Good afternoon, and welcome to Enento's Q4 earnings webcast for the year of 2023. My name is Arto Paukku, and joining me today are our CEO, Jeanette Jäger, and our CFO, Elina Stråhlman. Today, we'll begin with an update from Jeanette and Elina, covering our fourth quarter results, key achievements of the year, and our outlook moving forward. After their presentation, we'll open the floor to your questions. Please feel free to submit your questions at any time using the webcast tool. But now, without further ado, I'll hand it over to Jeanette, and she will lead us through our Q4 highlights. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Arto. Good afternoon to all of you, and welcome to this results briefing from my part. Let's first briefly review the Q4 key developments and then reflect on what happened in 2023, both in terms of numbers, but also what we have accomplished as a company. I will also address a couple of important topics before taking the usual business area update. In the fourth quarter of 2023, our organic net sales amounted to EUR 38.9 million, representing year-on-year decline of 5.5% at comparable exchange rates, mainly due to sluggish demand for consumer credit information services in Sweden. Adjusted EBITDA amounted to EUR 13.4 million, and the EBITDA margin was 34.4%. Our customer Net Promoter Score in our strategic and large customers segment increased to a record high 56.
In business-to-consumer customers, we were very close to our target level. The efficiency program is advancing as planned. EUR 6.3 million run rate impact was achieved, equal to almost 80% of full year 2024 targeted benefits. We are now looking into extending the program, but more about that a little later. We also maintained our employee temperature index and personal development scores at a high level. These, together with a record high development of customer experience, KPI, NPS, are giving us the confidence about our future. Let's then recap the full year results. The organic net sales of the fiscal year was EUR 155.9 million and decreased by 1.4% at comparable exchange rates, and that is due to sluggish demand for credit information services in Sweden.
Our adjusted EBITDA was EUR 57.1 million and decreased by 2.9% at comparable exchange rates. Under the circumstances, we can be proud of our actions to secure the healthy profitability of the company. We successfully kept our profitability close to 2022 margin level, thanks to very successful progress with our EUR 8 million efficiency program and, of course, tight control of our costs during Q4. Our EBITDA margin was well within the guidance range and landed at 30.6% for the full year. As we are seeking scalable growth through introduction of new services, we can be satisfied with the share of new services figure being 9.5%. This is an impressive improvement from the level of 4% in 2022.
Biggest contributors in the improvement are still the positive Daily Credit Register in Sweden and the renewed certificate offering in Finland. But there are other new strategic services delivering good results in both business areas. Our free cash flow amounted to EUR 32 million. The cash flow level was retained despite turbulent macroeconomic environment, enabling value creation for our shareholders. The Board of Directors are proposing a dividend of EUR 1 per share, paid in two installments for the 2023 fiscal year, representing a yield of approximately 5%. Now, moving on, as the headline says, Nordic integration and platform modernization remained relevant to us, but we are adjusting the pace to prioritize efficiency and growth. A declining market requires us to balance the modernization pace with investments in new revenue streams. Firstly, we are focusing on improving efficiency and investing in growth in the short to mid-term.
No significant cost decrease is expected from Swedish mainframe exit in the current strategy period, even with partial customer migration. Exiting mainframe and the One Platform strategy is not a key priority, but remains an option in the longer term. Instead, the focus in current strategy period is rather to drive cost reductions by other means, such as changing the IT delivery model, vendor consolidation, and gradual legacy decommissioning. We are making great progress so far and have extensive plans in place for 2024. Secondly, it is key to fast forward new product development and becoming even more agile. We will capture new revenue streams through new services, addressing new market verticals and penetration of our core markets even further. So additionally, short-term revenues are in focus to offset the market downturn.
Having said this, technology and modernization is, of course, still relevant in all geographies to enable service, development, and limit maintenance. We are still investing in Nordic capabilities to avoid multiple local solutions and also to ensure scalability, but need to adjust the pace because of the mentioned reasons. We are executing on changes in our Nordic IT development model and Nordic infrastructure consolidation to improve security and gain efficiencies, and we will continue to decommission, depending on the speed of modernization of platforms and consolidation of IT applications. Consequently, we want to move focus towards execution of efficiency and the strategy execution for growth. Our EUR 8 million efficiency program has advanced as planned and achieved almost 80% of its target on the run rate basis by the end of 2023, equaling to roughly EUR 6.3 million.
