Good morning. My name is Daniela, and I will be your conference operator. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. This is Liverpool's fourth quarter 2021 conference call. There will be a question and answer session after the speaker's opening remarks and instructions will be given at that time. Today, we have with us Mr. Enrique Güijosa, Chief Financial Officer, El Puerto de Liverpool, Mr. José Antonio Diego, Treasury and Investor Relations Director, and Mr. Enrique Griñán, Investor Relations Officer. They will be discussing the company's performance as per the earnings release for the fourth quarter 2021 issued this week. If you did not receive the report, please contact Liverpool's IR department and they will email it to you.
Please note that this call is for investors and analysts only, and questions from the media will not be taken, nor should the call be reported on. Any forward-looking statements made during this conference call are based on information that is currently available. They are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the expectations and assumptions discussed today. This may be due to a variety of factors, including the risks outlined in El Puerto de Liverpool's most recent annual report. Please refer to the disclaimer in the earnings release for guidance on this matter. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Enrique Güijosa.
Thank you very much. Good morning to everyone, and thanks for joining us, and welcome to Liverpool's Q4 2021 conference call. Once again, I sincerely hope that you and your loved ones are healthy and doing well. I will be providing some perspective on the overall company results, initially regarding our Q4, and then quickly covering the full year. Afterwards, and as usual, we will open the session for Q&A. Overall, 2021 was a year of continued transformation for Liverpool, and we are in great financial shape. Our accomplishments in the fourth quarter span across key variables such as revenue, margins, and cash generation. We also delivered solid results in the digital channel and in logistics. It is worth noting that in many fronts, we're already at or above our pre-pandemic levels.
Importantly, throughout the fourth quarter, all our stores and shopping centers were open and operating with few non-material restrictions. Conversely, the base period was strongly affected by the closure of our stores and shopping centers in the central part of the country, including Mexico City, just a week before Christmas. As mentioned, during this quarter, we attained solid results and moved ahead on all our strategic initiatives. Retail revenue increased 20.3% when compared to Q4 2020, and we remain encouraged by the indication of the positive impacts for our business as customers return to some degree of normality. Same-store sales for Liverpool posted a 17.5% increase, while Suburbia reached 35.1%. We're very excited about our same-store results as they continue to strengthen against competition.
For reference, department stores in ANTAD reported an average of 16.1% increase, well below both the Liverpool and the Suburbia numbers. Due to the efforts of our commercial group, our fourth quarter also reflects a solid inventory management, which allow us to reduce rebates on discounts and at the same time, a significant increase in the soft lines share. As a result, retail margin was 32.7%, a sound 510 basis points compared to year ago. For perspective, commercial margin was 10 basis points above 2019. Revenues in our shopping center business increased 22.4%, and it looks like we reached the bottom of our occupancy rate in the third quarter as we close the year at 91.1%, 30 basis points above year ago.
Our credit business also reflects positive performance with a 1.3% revenue increase. Credit accounts grew 6.3% to reach almost 6.1 million at the end of the year. The measures that we put in place to control risk continue delivering excellent results, and the delinquency rate was a record low 2.2%. We have not seen such a low number since all the way back to 2004. As we had anticipated, the provision for bad debts during the quarter reached an inflection point, posting a total of MXN 1.3 billion, almost 2x above year ago. Importantly, we closed the year with conservative coverage ratios as the impact of the new COVID variant on collections was difficult to determine.
Our bad debt reserve coverage at the end of the quarter was 11.3% of our gross portfolio and 5.7x our 90+ days overdue balance. Operating expenses for the fourth quarter, excluding bad debt provision and depreciation, were 20% above year-ago. The fourth quarter includes the effect of one-off expenses related to the provision for the closure of our Huehuetoca distribution center for MXN 210 million. As well as non-comparable effects in personnel expenses related to the executive compensation, specifically our performance bonus and the employee statutory profit sharing. The combined effect of all these effects explain more than 60% of the increase that we observe in our OpEx. Our EBITDA for the quarter was MXN 10.3 billion.
