(UPST) 2022 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good day, and welcome to the Upstart Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. Today's conference is being recorded.

美好的一天，歡迎來到 Upstart 2022 年第四季度財報電話會議。今天的會議正在錄製中。

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Jason Schmidt, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

此時，我想將會議轉交給投資者關係主管 Jason Schmidt。請繼續。

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us on today's conference call to discuss Upstart's fourth quarter and full year 2022 financial results. With us on today's call are Dave Girouard, Upstart's Chief Executive Officer; and Sanjay Datta, our Chief Financial Officer.

下午好，感謝您參加今天的電話會議，討論 Upstart 第四季度和 2022 年全年財務業績。 Upstart 的首席執行官 Dave Girouard 和我們一起參加了今天的電話會議；和我們的首席財務官 Sanjay Datta。

Before we begin, I want to remind you that shortly after the market closed today, Upstart issued a press release announcing its fourth quarter and full year 2022 financial results and published an Investor Relations presentation. Both are available on our Investor Relations website, ir.upstart.com.

在我們開始之前，我想提醒您，今天收市後不久，Upstart 發布了一份新聞稿，宣布了其第四季度和 2022 年全年的財務業績，並發布了投資者關係介紹。兩者均可在我們的投資者關係網站 ir.upstart.com 上找到。

During the call, we will make forward-looking statements such as guidance for the first quarter of 2023 related to our business and our plans to expand our platform in the future. These statements are based on our current expectations and information available as of today and are subject to a variety of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Actual results may vary materially as a result of various risk factors that have been described in our filings with the SEC.

在電話會議期間，我們將做出前瞻性陳述，例如與我們業務相關的 2023 年第一季度的指導以及我們未來擴展平台的計劃。這些陳述基於我們目前的預期和截至今日可用的信息，並受到各種風險、不確定性和假設的影響。由於我們在提交給美國證券交易委員會的文件中描述的各種風險因素，實際結果可能存在重大差異。

As a result, we caution you against placing undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements as the result of new information or future events, except as required by law.

因此，我們提醒您不要過分依賴這些前瞻性陳述。除非法律要求，否則我們不承擔因新信息或未來事件而更新任何前瞻性陳述的義務。

In addition, during today's call, unless otherwise stated, references to our results are provided as non-GAAP financial measures and are reconciled to our GAAP results, which can be found in the earnings release and supplemental tables. (Operator Instructions)

此外，在今天的電話會議中，除非另有說明，否則我們的業績參考將作為非 GAAP 財務指標提供，並與我們的 GAAP 業績進行核對，這可以在收益發布和補充表中找到。 （操作員說明）

Later this quarter, Upstart will be participating in the JMP Securities Technology Conference on March 6 and the Loop Capital Markets Investor Conference on March 13.

本季度晚些時候，Upstart 將參加 3 月 6 日的 JMP 證券技術會議和 3 月 13 日的 Loop Capital Markets 投資者會議。

Now I'd like to turn it over to Dave Girouard, CEO of Upstart.

現在我想把它交給 Upstart 的首席執行官 Dave Girouard。

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us on our earnings call covering our fourth quarter and full year 2022 results. I'm Dave Girouard, Co-Founder and CEO of Upstart.

大家下午好。感謝您加入我們的財報電話會議，了解我們第四季度和 2022 年全年的業績。我是 Upstart 的聯合創始人兼首席執行官 Dave Girouard。

Obviously, 2022 was a challenging year for Upstart, and we're not happy with the results we're sharing today. In many ways, last year was the perfect storm for our business model. The withdrawal of federal stimulus disproportionately harmed our borrowers, akin to a simulated recession for millions of mainstream Americans suddenly lost what had become their primary source of income.

顯然，2022 年對 Upstart 來說是充滿挑戰的一年，我們對今天分享的結果並不滿意。在許多方面，去年對我們的商業模式來說是一場完美的風暴。聯邦刺激計劃的退出對我們的借款人造成了不成比例的傷害，這類似於數百萬主流美國人的模擬經濟衰退突然失去了他們的主要收入來源。

The Fed's interest rate hikes the fastest in several decades left both lenders and capital markets cautious and concerned about what might come next in our economy. Out of an abundance of caution with respect to the economy, many lenders cut back or paused their originations, despite the fact that their Upstart powered loan portfolios have met or exceeded expectations since the program began in 2018.

美聯儲以幾十年來最快的速度加息，這讓貸方和資本市場都對我們的經濟接下來會發生什麼感到謹慎和擔憂。出於對經濟的高度謹慎，許多貸方削減或暫停了貸款，儘管自 2018 年該計劃啟動以來，他們的 Upstart 驅動貸款組合已經達到或超過預期。

Having said that, we're not into excuses. The best companies take advantage of the opportunities presented in the most difficult times. 2022 was in some ways a gift because it laid there some parts of our business that we needed to improve. We've made great progress in many of these areas, and I'll share a few of them with you shortly.

話雖如此，我們沒有找藉口。最好的公司會利用最困難時期出現的機會。 2022 年在某種程度上是一份禮物，因為它奠定了我們需要改進的部分業務。我們在其中的許多領域都取得了長足的進步，我將很快與您分享其中的一些。

But first, I want to make it clear that we're committed to running an operationally and fiscally tight ship and always have been. We've been profitable for most of the time that we've been public. It is our intention to return to profitability as soon as possible. Given the reduction in lending volume, 2 weeks ago, we took the unfortunate but necessary step of reducing the size of our workforce by 365 team members, representing about 20% of our staff. I'm deeply grateful for the immeasurable contributions these Upstarters made to our mission over the years, and I'm profoundly sorry that their time at Upstart came to such an abrupt end.

但首先，我想明確表示，我們致力於運營一艘運營和財政緊張的船，而且一直如此。在我們上市的大部分時間裡，我們一直在盈利。我們打算盡快恢復盈利。鑑於貸款量減少，兩週前，我們採取了不幸但必要的步驟，將我們的員工人數減少了 365 名團隊成員，約占我們員工的 20%。我非常感謝這些 Upstarters 多年來為我們的使命做出的不可估量的貢獻，我對他們在 Upstart 的時間如此突然地結束深表遺憾。

With this reduction in staffing, we also decided to pause development of our small business lending product. This was a necessary step to ensure we can adequately resource the rest of the roadmap. We look forward to the day when we can resume our pursuit of the world's best AI-powered business loan. Yet we haven't just focused on reducing expenses, we grabbed the opportunity that 2022 presented to make important improvements across Upstart in ways that have made us a stronger company for the future.

隨著人員減少，我們還決定暫停小企業貸款產品的開發。這是確保我們能夠為路線圖的其餘部分提供充足資源的必要步驟。我們期待著有一天我們可以繼續追求世界上最好的人工智能商業貸款。然而，我們不僅專注於減少開支，我們還抓住了 2022 年的機會，在整個 Upstart 做出重要改進，使我們成為未來更強大的公司。

Let me share a few examples. First, we've traditionally viewed our business model in the simplest terms as a marketplace for loans based on price discovery and at-will participation for consumers and lenders. And while this is true, it's also useful to think of the funding on our platform as a strategic supply chain that needs to be scaled and strengthened continually.

讓我分享幾個例子。首先，我們傳統上以最簡單的方式將我們的業務模型視為基於價格發現和消費者和貸方隨意參與的貸款市場。雖然這是事實，但將我們平台上的資金視為需要不斷擴大和加強的戰略供應鏈也很有用。

In our earnings call in August, I told you that we would begin to investigate partnerships that could provide more reliable and persistent funding to the Upstart platform. I'm happy to report that we're in late-stage discussions with multiple potential partners in support of this goal. Second, we also took advantage of the volatile economy to significantly upgrade our model's ability to understand and react to macroeconomic conditions. Last quarter, I announced our plan to productize the Upstart Macro Index, or UMI. This new metric measures how changing economic conditions, like inflation and unemployment, are impacting credit performance. We continue to make breakthroughs in our methodology for calculating UMI, and we expect to launch this monthly metric to the public later this quarter.

在我們 8 月份的財報電話會議上，我告訴過你我們將開始調查可以為 Upstart 平台提供更可靠和持久資金的合作夥伴關係。我很高興地報告，我們正在與多個潛在合作夥伴進行後期討論以支持這一目標。其次，我們還利用動蕩的經濟來顯著提升我們的模型理解和應對宏觀經濟狀況的能力。上個季度，我宣布了我們將 Upstart Macro Index 或 UMI 產品化的計劃。這一新指標衡量不斷變化的經濟狀況（如通貨膨脹和失業）如何影響信貸表現。我們繼續在計算 UMI 的方法上取得突破，我們預計將在本季度晚些時候向公眾推出這個月度指標。

This is an exciting development from our machine learning team. In an industry first, Upstart will provide lenders with near real-time insight into the financial health of the American consumer, allowing them to adjust their lending programs accordingly. This is a big step toward providing banks and credit unions with lending infrastructure that autonomously, continuously and rapidly adapt to changes in the economy. You'll be hearing more about this soon.

這是我們機器學習團隊的一項激動人心的進展。作為行業首創，Upstart 將為貸方提供對美國消費者財務健康狀況的近乎實時的洞察，從而使他們能夠相應地調整貸款計劃。這是朝著為銀行和信用合作社提供自主、持續和快速適應經濟變化的貸款基礎設施邁出的一大步。您很快就會聽到更多相關信息。

Third, 2022 confirmed that we have both strong unit economics and considerable pricing power even in the most challenging environment. Despite the fact that our lending volume in 2022 was down 14% versus the prior year, our contribution profit was actually up 13% year-on-year. Optimizing our pricing represents a large surface area of opportunity, which we've only just begun to explore. In addition to these major improvements, we've also continued to innovate across our platform in support of future growth. In fact, I believe we made more progress with our technology in 2022 than in any year in our history.

第三，2022 年證實，即使在最具挑戰性的環境中，我們也擁有強大的單位經濟性和相當大的定價能力。儘管我們在 2022 年的貸款量比上一年下降了 14%，但我們的貢獻利潤實際上同比增長了 13%。優化我們的定價代表了很大的機會，我們才剛剛開始探索。除了這些重大改進之外，我們還繼續在我們的平台上進行創新以支持未來的增長。事實上，我相信我們在 2022 年取得的技術進步比歷史上任何一年都多。

And as capital markets and the overall economy normalizes, I expect this will become obvious to all of you. Some important areas of progress from last year include model accuracy. Our AI models continue to separate risk significantly better than a traditional FICO-based model, and we continue to increase our pace of model development. The increase in our model accuracy in the last 7 months is more than what we delivered in the prior 2.5 years.

隨著資本市場和整體經濟的正常化，我希望這對你們所有人來說都是顯而易見的。去年取得的一些重要進展包括模型準確性。我們的 AI 模型繼續比傳統的基於 FICO 的模型更好地分離風險，並且我們繼續加快模型開發的步伐。過去 7 個月我們模型準確性的提高超過了我們在過去 2.5 年中交付的成果。

Automation. In the fourth quarter, we saw a record 82% of personal loans fully automated. By automated, I mean there was no human intervention anywhere in the process of originating the loan. This boost came primarily from eliminating or automating processes that our loan operations team has traditionally done manually.

自動化。第四季度，我們看到創紀錄的 82% 的個人貸款完全自動化。通過自動化，我的意思是在發放貸款的過程中沒有任何人為乾預。這種提升主要來自消除或自動化我們的貸款運營團隊傳統上手動完成的流程。

Auto Retail. We finished the year with 778 total dealerships under contract, a 90% increase from a year ago. As automobile inventories are replenished and prices normalize, our ability to modernize the car buying experience for our dealer partners will only become more important. We're piloting our AI-powered auto loan in 27 of our dealerships, helping them approve more applicants with less friction. As of now, when borrowers are presented with an Upstart-powered loan in these dealerships, they choose us 42% of the time. Also in Q4, about 1 in every 3 Upstart-powered auto retail loans were fully automated, an increase of 25% from the prior quarter.

