Good afternoon, and welcome to Enento Group's first quarter 2022 earnings webcast and conference call. My name is Pia Katila. I'm Enento's Investor Relations Manager. Today, I'm joined by our CEO, Jeanette Jäger, and this time through online connection, CFO Elina Stråhlman. We will open this news conference with our Q1 presentation, followed by Q&A session. What comes to the agenda, Jeanette will start with the topicals of the first quarter, and then open our customer experience program, as well as have an overview to our new services. After Jeanette, Elina will continue with results and development of the first quarter. For your information, all the presentation material is now available on our investor pages, and this webcast recording later today. At this point, I have pleasure to hand over this to CEO Jeanette Jäger. Please, Jeanette.
Thank you, Pia. Very warm welcome to take part and discuss Enento Group's interim report first quarter. This was my first quarter in Enento Group, and it was a quarter where we experienced a new wave of COVID and the war in Ukraine. As for any new CEO, this first phase is very much about getting a view of what do we do well, and what can we continue to improve in dialogues with customers, employees, partners, and investors. My conclusion from the first quarter is that our management team and our employees are motivated and committed, and have a good understanding of both our customer needs and our services. I've seen both opportunities as well as challenges on our journey to pursue profitable growth. Despite the challenging market environment, our net sales increased in two of our three business areas.
As previously announced, based on our cooperation agreement, the banks have now reached a decision to transfer the Tambur platform to be jointly owned by the banks. I'll come back to this later. The development of the Nordic business platform is progressing, and we have just launched new Swedish ESG report on top of this platform. We continue to see platform development to be key to operate and develop services more efficiently. We also see a need to develop our plans and priorities in this area to secure successful long-term margin improvements. We continue to see both short- and long-term benefits of building and operating a Nordic future-proof platform. I earlier mentioned my impression regarding our abilities of customer understanding. I'm convinced that a truly and fully developed customer-centric mindset within Enento will lead to even more loyal customers and further growth.
Our aim is to deliver a superior customer experience. Now in Q1 2022, our NPS level on the company customers continue to be high, and our consumer NPS levels has increased. We have a structured approach by using both a technical and an organizational setup for a systematic cross-Nordic customer experience program. Our Nordic cross-functional customer team has as their top priority during this year to take action on all the customer feedback we get. We continuously take the insights to concrete actions. Loyal customer stays with us longer, buy more, try new services more often, and will recommend us to others when they see that we actually can deliver the kind of services that are according to their needs, and also in a matter that they feel are relevant for them.
Within the business segment, we have an NPS of 30 in Sweden and 48 in Finland. When it comes to loyalty level from our consumer customers, we have increased the loyalty level with 10% in Q1. Compared to last year and about 90% of our customers says that we actually have a very good support and service. We follow the development of the NPS on a continuous basis, so it's not a yearly follow-up. It's actually on a touch basis, a pulse survey. Again, as I mentioned earlier, from the survey and comments, inputs and insights are taken into action continuously. Here, I just wanted to show you some examples of what our customer shares with us. When we have asked our customers what they think have improved, they mentioned, for example, our onboarding process and that we are more proactive.
Now, regarding the Swedish housing transaction service, Tambur. And Enento has successfully managed and developed the Tambur service platform introduced in 2018. It has been used since then by Swedish banks and real estate brokers in housing transaction processes. Banks have been satisfied with the service that handles most of the housing transaction in the Swedish market. As previously announced, though, based on our cooperation agreement, the banks have now reached a decision to transfer the Tambur platform to be jointly owned by the banks. Enento will continue to provide the services based on the housing transaction service platform until the final handover date in 2023. The conditions relating to the transition period are being negotiated. Now, the share of new services was in Q1, 5.9%.
