StoneCo Ltd. (NASDAQ:STNE) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Lia Matos: Hi, Jeff, I’m going to start here Lia and then if Thiago wants to complement. So this shift that we’re seeing in terms of TPV in key accounts, I mean we’ve been talking about this over the last quarters. In terms of deprioritizing sub-acquire volumes, our approach there is completely opportunistic. We have our pricing policies and our hurdles and TPV may come or may not. That’s not a focus for us. Our focus really is on the platform services clients. And those clients they have higher take rates simply as a result of the value that we offer to those clients by enabling them to integrate to our payments and banking platforms and distribute those solutions integrated to their offerings like software clients, e-commerce platforms, marketplaces.

So we continue to see an opportunity to invest in this client segment. So we can expect healthy TPV growth in that part of the key accounts business and that will impact positively take rates as well. Thiago, anything you want to add?

Thiago Piau: I think you said it all. Just a small comment is that Jeff we see platform services almost like a type of distribution channel where we can access more merchants and more SMBs through third parties. I think that the team has the ability to keep a similar pace of what we are executing today and that will result in better take rates for the whole key accounts segment as Lia just mentioned.

Jeff Cantwell: Okay. That’s great. Thanks very much. Appreciate it.

Lia Matos: Thanks, Jeff.

Operator: The next question comes from Kaio Da Prato with Banco UBS. Please go ahead.

Kaio Da Prato: Hello, everyone. Good evening. So thank you for the participated questions. I have two on my side please. The first one is related to the Banking business. So we reached BRL 3.6 billion deposit this quarter. And I’m wondering here what are the next steps of the company in this front? Have you already requested any main license to the Brazilian Central Bank? If yes, what type of license and what is the time line for this? And finally, if you think about starting paying any yield on the port in order to foster growth going forward please? And then I will follow-up with my second question. Thank you.

Thiago Piau: Hi, Kaio. This is Thiago speaking. Actually, we have BRL 4 in deposits BRL 3.6 billion from the MSMB segment. So there are some deposits from the key account segments too but the total deposits today is BRL 4 billion. We expect that our deposits will continue to increase, as engagements with the banking solutions are increasing in all segments, mainly the MSMB ones. In the first quarter, we launched a new offering from micro merchants called Super Conta Ton and we have good initial results. So we think that these trends will continue. And I think that in terms of the yields, today we don’t offer yields on deposits to our clients. However, those deposits, they stay 100% in collateralized treasury floating bills by the Central Bank.

So, we take interest on those deposits. And I think that we will continue to execute the bank strategy like that. We are not executing any different type of license at this moment. We think that the execution we have has a very low risk and provide good economics to the company.

Kaio Da Prato: Okay.

Lia Matos: Kaio may just add one point. I think it’s on other relevant aspects of the evolution of banking, which is we’re planning the launch of our credit cards in this year both for micro and SMB clients. So, that’s an example of additional feature that we will offer that we expect to increase engagement with our banking solution. And I think I spoke about this in the call but the evolution in outstanding deposits really speaks to the quality of the client base and having the banking attached to the acquiring solution. So that pretty much guarantees that cash and volume from TPV from PIX as Thiago mentioned and other payment methods into the banking account. So, I think that was just wanted add.