Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the press conference call of Leonteq Full Year 2024 Results. The presentation material as well as the annual report can be found in the Investor Relations section on our website. In the same section, we have also provided you a time series data excel file and the comparison of the analyst consensus versus our actual reported results. Here with me today are Chief Executive Officer, Lukas Ruflin; and our Chief Financial Officer, Hans Widler. We will start the presentation with some key takeaways from 2024 and Hans will then discuss the financial performance of last year and give you insights into the new regulatory regime. Lukas will then close the presentation with an outlook before we open up for questions. Lukas, the floor is yours, please.
Thank you, Dominique. And also from my side, good morning, and a warm welcome to you, dear shareholders, analysts and media representatives. For now, I would like to start by focusing on the key takeaways of 2024.
Let's please begin on Page 4 of our slide deck. My final business year as CEO presented several challenges and following record years in '21 and '22, our results are clearly disappointing. At the same time, we underlined our strong client franchise, extended our ecosystem and started to harvest from the ongoing diversification assets that we undertook in the last years. In line with the guidance we provided on 12th December '24, profit before taxes was CHF 7.9 million for the full year. This is down from CHF 18.4 million in '23. Group net profit was CHF 5.8 million in '24 compared to CHF 20.6 million the year before. Our shareholders' equity remained strong at close to CHF 804 million in '24 compared to CHF 780 million the previous year.
Accordingly, our book value increased by 4% to CHF 40.6 -- CHF 46.1 per share. Furthermore, in line with Leonteq's capital return policy, the Board of Directors will propose a dividend of CHF 0.25 per share for the financial year '24. At the upcoming Annual General Meeting on 27 March '25, which is to be paid in equal amounts out of retained earnings and capital contribution reserves. This corresponds to a payout ratio of 76% compared to the announced target of more than 50%.
Additionally, in December '24, FINMA concluded investigations regarding the distribution of financial products through a few distributors support and ordered the range of organizational measures for remediation Leonteq fully cooperated with FINMA and we regret the shortcomings identified. FINMA's probe was triggered by a disclosure by the company as well as allegation raised by the media and third parties. FINMA identified certain shortcomings also related to the distribution of Leonteq's financial products to a few unregulated -- through a few unregulated distributors abroad.
Accordingly, Leonteq now only conducts business with distributors that are subject to regulation. The company has already taken comprehensive organizational measures over the past years and also acknowledged by FINMA. Leonteq will implement additional measures ordered by FINMA with high priority. We welcome the closure of the proceedings by FINMA.
If we now move on to Page 5, please. Despite these disappointing results of '24, I am very confident in the outlook of Leonteq particularly also thanks to our strong client franchise. Let me elaborate on this now in more detail. Leonteq recorded very high platform activities throughout '24. We processed over 275,000 client transactions, which is a 40% increase compared to '23 and we should close to 47,000 product, which is up 22% compared to the prior year. Those are notably record levels for Leonteq. 23% or almost 11,000 of these total issue products were initiated via LynQs, our digital investment platform, a core area of focus of the last years. This represents an increase of 96% year-on-year and brings the click ânâ trade ratio to 23% compared to 15% in '23. In '24, we also focused on continuously harvesting from the key investments that we undertook in the last years and which has the clear aim to further diversify our revenue sources.
These new business initiatives include our EMC business platform, our crypto asset offering and pension savings offering as well as our balance sheet light offering, fund derivatives and QIS businesses. Leonteq also further advanced on its execution of its investment plans relating to the retail flow business, which is our single biggest investment endeavor of the last years. Accordingly, Leonteq assumed the role of exclusive market maker for equity securities and ETFs on BX Swiss since April '24. Since then, the record turnover on the BX Swiss Exchanged increased by 70% compared to the same period in '23. So we are very pleased to witness a certain growth also relating to that activity. As part of our retail flow business initiative, we have also listed the first few leverage products in Switzerland in the course of the second half of '24 and we expect the full market launch to take place in the coming months.
In addition, Leonteq's ecosystem of white label partners was expanded as we welcome Saxo Bank and Bergos as white-labelled partners with the aim to further diversify our business offering across new issues. Overall, revenues from new business initiatives grew by 22% to CHF 131 million and contributed close to 60% of the group economic revenues which includes the net result of hedging activities for '24. In particular, our fund derivatives business, balance sheet-light business, crypto business and treasury initiatives recorded strong performances with double-digit growth rates versus the year before. And as evidenced by the strong platform activity, the good momentum we have seen in the last few years is also expected to continue.
