The FinTech Report Podcast: Episode 62: Dan Jowett, CEO, Openmarkets Group (OMG)

Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Fintech Report Podcast. I'm your host Glenn Frost. Thank you for taking the time to listen to our conversation. This podcast is brought to you in partnership with Banter. They help build automated, scalable, secure and uh compliant programs that work for you whether it's SoC2, ISO 27001 or managing vendor risk. Vanta's AI powered platform makes it easier and faster. According to a recent IDC study, Banta customers save on average over uh, $500,000 a year and compliance are over 100% more productive. Visit vanta.comfintech to connect with Vanta. That's v a n-t a.comfintech I also want to thank our friends at Australian Fintech for their support. Sign up for their free FinTech newsletter@australianfintech.com today. I am delighted to welcome Dan Jowett at Open Markets Group. Dan is the CEO of Open Markets Group. Prior to that he was the COO of Stockbrokers, Short and UM Partners and prior to that was with accounting and consultancy firms PwC and KPMG. OpenMarket Group describe the business as a technology focused stockbroker with a mission to provide innovative products on a global scale to advance wealth management. The business comprises Open Markets, one of Australia's largest B2B brokers, providing a white label tech stack for intermediaries and connecting fintechs to markets via uh, Enterprise APIs and Tradefloor, Australia's leading risk management solution for exchange traded options. Dan, welcome to the Fintech Report podcast.

Speaker B: Thank you Glenn. Great to be here.

Speaker A: Excellent. Well, let's start off with a little bit about your background. Um, I said uh, you came through finance, accounting and then stockbroking. Give us a bit of an understanding of what led you to be excited by Open Markets Group.

Speaker B: Yeah, well that journey, um, it's a great journey with the big four accounting firms. I sometimes call it the SAS of training. And over that period I spent a lot of time with both stockbrokers, investment managers. No fintechs around in those days. This is 25 plus years ago and learned a lot. And like many before me, after a while you move off and often look at your clients as a good place to go. It was shortstopbroking then which became Shore M and Partners a bit later on through a name change and had 10 plus years there. So they're focused on wealth management with some institutional sales and trading research and corporate finance as well. So no fintechy there either. And then I moved to Open Market. So a very, very different business a ah, B2B business as well and as uh, you read out at the beginning, a technology focused stockbroker. So what does that mean? The business there been around for a little over 10 years now and it certainly had its origins as a technology focused stockbroker with the uh, CEOs in the business there and the CEO prior to myself there were a couple of technology acquisitions. One Canon Trading which is the business now that powers our APIs really, really important for fintechs and some of our other customers which we'll probably touch on a bit later. And the trade floor business that you talk to there. So there's an order management system and options trading and risk management there. Um, great, great product powers the ASX options game. If any of your listeners are familiar with that, they run that a year. It's just wrapping up a session at the moment.

Speaker A: You can tell us more about that. I love all these things like go uh because it gives people excited and interesting, gives them a taste of um, what's involved in the business. Um, but let's talk about um, uh open markets. Who would be typical customers?

Speaker B: Yeah we have three main channels and within those channels customers are really quite different. So if I step you through those you'll get a feel for that. So the first channel, let's talk about fintech. So we have a number of domestic and international fintechs that want to access the ASX market with us. So they have their own front end app and they have their own sales and marketing doing what they do. And we'll talk a bit about I think some of the different fintechs a little bit later on because there's a really interesting space there at the moment. So the fintech segment then we have what I call the advice professional segment. So they could be family offices, more traditional stockbrokers, financial planners, dealer groups and so on. And then finally we have traders so they're onshore and offshore traders accessing the market in much greater volume um, at a different price point. But if you think about those three channels and you talk about a typical customer, well the fintech customer can be quite different to an advice professional customer could be quite different to the traders. And the way that we approach them is obviously quite different as well. Traders don't really need those APIs where the FinTechs that's absolutely crucial for them for all different aspects from onboarding um, to market data and trading advice professionals. I think a lot of people are more familiar with that channel because most have worked with someone perhaps in some capacity. There and as I said, my previous place, uh, before open markets was heavily focused on that advice professional channel.