汽車零售。到年底，我們的簽約經銷商總數為 778 家，比一年前增長了 90%。隨著汽車庫存的補充和價格的正常化，我們為經銷商合作夥伴提供現代化購車體驗的能力只會變得更加重要。我們正在我們的 27 家經銷商中試行我們的人工智能汽車貸款，幫助他們以更少的摩擦批准更多的申請人。截至目前，當借款人在這些經銷店獲得由 Upstart 提供支持的貸款時，他們有 42% 的機率會選擇我們。同樣在第四季度，大約每 3 個由 Upstart 提供支持的汽車零售貸款中就有 1 個是完全自動化的，比上一季度增加了 25%。

Small-dollar loans. We launched this innovative product in June of 2022. Today, our small-dollar product includes loans from $200 to $2,500 with tenors from 3 months to 18 months. To date, we've originated more than 24,000 small-dollar loans to individuals who otherwise would not have been approved for our personal loans. More than 12,000 of these loans were originated in Q4 alone. This expansion of borrower coverage means we are dramatically increasing the pace at which our machine learning models are improving. And just as importantly, in Q4, 88% of small dollar loans were fully automated.

小額貸款。我們於 2022 年 6 月推出了這一創新產品。如今，我們的小額美元產品包括 200 美元至 2,500 美元的貸款，期限為 3 個月至 18 個月。迄今為止，我們已經向個人發放了超過 24,000 筆小額美元貸款，否則他們將無法獲得我們的個人貸款批准。其中超過 12,000 筆貸款是在第四季度發放的。借款人覆蓋範圍的擴大意味著我們正在顯著加快機器學習模型改進的速度。同樣重要的是，在第四季度，88% 的小額美元貸款是完全自動化的。

Lending partners. In our earnings call a year ago, I told you we had 42 lenders on the Upstart platform. Today, that number is 92, representing growth of 130%. Despite the hostile 2022 environment, banks and credit unions recognize and appreciate a fundamental secular change in technology when they see it. These partners are starting cautiously with us, but they represent a significant expansion of potential lending capacity on the Upstart platform once there's a bit more clarity on the direction of the economy.

貸款合作夥伴。在一年前的財報電話會議上，我告訴過你我們在 Upstart 平台上有 42 家貸方。今天，這個數字是 92，增長了 130%。儘管 2022 年的環境充滿敵意，但銀行和信用合作社在看到技術的根本性長期變化時會認識到並讚賞它。這些合作夥伴開始對我們持謹慎態度，但一旦經濟方向更加明朗，它們就代表了 Upstart 平台上潛在貸款能力的顯著擴展。

Now I'd like to turn your attention to 2023 and our priorities for this year. Our first priority is to continue to assure proper model calibration and model accuracy for all our products regardless of which way the economy turns. This is the foundation on which all other success is based. This implies as much as anything taking a conservative position relative to the UMI trends we observe today, and there, our next stop is to return to profitability as soon as possible. While we can't make promises given the unknowns in the economy, we are intensely focused on generating operating cash and positive GAAP net income once again.

現在我想請大家注意 2023 年和我們今年的優先事項。我們的首要任務是繼續確保我們所有產品的正確模型校準和模型準確性，無論經濟走向何方。這是所有其他成功的基礎。這意味著相對於我們今天觀察到的 UMI 趨勢採取保守立場，我們的下一站是盡快恢復盈利。鑑於經濟中的未知數，我們無法做出承諾，但我們非常專注於再次產生運營現金和正的 GAAP 淨收入。

And with some modest cooperation from the economy, we expect to return to our pattern of quarter-on-quarter growth this year. While the expansion of both bank and capital market funding are foundational to this effort, growth is also gated by the approval rates and interest rates that the prevailing risk in the world dictates. This risk is conveniently captured on a monthly basis by UMI. This year, it's also a priority of ours to reduce the volatility in transaction volume on our platform in the future. This is the primary motive of the committed capital initiative I mentioned earlier. It also means improving our ability to serve primary borrowers more competitively, which is in the interest of Upstart as well as our bank and credit union partners.

在經濟的適度合作下，我們預計今年將恢復環比增長模式。雖然銀行和資本市場融資的擴張是這一努力的基礎，但增長也受到世界普遍風險所決定的批准率和利率的限制。 UMI 按月方便地捕獲此風險。今年，我們的首要任務也是減少未來平台交易量的波動。這是我之前提到的承諾資本計劃的主要動機。這也意味著提高我們為主要藉款人提供更具競爭力的服務的能力，這符合 Upstart 以及我們的銀行和信用合作社合作夥伴的利益。

And lastly, we can reduce future volatility by continuing our expansion into secured products such as auto loans and home loans, which are generally preferred by lenders in times of uncertainty. Through all of this, we're focused on using our balance sheet efficiently and wisely. We have been a model of capital efficiency since our earliest days, and I expect to continue on this path in 2023 and beyond.

最後，我們可以通過繼續擴展汽車貸款和住房貸款等擔保產品來降低未來的波動性，這些產品在不確定時期通常是貸方的首選。通過所有這些，我們專注於高效、明智地使用我們的資產負債表。自成立以來，我們一直是資本效率的典範，我希望在 2023 年及以後繼續走這條路。

Before I turn it over to Sanjay, I want to share why I'm as optimistic as ever about Upstart's future. The core thesis of our business that AI can unlock smarter credit decisions than a 30-year-old credit score can is now obvious. The recent launches of products powered by generative AI has opened our eyes to the unlimited potential of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

在我把它交給 Sanjay 之前，我想分享一下為什麼我對 Upstart 的未來一如既往地樂觀。我們業務的核心論點是，AI 可以做出比 30 年前的信用評分更明智的信用決策，這一點現在已經很明顯了。最近推出的由生成式 AI 提供支持的產品讓我們看到了人工智能和機器學習的無限潛力。

A couple of weeks ago, a Wharton School, MBA professor admitted that ChatGPT had successfully passed his final exam. So it's no giantly to believe that AI can lead to more accurate credit decisions. Indeed, we are proving this every day. It's clear that Upstart is an established market leader in the application of AI to lending. Despite the economic challenges of 2022, we are a much better company than we were a year ago with more advanced technology, accelerated model development and dramatically more training data, and our founder-led leadership team is stronger than ever.

幾週前，一位沃頓商學院的 MBA 教授承認，ChatGPT 已經順利通過了他的期末考試。因此，相信人工智能可以導致更準確的信貸決策並不過分。事實上，我們每天都在證明這一點。很明顯，Upstart 是人工智能貸款應用領域的公認市場領導者。儘管 2022 年面臨經濟挑戰，但我們是一家比一年前更好的公司，擁有更先進的技術、更快的模型開發和更多的培訓數據，而且我們由創始人領導的領導團隊比以往任何時候都更強大。

As I've said before, the price of credit is the price of the American dream. We chose this path of reinventing credit so that it works for everyone, not because it's easy, but because it's important. We chose it because no one else was doing it and it needed to be done. I can think of no better journey to improve the financial health of mainstream Americans than the one we're on, and we most certainly won't let a little economic turbulence get in our way.

正如我之前所說，信貸的價格就是美國夢的價格。我們選擇了這條重塑信貸的道路，以便它對每個人都適用，不是因為它容易，而是因為它很重要。我們之所以選擇它，是因為沒有其他人在這樣做，而且它需要被完成。我想不出比我們正在進行的更好的改善主流美國人財務健康的旅程，而且我們絕對不會讓一點經濟動盪成為我們的阻礙。

Thank you. And now I'd like to turn it over to Sanjay, our Chief Financial Officer, to walk through our Q4 and full year 2022 financial results and guidance. Sanjay?

謝謝。現在我想把它交給我們的首席財務官 Sanjay 來介紹我們第四季度和 2022 年全年的財務業績和指導。桑傑？

Thanks, Dave, and thanks to all for taking a break from your Valentine's Day to listen in. Reflecting back over the past year and on our outlook of a year ago, it's safe to say that the macro has exceeded our most wildly bearish expectations. One year ago on our earnings call, we've begun to sound the alarm on encroaching consumer delinquencies and the potentially adverse impact of the disappearing government stimulus. At a time when the broader markets were still quite sanguine about the economy.

謝謝戴夫，感謝大家在情人節那天抽出時間來收聽。回顧過去一年和我們一年前的展望，可以肯定地說，宏觀經濟已經超出了我們最悲觀的預期。一年前，在我們的財報電話會議上，我們已經開始對日益嚴重的消費者拖欠行為以及政府刺激措施消失的潛在不利影響發出警報。在更廣泛的市場對經濟仍然相當樂觀的時候。

Over the course of the ensuing year, the impact of change in income and consumption patterns on consumer delinquency proved greater than we could have predicted and the resulting contraction in the funding markets was sharp. Indeed, as we exit 2022 and enter a new year, consumer delinquencies remain elevated, and the funding markets remain limited in their appetite for risk. Despite this, we are starting to see some encouraging signs that the worst of the macro may be behind us. The personal savings rate, which we watch closely as an aggregate barometer of consumer fiscal health, has now nudged upwards for 3 consecutive months, reaching in December its highest level since the prior spring.

在接下來的一年裡，收入和消費模式的變化對消費者拖欠貸款的影響比我們預期的要大，由此導致的融資市場急劇收縮。事實上，隨著我們離開 2022 年並進入新的一年，消費者違約率仍然很高，融資市場的風險偏好仍然有限。儘管如此，我們開始看到一些令人鼓舞的跡象，表明最糟糕的宏觀經濟可能已經過去。我們密切關注的個人儲蓄率是消費者財政健康狀況的綜合晴雨表，現已連續 3 個月微升，並在 12 月達到去年春季以來的最高水平。

Underpinning this trend is a relatively recent reversal in the growth of real personal consumption coupled with a nascent recovery in workforce participation rates over the same period, prompting income and consumption to begin drifting back towards their historically closer alignment. The ongoing recovery of workforce participation rates and real hourly wages, both of which still languish below pre-pandemic levels, suggests to us ample runway for continuing improvement to personal savings rates over the coming quarters.

支撐這一趨勢的是實際個人消費增長的相對近期逆轉，以及同期勞動力參與率的初步復甦，促使收入和消費開始向歷史上更接近的水平靠攏。勞動力參與率和實際時薪的持續回升，兩者仍低於大流行前的水平，這向我們表明，未來幾個季度個人儲蓄率有足夠的空間繼續改善。

Reflecting this improving consumer fiscal health, UMI, our internal measure of the macro impact on consumer defaults of Upstart-powered loans, nudged upwards from Q3 to Q4, but at a much slower rate than in prior quarters and has shown encouraging signs of stabilization in the early weeks of 2023.

為反映消費者財政健康狀況的改善，UMI（我們衡量新貴貸款對消費者違約的宏觀影響的內部衡量指標）從第三季度到第四季度略有上升，但增速遠低於前幾個季度，並顯示出令人鼓舞的穩定跡象2023 年的最初幾週。

As UMI stabilizes, we are seeing a corresponding reconvergence of longer-term performance to target for our more recent vintages as they continue to season. On the funding side, spreads for senior securities in the securitization markets have also shown some initial signs of tightening in 2023 after a very challenging Q4. Concurrent with and perhaps related to these encouraging trends, as David alluded to, we are engaged with multiple prospective partners who are actively exploring long-term capital relationships with us, some of which we qualify as being at an advanced stage, including formal expressions of interest. While we do not yet have anything definitive to report, we hope to have more concrete news on this front soon.

隨著 UMI 的穩定，我們看到長期表現相應地重新趨同，以我們最近的年份為目標，因為它們繼續季節。在融資方面，在經歷了極具挑戰性的第四季度之後，證券化市場中高級證券的利差在 2023 年也顯示出一些收緊的初步跡象。與這些令人鼓舞的趨勢並存，或許與這些令人鼓舞的趨勢相關，正如大衛所暗示的那樣，我們與多個潛在合作夥伴進行了接觸，他們正在積極探索與我們的長期資本關係，其中一些我們認為處於高級階段，包括正式表達興趣。雖然我們還沒有任何明確的消息要報告，但我們希望很快能在這方面得到更多具體消息。

With these data points as backdrop, here are some financial highlights from the fourth quarter. On the top line, revenue from fees of $156 million was largely in line with our expectations. Net interest income came in above forecast, largely a result of choosing to retain more loans on our balance sheet than anticipated given the market conditions in Q4. Taken together, net revenue in Q4 was $147 million, ahead of our guidance by representing a 7% contraction sequentially and a 52% contraction year-over-year.

以這些數據點為背景，以下是第四季度的一些財務亮點。最重要的是，1.56 億美元的收費收入基本符合我們的預期。淨利息收入高於預期，這主要是由於考慮到第四季度的市場狀況，我們選擇在資產負債表上保留比預期更多的貸款。總的來說，第四季度的淨收入為 1.47 億美元，超出我們的指引，環比下降 7%，同比下降 52%。

The volume of loan transactions across our platform in Q4 was approximately 154,000 loans, down 69% year-over-year and representing over 106,000 new borrowers. Average loan size was up 22% versus last year.