Let's now move on to Page 6, please, where I would like to touch upon our new enhanced regulatory regime, our CFO, Hans Widler will then go in more details about the impacts and benefits going forward. Effective as of January 1, '25, Leonteq is subject to capital and large exposure requirements as defined by the Swiss Capital Adequacy Ordinance. Leonteq meets these newly applicable requirements, thanks to our strong capital position that we built over the last few years. FINMA will additionally define final details of enhanced liquidity requirements in the coming months.
The regime also comes with the ability for Leonteq to issue and account for hybrid capital, which will allow us to manage our capital structure in due course in a more shareholder friendly manner. And also once the liquidity regime is finalized and subject to regulatory approvals, our banking counterparties will be allowed to risk-weight exposure to Leonteq as if it was a bank on account holding securities firm. We welcome this regime as it provides a widely understood regulatory framework and help us strengthens Leonteq's risk profile for all our stakeholders.
The new regime will be fully phased in by mid of '26, following which we expect to free up capital that is then planned to be returned to shareholders. And to maybe take on right the question that we got earlier this morning. No, this new capital regime is not related to the enforcement proceedings, the conclusion of which we reported on in December. This is right. This is related, as we can see on Page 7 in relation to that continued growth and the expansion of Leonteq over the last few years.
Moving on to Page 7. And just to recap, since 2020, as a Swiss Category 5 non-account holding securities firm, Leonteq was required to hold capital of CHF 20 million until the end of '24. Nonetheless, as we have consistently demonstrated, Leonteq shows in recent years to operate with significantly higher capital levels in alignment with our internal prudent capital framework, which we established already years ago. As I said, the new regime takes into account Leonteq's growth and the evolution of its business model over the years.
As mentioned before, Leonteq is now processing more than 275,000 client transactions per year and generated turnover of almost CHF 27 billion in 2024. Through our proprietary technology and service platform, Leonteq also access an important outsourcing partner for structured investment products to numerous large and midsized banks in Switzerland and abroad. This includes the offering of hedging service for products issued by these white-labeling partners and as a recognized counterparty for structure product, Leonteq has nowadays more than 2,000 distribution partners and directly accesses more than 55 stock exchange.
Furthermore, we have an extensive network of more than 20 global investment banks that act as hedging counterparties and clearing houses. As a result of this successful extension, we have clearly outgrown our previous regulation. We welcome the enhanced regulatory regime as both a logical and important next step in our development. It further enhances our risk and credit profile for our banking counterpart as white-labeling partners and most importantly, our clients.
At the same time, it, of course, will open up further development opportunities in the years to come. With that, I would like to hand over to our CFO, Hans Widler.
Thanks very much, Lukas. Thank you all for joining today's results presentation and also a very warm welcome from my side. I'm pleased to present to you the financial results of Leonteq. Let us start with Page 8. In 2024, we experienced similar market trends in terms of volatility, interest rate levels and the competitive landscape as in 2023. The chart on the left-hand side depicts the VIX Index since 2022. We can see that in 2023 and 2024, we had considerably different levels of volatility than in 2022 and 2021, where we have achieved record results. Notwithstanding short-term heightened market volatility in August 2024 and at the end of December, the overall levels remains at historic lows. These low levels negatively impacted on the one side, our trading result because we maintain a structurally long volatility position on the trading book as a macro hedge against market dislocations.
But on the other hand, it also makes it more difficult to attractively price certain types of structured products, including their reverse convertibles and auto callables. This is the business which we consider the traditional business and where we saw a drop in revenues in the last 2 years. As Lukas pointed out before, we have, however, seen strong growth in our new business initiatives, which are aiming at diversifying our revenue streams beyond the traditional business activities. On the right-hand side, you can see that the interest rates that were raised by the central banks to combat elevated inflation levels in 2023 have leveled and started to decrease towards the end of the year.
This trend is beneficial to Leonteq as it increases the relative attractiveness of structured products compared to typical fixed income investment products. However, you can also see here from the chart that the environment in 2022, where we had still negative interest for most of the time were exceptionally good for us.
Moving on to Page 10. I would like to share the impact that the macro backdrop had on the overall structured products market based on statistics from the Swiss Structured Products Association, SSPA, and from SIX Swiss Exchange. SSPA considers turnover of all transactions of products engineered or sold in Switzerland reported by SSPA. This includes both listed and unlisted investment products. Here, we can see an increase in turnover by 9% in 2024 compared to the previous year. While yield enhancement accounted for the largest share of turnover, the main driver of the year-on-year growth were coming from leverage products, which increased by 50% or CHF 18 billion year-on-year. At the same time, turnover in capital protected notes decreased by 24%.
