Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the FY 2022 third quarter StoneX Group earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising that your hand is raised. Please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Bill Dunaway. Please go ahead, Bill.
Good morning. My name is Bill Dunaway. Welcome to our earnings conference call for our third quarter ended June 30, 2022. After the market closed yesterday, we issued a press release reporting our results for our third fiscal quarter of 2022. This release is available on our website at www.stonex.com, as well as a slide presentation, which we will refer to on this call in our discussions of our quarterly and year-to-date results. You'll need to sign on to the live webcast in order to view the presentation. The presentation and an archive of the webcast will also be available on our website after the call's conclusion.
Before getting underway, we are required to advise you, and all participants should note that the following discussion should be taken in conjunction with the most recent financial statements and notes thereto, as well as the Form 10-Q filed with the SEC. This discussion may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which are detailed in our filings with the SEC. Although the company believes that its forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions regarding its business and future market conditions, there can be no assurances that the company's actual results will not differ materially from any results expressed or implied by the company's forward-looking statements.
The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Readers are cautioned that any forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. With that, I will now turn the call over to Sean O'Connor, the company's CEO.
Thanks, Bill. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining our fiscal 2022 third quarter earnings call. During the third quarter of fiscal 2022, we continued to see the effects of inflationary pressures on the global markets, sharp increases in short-term rates, and continued volatility in both financial and physical markets. We recorded operating revenues of $528.8 million, up 23% versus the prior year, while expenses were up 19%. This resulted in net earnings of $49.1 million, up 44%, and diluted EPS of $2.37, up 42%, which produced a 19.1% ROE. Sliding to slide three of the earnings deck, we realized revenue growth in all of our products, standouts being FX and CFDs up 68%, and commercial being up 37%.
Of course, interest on client balances was up 207% off the back of a 44% increase in the total client float, which now stands at a record $8 billion. This revenue was driven by strong double-digit increases in transaction volume, except for OTC contracts. The standouts here being FX CFDs as well as securities. In terms of revenue capture, we saw a large decrease in securities of 48%, which significantly offsets a 128% volume increase. As we have mentioned previously, our securities business is growing and expanding its products and capabilities, which has impacted these transactional metrics over the last couple of quarters.
Both our fixed income and equities business have expanded their product capabilities to now include more vanilla offerings that are higher volume and lower margin, but where we have limited market share and a large addressable market in front of us, and thus present large opportunities. This obviously has the impact of increasing volumes while revenue capture has declined. Additionally, these new areas have required upfront investment in personnel, which has increased fixed costs slightly faster than revenue, which has also impacted the margin. As we see revenue from these new initiatives pick up, we should see a boost to the bottom line and the transactional metrics should start to level out as the product stabilizes. We have always invested in our businesses and a core pillar of our strategy is to continue to enhance our financial ecosystem by expanding our products and capabilities.
This in turn drives increased wallet share from existing clients and enhances client adoption and market share increases. Turning now to slide four and looking at revenue and product metrics for the trailing 12 months. Our operating revenues were up 18% versus the prior comparative period. Revenue increased by double digits across the board for all of our products, except for securities, which was up 4%. The standouts here being CFDs up 34%, OTC contracts up 47%. Again, interest balances up 110% float and interest rates. This revenue environment, robust increase in transaction volume across the board, with standouts being securities and FX CFDs. Revenue capture was down 37% in securities, and down slightly for the FX CFDs, but up for all the other products.
Turning now to slide five and a summary of our earnings as reported and also on an adjusted basis, which excludes the accounting impact of the GAIN transaction two years ago. We recorded operating revenue of $520.6 million, up 23% versus the prior year. Total commission and other expenses were up 19% for the quarter, with variable compensation up 21% in line with revenue. Fixed compensation costing us 5% versus the year. This resulted in net earnings of $49.1 million, up 44%, and diluted EPS of $2.37, up 42% for a 19.1 ROE. The adjusted ROE numbers were slightly higher and slightly higher still if tangible equity is used.
