Thank you all for joining the conference call for the Kakao Pay earnings results. This conference will start with a presentation followed by a Q and A session. If you have a question, please press star and number one on your phone during the Q and A. Now we will begin the presentation on Kakao Pay's fourth quarter of fiscal year 2024 earnings results.
[Foreign language]
Good morning, this is Allen. Thank you all for joining Kakao Pay's fourth quarter 2024 earnings call.
[Foreign language]
We begin with key metrics for the quarter starting with TPV, Consolidated Revenue Expense and P & L, followed by business highlights for Q4 of 2024 ending wi th 2025 strategies. First on key metrics for the first quarter.
[Foreign language]
Q4 2024 TPV was KRW 167.3 trillion, up 19% year on year. Revenue TPV was KRW 48.8 trillion increasing 20% year- over- year. Financial TPV for the full year surpassed KRW 10 trillion while quarterly money transfer TPV for the first time recorded above KRW 30 trillion. FY24 revenue increased 25% year on year to KRW 766.2 billion as digital finance fueled the top line with a whopping 71% year- over- year growth. Net loss for 2024 recorded KRW 21.5 billion with EBITDA at -KRW 20.6 billion.
[Foreign language]
Moving on to business metrics, Kakao Pay's MAU as of Q4 end 2024 was 24,020,000. Payment MAU exceeded 20 million users despite decline in large merchant like the case with TMON and WeMakePrice. We saw new user inflows on the back of offline and overseas merchant expansion which is driving the size of the payment user base.
[Foreign language]
We are seeing total MAU kept flat year- over- year despite 47% fall in e- documents users following the readjustment of the business, a decision which was made to retain a selective focus on our business. Once the service adjustment is complete and after new and profitable services are introduced, we expect MAU will uptrend underpinned by users with higher profit contribution profiles for Kakao Pay's, domestic and cross border payment finance money transfer services. Transactions per user increased 10% year on year to 92 transactions while transactions per user based on entire suite of services came in at 99 transactions.
With onboarding of many new merchants mostly from food and beverage sector, we now have 1.13 million domestic on- and offline merchants which is an increase of 14% year- over- year . Next our CFO Aidan will present on the details of Q4 TPV.
[Foreign language]
Hello this is Aidan. Fourth quarter TPV was up 13% year on year reporting 43.1 trillion KRW revenue. TPV stood at 12.4 trillion KRW. Payment and money transfer TPV sustained a double digit growth trajectory. Payment posted 16% year on year TPV growth as online payment showed robust uptrend in the non-captive segment. We've seen expanded offline payment scene around CVs, cafes and groceries and on growth in TPV from tutoring institutes via the payment offline. TPV is sustaining a triple digit growth trend. Cross border payment also posted a growth of 31% year- over- year on higher TPVs from both online and offline.
[Foreign language]
With the start of the DSR Phase 2 implementation, household loan origination by the banking sector declined driving loan service revenue down by a single digit on YOY and Q over Q basis out of stock trading. Overseas stock performance stood out with its overseas trading volume exceeding KRW 11 trillion which is a whopping 157% year- over- year growth. Money transfer reported 14% growth year on year. We are seeing meaningful uptrend supported by release of personalized seasonal envelopes and higher cross usage across different financial services.
[Foreign language]
Revenue in Q4 increased 31.3% year- over- year and 17.2% QoQ reporting KRW 218.2 billion. It was a record-breaking quarterly revenue in 2024 fueled by financial services. Financial service revenue posted record high KRW 84 billion accounting for 38% of total revenue. It's noteworthy to see investment service revenue growth of more than triple fold year- over- year while insurance also posted threefold revenue growth laying the foundation for a diversified revenue stream.