Similarly, you can see that the SIX listed market turnover recorded a growth of 13% year-on-year. In this environment where the market started to rebound, the Leonteq platform gains in market share over proportionally. Our market share across all listed products traded on the SIX Swiss Exchange was 15% compared to 12% in 2023. And particularly in our historic core franchise, focused on yield enhancement products, we achieved a market share of 30% compared to 28% in 2023. And here, we've achieved again the #1 position in the market.
At Leonteq, we saw growth in turnover across all product categories, but in particularly our turnover in leverage products, capital protection products as well as participation products increased strongly. These developments clearly demonstrate our ability to navigate through challenging market environments and underscore the strength of our core franchise.
Let's now look a bit closer at our turnover and net fee income on Page 11. Our overall turnover increased by 30% compared to 2023 to almost CHF 28 billion. When we look at the split between Leonteq new partners and historic partners, we see that the majority of the growth comes from Leonteq and new partners. Leonteq's turnover rose by 35% to CHF 15 billion. This includes CHF 1.7 billion in exceptional transactions with high notional. Turnover from products issued by new partners increased similarly by 35% to nearly CHF 6 billion, reflecting our continued efforts to diversify revenues across issuers. At the same time, turnover with historic partners increased by 15% to almost CHF 7 billion, in line with Leonteq's strategy to further diversify its issuance partners. On the margins, we saw a reduction of 90 basis points in 2023 to 70 basis points in 2024 on the back of the lower market volatility and the competitive environment. Leonteq, however, reduced its reliance on large ticket transactions in 2024. Contributions from these large tickets amounted to only 6% of net fee income compared to 11% in 2023.
As a result, net fee income increased slightly by 1% to CHF 214 million in 2024 compared to CHF 230 million in 2023 despite the relative challenging market environments that Leonteq faced.
Let us move now on to Page 12 to look at the other components of our income statement. I want to start with the net trading result, which decreased to CHF 21.5 million compared to CHF 37 million in 2023. This was driven by positive and negative effects. Positive contributions from hedging activities were recorded in particular on the back of the short-term increase in market volatility beginning of August and at the end of December. Negative contributions resulted mainly from an operational risk event in October, and the continued reduction in market volatility in November and December 2024, following the U.S. elections.
The net interest result totaled minus CHF 0.4 million compared to CHF 6.5 million in 2023. This was mainly driven by available credit facilities that were drawn in the context of the new regulatory regime. This allowed us to reduce the large exposures specifically versus large issuance partners. Our total operating expenses, excluding provisions, declined by 6% to CHF 220 million in 2024. This mainly -- this is mainly a reflection of a further reduction in discretionary compensation as well as a stricter approach in new hires and replacements of our personnel and the reduction in the number of contractors Leonteq works with.
In 2024, Leonteq's staff base decreased from 591 full-time equivalents to 583 FTEs and the variable compensation declined by 24% compared to the previous year. This resulted overall in a net decrease in personnel expenses of 10%. The decrease in personnel expenses was partially offset by an increase in provisions, which increased by 49% to CHF 11 million, mainly in connection with the conclusion of regulatory matters. In line with the guidance provided on 12 December 2024. The profit before tax was CHF 7.9 million for the full year 2024. This is down from CHF 18.4 million in the previous year. The group net profit amounted to CHF 5.8 million for full year 2024 compared to CHF 20.6 million in the prior year period.
Continuing on Page 13, let's look at our sound balance sheet. Leonteq reported a 15% increase in its total balance sheet to CHF 10.7 billion at the end of 2024. Most changes in the balance sheet are, in fact, directly a consequence of the higher issuance volumes we recorded on our platform in 2024 compared to the previous year. On the back of the higher client activities, our transaction volumes increased, which resulted in higher cash and receivables positions. Cash and receivables are up by CHF 168 million or 18%. Trading financial assets and derivatives representing our hedge books grew by 26% on the back of a rise in outstanding issuance volumes with Platform Partners as well as due to the growth in Leonteq's own issuance volumes as well as the fund derivatives business.
Financial assets and investments corresponds to our high-quality bond portfolio, which remained relatively stable at CHF 2.6 billion. We also continue to apply a very conservative investment approach to our bond investment portfolio. As of 31st December 2024, the credit quality of this bond portfolio remained high with an average credit rating of AA-. On the liability side, short-term credits and liabilities grew on the back of an increase in securities financing transactions and the earlier [indiscernible] usage of credit facilities. Leonteq issued products, which we recognize as financial liabilities designated at fair value increased to CHF 5.2 billion to CHF 4.7 billion at the end of 2023.