This is 42% over year ago, and our EBITDA margin was 18.4%, a 300 basis points increase versus year ago. Should we exclude the above-mentioned one-off and non-comparable effects, our EBITDA margin will have reached 20.3%, 480 basis points below 2020, and just 120 basis points below 2019. Cash flow from operations during the fourth quarter was very strong, at MXN 16.8 billion, more than 40% above both 2020 and 2019. This reflects the strong operating performance, sound inventory control, the normalization of accounts payable to suppliers, and lower advanced payments of income tax.
Our cash balance as of December 31 was MXN 32.5 billion, and given that our gross debt closed the year at MXN 3.5 billion, we posted a negative debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 0.08. Turning to our omni-channel experience, our digital channel delivered strong results amid a strong comparison basis in Q4 2020. Although GMV for the quarter was basically flat versus year ago, it was 2.4x above 2019. Our digital share was 21.3%, 2x above 2019. As you all know, Marketplace is one of our key growth initiatives, and it grew 36% during the quarter and more than 7x compared to 2019. Our sellers and SKUs basically doubled year-on-year.
Suburbia online sales grew almost 3.6x compared to 2019. Liverpool Pocket user base increased almost 10% in the quarter, and just during the month of December, new digital customers increased 28%. Another one of our strategic initiatives is faster deliveries. During the quarter, we released new online product offerings on the back of our real-time inventory availability at our store level. Our Flash option allows our customers to see the inventory that is available at the store they choose and collect their merchandise within two hours on the Click & Collect modules or have it delivered to their homes within 24 hours. Same day and next day delivery increased 85% versus 2020. Furthermore, we continue to leverage one of our key competitive advantages. This is our store network.
The share of our direct deliveries from stores increased 2.6x during the year. Our average delivery time in December was 40% below year-ago. Importantly, we've seen a gradual but sustained recovery in Click & Collect, reflecting the return of customers to our stores. We ended the quarter at 38% with an average fulfillment rate of just two hours. Our delivery commitments for the year was achieved on 94% of all orders, a four percentage point improvement over the previous year. In other exciting news on the technology front, the first phase of our new transportation management system, which we call TMS, was put into operation, and we started the modernization of our critical backbone order management system or OMS. Also, a new version of the warehouse and store procurement platform for the picking, packing, and shipping processes was put in production.
We opened a new Suburbia store at Mundo E in the metro area of Mexico City and moved the Suburbia Plaza Del Sol store to a space which was formerly occupied by Liverpool at this same shopping center, which is owned by the company. I will now briefly talk about 2021 full year results. Our total revenue increased almost 30.8% compared to 2020 and 4.7% compared to 2019. Retail revenue shows an increase of 30.5% and 7.54% when compared to 2020 and 2019 respectively. Retail margin improved 420 basis points to reach 31.3%, albeit still 50 basis points below 2019.
EBITDA for the year was MXN 23.9 billion, in line with 2019 and 2.7x higher than 2020. EBITDA margin was 15.8%, 70 basis points below 2019. Excluding the above mentioned one-time and non-comparable effects, it will have been 16.5%, which is basically at the pre-pandemic levels of 2019. Moving to capital expenditures, we invested almost MXN 6 billion. Of this amount, 36% correspond to expansion, 14% to remodeling projects, and 50% to logistics and information technology. The development of PLAN, which as you know, is our Arco Norte logistics platform, continues right on schedule and is set to start operations for big ticket processes in the first half of 2022.
In fact, I'm happy to report that we started to move merchandise to this new facility on February 14. Investment in PLAN during 2021 was MXN 1.8 billion, and this brings our cumulative CapEx in this important project to MXN 4.4 billion. The dividend of MXN 1.50 per share, or a little bit more than MXN 2 billion, which was approved in last year's shareholders meeting, was paid in two installments of equal amounts. The first one back on October 29, and the second one just a few days ago on January 28. Well, that's it in terms of our performance over 2021. Let me share with you now what I see as the key challenges that we are expecting in 2022.
The first one has to do with the economic growth for the country, which, as you know, is now expected at only 2.1%, and unfortunately has been going down every time it has been updated. The second one has to do with inflation. As you know, inflation in Mexico was 7.4% in 2021, and we will probably close this year at 4.45%. This will certainly erode the purchasing power of our customers, while at the same time exerting pressure on our cost of goods sold and our operating expenses. The next one has to do with potential supply chain disruptions. We have already seen some stock outs in several categories, like sporting shoes and sports apparel, although they have been immaterial.
