Mastercard [MA] Conference call transcript for 2023 q1
2023-04-27 13:26:05
Fiscal: 2023 q1
Operator: Good morning. My name is Audra, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Mastercard Inc. Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Mr. Warren Kneeshaw, Head of Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.
Warren Kneeshaw: Thank you, Audra. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our first quarter 2023 earnings call. With me today are Michael Miebach, our Chief Executive Officer; and Sachin Mehra, our Chief Financial Officer, and Devin Corr, our Incoming Head of Investor Relations and my successor. Following comments from Michael and Sachin, the operator will announce your opportunity to get into the queue for the Q&A session, it is only end of queue we’ll open for questions. You can access our earnings release, supplemental performance data and the slide deck that accompany this call in the Investor Relations section of our website, mastercard.com. Additionally, the release was furnished with the SEC earlier this morning. Our comments today regarding our financial results will be on a non-GAAP currency-neutral basis unless otherwise noted. Both the release and the slide deck include reconciliations of non-GAAP measures to GAAP reported amounts. Finally, as set forth in more detail in our earnings release, I would like to remind everyone that today’s call will include forward-looking statements regarding Mastercard’s future performance. Actual performance could differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Information about the factors that could affect future performance are summarized at the end of our earnings release and in our recent SEC filings. A replay of this call will be posted on our website for 30 days. With that, I’ll now turn the call over to Michael.
Michael Miebach: Thank you, Warren. Good morning, everybody. Another quarter, let's jump right in. The headline is that in quarter one, consumer spending has remained remarkably resilient in that despite continued economic uncertainty. We kicked off the year with strong revenue and earnings growth. Quarter one adjusted net revenues were up 15% and adjusted operating income was up 17%, both versus a year ago, and as always on a non-GAAP currency neutral basis excluding special items. Focusing on the macro for a moment. Let's take stock of the positive and negative factors we have been monitoring. First, the labor market in aggregate remains strong by savings remain above historical levels and consumers continue to access credit, which all are key drivers of consumer spending. Second, central banks continue to combat elevated inflation levels with higher interest rates. Although we are seeing signs of inflation, putting additional stresses on the banking sector have emerged. We will continue to monitor how banks respond to these evolving conditions. And finally, economic growth around the globe continues to vary by country and sector. The reopening of China is a positive catalyst. However, the impact of monetary and fiscal tightening in many countries will likely be with us for some time. So overall, many moving pieces but even so consumer spending levels have remained resilience while the mix of spending has continued to rebalance towards experiences. Looking at our switched volume trends, domestic volume growth has remained relatively stable with some recent moderation in the U.S., in part due to lower tax refunds. Cross-border travel in quarter one reached 148% of 2019 levels with all regions above 2019 levels. This includes notable improvement in Asia cross-border card not-present ex travel continues to hold up well. We will continue to watch the environment closely. And as we have demonstrated in the past, we are prepared to adjust investment levels appropriately while maintaining focus on our key strategic priorities. And as a reminder, these three priorities are expanding and payments, extending our services and embracing new networks. Now I've been on the road for much of the quarter meeting with customers, partners, government leaders, and of course, our teams. These conversations reinforced the energy we have for our collaborative approach, and show the importance that many plays on digital payments and driving much of today's economic activity. And it's with that in mind that I'll share some examples of how we are progressing against our three strategic priorities. First, we're expanding in payments by winning deals across a diverse set of customers innovating in and growing acceptance, and expanding solutions to address new payment flows. We see our partnership deepening with a diverse set of co-brand partners, financial institutions and fast growing fintechs around the world. This quarter we had a significant win with Costco Wholesale in Taiwan, the largest co-brand portfolio in the market. The deal is a competitive flip that ensures exclusive co-brand issuance and exclusive acceptance of Mastercard, co-brand cards and stores effectives in August this year. We also announced our exclusive partnership with Wells Fargo and Choice Hotels, to launch their new credit card program in the United States. In the Middle East, we inked a renewal with National Bank of Egypt, the largest issuer in the country. And on the fintech front, we renewed our deal with N26, one of the largest new banks in Europe, for Mastercard to be the exclusive provider for issuing and processing services. And in Latin America, we've expanded our relationship