Good evening, everyone. I'm André Parisi, Investor Relations Officer at XP Inc. Welcome and thank you for joining us for our second quarter 26 earnings call. Today's presentation will be delivered by our CEO, Thiago Mafra, and our CFO, Gustavo Alejo. Right after the presentation, they will be both available for the Q&A session. To ask a question during Q&A, your questions in the order they are received. Live translation in Portuguese is available. You can enable it by clicking the button below. Before we begin, please take a moment to reveal the legal disclaimer on page 2 of today's presentation, which addresses forward-looking statements. The full presentation is available for download on our Investor Relations website, and you will find additional materials in the SEC Filings section of our IR website. Now I hand it over to Thiago Mafra. Good evening, Mafra.
Thank you, André. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining our second quarter 2026 earnings call. I would like to begin by welcoming Gustavo Alejo, our new staff hall. He joins us at an exciting time, just after the biggest export in our history, an event that showed how far we have come and how much further we aim to go. Now, let's dive into our second quarter 2026 numbers. Beginning with the key highlights of the quarter, client assets combining AUM and AUA reached $2.2 trillion, representing a 17% year-over-year growth. We ended the period with 18.4 thousand advisors, up 1% year-over-year, while our active client base totaled 4.8 million, a 1% increase year-over-year. Gross revenues amounted to 5.1 billion this quarter, up 8% from the same period last year. EBT advanced 15% to $1.6 billion, while net income came to $1.4 billion, rising 5% year-over-year. In terms of profitability, our ROE increased 80 BIPs sequentially to 22.5%. Our capital ratio stood at a comfortable 20.3%, reflecting our ability to grow while maintaining disciplined capital and risk management. Also, our EPS grew 9% year-over-year, stronger than our net income growth, thanks to our capital management and payout strategy. The second quarter of 2026 was again marked by ongoing global geopolitical tensions and residual market volatility. While these headwinds materialized with less intensity than in the previous quarter, they still impacted our results, particularly through the widening of credit spreads and a reduction in primary GCM offerings. Without these effects, we would have achieved double-digit revenue growth with a low teams expansion year-over-year. This demonstrates that, despite the market volatility we faced in the first half of the year, our core businesses continued to perform well with resilient underlying momentum. Towards the end of the quarter, we began to see signs of normalization across markets along with a gradual recovery in the fixed income pipeline. We expect this pipeline to materialize into primary offerings over the coming quarters, depending on the market dynamics. That said, depending on how these dynamics evolve, we continue to target double digit growth throughout 2026, supported by stronger execution across key verticals and a more diversified revenue base. This quarter, we continued to launch products for both individuals and businesses, and our ecosystem is becoming more complete every day. We have a clear ambition to be the investment leader in Brazil by 2033, but that leadership will come hand in hand with increasing completeness in everything we offer to our clients. This next growth phase is built on personalized service with a focus on financial, tax and succession planning. Our goal is simple, to be our client's CFO, covering their full spectrum of financial service needs. Moving on to the next slide, let's take a look at client assets. During the second quarter of 2026, our total client assets, combined with assets under management from our asset management business and AOA from our fund administration business, totaled approximately $2.2 trillion, representing 17% growth year-over-year. On the right side of the slide, you can see how net new money has evolved. In the second quarter of 2026, we again met our stock target of $20 billion in retail net new money, while corporate and institutional inflows came in at $8 billion. altogether net new money amounted to 28 billion for the period while we posted positive results and met or soft guidance we continue to navigate a challenging environment in 2026 we are constantly improving our investment platform and as we have mentioned enhancing the client experience through numerous initiatives this combination reinforced our confidence in achieving our ambition of roughly 20 billion in retail net new money per quarter on average related to that it's worth mentioning that our NPS ended the second quarter at 66 points as mentioned in your previous earnings call we are on a consistent recovery path from the one-off events that impact us in former quarters this demonstrates the strength of our brand and the trust clients place in your platform and it gives us an indication that we will return to historical levels over the next quarters with that let's now take a deeper dive into the strategic drivers that are shaping our next growth phase our comprehensive financial ecosystem is built around long-term relationships we provide service and personalized advice with excellence across every aspect of our clients financial lives from investments to banking solutions many of our clients have needs well beyond investments and our mission is to provide them with complete solutions under this model the focus shifts from product distribution to building a personalized financial strategy for each investor looking ahead we see the role of the investment advisor at XP undergoing a profound transformation. The professional is no longer just an intermediary of financial products, but it's taking on a role closer to that of a wealth consultant, broadly accompanying clients throughout their financial journey. Given this context, it's crucial to understand personal and family goals, such as retirement and long-term wealth building. The same client centristy logic that guides us on offerings from individuals also extends to our corporate clients we have recently launched new initiatives targeting the business segment always focused on delivering financial management solutions we already have a very robust corporate segment and now we are expanding our offering particularly for a small and medium-sized enterprise As we have said over the past few quarters, XP is uniquely positioned for this new market environment. We have the largest and most qualified advisor network in Brazil, along with a trusted brand and an innovative DNA, a combination that enables our tech lead scaling and keeps us ahead of the market.