In comparison with the immediately prior quarter, just remember, the immediately prior quarter was our best ever from an operational point of view, boosted by the market volatility of the Ukraine situation. However, comparing with this immediately prior quarter, operating revenues were down 3% and earnings were down 23% against this exceptional quarter. Looking at the summary for the trailing twelve months, our operating revenues were $1.9 billion, up 18% over the comparable period. Net income was $162.1 million and $170.2 million on an adjusted basis. Our diluted EPS was $7.88 for the trailing twelve months, for a 16.6 ROE or 17.5% on an adjusted basis. We ended Q3 2022 with a book value per share of $51.70.
Turning now to slide six, our segment summary. Just to touch on the highlights before Bill goes into more detail. For the quarter, operating revenue and segment income was up across the board. Our largest segment, commercial clients, was up a solid 20% in segment income off the back of a 12% revenue increase, driven in large part by the physical side of our business. Our institutional segment realized a 21% increase in revenues, a new record, which translated into a 3% increase in segment income for the reasons mentioned earlier. Retail had a very strong performance, with operating revenues up 40%, driving segment income up 338%, demonstrating the operational leverage we have with the digital platform. Global Payments also realized a record quarter, with revenue up 27% and segment income 21%.
This segment has also been investing in its new local pay-in capability as well as its digital platform for mid-sized commercial clients. For the trailing 12 months, we see much of the same, with strong double-digit growth across the board, except for our institutional segment, where operating revenue was up 7% and segment income was down 7% for the reasons I discussed earlier. These are strong quarterly results, but as we have said repeatedly, we take a long-term view in how we manage the company and how we grow our franchise. As such, we believe that the best way to gauge our results and progress is to look at the longer-term performance, such as trailing twelve months, rather than specific quarters taken in isolation. Turning to slide 7, which sets out our twelve-month trailing financial performance.
These numbers have been adjusted for the accounting treatment related to the GAIN Capital acquisition, as disclosed in our prior filings, and which appear in the reconciliation provided on the last page of this earnings deck. On the left-hand side, our blue bars show our trailing twelve-month operating revenue over the last nine quarters. As you can see, this has been remarkably smooth with a strong upward trend as we have steadily expanded our footprint and capabilities. Our revenues are up 57% over this period for a 25% compound annual growth rate. Our adjusted pre-tax income, likewise, has grown significantly, a 22% compound average growth rate. On the right-hand graph, you can see our adjusted earnings in the yellow bars, which are up 54% over the last two years for a 23% CAGR.
The dotted line represents our ROE, which has remained above our 50-year target, even though our capital has grown by 55% over this period. We have seen significant strength in the dollar over the last couple of quarters as interest rates globally have diverged. I would just like to briefly touch on the impact of this on our earnings. The majority of our earnings are denominated in dollars, and as such, we do not see much direct impact on the operating line. In addition, I'd also note that the vast majority of our variable compensation is also calculated in dollars. However, we have a significant amount of locally denominated fixed expenses. At our current run rate, these costs have now been reduced in dollar terms as a result of the strength in the dollar by some $20 million per annum from a year ago.
This is a material benefit. In essence, a discount on our fixed cost base. We intend to lock in currency rates to ensure that we have some longer-term benefit from this situation. With that, I'll now hand you over to Bill for a more detailed discussion of our financial results. Bill?
Thank you, Sean. I will be starting on slide number eight, which shows our consolidated income statement for the third quarter of fiscal 2022. Sean covered many of the consolidated highlights for the quarter, so I'll just highlight a few and then move on to a segment discussion. On the expense side, transaction-based clearing expenses were up 11% to $74.7 million in the current period, primarily due to the increase in securities ADV, an increase in listed derivative contract volumes, as well as higher costs in our global payments business.
Introducing broker commissions declined 1% to $41.2 million in the current period, as increases in our institutional listed derivative and global payment businesses were more than offset by a decline in IB commissions in our commercial listed derivative business. Interest expense related to trading activities increased $13.6 million versus the prior year, primarily due to increases in short-term interest rates, as well as higher average borrowings in our physical commodity business. Interest expense on corporate funding was relatively flat with the prior year period. Variable compensation increased $21.5 million versus the prior year due to the increase in net operating revenues and represented 33% of net operating revenues in the current period, compared to 34% of net operating revenues in the prior year period.