第四季度我們平台上的貸款交易量約為 154,000 筆貸款，同比下降 69%，代表超過 106,000 名新借款人。與去年相比，平均貸款規模增長了 22%。

Our contribution region, a non-GAAP metric, which we define as revenue from fees minus variable costs for borrower acquisition, verification, and servicing as a percentage of revenue from fees came in at 53% in Q4, up from 52% last year. We continue to expand our margins in Q4 through higher take rates and more efficient marketing spend.

我們的貢獻區域是一個非 GAAP 指標，我們將其定義為費用收入減去借款人獲取、驗證和服務的可變成本，佔費用收入的百分比在第四季度達到 53%，高於去年的 52%。我們通過更高的採用率和更有效的營銷支出繼續擴大第四季度的利潤率。

Operating expenses were $205 million in Q4, down 16% year-over-year and 5% sequentially. The majority of the reduction was achieved through reduced sales and marketing, which was down by 56% year-over-year following the trends in volume.

第四季度的運營費用為 2.05 億美元，同比下降 16%，環比下降 5%。大部分減少是通過減少銷售和營銷來實現的，隨著銷量的趨勢，銷售和營銷同比下降了 56%。

Over the last quarter, we have largely limited hiring to only a few key strategic positions in operations, engineering, and G&A, all of which were nominally down sequentially in overall spend. Taken together, these components resulted in a Q4 GAAP net loss of $55.3 million. Adjusted EBITDA was negative $16.6 million, well ahead of our guided number of negative $35 million. And adjusted earnings per share was negative $0.25 based on a diluted weighted average share count of 82.2 million.

在上個季度，我們基本上將招聘限制在運營、工程和 G&A 方面的幾個關鍵戰略職位，所有這些職位的總支出名義上都在連續下降。這些因素加在一起導致第四季度 GAAP 淨虧損 5530 萬美元。調整後的 EBITDA 為負 1660 萬美元，遠高於我們指導的負 3500 萬美元。根據稀釋後的 8220 萬股加權平均股數計算，調整後每股收益為負 0.25 美元。

We ended the full year with net revenue of $842 million, down 1% from 2021. A contribution margin of 49%, roughly flat from the prior year and adjusted EBITDA of $37 million, representing a 4% adjusted EBITDA margin versus 27% a year earlier. During Q4, we made the decision to sell fewer loans from our balance sheet than we originally contemplated in our guidance. Liquidity in the secondary markets remained thin during the quarter, and in our view, the market prices for personal credit do not ultimately reflect the extent to which our models have recalibrated to the new trends of consumer default. So we chose to retain loans on our balance sheet and harvest the interest income. We plan to continue testing the market as pricing normalizes and selling becomes a more attractive strategic option.

我們全年的淨收入為 8.42 億美元，比 2021 年下降 1%。邊際收益為 49%，與上一年基本持平，調整後的 EBITDA 為 3700 萬美元，調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率為 4%，而去年同期為 27%更早。在第四季度，我們決定從我們的資產負債表中出售比我們最初在指導中設想的更少的貸款。本季度二級市場的流動性仍然很低，我們認為，個人信貸的市場價格並不能最終反映我們的模型在多大程度上針對消費者違約的新趨勢進行了重新校準。因此，我們選擇將貸款保留在我們的資產負債表上並收穫利息收入。隨著定價正常化和銷售成為更具吸引力的戰略選擇，我們計劃繼續測試市場。

In the meantime, the balance of loans on our balance sheet rose in Q4 to $1.01 billion, up $310 million from last quarter. Of that total, loans made for the purposes of R&D, principally within the auto segment represented $492 million of that total. We are now roughly at the maximum size of balance sheet that we are planning to maintain, and we will, therefore, largely limit new additions to the balance sheet until we can find suitable sources of liquidity for existing loans. Despite this, we remain in a comfortable position of corporate liquidity with $532 million of total cash on the balance sheet and approximately $674 million in net loan equity at fair value.

與此同時，我們資產負債表上的貸款餘額在第四季度上升至 10.1 億美元，比上一季度增加了 3.1 億美元。在這一總額中，為研發目的提供的貸款（主要在汽車領域）佔總額的 4.92 億美元。我們現在大致處於我們計劃維持的資產負債表的最大規模，因此，我們將在很大程度上限制資產負債表的新增，直到我們能夠為現有貸款找到合適的流動性來源。儘管如此，我們的公司流動性仍然處於良好狀態，資產負債表上的現金總額為 5.32 億美元，按公允價值計算的淨貸款權益約為 6.74 億美元。

Looking to Q1, the near-term outlook continues to be tied to the macro economy, and despite some of the encouraging trends previously mentioned, we continue to price loans with a conservative assumption of further degradation in the macro environment, and consequently, in our Upstart Macro Index. More specifically, our topline guidance for Q1 reflects a higher forward assumption for UMI in our loan pricing, traditional Q1 seasonal headwinds, some further tightening from our funding partners that we have experienced coming into the year, and the withdrawal of our own balance sheet as a funding source for new loans.

展望第一季度，近期前景繼續與宏觀經濟掛鉤，儘管前面提到了一些令人鼓舞的趨勢，但我們繼續以宏觀環境進一步惡化的保守假設為貸款定價，因此，我們的暴發戶宏觀指數。更具體地說，我們對第一季度的頂線指引反映了我們在貸款定價中對 UMI 的更高前瞻性假設、傳統的第一季度季節性逆風、我們今年經歷的融資合作夥伴的進一步收緊，以及我們自己的資產負債表的撤回新貸款的資金來源。

On the expense side of the ledger, Dave referred to the workforce reduction, which we announced 2 weeks ago. As a result of this reduction, we expect to realize cash savings of approximately $57 million in operating expenses over the next 12 months, primarily related to employee cash compensation and benefits, in addition to $42 million of savings from reduced stock-based compensation expense over the next 3 years. Also related to this event, we anticipate incurring $15 million in restructuring charges in the first quarter, which we have excluded from our non-GAAP guidance.

在分類賬的費用方面，戴夫提到了我們兩週前宣布的裁員。由於這一減少，我們預計在未來 12 個月內將實現約 5700 萬美元的運營費用現金節省，主要與員工現金補償和福利有關，此外還通過減少基於股票的補償費用節省 4200 萬美元未來 3 年。同樣與此事件相關的是，我們預計第一季度將產生 1500 萬美元的重組費用，我們已將其排除在我們的非 GAAP 指南之外。

With these specifics in mind, for Q1 of 2023, we expect total revenues of approximately $100 million, consisting of revenue from the fees of $110 million and net interest income of approximately negative $10 million. A contribution margin of approximately 55%, net income of approximately negative $145 million, adjusted net income of approximately negative $70 million, adjusted EBITDA of approximately negative $45 million and a diluted weighted average share count of approximately 81.9 million shares.

考慮到這些具體情況，我們預計 2023 年第一季度的總收入約為 1 億美元，其中包括 1.1 億美元的費用收入和約 1000 萬美元的負淨利息收入。邊際收益約為 55%，淨收入約為負 1.45 億美元，調整後淨收入約為負 7000 萬美元，調整後 EBITDA 約為負 4500 萬美元，攤薄後加權平均股數約為 8190 萬股。

Before wrapping up, we would just like to take a moment to acknowledge the group of Upstarters that were affected by the reduction in force that we recently went through. The time you spent with us and the contributions you made will always be a part of the Upstart journey, and we will do our best to honor them and to take your work forward in a way that would make you proud. We look forward to seeing what amazing things you will do in the next chapter.

在結束之前，我們想花點時間感謝受到我們最近經歷的裁員影響的一群 Upstarters。您與我們共度的時光和您所做的貢獻將永遠是 Upstart 旅程的一部分，我們將盡最大努力向他們致敬，並以讓您感到自豪的方式推進您的工作。我們期待看到您在下一章中將做出哪些令人驚奇的事情。

Thank you. And with that, Dave and I are now happy to open the call to any questions. Operator, back to you.

謝謝。有了這個，戴夫和我現在很樂意打開電話回答任何問題。接線員，回到你身邊。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Ramsey El-Assal with Barclays.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的 Ramsey El-Assal。

This is John (inaudible) on for Ramsey. I had a question for you on pricing power. I believe a couple of quarters ago, you commented that on the -- given the tighter environment, you had a little bit more pricing power. And I think you also mentioned something like this in your prepared comments. So I was wondering, can you say whether or not any of the revenue declines you saw this quarter were partially offset by higher pricing?

我是約翰（聽不清）代表拉姆齊。我有一個關於定價權的問題要問你。我相信幾個季度前，你評論說 - 鑑於更緊張的環境，你有更多的定價權。我認為您在準備好的評論中也提到了類似的內容。所以我想知道，您能說一下您在本季度看到的任何收入下降是否被更高的定價部分抵消了？

John, this is Sanjay. I would say that our take rates were very similar to the prior quarter, maybe up a little bit. So we did -- we were sort of able to offset them marginally, but I don't think the impact was significant enough obviously to change the trajectory.

約翰，這是桑傑。我會說我們的採用率與上一季度非常相似，可能略有上升。所以我們做到了——我們能夠稍微抵消它們，但我認為這種影響還不足以明顯地改變軌跡。

Our next question comes from Pete Christiansen with Citi.

我們的下一個問題來自花旗的皮特克里斯蒂安森。

Dave, I was wondering if you could talk -- you talked to a great extent about on the supply side funding. I was just wondering if you can dive a little bit into the demand side. I recognize that you pulled back from marketing quite a bit, but your sense for overall loan demand for the category of borrower that you serve, that would be helpful. And then as a follow-up, just wondering if you can give us a sense of the allocation levels that you have with your existing bank partners, have you seen any changes in that dynamic?

戴夫，我想知道你是否可以談談——你在很大程度上談到了供應方的資金。我只是想知道您是否可以深入了解需求方面。我知道你從市場營銷中退出了很多，但你對你所服務的借款人類別的整體貸款需求的感覺會有所幫助。然後作為後續行動，只是想知道您是否可以讓我們了解您與現有銀行合作夥伴的分配水平，您是否看到這種動態有任何變化？

Sure. Thanks, Pete. This is Dave. I would say, I don't know if there's an absolute measure of demand for loans in the environment, but I would -- I think we can safely say, demand is very strong. Consumer demand for credit in a time when people are -- the personal savings rate has been down. It's up recently, but just given where the American consumer has been, I think it's normal to expect that demand for credit is quite strong. We're headed into a seasonal time when it usually actually weakens due to tax returns and that kind of thing, so we'll see. Sometimes that's overwhelmed by something else. But for now, I think we can safely say that consumer demand for credit continues to be very strong.

當然。謝謝，皮特。這是戴夫。我會說，我不知道環境中是否有絕對的貸款需求衡量標準，但我認為我們可以有把握地說，需求非常強勁。在人們——個人儲蓄率下降的時候，消費者對信貸的需求。最近有所上升，但考慮到美國消費者的情況，我認為預計信貸需求相當強勁是正常的。我們正進入一個季節性的時期，通常由於納稅申報表和諸如此類的事情，它實際上會減弱，所以我們拭目以待。有時這會被其他事情淹沒。但就目前而言，我認為我們可以有把握地說，消費者對信貸的需求仍然非常強勁。

Great. And...

偉大的。和...

Sorry, the other part of the question, Pete.

抱歉，問題的另一部分，Pete。

Yes. No worries. Yes. Just wondering, I know at some banks, for instance, have like a 10% cap of Upstart loans or something like that. Have you seen like those allocation levels that some of your bank partners typically take? Have you seen them alter at all in the last, I don't know, a few months?

是的。不用擔心。是的。只是想知道，我知道在某些銀行，例如，有 10% 的 Upstart 貸款上限或類似的上限。您是否看到過您的一些銀行合作夥伴通常採用的分配水平？在過去的幾個月裡，我不知道，你有沒有看到他們有什麼變化？

Well, for sure, every bank partner has kind of a capacity each month, and they can change it at will as they go. And that a lot depends on whatever else is going on in their business, the state of their balance sheet, et cetera. So it's very common that banks would increase or decrease. Generally speaking, without question over the last year, banks have been tightening and reducing lending as they've just had concern about the economy. They're watching the same CNBC. Everyone else's have had concerns, and that's probably been one of the most impactful and challenging parts to our business in the last year is really just banks get very conservative naturally and cautious when they're unsure about what's next in the economy.