To recap the main drivers, the reduced number of FTEs during Q2, Sweden office move, business process optimization, and first pass of the transition of application service. The rest is expected to materialize now in 2024. Continuing on that theme, we are now moving into implementation phase in the area of IT infrastructure, starting with Sweden. We are doing that together with our partner, TCS, and our target is to streamline our IT infrastructure so that we have one Nordic IT environment with one vendor. Other areas of interest this year include, for instance, efficiencies for higher margins in our SMEs business in Sweden. As a reaction of the current outlook, we are now also planning to extend the efficiency program from EUR 8 million target to EUR 10 million, and we are now planning the further actions how to reach this.
We are looking into further IT efficiencies, as well as other opportunities, how to enhance operational efficiency. Let's then focus for a few minutes on our sustainability agenda and our highlights in 2023. Our vision as the Nordic knowledge company is to power society with intelligence. We offer solutions that create long-term value for customers in society by increasing transparency and trust, and we make it easier for our customers to make sustainable decisions as we transform data into intelligence within areas such as compliance, ESG, and credit information. A few highlights on the sustainability agenda from 2023 are that we have expanded our services within the area of sustainability with further development of our compliance and ESG offering in Finland and Sweden.
We have launched the Real Estate Climate Risk Report, which is a fantastic service in the area of ESG offering, as well as the CO2 calculator for companies in Finland. We reached our carbon neutrality target, and we are on our way to ambitious net zero in 2030. We did receive a high engagement score among our employees versus benchmark. And now in January, Enento was recognized for its diversity work as one of the top 15 companies in the mid-cap category in Nasdaq Helsinki by the Nordic Business Diversity Index. For your information, the Enento Sustainability Review will be published on week 10, together with the annual report. So let's then review the highlight of our business areas, but before we go in there, just a little bit of a reminder.
As you might have remembered from our earlier financial report calls, this slide is visualizing the position and the growth focus from our updated strategy. Compliance is one of the priorities growth areas, and we are already well positioned to capture the rapid growth expected in this domain. Of course, then the tightening regulation and ESG requirements are another driver for our growth. Master data, fraud, real time, all of those are other relevant examples. Start with Business Insight business area. Business Insight continued the positive development track in Finland, Norway, and Denmark. While in Sweden, the macroeconomic challenges are also impacting the demand for our business information services. In risk management services, we see overall good development, but at the same time, we see a market where some of our larger customers were driving efficiencies during the last quarter.
In the fourth quarter, the net sales decreased with -1.1%, excluding the impact of the discontinued Tambur service. During 2023, we have progressed in building the Nordic compliance offering to drive our future growth alongside the other strategic growth choices. Our sanction monitoring service was introduced in Finland, improving the service offering significantly, and there is a very strong sales pipeline for the monitoring services. Our product development push continues in all markets with high growth ambitions for 2024. Sustainability is increasingly important in decision making, and at Enento, we are evolving our services and business to align with this trend. Both the compliance and ESG services continued with handsome growth in the fourth quarter.
Some of the highlights for the quarter was the strong ending for 2023 in the real estate information services, with positive net sales development despite the weak real estate markets in both countries. ESG services connected to real estate information has a promising future as the sustainability data is connected to other traditional data sources. Moving over to Consumer Insight. In Consumer Insight business, we continued on a stable track in Finland during the fourth quarter, but continued to face challenges in Sweden, primarily due to the weak demand for credit information services. Swedish consumers remain cautious with their spending habits and new loan intakes due to high interest and inflation rates. Remember that the Swedes has a high debt level in comparison. Consequently, both real estate transaction and unsecured loan volumes are low, with the market downturn accelerating in the fourth quarter.
Some consumer lenders have exited the market or stopped using loan brokers, further impacting transaction volumes. Recognizing these challenges, we find it even more important to stay close to our customer, and it is also good to underline that we did not lose any customers to competition in 2023. Regarding highlights then from Q4, we have seen significant interest toward our e-commerce offering with consumer credit information, where we have signed a major customer during the fourth quarter. One important near-term priority for Consumer Insight is the adoption of our credit information services for the Finnish Positive Credit Register. That will start its operation in April, now in 2024.
