Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

Well, listen, good morning, everyone, and welcome to our fireside presentation with Interactive Brokers' Thomas Peterffy. Thomas, we all really appreciate your time today, and thank you very much for joining us.

大家早上好，欢迎参加我们与Interactive Brokers创始人Thomas Peterffy的炉边谈话。Thomas，我们非常感谢您今天的出席，感谢您的时间。

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

Thank you very much for inviting.

非常感谢您的邀请。

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

First, a little background. Interactive Brokers is the fastest-growing company in our coverage with almost all of its growth organic, too. Last year, it grew its clients base by roughly 68%. Interactive Brokers is an electronic broker that uses technology and automation as its core competitive advantages, mainly to offer better, broader and cheaper services to its clients.

首先介绍一下背景。在我们覆盖的公司中，Interactive Brokers是增长最快的一家，且几乎所有增长都为有机增长。去年，其客户基础增长了大约68%。Interactive Brokers是一家电子经纪公司，以技术与自动化为核心竞争优势，主要为客户提供更好、更广泛、更低价的服务。

IBKR's business extends well outside of the U.S. and into Europe, Asia and LatAm with clients able to trade in 33 different countries and more than 20 different currencies. They have a wide platform too, offering services to individual consumers, brokers, RIAs and hedge funds. There's also very high insider ownership with 78% of the company owned by Thomas and the firm's senior management team.

IBKR的业务远远超出美国，扩展至欧洲、亚洲和拉美，客户可在33个国家以超过20种货币进行交易。其平台覆盖面广，服务对象包括个人投资者、经纪商、注册投资顾问（RIA）及对冲基金。此外，公司内部持股比例非常高，Thomas与高管团队合计持有公司78%的股份。

Thomas immigrated to the U.S. in 1965 from Hungary and became a market-maker in the American Stock Exchange in 1977. He successfully integrated an automated market-making system for stocks, options, futures across the globe and in 1993, he launched Interactive Brokers and made it his electronic networks available to customers. In 2019, Milan Galik was appointed CEO, succeeding Thomas, and Thomas remains Chairman of the Board and its largest single shareholder. First, Thomas, before we begin, was there anything you'd like to add in that introduction?

Thomas于1965年从匈牙利移民至美国，1977年成为美国证券交易所的做市商。他成功将股票、期权和期货的全球自动化做市系统整合落地，并于1993年创立了Interactive Brokers，将其电子网络开放给客户使用。2019年，Milan Galik接任CEO一职，Thomas则继续担任董事会主席并仍是公司最大单一股东。首先，Thomas，在我们开始之前，您是否对上述介绍有任何补充？

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

I think it's perfectly encapsulated. Thank you.

我认为这个介绍已经非常全面了，谢谢。

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

Okay. Great. Well, let's get started with IBKR's differentiated business model. Can you talk about all the different clients that you interact with and across which geographies for many of the listeners that are new to the IBKR story.

好的，非常好。那我们就从IBKR差异化的商业模式谈起。对于许多刚接触IBKR的听众，您能否介绍一下您所服务的不同类型客户，以及他们主要分布在哪些地区？

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

So our fastest-growing client segment is individual investors and introducing brokers who we execute \[a clear for]. They come from all over the world, but fastest growth is coming from Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Prop trading firms and registered investment advisers are growing slower. And they are more focused in the U.S. and Western Europe. And hedge funds are almost all U.S.

我们增长最快的客户群体是个人投资者和引荐经纪商，我们为他们提供执行和清算服务。他们来自全球各地，但增长最快的是亚洲、东欧和中东地区。自营交易公司和注册投资顾问的增长相对较慢，且主要集中在美国和西欧。至于对冲基金，几乎全部位于美国。

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

So Thomas, as a follow-up, what do you view as your competitive advantage as you compete with some competitors that are much larger than you in many of your markets?

那么，Thomas，接着问一下，面对许多市场中规模远大于你们的竞争对手，您认为IBKR的竞争优势是什么？

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

Well, we hope that this size gap between us and the much larger competitors is closing very rapidly. Our competitive advantage is automation, which enables us to charge less, much less than competitors. It further enables us to offer access to many more markets around the world at equally low prices. We are able to extend margin financing at very low rates between 75 and 156 basis points. And due to our sophisticated automated margin management system that poses variable requirements and are often higher than regulatory minimums, we are not overwhelmed by large losses.