Speaker A: Yes. Okay, well, look, given this is the Fintech Report podcast, let's kick off with, uh, uh, all our lovely friends in the fintech sector. Um, I think one of the interesting things about fintech has been over the past 10, 15 years the radical reduction in cost. So as you say, very, uh, cost effective compared to 20 years ago to build that front end to start, uh, promoting yourself. But obviously the back end processing, not quite as cheap, not quite as easy. You still need, um, smart, and that's a big investment. Um, tell us a little bit about what you've seen in the last 10 years. And I use this phrase democratization to, I guess, cover a number of things. Both the fall in the cost of the tech, but also the fall in the cost of what you might call the retail cost of entry that people pay to buy and trade equities. What's been your experience in that whole process?

Speaker B: It's been a stunning change over, over time. So if you go back to 15 years or so ago when let's just call them discount brokers started to pop up, the pricing of those discount brokers in today's terms would seem reasonably high. When you look to many of the businesses today, whether they're offering domestic trading or offshore trading, they're close to zero. In some cases. I think the cost of executing a trade or the headline numbers looks really, really small. But I'm sure many of your listeners would know this. The devil's often in the detail. Okay, so I won't name any names, but often when you see trades for free for foreign stocks, there's a little asterisk at the bottom with a 1% FX fee. So you're paying 1%. Okay. That's where they clip the ticket. And also every broker is a little bit different. Uh, there are many brokers that don't really give the customer an opportunity for trade execution price. So there's, if you're in the market actively, like the trader segment in my space, how you execute your order during the day or how you might fill it is really important. Whereas some of those discount brokers don't necessarily give you the opportunity to see the market that way. Some do, but a lot don't. So you might be getting this cheap brokerage price at close to zero, but what are you really paying is a question that people should think about.

Speaker A: Yeah, okay, so you're not necessarily paying the live market price.

Speaker B: Well, you could be, um, very much so. But it could be an average price or it could be held differently as well. There's lots of companies now that don't hold in Australia what we call on a hin they hold them in nominee custody solutions in a different manner that allows them to be much more efficient on their price and they're obviously targeting a particular sector of the market that are looking for that price. But if we go back to the start of your question there those discount brokers back in the day then they were just, that's all they did, it was a discount brokerage ticket. Whereas today especially since about 2021, 22 when we saw a more come especially into Australia but also globally and that was a really really busy time if you remember for that self directed retail markets. It was a great time for these new businesses to come to market because there was so much volume going through that post Covid and then markets changed quite quickly in actually uh, it was 22 wasn't it when things really started to interest rates go up. So yeah, large number of new entrants, some which are still here and some which are going really really well and some which have struggled and had to close down. Um, some around robo advice but some in robo advice doing more robo advice focus doing really really well today. And yes you're right the pricing is really cheap now of course some aren't charging that big FX spread and some have a really um, transparent fee model and it's a great place to be for the retail customer because they're getting that competitive price and there's no doubt all the trends still show there is a greater move to self directed investing as the generations move. And from an industry dynamics point of view everybody talks And I'm sure you listeners would know this intergenerational wealth transfer, the 100 trillion US moving between the generations in the next 30 or so years. Some have it at 130 trillion staggering numbers. But when that money moves it creates opportunity for everybody in the value chain for wealth management. But what's happening is so much more of it is moving into the hands of the self directed investor. So many of those different providers and neo brokers if you like that have popped up are taking increasing share of the wallet away from their more traditional um, wealth advisory businesses. There'll always be a place for that and I've got no doubt someone inherits $5 million they probably want to sit down in front of someone and receive some advice. And advice is hugely important. Um, hugely important. It's not just about picking a Few stocks and hoping for the best. Uh, professionalism in the industry has improved Dramat and uh, asset allocation and things away from particular stocks is hugely important. But yeah, the self directed and those neo brokers, um, the ones that um, have that point of difference and we should talk about that. They're the ones that are going to be very successful.