We're confident that we will be able to navigate this environment during the year, but this is certainly something to follow up closely. Next one, we need to recover the productivity of our credit portfolio. A conservative approach to risk management was the right thing to do throughout the pandemic, and as I said above, we closed 2021 at a record low level. We now need to strike the right balance between risk management and interest income. Finally, let me share with you our 2022 guidance for our most important KPIs. Regarding same store sales, it is important to recall that the first 45 days of 2021 were significantly affected by store closures in the central part of Mexico, so the base period for the first quarter will be relatively easy.
We expect same store sales for the first quarter of 25% for Liverpool and 33% for Suburbia. For the balance of the year, that is, from April to December, we expect same store sales for Liverpool in the 5%-5.5% range, and in the case of Suburbia, in the 8%-8.5% range. In our credit business, we expect to close the year with an NPL of 3.0% and a full year bad debt provision in our P&L of MXN 1.45 billion. This will be 22% below year-ago. In spite of the challenging environment that we will face in terms of retail margin and operating expenses due to inflation pressures, we expect to keep our EBITDA margin basically flat at 15.8%.
CapEx is expected to be at MXN 10 billion, and once again, logistics and technology will account for close to 50% of the total investment. Finally, in terms of store openings, we're planning to open two new Liverpool stores. One of them is our first store in Tijuana, which is the last big metro area in Mexico where we don't have any presence, and another one in the metro area of Mexico City. In the case of Suburbia, we expect to open 15 new stores. Thank you once again for your trust in our company as we continue to serve our customers everywhere, every day and lifelong. Let me now move to your questions. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We will now conduct a Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question, please press the raise your hand button located at the bottom of the screen. If you are connected via telephone, please dial star nine. We remind you that all lines have been placed on mute. When it is your turn to ask a question, you will be unmuted. If you have placed yourself on mute, you will need to unmute yourself to ask your question. We will now pause for questions. Our first question comes from Vanessa Quiroga. Please state your company name and ask your question.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question and congrats on the results. I have a few questions. The first one would be about the update on the logistics strategy. What percentage of total CapEx have you already disbursed in the development of the new distribution center backbone that you are developing? And then also if you could provide an expectation of when Liverpool will be able to provide a specific arrival date, delivery date for each product sold online. And I guess your expectation for Click & Collect going forward as you continue building on your logistics strategy. Thank you.
Yes. Thank you, Vanessa. Well, in terms of our Arco Norte project, we invested MXN 1.8 billion during 2020, 2021, and this brings the cumulative total spending in this strategic project to a total of MXN 4.4 billion. For 2022, we expect that more or less MXN 3 billion out of the total investment of MXN 10 billion I would just mention in our prepared remarks will be allocated to this project. This will then bring the total cumulative investment to basically close to MXN 7.5 billion by the end of 2022. As I said, we are already starting to move merchandise basically for the Williams-Sonoma brands to Arco Norte.
Things have been going smoothly, and we will move in the next phase of the project to complete, you know, the full movement from the Huehuetoca to Arco Norte by the end of the first semester. In terms of your second question and when we will be able to offer a specific date of arrival, I think that this will still take some time. I think that we will continue to play with to offer our customers ranges. We have been working very hard to, you know, to reduce the range.
It used to be that we have a range which was very open, basically between the minimum and the maximum, we could have all the way up to 10 days, and we have been trying to shorten that lead time in order to be more effective in terms of our arrival dates. Finally, on your Click & Collect question, as I said, we are very encouraged by the fact that with the return of our customers to our stores, the Click & Collect has been gaining ground. In December specifically, it was at 38%.
Hopefully we are, you know, assuming that as things go back to normality, hopefully we don't face any new store closures, then we will see high 30s% or even low 40s% in terms of our Click & Collect.
That's great. No, that's great, Enrique. I guess on your e-commerce numbers, you have been at around 20% penetration for the last three quarters, and your target is 35%, if I remember correctly. Do you expect 2022 to see an acceleration and getting closer to the medium-term target?
Yes, absolutely. I mean, we have you know very aggressive targets for our GMV and digital GMV in 2022. We have you know an internal objective of growing it close to 40%. This you know depending what you assumed for the physical stores, but this should get our digital share close to the 28.5-29% share. That will put us on our way to the 35% that we shared with you in the Investor Day. Yes, we are assuming that we would move the needle significantly in terms of the digital share in 2022.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Andrew Ruben. Please state your company name and ask your question.
