OppFi Inc (OPFI) 2024 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning and welcome to OppFi's fourth-quarter 2024 earnings conference call. All participants are on a listen-only mode. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. After management's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions)

早安，歡迎參加 OppFi 2024 年第四季財報電話會議。所有參與者都處於只聽模式。提醒一下，本次電話會議正在錄音。管理層演講結束後，將有問答環節。（操作員指令）

I am pleased to introduce your host, Mike Gallentine, Head of Investor Relations. You may begin.

我很高興向大家介紹您的主持人、投資者關係主管 Mike Gallentine。你可以開始了。

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to OppFi fourth-quarter 2024 earnings call. Today, our Executive Chairman and CEO, Todd Schwartz; and CFO, Pam Johnson, will present our financial results before taking questions. You can access our earnings presentation on our website at investors.oppfi.com.

謝謝。早安，歡迎參加 OppFi 2024 年第四季財報電話會議。今天，我們的執行主席兼首席執行官 Todd Schwartz；首席財務官 Pam Johnson 將在回答問題之前介紹我們的財務結果。您可以在我們的網站 investor.oppfi.com 上存取我們的收益報告。

During this call, OppFi may discuss certain forward-looking information. The company's filings with the SEC describe essential factors that could cause actual results, developments, and business decisions to differ materially from forward-looking statements. Please refer to slide 2 of the earnings presentation for our disclaimer statements covering forward-looking statements and references to information about non-GAAP financial measures which will be discussed throughout today's call. Reconciliations of those measures to GAAP measures can be found in the Appendix to our earnings presentation.

在本次電話會議中，OppFi 可能會討論某些前瞻性資訊。該公司向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件描述了可能導致實際結果、發展和商業決策與前瞻性陳述有重大差異的重要因素。請參閱收益報告的第 2 張投影片，以了解我們的免責聲明，其中涵蓋前瞻性陳述和對非 GAAP 財務指標資訊的引用，這些將在今天的電話會議上進行討論。這些指標與 GAAP 指標的對帳表可在我們的收益報告附錄中找到。

With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Todd.

說完這些，我想把電話轉給托德。

Thanks, Mike. And good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. When I returned as CEO, we laid out a three-year plan to grow our 2021 operational and financial capabilities. And I'm happy to report we've exceeded those expectations. Our motto of operational excellence, coupled with continuous improvement is taking effect in all facets of the business.

謝謝，麥克。大家早安。感謝您今天加入我們。當我重返執行長職位時，我們制定了一項三年計劃，以增強我們 2021 年的營運和財務能力。我很高興地報告我們已經超出了這些預期。我們的座右銘是“卓越營運”和“持續改進”，它已在業務的各個方面發揮功效。

OppFi made tremendous progress in 2024, propelling our company to deliver strong financial results in the fourth quarter and the fiscal year 2024, including record Q4 and annual total revenue. We expect the strong results to continue in 2025, and our yearly guidance anticipates up to a double-digit percentage increase in revenue and adjusted EPS driven by strong growth and continued operating efficiency. In addition, due to the solid performance so far in Q1, we are increasing our expectations for the Q1 2025 adjusted net income we shared during our last call by more than 2 times.

OppFi 在 2024 年取得了巨大進步，推動我們公司在第四季度和 2024 財年取得強勁的財務業績，包括創紀錄的第四季度和年度總收入。我們預計強勁的業績將在 2025 年繼續保持，並且我們的年度指引預計在強勁增長和持續的營運效率的推動下，收入和調整後每股收益將實現高達兩位數的百分比增長。此外，由於第一季迄今的穩健表現，我們將上次電話會議中分享的 2025 年第一季調整後淨收入預期提高了 2 倍以上。

Pam will provide a detailed review of our fourth quarter financials and guidance for 2025. Before she does, I'd like to highlight a few company updates for the fourth quarter of 2024, the full year of 2024, and the year ahead 2025.

帕姆將詳細回顧我們第四季的財務狀況和 2025 年的指導。在此之前，我想先重點介紹一下公司 2024 年第四季、2024 年全年以及 2025 年未來一年的一些最新動態。

OppFi loans remains one of the highest rated and most transparent loan platforms in our space. Our product and tech team's continued innovation and use of AI tools led to a record auto approval percentage for our company. This number improved to almost 80% in Q4 2024 compared to 73% in Q4 2023, which improved funnel metrics, propelling our net revenue up 23% year-over-year. We expect this to continue to improve in 2025, building on our operational efficiency for future growth.

