Bolsa Mexicana de Valores SAB de CV

BMV:BOLSAA

Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q2

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Q2 2020 Bolsa Mexicana de Valores S.A.B. de C.V. Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the call over to your speaker today, Ramón Güémez. Thank you. Please go ahead, sir.

[Ramón Sarre, executive]

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Bolsa Mexicana de Valores Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call.

Before proceeding, I'd like to provide a brief safe harbor statement. This presentation contains forward-looking statements and information related to Bolsa that are based on the analysis and expectations of its management as well as assumptions made and information currently available at Bolsa. Such statements reflect the current views of Bolsa related to future events that are subject to risks and uncertainties and assumptions. Many factors could cause current results, performance or achievements of Bolsa to be somewhat different from any future results, performance or achievements that may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including, among others, changes in general economic, political, governmental and business conditions, both in a global scale and in the individual countries in which Bolsa does business, such as changes in monetary policies and inflation rates, in prices, in business strategy and various other factors. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary considerably from those described herein as anticipated, believed, estimated, expected or targeted. Bolsa does not intend and does not assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

I would like to remind participants that today's call is being recorded, and a replay of this call will be available online on July 16 at Bolsa's corporate website, www.bmv.com.mx.

During this call, all figures are in Mexican pesos, and compared to the second quarter of 2019, unless stated otherwise. This call is intended for the financial community only, and the floor will be open at the end to address any questions you might have.

Joining us for today's call are José-Oriol Bosch, our CEO; José Manuel Allende, SVP, Issuers and Information; Roberto González, SVP Central Securities Depository; Claudio Vivian, our new Chief Information Officer; Gabriel Rodriguez, SIF ICAP's CEO; Alfredo Guillén, Chief Operating Officer; José Miguel de Dios, MexDer's CEO; Rosa Crespo, Director of Human Resources; Luis Rene Ramon, Director of Investor Relations; and myself, Ramón Güémez. I would now like to turn the call over to Oriol Bosch, our CEO.

[José-Oriol Par, executive]

Thank you, Ramón, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining for the second quarter 2020 earnings conference call. And as we did last quarter, we will be using a presentation to make our report more friendly.

So if you can go please to Slide 3. And first of all, I would like to give you an update about BMV's response to COVID-19 pandemic. We continue executing our BCP protocol, have taken further steps to make sure that none of our stakeholders are left behind in these times of uncertainty. And as an example, BMV gave employees up to 3-month salary advance. And for the SMEs, we are offering flexible payment options among other things. So -- and additionally, we have enhanced our collaboration with all of our issuers, clients. And through technology platform, we continue to strengthen financial awareness in Mexico. We have proven BMV's operational resiliency, keeping our full range of trading, market development and client support services running 100% with the same level of service and commitment we had before.

And despite 95% of our employees are working remotely and will continue until we think that the situation improved. And our focus is particularly on risk management, cash flow generation and cost control in order to continue building a stronger Mexican exchange.

If you go please to slide -- next slide, Slide #4. We'll start with the financial highlights. The revenue for the second quarter 2020 was MXN 1 billion, that's up 13% compared to the second quarter of 2019, basically due to higher activity in trading businesses, services related to the global market, the SIC, and information services.

On the expense side, expenses were MXN 436 million, that's a 3% increase as a result of dollar-denominated concepts mainly in technology and subcustody as well as some legal fees. On the operating income and net income increased 23% and 10%, respectively. And the EBITDA was registered at MXN 600 million (sic) [ MXN 614 million ] up 21% and with an EBITDA margin of 61%. Worth mentioning that in the second quarter of 2020, we registered a historic record high in revenue, historic record high in EBITDA and historic record high in EBITDA margin.

If we go to the next slide, we'll see the financial highlights for the first half of the year, for the first 2 quarters combined. So for the first semester, the revenue was MXN 2 billion. It increased 16% compared to the first 6 months of 2019 due to local and global market volatility, a strong demand for the global market services and analytics.