with Ualá, one of the fastest growing fintechs in the region, to be the exclusive network of prepaid debit and credit. So we are continuing on our trajectory delivering another solid quarter of new and renewed wins, an important element of our growth algorithm. Beyond new wins, we are driving growth in payments through the development of innovative solutions, like our instalment offerings. In Australia, we're scaling our solutions with some of the largest banks in the market, including Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank and Westpac. Providing the way to pay is central to what we do, so to is making sure people and businesses can use those payment tools whenever they want. Along those lines, we are continuing to drive growth in acceptance, expanding connectivity and trust across all forms of card payments. Our acceptance footprint has now surpassed 100 million locations effectively doubling over the past five years. And that's just the start. Our innovative contactless, cloud commerce and click to pay solutions give more merchants the ability to accept electronic payments with simple technology connectivity. To us that's an opportunity to bring more physical and digital transactions onto our network. Over 100 markets have now reached at least 50% contactless penetration double the number three years ago. Contactless drives higher consumer engagement and helps to accelerate the secular shift to digital payments by accessing lower ticket size purchases that have historically been cash based. In quarter one, our tokenization capability was selected as part of a mobile payments launches in South Korea, and even a significant number of private label cards for contactless and thereby giving us the opportunity to deliver services on those transactions. We continue to see momentum in tap on phone, with programs across more than 70 markets globally. We continue to scale, including the Stripe announced in quarter 1 that they have enabled tap-to-pay on Android in multiple markets. In addition to helping our partners bring tap-on-phone to market, our cloud commerce acceptance technology is now live in Europe. Our cloud commerce capabilities make it easier and tricker for businesses of all sizes to accept payments on virtually any device. And click-to-pay is now live in nearly 30 markets globally, including key markets such as Australia, Brazil, U.K. and U.S. We are partnering with payment service providers like Mexico and Italy to further expand our presence. This is all complemented by our workers' partners to grow acceptance by integrating the payment experience where their customers are. You see that in the social commerce space with what's happened in Brazil, enabling consumers to make purchases directly from small businesses right within a chat. Further, we remain focused on expanding our set of new payment capabilities to capture a prioritized set of new payment flows. I'll highlight a couple of areas we are targeting, starting with commercial. We had a strong growth in the space with volumes across our commercial credit and debit products in quarter 1, up 21% versus the prior year on a local currency basis. We see substantial opportunity to grow in commercial, particularly with our virtual card and small business solutions. With virtual cards where we are the market leader, one of our initiatives is to integrate our solutions with leading B2B technology platforms. This quarter, we signed a partnership agreement with Coupa to enhance their Coupa Pay solution, which embeds virtual cards to address accounts payable flows. On a small business front, today, only a small fraction of payments are captured on card. We are enhancing the value propositions from programs like Easy Savings, which offers automatic merchant-funded rebates to nearly 40 million enrolled cardholders in over 80 countries. And we are growing by establishing new issuance deals through partners like Galileo in the United States, the Mastercard will be the preferred brand for small business and commercial programs. Now beyond commercial, disbursement and remittances flows represent a significant opportunity for growth through geographic expansion, new distribution partners and an expanding set of use cases. In terms of new markets, our gaming use case is now live in Canada and Peru, and we have added cross-border origination to the UAE and Uzbekistan. By connecting with MFS Africa, a leading digital payment company, we have enabled mobile payouts across 10 markets in Africa. We are working with distribution partners like checkout.com to increase reach to even more customers in Asia and the United States. And we're enabling our cross-border services solutions to small and midsized banks through cross-border services express with this simple-to-use digital-first solution, participating financial institutions can offer their customers the ability to send money or pay vendors across the globe quickly and securely. In terms of expanding use cases, we have enabled cash in U.S., in Europe and the U.K., facilitating underbanked customers to safely load cash into their accounts from a nonbank location, which can also help drive follow-on card spend. So as you can see, we continue to make broad-based progress in addressing our prioritized set of new payment flows. Turning now to services. We love services, where we are focused on growth and resiliency through scaling our existing solutions and adding new capabilities. As merchants as consumers shift to digital, our comprehensive