We launched altogether eight new services in Q1, and to name some highlights, we continue to develop our ESG offering and launched ESG report for the Swedish market and a new version of ESG report for the Finnish market. In addition, we launched ESG online service for easy and secure ESG data reporting and data collection from companies. Now, Enento has been a pioneer and a leading provider of ESG data on the Finnish market since 2017. As mentioned earlier, in March this quarter, we launched the first ESG report also in Sweden. That means that today, thanks to our ESG reports in Finland and Sweden, we know how sustainable 1.3 million companies are in those markets. In addition to that, we have launched a new online service for companies to report their ESG data to us.
Our plan is to develop these services also to the other Nordic countries. A need for reliable ESG data has changed from nice to have to must have. We strongly believe that sustainability offering presents a truly Nordic growth opportunity for Enento Group. Now talking about sustainability, I think it's fair to also mention our own sustainability and our sustainability report. As a company, we focus on sustainability in four main areas, to be sustainable as an employer, our environmental impact, a sustainable investment, and how our data and services contributes to sustainable economy in the society. We have a key role in supporting a sustainable economy and preventing overindebtedness in the society. The discussion regarding overindebtedness is ongoing in our markets, especially in Sweden. By our offering, we promote the availability of unique data and expertise on positive credit information.
Our positive data in Sweden is very comprehensive and already covers more than 98% of all the consumer loans. In 2022, our plan is to get our daily updated credit register in full use to provide on time positive credit data for decisioning purposes. We published our sustainability review in March, and I take this opportunity to highlight that we now have been able to decrease our own emissions with 87.5% since 2019. This is not only due to decreased traveling during the pandemic but also related to a big decrease in emissions when it comes to our IT hosting environment. Now over to the Q1 and our figures. When taking into account the market situation where Q1 was affected by both the corona and the war in Ukraine, we had a decent quarter in terms of growth.
Revenue grew by 4.4% thanks to strong performance in consumer credit business in both markets. We also saw very strong growth in the Finnish compliance services due to the sanctions. The struggles on the enterprise business side, on the other hand, continued. We haven't seen increased activity levels or sense of urgency rising when it comes to counterparty risks, and the volumes of risk management services have continued to remain on the low level. Nevertheless, macroeconomic effects, we are considering what actions could get us back on growth track. Adjusted EBITDA development was negative and declined by 1.3% from last year, following the expense development of EUR 300,000 related to Tambur, but also higher IT costs and timing of marketing costs.
Following the platform program, we are starting to incur with higher license and maintenance costs, and the new services developed on top of the new platform are also increasing IT capacity related costs. Naturally, this lead to weakening margins. We are taking actions to secure better profitability development for coming quarters and long term. By that, I would like to hand over to you, Elina Stråhlman. Please continue.
Thank you, Jeanette. Very warm welcome on my behalf as well to this Q1 results briefing. Let's continue with few key figures still before diving deeper into the revenue and profitability development. As Jeanette already mentioned, Tambur development expenses and write down of those impacted our adjusted EBITDA by some EUR 300 thousand now in this first quarter. In addition to that, we also recognized a write down related to already capitalized development assets of EUR 1.3 million. That then impacted through depreciations and amortizations. This write down then explains a relatively high decrease in our adjusted EBIT compared to the adjusted EBITDA. Altogether, the Tambur impacted our EBIT by some EUR 1.6 million.
Another key figure that I wanted to highlight is the one that Jeanette Jäger also already mentioned, the new share of new services that slightly declined to 5.9% level. The decline there is mainly being explained by the seasonality. As you may remember, we calculate revenues from new services into this KPI two years during the two years after the launch. Now we have some bigger vintages from 2020 dropping off from the baseline, which explain this slight decline in this figure. We do continue to see positive development in this going forward, and we have strong pipeline of new services to support the development.
If I then move to the more detailed revenue by business area view and let's start first with some highlights. As mentioned, we continue to see very strong growth in consumer credit business, and that is obviously visible then in the growth of Consumer Insight business area, where we saw some 8.1% growth this quarter. That consumer credit business continued to develop strongly in both markets but especially in Finland, where the removal of the interest rate cap of 10% clearly boosted the revenue significantly. The development in the smaller business lines in this area, direct to consumer and consumer marketing services, was rather moderate, and those areas were clearly impacted by the macroeconomic situation.
