Nasdaq Inc at Barclays Global Financial Services Conference Transcript

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

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Well, great to have you kind of kicking off today. I mean, I feel like you guys always have a unique view into the macro backdrop. So could you perhaps, starting off, talk about what you're seeing coming out of a period of very intense volatility earlier in the year, how does the environment look for capital markets, IPOs, the fintech business? I think investors are always particularly curious about your near-term 6, 12 month expectations

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Great. Well, you mentioned fintech, that's a good segue to go to the next couple of questions here. So maybe we'll start focusing on Verafin. You've been pushing more into Tier 1 and Tier 2 banks. Can you talk a little bit about how that's been going? What does the typical appetite look like across that client cohort? What are the solutions you're typically signing first when you have a new enterprise client, what solutions follow? How is the overall progress going with this cohort?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Great. You mentioned briefly international, Europe has been another initiative. Can you talk about the progress there? I think in the past, you've talked about leveraging the Calypso footprint. What does the pipeline look like for Verafin in Europe? What types of banks are you seeing interested in the product there?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Great. Maybe putting it all together, growth in Verafin has been at the low end of the mid-20s growth outlook, the expectation is that's going to be similar in 2025. How should investors think about the timing of a reacceleration here as these new initiatives start turning on a little bit? How do we think about sort of the cadence in the next 12 to 24 months? And given the medium-term target is an average target over that period as we go further out, do you think we can see growth above the mid-20s or is that sort of like the range to be thinking about?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Understood. We've talked a bit -- you guys have talked publicly about AI quite a bit in the context of Verafin as well as elsewhere. Sticking with Verafin for just a moment longer. You've mentioned the agentic AI workforce last quarter. Can you maybe dig into this a little bit? Talk about -- what exactly is this doing for clients and what's the early feedback look like?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Maybe pivoting to the Regtech business. The regulatory environment still feels somewhat uncertain, particularly with some recent proposals around changes to the SLR. How is that evolving landscape affecting your sales conversations? How do you see it affecting the business moving forward?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Okay. Pivoting to the capital markets technology, Calypso specifically, earlier you mentioned the kind of previously communicated slow down to the sales cycle, has kind of been reversed, but we're still seeing some tariff-related volatility. Can you walk us through a little bit what played out as the year progressed? How are sales conversations been lately? It sounds like you're mostly kind of through the woods there, but it seems like volatility is the new normal. So what are you hearing more recently?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Great. Maybe thinking a bit about the cross-sell opportunity between Nasdaq's legacy product set, Calypso, Axiom. I think you've noted that cross sales are around 15% or more of the FinTech sales pipeline. How are you going after this opportunity? Maybe talk about what you're doing tactically. Where are the most natural areas of overlap for Nasdaq that didn't exist for Adenza on its own, but are available to you? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 08, 2025 / 1:00PM, NDAQ.OQ - Nasdaq Inc at Barclays Global Financial Services Conference

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Maybe one last question kind of on the FinTech side, a little bit of a newer topic. But as you're looking forward, how are you thinking about new opportunities around digital assets, stable coins, is there a future state where Nasdaq exchanges is facilitate the trading of tokenized stocks in and out of stable coins or do the opportunities lie more on the infrastructure side? How are you thinking about the range of outcomes for you?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Very interesting. Anything in the works on the infrastructure side, Calypso trade --

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Great. All right. Moving to capital markets. We talked earlier about IPO conditions. Same subject, but I just want to ask a more high level, how do you think about Nasdaq's business and what drives your high win rate and how you're maybe trying to position yourselves for hopefully the next 6, 12 months of a more exciting time?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Under that same umbrella, your workflow and insights business, you saw a nice pickup in ARR last quarter. I think there were a couple of notable wins in Corporate Solutions. Unpack what you're currently seeing there? To what extent is the improving IPO market playing a role in sales conversations? How do you think about that as a driver?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Maybe coming back to index. Similarly, can you talk about the strategy there? I mean, besides the phenomenal market-driven growth, what else do you think Nasdaq can do to kind of enhance this business, whether it's on the AUM side, additional strategies, derivatives, things like that? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 08, 2025 / 1:00PM, NDAQ.OQ - Nasdaq Inc at Barclays Global Financial Services Conference

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Got it. Maybe on the -- moving to the market services side of the business. So across both equity options and cash equities, it looks like over the past several years, Nasdaq share has been trending lower. How do you think about competition in these businesses and generally defending share in the exchange business? And along the same lines, you recently filed an application to add Monday and Wednesday expiries to a handful of qualifying securities. What would your expectations be for zero dated single stock options, assuming an okay from your regulator?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : And then the other part of the question would be -- yeah, how do you --

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : All right. Maybe moving to costs and capital allocation. So we talked earlier about AI. More broadly, how do you think about the opportunity internally? How much runway is there for additional efficiency gains to be made by implementing AI at Nasdaq?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Okay. Great. On the capital side, so at the end of Q2, gross leverage was approaching 3%, I think you're at 3.2%. Any updated thoughts you can share around getting below your leverage targets? How do you think about buyback opportunities? What the cadence looks like, anything like that?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : So at the opposite end of the spectrum, we've seen Nasdaq spin-off some businesses in the past. I think earlier this year, you spun-off your European power trading business. Is there anything else across the portfolio that feels like it doesn't quite fit with your core strengths? Could we see other divestitures in the future? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 08, 2025 / 1:00PM, NDAQ.OQ - Nasdaq Inc at Barclays Global Financial Services Conference

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Great. Well, maybe circling back to a couple of things we talked about earlier. With the beginning of our conversation, we talked about the IPO market. Curious if you could talk about the mix of the pipeline? It's a question we get a lot, whether it's on the exchange side, the alternative asset management side, which me and a lot of my peers also cover. It seems like the market has been more open for certain types of companies, tech growth, crypto. How does the pipeline look? Do you think that the appetite or the desire to go is kind of broadening? And I think we talked about sort of the broad market, but how do you think about like the different sectors and the ability to go public as we're looking out over the next year?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Got it. A separate topic, was something you mentioned. It feels like something even like a year or two ago, we talked about a lot, the conversations more moved to AI. But on the cloud side. Maybe two parts, can you talk about where Nasdaq is in kind of your broader cloud journey? And then I feel like just a few years ago, there used to be a lot of conversation about moving whole markets to the cloud. What's the latest there? Is there still -- is the blockchain sort of the updated version, we don't need it anymore? Or is there still experimentation momentum happening there? Like what are your thoughts on it?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Maybe one last final question with a little bit of time we have left. So another one of your recent announcements is another planned Investor Day next February. I think we -- you have a somewhat regular cadence. So not too unexpected, but just you've kind of gone through this period of acquisitions, Axiom, Calypso, feels like investors kind of understand now like how that story all fits together. So how do you think about, clearly, we'll get there when we get there. But what should we be looking for when we kind of see you again, I think, next February?

Question: Benjamin Budish - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Great. Well, we'll leave it there. Sarah, thank you so much for joining. It's a pleasure to have you.