On the next slide, we share further details on our strategy.
Across every client segment we serve, our ambition is to deepen relationships, enhance the completeness of our product offering, and fully meet all of our clients' financial needs. On the individual side, our focus remains on investments. We continue to deepen our segmentation, offering a specific value proposition for each client layer. We were the first to address a latent market demand and offer a truly model-agnostic approach. Today, we have evolved this concept into a comprehensive wealth planning model, one that allows us to cover our clients across all their financial needs, from investment allocation to estate planning, succession, and beyond. Under this model, the charging structure naturally aligns as a fee basis. which continues to gain traction. We already have slightly more than 26% of our clients' assets under this framework. On top of that, we are expanding our offshore investment capabilities and making continued progress on new product launch, including ETFs and managed portfolios, all fully aligned with our way of serving clients. At the same time, we are adding credit to a solutions shelf that has already expanded meaningfully over the past few years, during which we introduced numerous innovations in banking and insurance. I would like to emphasize that this expansion is the continuation of a well-planned strategy, one that has been consistently executed over the years with the addition of services and solutions. For businesses, the same logic holds true, and this is where we see the greatest opportunity, since these companies and their founders have long been underserved by traditional players. We plan to change that by delivering a complete, modern, and scalable offering. Just as we transformed the investment landscape for individuals, we are now about to do the same for businesses. We will introduce a new standard of high-quality advice, supported by technology and a complete range of products and services, designed to tackle the real pain points of a market that has never been fully served. By advising these entrepreneurs with the same depth we bring to individuals, we can help them manage and allocate their cash flow more effectively to grow their businesses. We are now expanding and upgrading our commercial coverage while launching new features for businesses. We recently announced a partnership for POS device and a credit card geared toward small and medium-sized enterprise. These are natural extensions of our franchise and a continuation of our strategy that has been underway since 2019, when we obtain our banking license. Finally, I want to emphasize that we execute this strategy with the utmost discipline, ensuring that every step we take remains firmly aligned with our capital ratios and conservative risk approach. With that, I will now hand the call over to Alejo to cover the financial section on the presentation.
