FinVolution Group Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call Transcript
FinVolution Group Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call Transcript
FinVolution Group Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call Transcript
Executives
Tiezheng Li, Chief Executive Officer
Jiayuan Xu, Chief Financial Officer
Jimmy Tan, Head of IR
Analysts
Yada Li, CICC
Cindy Wang, China Renaissance
Alex Ye, UBS
Presentation
Operator: Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for participating in the Fourth Quarter
and Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call for FinVolution Group. (Operator
Instructions). After management's prepared remarks, there will be a question-and-answer
session. Today's conference call is being recorded.
I'll now turn the call over to your host, Jimmy Tan, Head of Investor Relations for the
Company. Jimmy, please go ahead.
Jimmy Tan: Hello, everyone, and welcome to our fourth quarter and full year 2023
earnings conference call. The Company results were issued via newswire services earlier
today and are posted online. You can download the earnings release and sign up for the
Company's email alerts by visiting the IR section of our website at ir.finvgroup.com.
Mr. Tiezheng Li, our Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Jiayuan Xu, our Chief Financial
Officer, will start the call with their prepared remarks and conclude with a Q&A session.
During this call, we will be referring to several non-GAAP financial measures to review
and assess our operating performance. These non-GAAP financial measures are not
intended to be considered in isolation, or as a substitute for the financial information
prepared and presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP. For information about these non-
GAAP measures and reconciliation to GAAP measures, please refer to our earnings press
release.
Before we continue, please note that today's discussion will contain forward-looking
statements made under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and
uncertainties. As such, the Company's results may be materially different from the views
expressed today.
Further information regarding these and other risks and uncertainties are included in the
Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company
does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statement except as
required under applicable law.
Finally, we posted a slide presentation on our IR website providing details of our results
for the quarter.
I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Mr. Tiezheng Li. Please go ahead, sir.
Tiezheng Li: Thanks, Jimmy. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining our earnings
call. This is Tiezheng Li, CEO of FinVolution Group. We are happy to speak with you
today. When I became CEO 1 year ago, FinVolution set a clear objective: become a
leader in the fintech industry, providing inclusive finance solutions for underserved
borrowers and small business owners.
In 2023, we advanced toward that goal with continued strong execution of our Local
Focus, Global Outlook Strategy, adapting to the unique situations in different markets.
I'm thrilled to report that we delivered exceptional progress on all fronts. Throughout the
year, we maintained our robust momentum with progressive expansion in China while
pursuing much faster growth internationally, where economic conditions were more
favorable. We have achieved leadership positions in both Indonesia and the Philippines,
while also fortifying our success and high-quality growth in China as we proactively
adjusted our strategies to suit China's dynamic economy.
Performance-wise, we continued to grow our business across the board despite evolving
macroeconomic challenges. The cumulative number of borrowers we served in China,
Indonesia, and the Philippines has reached 30 million, growing at an accelerated pace
with a net increase of around 3 million new borrowers year-over-year.
For full year 2023, our total transaction volume reached RMB194 billion, and our
outstanding loan balance reached RMB67 billion, representing year-over-year increases
of 11% and 4%, respectively. Net revenue for the full year 2023 reached RMB12.5
billion, up 13% year-over-year.
Our international business grew exceptionally well in 2023, propelled by our effective
global outlook strategy of pursuing rapid growth in overseas markets. International
transaction volume for 2023 soared to RMB7.9 billion and outstanding loan balance rose
to RMB1.3 billion, up 85% and 58% respectively compared to the prior year.
International market revenue increased to RMB2.1 billion, up 86% from full year 2022.
Over the past year, international revenue's contribution to total revenue increased
significantly, rising to 17% in 2023 from 10% in 2022.
Meanwhile, with our local focus strategy of pursuing high-quality growth in China, we
continued to achieve progressive growth domestically. Transaction volume increased to
RMB186 billion while outstanding loan balance reached RMB66 billion, up 9% and 4%
respectively compared to the prior year. Revenue from the China market in 2023 further
expanded to RMB10.4 billion, up 4% compared to the prior year.
