B3 Sa Brasil Unsp/Adr

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the B3 Earnings Results presentation for the first quarter of 2026, where André Milanese, B3 CFO, will discuss the results along Fernando Campos, Investor Relations Associate Director. We would like to inform you that all participants will be in a listen-only mode during the company's presentation. After the company's remarks are completed, there will be a question and answer section when further instructions will be given. As a reminder, this conference is being broadcast live via webcast. The replay will be available after the event is concluded.

Hello, Fernando Campos from B3's Investor Relations team, and I'm here with André Milanes, the company CFO, to comment on the results for the first quarter of 2026. To begin, André, could you provide an overview of the quarter, which was a strong quarter, with a positive scenario, and how the business model of the company could make the most of this important quarter for us?

Sure, Fernando. The first quarter was marked by a very, as you said, favorable environment for the Brazilian capital markets with increased volatility and a relevant inflow of foreign capital during the quarter. In this context, our business model once again demonstrated its ability to capture the opportunities of a positive scenario supported by a balanced combination of pro-cyclical revenues which directly benefit from increased activity and recurring revenues, which continued to deliver solid performance and more predictable results. As a result of that, B3 reached total revenue of R$ 3.2 billion in the first quarter of 26, representing a growth of 21% when compared to the first quarter of 25. And it was the highest quarterly revenue in the company's history. The group of pro-cyclical business composed of derivatives and equities increased 24%, while the group of recurring revenues grew 17% in the quarter. I'd also like to mention some additional highlights and records during the quarter. We recorded the highest average daily volume in the history of derivatives in March 26, with 16.6 million contracts, the highest average daily traded volume in equities for the last five years in February, 39.2 billion reais, We had 14 billion in follow-ons during the first quarter and growth of nearly 400,000 accounts in the equities depository over 12 months compared to March 25. These indicators reinforce the resilience and operating leverage of our business, which combines scale and diversification, allowing us to capture growth when the market heats up, while at the same time sustaining robust revenues across different cycles. Fernando will now provide more details on the operating performance of our main segments. Fernando?

Thank you, André. Starting with derivatives, the ADV, average daily volume, totaled 13.2 million contracts, representing an increase of 16% compared to the first quarter of 2025. with highlighting BRL interest rates, which recorded historical volumes levels in March, as mentioned by André. It's also worth highlighting the strong performance of COPOM options, which recorded significant growth and contributed with R$ 25 million to the segment revenue. In cash equities, ADTV reached 34.8 billion, representing an increase of 46% compared to the first quarter of 25 and 33% compared to the fourth quarter of 35, mainly driven by the net inflow of 54 billion reais in foreign capital during the period. I would also like to highlight the performance of ETFs, BDRs, and listed funds, which increase their relevance, growing close to 58%, which reinforces the strategy of product and investor-based diversification. In fixed income and credit, we continue to observe a constructive environment. Issuances and outstanding balances increased 9% and 18% respectively on a year-on-year basis, and Treasury Direct delivered another strong quarter with 46% increase in outstanding balances, closing the period with 3.4 million investors. In recurring revenue, performance remained consistent. Data analytic solutions, referred now as Trilha since February, increased 23% of its revenues, reflecting stronger demand from the credit, loss prevention, and insurance verticals, as well as the new billing structure for the S&G in certain states, which had an impact of R$ 25 million on the segment's revenue, with the same amount impact in the revenue-linked expenses. Capital market solutions advanced 29%, driven by higher offering activity and growth in the investor base, in addition to price adjustments in market data and the expansion of capital markets analytics products. Technology and platforms increased 15%, supported by client base expansion and contractual price adjustments. Andrea will now comment on the financial performance and cost discipline. Thank you, Fernando.

On the expense side, we continue to maintain a very disciplined management. Our total expenses increased 10.9% when compared to the first quarter of 2025. When we exclude revenue-linked expenses, as mentioned by Fernando, and one-off items, growth was close to inflation. Adjusted expenses increased 6%, reflecting our continued focus on operating efficiency, even with ongoing investments in new initiatives, technology and products. As a result, our recurring EBITDA reached 2.1 billion reais representing an increase of 24 percent with a margin of 71.6 percent demonstrating the strong operating leverage of our business recurring net income total 1.5 billion reais an increase of 33 percent compared to the first quarter of 25 and recurring earnings per share reached 30 cents a share, which represented a growth of almost 40%. In this case, reflecting the execution of the share buyback program throughout last year. On the innovation front, we advanced with the launch of financial event contracts for the AIBO Vespa, US dollar and the Bitcoin, in addition to the extension of trading hours for crypto assets and gold futures. These initiatives reinforce our strategy to continue to expand the product portfolio and offer accessible instruments with controlled risk and greater flexibility for our investors.