Hi, Andrew Ruben from Morgan Stanley. Thank you very much for the question. I thought the guidance was extremely helpful. Just to dig in a bit on margin, you mentioned some of the headwinds that you expect. Can you talk about some of the offsetting factors that give you conviction in the flat guidance? Thank you very much.
Yes. Well, I think that Andrew, the first one obviously has to do with delivery, delivering our top line objectives, no? You see how the same-store sales by targets I just shared with you. They translate to retail revenue growth, total growth of around 11%. That will give us, you know, an important, let's say shield in order to accommodate the pressures that we're seeing at the gross margin and at the operating expense front. Again, that will be critical in order to gain, you know, the leverage that we need to offset the headwinds that we set.
At the same time, as I said in the prepared remarks, we had, especially in terms of our personnel expenses in 2021, we exceeded our initial objectives that we, you know, had agreed with our board by a lot, significantly. The performance bonus that we will pay in 2021 will be on the high side. Usually, we pay like, you know what, like 1.3 months on average of performance bonus. This year, because basically all our business units exceeded significantly their objectives, we're gonna pay close to three months. That's very good news for our executives.
For next year, we are already setting with the better visibility we have more aggressive objective for 2022. This I think will allow us to bring the performance bonus back to the normal levels, 1.3 months. That will also give us some relief to offset some of the cost pressures that we're expecting.
I guess that the only thing we would add is that, as we, you know, like, are negotiating, you know, store supplies and, you know, packaging costs, and we are, you know, doing our best in order to try to offset the inflation or cost increase pressures by challenging our specifications and see if we can gain also some ground on to offset the inflation.
Great. That's all, very helpful color. Thank you again.
Thank you, Andrew.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Luis Willard. Please state your company name and ask your question.
Hi, Enrique. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Hope you're all right. Just a quick one on capital allocation. I mean, the cash flow has been outstanding this year and last. It basically left you with some resources ahead to deploy. What do you describe as your capital allocation priorities in the next three years? If your perspective has changed in this regard? That would be the first, and I have a little follow-up after.
Yes, Luis. Thank you. Well, not really. I mean, the perspective we have in terms of deploying our capital base is to continue investing our CapEx in the MXN 10 billion-MXN 11 billion range for this year and probably the next two. Again, the lion's share of this total investment, close to 50% will be devoted to strengthening our logistics network and our technology projects. You should expect, again, to see perhaps that same, you know, trend that we have seen basically in the past 12-18 months.
That should again probably take, you know, like MXN 30 billion the next, this year and the next two in terms of capital investments. In terms of dividends, we still don't have, you know, a specific amount. We will have the shareholders meeting in March 10. It will probably be around MXN 2.3 billion. That's what we are expecting. Again, it has to be still voted in the shareholders meeting. That should give also some flavor of what we are expecting in terms of paying dividends. Other than that, in terms of working capital, inventory and trade payables should continue to basically offset each other.
Hopefully, you know, our credit card portfolio will grow very close to our retail revenue target. That will require probably around MXN 4 billion-MXN 5 billion year-on-year, which again will take some cash. That's basically, you know, as you can see, it's basically, you know, the same thing that we have announced. We don't expect any major deviation. We don't have any, you know, M&A plans, although we, as usual, are open to any options that may appear, but we are not pursuing anything specifically at this point in time.
Correct, Enrique. Thank you. If I may have a follow-up on the Q&A on the e-commerce side. I mean, you've talked about this through your remarks in the Q&A, but especially about the 24-hour delivery promise, if I'm not mistaken, you said it grew 85% versus 2020. I wanted to ask first if you had any idea that you could share with us of what kind of penetration does this option have within your overall delivery, excluding Click & Collect. The second is, how are you preparing, I mean, Liverpool and your capabilities of distribution, if this option continues to increase in demand from your consumers or clients?
Yeah. Well, we have seen, I mean, very receptive customer to this option. That's obviously very important. We've seen that, you know, the customer is getting familiarized with this Flash. You have to choose the Flash option in order to make sure that the SKUs that you see that are displayed to you are the ones that are available at the store that you chose when you know decide to go for the Flash option. Again, I'd say that the acceptance from our customers has been high. I think that overall, the penetration of this 24 is still low. I would say that it's probably around 10%.