Fixed compensation increased $3.4 million versus the prior year, with the growth principally related to salary and benefit costs of increased headcount, which increased 11% as compared to the prior year period, which was partially offset by an increase in deferred compensation. Our fixed expenses increased $24.7 million as compared to the prior year to $101.7 million, and were up $1.8 million versus the immediately preceding quarter. As compared to the prior year, selling and marketing expenses increased $7.9 million, and professional fees increased $3.7 million. The increase in selling and marketing primarily relates to increase in digital marketing in our retail Forex business. We have started to see increases in travel and business development, increasing $3.6 million as compared to the prior year.
Trading systems and market information increased $1.6 million, and non-trading technology and support increased $1.6 million as part of their initiative to expand our digital offerings. Depreciation and amortization increased $2 million and primarily relates to an increase in internally developed software. We had net recoveries of bad debt expense of $700,000 for the quarter versus $1.3 million and $12.3 million in expense in the prior year and immediately preceding quarters, respectively. In the prior year, we recorded a $3.6 million gain on acquisition and other gains, which primarily related to an adjustment to the liabilities assumed in the acquisition of GAIN Capital, while in the immediately preceding quarter, we received a $6.4 million foreign exchange antitrust class action lawsuit settlement.
We recorded no gain on acquisition or other gains in the current period. Net income for the third quarter of fiscal 2022 was $49.1 million and represented a 44% increase over the prior year. This represents a 23% decline versus our all-time best quarterly performance recorded in the immediately preceding quarter. Moving on to slide nine, I'll provide some more information on our operating segments. The commercial segment had another strong quarter, adding $18 million in operating revenues versus the prior year. However, this represents a $13.9 million decline versus the immediately preceding record second quarter. Within the segment, listed derivative operating revenues declined $3.7 million versus the prior year as a result of a 5% decline in contract volumes as well as a 2% decline in average rate per contract.
OTC derivative operating revenues were $50.2 million for the quarter, which was up $500,000 versus the prior year quarter, primarily as a result of an 8% increase in the average rate per contract, which was partially offset by a 5% decline in OTC derivative contract volumes. Operating revenues from physical transactions increased $13.6 million compared to the prior year period, primarily as a result of a $13.1 million increase in precious metals operating revenues. Finally, interest earned on client balances increased $7.2 million versus the prior year as a result of a 45% increase in average client equity as well as an increase in short-term interest rates following Fed actions. Segment income was $72.5 million for the period, an increase over the prior year and preceding quarter of 20% and 3%, respectively.
Moving on to slide 10. Operating revenues in our institutional segment increased $36.1 million versus the prior year, primarily driven by a $18.6 million increase in securities operating revenues compared to the prior year period as a result of a 128% increase in the average daily volume of securities transactions, which was partially offset by a 48% decline in securities rate per million. The increase in securities ADV was primarily driven by a significant increase in volumes in debt capital markets, most notably in U.S. Treasuries as a result of new hires in this business, combined with rapidly changing rate environment related to the recent actual and anticipated Fed actions to curb inflation, and, to a lesser extent, equity market volatility in equity markets driven by increased market share and volatility.
The decline in rate per million was primarily a result of product mix traded, most notably the increase in U.S. Treasuries volumes. Operating revenues increased $8 million and $4.2 million in listed derivative and FX products, respectively, driven by continued volatility in global markets. Interest earned on client balances increased $6.9 million versus the prior year as a result of a 63% increase in average client equity, as well as an increase in short-term interest rates following recent Fed actions. Segment income increased 3% to $47.7 million in the current period as a result of the $15.3 million increase in net operating revenues, which were partially offset by a $10.5 million increase in variable compensation and a $3.6 million increase in non-variable direct expenses versus the prior year.
The increase in non-variable expenses was primarily due to a $2.5 million increase in fixed compensation and benefits, a $1.2 million increase in trading system market information, and a $900 thousand increase in travel and business development, which was partially offset by a $1 million favorable variance in bad debt. Segment income declined $2.3 million versus the immediately preceding second quarter. Moving on to the next slide.
