PagSeguro Digital Ltd. (NYSE:PAGS) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Tito Labarta: A couple of questions also. First, good job on expenses. Is there room to improve further, particularly the admin expenses, selling expenses that were down in the quarter? Is there room to cut a bit more? And would that, in any way, impact the growth outlook going forward? And then my second question, just a little follow-up, I guess, on the take rate. I know you said your debit was higher and somewhat lower growth on PagBank from the secured credit, but it was a decline compared to 3Q €“ as the mix perhaps maybe normalizes and you get more credit, can that take-rate get back to where you were last level? Do you see any other pressure on the take-rate, just to think about how that can evolve from here? Thank you.

Ricardo Dutra: I will start with the take-rate, and then we can go back to the expenses. Yes, in Q4, we had a higher participation in the mix with debit transactions, debit volumes. So, people using more of that in Q4. We also had shorter duration in the credit card installments when compared to Q3. So, these two things affect take-rate, affect revenues. And also, as we said, the fact that we are shifting our credit portfolio from unsecured to secured, we are kind of postponing the revenues because the duration before for unsecured products was around 1 year, 12 months. And now, we have something that is in secured products 3x longer than that. So, that’s why we are postponing the revenues, and that’s the impact that we have in PagBank in terms of revenues.

Looking for 2023, we are not decreasing prices in longtail. We had the same prices in SMBs. It’s an ongoing process. Some clients will increase prices. Some clients will decrease prices. Some clients will negotiate. So €“ but overall, we’re seeing a stable take-rate at this point. We are not feeling pressured to decrease take rates at all. But what we have here is the change in the mix. More SMBs work with us. More volumes come from SMBs. So, if you look at the weighted net take rate, it could go down, not because we’re decreasing prices, but because SMBs are gaining share within our TPV. And as we mentioned before, it’s good news because SMBs, they have more volumes than the longtail. So, overall, it should make sense in absolute terms. It should be better for us.

Artur Schunck: Yes. In terms of OpEx, what I can say is we are expecting expenses growth lower than revenue growth for 2023. And based on the layoffs that we applied in the beginning of January, marketing optimization and also leverage from the infrastructure that we developed in 2020, 2021, 2022 and also leverage coming from HUBs with more revenue more volumes with the same structure built until 2021.

Tito Labarta: Okay. That’s very helpful. Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Sheriq Sumar, Evercore.

Sheriq Sumar: Can you hear me?

Ricardo Dutra: Yes, we can hear you.

Sheriq Sumar: Great. So, my question is on the market share dynamics. I see that you haven’t provided updated stats for how much was it in this quarter. So, any color would be great on that. And secondly, how is the competitive dynamics evolved over the €“ like over the past year? And where does PagSeguro maintain the edge? And secondly, my second question is on PIX. Nice to see the market share gains, but are there any further investments that you need to make on the sales front or on the technology front? So, if you can provide some color on that would be great as well.

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