Thank you, Mafra. It is a pleasure to be here with all of you today. I would like to begin by expressing my sincere appreciation for the warm welcome since joining XP. I'm thrilled to be part of this journey, and I'm looking forward to contributing to our next chapter of growth. Now, let me walk you through our financial performance for the quarter. Total gross revenue in the second quarter, 2026, reached 5.1 billion reais, up 8% year-over-year and 3% quarter-over-quarter. Retail growth in the quarter was driven by equities, funds platform, new verticals, and other retail, which expanded at a rapid pace year-over-year. The wholesale bank division also delivered consistent growth, led by solid performance of our corporate segment. Now, let's move on to retail revenue. Retail revenue totaled R$3.9 billion in the quarter, representing an 8% growth year-over-year and a 3% growth quarter-on-quarter, Reflecting the impact of fixed income corporate credit in Brazil, already explained. Excluding this market-to-market effect, retail revenues would have grown 15% in the first half of 2026, when compared to the same period last year, showing a resilient underlying momentum. Even with the lower ADTV of equities and futures in the second quarter, equities' revenue increased 11% when compared to the same period of last year, reaching almost R$1.1 billion. rise. Sequentially, equities revenue dropped 2%, while ADTV fell approximately 8% in the same period. France platform also posted a strong performance this quarter, growing 23% year-over-year and 7% sequentially, due to the booking of management and performance fees this quarter. Also, retail annual performance benefited from stronger contributions from new verticals and different revenue lines included in other retail, like Float, International Platform, and FX. Now, let's move on to the next slide, where we'll cover how our wholesale bank is evolving. Our wholesale segment, including corporate, issuer services, and institutional revenues, grew 32% year-over-year and 3% sequentially. The market deterioration that began in March and prevailed through April, combined with the lower risk appetite for investors, led to a sharp decrease in the number of new fixed-income offerings, particularly tax-exempt fixed-income instruments. The reduction in fixed income offerings weighed directly on our issuer services segments, resulting in lower revenues versus both prior year and the previous quarter. Despite this reduced number of offerings, the corporate segment posted another strong result, with revenues growing 117% year-over-year and 22% sequentially. Our ability to cross-sell and deliver a broader set of solutions to our corporate clients, such as derivatives, effects, and credits continued to support our revenue growth. Finally, our institutional business grew year over year and was relatively flat sequentially. Like retail equities, the segment reflects lower trading volumes during the quarter. Now let's shift our focus to SG&A and efficiency ratios. Our SG&A totaled R$1.6 billion in the second quarter, increasing 5% year-over-year and 2% quarter-over-quarter. On the right-hand side of the slide, our last 12 months' efficiency ratio stood at 34.3%, an increase of 30 basis points year-over-year and a decline of approximately 30 basis points sequentially. This quarter, we delivered a good efficiency ratio against a more challenging revenues backdrop. As we move into the second half of the year, we expect the typical effects that lift both revenues and expenses, such as bonus provisions and the expert event. Despite these effects, we continue to closely monitor the pace of our investments, and we still target to deliver a flattish efficiency ratio on a year-over-year basis for a full year. Moving to earnings before taxes now, our adjusted earnings before taxes totaled R$1.6 billion in the second quarter of 2026, up 15% year-over-year and 10% quarter-over-quarter. We delivered a 32% adjusted EBT margin, expanding on both a quarterly and yearly basis. Lower market-to-market impacts, positive performance across several of our segments, and controlled expenses all contributed to operating leverage, which resulted in a higher EBT and EBT margin this quarter. On the next slide, we present our net income. Adjusted net income reached R$1.4 billion in the second quarter, representing a 5% increase compared with both the prior year and the prior quarter periods. Net margin was 28.3% in the second quarter of 2026, up around 50 basis points sequentially and down around 100 basis points year over year. And our tax rate for the quarter was sequentially higher due to the mix of results, stronger performance results from the corporate line and less negative mark-to-market impact from the warehousing book. Now, let's move on to the next slide to talk about our earnings per shares and returns. Our adjusted diluted earnings per shares increased by approximately 9% year-over-year at a faster faster pace than our net income growth, reflecting the execution of our share-by-back program. On the right-hand side of the slide, you can see our adjusted analyzed return on tangible equity and return on equity. Given our lower Bezos ratio sequentially, both metrics are higher this quarter when compared to the previous one. With that, I move on to the next slide to talk about our capital management strategy. During the second quarter, we continued executing our share buyback program. As of the end of June, we have executed one billion reais and closed the previous buyback We still have another open program of one billion reais, which we continue to execute strategically. Combining the two buyback programs and the approximately 500 million reais in dividends distributed in June, we reached nearly 2.5 billion reais in capital distribution, already announced in 2026. Additionally, I would also like to announce that we will be canceling approximately 11.8 million Treasury shares. We present roughly 2.3% of our total outstanding shares, further reinforcing our commitment to discipline, capital allocation, and returning value to our shareholders. Now let's move on to the second part of our capital management strategy on the next slide. I'd like to turn to our capital ratio and risk-weighted assets. We close the quarter with a BASO ratio of 20.3% and a C2-1 ratio of 17.1%. As mentioned in our previous earnings calls throughout 2026, we will operate the business with a high BASO ratio. However, we are comfortable bringing it down to our target range of 16% to 19% while still maintaining comfortable capital buffer. On the right-hand side of slide, we show our RWA. The main growth driver was credit RWA, mostly associated with our corporate business. It's worth noting that while total RWAs grew around 26% year-over-year, our corporate revenues expanded 117% over the same period. This shows that we will continue to evaluate and seize growth opportunities and their rise while maintaining our focus on risk return criteria. And with that, we can move on to the Q&A section.