Additionally, we support many of our customers in integrating the positive data from the public register in their lending processes, and we have successfully secured significant customer contracts for our service in this area, and this will enable even better services to our customer as the data could be utilized in services such as scoring. The demand for ID and fraud protection services for consumers has continued on a good level, resulting to a positive net sales growth in the Direct-to-consumer services. Recently, we had good progress in reselling the Direct-to-consumer services to partners, which is according to our Direct-to-consumer strategy. Consumer dialogues for fraud prevention and protection remains a high priority and is proceeding according to plan, with new services expected to be launched in 2024. AI, of course, on the agenda as well, and is a part of Enento's strategy for driving efficiency and innovation.
Our journey with AI spans enhancing internal operations to improving our service offering. Enento leverages machine learning extensively in data management, optimizing our back office and customer-facing operations. Generative AI is now set to further transform these areas, improving everything from data validation and customer support to advanced analytics and sales. Our focus extends to using generative AI for creating value-added services. We divide it into user interface, which are designed to deliver an improved, personalized customer experience, and service content, like gathering, refining data, and build intelligence on that in areas like fraud, master data, et cetera. As we expand our AI capabilities, especially in sensitive areas like consumer credit information, we are mindful of the evolving EU legislation, including the AI Act. Our aim is to harness AI's potential while ensuring compliance with GDPR and other regulatory standards. That was all from me.
Thank you. Over to you, Elina. Well, come up here to stand beside me-
Thank you.
And to also continue. I put this for you.
Thank you, Jeanette. Let's then continue with the finance slides and dig into more detail to Q4 figures. So starting from the net sales, our net sales reached EUR 38.9 million, and unfortunately, due to heavy pressure in Swedish markets, declined by 5.5% at comparable FX rates. In addition, the reported figures continue to be impacted by the weak Swedish Krona. The negative development in Swedish consumer credit information business accelerated. Also, the negative development in Swedish markets started more and more impacting business information services, which then, as total turned group's revenues into more sharper decline. The stable development in the Finnish business and continuing good growth in Norwegian business, combined with good performance in new services, was then not enough to offset this heavy decline that we are seeing in volumes in Swedish markets.
Adjusted EBITDA that declined as well and resulted at EUR 13.4 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin, though, ended up at 34.4% and remained strong, taking into account the heavy revenue decline. On a full year scale, despite all the challenges and decreasing revenues, we also managed to keep the profitability and Adjusted EBITDA margin approximately flat at 36.6%. In Q4, we continued to keep cost development well in control, and costs were actually decreasing. But obviously, what we couldn't then mitigate and offset was the heavy volume decline and weaker sales mix. There is limited amount of variable costs connected to the Swedish consumer credit business, which then means that the decline in volumes pretty much directly impact our profitability.
Adjusted EBIT development, well, that was declining in line with the EBITDA development, and then financial position cash flow, those continued and remained strong. Then, let's then dig into more detailed on the revenue development and start from the Business Insight business area. In Business Insight, the development of the business area turned into decline, and this was also due to struggles in the Swedish markets. Finnish business continued stable and grew, despite some negative impacts from timing of revenues in premium business compared to prior year. However, enterprise business, that continued to develop solid, and we also saw high growth both in compliance and real estate services. Norwegian business, as said, that continued to develop strongly likewise and support the development of the business area.
However, as said, in Swedish markets, there we struggled in all fronts, including also Business Insight and Business Information Services. There, the macro situation has negatively impacted, especially the premium sales for SMEs, as well as the freemium display sales. Moving on to Consumer Insight. Negative development in the Consumer Insight business, that was likewise driven by the Swedish macro, and the business area revenue declined even more sharply than in Q3 at -11.1% base. The consumer credit volumes in Finland were close to flat, but in Sweden, the volumes have heavily declined. Lending transaction volumes have decreased. Usage of broker segment has declined following the increased credit risk, and some lending players, as Jeanette also mentioned, have left the markets.
