NCC Group PLC Capital Markets Event for Escode Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Damindu Jayaweera - Peel Hunt - Analyst : Thank you, Adrian; and thank you, Neil; and thank you, Alex. As Adrian explained, Neil heads TMT and services at the NatWest Group, and Alex is the Director for Global Strategic Accounts at Escode. So I've actually followed NCC for well over a decade. I've covered the sector for coming up to two and a bit decades, but I don't often get to talk to a vendor relationship that's 20-plus years. So just to kick things off, Neil, maybe -- could you describe your role at NatWest and the relationship between the NatWest Group and the NCC Group and, specifically, Escode?

Question: Damindu Jayaweera - Peel Hunt - Analyst : So if we bring it home to the Escode-relevant piece, which is the escrow piece, we've heard earlier about how escrow -- the why of escrow. But from where you are sitting for the group, why do you care about the escrow? What's important about it? What's the driver for -- what's the problem that escrow solves for you?

Question: Damindu Jayaweera - Peel Hunt - Analyst : Just to kind of carry on with that, obviously, I understand from a risk management perspective why it matters. The chaps earlier were talking about the regulatory environment as well. Is that an important component in deciding escrow?

Question: Damindu Jayaweera - Peel Hunt - Analyst : Could you maybe narrow it down and maybe take one particular example of maybe a product category or an actual product where Escode's escrow offering is being used and why?

Question: Damindu Jayaweera - Peel Hunt - Analyst : Right. So that's actually so there is a third party open banking services or software provider that plugs into you. But you are -- it's almost like a double escrow in that you're escrowing the risk of that vendor, but you're also de-risking it for the people who are going to be using that banking as a service. without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. 'Thomson Reuters' and the Thomson Reuters logo are registered trademarks of Thomson Reuters and its affiliated companies. APRIL 25, 2024 / 9:30AM, NCCG.L - NCC Group PLC Capital Markets Event for Escode

Question: Damindu Jayaweera - Peel Hunt - Analyst : Could you -- I mean, it sounds quite mission critical. I mean, who gets involved in the escrow process from the bank's perspective? I mean -- sometimes, I always think is it just the IT? Is it just risk management? Or is it all the kind of people at the departmental level? I mean, who are the stakeholders in these agreements?

Question: Damindu Jayaweera - Peel Hunt - Analyst : Alex, could you describe -- obviously, you've been dealing with this account for a while. Could you describe how, from your perspective, the relationship is set up? Who do you deal with? Is it at the department level? Obviously, the C-level people are also involved. Could you describe the relationship, the evolution of it? And I was told that there was a master services agreement that was signed last year. So that's an evolution of the relationship. Could you bring to life where things are with the NatWest Group right now?

Question: Damindu Jayaweera - Peel Hunt - Analyst : And Neil, obviously, what we've just been talking about, I could potentially take -- I feel like I could potentially take any escrow company and put it, then you'd be fine. Obviously, that's not the case. There's a long established relationship with Escode. So, why Escode?

Question: Damindu Jayaweera - Peel Hunt - Analyst : I mean, earlier, there was this mention of verifications as something important that you need to repeat, especially for mission-critical parts of it. Maybe this is more for Alex. When you put together the master services agreement, was part of that to ensure the verifications are applied to more of -- in a more unified way to the mission-critical applications that, as Neil mentioned, were sitting in different -- various different parts of the organization and probably different agreements that were not quite cohesive.

Question: Damindu Jayaweera - Peel Hunt - Analyst : Actually, Neil, you mentioned Ventures a few times. But I was -- I think at the very beginning, you also mentioned M&A. I mean, we find, at junctures like this in a cycle with lots of fintech stuff happening, groups like yours tend to either consolidate and sometimes also dispose, so incoming M&A and outgoing M&A, essentially. Is escrow relevant for M&A scenarios as well?

Question: Damindu Jayaweera - Peel Hunt - Analyst : Okay, perfect. I have a follow-up question. I'll come back to you in a second. Actually, Alex, I wanted to ask you. How does budgets work in a big group like NatWest group? How do you navigate -- I mean, who ultimately writes these checks?

Question: Damindu Jayaweera - Peel Hunt - Analyst : So basically, the agenda is set around risk management at the CIO, the risk committee levels, and then the budgets are released from individual, I guess, business entities, essentially.

Question: Damindu Jayaweera - Peel Hunt - Analyst : So we've got one minute or 30 seconds left, so I'm going to ask Neil a question I wanted to ask. And we were kind of talking about it earlier as well. Obviously, given the relationships being there for such a long time, it's relevant, escrow is relevant, and therefore, Escode is relevant. How do you see the future? From where you are sitting, how do you see the future of escrow and, therefore, the Escode relationship?

Question: Damindu Jayaweera - Peel Hunt - Analyst : It's almost like there's a parallel in that lots of people are thinking about the cyber security plus insurance in a way. So you're essentially talking about venture debt, but securing the IP of that company through escrow. Interesting. Well, we are out of time. So thank you, Neil; and thank you, Alex, for the time. And I'm going to hand over to Jayesh to talk about the second most interesting part of this session, which is numbers. PRESENTATION