Well above what we had before. I'm sure that we will share more perspective on this front when we have our Investor Day in early May.
Perfect. Very good. Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Rodrigo Echagaray. Please state your company name and ask your question.
Rodrigo here from Scotiabank. Thanks for the call and congrats on the results. Just maybe if you can please share some color on your online sales. How important is it, 3P within the GMV? Where do you think that will be in perhaps a couple of years and maybe shed some color on what kind of sellers or categories have you been mostly focused on the marketplace? That's my first question. Thank you.
I believe you are on mute.
Sorry. Thank you. Yes. Thank you, Rodrigo. Regarding your question on 3P, which internally we call Marketplace. As I said in the prepared remarks, we are observing in Q4 year-on-year growth of 36%. You compare it on a two-year stack, basically, it was 7x above what we had in 2019. We continue to see, you know, a very significant growth of that option. If you see for the full year, we ended 3P with a growth of 52%. It basically accounted for almost 14% of what we sell in our eCom channels. It's gaining a lot of ground.
For this year, we have a very challenging objective of basically doubling the GMV that we achieved in 2021. That's essentially a tall order. It's a very important growth strategy and explains a big part of the 40% target that we have for 2022 for GMV growth. We expect to continue growing our sellers this year. We also are placing, you know, very tall objectives, growing our sellers by 71% this year, growing our SKUs by 89%. All in all, this will continue to be a key focus area for the company. No doubt about it.
Got it. Thank you. If I understand correctly, the way you calculate the penetration of online sales is by including the commissions of those 3P sales, and then you divide that by the entire GMV, correct?
Yeah, that's correct. The way we calculate digital share is basically we take the sales that we do with 1P, both on the digital channel and we also consider digital sales, the sales that are done in our stores through the app of SKUs that are not available in the sales floor. That's what we call extended catalog. The fact that we can offer those SKUs, again, that are not present in the sales floor, to our customers and sell them in the stores, is because we have the extended catalog in the iPads in the hands of our sales associates. That's also part of what we call digital sales.
You're right, we also take into account the take rate for the Marketplace business. The denominator is basically the 1P sales of the total company and the addition of all the commissions that we get paid.
Got it. All right. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.
Thank you, Rodrigo.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Camila Azevedo from UBS. Please state your question.
Hi, this is Camila Azevedo from UBS. Thank you for taking my question. My question is regarding your logistics network and last mile. What percentage of your orders are shipped directly from your stores, and what is your target for 2022? Thank you.
Yes. Thank you, Camilla. Well, the share that we have of you know the orders that are shipped directly from the stores in Q4, it was around 15%, well above you know the 5%- 7% of where we started to use this option. We, as you can imagine, this is one of our key competitive advantages to leverage the store network. We're planning for this year to be in the 20%-25% range. That, again, is very, very aggressive, but we think that we can get there.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Rahi Parikh from Barclays. Please ask your question.
Hi, this is Rahi Parikh filling in for Ben Theurer from Barclays. Just one quick question. In terms of your transportation management system and OMS, should we expect a ramp up for some months, or are these already fully operational? Thanks so much.
Yes. Thank you. Well, TMS, basically, we have a couple of phases. We already launched the first one. The first phase has to do with the transportation that we do from our distribution centers to the store network. That's what we call, you know, the first leg of our supply network. That's already up and running. The second phase, which has to do with moving the merchandise from the stores to our home deliveries or transfers, will be operational by Q3 this year. In terms of the order management, that will have several phases. We started with Suburbia, which really didn't have any, you know, OMS in the past. That went live by the end of 2021.
The next phase will be in Q2, and we have another couple of phases throughout the year. It will be a phase by phase approach.
Got it. Thank you so much. Congrats on the results.
Thank you very much.
Our next question comes from Joaquín Ley from Itaú. Please ask your question.