We have not lost customers, but lending players have simply stopped their operations in the Swedish markets. This development further accelerated in the last quarter and turned our volumes and revenues into sharper decline. Good development in new services, further implementations of Daily Credit Register, were obviously not enough to offset this heavy volume decline. In Finland, we do not see similar trends with broker markets or consumer lending segment or market squeezing otherwise as well. In Finland, the business has continued much more stable. In Consumer Insight, we also have smaller business lines, Direct- to-c onsumer, Consumer Marketing, and those, the development in those remained stable. We also even saw some good growth in consumer marketing business, obviously then compared to low comparisons, but nevertheless, some positive signs there. Good.
Let's then move forward and continue with the profitability development. So as said, adjusted EBITDA was EUR 13.4 million in the last quarter, and despite the fact that we kept costs well under control and even decreasing consumer credit volumes and weaker sales mix combined, then with weak Swedish Krona, turned the adjusted EBITDA development into sharper decline. We have limited amount of variable costs connected to Swedish business in general, but especially in the consumer credit business, which then means that the decrease in volumes directly hits the profitability. Looking at the EBITDA development in more detail, the negative sales mix impact then can be seen firstly in the materials and services, which are our data acquisition costs, and those decreased only slightly despite the hefty revenue decline.
Since the decline in sales took place in the areas with limited amount of variable data acquisition costs. This meant that gross margin also declined by nearly one percentage points. Personnel costs, on the other hand, those decreased by EUR 500,000, and that was mainly following the savings and efficiency actions that we have been taking. The successful savings actions and cost optimization measures, those are also visible in other operating expenses that declined by EUR 300,000. Behind this figure, we have a mix of permanent and temporary cost increases, but of course, also cost decreases, but also cost increases in relation to higher indexes in relation to some contracts.
But, as said, behind this figure, a lot of different variations, but sales commission, starting from those, declined following the declining sales development in the Swedish premium business. But then on the permanent efficiency side, we saw first small impacts from IT efficiencies and actions taken to transition the Swedish application maintenance and development from Swedish contractors to one vendor. We have also taken actions to reduce usage of consultants and optimized our marketing efforts. And then finally, production for own use that declined somewhat due to lower level of development activities following both portfolio optimization, but also due to the heavy focus on IT-related efficiency measures. And then, as said, what comes to the reported figures, the weak Swedish Krona continued to impact the reported figures negatively. Moving forward to free cash flow.
Free cash flow development was good, of course, somewhat declining compared to prior year, but that was mainly due to one-off payments related to efficiency program. Obviously, profitability weakened, but change in working capital had then positive impact and decreased investment likewise. And then adjusted free cash flow, which excludes the items affecting comparability, that actually slightly improved. Cash conversion also improved, and on a full year scale, both cash conversion and adjusted cash conversion exceeded the 60% level. And then finally, our financial position, no news there, continue strong. We have some EUR 70 million of cash at our hands, on top of unused credit lines. And net debt to adjusted EBITDA was at 2.4% clearly below our set maximum level of 3.
Gross investments, as said, those were lower than prior year, and that was mainly following prioritization of activities, as well as then focus on IT-related efficiency activities. But thank you. This was what I, I had to say about the finances. And now, Jeanette, please continue with the dividend and guidance.
Thank you very much. According to Enento's official dividend policy, our aim is to pay at least 70% of earnings per share as dividends, and we want to retain a stable dividend track. We see that our financial position and ability to generate cash flows continue to be strong and enables us to keep the dividend on the same level as last year. The board of directors proposes to the annual general meeting a dividend of EUR 0.5 per share, followed by a second installment of up to EUR 0.5 in November, subject to board decision. Then, focusing on the outlook for 2024. We are currently facing a tough, and I would say unpredictable, or you can also say that we have low visibility in the especially in the Swedish economy, due to macro.
And the first half of the year looks challenging, but there are signs of improvement as we head into the second half year, though it is still uncertain. To navigate in these times, we are focusing on efficiency and cost control, which is crucial for maintaining our profitability despite the market's ups and downs. Also, the variation in our sales mix might impact the profitability. Given these conditions, we are holding off on providing specific financial guidance for now. Yes, it is a cautious approach, but one we believe is necessary to ensure we are setting realistic expectations. And, we are cautious in our 2024 approach. But still, I want to underline and repeat that we stay committed to our long-term financial targets for the strategy period of 2024-2026.
