Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Chris Allen with Citi, may proceed.
Chris Allen: Just have a couple of follow-ups. Just on the M&A discussion, the targets you’re looking at — any preference from a regional perspective or a product or a capability perspective that you’re looking at? Or is it more just about efficiencies?
Milan Galik: It’s about efficiencies. There is no preference. We are a global company, so it really doesn’t matter where.
Chris Allen: And then obviously, headcount has increased at healthy levels, which has driven some of the compensation increases. What’s the outlook for hiring going forward? Do you need to continue to hire at a healthy pace to expand internationally in other areas? And what’s the pressure in terms of compensation from a competitive dynamic?
Milan Galik: So we are of the view that we are sufficiently staffed on the technology staff. As far as the customer service is concerned, we are paying very close attention to our metrics— the abandoned calls, calls in queue, wait times. They have looked sufficiently healthy that we are running at the levels that we are comfortable with. If, all of a sudden, we receive either by acquisitions or by organic growth, significantly higher number of accounts, we may have to adjust but we are trying to counteract it as much as possible by automating the customer service as much as possible. And I could probably say similar things about the surveillance employees and operators that we have. There are hundreds of them that we currently employ. We constantly work on making the tools that they use more efficient, so that even if the market activity picks up and number of accounts increases, we would like to be able to operate with the same level of staffing as we currently do.
Operator: One moment for questions. Our next question comes from Patrick Moley with Piper Sandler.
Patrick Moley: I was just hoping to get your thoughts on the recent spot Bitcoin ETF approval. What impact, if any, it’s had on your business? Maybe any sort of behavioral shifts you’re seeing among your customer base and how you think you’re positioned, I guess, in overall crypto digital asset space going forward?
Milan Galik: So, we were one of the firms and maybe the only broker that was making these 11 ETFs available on their platform on Day One. Our customers immediately started trading these ETFs. Obviously, this is going to make the cryptocurrency investing more mainstream, because the investors that were reluctant to jump into this space before, having these ETFs in existence made that easier for them. So I think they are going to— the cryptocurrencies are going to become a portion of a great number of investors’ portfolios out there. As to what it’s going to mean to our investors, our customers, it’s hard to tell. As you know, our clientele tends to be a little bit more active, more sophisticated. I think some of them will recognize the opportunity to trade the cryptocurrency itself as well as the ETF on our platform. There may be some arbitrage opportunities that develop. I think it’s too early to tell how it will play out.
Operator: I would now like to turn the call back over to Nancy Stuebe for any closing remarks.
Nancy Stuebe: Thank you, everyone, for participating today. As a reminder, this call will be available for replay on our website, and we will also be posting a clean version of our transcript on the site tomorrow. Thank you again, and we will talk to you next quarter end.
Operator: Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