我们希望我们与这些大规模竞争对手之间的差距正在迅速缩小。我们的竞争优势在于自动化，这使我们可以收取远低于竞争对手的费用。它还使我们能够以同样低廉的价格为客户提供全球更多市场的交易机会。我们能够以非常低的利率提供融资融券服务，年化利率在75到156个基点之间。由于我们拥有先进的自动化保证金管理系统，它根据不同情况设定动态的保证金要求，且通常高于监管最低标准，因此我们不会因客户的大额亏损而陷入困境。

We provide completely transparent stock loan services, where our inventory and lending rates are online and accessible to all prime brokerage customers.

我们提供完全透明的股票借贷服务，我们的库存和借贷利率都在线公开，所有主经纪业务客户都可以实时访问。

Our automated and transparent bond trading platform is gaining recognition worldwide as we are beginning to list European and Asian bonds in addition to America. We find that our ability to provide IBKR Lite with 0 commissions and HFT executions or IBKR Pro with low commissions and often dark executions is a competitive advantage because our competitors either offer one or the other. I think one qualifying -- I'm sorry, you go forward, please.

我们的自动化和透明的债券交易平台正逐步在全球获得认可，我们正在开始挂牌交易欧洲和亚洲的债券，除了美国市场之外。我们发现，IBKR Lite可以提供零佣金及高频交易执行，IBKR Pro则提供低佣金并支持暗池交易，这样的能力构成了我们的竞争优势，因为我们的竞争对手通常只能做到其一。我想还有一点……对不起，请继续提问。

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

Got it. So I wanted to hit on what maybe investors are missing. How -- we think one thing investors are missing is how automated your platform is today. And I know you do this \[automization]. So can you estimate roughly how much do you save through these productivity gains through automation?

明白了。我想谈谈投资者可能忽略的地方。我们认为他们忽略的一点是你们平台如今的高度自动化。我知道你们在推动“自动化”这件事。那您是否可以粗略估算一下，通过这些自动化带来的生产力提升，你们大概节省了多少成本？

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

So in order to tell you how much we save, I would need to know relative to what? I do not know what other brokers do. I never work from another broker. And I don't think that we have any executive who has ever has. Almost all of us started in this company as computer programmers specialized in automation. And all functions that we offer, we automate, we do not offer anything until it is automated. This enables us to execute and clear over 3 million trades per day in over 135 trading venues in 27 different currencies all over the world with only 2,000 employees.

要告诉你我们节省了多少，我需要知道跟谁比。我不知道其他券商是怎么做的，我从未在其他券商工作过，我认为我们的高管中也几乎没有人在其他券商工作过。我们几乎所有人都是以专注自动化的计算机程序员身份在这家公司起步的。我们提供的所有功能，都是在实现自动化之后才上线的——在自动化完成前，我们不会提供相关服务。正是这点，使我们能够仅凭2,000名员工，就在全球135个交易场所、27种不同货币下，每天完成超过300万笔交易的执行与清算。

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

So Thomas, last year was a really strong year for IBKR. 2020, that is. A 56% account growth, 66% client equity growth. You eclipsed more than 1 million of accounts. I know you have a pretty broad business, but where is all this growth coming from? And how sustainable are these sort of very high-growth rates?

Thomas，去年对IBKR来说是非常强劲的一年，也就是2020年。账户增长56%，客户资产增长66%，你们的账户数突破了100万。我知道你们业务非常广泛，但这些增长到底是从哪里来的？这样的高速增长是否具备可持续性？

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

So last year was a strong year. This year looks even stronger. And I think that last year's levels will be sustainable. Why do I think that? I think that humanity has been moving into digital space for at least 2 decades now. This is a very long-term trend and all that has happened due to COVID is that we jumped about 5 years' worth of advance along that trend line in 1 year.

去年确实是个强劲之年，今年看起来更强劲。我认为去年的增长水平是可以持续的。为什么我这么认为？因为整个人类已经至少在过去20年里向数字化空间转移。这是一个非常长期的趋势，而COVID带来的影响，只是让我们在一年之内沿着这条趋势线跳跃前进了大约5年的进度。

So as COVID scare is coming to an end, we are going to return to advancing along this trend line at a slower pace, but we are not going to give back any of the gains we made in the past year. People are going to continue to run their lives on the same digital platforms. They will continue to meet with each other, like we are doing here, continue to shop and continue to work and continue to administer their finances online. But of course, this is only a guess on my part. I don't know, you don't know, nobody knows.