OppFi 貸款仍然是我們領域評級最高、最透明的貸款平台之一。我們的產品和技術團隊不斷創新和使用人工智慧工具，使我們公司的自動批准率達到了創紀錄的水平。這一數字從 2023 年第四季的 73% 提高到 2024 年第四季的近 80%，這改善了漏斗指標，推動我們的淨收入年增 23%。我們預計這一情況將在 2025 年繼續改善，並提高我們的營運效率以實現未來成長。

The continuous refinement of our machine learning model helped improve the credit evaluation process and help identify and approve applicants with higher credit quality. As you may recall, OppFi launched Model 6 in 2024 which better identifies the risks of long-term charge-offs versus earlier versions that were more focused on upfront shorter term repayment status. It also assists in targeting better quality borrowers at the top of the funnel. The model also enhances risk separation and allows for seasonal segmentation and modeling throughout the year. In the fourth quarter of 2024, OppFi's net charge-off rates improved 10% as a percentage of revenue compared to the prior year. The model gives us the confidence to grow and weather different periods of economic volatility, and it bodes well for our future.

我們不斷改進機器學習模型，有助於改善信用評估流程，並有助於識別和批准信用品質更高的申請人。您可能還記得，OppFi 於 2024 年推出了模型 6，與更側重於前期短期還款狀況的早期版本相比，該模型可以更好地識別長期沖銷的風險。它還有助於鎖定漏斗頂端的優質借款人。該模型還增強了風險分離，並允許全年進行季節性細分和建模。2024 年第四季度，OppFi 的淨沖銷率佔營收的百分比與前一年相比提高了 10%。這個模型給了我們成長的信心，讓我們安然度過不同的經濟波動時期，這對我們的未來來說是一個美好的預兆。

OppFi sees a favorable environment for growth in '25. Our strong balance sheet, favorable macroeconomic tailwinds, strong credit trends, and scalable growth levers position us well. We believe the potential of entering into additional partnerships, continued funnel improvements, and direct-response marketing initiatives will enable us to attract new high-quality customers who exhibit strong unit economics.

OppFi 認為 25 年將擁有有利的成長環境。我們強勁的資產負債表、有利的宏觀經濟順風、強勁的信貸趨勢和可擴展的成長槓桿使我們處於有利地位。我們相信，建立更多合作夥伴關係、持續改善管道和直接回應行銷計畫的潛力將使我們能夠吸引表現出強勁單位經濟效益的新優質客戶。

As you may recall, Bitty was our first outside investment in the small business financing space. Similar to our consumer business, we continue to see a large supply/demand imbalance in the working capital space for small business. Bitty has experienced significant growth, and we believe it will continue to provide profitability and cash flow to OppFi in 2025. We are excited to continue working with Bitty as they seek to disrupt the space with best-in-class products, modeling, and servicing.

您可能還記得，Bitty 是我們在小型企業融資領域的第一筆外部投資。與我們的消費業務類似，我們繼續看到小型企業營運資金領域存在巨大的供需失衡。Bitty 經歷了顯著的成長，我們相信它將在 2025 年繼續為 OppFi 提供獲利能力和現金流。我們很高興能繼續與 Bitty 合作，他們致力於透過一流的產品、建模和服務來顛覆該領域。

OppFi's balance sheet remains strong. Earlier this week, we used excess cash to extinguish our corporate debt. Last month, we extended our asset-based facility with Blue Owl providing additional capacity. This is a testament to our financial strength and continued growth opportunities.

OppFi 的資產負債表依然強勁。本週早些時候，我們使用多餘的現金來償還公司債務。上個月，我們擴大了以資產為基礎的設施，Blue Owl 提供了額外的容量。這證明了我們的財務實力和持續的成長機會。

Our corporate development team continues to look for complementary products where OppFi's best-in-class platform and technology can deliver exceptional value to consumers and businesses. OppFi will look for the highest and best uses of its capital to add accretive acquisitions and investments, invest in high ROI initiatives, and reward shareholders.