Even if there's low visibility in the outlook and we have challenges, we are focusing on the areas where we can make a difference, resulting in solid financial results, and keep our existing customers satisfied and attract new ones. We have three clear areas to focus on, and I'm expecting the company to increase speed in all areas and stay close to our customers. First area is, of course, continues to be efficiency activities to drive cost synergies with IT improvements and the digitalization of sales and marketing processes, contributing to ongoing progress. Work is done to identify and implement further efficiencies across the company. Secondly, development and promotion of new services targeting strategic growth areas such as compliance services, ESG, and fraud prevention. Then the third area, and market share is being increased through targeted expansion into new customer verticals and the SME sector.
To summarize, we do have headwinds, but we act upon what is within our control. We see this is the way to reach our long-term financial targets forward. And with that, thank you on my behalf, and now it is time for some questions. So please join me for those, Elina and Arto.
Thank you. Very good. So let's kick off with the questions, and I believe we have some from the audience in the studio, so we can start with those. Please go ahead.
All right. Roni Peuranheimo from Inderes. Hi. So first question about the guidance: so why don't you give even a very broad guidance as now the investors can use so that you don't have very good visibility? And is there any other factors affecting this on top of the difficult market environment?
Mm. I can start.
Yeah, please do.
To start with, I would like to again state that we are keeping to our long-term financial plan. I think that is important to state and underline. We believe in that one. Secondly, we see that there is low visibility in the outlook. And therefore, this low visibility doesn't give us guidance enough, so to say, to give that kind of guidance. So we see that as we get better visibility of the macro, especially how the macro is actually having consequences on Sweden and specifically the consumer credit information, when that visibility is better to us, then we can come back to it.
You mentioned that you stick to the long-term financial plans, but I imagine the 5% growth rate at this point seems a bit optimistic for 2024.
We are not giving any guidance for 2024 at this point, and our long-term financial plan gives us the, also the opportunity to have the growth 5%-10% annual average. So that means that we can still have long-term financial plan within our ability to succeed in.
Then about the profit, the one-off items or the items affecting comparability were very high in Q4, so why was this, w hy were the restructuring costs that high in Q4? And what should, what level should we expect for 2024 in this?
The main reason was that we had very high activity ongoing in relation to the IT transition in relation to application maintenance and development in Sweden. It means project costs, but we also had double resourcing for some period in place to secure the transition from asset from Swedish contractors to this new service provider. So that was the main reason behind the high costs in Q4. What comes to the outlook and 2024, we will see significant investments. One of course related to the infrastructure consolidation likewise, but we are not giving any exact estimates or guidance on that yet.
What about the CapEx levels, since you said that you're adjusting the pace for the IT transformation? Could you give some visibility to CapEx levels in 2024?
Yeah, well, I can start with saying that we are planning to keep the CapEx level on about the same level as last year. We are rebalancing what we are investing in. So we are now, with the CapEx, investing in what gives us shorter-term benefits and efficiencies and what brings us the growth forward.
Then about the financial expenses, they increased quite dramatically in Q4 from Q3 levels, so were there interest rate update?
Yes.
This is the level going forward?
Yes. So we have, roughly 2/3 of our loan is connected to Euribor, 12 months Euribor, and interest check takes place always in September on a yearly basis. And then, one-third is connected to it's in Swedish Krona, and it's connected to 6 months STIBOR. So there, the interest rate check takes place every 6 months.
All right, one last question about price hikes. You mentioned that this year you could be able to make those, so what level of price hikes are you expecting?
Do you want to comment?
No, take it there.
Well, we are taking a lot of price actions. We have continued to implement index clauses during the year, and we are also taking some specific pricing actions in related to products in the markets where it's possible, mainly in Finland. But, a nd we are taking obviously a lot of actions, but as said, in this situation with the difficult macro, we obviously are not able to offset, for example, the declining current declining volumes with the price increases.
Maybe one more question about the real estate market. Since in Finland we saw some kind of bounce back in the real estate market, and you mentioned that real estate services were on a good level. But in general, there was in the media that the real estate market came down again, so are you seeing this in your business as well?
Yeah.
Well, to start with, yeah. Do you want to continue?
Yeah, I can-
Yeah
. I can comment that, that of course, what has been, luckily driving the positive development in real estate business Finland has been also the new services that we have implemented. So new, digitalized apartment information services. We have also,
Climate risk.