On the expense side, expenses were MXN 875 million, up 6% compared to the first half of 2019, also as a result of dollar-denominated concepts mainly technology and subcustody. Both operating income and net income increased 25%, and the EBITDA reached MXN 1.2 billion, that's up 23% with an EBITDA margin of 61%.

If we go to next slide, Slide 6, that's the revenue by business line. The total revenue, as mentioned before, was up 16% in the first half of 2020. And if you look at the different business lines and on the equity trading and clearing, the increase was 13%; derivatives trading and clearing, 16%; OTC trading, 33%; central securities depository, Indeval, 26%; and information services increased at 3%.

On the next slide, on Slide #7. The operating expenses were up 6% compared to the first half of 2019. The main topics were personnel was up MXN 12 million as a result of variable compensation in SIF ICAP and annual salary increase. Technology was up MXN 16 million, explained by software of projects, increment of central bandwidth and purchase of data for the global market or SIC-related services. Depreciation increased MXN 7 million due to the acquisition of hardware, mainly for the storage area network, the SAN, and Asigna's risk platform as well as amortization of finished projects. Consulting fees were up MXN 6 million, mainly for legal fees, support for new projects and improvements to BMV website. Subcostody increased MXN 4 million due to dollar-denominated expenses and a larger number of assets under custody abroad. And on the others, that was up MXN 2 million explained by the option to purchase the remaining shares of SIF ICAP.

On the next slide, turning to Slide #8. On the equity trading and clearing side, cash equity trading revenue was 16% higher than the second quarter of 2019 explained by higher volatility in both local and international equity markets. The average daily traded value, the ADTV for the second quarter of 2020 was MXN 16.5 billion, that's up 29%. If we look at the breakdown, the domestic market increased 5% and represented 48% of total ADTV. And the global market increased 62% and amounted to 52% of total ADTV.

It is important to remember that BMV's trading tariff were modified on November 1, 2019, hence the difference between the revenue and the ADTV growth. And CCV revenues were up 14% as a result of greater volatility in both local, international equity markets.

On next slide, on Slide #9. We can see basically the operational highlights. The ADTV in March is mainly explained by the uncertainty and volatility in the local and global financial markets due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the month of March, most of the equities in the world reached new lows. It was the case of Mexican Bolsa Index that was at the end of March, below 33,000 points.

And on next slide, on Slide #10, on the derivative side. The revenue in MexDer and Asigna was up 11% and 13%, respectively. The higher volume in swaps, in 28 days -- in 28 swaps, that was 85% up with a notional value of MXN 204 billion. In dollar futures, rollovers reported high trading levels in March, $450 million, and in June, $500 million daily average. The average margin deposits were MXN 41.4 billion, that's up 27%. And BMV continues working with the financial regulators to list new products as electricity and overnight TIIE Futures.

On the next slide, on Slide #11. On the OTC side, for Mexico and Chile, SIF ICAP revenue was up MXN 23 million or 16%. SIF ICAP Mexico decreased MXN 2 million or 3%, but SIF ICAP Chile was up MXN 25 million or 29%. SIF ICAP Chile registered higher revenue due to volatility in financial markets and also tax benefits from operations with foreign counterparties for the company was subject to a 19% value added tax. The revenue from tax benefits amounted to MXN 14 million.

On different notes, SIF ICAP Chile in the second quarter of 2020, paid a dividend that generated an additional tax of approximately MXN 20 million.

On the next slide regarding the capital formation. The capital formation or listing and maintenance dropped MXN 9 million or 6% decrease. Listing's revenues was down MXN 4 million, explained by lower number of listings and lower amount placed in the short- and long-term debt markets. On a positive note, in April 21. IDEAL issued a new Fibra E on infrastructure for almost MXN 26 billion. Maintenance fees were down MXN 5 million due to early debt amortizations as well as the discount plan for government securities and warrants.