我們的企業開發團隊將繼續尋找互補產品，以便 OppFi 一流的平台和技術能夠為消費者和企業提供卓越的價值。OppFi 將尋求其資本的最高和最佳用途，以增加增值收購和投資，投資高投資回報率計劃，並獎勵股東。

OppFi is building a leading mission-driven tech platform with a suite of best-in-class digital financial service products that addresses large supply demand imbalances and credit access for consumers and businesses. Over the last three years, we have taken considerable steps to position OppFi as a leader in our space and fulfill our vision and strategic plan.

OppFi 正在建立一個領先的以使命為導向的技術平台，該平台擁有一套一流的數位金融服務產品，旨在解決巨大的供需失衡問題以及消費者和企業的信貸取得問題。在過去三年中，我們已經採取了重大舉措，使 OppFi 成為我們領域的領導者，並實現了我們的願景和策略計畫。

Pam will now review our fourth-quarter and full-year results in detail and share our increased guidance for 2025. With that, I'll turn the call over to Pam.

帕姆現在將詳細回顧我們第四季和全年的業績，並分享我們對 2025 年的更高預期。說完這些，我會把電話轉給帕姆。

Thanks, Todd. And good morning, everyone. Looking at the fourth quarter of 2024, we are pleased to report that the results reflect continued strong demand for loans, good credit performance, and disciplined cost management. For this discussion, all results are for the fourth quarter of 2024 compared with the fourth quarter of 2023.

謝謝，托德。大家早安。展望 2024 年第四季度，我們很高興地報告，業績反映出貸款需求持續強勁、信貸表現良好以及成本管理嚴謹。為了進行討論，所有結果均為 2024 年第四季與 2023 年第四季相比的結果。

Total revenue increased 2.1% to $135.7 million, supported by an impressive 320-basis-point improvement in the average yield to 130%. Net originations grew 11.3% to $213.7 million, with retained net originations rising 6% to $192.5 million as origination growth outpaced the percentage of loans retained by our bank partners.

總營收成長 2.1% 至 1.357 億美元，這得益於平均收益率大幅提高 320 個基點至 130%。淨發起額成長 11.3% 至 2.137 億美元，保留淨發起額成長 6% 至 1.925 億美元，因為發起額的成長速度超過了我們的銀行合作夥伴保留的貸款百分比。

Our strategic focus on growing our customer base through new targeted credit and marketing initiatives that exhibit economically attractive profit characteristics continue to drive results. New customer originations increased by 8.8% while displaying improved credit risks as shown by the increased yield and lower charge-offs. This strategy contributed to a substantial improvement in credit quality with the annualized net charge-off rate as a percentage of average receivables decreasing by 430 basis points to 54.5% and improving by 450 basis points to 41.9% as a percentage of total revenue. The revenue growth, coupled with the improved credit quality that Todd spoke about earlier, driving the higher yield and improved charge-off rate drove the significant 22.9% increase in net revenue to $80.8 million.

我們的策略重點是透過具有經濟吸引力的利潤特徵的新的定向信貸和行銷舉措來擴大我們的客戶群，這將繼續推動業績。新客戶發起量增加了 8.8%，同時信貸風險有所改善，這體現在收益率增加和沖銷減少。此策略有助於大幅提高信貸質量，年化淨核銷率（佔平均應收帳款的百分比）下降 430 個基點至 54.5%，年化淨核銷率佔總收入的百分比提高 450 個基點至 41.9%。收入成長，加上托德之前提到的信貸品質提高，推動了收益率上升和沖銷率改善，使淨收入大幅增長 22.9%，達到 8,080 萬美元。

Cost discipline also played a key role in strong performance. Total expenses before interest expense declined to $45.1 million or 33.2% of total revenue, down from 33.8%. Continued improvements to our automated loan approvals contributed to effective cost control.

成本控制也在強勁業績中發揮了關鍵作用。利息支出前的總支出從 33.8% 下降至 4,510 萬美元，佔總收入的 33.2%。我們對貸款審批自動化的持續改進有助於有效控製成本。

For the fourth quarter, 79.5% of loans were approved in seconds with no human intervention, up 630 basis points from the fourth quarter of 2023.