Operating revenues in our retail segment added $30.8 million versus the prior year, which was primarily driven by a $30.8 million increase in FX and CFD revenues as a result of a 12% and 47% increase in ADV and RPM as compared to the prior year as a result of heightened volatility in FX markets. Operating revenues for security transactions declined $1.1 million, while operating revenues from retail physical precious metals were flat with the prior year period. Operating revenues in the retail segment declined $11.5 million versus the immediately preceding quarter. Segment income increased $20.3 million versus the prior year, primarily as a result of the increase in operating revenues.
The increase was partially offset by a $9.5 million increase in non-variable direct expenses as compared to the prior year, primarily driven by a $5 million increase in selling and marketing, a $1.3 million increase in depreciation and amortization, a $700,000 increase in professional fees, and a $600,000 increase in travel and business development. Segment income declined $19.2 million versus the immediately preceding record second quarter of fiscal 2022, which included the receipt of the $6.4 million from the class action settlement I mentioned earlier.
Closing out the segment discussion on the next slide, operating revenues and global payments added $9.3 million versus the prior year, driven by a 20% increase in average daily volume and 9% increase in the rate per million as compared to the prior year. Non-variable expenses increased $2.8 million, and it's primarily related to the expansion of our payment offerings. Segment income increased 21% to $24.6 million in the current period and also represented a 3% increase versus the immediately preceding quarter. Moving on to slide 13, which represents a bridge between operating revenues to the first quarter of last year to the current period across our operating segments. Overall operating revenues were $528.8 million in the current period, up $97.3 million or 23% over the prior year.
I've covered the changes in operating revenues for our segments. However, the $3.1 million increase in revenues and unallocated overhead is primarily related to positive variance in foreign currency revaluation versus the prior year period, which is partially offset by a mark-to-market loss on exchange shares held for clearing purposes in the current period. The next slide, number 14, represents a bridge from 2021 third quarter pre-tax income of $46 million to pre-tax income of $70.9 million in the current period.
The negative variance in unallocated over of $13 million is primarily driven by the increase in unallocated expenses, including a $5.1 million increase in variable compensation as a result of improved performance, a $3 million increase in non-trading technology and support, a $1.8 million increase in professional fees, $1.6 million increase in selling and marketing expenses, and a $1 million increase in depreciation and amortization. These increases were partially offset by a $1.4 million decrease in fixed compensation and benefits. Finally, moving on to slide number 15, which depicts our average invested client balances and associated earnings by quarter, as well as a table which shows the annualized interest rate sensitivity for changes in short-term interest rates.
Their interest rate earned on these client balances increased 41 basis points to 69 basis points for the current period, as the full effect of recent Fed rate hikes during the period will start to be more fully reflected during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022. As noted in the table, with an increase in client balances noted earlier, we estimate a 100 basis point increase in short-term interest rates would increase net income by $31 million or $1.53 per share on an annualized basis. With that, I'd like to turn it back to Sean for a strategy discussion.
Thanks, Bill. Turning now to slide 16, which sets out the high-level strategic objectives that we are focused on. We have included the slide before, and I've gone through it in detail on the last call, so I won't repeat it all again. Over the last six quarters or so, I've given a fairly granular view of the various projects we are undertaking in our segments, and I'm not gonna go through them all again this time. However, we continue to make excellent progress and hit our milestones in delivering many of these capabilities, some of which will be launched in the next three-six months. However, some highlights. As mentioned above, our securities business is expanding and changing its product mix as we leverage our long-standing institutional relationships into broader product offerings.
On the equity side, we have now launched our electronic market making platform to internalize and spread on domestic NMS equities while providing best execution. This is an area dominated by a limited number of large players, and our broker-dealer clients are interested in having alternative outlets for execution of these trades. We have already enabled a limited number of clients in a limited number of names, and all of these clients have been using us to execute foreign and unlisted stocks for a long time. We are very pleased with the results and the performance of our platform, and this is already accretive to the cost curve. We'll be ramping this up steadily over time. We're increasing the number of clients and the number of stocks we make markets in. We believe that this is a very large opportunity for us.