所以，随着COVID恐慌的结束，我们会回归到一个相对较慢的速度沿着这条趋势线继续前行，但我们不会回吐过去一年所取得的成果。人们仍将继续在同样的数字平台上管理生活。他们会继续像我们现在这样线上会面，继续线上购物、工作、以及在线管理财务。当然，这只是我的猜测。我不知道，你也不知道，没有人知道。

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

So Thomas, we wanted to dive a little deeper into your Asia business. This is a business that some of the other e-brokers, digital brokers, wealth managers I cover really don't have. So it's a special business for interactive. Can you comment -- and actually you commented in the past that many of your fastest-growing markets and client segments are actually in Asia. So maybe give us a little more color on this. And what is driving this growth in Asia because I know it's not probably prop hedge? fund and RIA.

Thomas，我们想更深入了解你们在亚洲的业务。这部分业务在我覆盖的其他电子券商、数字券商和财富管理公司中几乎都不存在，对Interactive Brokers来说是非常特别的。您之前也提到，很多增长最快的市场和客户群其实都在亚洲。您能否进一步介绍一下情况？推动亚洲业务增长的主要因素是什么？我知道这部分增长大概率不是来自自营交易、对冲基金或注册投资顾问（RIA）。

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

So our growth in Asia is driven by the faster economic growth of the region and the fact that the investing culture in Asia is not as developed there as it is in the U.S. or Western Europe. So there are fewer entrants, competitors and the ones who are there tend to be technologically less developed.

我们在亚洲的增长主要受益于该地区更快的经济增长，同时亚洲的投资文化尚未像美国或西欧那样成熟。因此，这里的进入者和竞争者较少，而且现有的竞争者在技术层面通常不够先进。

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

Got it. I wanted to see if we could dive a little deeper within Asia and China. Could you provide us an update on China? And really, whether you see any change momentum or any movement in the horizon here?

明白了。我想再具体问一下亚洲市场中的中国部分。您能否介绍一下你们在中国的最新情况？您是否观察到中国市场有任何动向或趋势变化？

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

It's interesting that you should ask that. China used to be our fastest-growing region up until just a little more than a year ago. China suddenly stopped \[the line] people to transfer money out of the country for investment purposes, even though the law accord for allowing people to invest up to \$50,000 per year abroad. But just last Friday, our people in Hong Kong noticed following the announcement as translated by Google Translate, "the State Administration of Foreign Exchange has studied and demonstrated the feasibility of allowing domestic individuals to invest in overseas securities and the insurance within the annual facilitation quarter of USD 50,000."

你提这个问题很有意思。中国曾是我们增长最快的地区，直到大约一年前。中国突然停止了允许人们将资金汇出用于海外投资，尽管法律本来是允许每人每年最多投资5万美元的。不过就在上周五，我们在香港的同事注意到一项新声明（由Google翻译）：“国家外汇管理局已对在年度便利额度5万美元内允许境内个人投资海外证券和保险的可行性进行了研究和论证。”

We do not yet know how to interpret this statement, but our executives in Asia say that arms of the government do not make such statements lightly and this will have a -- they think, a substantially positive effect for -- on people who want to fund Interactive Brokers' accounts.

我们目前还不确定如何解读这项声明，但我们亚洲的高管表示，中国政府机构不会轻易做出这样的表态，他们认为这对想向Interactive Brokers账户注资的个人而言将是一个实质性的积极信号。

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

So Thomas, that sounds like a pretty big positive, like there could be a lot of movement into investing in Hong Kong, and you guys stand pretty well positioned for that, too.

所以听起来这是一个非常利好的消息，似乎有可能会推动大量投资流入香港市场，而你们也正好处于非常有利的市场位置来承接这一趋势。

Thomas Peterffy Founder & Chairman

Well, that's very possible, but before I came on this call, I was reading the article in The Wall Street Journal about how China is relentlessly advancing in taking Hong Kong over and that doesn't sound very encouraging. So nobody knows.

这当然是有可能的，但在我加入这场访谈之前，我刚读了一篇《华尔街日报》的文章，讲的是中国正不懈地推进对香港的控制，这听起来并不令人鼓舞。所以没人知道将来会怎样。

Craig Siegenthaler Crédit Suisse AG

All right. Let's turn the page to Europe. I wanted to get a state of the union on your European business. And we were watching this closely when you had new legal entities in 2020 get approved, first in Hungary, then in Dublin. So what are the client trends here that you think will drive growth in this region? And maybe talk about why you've been expanding the number of brokerage entities, too.

