HealthEquity, Inc. (NASDAQ:HQY) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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And some of it is the existence of the tech and some of it is the embrace of the tech by everyone else, by others within the ecosystem and so that’s really where we’re investing. And I talked earlier in the year at some other some other banks conference about some of the specific opportunities both in that we have here to drive both new product that that’s very visible to our clients and members as well as, drive things in the area of the transaction or card fees around really integrating what we do into the existing mobile wallets making some of that stuff easier and ultimately driving incremental transaction value. So that’s really where we’re focused in terms of, of where those dollars are going as well as the basics of completing our cloud journey and all those kind of things.

But, I think, my take here is that we have this period of time where all of the things we’ve done from expanding the product set through, the addition of wage and all of that, expanding our partnership base through things like the further acquisition enhanced rates. And the migration of that over the course of the next few years, plus, notwithstanding events over the last few weeks, what is still a far more favourable environment, from a macro and rate perspective, this gives us a period of time where we can both invest in these kinds of innovations that will produce growth over time and still in the near term, deliver to you as we’ve done in our outlook here incremental pre material, incremental margin improvement. So to the second part of your question, is it plausible that you know that, that some M&A is a piece of that?

And the answer is yes. I think it will — it’s far more plausible that it would be in the nature of smaller, enterprises where it’s a little bit more like, aqua hire or the like, as opposed to existing three, $400 million businesses. And I say that it’s not impossible. I say that because that’s where I think the opportunity is for us and for created value for our shareholders. Right now, I don’t see the same one, I don’t see the same level of rationalization within those established businesses yet. And two that’s our clients are, especially in, one of the reactions to inflation and like, our clients want more solutions that help their consumers navigate the financials of healthcare, right? And we already do what’s great in that space that’s established.

It’s about, some of the new stuff that’s out there and are there examples of folks who are out there, and able to try stuff as effectively R&D labs and, we’ll be happy to do that kind of stuff, but it’s not going to — that’s not going to be like, big draws on the balance sheet or the like, it really is, build versus buy type discussion on some of those things.

Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I’d like to turn the conference back over to Jon Kessler for any closing remarks.

Jon Kessler: Man, you really cut that off. That was like — that was Richard quality there. Thank you. Can, we have you at every call? No. so thanks everybody. Look obviously, I hope what you have taken from today’s call is that we really feel, now having, being a full two weeks into this current, craziness, that if we’re able to step back and look at it from the perspective of the long term of our business, this demonstrates the quality of what we do and the value of having a plan and sticking to it. And ultimately the steadiness of our business, which has always been one of the things we have promised you that is to say visibility, along with growth, which we’re delivering with our outlook, profitability which obviously we’re delivering with our outlook.

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