On the fixed income side, we have steadily been diversifying into different fixed income asset classes, many of which are higher volume and lower margins, such as T-bills and Treasuries, but also high-yield emerging-market and structured products. This strategy has really paid off for us and provided resiliency to our revenues as the interest rate environments have changed. We have noticed influx into the desk from institutional investors as well as talent in that we are now seen as a growing and successful fixed income franchise that can compete with tier one players. We've made some crucial hires from larger players, and we've seen increased client adoption. On the payment side, we've made some key hires to develop the local currency pay-in business in Brazil and will thereafter do this in Colombia.
This will allow us to provide an end-to-end payment service for our large existing corporate clients that have large in-country client bases. We can provide them an efficient way to get dollars into the country, as well as collect local payments from local clients to remit back to head office. This will be a unique offering for these large corporate clients. StoneX One, our U.S.-based self-directed platform for individuals is live and being used by employees. This is a multi-asset platform allowing trading in equities and equity options as well as listed derivatives. We'll be launching this platform in the upcoming quarter to a limited number of clients and ramp up from there utilizing our digital marketing team. We'll also soon add crypto, FX, and physical gold, making this a unique cross-asset class self-directed execution capability.
All of the trading flow will be directed to our electronic market-making platform, where we, and where appropriate, we'll be able to internalize spreads. As you can probably tell, we have a number of very exciting projects close to being launched. Let's move on to slide 17. This was another strong quarter with good market conditions and excellent results across all products and all client segments. We achieved earnings of $49.1 million, diluted EPS of $2.37, and ROE on stated book of just over 19%. This was also the best nine-month period we've ever had, with earnings for the nine months period being $154.8 million, a diluted EPS of $7.52, for an ROE of 21.2%.
Now, when performance is viewed through a slightly longer lens, such as coming twelve months, which our results continue to show steady and strong upward trajectory, growing our revenues at a 24% CAGR and growing our adjusted earnings at a 23% CAGR. We continue to see strong growth in client trading volumes and client assets, which speaks to growth in our underlying client base and client engagement. This, combined with heightened market volatility and increasing interest rates, puts a real tailwind behind our business for the next year or so. This year, we will see a number of digital platforms being launched, which will more tightly integrate our offerings by client type, make it more engaging for clients to interact with our financial ecosystem. We are initially seeing increased costs associated with bringing and standing up these platforms.
As we actively start to market these platforms to clients, we should further accelerate our growth with the scalability that technology provides to increase margins and overall profitability. We continue to invest in the ecosystem, expanding our products, our capabilities and our. We need a comprehensive financial ecosystem with a very large addressable market in front of us. While we have good market share in certain niche segments of the market, lots of white space remains in areas where we already have client relationships and demonstrable capabilities and now need to monetize these opportunities. One thing is always constant for the StoneX team, we continue to dedicate ourselves to better serving our growing client footprint around the world by providing them with the best financial ecosystem and the best service to access global financial markets.
With that, operator, let's open the line and see if we have any questions.
Great. Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question and answer portion of our session. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Our first question comes from Daniel Fannon with Jefferies LLC. Daniel, please go ahead.
Thanks. Good morning.
Hey, Daniel. How are you?
I'm doing well, thank you. I guess my first question, Sean, will be on the securities business. Clearly, ADVs going higher, as you mentioned, and so in the RPM or the capture rate going lower. Obviously, you have a lot of new initiatives within that context, that complex. But can you talk about where you are? Because this quarter saw a pretty massive step-up in both higher on volume and lower on capture. Just thinking about going forward, maybe just a little more color on what the asset classes are in particular and, you know, where you think you are in this normalization of going into these new markets and how we should think about these two dynamics going forward.
Yeah, sure. Daniel, probably before you guys were covering us, a long time ago when we started our global payments business, we went through this exact kind of process where we were exclusively dealing with OPM charities. The profile of that business was, you know, large payments and as a result, reasonably high revenue capture. We started to transition to working with our bank partners, where the payments got a lot smaller, a lot more of them. That took about two years before those metrics kinda leveled off. In aggregate, it was still a net plus for the business. I think we're now seeing the exact same thing on the securities side.
