BYMA held its sixth Shareholders' Meeting

Yesterday, BYMA -Bolsas y Mercados Argentinos- held its sixth Shareholders' Meeting on second call.

During the activity, key events took place, such as: the presentation of management results, financial statements as of December 31, 2022, and the approval of a dividend to be paid in cash; the election of the authorities of the administrative and supervisory body; and the presentation of the company's main initiatives during the period, which set the course for the current fiscal year.

‍"2022 was a year of evolution materialized in concrete developments. We made progress in key axes of our strategy: new investment products, new panels for sustainable finance, investment in technology, new Corporate Venture Capital Fund, new financial education model.

We closed the year with good results based on increasingly solid foundations, which mark an encouraging starting point for our projects. 2023 has already begun with a record number of transactions in one of the January trading sessions. Every year we strive to generate a greater positive impact on the different sectors of the Argentine economy, transforming investment into work and development for Argentina," expressed BYMA's President, Ernesto Allaria.

The assembly presentation is available here.

Cash dividend payment

The Ordinary General Shareholders' Meeting approved the payment of a cash dividend of $5.6 billion.

Authorities

From what was resolved at the Meeting and at the Board of Directors' meeting, the management and oversight body was formed as follows:

‍Board of Directors
- Chairman: Ernesto Allaria
- Vice President: Marcelo A. Menéndez

Tenured Directors

• Luis E. Alvarez
• Gabriel Martino (*)
• Alexander Zawadzki
• Roberto D'Avola (*)
• Gabriela Terminielli
• Eduardo J. Tapia
• Javier Douer (*)
• Claudio Zuchovicki
• Ricardo Torres
• Alberto Ubertone

Substitute Directors

• Mateo Brito
• Gonzalo de la Serna
• Tomas Vassolo
• Mariano Fiorito (*)
• Sebastián Arena
• María Julia Díaz Ardaya (*)
• María Angélica Grisolía
• Fernando Terrile
• Roberto Belchior (*)
• Juan Ignacio Abuchdid
• Alejandra Naughton

(*) Independent Directors

‍Tenured Audit Committee

• Andrés Edelstein (Chairman)
• Fernando Diaz
• Juan Pablo Rechter

Assignees

• María José Van Morlegan
• Eduardo Di Costanzo
• Carlos Vyhñak

BYMA comprises all the steps of the Argentine Capital Market industry, from a vertical integration that encompasses listing, trading, registration, settlement, custody with central depository, payment of claims, access to holdings, and other pre- and post-trade services. As a Stock Exchange it provides a diversity of products for all types of participants: retail investors, trading desks, funds, insurers.

As a result of the developments and novelties BYMA introduced in the local market throughout 2022, the following results were achieved:

- Increased trading volume. The daily average of orders in December 2022 was 3.31 million and shows a growth of 85% compared to December 2021.

- In 2022 more and more people chose to invest their savings in the Capital Market to achieve a return and reach their goals. 322,939 are the new comitent accounts with activity in BYMA during 2022, a 7% increase compared to 2021. By taking into account the amount traded in the PPT segment, 18% came from clients in the interior of the country (excluding the Federal Capital and the Province of Buenos Aires). Thus, the total number of clients that operated in BYMA last year reached a total of 727,810, 17% more than in 2021. The number of debt issuers increased in 2022, reaching a total of 106 (71% increase over 2021).
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‍- Increasingly more investment alternatives. In Argentina, investors have an increasingly wide variety of financial products available, from which they can choose according to their profile and investment objective. At BYMA, an investor can find fixed income products, stocks, closed-end funds, stock CEDEARs, ETF CEDEARs, surety bonds, futures, options, term by lot, loans, primary placements and checks. The addition of new tools allows the investor to have more options. On average in 2022, each principal traded 5 instruments.

‍- SMEs continued to find financing in the Capital Markets. The Digital Promissory Note, the Echeq and the Electronic Credit Invoice offer competitive rates. The SME can be financed from anywhere in the country, in a totally online, agile and secure manner, eliminating operating and management costs. For example, through the EPYME platform. Thus, they can obtain funds to pay salaries, enlarge a plant, finance working capital, obtain inputs or purchase goods for their company, among other examples.

• In 2022, 228,191 SME instruments were placed in custody. The annual amount had an increase of 101% in pesos and 368% in dollars with respect to 2021.
• As of 12/31/22, the SME instruments in custody were 62,146. Of the latter number, 75% corresponded to Electronic Checks, 13% to Checks and 11% to Electronic Promissory Notes.
• With respect to their origin, around 25% of the issuers of SME financing instruments are from CABA and approximately 16% are from Córdoba.

- More and more issuers are venturing into impact financing.
BYMA's SVS Bond Panel reached a record number of issues in 2022, with total labeled debt exceeding USD 1.1 billion and 38 listed marketable securities, 17 of which were issued during that period. New players, such as SMEs and civil associations, are venturing into this type of financing and there are even several SVS issues made by the same issuer.

In addition to the SVS Bond Panel, since 2022 there has been a new Sustainability-Linked Bond (VS) Panel in Argentina, which in its first year already incorporated 3 marketable securities.

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- Technology and innovations that facilitate access to investments.
‍There are developments that facilitate operations and even allow investing from the palm of the hand. Today, the OMS (Order Management System), BYMADATA, ANIMA, among others, are available at BYMA. BYMA has been investing in technology for years to boost business development, through a solid innovation strategy.

These are some of the keys that defined the 2022 growth of the market, along with increasingly lower costs and bonuses to promote accessibility, and quality financial information.

Projections 2023: a start of the year with good news

The work done in 2022 had its correlate in a positive start of 2023 for the local market. January this year was marked by record trading, a thermometer of what is happening in the financial sector worldwide and has been brewing since last year.

In the January 18 session, BYMA saw a threefold increase in average daily trading compared to January 2022, with a peak of 290,000 trades. This represents a 121% increase in average daily trading between January 2022 and January 2023. Compared to December 2022, the growth is 38% in average daily operations (December: 159,300 operations per day). This is a very significant growth that occurred in less than a month.

The macroeconomy and the evolution of the financial sector have been opening opportunities that we at BYMA are capitalizing on and transforming into concrete projects. The 2023 strategic plan will be focused on a diversity of initiatives that will bring novelties in sustainable finance, investment alternatives, open innovation and technology.

The progress of the NASDAQ project, replacing the current central custody system. This technology will allow us to take our depository Caja de Valores to the next level and will bring significant benefits to multiple stakeholders: banks, depositors, brokers, among others.

We will continue with developments related to the "apification" of all our applications and business systems. Through various technologies, we seek to have applications that are part of the same ecosystem and that can grow easily. We are also moving towards a hybrid infrastructure model, which integrates Data Centers Cloud.

Our open innovation strategy and our support for the entrepreneurial sector will also play a key role this year. BYX Ventures, our CVC fund, has already invested in Quantex, Agrotoken, Extrimian and Satellogic, startups with which we are working to empower them and regionalize their business. BYMA will put its knowledge and capital to support, through open innovation, entrepreneurs in Argentina and the region.

In addition, we will continue to address a major challenge: financial education, so that all Argentines have more knowledge on the subject and consider the market as an investment alternative for their savings.

From BYMA we will continue to create and enhance the conditions to meet the demand and interest of investors and issuers for a positive evolution of the Argentine Capital Market.

Byma will continue to create and enhance the conditions to meet the demand and interest of investors and issuers for a positive evolution of the Argentine Capital Market.