Speaker A: Thank you for that. I'm going to return to that. When we talk about um, communications and how people get information and influencers and things like that. Let's move on to the sort of what you call the family office and the advisors that sector as you say, increased level of professionalism. There's this idea that people should go and get either more qualifications or degree level qualifications. Um, how do you see. And yes, you've mentioned the intergenerational wealth transfer which is sort of just really a uh, trend that's just going to I think put wind in your sails as it were. What have you seen in terms of what those people want from open markets?

Speaker B: Well there's no doubt technology becomes more important to them. So as a business, the open markets, traditionally that stockbroker, uh, which is really the buying and selling of equities on

Speaker A: ASX on behalf of a customer's order. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: And that's a difficult business to be in because if you think about it for a moment, you only get paid when a transaction happens. And if markets are quiet, which can happen for months at a time, you don't get paid as much because people aren't as active. There's no volatility for the traders. People might not be rebalancing portfolios, whatever the reasons are. So for us as a business, what we hear more from clients as well about a way to help them become more efficient and better service their clients. The ability to introduce uh, things like model portfolios to facilitate rebalancing, to be able to get those models up onto a platform and into the market. And how can we help them with that in the same tech stack. So for us that becomes more attractive because we can move away from purely a transactional broker fee to helping ah, our clients grow with what I'd call annuity style revenue. A basis point fee for assets under management or advice or administration.

Speaker A: Excellent. Okay. Um, just also curious, there's been this big trend towards passive investment buying ETFs. How has that impacted the business?

Speaker B: Well, ETFs are a huge part of our flow every day and we have a couple of fintechs in particular that they're not solely focused on ETFs. They just happen to be a very large part of what their customers invest in. And I gradually ask you a question, why do they do that? Well, ETFs are just a phenomenal investment if you think where the costs uh, are and the amount of different opportunities that a client can invest in in our market is incredible compared to where it was 10 years ago. And we are a fraction of what you can see on overseas markets. You go to London or the New York exchange, there's multiples, more than we have today. There's long, there's short, there's geared and so on. So a really interesting space will continue to grow. We've got a homegrown success story here in betashares. Tremendous firm. Yes.

Speaker A: Um, they made an announcement about their funds under management recently.

Speaker B: 50 billion. I think they just went through. Tremendous business and yeah, customers will always see that. So we have a couple of uh, um, Fintechs, as I say, very focused on that. But also in the advice professional channel we have a number of those businesses that are also focused on ETFs and it allows diversification at low cost. It's interesting the pricing in Australia, a bit like much of this country, even those discount brokers, it's a little bit more than you see in the other markets, the ETFs and the management fees inside there, but still very cost effective.

Speaker A: Is that because of the volumes M. Australia is a smaller market versus say the US or the uk?

Speaker B: Um, I don't know exactly why. I think yes, that would absolutely be a reason. There's not as much flow or assets maybe within them to get that efficiency. And there's no doubt that the US ones would be many multiples of size. Uh, and as for discount brokerage, it's a different model sometimes in the US kind of this concept of payment for flow which can help subsidize low cost trading, which is illegal here, which we can't do here. Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, well, I think that's the Robinhood model, isn't it?

Speaker B: It is. But again, hugely successful business now. I think they've recently stepped out of just the usa. I think they've launched. If they've not launched, they're launching in the UK and definitely looking at other markets. I think they've been in Asia as well.

Speaker A: That's right.

Speaker B: But not Australia, not Australia. Well, Australia probably doesn't need another one of those discount brokers here. And we talked a little bit about the. I suppose competition is great. Competition brings down prices. How many are making money? I really don't know because many are private and let's hope they are and they can continue to be successful and innovate and invest in continued development. But I think the shift in the last few years has got to a place where it's no longer enough just to provide that cheap ticket, that cheap trade. And if you look at a number of businesses in that space now that are looking to do something um, in addition to that so they might be looking at superannuation, they'll be looking at wealth management as opposed to just discount trading. So back to models to what I said before where people are looking for a little bit more and if we think about um, we talked about advice and the advice professional channel, the reason it's more expensive there is advice isn't really expensive place to be to comply with the rules and regulations that are so important in the industry is really expensive and lots has been written about that. Harder need to talk about that. But if the uh, discount broker can start to move into digital advice with AI and success, that's going to be the really interesting place to be.