Lastly, our shareholders' equity increased by 3% to CHF 804 million. This is primarily due to unrealized income related to the bond portfolio as well as due to currency translation adjustments for our structured U.S. dollar position.
Now let's have a more detailed look at our new regulatory regime. I want to first go through the different requirements and explain their impact on the business on Page 15. Effective January 1, 2025, Leonteq is subject to capital and large exposure requirements as defined by the Swiss Capital Adequacy Ordinance. This means that Leonteq is required to hold a capital of 10.5% of its risk-weighted assets, including a common equity Tier 1 buffer of 2.5% of risk-weighted assets. Additionally, Leonteq needs to meet a 3% Tier 1 leverage ratio. Further, Leonteq is required to meet large exposure rules, whereby large exposure to a single counterparty group may not exceed 25% of Leonteq's Tier 1 capital. In terms of liquidity requirements, FINMA will define the final details of an enhanced liquidity regime in the coming months. This new framework, therefore, requires us to adjust parts of our business activities.
In order to achieve an appropriate return on allocated capital, we will reduce business activities on own product offerings, which carry higher risk ratings such as certain products referencing crypto assets is underlying. Where required, we will also introduce minimum margin requirements to focus further on return on risk-weighted assets.
We will be further optimizing our exposures towards our largest counterparties as Leonteq provides hedging activities to white-labelling partners, which creates credit exposures and consumes liquidity. In this regard, Leonteq will introduce hedging exposure limits per issuance partner and focus on return on risk-weighted assets. We will continue to service all our existing white-labelling partners and expect to further diversify our white-labelling partner offering universe through the additions of new partners.
On the next slide, on Page 16, we are highlighting the benefits that the new regime will bring. First of all, Leonteq will be allowed to issue and account for hybrid capital. This new measure will increase Leonteq's flexibility with regards to managing its capital structure in a cost-efficient and shareholder-friendly manner. Secondly, once the new liquidity framework is finalized and subject to regulatory approval, banking counterparties will be allowed to risk weight exposure to Leonteq as if it was a bank or an account holding securities firm counterparty as opposed to a corporate counterparty, which carries much higher risk-weighting charges for our counterparties.
This new measure will reduce banking counterparty capital charges when working with Leonteq accordingly. Finally, the enhanced regulatory framework is expected to support Leonteq's strategic ambitions to further increase recurring revenue streams and to intensify its activities addressing self-directed investors short and midterm.
Let's now go through the implementation timeline of the new regime shown on Page 17. In terms of large exposure, we were preparing for the new regime by implementing a standardized approach for counterparty credit risk. And Leonteq is fully combined with these rules since January 1, 2025. In terms of capital requirements, the final Basel III set of standards are fully implemented starting in 2025 in Switzerland's marketplace. Leonteq currently applies the simplified standard approach for market risks since the beginning of 2025.
As part of the transition process, Leonteq is allowed to temporarily apply a phase-in of scaling factors over the transition period on to mid-2026. Also here, Leonteq fully meets the current applicable requirements. At the same time, we are implementing with high priority, the standardized approach for market risk including the fundamental review of trading book, the so-called FRTB approach. This will be an important milestone as FRTB will take better account of Leonteq's business model than to simplify standard approach and allows Leonteq to further focus on the strategy it has. The adjustment to business activities in the context of this new regime is expected to reduce platform turnover with some of the existing white-labelling partners over time.
On Page 18, we are elaborating on the measures we are taking to address these impacts. It is important to note that the adjustment in terms of margin requirements and hedging exposure limits will be gradually introduced over time. We are planning to increase our balance sheet light business with our existing white-labelling partners, which will reduce the market risk exposure from such hedging activities. We are aiming to increase turnover with own issued products. Here, the new regulatory framework enhances our risk and credit profile, which we expect to be beneficial for clients as well as for counterparties. Furthermore, we expect to increase turnover with products issued by new white-labelling partners.
At the same time, we are diligently managing our cost base and will introduce a cost rightsizing program of up to CHF 10 million. Amongst others, this will include a realignment of our current project portfolio and the further prioritization of our initiatives. These rightsizing measures as well as the regulatory transition will come with one-off costs, which we currently estimate of approximately CHF 10 million for 2025. Overall, taking into account inflationary pressure, in particular in the IT and market data area, Leonteq expects to report total operating expenses, excluding one-off charges of approximately CHF 220 million for the full year 2025.