Speaker 11
Hi, guys. Good night. and Mafra, Alejo and Parisi thanks for taking my question Alejo, welcome aboard I hope you're the most of success in XP I'd like to hear a little bit more about volatility and I guess we're heading into an election period and I'll be curious to hear what your expectations for the volatility and your revenues mostly if you could break down into the retail revenues and also for the corporate because corporate we are seeing a very strong first half you deliver close to 1.1 billion so trying to understand whether that's a level on the corporate side that could even go higher compared to the first half of the year as you have more opportunities for maybe sell hedging derivatives effects and also protection for rates ahead of the the october and november election period and also so breaking down in retails and corporates would be very good to to hear about that thank you thank you for a question pass this Thiago yes about volatility it's important to mention that usually when we have a high volatility it's positive in terms of volumes and revenues for
some businesses especially when we look the institutional desks or retail trading clients if volumes pick up as we have for most of the markets between 30 and 50 percent market share if volumes pick up we make more money so yes when you look especially just two business lines institutional and retail traders we expect higher revenues on the second semester about corporate revenues I believe we have been investing on this business since 2021 so the business has been growing year over year on a very conservative way so for example we had this year a lot of credit events we didn't have any exposure for these names so we have a very high quality credit portfolio the derivative business is growing energy among effects and a lot of other business they are growing so we believe this level of corporate business it's a normal level for the future okay I know it was very strong but we expect the Q3 also strong for corporate so it's
Speaker 2
part of the business that's growing okay so it's a normal level looking forward all right thank you okay next question is from Eduardo Rosman from BTG Rosman you can go on hi hi everyone I have a couple of questions here about the wholesale banking business, if you can share with us your expectations on how relevant this business could become within XP as a whole over the next few years, if you think you already have the right teams and all the alignment in place to expand the lending business, if not, what's still needed to get there? And finally, if you could share your view about payout ratio medium term. I think in the short term, I think you mentioned you still expect to pay more than 50% in the form of dividends and buybacks. But given that you expect to use more your balance sheet in the future, should we expect any change in that? Thanks a lot.
Thank you for the question, Rosman. Yeah, taking the first question about the wholesale, we don't have any change in strategy, the strategy that we started four years, five years ago. So we will continue to grow step by step on the business. So we received a lot of questions. if Gustavo Alejo was coming here like to do a because we are planning a shift on credit business but that's not the case of course he has great background on different areas of banking including the wholesale but also retail as you can see all the I would say banking business for both individuals and companies they're growing in the past years insurance as well so this strategy is to complete the ecosystem and to serve our clients as a whole and we'll continue to do that so you guys probably saw that we announced that we are launching a platform for SMBs it's going live in September 1st okay with cards acquiring credit with collateral and so on a lot of different products so it's part of the evolution of the business so there's no big shift in strategy there's no big shift on credit we are not going to start to grow the credit portfolio in in a very different pace so it's I would say more of the same of course when we compare ourselves with the other banks we still have a lot of room like to build new business lines to grow but it's gonna be step by step always being cautious on credit always being cautious on risk so and about people I would say that we have most of the people that we need most of the capabilities of course as you know very well the company we were born as a broker dealer focus on individuals focus on investments so it took us I would say four or five years to get to this point where we are comfortable on building new business lines we always can bring and we are always looking to bring people that complement our capabilities and our skills it's always going to be part of the business and Gustavo Alejo is one of these example for sure he will help us not only on the wholesale but also on on the individual part on investments and everything so yes I believe we are ready to grow and to execute this strategy that we have been executing the past years not sure if you want to share