Speaker A: Yeah, look you mentioned AI there and I think things have changed so much in the past year regarding um, the power of AI and how good it is getting once um, it gets to human like qualities, uh, whether it's agentic, um, whether it's general. How do you see that being incorporated into uh, whether it's equities, trading, markets trading, this idea of it could be blended with humans. What's your view on AI?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think the first call out is it's just to your point, the rate of change just in 12 months is truly, truly astonishing and that's clearly going to be continue which is really exciting for everybody who has it and everybody should have it in their own development. I think one of the things that surprises me a little bit and is a little disappointing across Australia from the larger shops, so they could be global banks or the big banks and brokers here all the way through to some of those emerging and neo brokers, even businesses like open markets. We haven't really done as much as you're seeing in overseas jurisdictions. The us, the UK parts of Asia have been able to harness and move with it more quickly. Please don't ask me why because I'm not quite sure. I'd love to know why. I think there is just uh, a need for many of us in Australia to really learn from what's happening overseas. Um, I'm actually going to Singapore next week. Um, they have an AI conference in Singapore next week. For a couple of days. 7,000 people going to that. But that just tells you something as well. Now it's not fintech specific, it's an AI conference. So there's other industries there. The 7,000 going through, that's a big number. And I think there could be more there over the couple of days. And you wouldn't really see that here, I don't think. And I don't think, uh, we're just seeing that advancement as I say. So you go to some of those in my advice, professional channel. If you were to go to some of those known banks and brokers across the industry here, what are they really doing with AI? Where is it on their roadmap? M. I'm not sure.

Speaker A: Yeah, okay. No, that's good. And I've got AI as a kind of topic that um, I'm absolutely watching and um, can do more of in the future. I think particularly around advice. It's obvious that it's going to be there.

Speaker B: Yeah, it is. And we've looked at some really interesting businesses to understand if we could partner with them or whether we want to build, build something similar. And when I think about AI, there are a number of different areas of the business where you can put in great technology to help. Some of it's a little bit boring. It's in the back office. It could be helping automate or to move, read documents, scan them, push them around. So that's a little bit boring.

Speaker A: But productivity, everyone loves productivity if you own the business.

Speaker B: I mean it's absolutely not just productivity as well. It's accuracy. It's completeness and accuracy and the speed at which you can move that uh, through and that becomes really important if you're looking to take what looks like boring correspondence, be able to just scan it, it reads it and pushes it to the advisor if it needs to. So it could be back office related. And that's where we're seeing some progress in our business at the moment. Could be compliance related as well. There's some really good stuff happening around compliance again to make it more efficient to be able to, to process much more, um, large volumes of data.

Speaker A: So do you have to do things like aml, kyc, uh, kyb, politically exposed people, all that sort of stuff?

Speaker B: Well, I mean look everywhere does that anyway because that's part of the law. But the ways in which you could do that. But it's not just around kyc. If you think about the large volumes of data going through and those very rigorous rules, the market integrity rules and they're complex and when there's tens of millions or hundreds of millions going through your business every day you've got a duty to be clearly knowing what's going on pre and post trade. So yeah, good advances there but then I think where it gets a little bit more fun and exciting is around that front office space. So what can we give to either an advisor, so a wealth advisor. What could we give to a trader or self directed investor uh to allow them to make more informed decisions? And we've spoken to a number of businesses both in Australia and offshore in the US and uh, in Singapore and they're building some great stuff and I uh think the challenge for a number of these is they need to get their product to market quickly because they spend a year or so or two building it before it's built and released. The technology has already moved on another layer but there's no doubt what many of them are building it's that large language model to process huge amounts of data to provide something somehow to that front user to give them more information or a bit of an edge. And will it actually do that? Who knows. But there's no doubt there's a desire for again many of those self directed investors to get access to that type of content and they're happy to pay for the privilege.