Thank you, André. And with that, we conclude our comments on the results for the first quarter of 2026.

Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. If you have a question, please press the raise hand button. If you are connected by phone, dial star 9 for raise your hand. If your question is answered, you can leave the queue by clicking on put your hand down or dialing star 9. Our first question comes from Mario Pierre with Bank of America.

Hey, guys. Good morning. Congratulations on the results. Indeed, quite strong, a lot of momentum. I wanted to focus on something that you did not talk about, and that's the search for the new CEO with the announcement that Gilson is stepping down later this year. Can you tell us or remind us what is the progress, where do you stand, when should we expect the new name to be announced? Thank you.

Morning, Mario.

Thank you for the question. Well, basically, we've announced the departure of Jules, and he's going to be with us until the end of June, as we disclosed in the material fact. The board is carrying out the process to define the new presidents of the company. As we mentioned, this has been carried out in a structured way since last year. The reason why we ended up having to announce the departure of Gilson before a new name was selected was because the information got to the press. and we had to be transparent and let you know where we were in the process. The board is carrying out that process, and as soon as they have a definition on the new name, we will be communicating that to the market, but there is not a deadline as such for that to take place.

Okay, that's clear. So let me ask you then another question unrelated. You talked about the new products that you launched, especially in predictive markets. Can you tell us, I think they were launched in April, right? Like any data that you can share with us how successful these products are going? so far, have you seen any significant volumes? What needs to happen for volumes to pick up?

Sure. So it's fairly recent. We're talking about the launch was essentially around two weeks ago. You have to remember that there's still a restriction on those products, so they can only be offered to what we call professional investors, so that reduces significantly the amount of potential, the number, let's put it this way, of potential users of that product. We already had some trades in some of those contracts, but it's still very early days. We are continuing to work regulators to try to remove that restriction and allow access to all kinds of investors to such products. And I think that's going to be important for us to see more activity around these new contracts. But they already have been launched and we have seen some activity, but at this stage, it's still very limited.

All right. Very clear. Thank you, guys.

Thank you, Mario.

Our next question comes from Tito Labata with Goldman Sachs.

Hey, Andre, Fernando. Thank you for the call and taking my question. A couple questions also, you know, very strong results given all the activity that we're seeing and those at GATE will continue to see good activity as well. Just given all this interest in Brazil and foreign inflows, thinking more the benefit on the margin, right, because margin was up a bit in the quarter and we already have your guidance for expenses, but just if these flows continue and volumes remain at the levels that they are, is there more upside risk to the margin, at least in the short term, because you don't really have to spend a lot more to get these incremental flows and volumes, just to think about how that can evolve in the short term. And then the second question, just in terms of capital market activity, as you highlighted, right, you had almost 14 billion reais in follow-ons. How do you think that continues to evolve and also pipeline for IPOs and just how that capital market activity may continue to evolve, also considering how rates may move or not and how that could impact the market? opportunity set for some of these companies to work.

Thank you. Thank you for the question, Tito. Regarding margins, I think, you know, we've discussed that in the past. A company has our business model, let's put it this way, provides us with a high degree of operational leverage. As a result of that When people were asking us last year whether if we were to see an increase in revenues, if that would represent margin expansion, we would be saying yes, that the first quarter reinforces what we have been saying. So as you rightly pointed out, that growth doesn't come or doesn't need additional expenditure to support that growth. So most of that increase translates into the bottom line and, therefore, into margin expansion. The only, I would say, exception to that is what we describe as the revenue-linked expenses, but they are a small portion of our expenditure and they are linked to a relatively small portion of our revenue. So in summary, yes, I think if we continue to see strong performance on the revenue side, we could see margins expanding, given the operational leverage that our business model provides. Regarding capital markets activity, I think we We're going to have on Monday the first IPO after a while. The transaction was successfully priced yesterday. We do have several companies that are already prepared or in the process of becoming ready for an IPO. So we don't have a problem of supply, let's put it this way. There are at least 50 companies that are ready and another 50 that are either very close to becoming ready or in the process of preparing themselves. The biggest problem that we have been seeing in in the last months or so was a problem of demand, given the environment, higher rates, etc. So we're going to have to see. I think if the conditions allow other companies to also come to the market, We have supply. That's the main point here.

Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Great. Thanks a lot, Andre, and congrats again on the strong results. Thank you, Tito.

Next question from Caio Prato with UBS.

Hi, Andre. Hi, Fernando. Good morning. I have two questions on my side, please. The first one is on the non-trading revenues, the recurring ones, which we saw growing close to 20% this quarter, which is quite strong. So I would like to hear from you, what is the expectation of most of those lines going forward? Because we had some pickups since the second half of last year. So just wondering if this is more related now to a low comp base And you could see some normalization for the second half. Or if we can expect this kind of growth for the quarters. And if so, what are the key drives for that? And the second one, if I may, we talk a lot about AI opportunities on the cost side with potential some optimization and so on. But I would like to hear from you what you see on the revenue side as well. What would be the opportunities and even risk here and how meaningful it could be going forward.

Thank you. Thank you, Caio, for the question. I'm going to just make a quick follow-up on the last question from Tito that I think it is, I forgot to mention, but I think it is important that we will see a first company successfully having an IPO and And I think that could encourage other companies to pursue this opportunity this year. Again, we need to see whether the conditions are going to be there, but I think it is a very positive sign that we finally had one company that was able to access the market with a secondary offering. Regarding your question about the recurring revenues, I think the only one-off that we had was the change in the, let's say, the billing model for the SMG, as we described and disclosed in our release. So this is basically a change where part of the revenue that was being charged directly by our partner in this product is now being charged by B3 and then rebated. We have a rebate of that portion flowing through the revenue-linked expenses. So that's the only item, I guess, that we could consider to be no recurring or we should potentially exclude from that growth. But other than that, I think the performance has been very good and we don't see reasons why that should not continue throughout the year. Of course, there are challenges here in terms of continuing to increase the product offering, continue to increase the penetration of the products that have already been being launched, but I believe we are on the right track here. Regarding your question about AI and potential risks and threats or opportunities as well for us, you know, I think first, our competitive advantage here does not, I'd say, lie in us being an AI-first company. or anything like that, but in our role as a market infrastructure and in the fact that we have access to large scale, proprietary, regulated and hard to replicate data. Today we are seeing that AI models and agents are increasingly becoming available And the real value here is going to be on the quality, on the exclusivity, and the ability of combining these different sets of data, which sits at the core of what we have here, of all the different businesses that we carry out. I think, you know, we... uh own and intermediate data sets that we don't see um or there are none available outside of our environment capital markets credit vehicles agribusiness and and also the ability of cross-referencing all these um let's say different domains of data sets uh I think, you know, AI can enhance analytical capabilities to analyze data, et cetera, but it cannot, you know, replace data that is not there or is not available. Examples that we have here, like combining public welfare data with You know, proprietary data on investment positions to identify fraud or fraud running is not something that an AI agent can do without having access to that proprietary data. From a client perspective, I think AI often increases demand for these kind of products. Many customers will prefer to buy ready available and designed models and scores that potentially can be adjusted, but, you know, rather than trying to replicate all of that in-house and because, at the end of the day, they don't have access to that unique and proprietary data. I think we in the data business have already been applying AI for a while, well before, you know, gen AI with, you know, data capabilities using machine learning and these kind of things. Of course, these things are now evolving. We have, for instance, examples of use cases in the healthcare industry with applied AI to automate reimbursement analysis for one of the largest healthcare operators in the country. This solution uses AI to analyze documents and assign a unique digital fingerprint to each request, preventing fraud from occurring before the payment is made. As a result of this solution that was developed in partnership with that particular client, the operation avoided nearly 10 million in cost within the first months of operation. Besides, you know, accelerating the reimbursement decision and therefore the customer experience as well. You know, I think we have other examples here, but I think Overall, I think the main message here is that AI, we see that as a productivity accelerator and market expander for us. The long-term defensive mode remains the same. I mean, proprietary data, ability to cross-reference these different data sets and domains. And our position as a core financial market infrastructure, I think puts us in a position to have more opportunities than threats as a result of adoption of AI. And where, you know, these products are deeply integrated with data that is unique in a sense and end-to-end businesses processes. I think AI only strengthens our position and not threatens the value proposition of what we are trying to deliver with those solutions.

Great, André. Really comprehensive. Thank you very much for the answer.

Our next question comes from Pedro Leduc with Itaú BBH.

Thank you guys so much. Question on trading margins for equities. Of course, we saw a little bit of a decline here. If you could help us understand if it's mixed or already volumes triggering some different pricing tiers. Same for fixed income. I saw some variations. Just an overview on here would be great. Thank you.