Another notable improvement was funding cost, which improved by 30 bps on a
quarterly basis and by around 100 bps year-over-year. Our stable borrowing rates,
coupled with better-than-industry delinquency rates and enhanced operational efficiency,
enabled us to sustainably deliver higher ROA compared to the industry.
R&D is critical to our ongoing success, and we continue to invest in our tech and our
people. As of December 31, 2023, we proudly employed a dedicated R&D team of
around 700 skilled professionals, and have built a comprehensive IP portfolio that
comprises 239 registered software copyrights, and a successful filing of 179 patent
applications, including 53 invention patents already granted.
Each of our R&D accomplishments enhances our offerings to consumers and sets new
benchmarks for the financial services industry, spurring FinVolution's growth and
industry-wide progress.
Last but not least, ESG remains a top priority at FinVolution. We diligently enhanced our
integrated ESG program throughout 2023 with a focus on inclusion and giving back to
society. For example, we have cumulatively offered RMB120 million of interest-free
loans for eligible small business owners to help turn their dreams into reality. Our
commitments and efforts have also been recognized by several renowned independent
rating agencies with above-average industry ratings.
Going forward, we will remain committed to serving borrowers in our existing markets
while increasing the pace of our international expansion by acquiring more licenses and
expanding into additional countries and regions to deliver innovative financial services to
more borrowers. Our Local Focus, Global Outlook strategy will continue to guide us and
drive our healthy and sustainable development as we embark on 2024.
With that, I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Jiayuan Xu, who will discuss our
operational and financial results.
Jiayuan Xu: Thank you, Li, and hello, everyone. Welcome to our fourth quarter and full
year 2023 earnings call. Let's go through our key results for the fourth quarter. To be
mindful of the length of earnings call today, I encourage listeners to refer to our fourth
quarter earnings press release for further details.
We have observed several notable improvements as we move through the first quarter of
2024. During the recent Lunar New Year, consumption activities picked up rapidly with
474 million tourist trips nationwide, up 19% from the comparable period in 2019. Total
tourism spending also climbed 8% to RMB633 billion from the comparable period in
2019, with air and train travel surpassing 2019 levels by 15% and 36%, respectively,
reaching new record highs.
Box office ticket sales also rebounded and reached more than RMB8 billion, setting a
new record for the holiday period. Furthermore, several macro metrics exhibited varying
degrees of improvement. For example, total social financing in January increased to
RMB6,500 billion, up 9.5% year-over-year.
Total retail consumption in December further increased to RMB4,355 billion, up 7.4%
year-over-year. February's manufacturing and services PMI indexes also improved
slightly to 49.1 points and 51 points.
We believe these signs reflect the dawn of a new era, wherein consumer spending trends
are shifting away from large ticket items, such as automobiles and properties, to smaller
ticket items like travel-related expenditures and other consumption activities. Amid these
complex dynamics, we drove a modest yet encouraging recovery in our consumer credit
demand through our ongoing refinement of borrower demographics and quality, with the
number of new borrower applications increasing by between 3% to 5%.
Cumulatively, we have served over 25 million borrowers in China, and the number of
unique borrowers for the fourth quarter was 2.1 million.
In addition, we further enhanced our credit risk assessment and fraud detection
technologies during the quarter, which empowered us to navigate the macro headwinds
and stabilize our asset quality. Our Day 1 delinquency rate improved to 5.3% in
December and further improved to 5.2% in February. We expect our vintage delinquency
for the most recent 3 months to be 2.5%, demonstrating our business's resilience.
In terms of our funding partners, as our reputation in the industry continued to rise, we
have further diversified our funding sources. The cumulative number of our funding
partners has expanded to 94 financial institutions as of the end of the fourth quarter, with
funding cost improving by around 100 basis points year-over-year.
Moving on to our second growth driver, our international expansion, which continues to
outperform our targets and expectations. We embarked on our global expansion journey
in 2018 and have been deeply investing in elevating FinVolution's visibility worldwide
ever since. Indonesia, our first overseas market, continued to record macroeconomic
growth. Its consumer confidence index remained high at 125 points in January.
Full year sales of the motorcycles, the most popular mode of the transportation in
Indonesia, surged by 19.4% to 6.2 million units year-over-year.