嗯，可以肯定的是，每個銀行合作夥伴每個月都有一定的容量，他們可以隨意更改。這在很大程度上取決於他們業務中發生的任何其他事情，資產負債表的狀況等等。因此，銀行增加或減少是很常見的。一般來說，毫無疑問，在過去的一年裡，銀行一直在收緊和減少貸款，因為他們只是擔心經濟。他們在看同一個 CNBC。其他人都有顧慮，這可能是去年我們業務中最具影響力和挑戰性的部分之一，實際上只是銀行在不確定經濟的下一步發展時自然而然地變得非常保守和謹慎。

Our next question comes from David Scharf with JMP Securities.

我們的下一個問題來自 JMP Securities 的 David Scharf。

First one, maybe just following up on kind of loan demand and specifically, the kind of the Q1 outlook. Your commentary on both kind of credit trends and consumer demand seems very consistent with the other kind of nonprime personal lenders we've heard from this quarter. As we think about kind of the step down in revenue, does that -- primarily setting aside tax refund seasonality. David, is that more a function of tightening the credit box further? Or is it just kind of the limitations imposed by your balance sheet at this point?

第一個，可能只是跟進貸款需求，特別是第一季度的前景。您對信貸趨勢和消費者需求的評論似乎與我們從本季度聽到的其他類型的非主要個人貸方非常一致。當我們考慮收入減少時，這樣做 - 主要是擱置退稅季節性。大衛，這更多是為了進一步收緊信用箱嗎？或者這只是您的資產負債表在這一點上施加的限制？

Thanks, Dave, for the question. Generally speaking, it's a -- we are kind of a supply and demand balanced business model. So sometimes we have excess borrowers and not enough funding out of the times, it can be the opposite. Today, actually, most of the decline in our business is because rates approvals are way down and rates are way up, and that's largely due to higher levels of risk in the environment. Now at the same time, actually, as I had said earlier -- a question from Pete, lenders have pulled back as well. So in a strange way, we're relatively balanced, but at a much, much higher -- much lower approvability, much higher interest rate and that's what's driving lower volumes.

謝謝戴夫提出這個問題。一般來說，這是一種——我們是一種供需平衡的商業模式。因此，有時我們有過多的借款人而資金不足，這可能恰恰相反。事實上，今天，我們業務的大部分下滑是因為利率批准大幅下降而利率大幅上升，這主要是由於環境風險水平較高。現在同時，實際上，正如我之前所說 - 來自皮特的問題，貸款人也撤回了。因此，以一種奇怪的方式，我們相對平衡，但在更高、更高的認可度、更高的利率上，這就是導致交易量下降的原因。

And over the years, as we look into 2023, of course, it's hard to say which way it will go, but we're always essentially trying to maintain balance between supply and demand. But right now, most of the decline in volume in our platform, the most fundamental reason really is because the rates are much, much higher. The approval rates are much, much lower. And that's this thing we call UMI, it's just a function of the risk that's out there in the environment.

多年來，當我們展望 2023 年時，當然，很難說它會走向何方，但我們基本上一直在努力保持供需之間的平衡。但是現在，我們平台的大部分交易量下降，最根本的原因確實是因為利率高得多。批准率要低得多。這就是我們稱之為 UMI 的東西，它只是環境中存在的風險的函數。

Got it. Got it. Helpful. And maybe as a follow-up, just turning to the expense side. I realize -- so it's dangerous doing just simple math, but if I just kind of divide the annualized cost savings and 1/3 of the stock comp into the number of employees downsized, it averages about $200,000 per employee, and -- which is not insignificant. I'm just wondering, is there any color you can provide on perhaps the type of disciplines that were rationalized. I don't know if this was primarily engineering, product development or in other areas, but is there anything in kind of the downsizing that kind of alters a longer-term sort of new product and technology initiative outlook?

知道了。知道了。有幫助。也許作為後續行動，只是轉向費用方面。我意識到——所以只做簡單的數學是危險的，但如果我只是將年化成本節省和 1/3 的股票薪酬除以裁員人數，平均每位員工大約 200,000 美元，而且——這是不是微不足道的。我只是想知道，您是否可以提供關於合理化的學科類型的任何顏色。我不知道這主要是工程、產品開發還是其他領域，但裁員是否會改變長期的新產品和技術計劃前景？

David, this is Sanjay. Let's see. In terms of the sort of the, let's call it, the allocation of the reduction in force, it's pretty evenly spread across the company and some functions took a bit of a different absorption than others. But overall, almost all teams were affected as you'd expect when you have a workforce reduction on the order of 20%, which is what it was.

大衛，這是桑傑。讓我們來看看。就我們稱之為裁員的分配而言，它在整個公司的分佈相當均勻，一些職能的吸收與其他職能有所不同。但總的來說，幾乎所有團隊都受到了影響，正如你預期的那樣，當你裁員 20% 左右時，情況就是這樣。

With respect to the product roadmap, I think the main thing that we communicate to the market is that this will, at least for the time being, put our efforts in small business lending on pause. We do have every intention of getting back to them when the time is right, but I think that's sort of the main call out. There's a couple of other things on the margins that maybe weren't quite as understood in public, but I think that's maybe the sort of the big impact to the, call it, the near to medium-term road map.

關於產品路線圖，我認為我們與市場溝通的主要內容是，這至少暫時會暫停我們在小企業貸款方面的努力。我們確實打算在適當的時候回复他們，但我認為這是主要的呼籲。在邊緣還有一些其他事情可能在公眾中並不完全理解，但我認為這可能是對近期到中期路線圖的重大影響。

Our next question comes from Simon Clinch with Atlantic Equities.

我們的下一個問題來自 Atlantic Equities 的 Simon Clinch。

Lots of really useful information in today's report. I guess I just wanted to get a sort of a bigger picture perspective on the business model here. Because when I think back to the performance and the market share gains you had coming out of the pandemic, I was wondering what -- I guess what are the differences in the market structure today in the business model and the institutional funding channels that might mean the share gains that you're -- the advancements you've made with your AI models might perhaps not live up to the standards that we saw coming out of that very unusual period in pandemic. I'm just wondering sort of how to think about the pace of those share gains and what might be working or what might work against it coming out of this particular environment.

今天的報告中有很多非常有用的信息。我想我只是想對這裡的商業模式有一個更大的了解。因為當我回想你從大流行病中獲得的業績和市場份額收益時，我在想——我想今天的市場結構在商業模式和機構融資渠道方面有什麼不同，這可能意味著什麼你所獲得的份額收益——你在 AI 模型方面取得的進步可能達不到我們在那個非常不尋常的大流行時期所看到的標準。我只是想知道如何考慮這些份額增長的速度，以及在這個特定環境中什麼可能起作用或什麼可能對它不利。

Sure. So I think our technology has only gotten better, and the environment, of course, changed pretty dramatically. And as I kind of acknowledged in my remarks at the beginning, it definitely showed us some things we needed to know kind of that an at-will model where funding can come and go or lending and/or investing in loans can come and go month to month is -- well, it might be sort of beautiful on a whiteboard and from a pure economist point of view, it makes a lot of sense. But in reality, we need to have volume more locked in and secured, which is an important initiative for us.

當然。所以我認為我們的技術只會變得更好，當然，環境也發生了巨大的變化。正如我在一開始的發言中承認的那樣，它確實向我們展示了一些我們需要了解的東西，即資金可以來來去去或貸款和/或投資貸款可以來來去去的隨意模型一個月是——好吧，它在白板上可能有點漂亮，從純粹的經濟學家的角度來看，它很有意義。但實際上，我們需要更多地鎖定和保護交易量，這對我們來說是一項重要舉措。

So the issues we've had really to date are almost entirely related to the funding side. Some of it is macroeconomic and some of it, frankly, is on us and things we need to fix. None of it, in my view, is on our technology. I think it continues to be extraordinary and differentiated, if not more so today than it has been. All the improvements I kind of talked about in my remarks earlier are, in some sense, masked because if the funding markets aren't operating properly and if lenders aren't deciding if it makes sense to lend, there's only so much we can do. So we are pursuing some initiatives, as we've said, to sort of make sure we don't make the same mistake twice.

因此，我們迄今為止真正遇到的問題幾乎完全與資金方面有關。其中一些是宏觀經濟問題，坦率地說，其中一些是我們需要解決的問題。在我看來，這些都不是我們的技術。我認為它仍然是非凡和與眾不同的，如果不是今天比過去更是如此的話。從某種意義上說，我之前在發言中提到的所有改進都被掩蓋了，因為如果融資市場運行不正常，如果貸方不決定放貸是否有意義，我們能做的就只有這麼多了.因此，正如我們所說，我們正在採取一些舉措，以確保我們不會再犯同樣的錯誤。

And so having secured funding, committed funding over longer periods of time to us is very fundamental. Also, this effort we're doing with what we call UMI is really to be really transparent with lenders, in particular, with banks and credit unions of what's going on in the economy. So they can make very informed decisions, which might be to tighten standards and slow down volumes at times, but it hopefully won't be as dramatic as it has been in the past where maybe they didn't have as much insight as they needed to what's going on out there. So these are all efforts on our side to fix what we think needed to be fixed in our business. But none of them, at least in my view, are really related to the core AI and its predictiveness, et cetera, which we feel very confident in.

因此，在獲得資金後，長期向我們提供資金是非常重要的。此外，我們正在為我們所謂的 UMI 所做的這項努力實際上是為了讓貸方，特別是銀行和信用合作社真正透明地了解經濟中正在發生的事情。因此他們可以做出非常明智的決定，有時可能會收緊標準並放慢數量，但希望不會像過去那樣戲劇性，因為過去他們可能沒有足夠的洞察力那裡發生了什麼。因此，這些都是我們方面的努力，以解決我們認為需要在我們的業務中解決的問題。但至少在我看來，它們都與核心 AI 及其預測性等真正相關，我們對此非常有信心。

Okay. And maybe just touching then as a follow-up on the UMI Index. Is this something that will potentially prove a really useful tool at accelerating the pace of bank partners coming on to the platform and also keeping it -- keeping the relationships even stickier than they have been in the past.

好的。也許只是作為 UMI 指數的後續行動。這是否有可能被證明是一種真正有用的工具，可以加快銀行合作夥伴進入該平台的步伐並保持這種關係——使關係比過去更加牢固。

Well, we certainly hope so. I mean I think the idea of having a very quantified in near real time, meaning just you're getting information about the month that just finished, indication of the health of the consumer that you lend to and with different sort of slices and dices available for a lender is really powerful because it's not something a lender has done in the past. If they have either overperformance or underperformance in their credit programs. It's really hard to attribute that item to something about how you set your system up and the rules you have in your system or maybe the economy is deteriorating in some way, you don't have visibility. This is a really powerful way to say, no, we can actually isolate the performance of credit model from the impact of the macro economy. And that itself, I think, is going to be a very powerful new tool and one we think that lenders of all flavors will get excited about.

好吧，我們當然希望如此。我的意思是，我認為近乎實時地進行非常量化的想法，這意味著您只會獲得有關剛剛結束的月份的信息，您借給的消費者的健康狀況指示以及可用的不同類型的切片和骰子對於貸款人來說真的很強大，因為這不是貸款人過去做過的事情。如果他們的信用計劃表現不佳或表現不佳。很難將該項目歸因於您如何設置系統以及系統中的規則，或者經濟可能以某種方式惡化，您沒有可見性。這是一個非常有力的說法，不，我們實際上可以將信貸模型的表現與宏觀經濟的影響隔離開來。我認為，這本身將成為一個非常強大的新工具，我們認為各種貸方都會對此感到興奮。

Our next question comes from Rob Wildhack with Autonomous Research.

我們的下一個問題來自 Autonomous Research 的 Rob Wildhack。

I wanted to ask about your more committed funding sources. Wondering if you could give some more detail there. What type of partners you might be in discussions with? What kind of arrangements you're working out with them? Any additional color on the timeline, too, would be really helpful.