第四季度，79.5% 的貸款在幾秒鐘內獲得批准，無需人工幹預，比 2023 年第四季增加了 630 個基點。

Interest expense improved to 8.1% of total revenue, down from 9.1% last year, driven by the paydown of our higher interest corporate debt and a reduction in rates. As a result, adjusted net income more than doubled to $20.3 million from $8.4 million while adjusted earnings per share grew to $0.23 from $0.10 in the fourth quarter of last year.

由於償還了高利率企業債務且利率降低，利息支出佔總收入的比例從去年的 9.1% 改善至 8.1%。結果，調整後的淨收入從 840 萬美元增加一倍多至 2,030 萬美元，而調整後的每股收益從去年第四季的 0.10 美元增長至 0.23 美元。

We maintained a strong balance sheet, ending the quarter with $88.3 million in cash equivalents and restricted cash, alongside $318.8 million in total debt and $234.2 million in total stockholders equity.

我們維持了強勁的資產負債表，本季末的現金等價物和受限現金為 8,830 萬美元，總負債為 3.188 億美元，股東權益總額為 2.342 億美元。

OppFi also paid down another $10 million on its corporate debt in the fourth quarter of 2024 and reduced it by another $20 million in the first quarter of 2025, paying it off months ahead of schedule. Our total funding capacity at year end was $613 million, including $206 million in unused debt capacity, excluding our paydown of debt and expansion of our Blue Owl facility in the first quarter of 2025.

OppFi 還在 2024 年第四季償還了 1,000 萬美元的公司債務，並在 2025 年第一季又償還了 2,000 萬美元，提前數月還清了債務。我們年底的總融資能力為 6.13 億美元，其中包括 2.06 億美元的未使用債務能力，不包括 2025 年第一季的債務償還和 Blue Owl 工廠的擴建。

Now, looking at the full-year results which represent the full impact of the strategic initiatives that Todd discussed, total revenue increased to $526 million, up 3.3% compared with 2023. This was towards the high end of our guidance of $510 million to $530 million. With the revenue growth, improved yield, and charge-off rates we realized during the year, net revenues increased 17.7% to $321.5 million.

現在，看看代表托德所討論的戰略舉措的全部影響的全年業績，總收入增加至 5.26 億美元，與 2023 年相比增長 3.3%。這接近我們預期的 5.1 億至 5.3 億美元的最高水準。隨著我們今年實現的營收成長、收益率提高和核銷率提高，淨收入成長 17.7% 至 3.215 億美元。

GAAP net income increased significantly to $83.8 million, up from $39.5 million in 2023. And diluted EPS for the full year was $0.36 compared with a loss of $0.06 in 2023.

GAAP 淨收入從 2023 年的 3,950 萬美元大幅增加至 8,380 萬美元。全年攤薄每股收益為 0.36 美元，而 2023 年的虧損為 0.06 美元。

Adjusted net income increased to $82.7 million compared with $41.5 million in 2023. This also exceeded our raised 2024 guidance of $74 million to $76 million. Adjusted EPS was $0.95 compared with $0.49 in 2023. This also significantly exceeded our raised EPS guidance of $0.85 to $0.87.

調整後淨收入從 2023 年的 4,150 萬美元增至 8,270 萬美元。這也超過了我們上調的 2024 年 7,400 萬美元至 7,600 萬美元的指導價格。調整後每股收益為 0.95 美元，而 2023 年為 0.49 美元。這也大大超出了我們上調的每股收益預期 0.85 美元至 0.87 美元。

The company delivered strong full-year results, exceeding guidance and street estimates, driven by the successful implementation of numerous strategic initiatives and operational improvements throughout the year. These efforts enhanced efficiency, expanded market opportunities, and strengthened financial performance, underscoring the company's ability to execute its long-term strategy and deliver shareholder value.

由於全年成功實施的眾多策略性舉措和營運改進，公司全年業績表現強勁，超越了指引和市場預期。這些努力提高了效率，擴大了市場機會，增強了財務業績，凸顯了公司執行長期策略和實現股東價值的能力。

The strong 2024 results also provide the template for the expected 2025 growth highlighted in our full-year guidance, which I will now discuss.

