Message from our CEO

Markets were very volatile with high volumes in the first quarter of 2023 after which more normal volumes were seen in the rest of 2023. Geopolitical uncertainty kept markets on their toes throughout the year. Financial markets kept a close eye on inflation indicators acrossthe Western world in the hope for a soft landing of their economies and the start of an easing cycle in interest rates.

As a result of these market developments, we saw lower volumes in our total transactions processed; 5.2 billion in 2023 compared to 6.2 billion in 2022. In 2023 our daily peak transactions processed was 43 million and was reached on 13 March 2023. The biggest growth product in 2023, were zero-day options in the United States of America with substantial volumes coming from both institutional- as well as retail flow. We again had avery low number of IT disturbances. Compliments to all our staff and the employees of our vendors for mitigating any material client impact.

As per 1 January 2023, we implemented our new IT Operating Model under project name 1Global. Moving away from three regional IT organisations to two global agile grids: a Platform Grid and a Product Grid. We already used this way of working for the Product Gridin Europe, but for both the USA and APAC regions this meant adopting a new way of working. After a year, we are happy with the results. So far, it has given us far more clarity of and alignment on backlogs across the organisation and it helped set the scene in improvingand aligning our client services across the globe. Next to that, it will bring us more efficiency in our developers’ time, unlock our full product range globally and simplify our application landscape over the next few years. During 2023, we rolled out a new digital workplace internally. A material improvement of end-user services, which was a much-desired upgrade of tooling for our staff.

Financially we have raised the bar where revenue grew to EUR 660 million and net income grew to EUR 231 million which resulted in a return on equity of 13% and a cost/income ratio of 55%. Key drivers of these results are the continuing success of our clients in growing their footprint both in asset classes and geographically as well as our ability to support our clients in that growth. The higher interest rates also helped as itincreased interest income on our capital.

Happy employees lead to happy clients. This has been proven again in 2023. The Net Promotor Score (NPS) of our clients ended up at +41. With a participation rate of over 60% the NPS is quite impressive. Clients were especially satisfied with our relationship management and general clearing services. The Employee Engagement Score of our staff was slightly higher with a score of 81 compared to 78 last year. I am very happy with the lower attrition levels, at about 7% globally, after years where Ifelt attrition was too high.

ABN AMRO outsourced their Treasury hub in Singapore to AACB, and we prepared to take over treasury activities in New York per 1 January 2024 due to ABN AMRO withdrawing from both regions. To enable ABN AMRO to source funding from both Asia and US markets we areexecuting treasury activities on their behalf.

We use our purpose as our compass, leading the way to safe and transparent markets by doing business better and more sustainably. For example, AACB continued its relationship with Frontclear joining forces to help emerging countries develop their local financial markets. Through the Futures Industry Association (FIA) and other industry groups we participated in industry panels on environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations. We connected our platform and clients to more power markets to support the energy transition and we remained focused on minimising our own ESG-footprint when selecting data centres and power suppliers. Furthermore, AACB’s efforts and participation in various central-counterparty risk committees, Futures Industry Association boards and many other bodies is intended to advocate and influence better banking for future generations.

I am very proud of everything that AACB has achieved in 2023. The support of our clients, partners, employees and other stakeholders has been tremendously important in making these excellent results a reality, and I am extremely grateful for it. Reflecting on the past yearwhile looking ahead, I am confident that AACB’s 2023 performance validates our ongoing efforts to create longterm value for all stakeholders.

Amsterdam, 24 May 2024

Rutger Schellens

CEO of ABN AMRO Clearing Bank N.V.