好的，那我们将话题转向欧洲。我想了解一下你们在欧洲业务的整体情况。我们在2020年时密切关注你们陆续在匈牙利和都柏林获得新牌照的进展。那么，在你看来，是什么样的客户趋势会推动该地区的增长？另外，也请谈谈你们为何要增加经纪实体的数量？

Thomas Peterffy Founder & Chairman

So in Europe, the strongest growth we see coming out of the U.K. -- if you can consider the U.K. as Europe, this is a very recent development. Our new account openings have picked up very substantially starting around year-end. We do not know if that is caused -- about what caused that, is it Brexit maybe? I don't quite understand it.

在欧洲，我们看到最强劲的增长来自英国——如果你还把英国算作欧洲的话——这是最近才出现的趋势。从去年年底开始，我们的新开户数量大幅上升。我们不知道这是不是因为英国脱欧，我自己也不太明白其中原因。

Third on that, we see very strong growth in the territories of the old Soviet Union and the previously Soviet-occupied countries. In Western Europe, growth is comparatively [weak] with the possible exception of Spain and Portugal and maybe a bit from Italy. It seems that the western part of the EU and the northern part has kind of lost its mojo. I don't know what else to tell you here. That's all I can see.

此外，我们在前苏联地区和曾经被苏联占领的国家也看到了非常强劲的增长。相比之下，西欧地区的增长就比较疲弱，或许西班牙和葡萄牙还不错，意大利也有一点。但总体来看，欧盟的西部和北部似乎有些失去了活力。我也不太清楚还能补充什么，这就是我目前观察到的全部。

Craig Siegenthaler Crédit Suisse AG

So I just want to remind everyone that's listening in, if they have any questions, feel free to [Gautham] on my team and he can relay it to me. But we're going to keep on going here. And actually, his e-mail address is at the bottom of the web page.

我想提醒一下正在收听的各位听众，如果你们有任何问题，可以随时联系我团队的Gautham，他会转达给我。我们这边会继续推进这场对话。Gautham的电子邮件地址就在网页下方。

But Thomas, I've heard you mention in the past that you have a long-term goal to get to 80 million accounts. And just to remind everyone, your account base now is about 1 million. So how do you get this number? And can you help us with timing in terms of that number?

Thomas，我记得您曾提到过一个长期目标——将账户数扩展至8000万个。提醒一下听众，目前你们的账户数量大约是100万个。那么这个目标是怎么来的？你能否也谈谈实现这个目标的时间框架？

Thomas Peterffy Founder & Chairman

So it's a very simple math, 80 million is roughly 1% of the population on earth 10 years hence. And I estimate that we have a good chance of getting 1%, who tend to be financially the most sophisticated people. That's -- it's just a simple guess where we can go, all right?

这个数字其实是非常简单的数学计算。8000万，大约等于10年后全球人口的1%。我估计我们有很大机会拿下这1%的人群——也就是那些最具金融素养的人。这只是一个我们可能到达目标的简单猜测，仅此而已。

Craig Siegenthaler Crédit Suisse AG

So Thomas, let's move on to the recent trading events with GameStop and AMC. So we saw some unusual trading activity in January. It captured a lot of the headlines. GameStop, AMC were kind of front and center. Maybe you could talk about what changes you made to both trading and margin lending and why? And any other perspective you have to share on the topic.

Thomas，我们来谈谈最近关于GameStop和AMC的交易事件。今年1月我们看到一些非常异常的交易活动，引发了很多媒体关注。GameStop和AMC成了焦点。您能否谈谈你们对交易和保证金贷款所做出的调整，以及背后的原因？另外如果您对此事件还有其他看法，也请一并分享。

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

So the amazing thing about this whole GameStop event is that I have not been as scared since 19 -- since the 1987 crash as I was on the 28th of January. I don't think that people appreciate how close the system came to complete breakdown because people maybe don't understand that you can buy a stock on margin and that your broker can lend out the stock. But if you repay the margin, the broker has to call the stock back and put it into your account.