Hello, Enrique. How are you? Thank you for the call. I have two questions and then a clarification, if I may. First, in addition to the Arco Norte project, if I understood correctly, you have also the project of developing, if I remember correctly, about seven regional distribution centers, either building them or modernizing the ones you have. If you could provide us, please, with an update on where you are in that project. Okay? And the second is regarding your loan book. I'm trying to reconcile the idea of 17% growth in the loan book with a 1% increase in revenue. I know there's always a lag between you rebuilding the loan book and then the revenues kicking in, but I'm curious to know what's.
How the proportion of non-interest bearing loans has evolved, please?
Sure. Thank you, Joaquin. Well, regarding your first question, yes, you're completely right. Besides the Arco Norte project, another important strategic initiative in our logistics is the development of these fulfillment centers. We're still not sure about the total number of them. Probably will be 5-7 nationwide. You're right, the idea is really we lease these distribution centers. Ideally, basically probably to expand them and modernize them with automation equipment. Our plans are to start the first two this year in Q3. The first one in Guadalajara and the second one in Monterrey. As you know, those are the big metro areas besides Mexico City.
This will be, you know, an important start of this very important leg in improving our supply network. The second question regarding the loan book and the mismatch, as you're saying, between the growth of our loan book and our revenues. You are completely right. I mean, we're seeing, you know, a big gap. I first would like to point out that the loan book, if you take a gross loan book and not the net. At the net, you're right, it grew 17% year-over-year. If you see our gross, it grew only, and I would say only quote-unquote, 10%.
I think that 10% is a figure that you have to take into account to see what's the real mismatch between the loan book growth and the revenues. Still 10% and 1% is a big gap. Nine percentage points is a lot of money, and it is basically explained by the fact that as we prioritize, you know, risk management and we put a lot of, you know, tight controls in order to keep our NPLs at the lowest level possible, given the uncertainty. As you may imagine, a lot of these borderline customers that were not very good payers, they were excellent in terms of revenue generation. They paid a little bit late. They basically bought with interest.
They were not good payers. Again, they were the key customers for the financial services business unit. As we started, you know, to tighten the knots in terms of risk management, a lot of these customers were, you know, basically, you know, they're not customers anymore. They were written off, so we're not giving any additional loans to them. Basically what has happened is that we ended up with a big chunk of very good customers in terms of they pay on time, but they're not very good in terms of generating interest.
Mm-hmm.
In fact, what we call totaleros, which are people that, you know, pay the full balance when they have to, they don't take any credit. We've seen them all the way up to 40-45%, which is like 10-15 percentage points what we normally saw before. That's why I said the challenge that we have for this year is that we need, you know, to strike the right balance between being a little bit more open in terms of risk management, not being as cautious as we were. I think that we have, thank God, you know, like better visibility now and regain some of the lost ground in terms of productivity for our portfolio.
We have already, you know, several initiatives in place. We have started to open, for example, the option of taking cash out of ATMs was very much closed for the pandemic. We're little by little reopening them for our good customers. We're starting to review our loan balances to be more aggressive in terms of increasing the lines and salary and just, you know, such.
Oh, okay. That's great color, Enrique. Thank you. Just a quick follow-up. When you mentioned that, as of fourth quarter 2021, 15% of the orders were being shipped from the stores, it doesn't mean that the remaining 85% is being shipped from the distribution centers, but most of that from all the stores, and then there's a transfer, right?
Yes, absolutely. I mean, you see more or less the pie for home deliveries more or less at 8%-10% comes out of our central distribution. The other basically 92% comes out of the stores. The thing is that only 15% go from a store directly to the home, and the other ones go from the store to a consolidation center, and then from there to the home.
Okay. All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have a follow-up question from Vanessa Quiroga. Please ask your question.
Yeah. Thank you for taking my follow-up. You provided guidance of 5.5% growth in same store sales for 2022, if I'm not mistaken. My question is if that includes the increase in e-commerce that you're guiding. Then just a clarification. When you mentioned that you want to double GMV in 2022, you're referring to only 3P or to your total GMV?
Yes, Vanessa. The second question, when I mentioned that we're planning to double our GMV in 2022, I'm talking about 3P, about marketplace. Total GMV should grow 40%. That's the second one. The first question in terms of same store sales, yes, the same store sales guidance I shared includes digital, so it's all in. What I said is that the Q1 is gonna be, you know, like a very easy comparison. We will see 25% for Liverpool and 33% for Suburbia. Things are gonna get tougher in terms of comparing for the balance of the year.