With that, I would pass back to our CEO, Lukas Ruflin.
Thank you, Hans. I would like to turn your attention now to Page 18, please. As Leonteq is undergoing this important regulatory transition, I am of the strong belief that the new requirements are not only a logical step, but also brings Leonteq to the next level of its corporate development. I am confident that Leonteq will become a more focused and profitable business with a more diversified revenue basis. Obviously, we will need to first focus on the diligent implementation of the new regime and will provide the necessary transparency regarding capital ratios, et cetera, once we have implemented the FRTB.
For now, we will continue to focus on harvesting from our key investment initiatives, including as I mentioned before, the go-live and full market launch of listed leverage products in Switzerland. At this stage, a detailed earnings guidance will be inappropriate. However, we confirm that we expect to report a profitable result for 2025 on an underlying basis. Our underlying basis is defined as reported IFRS profit before taxes, excluding one-off restructuring and regulatory transition charges. The 2026 financial targets are withdrawn and new midterm targets will be announced once the transition to the newly applicable regime has advanced.
Finally, I would like to spend a few minutes on our capital structure and capital return policy. As you will certainly understand during the period in which Leonteq was in discussions with FINMA about the new enhanced regulatory regime, it would have been inappropriate to launch proactively a new share buyback program. With the new regulatory regime, we will be able if we choose to do so, to issue in due course hybrid capital bonds, which as a direct result of their existence will allow us to optimize our capital structure, which today consists only of common equity.
Following the full phase-in of the enhanced regime as well as the completion of the cost saving program by mid-2026, Leonteq expects to free up capital, which it then plans to return to shareholders. In this context, please note that we expect to define target capital ratios that will drive our future capital distribution policy. Until then, Leonteq's capital return policy remains unchanged.
I would like now to move to Page 21, please. I am delighted to announce that Christian Spieler has been appointed as Leonteq's CEO effective 1 March 2025. Christian is an accomplished leader with more than 20 years of experience in financial markets, including in particular in our area of business i.e., in the structured product area. He brings extensive leadership experience in international financial institutions, including Citigroup, Lehmann Brothers and JPMorgan. He also has a deep knowledge about sales, structuring and trading of cross-asset derivatives and the proven track record in building high-performing teams. I'm very optimistic for Leonteq, as I've stated before, and I'm convinced that Christian is ideally suited to lead Leonteq through the upcoming regulatory transition and into the next growth cycle.
On a more personal note, I would like to thank you very much for the trust and support you have shown me during the tenure as CEO of Leonteq. It has been a privilege to work with you, and I look forward to speaking to some of you in-person shortly. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Lukas and Hans for the presentation. We are now happy to start with the Q&A session.
[Operator Instructions]
First question from Daniel Regli, ZKB.
Thank you for the presentation and for having my questions. So maybe first, pretty straightforward question on the -- you guide for an adjusted cost base of CHF 220 million for 2025 and you say you're taking out CHF 10 million, so kind of the new cost base should then be like after all these measures have been implemented should be CHF 210 million. Can you kind of confirm this? And then secondly, obviously, I struggle a bit with what -- or to read what you expect from 2025. And there I would kindly ask you to give us a little bit more clarity, where do you see chances, where do you see upside? Obviously, 2024 and 2023 have been quite challenging years due to a difficult environment. Is that kind of the hope that we should see some recovery on the fee income line.
And then on the other hand, obviously, your guidance of being profitable before any regulatory and one-off charges seems quite cautious. So wouldn't you have been able to say at least that you're profitable even after all these regulatory charges. So what is kind of the expectations of provisions have to be made in relation to these proceedings in France -- and so on -- sorry, maybe the question was a little bit messy, but maybe you get where I wanted you to comment a bit further.
Thank you, Daniel. First of all, good morning to you. I will try to make the answers unmessy. But I'll let Hans start with the first question, Hans.
Thank you, Daniel. Daniel, with regards to the cost base, we have certain effects, specifically on the market data and IT cost side adjustments according to the inflationary but also actually market demand side, which leads to a cost increase on the operating side year-on-year. And we will offset that through those cost measures that we indicated. And as a result, the cost base will afterwards be in the range of the CHF 220 million that we guided for. I hope that answers that part of the question. I will pass.