我想問問你更堅定的資金來源。想知道你是否可以在那裡提供更多細節。您可能會與哪種類型的合作夥伴進行討論？你和他們有什麼樣的安排？時間軸上的任何其他顏色也會非常有幫助。

Rob, this is Sanjay. Let's see. On sort of the more committed capital style relationships. I guess I would say, first of all, I think we've always been pretty cautious in saying that this is sort of a transition over time for us. It's not something that would necessarily happen in the near term. I think these are large -- very strategic relationships. That said, I think we sounded a note of optimism in our prepared remarks. And just to sort of reiterate the points there, I don't think we have anything definitive to call out right now, but we are in a number of conversations with multiple partners that, I guess, I would qualify as sort of advanced stage. We sort of mentioned that we had some indications of interest. So again, hopefully, we'll have something more definitive to announce soon. But I think in the meantime, we're sounding some sort of notes of optimism, if you will. And I think they're related to some of the optimistic trends we're seeing in the broader environment, some of the things that we took through.

羅布，這是桑傑。讓我們來看看。在某種程度上更堅定的資本風格關係。我想我會說，首先，我認為我們一直非常謹慎地說這對我們來說是一種隨著時間的推移而發生的轉變。這不一定會在短期內發生。我認為這些是很大的 - 非常具有戰略意義的關係。也就是說，我認為我們在準備好的發言中表達了樂觀的態度。只是重申一下那裡的觀點，我認為我們現在沒有任何明確的要求，但我們正在與多個合作夥伴進行多次對話，我想，我認為我有資格進入高級階段。我們有點提到我們有一些興趣的跡象。因此，希望我們能盡快宣布一些更明確的消息。但我認為與此同時，如果你願意的話，我們正在發出某種樂觀的聲音。我認為它們與我們在更廣泛的環境中看到的一些樂觀趨勢以及我們經歷的一些事情有關。

And then your question really is like what are the sort of the nature of these arrangements. At the simplest form, on the one hand, they would sort of on the partner side be more committed -- forward commitments at scale of capital. And then in exchange, you would imagine some kind of sort of premium in the economics and that could take a couple of different forms. And I think we're discussing different structures with different partners as we speak. So it's a bit hard to sort of be too precise, but that's sort of the most general sort of description of how these partnerships will work.

然後你的問題真的是這些安排的性質是什麼。一方面，以最簡單的形式，他們會在合作夥伴方面更加承諾——資本規模的遠期承諾。然後作為交換，你會想像經濟學中的某種溢價，它可以採取幾種不同的形式。我認為我們正在與不同的合作夥伴討論不同的結構。因此，很難說得過於精確，但這是對這些夥伴關係將如何運作的最籠統的描述。

Got it. That's very helpful. And then on your current funding partners, how do your conversations would then vary by type? I'm wondering if the conversations would say, a larger bank might be different than that with a credit union or with a [credit phone], your ABS partners. Any additional color you could add there would be really helpful.

知道了。這很有幫助。然後關於你目前的資助夥伴，你的談話會因類型而異嗎？我想知道對話是否會說，一家更大的銀行可能與信用合作社或 [信用卡電話] 的銀行不同，您的 ABS 合作夥伴。您可以添加的任何其他顏色都會非常有幫助。

Sure. This is Dave. Well, I would just say, maybe on the bank and credit union side, I mean -- and they do vary a bit. Credit unions were really flushed with deposits a year ago. That is much less the case today. So where credit unions are really starved for loans because they were, again, very flushed with deposits. I think that's a little reverted to normal, and so that just changes their appetite.

當然。這是戴夫。好吧，我只想說，也許在銀行和信用合作社方面，我的意思是——它們確實有點不同。一年前，信用合作社的存款真的很充裕。今天的情況要少得多。因此，信用合作社真正急需貸款的地方是因為它們再次充斥著大量存款。我認為這有點恢復正常，所以這只會改變他們的胃口。

And banks, not much so. I mean I think banks, there's a lot of interesting competition for borrowers going on out there with regard to deposits. So I think it's one of the more interesting dynamics. It's really saying, some of the new guys in the market really pushing the APY, pay for deposits up. So there's just a lot going on out there that I think is changing pretty quickly, but we don't fundamentally see any overwhelming change in dynamic other than, as usual, you can hear it from the CEOs of the largest banks. I mean just caution about the economy, they're all kind of caging, would this be an in and out small recession, will it not be a recession, hard landing soft landing. So I think that's just sort of the cautiousness that's out there. But a year ago, I would say, generally, there was -- on all sides, there's definitely swimming in deposits and in need of credit as a result, and that's definitely much lesser today.

而銀行則不然。我的意思是，我認為銀行在存款方面對借款人進行了很多有趣的競爭。所以我認為這是更有趣的動力之一。這真的是在說，市場上的一些新人真的在推動 APY，支付存款。因此，我認為那裡發生了很多變化，但我們從根本上看不到動態的任何壓倒性變化，除了像往常一樣，你可以從最大銀行的首席執行官那裡聽到。我的意思是對經濟保持謹慎，他們都被關在籠子裡，這會是一次徹頭徹尾的小衰退嗎，這會不會是一次衰退，硬著陸軟著陸。所以我認為這只是一種謹慎。但一年前，我想說，總的來說，在各方面，肯定有大量存款，因此需要信貸，而今天這種情況肯定要少得多。

Our next question comes from Mike Ng with Goldman Sachs.

我們的下一個問題來自高盛的 Mike Ng。

I just have 2. They're both on the 1Q '23 guidance. And it was helpful to get a lot of color around what was driving some of the sequential decline in revenue, which sounds like it was mostly a funding constraint. So first, I was just wondering if you could talk about whether that sequential decline in revenue was solely due to a tougher funding environment? Or are you actually expecting lower levels of rate requests and conversion?

我只有 2 個。它們都在 1Q '23 指南中。了解是什麼導致收入連續下降是有幫助的，這聽起來主要是資金限制。所以首先，我只是想知道你是否可以談談收入的連續下降是否僅僅是由於更嚴峻的融資環境？還是您實際上期望較低水平的費率請求和轉換？

Mike, this is Sanjay. I would say, I think that the sort of the constraints that are conditioning our guidance for Q1 are happening on both sides of the ecosystem. On the, let's call it, the borrower side, approvability is constructed on a couple of fronts. One, we did sort of mention that the assumptions around sort of macro forecast and their impact on loan performance are becoming more conservative as we go from Q4 to Q1. Some of that is not necessarily a reflection of what we're actually seeing. It's a reflection of conservatism because the most important thing we need to do in our business is to get the loan performance, right? And so we sort of doubled down on that as we exited Q4 and that will spill into Q1.

邁克，這是桑傑。我想說的是，我認為製約我們對第一季度指導的那種限制正在生態系統的兩邊發生。在我們稱之為藉款人方面，認可度是在幾個方面構建的。第一，我們確實提到過，隨著我們從第四季度到第一季度，圍繞某種宏觀預測的假設及其對貸款業績的影響變得更加保守。其中一些不一定反映我們實際看到的情況。這是保守主義的反映，因為我們在業務中需要做的最重要的事情就是獲得貸款績效，對嗎？因此，當我們退出第四季度時，我們在這方面加倍努力，這將蔓延到第一季度。

And then, of course, there's the seasonality impact that Dave referred to, which is the fact that traditionally, in Q1, as you get sort of course of the tax season, you do see a 10% to 15% trough, depending on the year. And then on the funding side, as we said, yes, there's some continuing pullback on funding sources, particularly those who are more reliant on leverage and liquidity, those who were relying on the ABS markets. Q4 was -- turned out to be a tough quarter for ABS issuance. And so I think that sort of affected some of what we had coming into Q1.

然後，當然，還有 Dave 提到的季節性影響，這是傳統上的事實，在第一季度，隨著稅收季節的變化，你確實會看到 10% 到 15% 的低谷，具體取決於年。然後在資金方面，正如我們所說，是的，資金來源有一些持續回落，特別是那些更依賴槓桿和流動性的資金來源，以及那些依賴 ABS 市場的資金來源。事實證明，第四季度是 ABS 發行的艱難季度。所以我認為這對我們進入第一季度的一些事情產生了影響。

And then, of course, we mentioned sort of the loss of our own balance sheet as a funding source, which was not the majority of our funding source, but it plays a factor as well. So I think when you add all of those things together, you sort of have something on the borrower, the approvability side, some things on the funding side and they sort of add up to where we guided.

然後，當然，我們提到了我們自己的資產負債表作為資金來源的損失，這不是我們資金來源的主要來源，但它也是一個因素。所以我認為，當你把所有這些東西加在一起時，你會在藉款人、批准方面、資金方面有一些東西，它們加起來就是我們指導的地方。

Great. And then just the last question -- the second question. What's a good way to think about the rest of the year? Appreciating your comments about 1Q likely being the trough. Should we expect to grow off of that $110 million of fee revenue throughout the year, assuming that the funding environment and the UMI environment doesn't necessarily change? Or can it be significantly better than that?

偉大的。然後是最後一個問題——第二個問題。考慮今年剩餘時間的好方法是什麼？感謝您對 1Q 可能是低谷的評論。假設資金環境和 UMI 環境不一定改變，我們是否應該期望全年從 1.1 億美元的費用收入中增長？或者它能比這好得多嗎？

Sure. Yes. I mean, I guess, at the highest level, I think the mechanics that we most focus on and the way I think this will play out. So 2 things that are very closely related. The first one and the most important one really is expressed by that metric, what we call UMI. Essentially, as that stabilizes and starts to come back down, it means that risk insofar as the macro is sort of contributing to borrower risk and borrower delinquency, that is exciting. And as that happens, we believe what you will see is a reconvergence to target for loan performance, which some of those material there in our investor slides.

當然。是的。我的意思是，我想，在最高層面上，我認為我們最關注的機制以及我認為這將發揮作用的方式。所以兩件事非常密切相關。第一個也是最重要的一個實際上是由該指標表示的，我們稱之為 UMI。從本質上講，隨著它趨於穩定並開始回落，這意味著就宏觀風險而言，風險在某種程度上助長了借款人風險和借款人拖欠，這是令人興奮的。當這種情況發生時，我們相信您會看到貸款績效目標的重新融合，其中一些材料在我們的投資者幻燈片中出現。

And that sort of performance will go back to target and in fact, back to exceeding target as it has historically. And as those 2 things happen, the approvability side on the borrower side of the ecosystem becomes accretive to the business. So the approvals go up, risk goes down. And typically, the funding markets will follow that when they start to see signals of subsiding risk and signals of sort of loan target performance and overperformance. Typically, that's accompanied by easier ABS markets, and certainly, if we get a couple of deals in place along with -- in the style of committed capital, that will provide the fuel on the funding side to go back to our prior levels.

這種表現將回到目標，事實上，回到歷史上超過目標的水平。隨著這兩件事的發生，生態系統藉款人方面的可批准性對業務產生了影響。所以批准上升，風險下降。通常，當融資市場開始看到風險下降的信號以及某種貸款目標績效和超額績效的信號時，他們就會遵循這一點。通常情況下，伴隨著更容易的 ABS 市場，當然，如果我們以承諾資本的方式達成幾筆交易，這將為資金方面提供動力，回到我們之前的水平。

Our next question comes from James Faucette with Morgan Stanley.

我們的下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的 James Faucette。

This is Sandy Beatty on for James. I have a question on the loan performance trends. So the ABS data that we track has shown a pretty meaningful deterioration just looking at annualized losses, delinquencies of the majority of the public deals over the last, call it, 3 or 5 months or so. So I just wanted to make sure, are we interpreting that correctly? How is your team thinking about that? And then just contextualizing with the UMI and then the general comments on the consumer.

這是詹姆斯的桑迪比蒂。我對貸款績效趨勢有疑問。因此，我們追踪的 ABS 數據已經顯示出相當有意義的惡化，只要看看過去 3 或 5 個月左右的年化損失，即大多數公共交易的拖欠情況。所以我只是想確定一下，我們的解釋是否正確？您的團隊對此有何看法？然後只是與 UMI 相關聯，然後是對消費者的一般評論。

Yes. Sure. Sandy, this is Sanjay. So I guess there's a couple of -- if you're looking at sort of broader ABS issuance right now, I said that there's a couple of phase delays I would call out. The first one is just the time it takes from the issuance or the origination of a loan for it to get sort of issued into season in an ABS deal. And so that's sort of, I think, a bit of a lagging indicator in that sense. And so to sort of speak in the language of vintage, and this is, I think, reflected in what you see us sort of produce with respect to the loan performance to target chart that we have in our investor materials. I think the trough or the low point of loan performance or maybe the high point of excess delinquency, if you will, happened in our view in sort of late 2021, maybe towards the end of 2021, if you will.

