HealthEquity, Inc. (NASDAQ:HQY) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 7 of 12

Tyson Murdock: 190 million was our guidance for the full period, right? And the full through nine months ended, it was 183 or something like that, right? So those are the yields off of this year. So that math is a little €“ I just set that the level set on the math. And then, of course, the guidance has been 225 for the next annualized period.

Richard Putnam: I think George was including the tip plus 15%…

George Hill: Like I said, guys, math from the back of the cab. I’m sorry about that. And then Jon, I’ll give you a two-part follow-up, which is, number one, one of your larger competitors in the space seems to be targeting healthcare financial services as a growing market opportunity, while, of course, that would kind of validate HealthEquity’s market opportunity, it seems like they’re trying to jam more into their card and what it can do. So I’d love for you to talk a little bit about the competitive environment as it relates to services facing what I’d call the commercial market? And then, Jon, my joking question was going to be on the real estate that you guys are getting rid of, how close are you guys to good scale?

Jon Kessler: I actually didn’t hear that side to go skiing. Yes. Well, I mean, again, we’ve got very attractive real estate. And I mean, we could this thing if you needed to. We can…

Richard Putnam: You can see this now. We’re going to put a tram from the parking lot €“ you were talking about that earlier.

Jon Kessler: Tram, like for you, we would do that for you George. But it’s a tenant improvement is what it is. But on your first question €“ what was that first question.

George Hill: Competitive environment.

Jon Kessler: I think that €“ look, my basic view is that there’s opportunity there. There’s opportunity with regard to how we all think about like where we’re ultimately headed and we don’t do product announcements and that kind of €“ that’s not how we do it. But ultimately, I think you’re going to want to think about less about the card as a physical piece of plastic and more as something that’s residing in the digital wallets we’re all carrying around. And what’s nice about that is it does open up some opportunities. That having been said, right, what we’re not going to do is our €“ I do see some of our competitors getting all hot and hungry for the idea of issuing what amounts to high interest revolving credit, and that does not interest us at all.

In other words, I’m not €“ there is place for that. But I think what we want to do is get to a place where consumers can use these products, so they’re not putting these things on their consumer credit marks. And rather than provide more or less the same thing with different use plastics. So I guess my basic view is there is opportunity there and the fact that others are talking about it, is somewhat validative of that, and that’s where €“ if you look at what we’re looking at in terms of sort of growth revenue streams, I’m sure we’ll have more to say about that as time goes on.

George Hill: Thank you, guys.

Jon Kessler: Thank you.

Operator: The next question comes from Mark Marcon with Baird. Please go ahead.

Mark Marcon: Hey. Good afternoon, Team Purple. There’s lots of discussion among companies about basically trying to reduce expenses, increase margins. To what extent does that end up tilting a little bit of the preference from a healthcare benefits mix over to HSAs? Are you seeing any of that this quarter? And then I’ve got a follow-up.

Jon Kessler: Steve?

Stephen Neeleman: Yes. Thanks, Mark. I think there’s always been this probably unappreciated benefit for these types of accounts, even over a 401(k) in that the money that people put in out of their own paycheck into a health savings account, reduces the employer’s cost, not for every one of their employees, but for a big chunk up in the majority of their employees by roughly 8%. So if I put $100 in my HSA, my employer saves $8 on payroll taxes and I save $8 on payroll taxes, plus I saved my fed taxes and my state taxes and I think all the two states, California and New Jersey.

Jon Kessler: The one where I live. That’s the one.

Stephen Neeleman: Jon doesn’t get his state tax deduction. But anyway, so you get to save on taxes, but then we still believe that if you look at plans that have what I would consider to be kind of mass adoption, these health savings account plans are. They just tend to have better trends than plans that are heavier benefited plans that are richer benefit. And so if you can save 2%, 3% on trend, over the course of your entire employee base plus some cash on taxes, it does make sense for you to do that. And so that’s why in past recessions, even though you always hate the thought of folks laying off employees and then that would naturally be our growth or it could impact our growth a little bit. We have seen employers be more aggressive going towards successive plans and promoting them.

And I think what’s different this year €“ in fact, in the last couple of years that we’ve had in the previous 18 years at HealthEquity was we didn’t really have the tools to say to employer, okay, we do this thing, let’s go after it. And then to use some of these products, we talk about MaxEnroll and our HSA optimizer and just our overall digital marketing effort. So I do think that that’s a way for employers that are feeling like, look, I still need to offer our people great benefits, but I still €“ but I need to watch the dollar a little bit more than I did maybe last year to go towards sets of plans.

Mark Marcon: Did that help contribute to the $170,000 that you ended up adding?

Page 7 of 12