Yes. Look, Daniel, obviously, your question is a good one and I can confirm that we do not base outlook for future on hope. We base outlook on business dynamics. And first, I really would like to stress this again. We are very pleased but also very grateful to our partners and clients about the exceptionally strong growth in platform activities. The number of transactions are up by a very big percentage. The platform turnover is at record levels, et cetera. We also generally see that the market environment for our industry on the back of continued decrease of interest rates.
We obviously have now a bit of uncertainty coming in from some political dynamics in the U.S., but the trend certainly in Switzerland and Europe, if you look at the interest rate swap curves is continued reduction of base level interest rates should help the industry. Your question ultimately touches on the point of whether our guidance is too cautious. I would answer that it really doesn't make sense for us to provide a guidance and then an hour later in an analyst call change the guidance. So please take our guidance as your [ sticking yard ]. As a general comment, we are on the back of a very strong capital position of more than CHF 800 million. We are fully aware that the return on equity for business of our profile needs to be at higher levels than just being profitable. I think the reality we faced this year is that we obviously, as we are transitioning will need to take into account some of optimization measures that we have available.
Those might directly benefit shareholders in due course as for example, return more capital to shareholders, if we reduce risk-weighted assets. And we really want to provide Christian Spieler and the management team enough flexibility to diligently work through the stream of tasks, they can be optimized and not be burdened by some outlook in terms of the '25 numbers. But you know that we have the liability within our top line of more than EUR 10 million, depending on, for example, a market correction happening or not. So my message to you is, first, please take our guidance as [ sticking yard ].
Second, please take into account a very strong capital basis we have; and three, Leonteq is a profitable firm and the management team will ensure as we go through this regulation, that it's not just a profitable firm, but also at the profitability level that will please shareholders.
And now that the very last question, Dominik just highlighted that your raise was generally relating to provision. Look under IFRS, it's not a healthy decision. It's very clear that whatever we believe should happen as provisioning is reflected in the accounts. So there is no hidden message here in terms of your question relating to regulatory events or not. As I said before, FINMA, we are satisfied that FINMA has concluded this proceeding actions. And if you have further questions specifically on other points, please, I would kindly refer you to the annual report. But there is in terms of provision, confirmation from my side that those are reflected appropriate in our accounts.
Okay. Can I maybe then like just ask one little follow-up question about year 2025. And can you just maybe talk a bit about the market environment and you have seen in like December 2024 and January 2025.
Yes. Sure. Look, I would say there are 3 trends and dynamics you need to take into account. The first one is on the back of now multiyear low volatility environment, we see particularly in our historic business activity, a certain margin compression. That's something you have seen happening almost on a half year basis, and that's roughly at the levels in terms of this year's developments I've seen before. So I wouldn't necessarily now say it's continuing but for now there is still that dynamic in the market that there is a certain lower margin than historically witnessed. But we also believe that as time goes by, they can change.
The second reality is that we are a business where increased volatility is generally supportive. We have seen in the last 2 weeks, an increase of volatility, but that's a difficult area to guide for the full year. There, again, the reiteration that if volatility increases or stays elevated, that would benefit Leonteq and if the reverse happens, it's a little bit less beneficial. And then there is obviously the substitution effect in terms of investor asset allocation, higher interest rates means more attractive fixed income yields. It also means that intermediaries are happy about cash clients assets sitting in terms of cash on the bank's balance sheet. Obviously, as interest rates are lower, those effects are less pronounced and that should benefit us.
The next question from Sylvan Pere, AlphaValue.
So I have 2 questions on my side. The first question is on the retail flow business. Could you provide us with more details of what we should expect from this business in terms of contribution in 2025 and 2026. And outside of Switzerland, do you have a timetable regarding the expansion of the business into other countries? And my second question is on the new regulatory regime. Once this new regime will be fully phased in, will you update your dividend policy, raising your dividend payout ratio target? Or will you favor buybacks instead?
Yes. Thank you very much. In terms of the retail flow business, I would hand over to Hans Widler.
Thanks a lot for your question, Sylvan. As we announced, we will go live with retail flow activities in Switzerland, starting at the Swiss Exchange in Q1 2025. We do a soft launch, that is we will list at the beginning approximately 20 products per day. So we want to see first how the respective business develops in Switzerland. We plan to move then afterwards to Germany and subsequently likely to Italy in the course of 2026. From that perspective, we do not expect a large double-digit contribution amount in the current year, but rather a stable single-digit contribution for the current year from the retail flow business activities.
With regards to the capital and dividend policy, we mentioned that also earlier in our presentation that, of course, upon full implementation of the respective regulatory regime the dividend policy will be updated. We foresee that to be the case in approximately 12 months at the latest, often the full completion of the regulatory regime implementation. And obviously, we will orient the capital return and dividend policy on the total capital ratio requirements for the capital aftewards.
