John Coffey: I just wanted one follow-up. Just on take rates in general. As we look out next quarter and the quarters ahead, could you help contextualize the effects of — competitive effects, which could pressure take rates, the move you’re having down to smaller merchants which could push them up as well as just the seasonality, which I think generally in Q4, debit is bigger in Brazil? Just kind of try to like evaluate the pressures going up and down on your take rates going forward.
Lia Matos: Sure, John. So I think, aside from sort of short-term fluctuation in debit versus credit that has seasonality effects like you mentioned, fourth quarter, we always expect debit mix to be higher. Aside from that, I think the overall trends that we can point to — and sorry to give — continue to give these spoilers, but we will provide a little bit more color on this in the Investor Day. Is that — we continue to execute our pricing strategy as we have said. We will not change our approach to pricing discipline. We do not have that in our plans. More and more new monetization drivers come into the picture, not only PIX but overall banking. And the more that we evolve on our banking solution, the more we have levers to monetize the relationship with our clients.
So, we do see that as a positive trend in overall take rates going forward. I don’t think we’re going to see too many changes in terms of mix shifts, to be honest. Because I think that the pace of growth is more or less — if you look at longer time horizons, it’s more or less stable across tiers. So I think that the trends that we can think of are pricing, execution and more and more monetization drivers from banking, other solutions.
Operator: Our next question is from Josh Siegler from Cantor Fitzgerald.
Josh Siegler: First question, I was just wondering as we head into 4Q, how should we be thinking about the seasonality aspects, and are there any abnormalities to this quarter as compared to previous years?
Pedro Zinner: So no big news, I think, as usual, fourth quarter tends to have a better TPV performance, because of the Christmas and Black Friday. So nothing new on that regard.
Josh Siegler: And then from a strategy perspective, I was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on how you’re thinking about a potential rollout of credit cards, especially given, the increase in credit delinquencies that you’re seeing across the macro right now?
Lia Matos: I think, the message around the speed of rollout is the same as we have said regarding credit. We’re being conservative in terms of the speed at which we scale. We remain attentive to the macro environment. So I think no different message as to our overall strategy in credits. We will take our time to scale at the speed that our risk appetite allows us to and we will remain observant of the macro environment.
Operator: Next question from Jamie Friedman from SIG.
Jamie Friedman: Good evening, and congratulations on the strong results. Good progress here. I just wanted to ask, well, the first one is, philosophically, how are you thinking about guidance? There’s been years in the evolution where you guide. There are some that you don’t. So we’re just wondering where your mind is now about your approach to guidance?
Mateus Scherer: Yes. For sure, Jamie. So we mentioned this in the previous call. Up until the last quarter, we were following the policy of giving quarterly guidance. And we’re no longer providing this kind of guidance. But starting on the Investor Day, the idea is to give guidance on a few metrics on a longer term perspective. So, we’re going to share figures for 2024, but also provide a perspective on 2027 for the business, so that you can have a longer term outlook for the business as a whole.
Jamie Friedman: And then, if I could just have one follow-up. With regard to the PIX, can you see if those are the, like prepaid PIX, or are you seeing volumes for PIX parcelado as well at this point? Any color on that would be helpful.
Lia Matos: No. We do not see, any relevance from PIX parcelado at this point. We do know that some players are putting a lot of investments around, PIX parcelado. But for us, it’s a payment method that it’s mostly taking away from, like I said, cash and the growth of debit.
Operator: Our next question is from Kaio Da Prato from UBS.
Kaio Da Prato: I have two questions here quickly please. Looking to your stake rates and breaking it down, looks like the increase came mainly from financial revenue. So just would like to understand what were the moving parts here if you increased the penetration of prepayment during the third quarter for any specific segment if there was any change in prices? Because you mentioned, in your press release the effect of adjustments in commercial policy, so just would like to double click here. Or if this is only related, to the mix shift, and I mean, on a Q-on-Q perspective as year-over-year, it’s clear the effects of prices. And moreover, if I may, looking to the net take rates of your financial revenues, net of banking deposit effects, and financial expenses, it actually expanded a lot, also Q-on-Q, suggesting that you also used more of your own cash to fund the prepayment business.
So I know that you talked a bit about that in one of the questions before, but just would like to confirm if that indeed happened, why did you decide to use it, and what should we expect going forward as well? Thank you.
Mateus Scherer: So maybe starting from the last question. Indeed, our net take rates, when we look net of financial expenses increased a lot on a q-on-q. But I think it’s less related to the decision of using more of our cash towards funding and more related to the fact that interest rates started to decline in Brazil in general, and we’re not passing that through to clients. So, it’s more about disciplining pricing and less about capital structure movements. Now, the second part to the question, we did not make any big changes in our pricing policy in the quarter. So, when you look at the take rate evolution quarter-on-quarter, it’s mostly about mix shift, a little bit towards micro. And, also, this was slightly offset by debit mix, like Lia mentioned.
But I think what’s worth mentioning is that when we think about pricing, we price for our clients as a whole and not by revenue line or revenue stream. So from time to time, we can see some rebalance in terms of how much we monetize in each lever, be it financial income or transactional revenues, for example. So, I wouldn’t read too much into those kinds of changes. I would track the take rates in general as a whole.
Operator: Next question from Nicolas Riva from Bank of America.
Nicolas Riva: Thanks very much for the chance to ask questions. So, you reported once again a net cash position to about R$3.7 billion in cash. You used some of the liquidity to repurchase R$300 million of your shares in November. You’re also starting slowly to grow your credit or loan book. My question is why not use some of these liquidity to buy back some of your 2020 bonds at R$0.80? Thanks.
Mateus Scherer: So great question. Indeed, in our view, when you look at our bonds, they are trading at levels that don’t reflect the Company’s credit worthiness, honestly. And therefore, buying back bonds is indeed a plausible option to allocate capital that we constantly evaluate. However, when you think about capital allocation, we think capital allocation is about choices. So, in our view, given the current environment and the current prices, buying back shares offers greater return to shareholders when compared to buying back the bonds. So, that’s why we’re focused on that option right now.
Operator: There are no questions at this time. This concludes the question-and-answer session. I will now turn over to Pedro Zinner, CEO at StoneCo for final considerations.
Pedro Zinner: Well, thank you very much to all of you for participating on the call. And I hope to see you all in our Investor Day meeting next Wednesday. Thank you very much.