2024 年的強勁業績也為我們全年指引中強調的 2025 年預期成長提供了模板，我現在將對此進行討論。

Given our strong 2024 operating performance driven by our improved model which strengthened the credit quality of originations, refinements in our seasonal modeling and the focus on operating efficiencies and cost discipline, coupled with the testing of additional marketing partners in 2025 and the healthy start to the year, we are providing the following guidance for the entire year and the first quarter of 2025.

鑑於我們 2024 年強勁的營運業績，這得益於我們改進的模型，該模型增強了發起的信用質量，我們季節性模型的改進以及對運營效率和成本紀律的關注，再加上 2025 年對更多營銷合作夥伴的測試和健康的開局，我們為 2025 年全年和第一季度提供以下指導。

For the full-year 2025, total revenue of $563 million to $594 million an increase of 7% to 13%. Adjusted net income of $95 million to $97 million, an increase of 15% to 17%. And based on an anticipated diluted weighted average share count of $90 million, adjusted earnings per share would be between $1.06 and $1.07.

2025年全年總營收為5.63億美元至5.94億美元，成長7%至13%。調整後淨收入為 9,500 萬美元至 9,700 萬美元，成長 15% 至 17%。基於預期稀釋加權平均股數 9,000 萬美元，調整後每股盈餘將在 1.06 美元至 1.07 美元之間。

In 2025, we expect less seasonality in our results than in prior years driven by the stabilization and growth of yield, predictable credit trends, and the full-year impact of our operating efficiencies. Additionally, we expect a more stable interest rate environment to contribute further to our consistent performance throughout the year. We anticipate this impact will be most pronounced in the first and fourth quarters, with those quarters contributing more than in prior years. We expect our momentum to continue in the first quarter, with adjusted net income expected to be $22 million to $24 million, more than double our previous guidance.

到 2025 年，我們預計業績的季節性變化將比前幾年更小，這得益於收益率的穩定和成長、可預測的信貸趨勢以及我們營運效率的全年影響。此外，我們預計更穩定的利率環境將進一步促進我們全年的穩定表現。我們預計這種影響將在第一季和第四季最為明顯，這兩個季度的貢獻將比前幾年更大。我們預計第一季的成長動能將持續下去，調整後的淨收入預計達到 2,200 萬美元至 2,400 萬美元，是先前預期的兩倍多。

With that, I would now like to turn the call over to the operator for Q&A. Operator?

說完這些，我現在想將電話轉給接線生進行問答。操作員？

(Operator Instructions)

（操作員指令）

David Scharf, Citizens.

大衛‧沙爾夫，公民。

Great. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my call and congrats on wrapping up just a tremendous turnaround year for the team over there. Listen, it's been an interesting earnings season where everyone has to ask the obligatory question about the macro outlook and what assumptions on the consumer you're making. Maybe just at a high level, Todd, has anything changed in the last three months since the last call as you think about both better versus lesser credit consumers you want to target as well as just your overall feeling about macro uncertainty and what the impact of tariffs might be on certain employment sectors.

偉大的。大家早安。感謝您接聽我的電話，並祝賀你們的團隊度過了一個偉大的轉折之年。聽著，這是一個有趣的收益季，每個人都必須問一個關於宏觀前景以及對消費者做出的假設的必問問題。托德，也許只是從高層次來看，自上次通話以來，在過去三個月裡有什麼變化嗎？你既考慮了你想要瞄準的信用較好的消費者，也考慮了你想要瞄準的信用較少的消費者，還有你對宏觀不確定性的總體感受，以及關稅對某些就業部門可能造成的影響。

Yeah. Thanks, David. I mean, listen, I think it's hard to tie it directly back. But I think, I mentioned on the call our Model 6 which takes a lot of the learnings of '22 when we saw inflation. I mean, ultimately, I think tariffs could -- I think people are concerned about inflation and obviously, that is something that would (technical difficulty) I think our Model 6 and some of the learnings at '22 have better prepared us to weather some volatility and consumer repayments. But overall, I think if you look at our growth trends, we're growing at a really nice clip. And we think there's a lot of growth out there. But we're going at a speed and a pace that we feel comfortable with that we know we have strong unit economics and we know that we're targeting really high quality customers.