Speaker A: You make a very good point there. And I mentioned earlier uh, Robinhood um and I was fascinated over the particularly over lockdown this idea of all the meme stocks where, where hundreds of retail um traders get behind um or consumers traders get behind a particular meme stock for perhaps no reason uh other than it was the hot thing to get into. Which leads to this idea of where do people get their information from to make a trade whether it's buy or sell. Um, what's been your experience uh and do you have a comment on um professional media vs quote new media or social media. And I'm particularly thinking the rise of what is broadly described as finfluencers or financial influencers. And please feel free to comment on whether you feel they should have licenses or what have you. What's your thoughts on that?

Speaker B: Well the first thought is we might be showing our ages here clan but

Speaker A: the first thought is people can't see us.

Speaker B: It's okay. Uh the reality, the reality is the way that younger people, so let's just say 25 and under at the moment just to pick a number, the way that they access information or news is very very different to how uh we do. They go to TikTok, they go to Insta, they go to other sites. It's dramatically changing. We can't change that. The quality of content in all those different forums is arguably questionable. Is the quality of financial information better, uh, by subscribing to Bloomberg or the Financial Times, Financial Review, Wall Street Journal? Yes. Are they wanting to go there? A lot of those particular investors? No. Um, who are they seeing on those channels? How's it policed and regulated? Difficult. So what's happening if we go back? Intergenerational transfer of wealth, growth in self directed investing, growth in people going to these other mediums to find information to help them trade. No one here is going to change that. That's been happening for a number of years, will probably continue to accelerate. Where the opportunity then is for businesses to be able to put out content through those channels that is of good quality, that has a large subscriber base that can gain traction as a community and then you can do something with that. So without saying too much, we have an opportunity in our strategy involving some M and A around that where we see quality education through digital channels with proven uh, professionals delivering that to a very loyal customer base over a long period of time and the ability to provide that good content out through other socials. At the moment it's going out through one particular channel, but there's multiple channels and then it's global as well. Which is interesting because what's happening largely is driven from the US Every day you look at the market here, it's heavily focused on what's happened overnight, but it is in other markets as well. But um, having that focus on the US Market is what most of those customers are interested in.

Speaker A: Yes, uh, it has been quite an interesting uh, period, um, since the arrival of uh, Mr. M. Trump in the White House, um, in terms of, but just market moving activity. I mean as soon as you announce tariffs or what have you, or an increase in defense spending, that's absolutely going to have an impact on uh, various different equities because that's the kind of thing that moves certain sectors. Um, so, so I get that. So your comment about you and others, I think in Australia are going to lift their game in terms of what content you create. Um, that I think then leads into another sort of question of what is the vision for Open Markets Group moving forward? Do you have a plan? You've mentioned a bit about AI that's on the roadmap. Better content. What other things, um, are you looking at?

Speaker B: Yeah, so they're really important ones for us. The two we talked about There. So education and how we can harness that. But it's not then just providing the education content, it's what other products and services we have uh, in our group to be able to work with that. Um, and then secondly the piece we spoke about briefly before. So our desire to move away from just being paid on transactional type revenue to be able to have a monetized annuity style revenue stream, that's really important. And we're very close with a partner working with something there that just works really neatly with what we've got and what we know our customers are looking for. And yes, AI, absolutely. So I think we are, uh, still really interested in whether we build ourselves internally or we partner or we buy business. And obviously there are three different ways to go about doing it. I think internally we much prefer the build when working with some really, um, relevant consultants in that space because as I said, when I look at some of the businesses that were spoken to, great product, not quite built, but if they're not there in six months it's going to be too late.

Speaker A: Um, can you give us an idea? Should have started this, which should have been one of my questions. Give us an idea of the size of the team in Australia.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah, so we're 40 people give or take. We have a couple of developers offshore but core team of 40 here, a couple in Brisbane, a few in Brisbane and a few in Melbourne as well. But the head office is here in Sydney.

Speaker A: Yeah, excellent. Thank you for that. Should have been one of my kickers.

Speaker B: We're hoping to grow that team over the course of the year. When we talk about strategy, we've spent quite a lot of time as a business looking. We have a very clear three year plan now, so hopefully we'll see those numbers pick up.