Climate risk-related service in Sweden introduced. So, luckily, the real estate business positive performance hasn't been so reliant on volumes, and we have continued to see also in January still good good development.
You could say that the driver there is not the volumes anymore in the real estate market as such, but I would say that the driver there is partly how we are working with digitalization of information. But it's also, if we take climate risk, for example, now we are moving closer to the area which I would also actually take under the roof of ESG. And we will see more real estate-related needs for both data points and intelligence, which for me means that you combine different data points, and then you conclude on intelligence on that one. In this case, it's climate risks. So in that sense, I think that we should see now forward that real estate is a very, very interesting area, as such, to comply with and take within ESG, which has future growth potential.
All right. No more questions from me.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks, Daniel Lepistö from Danske Bank. I have a few questions as well, maybe starting up with the guidance. So can you maybe help us here a bit? I mean, you know that there will be weakness in the first half and maybe some small optimism for the second half, so one should, maybe expect that, we will see sequentially similar weakness, at least for the first and maybe the second quarter that we saw, for the final quarter. Meaning, I mean, quite clear sales decline still.
Yes. I mean, like, currently we are not seeing any change in the Swedish consumer credit volumes. The situation continues to be difficult, and at the moment, we expect that to continue, at least for the first half of the year.
That also then includes the, I would say, our areas in Sweden as such, so also including that macro. We all know that we also have seen quite an extensive amount of bankruptcies this last year. Actually, we have seen those on levels that haven't been seen in decades, and that, of course, also is having a push on the small and medium sector as well, so therefore, low visibility.
Yeah. Thanks for that clarification. Maybe the second question about the efficiency program. You know that you will expand it to EUR 10 million from the previous 8.
Mm.
I guess my question is, does this EUR 2 million extra come from operating or capital expenditures?
We are in the planning stage of this, so we will come back to this when we have more to share. We will have further IT efficiencies into it, that we know. But let us come back when we have come further, because right now we are in the planning stage.
Is this the run rate will be achieved by the end of 2024 in either way?
What do we say about that at this point in the planning stage?
Yes, well-
Yes.
Yes, well, the planning for this expansion is to EUR 10 million. Means that we intend to realize the EUR 10 million by the end of the 2024. But as said, it's in the planning phase.
Excellent. I guess the final question on the Finnish Positive Credit Register, I guess, the quick key question here has been that, does this register cannibalize your volumes? Or is this more of a complementary thing here in Finland? So what are you now expecting? Because it's starts to be quite soon when the change happens, so-
Yeah.
What are you expecting to happen to the volumes or revenues?
Yes
In Finland?
Yes. We are expecting a stable development in volumes and revenues. We have for quite some time developed the needed IT systems and also close dialogue with customers. We have several significant customers who we are helping to integrate into the new Finnish Positive Credit Register. And we also see, as we have earlier stated, that we have services which we see will be competitive. So in that sense we expect, at this point, stability. We see the Positive Credit Register coming into play now in the first half.
Thanks. That's all from my side.
Okay, very good. Then let's move on to the questions coming in through the web tool, and there's plenty, so I need to be a bit selective here. But shall we start with some of the financial questions first? So, first of all, the net debt is going up. How do you see the interest rate environment in the next three years? And then there was another question about the same topic, that are we planning to pay back any debt now during this year?
Starting from the paying back debt, so no, we don't have that kind of plans. We are committed to the stick below three times. Three times, but not, h ave no further plans to take actions to decrease the debt. Then when it comes to the interest rate environment, I think that's, you know, anyone's guess is as good as mine there. So of course, there are controversial discussions at the moment ongoing, when will we see the d ecreases happening and how fast. So there is also, again, some inflation rising, so I don't think that I want to speculate more on the interest rate environment.
Yes. Then regarding the ratio between variable and fixed costs in the materials and services line, so Jaakko is asking about shedding moral light in the ratio.
Yes. So what we can say is that overall, overall on group level, less than 25% of our costs are very variable to start with, and we have very limited amount of variable data acquisition costs in Sweden at all.
Mm-hmm.
Those mainly relate to Finnish businesses, consumer credit business Finland, real estate business Finland, consumer marketing business Finland, where we are not, due to various reasons, allowed to store the data by ourselves.
Right.
Mm.