On the next slide regarding our CSD, Indeval. Indeval revenue was up 25% compared to the second quarter of 2020, and its growth is mainly explained by the services related to the global market, SIC, and average value of assets under custody.

Regarding the Direct Custody project. We are delayed against set milestones due to the COVID-19. Nonetheless, we'll continue building relationships with global custodians in order to start operations in the second half of 2020. And the average value of the assets under custody was up 1% and 15% in the local and global market, respectively.

On next page, on the -- regarding information services. The revenues was up MXN 11 million or 8% compared to the second quarter of 2019. Market data in second quarter 2019, we had some nonrecurring revenue for MXN 8 million. So excluding this concept, the revenue was up 19% as a result of sales mostly in dollars with new and existing customers. Valmer was up 6% because of sales with existing clients and new valuation services such as risk scenarios for target dated funds and credit, debit value adjustments. On the LED side, we started operations and are currently doing trials with the new and potential clients.

And on the next slide, on Slide 15 regarding the strategy. Our strategy continues in delivering a strong result despite challenging environment as it is the case. As you know, BMV has a well-diversified business model. All in all, strong results in trading businesses, the Central Securities Depository and Information Services. SIF ICAP paid a dividend that increased BMV's second quarter 2020 tax rate to 32.6%. Without the effect of the special tax on the dividend, the tax rate would have been 29.2%. And we'll continue with the execution of our strategy, further development of post-trade and market data businesses, strengthening legacy businesses by building new added value services, working closer with clients and regulators and the analysis and development of BMV's technological transformation strategy.

On the next slide. As you know, the guidance that we provide on an annual basis is on EBITDA margin and net income. The EBITDA margin, the guidance was 58% to 61%. As of today, we are -- our margin is at 61% on the -- so on the upper side of the range. On the net income, our guidance was MXN 1.4 billion to MXN 1.6 billion were also in line. As of today, we have MXN 822 million.

And finally, as a summary. As mentioned, we continued execution of strategy. We had positive results due to the local and global market volatility and strong demand for global market for the SIC services and analytics. Additionally, we are evaluating a provider for BMV's technological transformation and the strong financial results. As you saw, there was a good progress in delivering 2020 guidance, but monitoring pretty closely the economic impact of the COVID-19. Focus on risk management, cash flow and cost control as we manage through challenging times.

We are well diversified and positioned to drive further growth. Solid revenues across all businesses and multiple growth opportunities. However, it is taking us longer than we might have expected to start operations of new projects due to COVID-19.

And that's all the presentation. So with that, I think that we'll go to the Q&A in case you have any comment or question. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Ernesto Gabilondo from Bank of America.

[Ernesto María Gabilondo Márquez, analyst]

José-Oriol, Ramón, 3 questions from my side. The first one is on competition. We noticed that the competition reduced its market share to 8% when compared to double digits last quarter. So after this, would you readjust your metrics to be more profitable? Or do you expect to continue with the same strategy so that competition remains with the same market share?

And then on the second question. Do you still see room to improve the EBITDA margin in the medium term? Or do you consider that it has already reached its sustainable level?

And finally, my last question. Are you concerned about the low activity in the medium- and long-term debt placements? What would be the strategy to improve this trend? And maybe related to this, what happens if Mexico loses investment grade? What would be the implications for your business?

[Ramón Sarre, executive]

Thank you, Ernesto. I'll let -- I would ask Oriol to answer your question on competition, then I will go on to the EBITDA margin. And I would ask José Manuel Allende to comment on the debt listing activity.

[José-Oriol Par, executive]

Ernesto, thanks a lot for attending and for your question. On the competition side, well, first, the TIIE, I think that they have had some lower market share in the second quarter. But if we look at the numbers as of -- actually, since they started operations on July 25, when was that, 2018. Today, the number is like [ 91 9% ]. And if we look at the number year-to-date for the first 6 months of the year. I think that is 87%, 88%, [ 12%, 13% ], something like that. So it's not too different. And this was our expectation and not just based on our guess.