That moderate development was then covered and mitigated by the strong development in the consumer credit services. We also saw very strong growth in Digital Processes, and there behind that growth is the high demand for compliance services in Finland following the Russian sanctions. That explains a large part of the good development in this business area. On real estate side, we still continue to see modest but positive development in both countries, but clearly Finland and volumes in Finland were more impacted by the macro situation in that area. Finally, Business Insight, as Jeanette Jäger mentioned, there we continue to see struggles in the business insights enterprise services in Finland, which slightly declined.
There, as said, we haven't seen the markets picking up, market activity increasing, nor the sense of urgency increasing likewise. Therefore, the volume levels have continued to be on low stagnated levels there. Also, the other business lines in that area, premium and premium services, the big development was rather moderate also in these areas now this quarter, and that pushed then the Business Insight growth slowed to flat levels now this quarter. We continue to see good potential in the premium and premium services, and there we see that Q1 performance was more seasonal variance, and we believe that the growth in the coming quarters will support our revenue development.
Adjusted EBITDA, as said, declined. That is clearly visible in the increased other operating expenses. The key reason behind this decline are the expense Tambur development, as well as then higher IT costs, but also timing of certain marketing activities. If I go through now line by line the development shortly, starting with the materials and services, those costs increased by EUR 300 thousand. What's behind that is the high growth in consumer credit business in Finland that comes with variable data acquisition costs. Personnel expenses increased by half a million EUR in first quarter, and that relates to the higher amount of people we have.
As we have discussed before as well, we are and we have been accelerating our efforts in platform transformation and business development initiative likewise, and that is then again visible as increased production for own use. Finally, the other operating expenses, as said, those increased now by EUR 1.4 million, and all together, the Tambur-related impact in this is some EUR 400 thousand, including the expensed development and some other activities. Otherwise, the costs are mainly higher costs are mainly explained by higher costs in IT following especially the platform transformation and that progressing. We are starting to accrue higher license costs, maintenance costs, and IT capacity related costs likewise in this area.
On top of that, we had some marketing activities now in this Q1 that increased the cost levels in other operating expenses. As Jeanette Jäger also mentioned, we naturally are looking at these increased costs very carefully and taking actions likewise to secure the profitability for the future quarters. Free cash flow, there the development was more positive, so to say. Free cash flow was EUR 7.1 million, and despite the slightly lowering EBITDA, the cash conversion improved to 53.6%. The cash flow was positively impacted especially by the change in working capital and the timing of payments in that area. We also had slightly lower level of investments, mainly related to some server investments that were made in the comparison period.
Development service development investments continue, continued on previous years' level. Our key indicators, basically no news in that. Financial position continues to be strong, and net debt to adjusted EBITDA was at 2.3 x level. Good level continued on that. Finally, few words on the revised outlook and guidance. As said, we have now slightly revised the outlook and guidance following the increased uncertainties and risk levels that we see following the situation with Ukraine war and its impacts, especially to the Finnish markets. We continue the target around 5% growth and somewhat improving adjusted EBITDA margin for the full year. However, as said, we see that the macroeconomic risks and uncertainties have clearly risen since we have given this guidance originally, and therefore we have revised the revenue guidance, slightly.
This was what I had to say about the figures and guidance. Pia, I think we can continue now with the questions.
Thank you, Elina. We are now ready for the questions, and we start with the questions over the telephone conference line. Please, operator.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up your handset, make sure mute function is turned off so that your signal reaches our equipment. State your name before posing your question. Again, it is star one if you would like to ask a question, and we'll take just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to submit their questions. Again, it is star one if you would like to ask a question. We'll go ahead and take our first question. Please.