You know, on the equity side, for example, the bulk of our revenue up until now has been our market making in foreign unlisted stocks, which has a pretty high revenue capture associated with it. We're now moving into the NMS market, and the revenue capture is orders of magnitude lower. I'm not sure if I'm exactly correct, but I think the number of shares we trade on the NMS is now a significant portion of the number of shares we trade foreign, even though we've only just about opened the SPIC fair. It takes a bit while for those numbers on the equity side, you know, to sort of achieve equilibrium, and I think it's probably gonna take, I would say conservatively probably two years, just like it did on the payment side.
You know, we want to approach this very cautiously. It's an automated electronic platform. We want to make sure that we do it responsibly and carefully. We want our clients' confidence in the technology. I don't think it would be prudent to just sort of, you know, roll it out there and let everyone have a stab at it. You know, we do roll out cautiously and I think what you will continue to see the same trend as you've seen in the last two quarters probably perpetuate on, you know, probably for another four or five quarters would be my guess. Obviously the incremental rate of change should slow because, you know, if we are really sort of, you know, if we 80/20, you know, when you get to 80/40 it gets slower. I mean, at some point you do start to.
The law of averages apply, I guess. That's on the fixed income side, you know, in theory, the exact same process has happened. Our fixed income business was very focused on the mortgage market. You know, that's a high margin product. That's where we made, you know, 75% of our revenue three years ago. You know, we have diversifying that business into T-bills, into Treasuries, into a whole range of other products. Then there's some products where we actually, you know, are more commission-based, like high yield and others. What's happened in this interest rate environment is as the mortgage market has sort of slowed down, we see a pick up in some of the other products, which again, the revenue capture there is, you know, fractions of what it is, say, in the mortgage market, but volume all that.
I think, you know, that was a pretty good use of time, because it gave us some resilience. Again, is affecting those metrics. Probably on the income side, we're probably closer to seeing more of an equilibrium, just because I think the move there has been faster. Anyway, those are my comments on that. It's hard to give you precise data on when I see these metrics flattening out, but I think you should continue to see, you know, over a period of time, I mean, it may vary quarter to quarter, but over a period of time, these metrics will continue to trend in the same way, I think. If that makes sense.
Yep. No, that's helpful. Then just wanna understand your comment about FX and the benefit that it provided to fixed costs. I think you said $20 million per annum. Is that something that was kind of in the fixed? I mean, your fixed number, fixed costs came in lower in the your fiscal third quarter. Is that a decent exit kind of run rate for this quarter? Or is that, you know, based on spot rates now prospectively? Just thinking about how much was already in your numbers versus potentially, you know, could be benefiting still going forward.
Yeah. The $20 million number is really the benefit we've had kind of from the dollar low to the dollar high. Probably all experienced over the last 12 months. You know, we kinda looked at it and said, "Wow, you know, the currency is sort of coming our way here because we have a fixed rate." The aggregate impact of those $20 million, that has all been achieved and is in our numbers. The current exit rate is, you know, basically we use the average rate, I think, over the quarter, but that's the exit rate we have now.
I think what we're signaling to people is we would like to try and lock that in because what we don't wanna have happen is if the dollar goes the other way, we're gonna see a $20 million ramp up from where we are now. In a sort of way to think about it, is we just got a $20 million discount on all the people we've hired and the offices we've spun up, right? We want to try to preserve that lower cost base for as long as we can. We're gonna try and hedge that risk out. To answer your question, the exit rate we have now is a good approximation.
From here on in, you know, it'll be sort of net adds and, you know, we our sort of review cycle at the end of the year. We're obviously gonna have to make some adjustments are probably gonna be larger than they have been previously just because of inflation. You know, there'll be some impact of all of that coming into that run rate. You good with that, Bill?
Yes, Sean. That's well said. It's perfect.
Okay.
Then just another one on FX. Clearly, the retail side of the business benefiting from some volatility. Can you talk about? Is that, you know, existing customers just trading more? Can you talk about account growth? Or, you know, kind of just trying to understand maybe going forward, you know, what that business might look like.