But when BIVA -- actually, even before BIVA started operations, we hired an expert on this issue and prepared an analysis that we shared, and we are going to still share if you do not have it with you at best. And they were saying that based on similar situations in other countries, the market -- the potential market share was not going to be higher than 10%. So I think that is in line with what it was expected. But having said that, I think that's important for both. For Bolsa and BIVA, would be not to fight market share as we have been saying. The important by having 2 exchanges as we will have today in Mexico would be to have a bigger market.

So we -- I think that we ought to be working in -- not just the exchanges actually. We need to work with the Casas de Bolsa with the broker-dealers, with the financial institutions, with the authority regulator. And what we need to do is we need to grow the size of the market. And I think that I hope that both exchanges agree on that. We definitely believe that there is a lot of potential in the market that we can continue to grow in number of participants. As mentioned many times, the number of individuals participating in the exchange in Mexico is still is very low in terms of number of companies, in terms of trading activity.

So this is the bad and good news. I think that we have a lot of potential. We are going to be focused much more on growing that than on the market share. But definitely, we do feel comfortable with those numbers. I hope that I answered your question. So Ramon, if you can -- Thanks to you, Ernesto.

[Ramón Sarre, executive]

Ernesto, with regards to EBITDA margin, we do not have an EBITDA target to reach or to maintain. But I can tell you that we will continue to have a tight control on costs and strive for further productivity. So where -- if the margin increases, then fine, all the better. But our efforts will be on controlling costs and increasing productivity as we go along. And José Manuel, if you would like to comment on the activity and the debt listings, please.

[José Allende Zubiri, executive]

Yes. Ernesto and everyone. Regarding listing activities, it has been a tough year. As I mentioned in the year, we have 1 Fibra E, a couple of [ CKDs ] and nothing else on the equity market. We don't see on the short term, nothing on the equity side. Perhaps, we may have a couple of potential payments of Fibra or FIBRA E on the real estate or infrastructure, but not so positive.

Regarding the question on the debt market, which made the most of the Mexican market activity, as mentioned, short-term placements are on year-to-date, 20% down on the amount. On the long term, 40% down.

Let me break that a little bit. Regarding the short-term placements, I would say that weekly renewals are improving especially in late June. If we take the average placements in January to March, that was MXN 17 billion. In April, we plunged to MXN 7 billion. And in June, we are back over MXN 13 billion on the way back to the year average driven basically by carmakers, consumption and financial companies.

An important data on the short term is also that, since the last week of March, the renewals were less than the amount due weekly. And that has changed in June when we finally placed more money than the amount that was due on the week. So we are recovering. And on the worst time, that percentage came down to 25%, the amount that was due and were renewed. And now we are moving close to 90%. So this market on the short term is coming back.

On the long-term debt, it's a little bit slower, but we are starting to see placements in June. Basically -- and it usually happens that way on past crisis. Banks are the ones that lead the way back into the market. We have 3 banks in June and 1 corporation. But the important thing is some -- a number of big corporations have filed for new programs, some of them still confidential. And it seems that they would be going out of the market in the next weeks or month if market conditions improve. So it's also gradually recovering.

Regarding the downgrade. Well, the downgrade on Mexico rating and definition maybe on some corporations, obviously, it would affect -- it will be affected the spread for the governments, corporations and will make a price discovery for IPOs a little bit different -- difficult. That kind of happened in the beginning of April with volatility to the spreads and pricing to spreads of what will have happened if the rating would be affected. Fortunately, that has come back. That will impact.