是的。當然。桑迪，這是桑傑。所以我想有幾個 - 如果你現在正在考慮更廣泛的 ABS 發行，我說過有幾個階段延遲我會呼籲。第一個只是從發行或貸款發起到在 ABS 交易中發行進入季節所需的時間。因此，我認為，從這個意義上講，這有點滯後。所以用年份的語言來說，我認為這反映在你看到我們在我們投資者材料中的目標圖表貸款表現方面的產品。我認為，在我們看來，貸款業績的低谷或低點，或者過度拖欠的高點，可能發生在 2021 年底，如果可以的話，可能會在 2021 年底。

And then there's a second phase delay, which I think is probably relevant to what you're looking at, if you're looking at broader issuance, which is in our view, it's pretty clear that from a phasing perspective, it's the lower-income borrowers that became impaired first. And then now it's sort of the primer borrowers that are coming under stress. And of course, I think in our sort of issuance and in our collateral, you'll typically see the former more reflected because we tend to work with lower-income borrowers. And if you're looking at broader issuance, it does probably [err] towards the side of higher prime borrower, certainly, if you're looking at other digital players.

然後是第二階段的延遲，我認為這可能與你所看到的有關，如果你正在考慮更廣泛的發行，在我們看來，很明顯，從分階段的角度來看，它是較低的 -首先受損的收入借款人。然後現在它是承受壓力的初級借款人。當然，我認為在我們的發行和抵押品中，您通常會更多地看到前者，因為我們傾向於與低收入借款人合作。如果你正在考慮更廣泛的發行，它可能確實 [err] 向更高質量的借款人傾斜，當然，如果你正在尋找其他數字播放器。

And so I guess, in my view, the way I describe it is, I think the lower income borrowers probably hit their trough at the end of 2021. The primer borrower is probably sort of troughing somewhere in mid-2022, and all of that takes a quarter or 2 to actually flush through the ABS sort of numbers. And so that's how I maybe describe the system from our perspectives.

所以我想，在我看來，我描述它的方式是，我認為低收入借款人可能會在 2021 年底觸底。初級借款人可能會在 2022 年年中的某個地方觸底，所有這些需要四分之一或 2 分鐘才能真正刷新 ABS 類型的數字。這就是我從我們的角度描述系統的方式。

Got it. That's very helpful. One that's more general in nature and really on the back of the January restructuring plan. I know we've talked about 1Q and the forecast in terms of cost cutting, I just wanted to ask, generally, how you're thinking about timing with respect to the path to profitability. Obviously, a focus of the market this year, given rates, et cetera. But has that been a conversation? Is there a general target? And what's the thought process at a high level?

知道了。這很有幫助。一個本質上更普遍並且真正基於 1 月份重組計劃的計劃。我知道我們已經討論過第一季度和削減成本的預測，我只是想問一下，一般來說，您是如何考慮盈利路徑的時機的。顯然，今年的市場焦點是利率等。但這是一次對話嗎？有總體目標嗎？高層次的思維過程是什麼？

Sure, James. This is Dave. I would say, generally, when we took the action we took a few weeks back, we definitely thought we need to put ourselves in a position where fixed expenses make sense in the environment as it exists not in the environment as we wish it will be later this year. So we've largely set ourselves up to be fairly neutral or, if you will, on fixed expenses and then not making any large assumptions about the economy improving, et cetera. And that's just how we think about it. We're in a very stable position, and in our view, the business -- the market we serve is not like going to deteriorate this year. It could stay where it is for a while and that something you can live with, but that was the nature of it is. Let's get ourselves -- forget about how many people we had last month or whatever, let's get ourselves to a fixed expense position that we feel like makes sense in the environment we're dealing with right now.

當然，詹姆斯。這是戴夫。我會說，一般來說，當我們採取幾週前採取的行動時，我們肯定認為我們需要讓自己處於這樣一種境地，即固定支出在環境中是有意義的，因為它存在於環境中，而不是我們希望的那樣今年晚些時候。因此，我們在很大程度上將自己設置為相當中立，或者，如果你願意的話，固定支出，然後不對經濟改善等做出任何重大假設。這就是我們的想法。我們處於非常穩定的位置，在我們看來，我們所服務的市場業務今年不會惡化。它可以在原地停留一段時間，你可以忍受它，但這就是它的本質。讓我們自己——忘記我們上個月有多少人或其他什麼，讓我們自己達到一個我們認為在我們現在正在處理的環境中有意義的固定費用位置。

And it will not only give us more confidence in our future from a financial perspective, we'll, in fact, be able to emerge out of us at some point with a lot of leverage and a lot of sort of profit potential in our business because we have slimmed down fixed expenses. We've also gotten really good about marginal spending on marketing. Our contribution margins are way up. Our acquisition costs on a per loan basis are way down. So we're just set up, I think, really well for the future. But again, we're not making any assumptions about a dramatic improvement in the macro.

從財務的角度來看，這不僅會讓我們對未來更有信心，事實上，我們將能夠在某個時刻脫穎而出，在我們的業務中擁有大量的槓桿作用和大量的利潤潛力因為我們削減了固定開支。我們也非常了解營銷的邊際支出。我們的邊際收益正在上升。我們在每筆貸款基礎上的購置成本正在下降。所以我認為，我們剛剛建立起來，對未來非常好。但同樣，我們沒有對宏觀經濟的顯著改善做出任何假設。

Our next question comes from John Hecht with Jefferies.

我們的下一個問題來自 Jefferies 的 John Hecht。

I guess thinking about what you guys did about $1.5 billion of volume this quarter or Q4. It looks like you're doing somewhere between -- closer to $1 billion in Q1. You're not balance sheeting it. I'm wondering kind of can you characterize over that 6-month period, who are the buyers -- kind of the main channels of buyers or investors? And kind of what's the transfer pricing within each of those channels?

我想想想你們本季度或第四季度做了大約 15 億美元的交易量。看起來你在介於兩者之間——第一季度接近 10 億美元。你不是在平衡它。我想知道在這 6 個月的時間裡，你能描述一下誰是買家——買家或投資者的主要渠道嗎？每個渠道內的轉讓定價是多少？

John, this is Sanjay. So the channels are largely similar to what we've described in the past. There's a channel that's sort of balance sheeting, I would say, that the primary end of the spectrum, and they tend to be banks and credit unions. And then, of course, in the capital markets, there's sort of maybe a bifurcation between, let's call it, folks who rely on the ABS markets and folks and funds who do not. I think most of the remaining funds that are working with us are the ones that do not rely on the ABS markets, just given the volatility in the ABS markets.

約翰，這是桑傑。所以這些渠道在很大程度上與我們過去描述的相似。我想說，有一種資產負債表渠道，這是頻譜的主要一端，它們往往是銀行和信用合作社。然後，當然，在資本市場上，我們可以稱之為依賴 ABS 市場的人與不依賴 ABS 市場的人和基金之間可能存在某種分歧。考慮到 ABS 市場的波動性，我認為與我們合作的其餘大部分基金都是不依賴 ABS 市場的基金。

And when you think about the pricing of loans, well, the banks who are using our technology to put loans on their own balance sheet through their own origination channel are pretty much setting their own prices with respect to what the borrower is paying, and we just charge a pretty standard fee. So there's no real transfer the loan in that regard. They use our technology, and the loan is originated for their own use, for their own balance sheet.

當你想到貸款的定價時，那些使用我們的技術通過自己的發放渠道將貸款記在自己的資產負債表上的銀行幾乎是根據借款人支付的金額設定自己的價格，我們只需收取相當標準的費用。所以在這方面沒有真正轉移貸款。他們使用我們的技術，貸款是為他們自己使用的，為了他們自己的資產負債表。

With respect to the capital markets, we've always originated and transferred at par. There's been some minor exceptions to that for folks who have committed volumes forward. In exchange for that and in exchange for scale, we provide a bit of a discount, but it's something that's, I would say, very close to par.

關於資本市場，我們總是按平價發起和轉移。對於那些已經做出大量貢獻的人來說，有一些小的例外。作為交換和規模的交換，我們提供了一點折扣，但我想說，這是非常接近標準的東西。

Okay. And then can you -- we know you've raised pricing over the past year. You mentioned the loan sizes are a little bit larger on average rate. Can you give us like what -- maybe what's the kind of goal post of duration and rate and kind of size of loans just for us to think about the portfolio -- what the portfolio -- originating portfolio looks like at this point.

好的。然後你能不能——我們知道你在過去一年裡提高了價格。你提到貸款規模平均利率要大一點。你能不能給我們說說——也許是那種持續時間、利率和貸款規模的目標，讓我們考慮投資組合——投資組合——此時的原始投資組合是什麼樣的。

Well, let's see. So with respect to duration and loan size, we don't necessarily have a proactive view on what we're trying to achieve. We present the options for the borrower, and the market will sort of -- the marketplace will do its thing. I think in the way that the marketplace has trended because we've restricted approvals so much and because we've raised rates so much, the remaining of the resulting collateral is primer than it was, call it, 6, 9 months ago, and primer loans tend to be bigger loans. And so the fact that many of the -- sort of the lower-grade loans have been removed from the approval box has acted to increase loan size. So that's maybe a bit of a mix effect. With respect to -- I think when you say rates, are you -- you're sort of describing take rates or are you talking about interest rates?

好吧，走著瞧。因此，關於期限和貸款規模，我們不一定對我們要實現的目標有積極的看法。我們為藉款人提供選擇，市場會做它的事情。我認為市場趨勢的方式是因為我們對批准的限制如此之多，因為我們提高了利率如此之多，由此產生的抵押品的剩餘部分比 6 個月、9 個月前和初級貸款往往是更大的貸款。因此，許多低等級貸款已從審批箱中刪除這一事實起到了增加貸款規模的作用。所以這可能有點混合效應。關於——我想當你說利率時，你是在描述利率還是在談論利率？

Well, I mean, I guess I'd be interested -- yes, in the fee -- the average fee per dollar of origination. And then what are the yields that you're passing on like-for-like, whether it's a prime cohort or nonprime, what's the yield differential now versus a year ago?

好吧，我的意思是，我想我會感興趣——是的，在費用方面——每美元發起的平均費用。然後你傳遞的收益率是多少，無論是優質人群還是非優質人群，現在與一年前的收益率差異是多少？

Sure. Well, on the take rate side, I guess, in a general sense, you'll see that the take rates, if you look at our sort of fee revenue as a percentage of originations, they've gone up. And they've gone up really as a reflection of -- I think Dave answered a question earlier about underlying loan demand right now. Fundamental demand is very high. Approvability is low. But when demand is high, there's a lot of inelasticity. And we've said in the past that we can use that as a way to improve our unit economics in times where volume is contracting. So as you've seen volume contract over the course of the year, our take rates have gone up. And that's despite the fact that the banks and the prime loans are increasingly a larger fraction of the mix, right, because they are less impacted by the changes that kick loans out of the approval box. So you've seen an improving take rate even despite the fact that the percentage of loans and the percentage of bank capital has gone up.

當然。好吧，在收費方面，我想，從一般意義上講，如果您將我們的收費收入佔發起的百分比來看，您會看到收費率已經上升。而且它們確實上升了——我認為戴夫早些時候回答了一個關於現在潛在貸款需求的問題。基本需求非常高。認可度低。但是，當需求很高時，就會出現很多缺乏彈性的情況。我們過去曾說過，在銷量收縮的時候，我們可以用它來改善我們的單位經濟效益。因此，正如您在一年中看到的銷量合同一樣，我們的接受率已經上升。儘管事實上銀行和優質貸款在組合中所佔比例越來越大，對吧，因為它們受到將貸款踢出審批箱的變化的影響較小。因此，儘管貸款百分比和銀行資本百分比有所上升，但您還是看到了接受率的提高。

And with respect to yield, again, there's that bifurcation where banks typically originating lower loss rate sort of primary loans, if you will, are setting their own rates, and they're sending them as a function of what they see in the economy and what their own cost of capital is. They've obviously not had as direct an impact on their own cost of capital as for, say, the capital markets. So I would say that their yields have gone up on average somewhat, but it's a little bit bank by bank. It's a bit of a different case.

關於收益率，再次存在這種分歧，銀行通常會發放較低損失率的主要貸款，如果你願意的話，他們正在設定自己的利率，並且他們將利率作為他們在經濟中看到的情況的函數發送，他們自己的資本成本是多少。顯然，它們對自己的資本成本沒有像對資本市場那樣產生直接影響。所以我想說他們的收益率平均有所上升，但逐家銀行都有一點點。這是一個不同的情況。

In the capital markets where we have one essentially monolithical program, you can sort of certainly in the investor materials, we sort of laid out what our gross loan targets are after loss. And just in rough terms, if a year ago, they were around the sort of 7, 8 ballpark, they're now sort of near 11. So they've gone up -- roughly commensurate with what has happened to treasury rates sort of at the 2-year duration.

