Hello, and welcome to the X Financial Q2 2021 earnings conference call. I would now like to turn the conference over to Tanya Wen. Please go ahead. Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. The company's results were released earlier today and are available on the company's IR website at ir.xiaoyinggroup.com. On the call today from X Financial are Mr. Kan Li, President, and Mr. Frank Zheng, Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Li will give a brief overview of the company's business operations and highlights, followed by Mr. Zheng, who will go through the financials. They are all available to answer your questions during the Q&A session. I remind you that this call may contain forward-looking statements under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are based on the company's current expectations and current market and operating conditions, and relate to events that involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond the company's control, which may cause the company's actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Further information regarding these and other risks, uncertainties and factors is included in the company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under the law. It is now my pleasure to introduce Mr. Kan Li. Mr. Li, please go ahead. Hello, everyone. We are very pleased to deliver another good, strong quarter of operational and financial results. In the Q2, total loan facilitation amounts hit a historic high since our inception, and our bottom line continued to maintain strong growth momentum on both a year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter basis, in line with our guidance. During the quarter, we reduced the fees we charge for our loan facilitation service, which matches institutional funding partners with borrowers, as well as lower the weighted average total borrowing cost for our loan products to attract and retain borrowers. With the effective management of our cost control policy, we continue to maintain strong momentum of profitable growth. On the regulatory front, in April, the National People's Congress Standing Committee released a second draft of the Personal Information Protection Law for public comment, demonstrating that the Chinese government is determined to strengthen user data security and privacy protection. We have always placed a high value on user data protection and continue to improve our self-regulated internal mechanism. We continue to closely monitor regulatory developments and adjust our strategies and services in compliance with government policies and the evolving market trends. During the Q2, our total loan facilitation amount reached RMB 12.8 billion, an increase of 108.6% year-over-year and 18.2% quarter-over-quarter. This was mainly driven by the strong growth in the loan facilitation amount of Xiaoying Card Loan, which increased 180.1% year-over-year and 18.2% quarter-over-quarter. Xiaoying Card Loan has contributed 100% of our total loan facilitation amount since the Q1 of 2021. As of June 30th, 2021, the total outstanding loan balance of Xiaoying Card Loan reached RMB 20.4 billion, an increase of 24.9% compared with the previous quarter. Recently, the Chinese government has been gradually introducing guiding principles for lower lending rates to the market to stimulate economic growth, which is expected to put some pressure on our revenues. For the H2 of the year, we will continue to be fully compliant, but will mitigate policy pressures by devising feasible solutions with our institutional funding partners. At the same time, we remain in active negotiations with existing funding partners to reduce funding costs, and our team continues to improve our risk management capabilities and taking proactive measures on cost control. In conclusion, we are encouraged by the solid progress we made during the H1 of the year and will continue to execute on our proven strategies to drive sustainable long-term growth. We expect to commence operation of our microcredit business in the Q3 of 2021. Consumer confidence in China's economy has continued to trend upward, and we see rising demand for consumer finance solutions. We are confident of leveraging our technology and service capability to capture the vast opportunities ahead and bring more valuable returns to our shareholders. Now, I will turn the call to Frank, who will go through our financials. Thank you, Kan, and hello, everyone. We continue to deliver strong financial performance during the Q2. The total net revenue increased 140.4% year-over-year to RMB 932.4 million. With a combination of effective cost control and increased economics of scale, our net income further improved to RMB 223.2 million from a net loss of RMB 343.6 million in the second period of the last year, and a net income of RMB 192.8 million in the previous quarter. We continue to experience steady improvement in our asset quality. As of June 30th, 2021, the delinquency rates for all outstanding loans that are past due for 30 to 60 days were 0.677%, and a decrease from 0.82% as of March 31st, 2021, and 1.8% as of June 30, 2020. A clear demonstration of our risk management capabilities and a premier borrow base. We also continued to strengthen our cooperation with third-party financial guarantee companies during the quarter, whereby the proportion of loan amount facility that was covered by those financial guarantee companies increased to 49.8%, from 48.1% in the previous quarter. Moving forward, we will continue to invest in the development of technology capabilities, further improve operation efficiency, and expand the cooperation with more institutional funding partners. We expect to maintain the growth momentum in our operational performance in the Q3. Now, I would like to brief some financial performance. Please note that all numbers stated are in RMB. The total net revenue in the Q2 of 2021 increased by 140.4% to RMB 932.4 million from RMB 387.9 million in the same period of 2020, primarily due to an increase in the total loan facilitation amount, and the Originations and servicing expenses in the Q2 of 2021 increased by 1.7% to RMB 520.9 million, from RMB 512.4 million in the same period of 2020, primarily due to the increase in commission fees resulting from the increased total loan facilitation amount in