这次 GameStop 事件令人震惊，我自1987年股灾以来从未像2021年1月28日那天那样恐惧。我认为人们并未意识到当时金融系统几乎彻底崩溃的程度，因为许多人可能不了解，买股票可以用保证金，而券商可以借出你账户里的股票。但如果你偿还了保证金，券商就必须收回借出的股票并将其归还到你的账户中。

So if you bought GameStop at \$20, \$30, \$40, \$50, \$60 and suddenly it went to \$300, \$400, you only have to sell a few shares in order to be able to repay the margin. And then all your stock has to be recalled. So there were 50 million shares floating and 70 million shares short, plus there were 150 million shares short in the form of call options, short calls. So there were 270 million shares in total that the loans could call for and only 50 million existed. So this -- I mean this price -- the reason why the price went from -- it closed at \$147. Next day it opened at \$355. The reason why it rose up overnight is because the SEC requires that the failing shorts be covered before they open on the following day. We have had many arguments in the SEC, we said we do not understand why you want us to bring it in before they open. The market is much less liquid before they open, and they said, sorry, that's what we want. So that's what we do. And that's what every broker does. So it's a miracle that the stock didn't run further up because if it had, the shorts would have failed on the brokers, the brokers would have failed on the clearing house and this would have been such a huge mass that it's impossible to untangle. At any rate, to get -- I just wanted to vent a little bit.

所以，如果你在 GameStop 的价格是20、30、40、50或60美元时买入，然后股价突然飙升到300、400美元，你只需卖出少量股票就能偿还保证金贷款，此时你的所有股票就必须被券商召回。当时市场上只有5000万股流通股，但做空了7000万股，加上通过认沽期权做空的还有1.5亿股，总共有2.7亿股是以借贷形式存在的，而实际上只存在5000万股。这就是为什么价格会从147美元收盘价在隔天开盘时跳到355美元。这个隔夜大涨的原因是因为 SEC 要求所有未交割的空头在第二天开盘前必须被回补。我们与 SEC 争论了很多次，说我们不理解为什么非要在开盘前完成，因为那时市场流动性很差。但他们坚持这是他们的规定，于是我们也只能照做。所有券商也都照做。股票没涨得更离谱简直是个奇迹。如果真涨上去了，空头无法交割，券商就会违约，券商一旦违约，清算所也会出事，整个系统就会乱成一团，难以收拾。不管怎么说，我只是想发泄一下。

To come directly on to your question, so as we saw Game (sic) \[ GameStop ] and others going crazy. We wanted to change the margins, which we always could do. But in this case, we wanted to change the margins drastically, but without necessarily blowing out people with already existing positions. So we wanted to change the existing position margins gradually, but new positions that you would want to put on, we would want to charge a lot, lot more for especially the shorts. So we decided to require 80% margin for long and 100% on shorts. But so since we didn't want to bring it all out at the same time for an all-in for existing positions, we did it in 2 ways. Once we started slowly raising the existing positions, and we had to since it took us some time to bring in this new code, we had to stop the opening of new positions for a day while we brought that in. So that's basically what happened.

回到你最初的问题，当我们看到 GameStop 和其他股票的走势变得疯狂时，我们决定调整保证金比率，这是我们一直有权做的。但这次我们想大幅提高保证金要求，同时又不希望立即让持有已有仓位的客户爆仓。我们的策略是逐步提高已有仓位的保证金要求，而对新建仓位，特别是空头仓位，则大幅提高门槛。所以我们决定对多头要求80%的保证金，对空头则是100%。但我们不想对已有仓位一下子全推出来，所以采取了两个措施：一是开始逐步提高现有仓位的保证金要求；二是因为引入新代码需要一些时间，我们暂停了一天的新仓位开仓操作，以完成系统更新。基本上事情就是这样发生的。

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

Thomas, we got one question from the audience on this sort of topic. So let me ask it. And so his question was, did you follow the GM hearings in Congress? And do you think there could be any regulatory changes coming out of these issues?

Thomas，我们收到一位观众关于这个话题的问题，我来问一下。他的问题是：你有没有关注国会关于GameStop的听证会？你是否认为这件事可能会带来任何监管方面的变化？

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

So I did see the hearings, some of it. I think we sorely need 2 regulatory -- 2 tiny little regulatory changes, which is that I would like to see short interest public daily, reported daily by the brokers instead of twice a month as we have it today.

我确实看了部分听证会。我认为我们确实迫切需要两项监管上的小变动：第一，我希望看到空头头寸的披露变为每天由券商报告，而不是像现在这样每月两次。

And second, I would like to see the SEC require brokers to charge an additional 1% margin for each 1% of short interest outstanding, that would basically do away with squeezes in the future. So the reason squeezes have not been developing lately is because several decades ago, the SEC made the rule that market manipulation is a criminal act. And short squeezes are obviously market manipulation. So nobody did it.