set of cybersecurity solutions becomes even more critical. For instance, risk recon helps an enterprise identify their own cybersecurity vulnerabilities as well as for their ecosystem partners. With our acquisition Baffin Bay Networks this quarter, we now have a solution to help these customers act on this information. Specifically, Baffin Bay's AI enabled cloud based threat protection helps to stop cyber attacks related to malware, ransomware, and DDoS attacks. The acquisition also complements our other cyber offerings, including our simulation and assessment tools, as well as our cybersecurity consulting practice. You all are familiar with our comprehensive set of data analytics, marketing, and loyalty assets. These are about helping our partners make smarter decisions to drive better outcomes. For example, Agoda, one of the world's fastest growing online travel platforms in Asia, is leveraging our economic insights to inform their strategic planning. To meet among such, the largest electronics retailer in Europe, is utilizing our test and learn capabilities to support the assessment and optimization of new business initiatives. We also continue to make progress signing deals with retailers and commerce partners, like Hyundai Motors, Europe, and Puma, to utilize our recently acquired personalization platforms Dynamic Yield. We continue to look for ways to combine all these assets to deliver valuable end to end solutions. We just announced elements a suite of applications which brings insights for Mastercards data analytics to enrich dynamic yields personalization experience. Our third key priority area is embracing new networks where we are making progress in the areas of open banking and digital identity. In open banking, we continue to work with a broad set of banks and fintechs who are interested in its potential across a wide range of use cases. In addition to the Pay-by-Bank solution for JP Morgan that we announced last quarter, we are working with payment risk and identification company GIACT, member of the London Exchange to embed a secure account verification solution. Also, Saxo Bank will use our open banking technology for account opening and top ups in Europe. Further, we're developing capabilities on top of our open banking platform, we have advanced analytics partner with Fintech, innovators like [indiscernible] Nath, enigma and Gen Equity to expand access to capital, with better data for making lending decisions. This is another great example of how our technology supports small business. Moving next to digital identity. We continue to see strong adoption of our intelligent identity solutions powered by machine learning. This quarter, we secured a key partnership with Southwest to embed our intelligent identity solutions from content to reduce fraud and friction in digital interactions. Still early stages with open banking and digital identity, but we are making progress scaling our technology to new markets and use cases with notable partners. So with that, I'll wrap it up and in summary, we delivered another strong quarter of revenue and earnings growth, reflecting a resilient consumer and the continued recovery of cross border travel. We will continue to watch the environment closely and are prepared to act as circumstances dictate. We see a significant opportunity ahead having now surpassed 100 million acceptance locations worldwide. And our focus strategy, diversified and resilient business model and strong relationships around the globe position as well through economic cycles. Sachin over to you.
Sachin Mehra: Thanks, Michael. Turning to Page three, which shows our financial performance for the quarter on a currency neutral basis, excluding special items, and the impact of gains and losses on equity investments. Net revenue was up 15%, reflecting resilient consumer spending and the continued recovery of cross border travel. Operating expenses increased 12%, including a 2 ppt increase on acquisitions. Operating income was up 17% which includes a 1 ppt decrease related to acquisitions. Net income was up 2%, which includes the 1 ppt decrease in two acquisitions, EPS was up 4% year over year to $2.80, which includes a $0.07 contribution from share repurchases. Of note, the respective growth rates of net income and EPS were negatively impacted by a low tax rate in 2022 as a result of sizeable discrete tax benefits last year. During the quarter we repurchase 2.9 billion worth of stock, and an additional 602 million through April 24 2023. So now let's turn to Page four, where you can see the operational metrics for the first quarter. Worldwide gross dollar volume or GDV increased by 15% year over year on a local currency basis. On the same basis, if you exclude Russia from the prior period, GDV increased by 16%. In the U.S., GDV increased by 9%, with credit growth of 15% reflecting in part the recovery of spending on travel. Debit increased 3%, excluding the impact of the roll off of a previously discussed customer agreement, debit increased approximately 6%. Outside of the U.S. volume increased 18% with credit growth of 17% and debit growth of 19%. Cross border volume was up 35% globally for the quarter on a local currency basis, reflecting continued improvement in travel related cross border spending. Turning to Page five, Switched transactions grew 12% year over year in Q1. Excluding Russia from the prior year, the switched transactions grew 20% year over year in Q1. Both card present and card not present growth rates