Good. And then you can breathe for a second, and we move on to-
Okay
to Jeanette. So there was quite a few questions about expansion, both geographically or into new business areas. So how do you look at that?
Expansions are always a possibility to look into, definitely. I think that then we need to kind of take it in two. In one way, looking at where we are active today, the Nordic, and if there would be an expansion into other areas, that is, of course, always the door is open to look at that, which would, of course, mean dialogues where I... And I don't dare to go right now on that one. I just say that I think that we should always consider that one. Then expansion within the market we have, I would say that we are doing very well also in expansion from fairly low volumes in Denmark. We know that we are having very good growth levels, and in Den- sorry, in Norway.
Mm.
In Denmark, we have been the Gazelle for two years now, so there we are doing it organically at this point.
Mm.
I think that I... That's all I can say at the moment.
Good. Very good. Then, next one, so maybe we can talk about the positive registers both in Finland and Sweden a bit. So, there's a question about the Finnish register. So how many clients or have we signed all the existing clients into collaboration deals when you mentioned that-
Mm
in your presentation.
All the existing clients. We have signed many clients, not every client, but we have signed many clients, and we are very happy with the development.
Mm. Yes.
Yes.
Good. And then do you have an update on the situation in Sweden? So is the-
Which I should then also say that, you know-
Mm
... we didn't have all the clients earlier. So a ctually, I think that we are very happy with how we have now ended up with, and even actually improved some-
Yes
... to some extent. Which means that we have more contracts and more data.
Mm.
We can improve our intelligence. So far so good, I would say.
Very good.
And when we come to Sweden then... And what is the question actually, then?
Is there any kind of update on the situation in Sweden? I guess that this has been on the agenda-
Yeah
... every quarter, so-
Yeah, it has been. And, and actually, we haven't mentioned it in the update today, because there is no update.
Right. Okay, so that concludes that one. Then maybe to both of you. So y our headcount has slightly increased from the bottom in Q2 last year. Are you comfortable with the current resources or do you need further increase in headcount? And what kind of salary inflation are you expecting in 2024?
As a salary inflation, we have expected, and we have counted on, levels that we feel confident with. In that sense, it was foreseeable to a better extent in 2024 than it was in 2023 in the different countries.
Mm.
So, we feel comfortable with what we have put into the numbers and what we have set aside for that one.
Mm-hmm.
And then the other question was connected to FTE, if the FTE amount of FTEs then would-
Exactly. So,
-increase.
Yeah, are we comfortable with the current resources, or do you need further increase in headcount in order to grow the business?
I would say that, in short, we are happy-
Good
... with the existing.
Very good. I'm jumping around between the topics-
Yeah
... because there are so many.
Absolutely.
But for this year, we say that we see signs of recovery.
Mm
... for the latter part of the year. But what sort of signs do we see? But , what facts do we have that-
Mm
... are justifying the statement?
Well, what we see is that there is signs of volumes coming back. Volumes is coming back connected to signs, it's still signs at this point. And that is connected both to real estate and consumer lending as such volumes, which is a part of our data and our volumes that we sell, but then also within the broker segment. So, yes, there are positive signs, but I would say that we need to see interest rates decrease.
So stabilization or-
We need to see... Yeah-
Mm
... not even more, I would say.
Yeah, exactly.
Stabilization is one.
Mm.
I think we are more or less in a stabilization now.
Yeah
... where we can actually see some smaller volumes come back to brokers, for example, meaning that you are actually looking for new customers.
Mm-hmm.
But for seeing a change, then again, we need to see interest rates come down. And as I mentioned here also, we should, we should understand that we have high debts among consumers in Sweden. Which means then, of course, that there is some- you're cautious about taking on new loans-
Mm
... or even credits connected to e-commerce, which of course is an arena for us as well.
Mm-hmm.
So, it's both about the lending market and the e-commerce market, which is important for us. Then again, when also we see that, we have some, which is leaving, like it did last year, then of course, that is also affecting the volume on the other hand.
Mm.
But yes, we do see some signs. But I just wanted to... That was a long answer, but I just wanted to put it into context.
Yes. Very good. Then about the, the share of new services. So do we, do we think that we can maintain the current level of share of new services from, from the net sales during this year?