Speaker A: Good. Um, I always offer a shout out to people uh, that come on the FinTech Report podcast if there's anyone that you do want to hear from or talk to. Um, what type of people are you looking for at the moment? And that could be either individuals or you mentioned you partner with or acquire. Um, and obviously some of these conversations are very speculative, but who would you like to have approach you on LinkedIn?

Speaker B: That's a great question. Uh, there's no doubt the AI aspect I talked about here, if we've got people onshore in Australia and we can get face to face with some people, have a good conversation about how they're thinking about it and what they're looking at.

Speaker A: Okay, excellent. Well, there we go. That's a good shout Out. Um, I might finish up now with um. Oh, actually we didn't talk about the exchange traded options.

Speaker B: Yeah, the ASX options game and the ASX options game.

Speaker A: So look very briefly, tell me what exchange traded options are and what the game is.

Speaker B: Yeah, so for those that don't know exchange traded products, most people think about equities or the cash equity market. But of course there's lots of other traded products that could even include crypto these days, could include FX, is obviously traded over the counter or CFDs. But exchange traded options are uh, slightly more regulated if you like because they are on the Australian Stock Exchange, the ETO market, um, not a huge part of the market here in Australia. We Talked to the US again, ETOs in the US absolutely huge. Um, in Australia we have a weekly series and we have a monthly series. So this gives opportunity for customers to do different things with their portfolio. They can protect positions, they could take leverage. Multiple different strategies that a customer could choose to do. And the reality is for many people options are a bit of a complex product and because they're margin, they do present a little bit more risk.

Speaker A: So just to stop you there, options are you uh, have, have the right but not the obligation to buy or sell and you pay a certain percentage of the sort of outstanding value upfront. You don't have to pay the whole thing.

Speaker B: Correct, Correct. We could talk about it for a long time because there's lots of different um, positions you could take. But I think the important thing here, and when we think about what the ASX is trying to do is all around what you just said. So how can, how can a customer that's interested in options without having to go to a broker, open an account and put up a lot of money and not really know what's going on. How can they invest money in a, let's call it a safe space? So the ASX give you a virtual wallet of I think $50,000 and we have about almost 2,000 people that sign up to it each game. And with your $50,000 money you can go in, in the market in real hours and put on positions. So where open markets comes trade floor product is, it has a feature that we call a cookbook. So within there are uh, multiple different strategies. So you might go to a simple strategy like a cover call, you click on it and it'll walk you through how to execute that trade and what you need to think about when putting on that trade. Then you put your order on, it goes to market, it gets filled and Your positions will move in the course of the day or as the market opens the next day. But then if a client is interested in the more complex positions, Condors for example, their multi leg strategy is much more complex to put on. Again, you can do that in a safe space, draw the payoff diagrams, put the orders on, see how you go. I'm going to get this number wrong. So I apologize to Graham O' Brien at the ASX, but I think the winners often start with 50 and they finish with quarter of a million or more in the course of a month. Now, when it's not real money, it's slightly easier to put on a slightly, uh, riskier trade and I think we do see a little bit of that. But it's great to see people come in and the ASX do it to promote the market. They want to see more people in the options market and sometimes people think it's just speculative and risky, but as I said, people wanting to protect positions, it's a hugely important part.

Speaker A: That's right, yeah. I mean the classic example is if you've got a big portfolio, um, in say anything, equities or whatever, and you think the market might crash, you might buy an option to cover your, your portfolio if there is a huge crash?

Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, you look at today, the market in Australia hit all time high today again. So people that think the market's high could be you sell a call over your stock, you collect the premium, see if you get exercised where the market goes. But if you're happy to sell now, sell the call, collect the premium. So they are a really important product and yeah, we obviously support ASX in helping them get more business to the exchange with them.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Um, do people need to actually, uh, have traded with you to play the game?

Speaker B: No, no, they go to the ASX options game and anyone who's listening, if you haven't done it this time and you're interested in options, should absolutely go because, uh, as I said, it's a great financial product. It's a safe space to put on some orders. I think the winner gets a small prize as well. But, um, if you know you can turn your 50,000 into quarter of a million in a month, there might be some, something there for you.