remain strong. Card present growth was aided in part by increases in contactless penetration, as contactless now represents over 58% of all in person switched purchase transaction. In addition, card growth was 9%, globally there are 3.2 billion MasterCard and Maestro branded cards issued. Turning so Slide six, for a look into our net revenues for the first quarter, which were above our expectations. As a reminder, we recently revised that disaggregated revenue disclosure. Net revenues are now broken down into two new categories, payment network and value added services and solutions. Now getting into the numbers described on a currency neutral basis. Payment network net revenue increased 10%, which would have been 1 ppt higher if we excluded the Russia related special item which benefitted Q1 2022. The growth in payment network was primarily driven by domestic and cross border transaction and volume growth and also includes growth in rebates and incentives. Value added services and solutions net revenue increased 21%, including a 1 ppt benefit from acquisitions. The growth was primarily driven by the continued strong growth of our cyber and intelligence solutions driven by underlying driver growth, higher demand for our fraud solutions, as well as the scaling of our identity and authentication solutions. And we saw healthy demand for our data analytics, consulting and marketing services, as well as our loyalty solutions. Now let's turn to Page seven, starting with key metrics related to payment network, again, described on a currency-neutral basis unless otherwise noted. Looking quickly at each key metric. Domestic assessments were up 9%, while worldwide GDV grew 15%. The difference is primarily driven by mix and the underreporting of volumes from sanctioned customers in Russia last year, which accounted for approximately 2 ppt of the variance. Cross-border assessments increased 39%, while cross-border volumes increased 35%. The both PPT difference is primarily due to favourable mix as higher-yielding ex intra-Europe cross-border volumes grew faster than intra-Europe cross-border volumes this quarter. Transaction processing assessments were up 14%, while switch transactions grew 12%. The 2 ppt difference is primarily due to FX-related revenues. Other network assessments related to licensing, implementation and other franchise fees were $212 million this quarter. It's important to note that these other network assessments may fluctuate from period to period. Moving now to Page eight. You can see that on a non-GAAP currency-neutral basis, excluding special items, total adjusted operating expenses increased 12%, including a 2 ppt impact from acquisitions. Excluding acquisitions, the remaining increase was primarily due to increased spending on personnel to support the continued execution of our strategic initiatives. Operating expenses were higher than expected in part due to personnel costs to support higher-than-expected revenue as well as unfavourable foreign exchange related due to the remeasurement of monetary assets and liabilities. Turning to Page nine. Let's discuss the operating metrics for the first three weeks of April. As a general comment, our metrics are holding up well in April. As expected, the year-over-year growth rates are being impacted by 2 opposing factors: one, more difficult comps as we began lapping the effects of Omicron; and two, the lapping of the drag created by the suspension of our operations in Russia in March of last year. To aid in your understanding of the underlying spending trends and eliminate some of the noise induced by the lapping effects, we have also included the metric Index 2019 levels on the slide. Let's discuss each of the metrics in turn. Starting with switched volumes. Through the first three weeks ago, we grew 17% year-over-year, down 1 ppt versus Q1. This reflects more difficult comps and some modest slowing in the U.S. due to lower tax refunds. This started in March and continued into April. This is partially offset by a 3 ppt benefit from the lapping of Russia. Switch transactions grew 18% year-over-year through the first 3 weeks of April, up 6 ppt versus Q1. This includes an 8 ppt benefit from the lapping of the suspension of operations in Russia. As a reminder, Russia had a relatively low average ticket size, which results in a larger relative impact to this metric. In terms of cross-border, volumes grew 29% on a year-over-year basis, down 6 ppt from Q1. This reflects the continued recovery in cross-border travel as well as the positive impact of lapping the suspension of our Russian operations, but is more than offset by a tougher year ago comp as travel surged after the passage of Omicron last year. Cross-border volume is indexing at 171% of 2019 levels in April, up from 168% in Q1. To further assist your understanding of the trends in the business ex Russia, where we suspended operations in March 2022, we have included an appendix to show all data points from the schedule if you exclude activity from Russian issued cards from current and prior periods. Turning to Page 10. I wanted to share our thoughts on the remainder of the year. Let me start by saying that our business fundamentals remain strong, and our diversified business model and our momentum with our customers position us well for the opportunities ahead. Consumer spending overall remains healthy, albeit with some recent moderation in domestic spending in the U.S., in part due to lower tax refunds this year. At the same time, as