Our second overseas market, the Philippines, also ended 2023 with positive macro data.
The Philippines was among the fastest-growing economies in Asia, with fourth quarter
GDP growth of 5.6%. Manufacturing PMI was 51 points in February and has remained
above 50 points since September.
As we deepened our roots in Indonesia and fortified our reputation, the [population] of
loans facilitated from local financial institutions in Indonesia increased to over 90% from
63% in the same period of 2022, reflecting our credit assessment model's effectiveness as
well as deepening trust from local financial institutions.
The Philippines has also demonstrated excellent growth. During 2023, the number of new
borrowers in the Philippines grew by over 188%. This led to exponential growth in its
transaction volume and outstanding loan balance, which surged by over 200% on a year-
over-year basis, contributing around 20% of international transaction volume in the
fourth quarter.
Thanks to our proven record as a trusted lending partner, we have also secured
institutional funding in the Philippines and also have a strong pipeline of future
institutional partners in place. These accomplishments have boosted our confidence, as
well as our visibility, as we emerge as one of the top players in the Philippines. In 2024,
we expect our Philippines operation to maintain its robust, high double-digit growth
momentum.
This success has readied us to amplify our international expansion efforts with strategic
initiatives, such as refining borrower demographics, acquiring licenses, and venturing
into new countries. The outstanding progress we've made in our overseas markets across
multiple operational and financial metrics serves as a springboard for our ongoing
expansion and development.
On a related note, we continue to build our international business's presence and brand
awareness on leading social media platforms through AIGC-driven upgrades to our
creative advertising campaigns. As of the end of the fourth quarter, we had more than 1
million followers on Facebook, and our followers on TikTok grew at an accelerated pace
to reach over 860,000, up more than 15% quarter-over-quarter.
Social media will be a key means of reaching our target audience with our overseas
marketing efforts as we enter new countries and debut innovative products.
Now, turning to our financial metrics. Driven by strong execution of our Local Focus,
Global Outlook strategy, net revenues for full year 2023 increased to RMB12.5 billion,
up 13% year-over-year, while net income increased to RMB2.38 billion, up 5% year-
over-year.
As of the fourth quarter, our leverage ratio, which is defined as risk-bearing loans divided
by shareholders' equity, remained stable at 4.1x, reflecting opportunities for growth when
the macro economy normalizes. Our strong balance sheet and liquidity position continue
to enhance shareholder confidence while providing us with optimal flexibility to execute
our strategy.
In particular, our cash position remains robust, with over RMB7.9 billion of cash and
short-term liquidity as of the end of December 2023, representing an increase of 12%
year-over-year. We believe our current cash position is sufficient to support our business
expansion while increasing our return of value to our shareholders.
Now, let me briefly update you on our capital return program. Since 2018, we have
continuously returned value to our shareholders in the form of share repurchases and
dividends. Recently, our board of directors approved our 6th annual dividend in the
amount of US$0.237 per ADS, an increase of 10.2% year-over-year.
For full year 2023, we returned a total of around US$160 million to our shareholders,
consisting of US$62 million in dividends and US$98 million through share repurchases,
representing a capital return rate around 49% of 2023 net income. As of December 31,
2023, the Company has cumulatively returned US$605 million to our shareholders. These
actions underscore our consistent commitment to enhancing shareholder value.
Before I conclude my remarks, I would like to provide some additional color on our
business outlook for 2024. Despite the evolving macro environment, our business
continues to thrive and progress. We are gaining substantial momentum as we focus on
advancing our international initiatives, propelling technological innovation, expanding
our healthy consumer base and optimizing our product profile.
As a result, we expect our transaction volume in the China market in 2024 to be in the
range of RMB195.7 billion to RMB205 billion, representing an increase of around 5% to
10% year-over-year. In addition, we expect international transaction volume in 2024 to
be in the range of RMB9.4 billion to RMB11 billion, representing year-over-year growth
of around 20% to 40%.
That concludes my prepared remarks. We will now open the call to your questions.
Operator, please continue.
Questions and Answers
Yada Li: (Speaking foreign language). Firstly, considering the current macro
environment, I was wondering what adjustments have we done in the lending strategy,
customer acquisition and risk management? And with the help of these matters, how to
view the asset quality going forward?