Thank you for the question, Leduc. main reason for that was volume expansion as you know our schedule of prices already has some level of operational leverage that is shared with clients as we see volumes growing so I think it is natural to expect as volumes become larger and larger that the average margin may reduce. Of course, it's not the entire operating leverage that is being shared, but part of that, as we have always said we would be doing in our pricing schedule already, includes that kind of mechanism. And I think besides that, we also had a strong strong volumes of options exercised during this quarter, which also impacted average margins. But other than that, nothing really unusual happening in terms of our average prices here.

Do you feel like the pricing scheme as you have today is adequate? Are you looking to still fine-tune it? I remember last year you did some changes between market makers. Is the way we're seeing it today the way it should remain for the year?

Look, I think fine-tuning that is a non-going process for us. We are making adjustments from time to time, but, you know, go straight to your uh point that i don't i don't think there is anything relevant at least in in the radar today uh that we need to address uh in relation to that but you know small adjustments will continue to take place as as as we evolve and as we identify potential um uh you know problems or distortions that need to be resolved. That's an ongoing process, but I don't see anything relevant in the radar for the coming months. Thank you, Milanese, and congrats. Thank you.

Our next question is from Daniel Vaz with Safra.

Hi, guys. Hi, Milanese. Hi, Fernando. I guess good results again, and congrats for the results. And I think most of the questions have been answered on your P&L. I just maybe have one on trade receivables, the duplicatas, right? A few years ago, lots of discussion, including from new players as Serki, around there was a market of trillion reais to be explored. I think the topic has been become less frequent as focus kind of shifts back to the competition, trading, post-trading with the new players around. But right now, I guess we are approaching 2027. The new framework or the new regulation requires some companies, some big companies to be complained. And if you could update your progress, how relevant this, this registration market an opportunity could be for you and if you have any updates or any TAM that you would like to comment on a nominal basis for us. Thank you.

Thank you for the question, Vaz. I think it's funny that you're asking that because only yesterday we had a positive development here. We were... not the only ones, of course, but we were approved and we will not start what they have been calling as a live assistance phase of the testing here in this project. We are very excited with what we have been achieving so far. We see that as a medium and long-term initiative that could be relevant for the company was one of the initiatives that we discussed during our investor day last year besides you know data fixed income new technologies and new features such as you know tokenization stable coins etc but you know receivables was one of the initiatives that we listed as relevance in one of the areas of focus for the company We also believe that we will be able to differentiate ourselves from other players in these markets, giving our ability to deliver a more comprehensive value proposition to our customers, combining not only our capabilities on the registration front, but also combining data solutions that we can offer payment solutions that we can combine in that offering. And I think that's what's going to make the difference in this environment, our ability to deliver a value proposition that goes beyond only the registration of those receivables. And we will continue to focus on that this year as we discuss we will not see any revenue from that initiative coming to, starting to see that initiative contributing to our results from next year onwards. But yeah, so an important milestone that we have achieved here in that initiative, and now we begin the, the assisted lives phase of the project.

Thank you. If I may follow up on that, do you have any estimates on the profit pool of this market? I mean, any 1% share could give you X percent of incremental net profit. I know it's a very huge market, margins are very low, but the volumetry is very huge, right? any math, anything that you could share with us so far?

Look, I mean, we can make several assumptions here. What I can tell you is that it can be meaningful. We can be looking at, you know, hundreds of millions of reais in revenues in that initiative.

Okay, thank you. Very clear.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Renato Meloni with Autonomous Research.

Hi, everyone. Good morning, and congrats on the results. I wanted to explore a little bit the pricing dynamics here on the derivatives side. you saw the average RPC contracting year on year and quarter on quarter. So I wonder first if you could explain how much came from FX and how much coming from shorter duration contracts. And then if you can expand that a little bit, I'm curious about your perspective on the dynamic here this year, like given the volatility, if you continue seeing this short duration contracts and if that's still affecting prices. Thank you.

Thank you for your question, Renato. I think I'm going to make just a general comment and I'll pass on to Fernando to go through the details in each of the products. We had a very, very strong activity in March as a result of all the volatility and uncertainty that came with the beginning of the war between the US and Iran. uh as as you guys probably seen uh you know the interest rate curve here in brazil was shifting you know 15 10 20 basis points every every day uh a central bank had to to intervene at some stage so uh it was a very very um volatile moment uh that after I don't expect to see that the same level of volatility and the same level of activity, except if we have an exceptional event such as the one we were discussing, again, right, so I think that's important. We do see room for improvement, but I think, you know, assuming the same level of activity that we see in March does not seem to be very likely. Let's put it this way. But I'll defer here to Fernando to comment on the details of each product.