Michael noted, the recovery in cross-border travel continues with inbound travel to all regions now well above 2019 levels. Within Asia, in Q1, China outbound cross-border travel increased to approximately 65% of Q1 2019 levels, while inbound reached 45% on the same basis. As a reminder, China made up 2% of outbound and 1% of inbound cross-border travel in 2019. We remain well positioned to capitalize on this growth with our travel-oriented portfolios and related service offerings. While we are monitoring a number of macro and geopolitical factors, our base case scenario assumes consumer spending remains resilient and cross-border travel continues to recover. For the year, our outlook has improved modestly, reflecting our stronger-than-expected performance in Q1. We expect net revenue growth for the full year 2023 to be at a low teens rate on a currency-neutral basis, excluding acquisitions and special items. This growth rate would be higher by approximately 1.5 ppt if you exclude Russia-related revenues from 2022. Foreign exchange is expected to be a tailwind of 1 ppt for the year, and we expect minimal impact from acquisitions. Our expectations for operating expense for the year are unchanged with growth expected to be at the high end of a high single-digit rate on a currency-neutral basis, excluding acquisitions and special items. Acquisitions are forecasted to add about 1 ppt to this growth, while foreign exchange is expected to have a minimal impact for the year. Again, we are prepared to proactively adjust our operating expenses if we see meaningful changes to top line growth. With respect to the second quarter, year-over-year net revenue is expected to grow at the high end of a low double-digit rate again on a continual basis, excluding acquisitions and special items. Coming off of a strong Q1, this sequentially reflects a tougher year ago comp, lower anticipated FX volatility, partially offset by lapping the suspension of operations in Russia. Foreign exchange and acquisitions are not expected to have much of an impact for the quarter. From an operating expense standpoint, we expect Q2 growth to be at the high end of a low double-digit rate versus a year ago on a currency-neutral basis, excluding acquisitions and special items. This includes cost of approximately 2 ppt associated with the wind down of our efforts related to the P27 project, given their decision to withdraw their license application in the Nordics. Acquisitions are forecast to add approximately 0 to 1 ppt to this growth, while foreign exchange is expected to be a tailwind of approximately 0 to 1 ppt. Other items to keep in mind, first, on the other income and expense line, we forecast an expense of approximately $100 million for Q2 given the prevailing interest rates and debt levels, which includes a sequential increase due to our recent debt issuance. This excludes gains and losses on our equity investments, which are excluded from our non-GAAP metrics. Second, we expect a non-GAAP tax rate of between 18.5% and 19% for both Q2 and the full year based on the current geographic mix of our business. Before I turn the call back over to Warren to begin the Q&A session, I wanted to express my deep gratitude to Warren for the thought leadership, dedication and friendship he has demonstrated over his last 6-plus years at Mastercard. As previously announced, Warren will be handing over the head of IR role to Devon Core effective May 1, and will be with us through your end in an advisory capacity. Thank you, Warren and over to you for the Q&A session.
Warren Kneeshaw: Thank you, Sachin. I have to say it's been a distinct pleasure. With that, let's turn it over to questions. Audra, we're ready to go.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] We will take our first question from Lisa Ellis at MoffettNathanson.
Operator: We'll go next to Tien-Tsin Huang at JPMorgan.
Operator: We'll go next to Darrin Peller at Wolfe Research.
Operator: We'll go next to Rayna Kumar at UBS.
Operator: And we'll move next to Bryan Keane at Deutsche Bank.
Operator: We'll move next to Sanjay Sakhrani at KBW.
Operator: We'll move next to Harshita Rawat at Bernstein.
Operator: We'll go next to David Togut at Evercore ISI.
Operator: We'll go next to Ramsey El-Assal at Barclays.
Operator: We'll go next to Andrew Jeffrey at Truist Securities.
Operator: And we'll take that from Jason Kupferberg at Bank of America.
Warren Kneeshaw: Thanks, Michael. Any final comments?
Michael Miebach: I do have final comments. So I've made it a habit to thank the 30,000 people at Mastercard for what they did, what they all do. And I shall do that again for this quarter. I thought it was a good quarter, and it is reflective of their work. But I do want to thank you as well, Warren. So it's been fun three years for me and previously with Ajay. So thank you for everything that you did. I know we all talk about you. I do want to talk about Devon as well. So if you could picture us here in this room, here's Devon, and we're looking forward Sachin and I to work with you. And I do want to say, Warren has -- you have built a tremendous set of relationships with the folks on the call. And I look to those folks on the call, first of all, thanking you guys for your support, but also to give Devon, the same kind of support that you have in the past. With that, thank you very much and speak to you one quarter from now.
Operator: And that does conclude today's conference. Again, thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