Hi, it's David Henriksson from Nordea. There seems to be a bit of an echo on the line, but I'll try my best. Could you perhaps maybe provide a bit more color on your sort of more cautious growth guidance? Perhaps, do you see more uncertainties in the business or the consumer side of the business? When you think of the moving parts for 2022, what could surprise on the upside? What do you think?
Yes, Elina, why don't you start with the part of the revised guidance, as this is very much something we have done in order to be cautious towards the macroeconomic effects on our business, which is also a quite big business in Finland. Please go ahead, Elina, to explain our thinking about the revised guidance.
Yes. So far, we have seen that the demand for consumer credit services has continued strong, and we believe that kind of development will continue. We see bigger risks when it comes to the business information and enterprise services side in that area in Finland. Obviously, when giving the guidance, we were expecting rather high growth for the Finnish markets overall and now we see that the market environment may continue in a more stagnated mode throughout the year. That is the risk that we see that the market volumes will not support us in this area even in the latter part of the year. This is the risk that we have wanted to highlight.
That said, we, on the other hand, have various activities of our own then to boost sales and revenue on this area as well. Real estate side, to comment on that still briefly. That is our obviously another area where there are risks in relation to the volumes and demand of our services going forward. So far, the development has continued positively in both markets, but then we also know that the increasing interest rates and overall cautiousness of consumers may impact them negatively. The housing transaction volumes in markets and demand of our services likewise. These are the clear risk areas that we see where we could see impacts at the moment. On the other hand, compliance services continues to be obviously opportunity that we also saw now in the Q1 realizing.
This is how I would summarize the situation from our business line perspective.
Indeed. Even though we do see that there might be opportunities in the risk services as well as also, compliance, we are not sure whether that can actually balance the uncertainties that we then might see in other areas, for example, than continuously within business information. We do have some uncertainties on the credit information, though I would like to underline that as of now, we are doing very well within that area.
Okay, thanks. That's very helpful. I have a follow-up on a different topic, the Nordic IT platform renewal. Could you please provide sort of a progress update to us on recent developments? Is the renewal process progressing, let's say, on pace with what you expected when you started the process? Do you still expect to see significant margin and cash flow benefits from 2024 onwards, as you communicated in your Capital Markets Day in 2020? Thanks.
Elina, shall we do so that you start and then I continue, as this is also connected to earlier communication?
Yes. I can start with how we are progressing. We have been focusing our workforce in the Swedish markets where we have continued to modernize the consumer credit related data and building new services on top of that. We, for example, now in Q1 also have launched a credit registry in that market. We also launched now the first business information service ESG report in Sweden on top of the new platform, to name a few highlights in this area. What comes then to the progress in general as we have also previously mentioned.
We see that the focus has been now on building new tempting services, and with that then also gradually start migrating the customers to the new platform. However, we see that will also mean that the benefits will come somewhat more gradually in the coming years.
Indeed. No, I still haven't had the time to actually verify the conclusions. As we all know, we also have a new CIO, Daniel, who started two months ago. Though both of us are paying definitely a lot of attention toward this area as this is strategic for us, has been, and will continue to be as we move forward. We have seen some excellent development on modernization. We have seen excellent development of using modern technology to develop new platform data layers. We have seen new services, and now the platform I'm referring to is then becoming a Nordic platform for us in the future, and that is still excellent.
As mentioned earlier, I still also naturally want to make sure that we have, as well, the plans in place and when those plans materialize themselves from roadmaps into also the cost-efficient part of that one. I don't know if that was an answer to your question, but please, if you would like me to elaborate, then yes, continue.
I think that's clarifying. Yeah. Thanks for the answers. That's all for me.
As a reminder, press star one. We have no further phone questions at this time. That was all for this time regarding the questions. Thank you. If there are no more questions, I would like to thank you very much for your time and for your interest, and I wish you a nice day, evening, and hope to see you again soon then. Bye. Thank you. Bye.