Affirm Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:AFRM) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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On the other hand, we are very excited to take more and more share from our friends in the credit card world. And so, we are delighted when the frequency goes up which is in fact reflected in the percentage of transactions from repeat users. So, there are multiple vectors on this metric, not too obsessed with it. I care a lot more about overall GMV growth. Credit metrics obviously are absolutely paramount. Frequency of consumer is something that I look quite a lot about, although it’s worth saying that at this point we see very clear stratification of consumers. People have chosen that Affirm is their primary spending device and those numbers are very different from the average that we post. And at some point, I’m sure we’ll start breaking that out, but not very this second.

Operator: Our last question is from Reggie Smith of JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Reggie Smith: I guess the biggest variance this quarter to my estimate was the interest income line. And I noticed or I’ve seen over the past few quarters that your mix of interest bearing transactions of volume has been growing. My question for you, how common are prepayments in your business? And I ask that because I’m trying to, I guess, get to the durability of that interest income. I know I think in quarters past, Mike has suggested that it took a while for the rates to kind of bleed in. It looks like we’re seeing that now. So I’m just trying to figure out the durability there.

Michael Linford: Yes. Prepayments in our business are common. They’re understood price into all of our capital deals. And for the record, we think a good thing. Max mentioned this before. We think about consumer exposure as a real limiter. And if a consumer prepays that it’s an opportunity for us transact with them again and that’s a good thing for us. It’s a really healthy sign. I said differently, the prepayment for risk for us is not really a risk versus the credit risk in the business. And so, we don’t view prepayments as really a problem at all. I think a thing to remember about the product is just how short the duration is. And so prepayment risk in other asset classes is a real important thing especially in a declining rate environment, given the long-term nature of those loans, but the way that to realize here is so fast that it’s really difficult for us to have a meaningful amount of the economics eroding or the interest income going away, so long as the originations are still there, right?

So that’s the more important variable in terms of what we can generate, it’s not just the back book for us.

Reggie Smith: So I guess the punch line is that that yield is pretty durable going forward as long as you continue to originate. Is that the right way to think about it?

Michael Linford: You got it. Yes.

Max Levchin: Lots of little loans spitting off pretty nice rates, but not — we don’t suffer from, oh my God, we just lost 29 years of interest, like nothing of this sort of applicable here.

Max Levchin: And yes, I think it’s worth pointing out that, I think what you saw in the past year was this rate shock hitting the business and there being a few quarters of depressed asset yield and you’ve seen us recover from it. So the business model isn’t one that is completely impervious in the short-term to these kinds of shocks. But over the medium term, we’re able to really get the yield back in the asset, get the execution of the capital markets to a level to where we can continue to scale the business, like we want.

Reggie Smith: Perfect. We’ve gone an hour, so I’m not going to hold you guys any longer. I guess we can catch up on the call back. Thanks for taking my questions.

Michael Linford: Thanks, Reggie.

Operator: Thank you. We have no further questions in the question queue. And I would like to turn the call back to Zane Keller for some closing remarks.

Zane Keller: Well, thank you, everybody, for joining the call today. And we look forward to speaking with you again next week at our investor forum. See you there. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, that then concludes today’s event, and you may now disconnect your lines.

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