是的。謝謝，大衛。我的意思是，聽著，我認為很難直接將其聯繫起來。但我認為，我在電話會議上提到了我們的模型 6，它吸收了我們在 22 年看到通貨膨脹時學到的許多經驗。我的意思是，最終，我認為關稅可能會——我認為人們擔心通貨膨脹，顯然，這是一個技術難題，我認為我們的模型 6 和 22 年的一些經驗教訓讓我們更好地做好了應對波動和消費者償還的準備。但總體而言，如果你看看我們的成長趨勢，你會發現我們的成長速度非常快。我們認為，該市場還有很大的成長空間。但我們正以自己感到舒適的速度和步伐前進，我們知道我們擁有強大的單位經濟，我們知道我們瞄準的是真正高品質的客戶。

Got it. And along those lines, can you provide, well, maybe a refresher on what has driven the increase in yields over the past year? And looking into 2025, what assumptions are underlying the revenue guide there? And whether it reflects a change in focus on maybe the credit tiers you're going after?

知道了。順著這個思路，您能否再重複過去一年收益率上升的推動因素？展望 2025 年，其收入指南是基於哪些假設？這是否反映了您所追求的信用等級關注點的變化？

I mean we launched a little bit of risk-based pricing in the second half of the year which allowed for more yield. Also, we still had in the book back from '22 and '23 some lower yielding customers that have since been off the books. And so that's propped the yield up. Also better repayments, just better credit history, better repayment rates causing us to have some increased yield. But it's a nice blend of receivables in addition to a little bit more yields coming off the book causing more revenue.

我的意思是，我們在今年下半年推出了一些基於風險的定價，從而可以獲得更多的收益。此外，我們帳上仍有一些22年和23年的低收益客戶，這些客戶後來不再記帳。這就提高了收益率。此外，更好的還款方式、更好的信用記錄、更好的還款率也使我們的收益增加。但它是一種很好的應收帳款組合，再加上帳面收益，可以帶來更多收入。

Got it. And then maybe just one last one to squeeze in here. Given obviously a lot of the headlines coming out of Washington, any read on the pace of tax refund season for the critical Q1 paydown quarter versus prior years?

知道了。然後也許只剩下最後一個人擠進來了。鑑於華盛頓的許多頭條新聞，與前幾年相比，對關鍵的第一季退稅季的進度有何看法？

I mean, we're watching it closely. We're right in the start -- in the middle of it. It's probably too early to assess if it compared to other years. We don't anticipate that refunds will be necessarily delayed or not given due to that. That's our position. But we're watching it closely and hoping for a normal (technical difficulty).

我的意思是，我們正在密切關注此事。我們正處於起步階段，處於中期。與其他年份相比，現在進行評估可能還為時過早。我們預計退款不一定會因此而延遲或無法退款。這就是我們的立場。但我們正在密切關注，希望情況能恢復正常（技術難度）。

Okay. Great. Thank you very much and congrats.

好的。偉大的。非常感謝，恭喜。

Mike Grondahl, Northland Securities.

北國證券的麥克‧格朗達爾（Mike Grondahl）。

Thanks, guys. And congratulations on a really strong year. First question is really 2025, it looks like you guys are leaning in a little bit or we're going to see that inflection in the top line. I think you talked a little bit about macro, a little bit about positive credit environment. But I don't know, could you just articulate again why you feel comfortable leaning into that growth in '25? And then secondly, it sounds like you're having good success on the marketing side, targeting some channels and whatnot. Can you describe what's going right there and how that's working well?

謝謝大家。恭喜您度過了非常豐碩的一年。第一個問題實際上是 2025 年，看起來你們有點傾向於此，或者我們將在頂線看到這種拐點。我想您談到了一點宏觀問題，一點積極的信貸環境。但我不知道，您能否再次解釋為什麼您覺得在 25 年實現這種成長很舒服？其次，聽起來你在行銷方面取得了不錯的成功，瞄準了一些管道等等。您能描述一下那裡發生了什麼以及它運作得如何嗎？

Listen, I mean, we're not prognosticators of the stock market or the macroeconomic conditions that are going on. I think we really feel strongly about our underwriting model and the development of it over the last couple of years. Obviously, '22 was a little bit of a painful time. But the one benefit from that is we get a lot of the learnings coming out of that and helped us to get where we are today.