Yes. Yes, we do. So it's. We have, of course, a lot of good services already introduced that we continue to see have good demand, and we have also a lot of good stuff in the pipeline. So we expect the new services to continue to support our, our development in this year as well.
Good. And then there's a very direct question: what was the volume decline in consumer inside Sweden? And I guess this is a reference to the Q4 decline.
Yes. So we saw roughly 20% decline during the Q4, and it even somewhat accelerated in the last month of the year.
Yeah. Good. Then regarding the platform modernization topic, so there's an argument that it seems to be once again further postponed. And could you please walk through the key development and challenges with this project since 2020 Capital Markets Day? Maybe that's too big of a question for this session, but anyways, at this point, should we disregard the originally promised efficiency potential from the platform transformation for earnings and cash flow?
Okay, that was a big question.
It is. Mm.
I will have to try to do this very shortly.
Yes.
I'm happy to come back to the person who has-
Yes
... stated this question, to have a longer-
Mm
session on that one. And to start with, yes, what was mentioned in Capital Markets Day earlier, that was also revised last year in January.
Exactly, yes.
So, so that was already communicated last year in January. And, in January last year, we also said that we want to make sure that we are, putting our investments into the right pockets, which give us, the right return. And we need to be able to modernize and do Nordic consolidation to the pace that is also relevant financially and under the financial circumstances, and that is still relevant.
Yes.
Right now, I say that we continue doing Nordic consolidation, because we have. We have developed new decision as a service, which is, you know, a Nordic consolidation. We have made other Nordic consolidations as well, and modernized, and we will continue. But we need to do it in the pace of the financial frame, and we have also. And that was also shared in January last year. We have found other sources of efficiency, which gives more euro faster, which is the base of the efficiency program, which has been 8, and now we are planning for 10.
Yes.
The efficiency program is reflecting what we are actually executing on within the IT area.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, very good. I think we can pause it there.
Yeah
... but then take a follow-up question on the announcement that was made yesterday regarding the collaboration with TCS. I'm just trying to find the question, because there's a few questions, but if I cannot find it. But anyways, it was about what is our expectation now when the collaboration is ongoing with them, and what sort of material benefits do we see coming in from the collaboration-
Yeah
... this year and going forward?
Yeah. And this collaboration is something that we have started up with-
Exactly
... in 2023-
Yes
... the collaboration with TCS. The application maintenance and also the way we continue now to do development, which has been a fair share of our efficiencies in efficiency program, that is with TCS. We have done that. And now we are taking that collaboration to the next step, with the completion of actually taking the infrastructure into the collaboration with TCS as well, which is also a fair share of the efficiency. And these are examples of what I mentioned earlier. This gives more benefits faster to us, both efficiency, but actually also, which is important, I think, today, speed: speed in development of new services, and security. So security is an important area for us. And of course, with our kind of customers, with sensitive data, security needs to be a top priority.
We are all aware of what has happened now quite recently also on the IT market, so I think it's fair now to state also that security is a part of this benefit, which we are realizing together with TCS.
Exactly.
Mm.
Anything you want to add, or?
Yes, so when it comes to the realized efficiencies, we are already starting to see the first efficiencies of this cooperation realizing through the transition of the application and maintenance development. When it comes to infrastructure consolidation related activities there it will take a lot of work.
Yes
... and some time-
Mm
... to start realizing the benefits. So there, the benefits will mainly be visible then only next year.
Yes.
Very good.
That is important to state-
Mm
... the timing of this-
Yes
... that this is we are doing the work in 2024 to realize more 25 forward.
Yes.
Mm.
Very good. I guess that we are sort of running out of time in one minute, if that's true, or do we still have time to continue? I guess we can close the session soon, but we have time for one more quick question.
Okay.
This one we covered. What would you say that are the most important areas in 2024 now, given this challenging situation to boost our sales?
Hmm. To boost our sales, well, I would say one is, of course, to sell what we have and sell more of what we have to existing customers, because that is usually the best. That includes, of course, also now, secondly, that the new services that we are coming up with fast comes to the table of the customers. We are short, but still also co-developing most of our new services together with customers. So it's not something we are doing on our own, in the laboratory. We have customers on piloting most of our new services.
Very good. Okay, thank you very much, everyone, for your questions. Thank you, Elina, Jeanette.
Thank you. Thank you.
And, we