But I think that maybe the worst for companies now is if the lockout will continue for so much time. If commercial activity stops, company will slow sales, some people will not invest. And in the end, they will not demand financing on the exchange. So that will be the main issue that I see now. So if so, and if no issuances are placed, and if companies decide to prepay or mature the actual placement they have, that could be an impact for the maintenance fee income and business on next year. So I think the key numbers to monitor is the number of issuances that we have on the exchange, the current ones, plus the new issuances. Less the maturity that we may have from now to the end of the year, that's the key number to monitor. I can share the data that we have with all of you. I will send it to Luis Ramon, so he can share that with you. I hope I answered.

[José-Oriol Par, executive]

And just to -- regarding the investment grade, Ernesto, and this could be your scenario, I would like to clarify. This is not our scenario. We are not expecting Mexico to love the investment grade. We think that we could maintain it. And having said that, I don't think that we will see a big change in our market. Maybe the main impact will be on the Mexican companies that are already financing by issuing debt in the external market, something like that. But financing for countries with investment grade is not higher than countries without investment grade. We can compare now Brazil and Mexico. And I think that it has much more to do with the economic growth with certainty, uncertainty.

And if you have uncertainty, then you are going to see companies or higher volatility as we are seeing. Today, that companies are delaying and stopping all the project plans, expansion plans, et cetera, et cetera. So -- but I just wanted to clarify that.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Kaio Prato from UBS.

[Kaio Penso Da Prato, analyst]

So I have 2 questions on my side. The first is a follow-up regarding listings. We saw 1 IPO in BIVA last month. So I just want to get a sense why do you think they decided to list in BIVA. And if you have any perspective for new listings maybe next year in the equity side?

And the second one is related to LatAm Exchanges Data that was launched. If -- can you please provide more color about this initiative? And when do you expect this to start generating revenues for the company?

[Ramón Sarre, executive]

Thank you, Kaio. Oriol, would you please comment on the listing and the other exchange?

[José-Oriol Par, executive]

Yes. Well, on this side, I do not have much to comment. I think that this would be a question for -- either for the company or for BIVA and I'm not very familiar with that. So take that thing that I cannot mention a lot. But what I can tell you is that regarding our pipeline, we had a couple of -- we still have actually a couple of companies that we're looking for an IPO. But to be honest, I don't think that we are going to see that anytime soon. But maybe there are -- we are going to see some exceptions as it was the case of FIBRA E -- IDEAL Fibra E. And one of the main reasons is because of valuations.

I think that one of the most active exchanges in the world in this first half of the year in terms of IPO, I think that the #1 was NASDAQ and it was NASDAQ. And if you look at the NASDAQ index is the best performer of the indices in the world. It's on positive side, et cetera. If you look at Mexico, the Mexican index and actually has been underperforming in the past days, but the year-to-date, we are still 16% down in terms of pesos. The index is below 37,000 points. And it was at 46,000 points at the beginning or close to 46,000 at the beginning of the year. And 3 years ago was trading above 50,000 points, close to 52,000 points. So the point is that the valuations in Mexico are pretty low. And I think that this is -- this incentive for profitable companies with a good outlook to come to the market.

So I would like to see and I think that there is a correlation. If you see higher valuations, then the number of IPOs is going to increase. On the contrary with low valuations that we have today, it's going to be difficult for good and profitable companies to come to the market.

[Ramón Sarre, executive]

Thank you, Oriol. And with respect to LatAm Exchanges Data, we have begun operations. We had roughly little less than [ MXN 2 million ] in revenues from the initiative this month. So we will continue with our promotion efforts. Going forward, it's been slower than we expected, obviously, but yet become -- generating some revenue.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Carlos Gomez from HSBC.

[Carlos Gomez-Lopez, analyst]

Congratulations on the results once more. Two minor questions. You mentioned these 2 derivatives products in which you are still in discussions with the regulators. We would like to know what your prospects are for those discussions to succeed and what the revenue potential for them might be?

And second, relative to the IPOs, we know that you have put a lot of effort in educating the corporates in Mexico, in making them understand that it will benefit -- they will benefit from being in the market. Obviously, as you mentioned, the valuations don't help right now. But in your perception that you have had some success and that if and when valuations improve, we could see more companies coming?