Yeah. You know, Daniel, you're probably familiar with the GAIN Capital business previously, and you know, certainly that business can be very volatile quarter to quarter, you know, dependent on market conditions. You know, we obviously had a good time of it this last quarter because the volatility was good. I would say the main driver for our increased performance was market conditions and not account growth. I think our account growth has been kind of okay, but not fantastic. I think all of our peers are seeing the same thing. I mean, just go look at Robinhood and so on. I mean, those guys, you know, their account bases have plummeted. Ours haven't, but we haven't sort of grown them significantly. Market conditions have been better.
I think, you know, we're starting to see some of the benefits that I mentioned at the time of the transaction where, you know, if we can do this right, we're gonna see better revenue capture because we can start offsetting, you know, internal trades in the same products coming from different areas. I do think we're starting to see better revenue capture, which should help us. Market conditions are still the key there. It's hard to predict sort of market conditions going forward for that business. It's done very well for us. Exceeded our expectations at the time of the acquisition. I think the business has got some exciting things that's gonna be launched.
We're gonna be launching, I hadn't mentioned it in my section, but we're gonna be launching pretty soon cash equities in the U.K., which sort of moves us from speculative products to investment products. We're gonna launch, you know, crypto access. Things like that I think are gonna sort of drive client growth going forward. If we can, you know, have good market conditions, better trading and revenue capture, I think all bodes well for that business. Volatility is also a key thing, right?
Yep, understood. I guess just lastly for me, just thinking about the current backdrop and, you know, valuations coming in for, you know, businesses and broadly, how you're thinking about M&A here and, is there, I know you've got a lot of organic initiatives that you're focused on, but is there, you know, a subset of the market or an area where, you know, maybe M&A makes more sense at this point?
I think it's starting to get more interesting just because, as you say, there's sort of been a bit of a fallout and there's been a bit of a trade into value. I think it's gonna get interesting when, you know, some of these startups sort of find that they can't raise more money and need to go to some strategic buyers to help them out. I mean, certainly that would be an interesting development for us. Honestly, at this point, I think it's still early in that cycle. I think over the next sort of 6-18 months will be interesting to see if some interesting opportunities come up. We certainly haven't seen opportunities that have been exciting to us, you know, in the last six months.
Got it. I actually do have one more question just on interest rate sensitivity and the charts that you guys provide. That's incremental from here. Like the 75 basis points we've got a few, you know, weeks ago or certainly wasn't in your run rate or is prospective. Just thinking about exiting, you know, kind of the June, your fiscal third quarter and the rate benefit you've got versus that chart that you provide in terms of incremental hikes, how we should kinda blend those together.
Yeah. I mean, I'll let Bill chime in here. Go ahead, Bill.
No, I was gonna say, I think you're right, Daniel. I mean, certainly the 75 wasn't fully baked in, and even the 50 kinda came in, you know, a month into the quarter. I think you know you should be seeing the effect of those two kinda coming in, you know, in Q4, and onward basis for us. Does that make sense?
I think the way you should think about it is, you know, we invest in two things. Normally it's T-bills and sort of three-month Treasuries and then bank deposits on the other side. There's sort of a delay for us in catching those interest rates, particularly with banks. They don't all kind of put their rates up immediately. There's a bit of a lag impact there. We sort of, I guess, a little bit of maybe a three-month moving average of the interest rates rather than the sort of exact interest rate at the time. You know, we sort of catch it on the back end. You know, I was actually pretty shocked to see that, you know, quarter-over-quarter we only made 50 basis points or whatever it was.
You know, at the moment, we're investing in, you know, three-month treasury bills at 250 basis points or 230 basis points. You know, there's a long baked-in kind of increase that we should start showing up in the next quarter or two for us.
Yeah.
Okay. Understood. All right. Thank you.
Thanks, Dan. Any other questions, operator?
At this point, we do not have any more questions. I'd like to turn it back over to you, Sean, CEO, for closing remarks.
Okay. Well, thanks very much. Thanks everyone for joining us on the call. Enjoy the rest of your summer, and we will be speaking to you in early December again. Thanks again. Bye-bye.
Thank you all for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the program. Everyone may now disconnect.