And secondly, for the international branches, what are the growth and profit outlooks for
our Indonesian and Philippine’s markets respectively? That's all.
(Translated). From observation and study, China macro economy is still facing
uncertainties, but expect to have a gradual recovery. Around the third quarter last year,
we have observed some negative impact on the industry, which results in asset quality
fluctuations. We have been quick with our responses. For example, we have reduced
customer acquisitions from lower-quality channels, and stepped up our model updates
from higher-quality channels, updating the models, tightening the approval rates and
credit limit for borrowers whom are more prone to economy uncertainties, such as those
with a higher level of debt.
We have also closely monitored changes in our core metrics, such as Day 1 delinquency
and loan collection recovery rates for the disbursed loans. And through the analysis of
different borrower segments and tightening approval rates, we have ensured financial
services for higher-quality borrowers, for example, those with lower debt levels remain
intact.
For post-loans, I believe you are aware of the impact on loan collections due to the
reductions of telephone lines. The impact on us is minimal due to our sufficient advanced
preparations of telephone lines, which are able to satisfy the needs of our post-loan
collection team. Although our loan collection recovery rate slightly declined from 89% to
87%, we are still leading ahead of the industry. And with the implementation of these
efforts, we have seen positive results in December.
For the recent 3 months, our Day 1 delinquency rate improved to 5.3% from 5.7% in the
third quarter, and further improved to 5.2% in February, while loan collection recovery
rate remained stable at 87%, with vintage delinquency returning to 2.5%. Our recovery
should be ahead of the industry, and we are confident to maintain industry-leading asset
quality with continuous improvement going into 2024.
The pricing adjustments means that our borrowers' cohort model data and rules have to
undergo a series of adjustments. Based on our past experience, we will need around 6
months to complete all these changes. And from the current outcome, these changes have
been positive. For example, through adjusting our borrowers' cohorts, the risk metrics
have improved by 20%, reducing the impact of rates reductions.
And also, from a customer acquisition perspective, we have seen many small and
medium platforms reducing their customer acquisition efforts, which led to an 8%
decrease in our customer acquisition costs. And this further helps to reduce the impact of
price reduction in Indonesia. In part, in the first half of 2024, Indonesia's operations focus
will be on product adjustment and improving the customer quality instead of a rapid
growth.
And during the second half of 2024, we will reevaluate our strategies based on macro
situation. And in 2024, we expect Indonesia to achieve profitability. The profitability
from the business view will be better compared to the financial view, due to the rules of
the accounting policies.
In addition, we have also disclosed some additional data points for our Philippines
operations. Over the past few years, Philippines operations have been developing very
rapidly. And from current observation, Philippines's economy and regulatory
environment have been relatively stable. We will expect the rapid growth to continue into
2024, and we are currently number two in the cash loan segment of the market.
We believe we can achieve our target of number one by the end of the year. Additionally,
we expect that our Philippines operations can achieve profitability in the second half of
the year under the relevant accounting rules.
We have managed to achieve profitability in both Indonesia and Philippines. And going
forward, we will consider to strengthen our investment in different types of licenses,
diversify our operations and enhance our brand image to further increase our competitive
advantage. We are also actively exploring new countries and these countries are not
limited to Southeast Asia. And we also consider other methods of expansion to speed up
our international footprint.
Cindy Wang: (Speaking foreign language). So the first question is related to the customer
acquisition cost. Since you are aggressively on the international market expansion, so
what is your CAC target this year?
The second is related to the Philippine market. The Philippine market grown very strong
in 2023. Can you talk about the competitive landscape? And how do you achieve to be
number one market share position this year? And how would that contribute to the
international market revenue in 2024?
(Translated). We have been operating in the Indonesian market for quite a period of time
in the past 6 years, and we have a deep understanding of the market. Information feeds
continue to be the main method to acquire better-quality borrowers for us. Although the
pricing cap has some impact on our operations, we have made adjustments to our models
and the results have been very positive.
For example, when we have higher-quality borrowers, we are able to increase our ticket
size with longer loan tenure, and the fee rates further improve with weaker competition.