Speaker A: Well, bragging rights at least, that's for sure.

Speaker B: I think when you look through, we don't get details on who all the customers are, but I know from talking to ASA there's a lot of students at uni who are, ah, mathematically minded and interested in markets. So they might be studying commerce, interested in going to work for a bank or broker. So they're quite active in the game, which is a great place to be.

Speaker A: Yes, I'm sure there are some aspiring hedge fund traders amongst that. Um, I mentioned also, uh, earlier we've seen democratization of market. All markets with great technology allowed more people to trade more often in a variety of ways. We've seen um, someone like Trump come in and say he wants America to be the crypto capital of the world. That's obviously got to have an impact on uh, other markets around the world. Um, when you look at what's happened in the past 12 months, particularly around whether you call it crypto, whether you call it digital assets, whether it's stablecoins, whatever, what's been your view on that opportunity for you guys?

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, again, let's talk about some of the things that are happening globally here. And I feel again Australia is behind the rest of the world here and the rhetoric, sometimes from some of the presses or some of the people in the industry is what we're not, but we are. When you get on a plane and you go to Singapore or Hong Kong or Dubai, we are behind. And it's not just about, for example trading crypto, this is digitalization of real world assets by way of example is hugely interesting. And many of the world's big global, um, banks and brokers are trading or issuing product, uh, bonds or whatever it might be, real estate on the chain now and that is going to be huge. And Australia not really doing a lot in that space at the moment. Lots of complicated reasons why. So I think when we talk about digital assets there's lots of different things to consider. As I say, the tokenization of real world assets, really interesting coming at warp speed. I think like AI then the more popularly talked about the crypto coin trading, I don't follow Bitcoin that much, but I know we're pretty much around all time highs again or thereabouts. And of course that's quite complex in its own right. People in my industry markets that just completely think the fundamentals aren't there and it's an absolute going to nowhere type thing. Um, there are people on the other hand that say, well no, there's institutional money, there's family office money, there's ETFs. You've got to take this seriously, even if it's just for a hedge. So follow the crowd will sit in the middle. I think for the open markets business right now, what was interesting were when the ETFs were launched. We talked about ETFs before. So in Australia we have a number of, of ETFs around the popular coins. So Bitcoin and Ethereum and that provide. That's interesting because what that does is it provides an ETF with a known manager. So there's comfort in knowing that that asset manager exists, is real and it's backed by a license somewhere, it's on a licensed market, it's on asx. So the risk of settlement doesn't exist. You're not going to have to worry. If you pay for something, you don't get it back. And that gives investors a bit more confidence and that's the same in all the markets with ETF markets in the world and I think why we've quite a lot of flow into those types of ETFs. Um, and I have a lot of sympathy for their different exchanges whether they're in Australia or overseas because we have had a couple of teething problems let's say in the industry. And there was no doubt there were practices there that were not what you would ever see in today's world in the regulated markets. And there's a need for the industry and regulators to work quickly to get to a space where an investor can go to an exchange in Australia and have the same level of confidence they do when going to the Australian Stock Exchange to buy an equity. We're a fair way away from that and it's difficult for the regulators because the technology and the um, product change is moving at speed as well.

Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, um, just a final thing. Um, who are the backers of open markets groups? Um, are you out there potentially listing at some stage? What's your thoughts on that?

Speaker B: Yeah, we have one shareholder today. They are a family office private equity VC business and we do have aspirations to grow growth needs capital. We have aspirations for M and A and M and A needs capital. So yeah, absolutely. We're very lucky to have a supportive long term institutional shareholder. But we have hopefully some exciting announcements coming around that in the next uh, few months actually.

Speaker A: Yeah, excellent. Well look, um, for those uh we mentioned earlier can get in touch with Dan uh either via the website or LinkedIn particularly uh, AI uh, you're interested having a chat or mergers and acquisitions that are going to be um, complementary to what you do now. Um, but Dan M. And I'll just spell your name just so that people when they're looking for you on LinkedIn. Uh, so surname J O W E double T at Open Markets Group. But um, it's been a great conversation. Thanks for being our guest, Dan.

Speaker B: Thank you.