybe the service wasn't as great as where you came from. And our value prop and really we're focused on doing is investing in those areas so the technology is just as good, if not better. The service is just as good, if not better. And you now are your own boss. Now your payouts or your economics are much higher. You're not distributing the product necessarily of the wirehouse that you work for. Like, that's where we're focused, so that's where the investments go.
Great. About a minute left. What are you most excited about the business here as you look out to the second half of this year and into 2023?
Yeah. Well, and I take it out even farther.
I mean, I just think when I think about the long-term growth opportunities of what we are doing, and you look at maybe the last three-to-five years and the investments that we've made in our value proposition from having historically somewhat of a, sitting here today, looking back, somewhat of a narrow offering set to now, if you want to go traditional independent, if you need the services of Strategic Wealth, if you want to be an employee but be an independent employee, if you need help with the services of doing all of those things, if you're a large financial institution that's doing this yourself and you need a better way, like, everything I just said is or capabilities that we've launched and offered, and to do that at our size and scale, to do it in a rising interest rate environment with a financial wherewithal to invest and do that in a better way than others, and the success that we could have on doing all that, plus some M&A thrown in there over time, it's as exciting a picture as I can think of.
Great. We'll have to leave it there. Thanks so much, Matt.
All right. Thank you.