在我們有一個基本上單一計劃的資本市場中，您可以肯定地在投資者材料中確定我們在損失後的總貸款目標。粗略地說，如果一年前，它們大約是 7、8 左右，那麼現在它們接近 11。所以它們上升了——大致與國債利率發生的變化相當在2年的期限內。

Our next question comes from Hal Goetsch with Loop Capital.

我們的下一個問題來自 Loop Capital 的 Hal Goetsch。

Let me asked about your automotive business, and I just want to make sure I understand what you said. You the AI-powered platform is in only 27 of 778 dealerships, is that right?

讓我問問你的汽車業務，我只是想確保我理解你說的話。在 778 家經銷商中，只有 27 家採用 AI 驅動的平台，對嗎？

We're making the (inaudible) in 27.

我們將在 27 日製作（聽不清）。

In those 27, it's taken nearly 42% share of the loans on those dealer management. Is that the best way to think about that?

在這 27 家經銷商中，它佔了經銷商管理層貸款的近 42%。這是最好的思考方式嗎？

That's right. So that was exciting when our loan offer shown to somebody.

這是正確的。因此，當我們向某人展示我們的貸款報價時，這是令人興奮的。

Okay. And is the loan like shown? Is it participating every time and being given an opportunity? Because this is the point-of-sale part of your business. The other part of your business is kind of refinancing other expenditure. This is a pretty cool part of your business is point of sale essentially for very large ticket. I just kind of want to know how many extra deals may be your system is helping the dealership complete on an average week because those are very profitable transactions for a car dealer. Could you just share with us what you can about that?

好的。貸款是否如圖所示？是不是每次都參與，都有機會？因為這是您業務的銷售點部分。您業務的另一部分是為其他支出再融資。這是您業務的一個非常酷的部分，基本上是非常大的票的銷售點。我只是想知道您的系統平均每周可以幫助經銷商完成多少額外交易，因為這些交易對於汽車經銷商來說是非常有利可圖的交易。你能和我們分享一下你能做些什麼嗎？

Yes. I think -- I mean, I don't have a specific number for you, but for sure, we have -- one of our very primary values for dealerships is that we can make on offers to borrowers that aren't getting them elsewhere, and -- or sometimes just better rates than they will see elsewhere. And also the close rate because it's a very automated process is significantly faster and better for the dealer. That's the kind of primary value proposition. I think if you wanted to just look at kind of wallet share, which is a different sort of cut on things and you take out the captives, meaning the OEMs doing lending programs themselves outside of the captive, I think we have about in those 27 dealers, about 20% wallet share outside of the capital.

是的。我想——我的意思是，我沒有給你具體的數字，但可以肯定的是，我們有——我們對經銷商最主要的價值觀之一是，我們可以向在其他地方沒有的借款人提供報價, 和 - 或者有時只是比他們在其他地方看到的更好的利率。還有關閉率，因為它是一個非常自動化的過程，對經銷商來說明顯更快更好。這就是主要的價值主張。我想如果你只想看看錢包份額的種類，這是一種不同的削減方式，你會去掉俘虜，這意味著原始設備製造商在俘虜之外自己做貸款計劃，我想我們在這 27經銷商，大約 20% 的錢包份額在資本之外。

Okay. So 20% outside of capital. Okay. Okay. Great. And one cut on the overall market for the size of the platform for supply -- the supply for loans, the buyers, how much of this recent issue is that those buyers have so many more places to go now that rates have moved up. How would you characterize -- is that a fair characterization of what's going on? Is this -- 2 or 3 years ago, trying to find some yield in 6%, 7%, 8%, 9% is hard. Now it's a little bit easier.

好的。所以 20% 在資本之外。好的。好的。偉大的。並且在整個市場上減少了供應平台的規模 - 貸款供應，買家，最近這個問題有多少是因為利率已經上升，這些買家有更多的地方可以去。你會如何描述——這是對正在發生的事情的公平描述嗎？這是——2 或 3 年前，很難找到 6%、7%、8%、9% 的收益率。現在有點容易了。

That's definitely been a dynamic over the past couple of quarters. Let's call it hedge funds that previously needed to sort of buy and lever up in order to get high single-digit returns can now buy senior bonds kind of returning 7% in some cases. And so they can sort of meet their hurdles with different alternatives as compared to before. So there's been a lot more competition for yield, and I think that's been an environment that has been a little bit anomalous. And I think that we're starting to see signs, certainly of the senior instruments out there starting to revert a little bit and tighten up in terms of how they're pricing. But yes, there's been some substitution.

在過去的幾個季度裡，這絕對是一種動態。讓我們稱之為對沖基金吧，以前需要購買並加槓桿以獲得高個位數回報，現在可以購買高級債券，在某些情況下回報率為 7%。因此，與以前相比，他們可以通過不同的選擇來克服障礙。因此，對收益的競爭更加激烈，我認為這是一個有點反常的環境。而且我認為我們開始看到跡象，當然是那裡的高級工具開始稍微恢復並在定價方面收緊。但是，是的，有一些替代品。

Okay. Let me ask one last question. On your 92 lenders now, is there generally like kind of same-store sales growth? Or is it -- are we still in a period now where the macro is still causing even the 42 that were originally on there to lend less because you really don't have that view yet because the macro has changed even on the original 42 you started with.

好的。讓我問最後一個問題。現在，在您的 92 家貸方中，同店銷售額是否普遍增長？還是——我們現在是否仍處於這樣一個時期，即宏仍然導致甚至最初在那裡的 42 貸款減少，因為你真的還沒有那個觀點，因為宏甚至在原來的 42 上也發生了變化你開始於。

Yes, for sure. The macro affects everybody, meaning all of our partners generally to one degree or another are feeling the impact of the macro. So that can mean they're slowing down or they're pausing. Sometimes they're signing with us, and implementations are taking longer because they're not as -- they're just more cautious. So they know this is a direction they're going in, but they're moving a little cautiously in the beginning of 2023 or the end of 2022. So for us, we are adding them at a good clip, and if you sort of see the pace of additional lenders on the platform, we're really happy with that. But they're not converting into large quotes, monthly quotas very as quickly as they would have in the past and that's a function of the economy.

是肯定的。宏觀影響到每個人，這意味著我們所有的合作夥伴通常都或多或少地感受到了宏觀的影響。所以這可能意味著他們正在放慢速度或正在暫停。有時他們會與我們簽約，並且實施需要更長的時間，因為他們不像——他們只是更加謹慎。所以他們知道這是他們前進的方向，但他們在 2023 年初或 2022 年底有點謹慎。所以對我們來說，我們正在以一個很好的剪輯添加它們，如果你有點看到平台上其他貸方的步伐，我們對此感到非常滿意。但它們並沒有像過去那樣迅速轉化為大額報價、月度配額，這是經濟的一個功能。

But having said that, I think we feel happy that we're adding future capacity right now, and when the clouds part a little bit and there's a little more clarity, I think we'll have a much larger number of lenders on the platform that are ready to go, and perhaps, have been lending at a very small level for a while out of caution. But we -- presumably, we'd be ready to go to larger bonds when they have confidence.

但話雖如此，我認為我們很高興我們現在正在增加未來的容量，當云層稍微散去一點，並且更加清晰時，我認為我們將在平台上擁有更多的貸方那些準備好離開的人，也許出於謹慎的考慮，已經在非常小的水平上放貸了一段時間。但是我們——大概，當他們有信心時，我們會準備好購買更大的債券。

Our next question comes from Arvind Ramnani with Piper Sandler.

我們的下一個問題來自 Arvind Ramnani 和 Piper Sandler。

Yes, I just wanted to ask about the lenders -- lending partners that you onboard. How much of that is like kind of like a sales process where you have a sales team going out there looking to kind of sign up new lenders and then onboard them? And then once they're onboarded, to kind of show them loans or kind of syndicate loans with those particular lenders. I understand like kind of the loan process. You have like 80% above kind of a processing rate, but in terms of lenders, if you can just kind of walk through that process a little bit, that will be helpful.

是的，我只是想問一下貸款人——你加入的貸款合作夥伴。其中有多少有點像銷售流程，你有一個銷售團隊去那裡尋找新的貸款人，然後加入他們？然後，一旦他們入職，就可以向他們展示貸款或與那些特定貸方的銀團貸款。我了解貸款流程。你有大約 80% 以上的處理率，但就貸方而言，如果你能稍微走一遍這個過程，那將會很有幫助。

Sure, Arvind. This is Dave. I think it's easy to compare it to kind of an enterprise selling process, right? We're selling technology to banks to help them lend along the flow of borrowers, but the process really looks like what you might expect out of seeing somebody selling, I don't know, SaaS software for this or that. So you have to win the business side. There's a lot of effort to get through committees and such because they have risk committees and credit committees and such. We know the drill now. So we've done it a lot of times, but it is an enterprise selling process and then an onboarding process, which you could think of as the customer success team, et cetera, helping somebody walk through a process of getting live and originating loans.

當然，阿文德。這是戴夫。我認為很容易將其與企業銷售流程進行比較，對吧？我們正在向銀行出售技術，以幫助他們隨著借款人的流動提供貸款，但這個過程看起來真的很像你看到有人出售的過程，我不知道，SaaS 軟件用於這個或那個。所以你必須贏得商業方面。通過委員會等需要付出很多努力，因為他們有風險委員會和信貸委員會等。我們現在知道演習了。所以我們已經做過很多次了，但這是一個企業銷售流程，然後是一個入職流程，你可以將其視為客戶成功團隊等，幫助某人完成獲得實時貸款和發放貸款的流程.

And then after the fact, through Cisco, we're almost constantly in touch with them, and they're thinking about what they want to be next and where volumes are, what we're seeing. So there's a lot of a fairly heavy amount of account management. That's why there's 90-plus lenders on the platform today, and we're imagining a day when there's 500 or more. And so we want them to better do as much as they can themselves, but we're certainly handling them very carefully one by one today.

然後在事後，通過思科，我們幾乎一直與他們保持聯繫，他們正在考慮他們下一步想要做什麼，量在哪裡，我們看到了什麼。因此，有很多相當繁重的帳戶管理工作。這就是為什麼今天平台上有 90 多家貸方，而我們正在想像有一天會有 500 家或更多。因此，我們希望他們盡可能多地做好自己，但我們今天肯定會非常小心地一一處理它們。

Okay. That's great. And so like to throw a number out there, whether it's 500 or number bigger or greater, will that solve kind of this problem of kind of a constrained lending environment? Like I mean that we may be too late to kind of solve the problem kind of right now, and we're potentially even getting out of it. But like, let's say, few years from now, we go through another kind of tough economic cycle and then you are sitting with the base of maybe 500 or more like lenders, will that kind of make this situation a lot easier?

好的。那太棒了。所以想在那裡拋出一個數字，無論是 500 還是更大或更大的數字，這會解決這種受限貸款環境的問題嗎？就像我的意思是，我們現在解決問題可能為時已晚，我們甚至有可能擺脫它。但是，比方說，幾年後，我們將經歷另一種艱難的經濟周期，然後你可能有 500 或更多的貸款人，這會讓這種情況變得容易得多嗎？

I would say, it's one of several things that we would like to put in place before the next cycle, if you want to put it that way. Having a lot more lenders on the platform is great, but if they all act and behave the same, then it doesn't help all that much. But in reality, the lenders that are on the platform today, they will look back at this time and say, well, it turns out the Upstart loans performed all the way through that. So we are today building a proof point for a lot of the credit unions and smaller banks on our platform who have not seen credit deteriorate. They've actually performed really well, get out of an abundance of caution, and because this is the first cycle they've been through with us, they do pull back and they do sometimes pause.

