We have already penetrated all the significant ones. Most recently, we worked closely with our partner TBAS, Territorial Bank of American Samoa we ensure that we introduce to e-commerce online business as well. So once that gain more momentum, we’ll have more, but for the general retail merchant market, I think we probably hit the kind of a plateau there because at the end of the day, you’re always going to have some mom and pop shots wanting to take cash, right, because they want to be mindful of cost of international credit cards on the item, for example. Now secondly, you mentioned about future momentum. So, again, TBAS is an amazing partner. Now that we have gained a lot of success there, transacting a decent percentage of the electronic payments on the island, I think you set a stage for us to continue to collaborate with them as we roll out coyni.
I think that that will be a perfect opportunity. As we previously indicated, we’re working with them to explore different angles to roll it out. You also allow them to further transition hopefully over time from a traditional terminal base experience to more modern mobile phone based experience for the general public.
Michael Donovan: Thank you so much for the helpful answers and congrats on the quarter.
Ben Errez: Thank you, Michael, and say hello to Kevin and your buddies at H.C. Wainwright. We thank you for your support and continued coverage. And when it’s time for you to switch from being an analyst to real corporate job, give me a call. Let’s take the next call.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Howard Halpern with Taglich Brothers.
Howard Halpern: It’s been a while, but congratulations on all the progress that you’ve made. I guess my biggest question that you’ve talked about is getting into new verticals. So in Europe, is there going to be a difference between the verticals you are going to seek to enter in between Europe and North America and then even South America?
Min Wei: Howard, what a great way to have you back online with us. It’s been a long time. Thanks. Yes. So this is Min. Yes, great question. We do look at different markets we serve tailored to the approach to market differently to ensure that we hit optimal results. In North America, so far our journey has been very much focused on car present, general retail type business with, as Fredi mentioned earlier, with us now really getting Pony kind of up and running and getting to new verticals, we have been in conversations with our partners and the customers for e-commerce business. Because again, it depends on the vertical we serve. We are going through the journey to transition from traditional methods to e-commerce and automotive payment methods.
So I’ll name a few examples of that. So we are getting involved now into, for example, looking at telecommunication, looking at some of the travel, looking at pharmaceutical and peripheral business related to that, to name a few for North America. By doing so, you will allow us to diversify our business portfolio, so we have less risk just dependent on fuel verticals, right, that’s North America. For the EU market, as I mentioned earlier, we have gained tremendous amount of momentum in payments and in banking as a service offering. Over there, we have full suite of license, not just for e-commerce business, but also for even retail business as well. We even have a license for landing to a certain extent. It’s really a lot we can offer there.
We gain a lot of momentum by being more selective in terms of the space we invest in and we brought out of services to. In 2024, we’re going to broaden that a little bit more. So we’re going to accelerate the growth there a little bit more. So right now, our business focus over there focus on business register in EU market and we have also the UK market and you mentioned about Latin America, South America. We actually welcome any business coming from Latin America as long as they meet our onboarding requirements at RYVYL EU because they do have, we do have the capability to onboard and then process for them. But then there are specific business requirements that we are happy to work with those potential customers so that we can board their business.
Howard Halpern: And in terms of I know in the previous question, you talked about gross margin. But in terms of operating margin, should we see a nice improvement on operating leverage in the second half of the year because of all the technology and coyni being embedded within your systems?
Min Wei: That’s definitely right. So you already recognized what Fredi said that by continuing to leverage more streamlined processes and technology through coyni. We do expect to see improved operating efficiency and resource utilization ratio for operations. The other bit, maybe George will wait in a minute, is that at a really high level, this year in 2023 we incur some onetime costs associated with legacy things such as regaining the SEC compliance, such as resolving some of the legacy cases and completing the restatement. I’m not going to speak for George, but the hope is some of those will not repeat and continue. So go ahead, George.
