Unlike the 2015 Swiss Franc depegging, this year’s first six months have not been influenced by unexpected market events. Regardless, results for first quarter of 2016 has remained at appropriately high level. It is the second quarter of 2016 that brought attention to the increasing complexity of client vs. market correlations. In the first three months the Group has accomplished the expected level of key performance indicators (KPI). In the institutional segment new liquidity contracts have been put into action and the spectrum of business customers enlarged. On the retail side, the performance remained at similar levels compared to the previous year. In the second quarter of 2016 the Group’s results have been influenced by the range trading, growth of markets supported by low interest rates commitment.

Combination of all these factors have resulted not only in the drop of financial instruments volume traded in lots, but also in lower responsiveness to marketing activities. Growth, compared to the first half of 2015, has been 10,1% in case of active accounts and the total amount of open accounts has hit 25,6% increase. Despite this, the volume traded among our retail and business partners has dropped by 15,8%, and resulted in 6,3% decrease in total deposits. According to our retail marketing communication strategy, we have engaged in global branding campaign using an actor, Mads Mikkelsen. Admittedly, the creation of such campaign has resulted in significant increase of marketing expenses.

What is more, in the second quarter of 2016 we have all witnessed historical vote of the United Kingdom, placing it onto the road of leaving the European Union. Brexit has been a very well covered and expected event on the markets, followed by the whole world, causing a market stir, but didn’t follow the same scenario as we have seen in January last year.