第二，我希望 SEC 要求券商对每1%的已存在空头部位额外收取1%的保证金，这样基本上就能杜绝未来的逼空现象。过去一段时间没有出现逼空，是因为几十年前 SEC 规定市场操纵是犯罪行为，而逼空显然就是市场操纵，因此没人会做。

Now that we have the social networks, people can sort of just make a little comments, and you can't really put your finger on anybody and suddenly see an emerging short squeeze. So this is a new phenomenon, and this requires this rule change, but I wouldn't like to see any other rule changes.

但现在有了社交网络，人们只需要随便发些评论，你也很难具体指责谁，但逼空就会自然发生。这是一个新的现象，因此需要新的规则来应对。但除此之外，我不希望看到其他任何规则的改变。

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

Got it. Thomas, did you or did Interactive Brokers incur any losses from clients that moved into negative equity positions due to the activity in January, February? And I'm just wondering, I think you gave us some color on the 4Q call, which is around the time. But how could losses from this recent activity compare to some of the other historical activities? And I'm thinking the WTI oil contracts in '19 or even the VIX in 2018.

明白了。Thomas，你本人或Interactive Brokers有没有因为1月或2月的市场活动而遭遇客户进入负资产而造成的损失？我记得你在第四季度的电话会上提到过一些情况。你认为这次的潜在损失和历史上的其他事件相比如何？比如2019年的WTI原油合约，或者2018年的VIX事件？

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

So we didn't have any losses of any significance.

我们几乎没有遭遇任何实质性的损失。

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

Got it. Okay. So with the very, very low interest rate backdrop, which is actually not so low anymore because the 10 years have been actually moving up a lot. But on the short end, it's the level. What is your net interest revenue outlook at this point?

明白了。好的，在目前这个极低利率的环境下——尽管现在其实不再那么低了，因为10年期国债收益率已经涨了不少。但短端利率仍然处于低位。请问你目前对净利息收入的展望如何？

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

So net interest revenue basically comes from cash on hand of customers' cash, which yields practically nothing. We have it in banks and in short term repos. So it yields something like 7 basis points. We -- on the other hand, we have margin loans that are rising rapidly. It's currently \$42 billion, on which we make roughly 1%. And we expect this \$42 billion to continue to rise in the future.

净利息收入基本上来自客户账户中的现金，这部分收益几乎可以忽略不计。我们将这笔钱存在银行或做短期回购，收益率大约是7个基点。另一方面，我们的保证金贷款正在快速增长，目前已达到420亿美元，我们从中大约能赚取1%的利差。我们预计这420亿美元还会继续增长。

Stock loan income happens to be very, very high currently, but this is notoriously unpredictable. It depends on whatever stock becomes hard to borrow and whether we have any of it on margin or we don't. So this is not something that you can forecast. So that's what I can tell you.

目前证券借贷收入非常高，但这是出了名的难以预测。这取决于某只股票是否变得难以借入，以及我们是否正好有这只股票的保证金仓位。所以这部分收入无法进行准确预测。我能告诉你的大概就是这些。

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

Thomas, we had another question from an investor watching us. He wanted to understand your plans for crypto outside of future trading.

Thomas，我们还有一位观众投资人提问，他想了解你们在加密货币方面除了期货交易之外是否还有其他计划。

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

Well, we never make any announcements until we're ready to make them. And so we have no announcement on this call.

我们一向不会在准备好之前发布任何消息，所以在这次电话会上我们没有任何公告可分享。

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

Got it. Okay. So I wanted to get back to topic here. I want to understand the underlying mix shift of the balance sheet. And I know animal spirits actually a pretty big driver when you think about areas like margin loans. But how do you think about the long-term growth trajectory of your margin loan balances, which you're yielding pretty attractive rates?

明白了。好的，我想回到我们之前讨论的主题。我想了解你们资产负债表底层结构的变化。我知道市场情绪在像保证金贷款这类领域中是一个很大的驱动因素。但从长期来看，你们如何看待保证金贷款余额的增长轨迹？毕竟你们在这方面的收益率相当不错。

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

Well, we follow a very simple strategy, that is that our margin rates are extremely low. So our nearest competitors are around 2.5%, and we are on very small amounts here at 1.56%. But larger amounts, we are only \[ about ] 75 basis points. So anybody who -- and we advertise that heavily, so anybody who has margin loans outstanding should look at the possibility of custodying their portfolio with us and many people do. So the margin loans rise very fast when the market goes up. But given a day or 2 like yesterday, margin loans come down by \[ \$1 billion or \$2 billion ] very quickly, so.