And we believe this trend will continue in 2024, and we will reevaluate our customer
acquisition strategies in the second half when the macro environment stabilizes.
For the Philippines, it is in a much earlier stage compared to the Indonesian market. And
over the past 2 years, our marketing efforts are much more proactive, and it has been
pretty stable among the top of the industry. And we believe this trend will continue into
2024.
(Translated). We entered the Philippine market in 2020 and this is our fourth year of
operations. Philippines has a population of around 120 million, and our target customer
base is around 40 million. To date, we have registered users of around 5 million and our
borrowers is around 740,000. There are currently over 100 players, and the largest
players are from the U.S. and local Philippines companies.
We believe as a fintech company from China, our advantages are obvious, and we will
continue to leverage on our advantages and duplicate our success in China and Indonesia
in the Philippines market. Around 20% of our transaction volume for the international
market is coming from the Philippines in the fourth quarter, and we believe this
proportion will continue to increase in 2024.
Alex Ye: (Speaking foreign language). I will do the translation. First on the Indonesian
market, so after the pricing adjustments coming this year, how do management expect the
impact on revenue and earnings? And do you expect any sort of move from the regulators
with regards to the timetable to further adjustments in interest rate cap, and how will we
tackle the trends?
And secondly, in terms of the total shareholders' return, we note the company has also
speeded up the pace of the share repurchase this year, bringing the total payout ratio to 49
percent, or how should we expect a more sustainable payout ratio going forward?
(Translated). We have actually shared upfront Indonesia data earlier, and we expect the
take rate, after our pricing adjustment, to be around 10%. And prior to the pricing
adjustment, it was around 13%. And from our perspective, we expect pretax return on
assets ratio to be around 2.4% (by volume basis) after the deduction of CAC and some
other operating costs. And based on the current regulators' advice, there might be a
further change in price reduction. We need to reevaluate these in the second half of the
year. However, based on the current operations, we believe our business will remain at a
healthy level even if further price reduction kicks in.
(Translated). First of all, I would like to reiterate FinVolution's position. We are a global
consumer finance technology company. Our success has been validated in China,
Indonesia and the Philippines with leadership positions. In the recent years, as China
market matures, our business entered into a stage known as high-quality progressive
growth.
On the other hand, based on our observation, the international markets are still in early
stages of development, where market opportunities for growth is enormous. And we are
very confident to cement our success in Indonesia and the Philippines while expanding to
more countries, ensuring a rapid growth rate for our company.
Our capital return program is closely in line with our company positioning. We hope
rapid and healthy business growth can be the main way to create value for our
shareholders. Over the last 3 years, we have proven this point. We have completed the
business transition of our China business and expanded internationally with an average
CAGR growth of over 44% in transaction volume and revenue growth of around 20%.
And apart from this, we have also returned value to our shareholders through our capital
return program. We began our dividend program and share repurchase program since
2018, the earliest in our industry. Over the last 6 years, we have cumulatively returned
over US$600 million to our shareholders, equivalent to almost half of our market cap
today.
In 2023, we deployed close to US$100 million to repurchase our shares and US$62
million for dividend distribution, representing around 50% of net income for 2023, and a
combined yield of 11%. In 2023, our dividend per ADS was US$0.237, the fourth year of
consecutive increase. And on the 5 years' average, this increase in dividend was about
10%.
And I would like to emphasize on this: For China ADRs, there are not more than six
companies with 5 years of consecutive dividend distribution and consistent increase in
DPS, and we are one of these companies.
And in summary, we are returning value to shareholders in terms of growth and a leading
capital return program. Going forward, we will continue with this belief and let high-
quality growth remain as our core method to return value to our shareholders, and
concurrently, maintain a leading capital return program. Regarding dividend, we are
confident to maintain our track record and continue to deliver consistent increase in
dividend for our shareholders.
Operator: As there are no further questions now, I'd like to turn the call back over to the
company for closing remarks.
Jimmy Tan: Thank you all once again for joining us today. If you have any further
questions, please feel free to contact FinVolution Investor Relations team.
Operator: This concludes the conference call. You may now disconnect your line. Thank
you.