我想說，如果你想這樣說的話，這是我們希望在下一個週期之前落實到位的幾件事之一。平台上有更多的貸方固然很好，但如果他們的行為和行為都相同，那麼它就無濟於事了。但實際上，今天在平台上的貸方，他們會在此時回顧並說，好吧，事實證明 Upstart 貸款一直在執行。因此，我們今天正在為我們平台上的許多信用合作社和小型銀行建立一個證明點，這些銀行沒有看到信用惡化。他們實際上表現得非常好，擺脫了極大的謹慎，因為這是他們與我們一起經歷的第一個週期，他們確實會後退，有時也會停下來。

So I think, first of all, having another proof point or having a very large proof point, if you want to call that, over the last 12 months, it will serve us well in the future because the loans for these banks and credit means have really performed well. We'll also be in different categories. So if they started with us in personal lending, and may be in auto lending or home lending, et cetera, and that, of course, I think, has a lot of opportunity to sort of cement the relationship further. So the lenders definitely have a lot of potential for us to fill out a large part, the primary end of what is originated to our platform. A lot of things we can do and we are doing. So the next time around, there'll always be some volatility in our business given the nature of what we do, but we certainly hope it will look like it has in the last year, and we are working very hard at that.

所以我認為，首先，有另一個證明點或有一個非常大的證明點，如果你想稱之為，在過去的 12 個月裡，它將在未來對我們有好處，因為這些銀行的貸款和信貸意味著確實表現不錯。我們也將在不同的類別。因此，如果他們從我們開始提供個人貸款，可能會提供汽車貸款或房屋貸款等，當然，我認為，這有很多機會進一步鞏固這種關係。因此，貸方肯定有很大的潛力讓我們填補很大一部分，這是源自我們平台的主要目的。很多事情我們可以做，而且我們正在做。因此，下一次，考慮到我們所做工作的性質，我們的業務總會有一些波動，但我們當然希望它看起來像去年那樣，我們正在為此努力工作。

Perfect. And just kind of last question. I mean you certainly provided guidance, which was helpful and kind of provided some guardrails on what you'll need to do to kind of meet those numbers. But if you kind of think of like what scenario would kind of drive like either upside or downside to kind of the estimates you provided. What kind of -- what needs to happen kind of with the broader macro for like kind of the range of outcomes would change as the year progresses?

完美的。最後一個問題。我的意思是你確實提供了指導，這很有幫助，並且提供了一些關於你需要做什麼來滿足這些數字的護欄。但是，如果你想像什麼樣的情況會像你提供的估計那樣上行或下行。什麼樣的 - 更廣泛的宏觀需要發生什麼樣的事情才能隨著時間的推移而改變類似的結果範圍？

Yes. Arvind, this is Sanjay. It's relatively straightforward, and there's sort of an answer both on the borrower and on the funding side, but upside would look a lot like what I described earlier. UMI comes down. Mechanically, loan performance will achieve sort of target/overperformed. And then I think as a consequence of that funding will sort of return to the platform or we will sort of create some partnerships that will create some scale. That would create upside certainly sort of a trajectory back to where we were previously, and downside would be the opposite. I mean if the world degrades or devolves further if personal savings rates do a u-turn and sort of go back down to low levels and/or the funding markets get even more skittish versus where they are today that I guess, theoretically, could create some downside as well.

是的。 Arvind，這是 Sanjay。它相對簡單，在藉款人和資金方面都有一個答案，但上行空間看起來很像我之前描述的那樣。 UMI 下來。從機械上講，貸款表現將達到某種目標/超額表現。然後我認為，由於這些資金將返回平台，或者我們將建立一些合作夥伴關係，從而創造一定的規模。這肯定會創造一種回到我們之前所在位置的上行軌跡，而下行則恰恰相反。我的意思是，如果個人儲蓄率掉頭回落到低水平和/或融資市場變得比現在更加不穩定，我猜從理論上講，這可能會導致世界惡化或進一步惡化還有一些缺點。

Perfect. And just last one, if I could. This AI and ChatGBT and bunch of these things that have kind of made kind of more mainstream press. Has kind of -- as some of your kind of conversations with some of your partners become a lot easier, right? Like I mean, I could imagine like 2 years back when you were talking about AI, people -- there may have been a cohort of folks expressing some level of skepticism that this AI thing is kind of not very tangible, but now with it becoming more kind of broadly kind of well known or publicized. I'm convinced to use the word ChatGBT. Have some of those conversations changed where people are like, okay, fine, you're using AI. I can actually kind of wrap my hands around it now that I've touched it.

完美的。最後一個，如果可以的話。這個 AI 和 ChatGBT 以及這些東西已經成為一種更主流的媒體。有點——因為你和你的一些合作夥伴的一些對話變得容易多了，對吧？就像我的意思一樣，我可以想像 2 年前當你談論 AI 時，人們 - 可能有一群人表達了某種程度的懷疑，認為這種 AI 東西有點不太有形，但現在它變得更廣泛的是眾所周知的或廣為人知的。我確信使用 ChatGBT 這個詞。在人們喜歡的地方改變其中一些對話，好吧，很好，你正在使用人工智能。既然我已經觸摸了它，我實際上可以用手包裹住它。

I think arguing some sense ChatGBT and this kind of generative AI as it's known. There's obviously a different class of AI trying to do something very differently, but in some sense, it's free marketing for us because the category of AI is getting credence. And when you see what ChatGBT does, it gets sort of stunning to just try it if you haven't tried it. And it sort of says, well, if it can do that, certainly, it can build a better credit model and can make smarter lending decisions. What we're trying to do actually seems much more straightforward in many ways. So it's an advertisement for the power of AI and for the fact that AI is going to be very central in our economy for the decades to come. So if you're a bank executive, you really want to think about how that fits in the future, how you start to get awareness of it and it just makes Upstart, I think, a more attractive partner.

我認為爭論某種意義上的 ChatGBT 和這種眾所周知的生成 AI。顯然有不同類別的 AI 試圖做一些非常不同的事情，但從某種意義上說，這對我們來說是免費營銷，因為 AI 類別正在獲得信任。當您看到 ChatGBT 的功能時，如果您還沒有嘗試過，那麼嘗試一下會讓人感到震驚。它有點說，好吧，如果它能做到這一點，它當然可以建立一個更好的信貸模型，並可以做出更明智的貸款決策。實際上，我們正在嘗試做的事情在很多方面看起來要簡單得多。所以這是對 AI 力量的廣告，也是對 AI 將在未來幾十年成為我們經濟的核心這一事實的廣告。所以，如果你是一名銀行高管，你真的想考慮它如何適應未來，你如何開始意識到它，我認為它只會讓 Upstart 成為一個更有吸引力的合作夥伴。

Our next question comes from Dan Dolev with Mizuho.

我們的下一個問題來自 Dan Dolev 和 Mizuho。

I only have one question. I'm going to make it easy for you guys. So just really quick. It looks like the subprime and even the near prime is kind of beyond their trough. Does that mean that you can like reopen the credit box in Q1?

我只有一個問題。我會讓你們輕鬆一點。所以真的很快。看起來次貸甚至是接近黃金的時期都超出了他們的低谷。這是否意味著您可以在第一季度重新打開積分箱？

Dan, sorry, I didn't quite hear you. You said that the sub sort of the lower prime borrowers are beyond there what?

丹，對不起，我沒聽清楚。你說次級次優借款人還有什麼？

Yes. It looks like based on what you said is that the near prime and subprime is kind of beyond the trough in terms of their credit risk. Does that mean that you can actually reopen the credit box in the first quarter? And that was my only question.

是的。根據你所說的，就信用風險而言，近優級和次優級似乎已經超出了低谷。這是否意味著您實際上可以在第一季度重新打開信貸箱？那是我唯一的問題。

I think we would look to -- well, we're open to -- we would look to sort of increase approvals as they started to trend back down. And I don't think we've quite reached the point where we're willing to call that. I think they've been at a very stable level now for multiple months, but we need to see evidence of them. Or let me maybe talk about it in macro terms. We need to see further evidence of personal savings rates rebounding. We need to see further evidence of income coming back in line with consumption. And the model will adjust as it sort of detects the patterns in repayment, which will result from that. So it's not necessarily a thing we need to sort of take a decision on. The model will react to improving trends as they begin to play out in the data.

我認為我們會考慮——好吧，我們願意——我們會考慮增加批准，因為它們開始趨於回落。而且我認為我們還沒有完全達到我們願意稱之為的地步。我認為它們現在已經處於非常穩定的水平好幾個月了，但我們需要看到它們的證據。或者讓我從宏觀角度談談。我們需要看到個人儲蓄率反彈的進一步證據。我們需要看到收入與消費同步回升的更多證據。該模型會在檢測到還款模式時進行調整，這將由此產生。所以這不一定是我們需要做出決定的事情。當趨勢開始在數據中顯現時，該模型將對改善趨勢做出反應。

Got it. Appreciate it. And nice results on the quarter.

知道了。欣賞它。本季度取得了不錯的成績。

Our final question comes from Vincent Caintic with Stephens.

我們的最後一個問題來自 Vincent Caintic 和 Stephens。

So a 2-part question, both related to the funding side. So first, on the balance sheet, if you could discuss how much capacity you do have for increasing the amount of loans that you have on balance sheet. And if there's maybe other ways to increase that capacity. So Fintechs, for example -- have banks, as an example. And then the second part of the question is, I saw that you recently had an upside securitization, so the [2023-1s]. Just wondering if you could talk about that, the appetite there and any learnings you can have like if there's potentially more opportunity there?

所以這是一個由兩部分組成的問題，都與資金方面有關。所以首先，在資產負債表上，如果你能討論你有多少能力來增加資產負債表上的貸款數量。如果有其他方法可以增加容量。例如，金融科技公司——以銀行為例。然後問題的第二部分是，我看到你最近有一個上行證券化，所以 [2023-1s]。只是想知道你是否可以談談那個，那裡的胃口以及你可以學到的任何東西，如果那裡有更多的機會的話？

Sure. Thanks, Vincent. Let's see. On the first one, well, let me start by saying, I don't think we have a desire to substantially increase our balance sheet capacity certainly in terms of its percentage of the overall platform and what it represents. I don't think a sustainable strategy would be to create bigger and bigger balance sheet capacity in the way that some peers have pursued through bank charter. I just don't think that's the model for us for a lot of reasons, which we've covered in the past. I mean we could effectively scale up our capacity as the platform scales up. And you can imagine when we're doing many different products and running different R&D projects with maybe one of their capacity, but I think we're at our local maximum now, and I think it's suitable to the size and the scale of the platform. We would want the recovery of the platform to be driven by the funding markets, not by increasing balance sheet capacity. So that's, I think, a fairly deliberate strategic choice.

當然。謝謝，文森特。讓我們來看看。關於第一個，首先讓我說，我認為我們不希望在其占整個平台的百分比及其代表方面肯定地大幅增加我們的資產負債表容量。我不認為可持續的戰略是以一些同行通過銀行章程所追求的方式來創造越來越大的資產負債表能力。我只是認為這不是我們的模式，原因有很多，我們過去已經介紹過。我的意思是，隨著平台的擴大，我們可以有效地擴大我們的能力。你可以想像當我們正在做許多不同的產品並運行不同的研發項目時，也許他們的能力之一，但我認為我們現在處於我們的局部最大值，我認為它適合平台的規模和規模.我們希望平台的複蘇由融資市場驅動，而不是通過增加資產負債表能力來驅動。所以，我認為，這是一個相當深思熟慮的戰略選擇。

With respect to the ABS markets, we did close and price a deal in January. And yes, like I said, I guess I would characterize it at a high level. I would say that the -- if you think about basically the senior and the subordinate parts of securitization, the senior instruments seem to have a lot of rebound in demand and their spreads have tightened a lot. So I think they priced significantly better than they did in Q4. We're still not at the point where there is a real market for subordinate risk. That has not improved versus Q4, but typically, that's the way things get sequenced. The senior -- the sort of less risky instruments come back first, and then you sort of eventually will see a rebound in the subordinate parts as well. So I think we're sort of maybe -- hopefully, if nothing does a u-turn or sort of midway through that transition hopefully.

關於 ABS 市場，我們確實在 1 月份完成交易並定價。是的，就像我說的，我想我會在高層次上描述它。我想說的是——如果你基本上考慮證券化的高級和次級部分，高級工具的需求似乎有很多反彈，它們的利差也收緊了很多。所以我認為他們的定價比第四季度要好得多。我們還沒有達到真正的次級風險市場的地步。與第四季度相比，這並沒有改善，但通常情況下，這就是事情排序的方式。高級 - 那種風險較小的工具首先回來，然後你最終也會看到次要部分的反彈。所以我認為我們有點可能 - 希望，如果沒有任何事情發生轉變或希望在過渡中途進行。

Thank you. And this does conclude today's call. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.

謝謝。這確實結束了今天的電話會議。感謝您的參與，您現在可以斷開連接。