something a little I'm saying that today he's here listening but next time he will be up to speed and it has been two weeks with us and it has been great a lot of like good discussions already so I'm happy to have you here I hope you are doing well it's a real pleasure to reconnect with you well I'm entering my third week so it is great company so I'm energized and generally pleased to be part of such remarkable wolf story so the strategy is written we are not change the strategy and just be and will be part of this this growth story so part of the team I saw a very strong team focus team and very strong metrics in terms of credit so we have all set to keep growing at a good pace and with good profitability very good to talk to you again and take your second question about payout as we mentioned we have a guidance to get our BIS ratio between
16 and 19 today we are above 20 meaning that we will have like to distribute more capital throughout the year we already executed a billion buyback we have another billion open that we are executing at these levels we already execute 500 million in dividends so totaling and assuming that we execute the billion that's open 2.5 I believe this year we are going to be higher than 50 percent for sure otherwise we don't get below 19 so you can expect more buybacks or more dividends throughout the year depending on the price that we have during the year at this price of course we lean towards buybacks more than dividends so that's the idea today thank you thank you both thanks a lot Okay, next question is from Mario P.A. from Bank of America.
Hey, guys. Good evening. Thanks for taking my question. Alejo, welcome. Good luck to you. It's nice to be talking to you again. Let me ask you a question. What you talked about, the retail revenues would have increased 15%, excluding the impact of the market. the market. So, we are estimating that about a 420 million BIs impact on revenues in the first half of the year. Is that correct? Because I think we had discussed that the impact was close to 400 million BIs in the first quarter. So, is it fair to assume that the impact in the second quarter was very marginal?
It's Tiago here. I will take the question. So, yes, your math is right. It was around 420 million reais. I would say it was below 300 million on the first quarter and the other part on the second. So, I would say 100, 150, 160 on the second quarter. Okay. So, those are the numbers.
Thanks, that's clear. So, Mafra, then when we look, I would imagine, right, this was an impact on your fixed income revenues. So when I looked at your fixed income fees, I get an average of about 89 basis points, first half of 26, down from 99 basis points first half of last year. So this is primarily this drop is primarily because of changing mix?
There are two effects there. The first one is what you mentioned, mix. We have never seen a mix so much concentrated on SELIC post-fixed instruments and with very short term duration, mostly on daily liquid products so that's one of the biggest problems with fixed income revenues today but there is also when we say that we lost more than 400 million on mark to market it's mainly on the the book from our investment banking okay and if you take into consideration that there was almost no market for GCM for that that capital markets on second quarter there was also a huge impact on the primary market fees so the impact on the second quarter was almost the same of the same quarter if you consider the revenue we lost on primary market and the March markets on the secondary market so it was a very low volume we have done less in a quarter than we do in a month okay when you compare Q2 with Q1 okay so it was a huge drop on primary market we are seeing that stabilizing again on Q3 on a lower level than in the past, but better than Q2, okay? So those are the impacts when you look, because remember there's revenue split between primary market on retail and investment banking, and that's why the market is there, so there are two impacts here.
Okay, and just a clarification on the daily liquidity products, what percentage does it represent of your assets today, your fixed income assets, roughly?
Yeah, we don't open the mix by type of product, but today, out of everything that we sell on the fixed income platform, I would say that almost 70% is on daily liquidity products, 70, okay, 70. So that number was 30, I would say, three quarters ago, four quarters ago, okay? so that's the it's a huge change on mix and remember that when we sell a daily liquid CD or this kind of products we get a daily accrual on a very low take rate so you have true effects here when you sell corporate bond you make a duration times spread upfront when you sell a daily liquid product you get a daily accrual on a lower level so it's a double impact here okay you're not seeing any changes on in better in the mix in the short term not yet if you look the fund platform we start to see more stable level and it's early to say an improvement but you're seeing an improvement on funds but I believe we are close to the to the turning point here but early to say that we are already there okay thank you very much the next
This question is from Tito Labarda from Goldman Sachs. Tito, you may proceed.