And in terms of the format of returning capital, we would obviously also listen to input from our shareholders. But typically said you either can return capital in the form of dividends or you can obviously do share buybacks. And given that our price book, respectively, our equity per share and NAV per share is at [ EUR 46 ], at this level the share buyback would have a certain attractiveness to shareholders. But as Hans highlighted, the Board would conclude on this decision subsequently when the time comes.
Our next question from [indiscernible], Octavian.
Maybe a bit following also on the new regulation implementation. I see from your slides, you expect the phasing to be by mid-2026. And beyond the capital policy, when can we expect now new midterm guidance since the 2026 has been withdrawn. Then another question is we tackle the margin compression. You mentioned definitely market has not been supportive, but what action can you take beyond the adverse market to basically recover your margin and get to a more like normalized level that should be around 20 bps or higher.
And then the final -- also on the new business initiative, you mentioned that you are launching the retail flow in Switzerland coming up, you had also mentioned in the past, a big part was Germany, and I understand there had been maybe a bit of delay. Is it anything also to do with some regulatory issue with the delay in Germany? That's my question.
Thank you very much. So just maybe again to reiterate on the regulatory regime, we welcome this development. And also with you on [indiscernible], I always had the difficulty to explain why Leonteq was carrying an CHF 800 million capital basis when under the old regime, that the requirement was CHF 20 million. We consistently demonstrated and reiterated that this was important for the strength and trust in our ecosystem we need and want to have a very strong balance sheet in that regard. And with now newly widely understood capital regime being implemented, it will make our communication significantly more easy.
Obviously, as I said before, to provide on a short-term basis, midterm targets is inappropriate, but we'll work through the areas to do on our to-do list fast. And as soon as rightly updated midterm targets will be provided, but I ask for your kind patience in that regard. We want to be sure that those targets are based on various measures that will have been implemented by then. So it will take a bit of time. I will pass the second question on margin development to Hans, but before I do so, I'll briefly address your third question, which was regarding the retail flow business activity in Switzerland and subsequently in Germany.
No, there has not been a delay because of particular external developments. The fact of the matter is that we, from the very beginning, wanted to not just becoming an active market participant, but also to base our offering on a new technological platform, which also explains the significant cash amounts we invested over the last years into this area.
We obviously in that context wants to benefit from significant software and hardware development in terms of computational power capacity as an example, that the world witnessed in the last year. So we already built up a new platform from scratch. It took a bit longer than we anticipated. We are very, very pleased about the capability of this new platform. You remember, [indiscernible] that we wanted to go-live in Switzerland in '24. We did not. We will go live now this year and subsequently the go-live times also of our next markets are on the time schemes, also put behind, but that's just really a logical sequence stemming from the time by when we can go full live with the platform.
On the margin, Hans?
Yes, thank you, [indiscernible], for your question. On the margin side, we have to drop from 90 basis points to 70 basis points. And before I go into the answer of the question itself, normalized, excluding really the large low-margin trades this year and the high-margin trade we have in 2023, the drop would be approximately 10 basis points. So per se, we saw a decline in margins over time, and we expect it to be on a normalized manner rather in the in the range of 80 basis points, which we expect to be also the case in the foreseeable future.
But the way we really address it is, in essence, threefold. On 1 side, it's rather from a strategic perspective that we focus given the new regulatory regime on the balance sheet light business with the diversification on new partners. And obviously, with return on risk-weighted assets. That is we will put a higher focus on the profitability than we had in the past compared to the volume growth, which comes from our perspective, by nature, given the technology platform that we have.
With regards to the strategic business initiatives otherwise, on top of the retail flow business, we continue with the clients -- with the direct-to-customer strategy by investing further into LynQs and the AMC platform but also into the public offering and in U.K. into the PSLN offering, preferring a new product that we have in place. The PSLN is the preferred share linked note. Then with regards to the product diversification, we have the diversification into leveraged products as part of the retail flow strategy into participation products and capital protection products. And that obviously helps us to continue maintaining our margin that we have.
And with the new regime, does it mean that potentially crypto is going to be dying because of extreme capital requirement?
Well, that's a good question, and that's certainly one of the areas we'll be looking at, but we do not expect to use your words, that any of our client offerings per se are going to die. But we'll obviously look at optimizing risk-weighted assets. And there are certainly ample avenues for us to do so without the activity per se dying. But of course, we will properly assess this in the course of this transition.