[Ramón Sarre, executive]

Thank you, Carlos. I don't know José Miguel or Oriol, who would like to comment on the derivatives products? And Oriol, if you would like to follow-up on the IPO question.

[Jose Miguel de Dios Gomez, executive]

Yes, Carlos. Thank you. Well, in the -- for the overnight future, we expected that maybe in -- we are closer to list this product. I think that maybe in a couple of months, we can list this product. It's a completely new product. So we don't know how are going to be the trading in this product, no? So we don't know exactly what we expect for this product.

And the other one, the Electricity Future, we think that we are going to work more with the authorities because it's a completely new product, no? And we don't have any trading in Electricity Futures in Mexico. So we expected that we are going to lease this product in the last quarter of the year. So we don't expect a lot of income in these 2 products in this year, no?

[Carlos Gomez-Lopez, analyst]

And long term?

[Jose Miguel de Dios Gomez, executive]

Sorry? And in the long term? Sorry, in long term?

[Carlos Gomez-Lopez, analyst]

Yes. I just want to...

[Jose Miguel de Dios Gomez, executive]

Yes. In the long term, well, we expected that maybe we can have for the next year, maybe we have MXN 5 million in each contract, no?

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Guilherme Grespan.

[José-Oriol Par, executive]

Sorry, there was also a follow-up question. Thank you, Carlos. And yes, absolutely. I think that -- and we have mentioned that a couple of times. That I think that in one word, the main barrier, the main challenge that we have in the exchange to work is lack of education or a poor education that we have on the financial side. And we have been doing, and we will continue definitely to do a big effort on that on both sides, on the investor as well as on the issuer side. With -- we have been working with the businessmen in Mexico on education. And it's a big challenge in a couple of things. One of them is on the corporate governance, but we feel very comfortable.

And education is something that we must -- we have to do, will continue to do and we are not going to see the results immediately. So definitely, we we'll continue to prepare this space. And at some point, I think that we'll have a better scenario with better valuations and a more attractive environment to bring these new companies to the market.

So this is something that we are not going to take any break. We are not going to rest, and we are going to continue to push on the education side, working with associations, with -- even with authorities and all the market participants. And this is a challenge not just from the exchange. I would say that it's a challenge also on the banking side in Mexico. And we have to work all together with that. Thank you, Carlos.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Guilherme Grespan from JPMorgan.

[Guilherme Grespan, analyst]

Ramón, I have 2 on my side. The first one is regarding the Indeval performance. It was pretty strong again. And what I'm trying to figure out here is, when you look at the volume side, the local market was up 1%. Global markets, 15%. But when you look at revenues, 25%. So your take rates or monthly fee, whatever the way you want to put it, has been expanding a lot. And I just want to grasp a little bit if there is, just to remind us, if there is any impact on mix here, or if the global market services has any component in dollar in the charging? The idea is to understand if this MXN 300 million, MXN 320 million per quarter is sustainable going forward.

And my second question is very quickly [indiscernible], in reality, is just to remind us what is the loan position you have on the balance sheet that drove the dollar loss? If I'm not mistaken, the last time, you mentioned $16 million, but I just want to confirm the number's still this.

[Ramón Sarre, executive]

Thank you, Guilherme. Roberto, would you comment on the Indeval performance, please?

[Roberto González Barrera, executive]

Sure. Well maybe for the next quarter, we will include a little bit more color and more detail on information. But the portfolio in total, the local market only grew 1%. I think we need to provide a bigger breakdown. We've seen that the government bonds have continuously increasing the total custody and the operation has increased substantially. So this last quarter, government bonds, trading volume and value grew more than 12% related to last year for the entire semester. So it's been very active and very good month regarding government bonds.