聽著，我的意思是，我們並不是股市或正在發生的宏觀經濟狀況的預測者。我認為我們對我們的核保模式以及它在過去幾年的發展有著強烈的感覺。顯然，22 年是一段有點痛苦的時期。但其中的一個好處是，我們從中學到了很多東西，並幫助我們達到了今天的水平。

We're going to always focus on quality over quantity. But we do think there's a lot of growth out there. We have really not deployed some scalable levers and direct response and brand marketing and other things that we think we're going to start to test into this year and think that it can yield some really growth but with high quality customers. We're never going to necessarily open the credit box and increase the risk of our portfolio. But we definitely think that there's opportunities out there with us in our position, our balance sheet. And we are seeing strong credit trends right now. Obviously, there's some ominous clouds on the horizon with what's going on. But we'll watch it closely and we have a really good read on it from getting data back pretty quickly so we can read and react or adjust as needed.

我們將始終注重品質而不是數量。但我們確實認為，該市場還有很大的成長空間。我們實際上還沒有部署一些可擴展的槓桿、直接回應、品牌行銷和其他我們認為將在今年開始測試的東西，並認為它可以帶來真正的成長，但擁有高品質的客戶。我們永遠不會打開信用箱並增加我們投資組合的風險。但我們確實認為，我們的狀況和資產負債表中仍存在著機會。我們現在看到強勁的信貸趨勢。顯然，正在發生的事件中，一些不祥的陰雲正在籠罩著我們。但我們會密切關注，並透過很快地獲取數據對其進行了很好的解讀，以便我們能夠根據需要進行解讀、反應或調整。

Got it. And then on the marketing side, where you're seeing the most success? What's working?

知道了。那麼在行銷方面，您認為最成功的地方是什麼？什麼在起作用？

I think just from a customer satisfaction standpoint, the auto approvals have really, really helped with getting improved funnel metrics. To allow for customers to go through without human interaction, I think, that's something that we prioritize and have really seen strong gains in. But I think from a customer experience standpoint, we think that we're in a really good spot to convert customers at a higher rate due to that. And that's why our appetite for increasing marketing spend in certain channels and then also turning on certain channels that we haven't before that we have experience in but we've just kind of been a little dormant, we think there's a lot of growth.

我認為，僅從客戶滿意度的角度來看，自動批准確實有助於改善通路指標。我認為，讓客戶無需人工幹預就能完成流程，這是我們優先考慮的事情，而且確實取得了巨大的進步。但我認為，從客戶體驗的角度來看，我們認為我們處於一個非常有利的位置，能夠以更高的比率轉換客戶。這就是為什麼我們熱衷於增加在某些管道的行銷支出，同時也開啟某些我們以前沒有的管道，我們有經驗，但我們只是有點沉寂，我們認為有很大的成長空間。

Got it. And then maybe just lastly, cash balances at $88 million at year end, then it sounds like you paid down $20 million or $30 million in early 2025 on the debt. And that was cash generated in '24. It looks like you could generate, I don't know, roughly $100 million-plus in free cash in '25. How do you think about -- do you want to do another Bitty? Is it share buybacks? What do you think about uses for that $100 million?

知道了。最後，也許年底的現金餘額為 8800 萬美元，那麼聽起來你在 2025 年初償還了 2000 萬美元或 3000 萬美元的債務。這就是'24年產生的現金。看起來你可以在 25 年產生大約 1 億美元以上的自由現金。您覺得怎麼樣——您想再做一次“Bitty”嗎？是股票回購嗎？您認為這1億美元有什麼用途？

I think, and I touched a little bit on the script, it's a menu, right? We have a menu of options. And I think we're going to do what we think is the highest and best use of our capital. I think you kind of listed out some of those options. The corporate debt, we were really happy, that's something that was taken out from when we went public back in '21. It was something -- it was a higher cost corporate debt at the corporate level that we wanted to extinguish to give us ultimate flexibility to really build out our vision of being a platform business for alternative digital financial service products. And this really gives us that flexibility. But yeah, we're going to be looking at number one, growth, right? We're also continuing to develop our product and software, so there's high ROI initiatives there. Buybacks is always an option. There's dividends. There's a lot of -- And then there's, obviously, inorganically looking for things similar to Bitty. So there's a menu of options that we'll be looking at. And definitely, going to prioritize things where we think it has the highest ROI for us.