我们采取的策略非常简单，就是把保证金利率设得极低。我们最接近的竞争对手利率大约在2.5%，而我们的小额客户只需支付1.56%；大额客户甚至只需大约75个基点。我们对此进行了大量宣传，所以任何持有保证金贷款的人，都会考虑把他们的投资组合托管到我们这里来，很多人确实这样做了。当市场上涨时，保证金贷款会增长得非常快。但如果遇到像昨天那样的一两天下跌，保证金贷款也可能会迅速减少10亿或20亿美元。

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

Thomas, I heard you talk about the potential for higher compliance and regulatory costs globally. Is this -- this is a broad industry trend, right? It's not an IBKR issue, but at IBKR, you're growing much faster than the industry. So I wanted to see if you could sort of differentiate between what the industry is doing and what we're seeing now at Interactive as you scale and get bigger.

Thomas，我听你提到过全球合规和监管成本可能会进一步上升。这应该是整个行业的普遍趋势，对吧？并不是 IBKR 特有的问题。但 IBKR 的增长速度明显快于整个行业。所以我想听听你怎么看行业层面的变化与 IBKR 当前随着规模扩大所面临的特有挑战之间的区别。

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

So you're basically asking about compliance?

所以你基本上是在问合规的问题？

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

Rising compliance and regulatory costs.

对，关于日益上升的合规和监管成本。

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

Yes. Right, right. So that definitely is a very substantial focus for our development team, and we have hired loads of people into that department. It's not easy to hire people with the necessary skills. But -- so we hope that, eventually, we can fill any gaps that we may -- that may develop as new regulations keep coming up by automating it. It's also the case that the regulators do not -- they like to see people. And so they are not that happy about automated compliance. But we have this tradition of automating everything. So we don't know how else to do it efficiently.

是的，没错。这确实是我们研发团队非常关注的重点领域，我们已经在这个部门招聘了大量员工。找到具备必要技能的人并不容易。但我们希望最终能通过自动化来填补新监管规则带来的任何合规缺口。同时，监管机构其实并不太喜欢纯粹的自动化，他们更希望看到有人在做这些事情。但我们一直有将所有流程自动化的传统，我们也不知道还有什么更高效的方法来做合规管理。

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

So alternatively on the compliance topic as some of your peers and businesses in adjacent areas also have a higher sort of compliance constraint, is this opening more doors in certain client segments? And I'm thinking like brokers that find it more costly to self-clear, and I'm thinking of Futu, Tiger, that new Indian client you also recently signed up.

换个角度来看这个合规问题：你们的一些同行以及相关领域的公司也面临更高的合规负担，这是否让你们在某些客户群体中迎来了更多机会？比如一些发现自建清算系统成本过高的券商，例如 Futu、Tiger，还有你们最近签约的那家印度客户。

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

Yes. So obviously, it's -- that is part of our strategy to -- for growth that we automate compliance regionally because different regions have -- the compliance needs are somewhat different in each region. So although the bulk of it is what we develop for the U.S. is reusable, but you've got to tweak it a little bit for each region. And that is certainly part of our growth strategy to get these folks in as introducing brokers.

是的，这显然是我们增长战略的一部分：在各个地区实现合规自动化，因为不同地区的合规要求各有差异。虽然我们在美国开发的大部分系统可以复用，但我们仍然需要为每个地区做一些调整。这确实是我们吸引这些客户成为介绍经纪人的关键策略之一。

On the other hand, some of them have the feeling that they want to go independent after they reach a certain size. So we'll see how this shakes out because it's certainly would, cost-wise, it would benefit them to remain on our platform as introducing brokers, there may be other considerations why they like to become independent and be on their own.

但另一方面，有些客户在达到一定规模后会产生想要独立运营的想法。我们拭目以待最终会如何发展。从成本角度来看，留在我们的平台上作为介绍经纪人对他们显然更有利，但他们也可能有其他方面的考虑，促使他们希望脱离平台，独立发展。

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

Thomas, I have another question from some of the audience here. They said IBKR is already the lowest cost option for customers. Absolute pricing at IBKR is already very low. How are you thinking about pricing trends going forward? And are there any particular areas where IBKR expects to continue to pass-through lower pricing? Or is what we saw the last 5 years, including IBKR Lite and some of the other things, is that largely done at this point?