this quarter compared with the same period of 2020, and are partially offset by the decline in the collection expenses resulting from the decrease in delinquency rate. Provision for accounts receivable and contract assets in the Q2 was RMB 25.2 million, compared with RMB 28.3 million in the same period of 2020, primarily due to the decrease in the average estimated default rate compared with the same period of 2020, and partially offset by the increase in the amounts receivable from the loan facilitation services as a result of the increase in total loan facilitation amount in the Q2 of 2021. Reversal of a provision for the loan receivable in the Q2 of 2021 was RMB 1.1 million, compared with the provision for the loan receivable of RMB 110.5 million in the same period of 2020, primarily due to an increase in the average estimated default rate compared with the same period of 2020. The income from operations in the Q2 of 2021 was RMB 337.7 million, compared with loss from the operation of RMB 341.5 million in the same period of 2020. Net income attributable to X Financial shareholders in the Q2 of 2021 was RMB 223.2 million, compared with the net loss attributable to X Financial shareholders of RMB 343.7 million, in the same period of 2020. Non-GAAP adjusted net income attributable to X Financial shareholders in the Q2 of 2021 was RMB 241.9 million, compared with the non-GAAP adjusted net loss attributable to the X Financial shareholders of RMB 325.9 million in the same period of 2020. Cash and cash equivalents was RMB 1,000,183.9 million as of June 30, 2021, compared with RMB 799.8 million as of March 31st, 2021. Now for our business outlook. For the Q3 of 2021, we expect total loan facilitation amount to be in the range of RMB 14.5 billion to RMB 15.5 billion. income attributable to the X Financial shareholders to be no less than CNY 230 million. This forecast reflects our current and preliminary views, which are subject to changes. This concludes our prepared remarks, and we would like to open the call to the questions. Operator, please. We will now begin the question and answer session. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Mason Bourne with AWH Capital. Please go ahead. Good morning. Thanks for taking questions. You mentioned that you plan to start using your new microcredit license in Q3. Could you describe the steps that you took to obtain that license, and then maybe what opportunities that opens up for you? Sure. Actually, this is a very long progress. I think we first submitted our application in late 2019. The overall process has been fairly opaque. Finally, we got it. It's because there's really no fixed guidelines on how to obtain the license. We are the first batch who was able to successfully repay all our P2P investors of their investment and got the license. You asked about opportunities. I think at this moment, the opportunity is fairly difficult to evaluate, and the management team is still in the early process in determining what is the best strategy of utilizing that license. As of now, we just began to offer loans through the license. Okay, thanks. I guess to follow up on that, your total loan facilitation volume was up over 100% year-over-year, and now appears to be growing kind of high teens from Q1, and then also based on your guidance going forward. With that, how large do you view your market opportunity? I guess, what's driving that growth? I think it's difficult to compare our growth compared to last year because of the COVID-19 situation in China, which is very different from the other countries around the world. Last year was the worst in terms of COVID-19, and since then, we are basically in the recovering stage. As a result, last year, our loan volume has been severely withheld, largely due to our own choices. Right now, because the COVID-19 has, I would say, has since long passed China. The economy in the Chinese market has been fairly benefit to our business. That is why that we are able to maintain such a strong growth. It's very difficult to forecast what the growth in the future will be. If you are following the Chinese market closely, then you will notice that all the supervisory committees have been gradually persuading those people who are not qualified to exit the market. As a leading company in the Chinese market, we basically are able to maintain our continuous operations. I think the opportunity is good. It really depends on the management team to take advantage of the opportunities. Great. The last thing I had. By my math now, book value per ADS is roughly CNY 975. Shares are trading up a little bit this morning. You have CNY 327 per ADS in cash now, and then an annual run rate of earnings based on your guidance is roughly CNY 250 per ADS. With that in mind, how do you think about capital allocation and potentially returning capital to shareholders or buying back shares? Yeah, I think we are still in the growth period. The micro license at this stage, actually in November, we need to put another CNY 500 million as capital. I think that is still lower than the temporary requirement that the ruling is original issues require for about CNY 5 billion for the license. We will put aside some capital in case they need another funding for the license purpose also. For the foreseeable future, we don't have a stock buyback or something like that kind of thing for the near future, to answer your question directly. Okay. That would be going from I guess that would just be allocated as a restricted cash balance then. I was just speaking more to the cash and equivalents. You're saying that more of that cash will be tied up due to this new license. Am I understanding that correctly? Yes, yes. Okay. All right. Well, that's all I had. Thanks for taking my questions. I'll pass it on. Thank you. As a reminder, if you have a question, please press star then one to be joined into the queue. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Tanya Wen for any closing remarks. Thank you everyone for joining us today on the call. If you haven't got a chance to raise your questions, we will be pleased to answer them through follow-up contact. We look forward to speaking with you again in the near future. Thank you. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation.
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