MoneyLion Inc. (NYSE:ML) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Because we are the interface layer for helping consumers make the decision on whether it’s a personal loan that’s right for them, a credit card, an income based advanced product, or a HELOC or a secured card. So because we’re the tooling on top of the existing offer set, we absolutely think that we’ll be now in a better position to actually help consumers demystify which product to take. From a unit economic perspective, I think it’s early. I think that it takes a long while for this actually to come to reality and ultimately hitting those unit economics. And in that case, we expect products to also change a little bit. If you think of it from a natural progression and you actually do think that when it hits, credit availability comes down on the credit card side, because we have the marketplace with other offers, our first party Instacash offer, we provide a marketplace of income based advanced products with some of the leading providers out there.

I think, again, it’s one of those things where we’re really well positioned to take market share across the spectrum.

George Sutton: I agree with the conclusion. Thanks, guys.

Operator: Our next question comes from Hal Goetsch from B. Riley Securities. Please proceed.

Hal Goetsch: Hey guys, terrific quarter. I just want to clarify some numbers that were given on your enterprise side. Did I hear this right? Like about 85% of the business in 2022 was personal loans, and that fell to 60%. If that math is right, that means your personal loan business was down pretty sharply, about 20%, yet the enterprise business still grew. Is that correct?

Diwakar Choubey: So from a percentage perspective, what that number is representing is the percentage mix of our revenue that is coming from our marketplace business, specifically within the credit vertical. And so I think what’s important about that metric is not that that business actually fell, but actually that that business has become less of the overall unit economics, as there were macro headwinds in that space. And so the corollary to that is that we were able to build up and expand into other verticals. That sets us up incredibly well for 2024, because what it means is that as rates come back and that increases our conversions in the credit vertical, we’re going to have the benefit of both seeing the uplift from a revenue perspective within that vertical, alongside continuing to match customers with products that sit in the insurance vertical, the mortgage vertical, auto refi, et cetera.

And so I think from our perspective, we were highlighting what was a really important build out of kind of products and technology that again sets us up really well for 2024.

Hal Goetsch: Okay. Can I ask one follow up on the subscription business, you mentioned alluded to initial product market fit and traction. What can you tell us about the product market fit and traction you’re seeing with the subscription business may be generally, or actually quantitatively? Thanks.

Diwakar Choubey: Yes. Hal, as you know, we’ve been working on really honing the value proposition and the product market fit for the last couple of quarters. The MoneyLion WOW membership, the subscription business has been in beta for a couple of quarters now. We want it to be the best of MoneyLion. We want it to be the gateway, the interface layer to our marketplace. We want it to be the single point of decision making for consumers. And if you look at our proof points, if you look at the cohort slides that we share every quarter, 80% of our revenue comes from prior cohorts. So right now, the first phase of rollout really here is the upsell and the upgrade path with our existing customers. As we continue getting more partners and the value proposition becomes irrational for anyone not to have the MoneyLion WOW membership, I think that’s really when we put a lot of marketing dollars behind it.

But if you look at our track record of already providing a recurring nature to our consumer revenue, I think this only but bolsters it and then enhances sort of that revenue line around consumers. If you’re an investor looking at our P&L and sort of the breakdown of our consumer business, I think the existence of the bundle of the subscription, of the membership really should give you confidence that we’re really tying in the consumer into our ecosystem for a long period of time. We want them to come back for the second time when they want to make a financial decision. If you look at the products that we’re building with AI search, they’re all around engagement, retention, and extending the lifetime that this consumer is trusting MoneyLion to make that financial decision and of course, that provides an incredible benefit to our enterprise business.

This is where we say that the lines are blurring a little bit between the two businesses is because the longer they are on MoneyLion, the more times we can offer vetted consumers with exactly matched personalized products on our ecosystem. And that’s ultimately the game here, is to extend that lifetime value over time.

Hal Goetsch: Cool. Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Josh Siegler from Cantor Fitzgerald. Please proceed.

Josh Siegler: Yes, hi guys. Thanks for taking my question. Great results here. Really nice to see. First of all, I was wondering, obviously you have a significant amount of customer inquiries coming in top of funnel. How are you thinking about actually growing the customer base throughout 2024?

Diwakar Choubey: Yes. So look, we don’t see any headwinds in terms of the growth rate on our total customer inquiries. In fact, if you think about it, why our total customer inquiries are increasing, our network, the technology value proposition that we have in the marketplace through our engine by MoneyLion, our enterprise business, as well as our media business, that’s becoming more and more a must have. So if you’re acquiring consumers digitally, it’s becoming where we’re getting to the scale, where you likely have to go through engine, our enterprise business to acquire those consumers. So what that allows us to do is increase both the suppliers and publishers because we’re creating more and more monetization opportunities for them, as well as a financial lender, an insurance company, a mortgage company, a credit card company, we’re providing more and more data tools to actually pinpoint the audience that’s best for them, because every financial institution has a different segmentation strategy.