Earnings Labs

FinVolution Group (FINV)

Q4 2017 Earnings Call· Wed, Mar 21, 2018

$5.08

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Transcript

Simon Tak Leung Ho

Management

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Paipaidai’s fourth quarter and fiscal year 2017 earnings conference call. The Company’s 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 distribution list by visiting the IR section of our website at ir.ppdai.com. Mr. Chris Zhang, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Simon Ho, our Chief Financial Officer will start a call with their prepared remarks. Mr. Feng Zhang, our Chief Operation Officer will join the call during the Q&A session. During this call, we will be referring to several non-GAAP financial measures to review and access 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 the U.S. GAAP. For information about these non-GAAP measures and reconciliation to the GAAP measures, please refer to our earnings 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 this and other risks and uncertainties is included in the Company’s filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable laws. Finally, we posted a slide presentation on our website providing details on our results for the quarter. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Mr. Chris. Please go ahead, sir.

Chris Jun Zhang

Management

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining our earnings conference call today. 2017 was a special year for us as it marks our tenth anniversary since the inception and it represented a significant milestone in our journey. We are pleased to continue delivering significant growth in both financial and operational results and it’s very special year and we have maintained our position as a leading online consumer finance marketplace in China. For 2017, we achieved the increase of 222% operating revenue from 2016, driven by a 230% growth in our loan origination volume to reach record high of RMB65.6 billion. That’s through our rapidly expanding user base. As of December 31, 2017, Paipaidai had 65.4 million registered users and it has reached 10.5 million cumulative borrowers, compared to 32.6 million registered users and 3.8 million cumulative borrowers one year ago. At the same time, our cumulative investor base increased to approximately 560,000, a 57% increase from the prior year. Our large and loyal investor base enables us to maintain our competitive advantage as it provides a stable and sustainable source of funds for our operations. We will continue to adjust and evolve our products and services to better serve our customers through our highly scalable marketplace model. With new regulations gradually unveiled and enforced in the back half of 2017, the overall online consumer lending market has been under tight government scrutiny and Paipaidai was no exception. To comply with recently issued regulatory changes, we have made some adjustments to our operations and have only minor impact to our operations. Our core business model remains unchanged. We are confident to satisfy any further requirements if needed. And we currently expect to complete the peer-to-peer lending registration process by the second quarter of 2018. We believe that a strengthened regulatory framework…

Simon Tak Leung Ho

Management

Thank you, Chris, and hello, everybody. In the light of the regulatory changes impacting our industry coupled with a broad-based weakening credit trend, we are delighted to deliver strong operational results in the fourth quarter as reflected by an increase of 134% in loan origination volume to RMB17.6 billion from RMB7.5 billion in the same period of 2016. This solid growth is supported by the huge market opportunity for online consumer finance and the rapid growth in our user base. Our non-GAAP adjusted operating revenues for the fourth quarter excluding a one-time provision for expected discretionary payments to investors in investment programs protected by the Company’s Investor Reserve Fund, was RMB1.02 billion, representing a year-over-year increase of 107%. Despite a strong growth trajectory on the year-over-year basis, we recorded a soft sequential performance in the fourth quarter in terms of loan origination volume and loan facilitation fee. As outlined previously. The growth of our loan origination volume and low facilitation fees was primarily impacted by our proactive efforts in controlling our loan volume due to increased delinquencies associated with increased credit risk across the industry. Additionally, the elimination of the collection of upfront transaction fee also had a one-off impact in December as we now received fees over the first several months of the loan. That being said, and as discussed in detail during our last call a new U.S. GAAP revenue recognition standard has taken effect in 2018, which record us to recognize revenues from such transaction upfront. This means the December impact was a one-off even and we are confident that the changes in the transaction fee model will not impact our revenue level going forward. Before I go into the financial details, let me summarize a few key points related to the losses in our risk reserve…

Operator

Operator

We will now begin the question-and-answer session [Operator Instructions] The first question today comes from Alice Li from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Alice Li

Analyst

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I have two questions. First, there was a loss of RMB700 million as resulted from the mutual fund due to the higher credit risk. As money pass on could leave this industry after the legislation. Would you expect this to trigger another round of credit crunch and a similar loss this year. This is my first question. And my second question is that as you discontinue the IRF operation, the [indiscernible] now protected. Will this effect budget in this loan and makes the loan mix skew to the lower quality loan. Many thanks.