Thomas，我再问一个来自观众的问题。他们指出，IBKR 已经是客户最便宜的选择，绝对价格已经非常低了。你们对未来的定价趋势怎么看？是否还有哪些特定领域你们计划继续进一步降价？还是说过去五年，包括 IBKR Lite 等等已经基本完成了这一阶段的降价策略？

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

So we see other brokers introducing new charges such as custody charge, right, which we do not have. So if you have an account with us, you pay a commission, and that's it. If you have less than \$100,000 and you spend less than \$10 a month on commission, we'll charge you the difference. If you have more than \$100,000, all you have to do is do a trade every night and then we hope.

我们看到其他一些券商在推出新的收费项目，比如托管费，而我们没有。如果你在我们这里开设账户，你只需支付交易佣金，仅此而已。如果你的账户余额低于10万美元，且每月佣金支出少于10美元，我们会向你收取差额。但如果账户余额超过10万美元，只要你每晚做一笔交易，我们就不再额外收费。

So that's where we are. We are extremely profitable. I mean we -- our profit margin is at around 60%. So we do not see any reason to raise prices. So we're going to \[ sit ] where we are.

这就是我们的策略。我们的盈利能力非常强，利润率大约在60%左右。因此我们没有任何理由涨价，我们会维持当前的定价不变。

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

Thomas, one follow-up to what you said earlier on real-time sort of margin based on short interest. If the world did migrate to this model, do you think this would have a positive or a negative effect on client margin loan balances?

Thomas，想就你之前提到的“基于空头头寸比例的实时保证金制度”再追问一个问题。如果未来金融体系真的转向这种模式，你认为这会对客户的保证金贷款余额产生正面还是负面的影响？

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

Well, it certainly would have some negative effect, of course, because people would short less some margin, right? But on the long run, it's not about debt. On the long run, we want a financial system that is solid. And so that's an overwhelming imperative and other things don't matter that much.

这当然会带来一些负面影响，因为人们在做空时可能会减少使用保证金，对吧？但从长期来看，这不是关于贷款的问题。从长期来看，我们希望金融系统是稳健的，这是最重要的核心，其他因素相对而言没那么重要。

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

And maybe you could hold less capital if that was the case?

如果是那样的话，或许你们就可以少准备一些资本金了？

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

I think that capital requirements are pretty low. And as we see with Robinhood, the practical capital requirements are occasionally much higher than the regulatory capital requirements. So I would not suggest that capital requirements be cut down at all.

我认为目前的资本金要求已经相当低了。就像我们从 Robinhood 的案例中看到的，实际所需的资本有时远远高于监管规定的资本要求。所以我完全不建议降低资本要求。

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

Got it. Thomas, one last question for us. How much the compliance and regulatory effort today can you automate? I assume you're automating some, but is there more that you can automate in the future?

明白了。Thomas，我们最后一个问题。现在你们在合规和监管方面的工作，有多少比例可以实现自动化？我想你们已经自动化了一部分，但未来还有哪些方面可以继续推进自动化？

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

So everything can be automated. But as I said, regulators prefer to see people who can be asked to account for the error or if there are any errors. So automation is a project of, to some extent, goes against regulatory desires, meaning that -- so whatever automated system we build, we must create several windows along the way where compliance staff can look in and examine what goes on inside, and they even have the authority and the ability to stop and intervene with the process. So we cannot say to the regulator, look, don't worry about it. This is fully automated. They say, okay, but we want people to -- we want you to prove to us that there are people who are in charge of the process and the automation is only an aid.

理论上所有合规工作都可以实现自动化。但正如我之前说的，监管机构更愿意看到有人对潜在错误负责。所以自动化在某种程度上是与监管意愿相违背的。这意味着我们无论建立什么样的自动化系统，都必须设置多个“窗口”，让合规人员可以介入审查流程，并且他们必须拥有中止和干预该流程的权力。我们不能对监管机构说：“别担心，一切都自动化了。”他们会说：“好吧，但我们希望你们能证明，有人对整个流程负责，而自动化只是辅助工具。”

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

Great. And Thomas, with that, we are out of questions. We're out of time. But on behalf of everyone here at Crédit Suisse, we just want to give you a big thanks for joining us. And hopefully, next year, you can join us in person in South Florida.

很好。Thomas，我的问题就到这里了，时间也差不多了。我谨代表瑞士信贷的所有同事，衷心感谢你今天的参与。希望明年你能亲自到南佛罗里达与我们见面。

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

Sure. Looking forward to it. Thank you very much.

当然，期待见面。非常感谢你们。

Craig Siegenthaler   Crédit Suisse AG

Take care, Thomas. Thank you.

保重，Thomas，谢谢你。

Thomas Peterffy   Founder & Chairman

Bye, Craig. Bye.

再见，Craig。再见。