Okay, thanks, Parisi. Good evening. Mafra, Alejo, also welcome. Good to see you here. A couple questions also. I guess following up on Mario's question on the mark-to-market, right? Do you expect any more impact going forward? Do you think we're at a point that we can see retail revenues growing around that 15% level? going forward, or could there still be more impact, right, just to understand, like, what is the real, like, underlying growth of the retail revenues that we can kind of factor in going forward? And then the second question, just there was a bit of a jump on the JV and associates. It was, like, about $30 million, $32 million higher than last quarter. Was there anything significant there to highlight, just to understand that jump? Thank you.
Thank you for your question, Chito. About your first question, we have reduced a lot of our books because remember, it's mainly from the primary book from investment banking and also from what we call facilitation, the secondary trading flow book for retail clients and institutional clients. so we have reduced a lot the book during the the first half of the year but it's part of the business we still have a big book remember we have 30 to 40 percent market share here on this kind of instrument so we always keep a book if we see another credit spread widening the same size it happened in the past we are going to lose less than we lost in the first half because the book smaller today but we are going to lose something we are not seeing this press there at the same level for I would say two months it opens and close five bips ten bips so that's not much okay but we you're seeing a stable level right now let's see if there's no big change you should expect no mark to market provisions in the future but again the books smaller but part of the business So I cannot guarantee that we are not going to lose or make money in the future, okay? Your second question was?
And the share of profit from JD and Associates had like a $32 million credit total for it.
Yeah, remember that we have invested a lot of money on IFAs, on asset managers and some other businesses in the past. most of these business they're growing so you should expect this line to grow year over year and there is a seasonality because remember part of these business they are asset managers usually you have performance fees at the end of the semesters so that's what explain most of the increase there but again we put a lot of money on this business, they should grow over the years, okay?
Great. Thank you, Mafra. That's great.
Okay, next question is from Neha Argala from HSBC. Neha, you may proceed.
Hi, thank you for taking my question. This quick classification on the cost side, you've shown very good control over costs, both in COGS and OPEX. Can we just dig a bit deeper to understand what are the key levers that you're using, and what can we expect in 27? Where do you see additional room for optimization, if any? Are there more revenue play in 27? Thank you.
Thank you for your question, Iha.
When we think about SG&A for the future, remember that at the beginning of the year, we said that you should expect a flat-ish efficiency ratios, compensation ratios for the year. That's the case so far. Remember that there is a seasonality historically on our revenues. The second half of the year is usually stronger than the first half, meaning that if we keep the same efficiency ratios you should expect SG&A to grow nominally on in nominal terms on the second half of the year okay so on top of that on Q3 we have expert so it's a big costs for us so you should expect costs to pick up a little bit on second half but again you can expect flat-ish efficiency ratios and competition ratios.
And how should you think about 27 in terms of further room for cost optimization?
Should cost efficiency continue to remain flat-ish going into 27 or do you see room for it to come down I would say Fletch is a good assumption but remember that we are building a lot of new business lines new channels growing so it's not a commitment that we will gain efficiency or be Fletch but I would say Fletch is a good assumption Super, thank you so much.
Okay, next question is from Marcelo Mizzai from Bradesco. Marcelo, please, you can make your question.
Hello, everyone. Congratulations for the results and thanks for the opportunity. So my question is regarding the margin, the gross margins. Also to understand, so the dynamic has been changing, so gaining margin on the fees, on the repaid, which is a dynamic of the channels. but we are seeing the gross margins pretty stable so if this quarter was pretty strong can we expect going for this gross margins going up in the next quarters with the dynamics of the mix that we probably the company will have in the next quarters thank you yeah we have a lot of a lot of operational leverage when we think about the business and it's the same case when we
think about the channels okay so when we look on the long run you could expect gross margins to improve but remember that the market to market also impact this kind of ratios because when we have like a more than 400 million reais on our top line that there is no correlation to our sales channels or to IFAs, it distorts a little bit the ratios, the commission ratios and so on. So that's the main explanation.