The next question from Reto Huber, Research Partners.
Just one question left for me. I'm still confused about Slide 17, there you say that the optimization of exposure towards the largest counterparties you say that fully implemented. So I was wondering can you quantify what this means for your platform turnover and/or net fee income in 2025?
Yes, thank you very much for the question. On Slide 17, the large exposure requirement as highlighted is fully implemented and effective since the 1st of January. There is no short-term impact at all. But we have highlighted that in the course of further optimization of our regulatory -- new regulatory capital regime. We will, as one of the optimization step also want to reduce some peak turnover exposure and hedging exposure to certain white-labelled partners. However, I want to be clear on that. We can still entirely service those turnovers through other technological means we have, including, for example, the balance sheet light business activities. Whilst doing so, we obviously also on a prudent basis, want to guide that as we expect. Nevertheless, over time, and I stress here over time, some of this turnover to reduce, we will focus on offsetting those reduction on the measures highlighted. But on your specific question, short term, no impact.
Okay. And over time means a few months or a few years?
No. I would say, over time, you should probably look at the transitional time that we want to optimize and that's, I would say, 18, 24 months. But I also would like to highlight, today, we are able to service all our white-labelled partners and clients as we stand. But of course, at the same time, we want to benefit shareholders through optimization measures and a certain reduction of risk-weighted basis would allow an increase of capital distribution and there will need to be an optimization exercise to be undertaken in order to find the right equilibrium of balancing the various interest. So it's really not per se a negative message, but it's a message that we want to further look at optimization anyways.
Our next question from Christoph Grow, AWP.
If I get it right, you said that you have outgrown the old regulatory regime. Can you maybe explain that a little bit to me? I'm just not quite clear how does that work?
Yes, sure. Thank you for your question. Look, as we have highlighted in the presentation, we have built since founding the business in 2007 an ecosystem of providing structured investment opportunities to end clients, but also providing outsourcing service to mid and large size banks, both in Switzerland and abroad. As a regulated entity in itself, Leonteq, of course, was subject to adequate regulatory expectations.
But if you just followed the legal text of the law until the end of '24, we had a defined capital requirement of CHF 20 million. Now put the CHF 20 million in the context of our activities, more than 275,000 client transactions on the platform. We obviously, as a business by virtue of being active, have also certain operational risk more than CHF 28 billion of platforms, a turnover a year. And you always face a CHF 20 million capital basis. You have, as we have seen in over the years, sometimes external shocks coming your way, like the COVID crisis where we had even U.S. government bonds for 1 day becoming illiquid.
And just on paper, Leonteq fits with the CHF 20 million capital base. It is obvious, and that's something that Leonteq has raised from the very first day onwards when this new regime, which came into place in Switzerland, the January 1, 2020, that with a CHF 20 million capital basis, there could be some sort of headwinds coming your way, which would very quickly make Leonteq capital basis and solidity look a little bit weak.
That's why the Board and Management with the support of shareholders has further capitalized the business to over CHF 800 million equity over the last year depending on the currency rate that is more or less close to USD 1 billion. And that's obviously an amount which should allow and will allow Leonteq to sell well through volatile times if they were to occur. It just also happened so that volatile times for Leonteq are usually an opportunity to service clients in dynamic circumstances. And for that, we obviously want to be well capitalized and strongly liquid.
The difficulty we have seen in the last years was that whilst were very strongly capitalized, we had certain difficulty explaining that to some of our counterparties, including banks, because that is as far as I know, no bank which looks at absolute capital and liquidity amount, they look at ratios. Now under the prevailing past regulatory regime, we were unable to report those ratios because they obviously did not apply to us. That's now changed since the 1st of January. We welcome this change, and we will, as a result of the change, be able to communicate, obviously, to all our stakeholders, but in particular, also to our banking counterparties, capital ratios, et cetera, which are commensurate to what they do, which they understand and which allows them on a cost basis to make an assessment. We also have the benefit under the new regime that in due course, and subject to regulatory approval and the implementation of liquidity regime to be defined by FINMA in its final terms.
Those counterparties will be able to risk weight, i.e., take into account the exposure to Leonteq the same as if we were a banking or account holding security firm institution. That is important because currently, the risk weighting we have for those banks is as a corporate institution that comes with twice as high capital risk weighting, then if it is a banking counterparty or account holding on securities firm.
Okay. I guess that answers the question. Thank you all for participating. We are at the end of the conference, and we will close today's call.
Thank you all very much.
Thank you very much for your participation. Thank you.