Chris Jun Zhang

Management

Hi, this is Jun Zhang, I’m the CEO of the Company. I will take the first question. Yes, so we have observed a spike in delinquency for the [indiscernible] which is the language what the industry have seen in the period, very short period from end of November to end of December. And starting from end of December, we have seen that peak gradually coming down and right now it has come back to the clear increase level. So, to your question, we believe with all the registration rules being issued end of last year, the smaller, the weaker players have already ceased, operating have already quit the market. So, we do not expect - we think it’s already pretty much settled, I think that the remaining larger loans that as to operating in the running space will most likely continue to operate. So, we do not expect another one and another triggered spike in the risk, during the legislation process.

Simon Tak Leung Ho

Management

So, this is Simon. I will take the second question, your questions about the investors having no protection. We have so far not seen any material change in the behavior of our investors. As a result of obviously the changes we have made, just to highlight also, we have always historically had a proportion of loans in the platform that have no protection whatsoever and we do have a segment of investors that like this type of investment and are used and experienced to doing this type of investment. So, so far we have not seen any significant material change in the behavior of our investors.

Alice Li

Analyst

Thanks very much. Very helpful.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from [Robert Zu] (Ph) with Citi Hong Kong. Please go ahead.

Daphne Poon

Analyst

Hi, actually its Daphne here from Citi. Thanks for taking my questions. So I have got two questions. So first is about the margin outlook. So [indiscernible]. But on the other hand without the marketing expense I’m not sure as per the industry consolidation there would be some room for our customer acquisition cost as share comes down. So just wondering on that basis what was our margin going forward. And second is about the on the applause on the Quality Assurance Fund and IRF, so wondering what is our underlying assumption of the expected loss we have in the fourth quarter and on the [indiscernible] side are we looking at more potential more loss term again in the first quarter. Thank you. A – Simon Tak Leung Ho: Hi, Daphne. So let me just review some of the outlook, I think first of all, I could say that for example for our headcount outlook, we would expect some moderate growth in our headcount this year, mainly in loan collections as you mentioned. In the long run, we will continue to invest in technology and this will enable us to compete effectively and also consolidate the market. In terms of the customer acquisition cost trend and the outlook, we do believe the market is still evolving after the credit cycle that we have been through. There are still some uncertainties and although some of the smaller and weaker players have exited the industry, we wouldn't totally underestimate the existing players either. So I think at the moment therefore we would remain relatively cautious on acquisition costs, which could stay at relatively elevated levels for the rest of the year. The average cost of a new borrower in the fourth quarter for us was between RMB120 and RMB130 that is compared to about an average of about RMB100 for the full-year of 2017. The cost in the first three months of this year has risen further partly because of the decline in our loan approval and conversion rates as a result of the slowdown and the tightening of credit risk. So that I hope that helps to give you some color on the outlook for the margins. Now, in terms of the assumptions for our Quality Assurance Fund, as we said before, we were expecting fourth quarter vintage basis cumulative delinquencies to end up around in the high single-digits. So roughly speaking the level that - the expected default rate assumptions we have used for the QAF and IRF will be in line with this experience. So I think that’s still the case. And your final question is about whether we will continue to have QAF losses, is that correct?

Daphne Poon

Analyst

Yes.

Simon Tak Leung Ho

Management

Right. In the fourth quarter, we anticipate actually that the QAF line may not be material in either way. I could also say that for the new loan bookings we are making in 2018 the contributions into the QAF by the borrowers are higher than the expected default rates that we are using and in fact it could therefore be possible that there can be some moderate gains in the QAF so far this year.

Daphne Poon

Analyst

Okay. Can I have one follow-up on, so how much is our loan is currently covered by the QAF and like how the percentage change going forward?

Simon Tak Leung Ho

Management

Sure. The percentage of total outstanding loans that are covered by the Quality Assurance Fund at the end of 2017 was roughly about 50% of total loan outstanding balance. This ratio is likely to increase moderately into 2018. The other side of that leg I have to say is because the IRF component is declining of course that portfolio is in one-off mode.

Daphne Poon

Analyst

Yes [Indiscernible].

Simon Tak Leung Ho

Management

The percentage of QAF protection has been going up and if I give you another figure, if you look at our total volume in the fourth quarter says 50% of the loan volume we originated in the fourth quarter had QAF protection. So the direction is out.

Daphne Poon

Analyst

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. As there appears to be no further questions, I would like to turn the conference back over to Paipaidai management for any closing remarks.

Simon Tak Leung Ho

Management

Operator, perhaps we should give a bit more time to see if there are any further questions.

Operator

Operator

There appears to be no questions at this time.