Okay. Next question is from Pedro Leduc from Itaú. Leduc, you may proceed.
Thanks, everyone. Congrats on navigating this challenging quarter. I want to go back a little bit to the SG&A side. You know, you've been very clear about the seasonality in the second half. We can clearly see you investing here more behind people. But then I go back to a conversation we had earlier in the year that you are looking to revamp your tech-based, you know, client-facing, especially for the massified or the base of the clients and where you were maybe losing a little bit of traction. and when I think about this flat efficiency and you're paying up for more people but you also have to boost the tech slash AI investment deck so question is are you being able to accommodate both here in this figures that you're talking about and where are you in this upgrade that you meant to do in the base channel service facing technology
thank you great question When you look, especially when you look the first half of the semester, you see known people, SG&A, growing a little bit more. And it's mainly technology. So technology is growing a lot, and it's mainly concentrated on AI, on servers, cloud, and so on. So we have been able to manage investing on these new technologies while maintaining the efficiency ratios. And about the segment that you mentioned, we always talk about when we simplify in three segments, the digital retail segment, the affluent clients and the private bank clients. And you are right, we have been creating a value proposition for these retail digital clients in the past, I would say, more than a year. We are about to launch an AI advisor, I would say, this month or beginning of next month. Because today, as we have a more complete shelf of products, including banking and insurance and so on, We are able to provide a good service and have a good unit economics with smaller ticket-sized clients. So, you can expect, especially in 2027, the number of clients coming from this segment to accelerate. So, I would say 2027, it's a good year to take a look on this segment.
Amazing. Thank you for the update, and talk soon.
Okay, next question is from Arnold Shirazi from Citi. Arnold, you may proceed.
My question is still on expenses. When analyzing people's expenses, I can see that salary has been increasing 23% year-over-year, while the headcount 13%. There's any change in compensation recently?
Also, we see a lower magnitude of share-based compensation. just trying to see the moving pieces here thank you it's hard to segregate salaries from the bonds and total compensation and so on so I would say the best way of looking is the competition ratio because the mix of people is very different that we are hiring and so on so look at the total compensation I would say that's the best way of analyzing people costs including also the RSUs and so on.
Okay, got it. Thanks. Okay, next question is from Guilherme Grispan from JP Morgan. Grispan, you can go on.
Thank you, Parise. Good evening, Mafra, Gustavo. Thank you for the presentation. Two quick follow-ups on our side, Mafra. First, I'm just confirming issuer services. I think you mentioned that primary markets has rebounded a little bit towards the second quarter but still it's very soft levels compared to last year. I just want to confirm that's kind of the message for the third queue. And then my actual question is more a follow up on the SME strategy going forward. You mentioned a little bit the credit card strategy. You have the POS partnership but focusing specifically on the credit side of the business, what is going to be the strategy here? It's going to be Credit plus working capital. The working capital, it's going to be with collateral or not. Do you plan to do government-related programs? Just want to understand the mindset for lending specifically.
Thank you for the question. About this first question, yes, you're right. Q3, when we think about, again, we are talking about debt capital markets, GCM. If you look at funds and other products, they are performing well. okay so but when we look GCM that's a big chunk of our issuer service it's better than Q2 but softer than the recent past okay or especially when we compared to 2025 that the volumes were all-time high so it's recovering but at software level okay the second part SMBs yes the strategy when we go to credit here remember that we are not aggressive even on corporate clients so as we are going down it's we are going to be even more conservative okay so it's always with collateral yes we are joining some of government programs other credits with collateral from cards from other receivables so it's always gonna have some collateral okay of course we can have a very small revolving lines but But the main part here is with collateral and very low risk. So that's the strategy when we think about credit for these segments here. So not big risks, not clean. So we're going to go step by step here. That's clear. Thank you.
Okay, thank you, everyone. So here is the time that we're going to finish the call. Thank you for joining us today. We're going to keep in touch. any further questions the IR team is more than happy to address and see you next quarter thank you