We're expecting from April to December 5%-5.5% in Liverpool and 8%-8.5% in the case of Suburbia. That's. Again, the same store figures include digital.
That's great. That helps a lot. Just an update on your digital financial solutions, everything that you plan to offer in terms of digital and e-wallet and all that evolution and increased offers for your clients. Can you provide an update, please?
Sure. Thank you. Well, in terms of the ecosystem for financial services, we're getting ready basically to launch our digital credit card. We have already launched, as you know, the option of applying for a credit card digitally. In fact, it's now bigger in terms of originating credit than any of our stores. It's already the number one channel for us, and this has been performing very well. Once we give you the green light in terms of authorizing a credit card, you still have to go for the plastic credit card to the stores to go to start buying.
We are working very hard in order to be able to grant you the credit digitally and providing you the option of buying right away in our digital channels without having to, you know, go to a store to pick up your card. We think that will be an excellent option in terms of originating a bigger number of credit accounts. That should be ready sometime in Q2. We are just a few weeks from launching that.
The other thing that we're working very hard as we speak, I hope that by the Investor Day, we will give you more specific details, is that we're also working very hard on the next things that we wanted to launch, which is basically a vehicle to, you know, to a kind of a debit card. We're also working hard on that. Well, we don't have any specifics to announce at this point in time, but we are making progress. So again, I hope that in early May, in that Investor Day, we will finally be able to give you the specifics on that.
Thank you. A follow-up on that, because I'm not sure about this. Do you provide free installments as part of the services of the Liverpool credit card?
Free installments, you mean, monthly or promotions without interest?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. I mean, usually around two-thirds of what we, you know, invoice with our own credit cards are tied to months where interest promotions.
Okay. Okay.
That hasn't changed really. I mean, it has been pretty stable year in and year out.
Yeah, only for promotions. It's not a permanent service, correct?
No, you're right. I mean, it's not permanent. Only for promotional activities.
Yeah. No, I was wondering, Enrique, because now with the buy now, pay later offer that some fintechs are offering, I was wondering if you are planning to do something similar as the installments, but on a more permanent basis. So just, that's just a question. Thank you.
Yeah, well, that's, you know, buy now, pay later is a big question mark for us. I mean, I mean, we, I mean, once we are interested, it's an important promotion for us. A lot of customers take that advantage. For low customers, I really don't see any advantage on the buy now, pay later. Probably the only, you know, upside is on the debit cards that people that don't have a credit card can use the debit card for the buy now, pay later. As we speak, we are taking a look at the output, but we don't have any specific.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
We have time for one more question today from Andrés Ortiz. Please state your company name and ask your question.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. It's Andrés Ortiz from BTG Pactual. I would like to ask about the performance of the provisions that you had this quarter, particularly considering that NPLs were at the lowest in 18 years, right? What drove that, particularly looking at the growth in the loan book of 16.8%? I just want to understand if we will continue to see these levels going forward or should we be more cautious for the next year? Thank you.
Yes. Thank you, Andres. No, I think that we believe that we have already hit, you know, rock bottom in terms of NPLs. As I said, we want to be cautiously more, you know, open to take a reasonable risk. Little by little, it's gonna be a gradual thing. We expect that the NPL will finish 2022 at 3.0%. We will see, you know, an increase of 80 basis points versus the 2.2% where we ended 2021.
We believe that, you know, being more relaxed in terms of our credit policies is required in order, you know, to strike, again, as I said before, a better balance between the productivity of the portfolio and the NPLs. It used to be, you know, if you see our trends in the past several years, we were frankly comfortable with the NPLs at 4.4%. Two percent is certainly, you know, 2.2% is very low. Again, I think that was the right thing to do given the uncertainty due to the pandemic. Now, we, given the very healthy position that we have, we have some room to be more aggressive on our part.
Perfect. Very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Andres.
Thank you. That concludes our question and answer session. I would now like to hand the call back over to Enrique Güijosa for some closing remarks.
Well, that's it. Thank you. Thank you for your attention. Thank you for your questions. We will send you the invitation for the next you know Investor Day in the next few weeks, so you can block your agendas, and we're happy you know to give you a very broad update on our key strategies and our objectives. Thank you very much. Have a good day.
That concludes today's call. You may now disconnect.