Sure. Thank you, André. So here I think it's important to understand the dynamics of the different contracts. So starting with interest rates in DRL, I think you're right. There was a lot of volumes in shorter duration contracts. mainly due to the volatility from the war that André mentioned. There was a lot of volatility with the coupon decision, which was really short-term. And that triggered not only the DI future, but we did have, and this is important, we did have expressive and good volume in coupon options. which are kind of a production market contract. So we did have almost a million contracts of daily volume. And this is a short contract. So here I think it's important to underline this in interest rates in DRL. When we are talking about effects and interest rates in U.S., mainly the effects here, so those two, Those two contracts are linked to the U.S. We are seeing software U.S. recently. So this is impacting prices and RPC, so it's nothing to do with different pricing policies. It's mainly market conditions here. But it's important for all contracts. The volumes are, we have a pretty efficient, Pricing scheduling derivatives that these towns are triggered when we reach certain levels of volume. So I think that's the main impact. And for other quarters, if we see low volumes and we see everything reversing, probably we're going to see higher prices. So bear in mind that it's an efficient pricing schedule that is related to volumes into all those other conditions, the specifics that I mentioned. Perfect. Thanks, guys.

Next question from Maria Mazzoni with Bradesco.

Hi. It's me. It's Marcelo. My question, I have two questions. So first is regarding the new model of S&G. So how it will impact the revenues, so in terms of the revenues linked to the expenses related? Gaining efficiency on this part, so the expenses related could be lower to the revenues as a percentage is the first question. After that, I will do the second one. Thank you.

Thank you, Mizahi. Actually, a while ago, right, for certain states in the country, we were already charging the full amount of the LEE and of the GRAVAMI and then, you know, passing part of that to our partner in that product. But that was not the case for the liens in all the states in Brazil. The change that we saw taking place last year as a result of a renegotiation that we had with that partner was that we decided to unify the way that was being charged for the whole country. That means that for those states where we were providing the information about the lien on the vehicle and charging the customer with two invoices, one from us and the other one from the Boston, we are now doing that in a single invoice issued by D3E. And the share that was previously being collected by the partner is now being paid by us. So really, there is no increase here or profit for us. It's just an increase in the revenue and pretty much the same increase flowing through the revenue-linked expenses.

Okay. Okay. My second question is regarding the margin. So you already talked about the margins related to the equity side. But I'm trying to understand, as we saw in this quarter, even with a reduction of the margins, on equity, so even with the new prices. So some of the progress, we saw a reduction of the prices on our ticket, but even with that, total margins of the company were better than the last quarter, better than the last year. So even with that, we saw the company gaining leverage. And my question is regarding a better scenario in terms of the environment of the revenue. what's the leverage of the margins that we believe that the company could get, could achieve, maintaining the same strategy and maintaining the same prices that are now?

Thank you. Look, I think, you know, we have a very strong and a very high degree of operational leverage. It's hard to tell you how far can that go But, I mean, if you look back a few years, you already have a taste of how that plays out. You know, at some point we had margins that were around 60, 60-something. With improvement on the activity, on volumes, on revenues, those margins expanded. At some point they reached almost 80%, and then they reduced. a little bit as a result of contraction on those more pro-cyclical businesses. So that depends on your assumption about how strong activity can become in a more favorable environment, but there is definitely room for expansion as a result of such operational leverage. But it is also worth highlighting, as we always say, that if at some point we believe or feel that the level of operational leverage that we are sharing with customers is not sufficient, we will then revisit that. I think the current schedule of prices has been somehow adjusted for a certain level of activity, but if that picks up and reach a much higher level, we might need to revisit how much of that operational leverage is being shared with our customers.

Okay, thank you.

Next question from Carlos Gomez Lopez with HSBC.

Hello, Andre. Good morning. And again, congratulations on a very, very good quota. I want to go back to the financial side of the business. Can you repeat your target in terms of leverage? I understand you're still going for the two times EBITDA. Obviously, your EBITDA is increasing. Should we expect more debt issuance from you? And second, in terms of the use of cash, we saw that you did not do buybacks this quarter. You prefer to do interest on capital. What do you think you will be doing for the rest of the year, given where the stock price is today? Would you consider to use the combination of buybacks and dividends, or would you be inclined to give more dividends this time? Thank you.