The big impact that we have is on the custody, on the shares list from the stock exchange. That is MXN 1 billion below how it ended the year 2019. So while it's recovering, we're still MXN 1 billion below. And that -- the custody of that side has been somehow helped by government bonds, corporate bonds and bank bonds. So that's why maybe when you see the 1%, it doesn't provide you a lot of information.

On the other side, really the driver for the SIC has been the activity. So what we've seen is much more trading on foreign securities, an entire recomposition of the portfolio of the clients. So we saw a lot of securities being sold out and buying completely others, and also a lot of arbitrage because of the volatility in the peso-dollar. So maybe -- and on this piece, we charge something more associated to how the ADR business is charged. So there are [ sense ] associated to the conversion of the stock when you buy outside Mexico, so you buy outside with [ Indeval ] outside. That's why the driver is a little bit different. So it's very related to trading more than custody, but also custody recovered substantially. And now we are not at the peak, but reaching a very high level. And right now, if you compare just local securities versus the SIC, the fixed security of the portfolio is about 8% of the total value of the local listed security. So it's becoming more relevant also on customers.

So maybe we can provide a bit more information so you can have a better understanding and see what is expected. Is this sustainable? It's not, but this is more related to the trading. And so as long as we continue seeing volatility and portfolio composition, we will see more activity. But certainly, this semester has been very, very active and unusually high compared to other years. I don't know if that was clear or not.

[Guilherme Grespan, analyst]

Super clear. And on the U.S. loan position?

[Ramón Sarre, executive]

Yes. Our U.S. loan position is about MXN 26 million, so a little over MXN 26 million right now.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Inigo Fernandez from Santander.

[Inigo Fernandez, analyst]

My question is regarding the transformation plan. Do you have any idea on how -- what are the areas you're looking to improve in the company? And maybe how do you expect expenses to behave in the medium term?

[Ramón Sarre, executive]

I'm sorry, Inigo. Could you repeat your question, please?

[Inigo Fernandez, analyst]

Yes, sure. The question is regarding the technological transformation plan. Do you have any idea what are the areas you're looking to improve? And how could we expect expenses to behave in the next couple of quarters or maybe years?

[Ramón Sarre, executive]

Expenses, I assume you mean from the technological renovation plan? Or expenses overall?

[Inigo Fernandez, analyst]

From the technology side.

[Ramón Sarre, executive]

Okay. I don't know, Oriol, if you want to comment or do you want to let Claudio? Or...

[José-Oriol Par, executive]

Well yes, I can comment on that, and Claudio can confirm it. But regarding the technological transformation, we are still in this process. I would say that this is one of the activities that were impacted by the pandemia. There were some trips that were delayed and we have been working on that, but remotely, so a bit slowly.

My plan was to go with probably final or close to final and detailed proposal on that to the Board yesterday, and it was moved -- because of that, it was delayed and moved to the next quarter meeting. But it's something that -- we're working on that, I would say that a lot every day and pretty actively. I don't know, Claudio, if you want to mention something on that?

[Claudio Gutierrez, executive]

Yes. Thank you, Oriol. Well, as Oriol mentioned, we are right in the planning and evaluation of the different platforms. We will be looking for -- at some opportunity to improve our platform I would say that it's pretty premature to assume how the expenses would change during the following year as we are right in the planning and the deciding which is the better -- the best way to move forward in terms of the platform. But this will be fixed in the coming months as we present to the Board the new technology plan for the upcoming 5 years. So it's pretty premature in terms of talking about how the expenses will move as we need to evaluate and make decisions before establishing the budgets for the coming years.

[Operator]

Thank you. At this time, I am showing no further questions. I would like to turn the call back over to José-Oriol Bosch for closing remarks.

[José-Oriol Par, executive]

Thank you. Well if there is no more questions. Thanks a lot for -- to all of you for participating. Thanks again for one more quarter to participate in this conference call. And all the best to you, and take care. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thanks for participating. You may now disconnect.