我認為，我稍微觸及了劇本，它是一個菜單，對嗎？我們有一個選項菜單。我認為我們將盡最大努力充分利用我們的資本。我認為您已經列出了其中一些選項。我們真的很高興有公司債務，這是我們在 21 年上市時取消的。這是公司層面上成本較高的企業債務，我們希望消除這些債務，以便給予我們最大的靈活性，真正實現我們的願景，即成為替代數位金融服務產品的平台業務。這確實為我們提供了靈活性。但是的，我們將關注首要問題，即成長，對嗎？我們也持續開發我們的產品和軟體，因此該領域的投資報酬率很高。回購始終是一種選擇。有紅利。有很多——然後顯然無機地尋找與 Bitty 類似的東西。因此我們將要查看一系列選項。我們肯定會優先考慮那些我們認為能帶來最高投資報酬率的事情。

Got it. Thank you.

知道了。謝謝。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作員指令）

Dave Storms, Stonegate.

戴夫‧斯托姆斯 (Dave Storms)，Stonegate。

Morning. And congrats on the really strong quarter and end to 2024. Just wondering if we could start with one of the prepared remarks that you're expecting less seasonality in 2025, just hoping you'd go a little further into what some of the drivers of maybe smooth earnings profile are.

早晨。並祝賀 2024 年本季取得強勁成績並取得圓滿結束。只是想知道我們是否可以從一條準備好的評論開始，您預計 2025 年的季節性會減少，只是希望您能進一步說明一些可能影響平穩盈利狀況的驅動因素。

It's really our new model incorporates seasonal modeling that we deployed last year. That really accounts for seasonality and credit loss performance which smooths out earnings so far in '25. I think, also, the first quarter of '24 was also the last quarter of some of the elevated charge-offs that came out of '22. But we feel like the earnings stream was going to be a lot more smoothed out this year and there's going to be strong income generations in the first and fourth quarter, more so than the year before, so it's smoothing it out throughout the year.

我們的新模型實際上融合了我們去年部署的季節性模型。這實際上考慮了季節性和信貸損失表現，從而平滑了25年迄今為止的收益。我還認為，24 年第一季也是 22 年以來一些高額沖銷的最後一個季度。但我們覺得，今年的獲利流將會更加平穩，第一季和第四季的營收成長將比去年更加強勁，因此全年的獲利流將會更加平穩。

Understood. Very helpful. And then, thinking about the model, how do you view the upper bound of automation? Are you going to run into maybe an end to some of the low-hanging fruit where you can grow that by 500 basis points a year? Or will you be able to just expand into new markets and continue to push automation?

明白了。非常有幫助。然後，思考這個模型，您如何看待自動化的上限？您是否可能會遇到一些唾手可得的成果，讓您每年可以增加 500 個基點？或者您能夠擴展到新市場並繼續推動自動化？

I think it's something we can continue to incrementally improve. I think it's probably impossible to get to 100%. There's going to be -- Who knows? With AI these days, maybe it is. But I think you're always going to have a subset that might take some human interaction. But our goal is to continuously improve that metric. We think it has a lot of benefits from an operational efficiency from the funnel metrics. Also, our customer satisfaction, when someone goes through from an auto approval standpoint, is much higher. Customers really enjoy the experience so it's kind of a win-win for us. So that's definitely something we'll prioritize and looking at this year.

我認為這是我們可以繼續逐步改進的事情。我認為達到 100% 大概是不可能的。會有的──誰知道呢？如今有了人工智慧，也許確實如此。但我認為你總是會有一個子集可能需要一些人類互動。但我們的目標是不斷提高這項指標。我們認為，從漏斗指標來看，它對營運效率有許多好處。此外，從自動批准的角度來看，我們的客戶滿意度要高得多。顧客確實享受這種體驗，所以這對我們來說是一種雙贏。所以這絕對是我們今年要優先考慮的事情。

Understood. Thank you for taking my questions. And good luck in 2025.

明白了。感謝您回答我的問題。祝 2025 年好運。

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's program. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.

謝謝。女士們、先生們，今天的節目到此結束。感謝您的參與。您可以隨時斷開連線。