Thank you, Carlos. Regarding your first question around our leverage target, our guidance, it's a leverage ratio up to 2.2 times recurring EBITDA. We are probably now around two times, and that's That's probably where we're going to be around the two times, but without going above the guidance that we provided, at least that's the intention for now. So we should be around that level. Regarding your question about cash distributions and instruments that are going to be used to do that, We always said that the excess cash would be returned back to shareholders through a combination of buybacks and interest on capital and dividends. We will always be paying interest on capital because they bring a tax incentive for the company, and we always will buy some shares at least the minimal amount that's going to be needed to meet our obligations under the long-term incentive plans that the company offers to its employees. And then, you know, basically we will be putting more weight towards buybacks or dividends as a function of you know, the share price, given the strong appreciation that we've seen in the beginning of the year, we reduced significantly the execution of the buyback program. And if that remains being the case throughout the year, it is reasonable for you to expect that that cash generation is going to be returned through through cash payments using dividends and IOC.

Okay, so to summarize, given the current price at 18 and change, you are still more inclined to do dividends than to do buybacks, to put it a bit quickly.

We will put more weight towards dividends than buyback at this stage, which was completely the different situation from last year.

We understand. One last thing. Can you indicate us what your effective tax rate will be as it looks now?

That's more tricky. I think, you know, if you look at our effective rate last year, right, and take into account, as you know, that we will see a 3% increase in social contribution starting us from April, I think that's a good proxy that you can use to estimate our effective tax rate.

Okay.

Thank you. Next question from Gustavo Schroding with CIGI.

Hi. Hi, good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my question. Most of my questions were answered by, but I would like to explore this new Desenrola program, Desenrola 2.0. I remember that in the first Desenrola program, you were involved, you participated in that. So my question is, are you planning to to participate in this 2.0 again. Have you talked to the players, to the stakeholders in this program? And if you could elaborate on that, that would be great. And congrats on the results. Thanks.

Thank you, Jordan. Look, I think the program this time is different from the one that we were involved in the past. It's a different setup. We have been discussing whether we could potentially help or participate in certain parts, but we will definitely not have the same kind of role that we had during the first one. But that's where we are with that.

Cool. Thank you, guys. Thank you.

Next question from Yuri Fernandes with JP Morgan.

Hi, guys. Good morning. Hi, Melanes, Fernando. Congrats also on the results. I have just one on competition. Here, if you can provide an update, what is going on. I guess a few days ago, one of your competitors announced the hire of a former employee. They also mentioned in the news article that they should have all the systems tested and approvals done by the second quarter and likely start operating later this year. But we also know that sometimes those things can take more time. So my question is, do you think this is feasible? Like, are you seeing the competitors getting ready or like systems being tested inside the tree?

Thank you for your question, Yuri. Look, I think, you know, it's difficult for us to estimate the timeline for these players. I think the only thing I can comment on is that these processes take place, not only the regulatory approvals, but, you know, the technology development, the the adjustments, the connections with clients, whether this is achievable or not, it's more hard for us to comment on. In relation to your comments about a former employee, he was a former executive of the company that was already outside the daily operations of the company for a while. It had a non-compete agreement throughout that period that decided to join the initiative. In a sense, I mean, having people like that joining the project or that we know that it's very knowledgeable of you know, and concern about systemic risks, et cetera, prevents us from something that sometimes we have concerns over, potentially having a race to the bottom and trying to compete based on, you know, lowering regulatory requirements and these sort of things. So I think in that sense, having someone like him prevents such things from happening. But our focus here remains in ensuring that, you know, we are ahead of these new competitors, that we are not leaving space for them to differentiate themselves through products or through technology. and we will continue to focus on being ahead of these new initiatives, ensuring that we are continuously bringing new products and bringing innovation to the market, and that we are evolving our technology, our platforms, so that these guys are going to have a much harder time in trying to really create a value proposition to compete with us.

Super clear. Thank you, Milanese, and congrats. Thank you, Yuri.

This concludes today's question and answer session. I would like to invite Andrei Milanese to proceed with his closing statements.

Thank you all for joining this call, which was of the results of the best quarter ever that the company had. We will continue to work hard to deliver this kind of results and also to continue to work on the initiatives and the agenda of innovation, bringing new products and services to the market and helping with the development of our capital and financial market. Hope to see you during our next call. Thank you again for joining. Have a nice weekend.

That does conclude B3's presentation for today. Thank you very much for your participation and have a nice day.