[Foreign language]
Payment revenue underpinned by steady online payment growth and steep uptrend in offline and cross-border posted 7.4% year-over-year and 2.3% Q-over-Q growth despite continuing downturn in household lending in the second half. Growth in tier 2 credit loans drove 9.7% year-over-year growth in loan services on the back of increase in overseas trading and higher FX rate. Investment service posted a high growth of 219.5% year-over-year and 132.4% QoQ. Other services was up 2.9% QoQ on growth in revenue from credit card recommendations and there was year-over-year decline which is due to the base effect following ad revenue adjustment last year.
[Foreign language]
Q4 operating expense posted 33.9% year-over-year increase to KRW 251.2 billion. Excluding the TMON and WeMakePrice impact operating expense is up 17.1% year-over-year reaching KRW 219.7 billion. Commission fee increase was 11.4% year on year on rise in MyData operations expense due to offline expansion and promotion and investment services. Marketing expense increased 20.3% year on year and 10.9% Q on Q while FY24 marketing expense was controlled below 10% of revenue at 8.6%. Increase in other operating expense is due to 31.5 billion won of one off expense from TMON and WeMakePrice and rise in operating expense following revenue increases from financial subsidiaries.
[Foreign language]
Q4 consolidated operating loss came in at 33 billion won but 31.5 billion won of Q4 operating loss was due to TMON and WeMakePrice related expense which was booked in advance under non operating bad debt expense in Q3 being reclassified to bad debt accounts under operating expense. Excluding this one off impact Q4 operating loss is around 0.9 billion won which is nearing quarterly breakeven point. In particular, out of consolidated subsidiaries, Kakao Pay Securities reported its first turnaround in profit of KRW 0.7 billion this quarter, securing a basis for consolidated profit turnaround powered by top-line growth of financial subsidiaries and gradual improvement in profit-making structure. We will endeavor to bring forward the timeline for a consolidated basis turnaround in 2025.
[Foreign language]
Q4 standalone revenue was KRW 160.8 billion, up 7.9% year on year and 3.0% Q/Q. Standalone operating loss was KRW 20.3 billion, excluding TMON and WeMakePrice impact, among others. Q4 adjusted operating profit was KRW 11.8 billion, with adjusted annual operating profit at KRW 47.7 billion. Next, Jason, who is the Head of Business, will walk through Q4 business highlights.
[Foreign language]
Hello, this is Jason. First, on payments, as of end of December 24th, we exceeded 20 million users who use Kakao Pay's online, offline, cross-border, and everyday payment services. Despite churns from bankruptcy of large-scale merchants like TMON and WeMakePrice, total payment service is growing powered by offline and cross-border payments. Most pronounced growth was from offline, both domestic and cross-border with its payment user count growing 18% year- over- year . Offline payment TPV including domestic and cross-border posted 125% year- over- year growth with transaction count up 33%. As such, rise in offline payment usage was the key engine behind payment service growth.
[Foreign language]
Moving on to Kakao Pay Money. User counts surpassed 31 million, of which active seniors above age of 50 increased by 1.5 million year on year with 50s and 60s age group rising quickly and a total of 83% of registered users linked their checking account to Kakao Pay Money. With an average of 19 million people using Kakao Pay Money on a monthly basis
[Foreign language]
U nderpinned by stabilization and scaling up of the Money service, we are seeing synergies with MyData service which is further expanding the user base and money transfer volume. Number of users who've linked up their loading accounts with Kakao Pay was up 9.5% year- over- year while number of linked accounts per user increased 33% year on year. Kakao Pay Money is now used across various use cases which drove money transfer up 14.2% year on year with Q4. Volume exceeding KRW 30 trillion won.
[Foreign language]
Kakao Pay has set itself up as a financial platform frequented by people of different age groups offering customized services across teens to people in their 60s. In December we also released Teens Number offering a loading channel for offline payment transfer and allowance management, lowering barriers for teenagers in opening and using bank accounts. In just eight weeks since the service opening, 180,000 issuances were recorded so far and we will continue to leverage it as a channel that connects everyday needs of teens with financial services.
[Foreign language]
We are also strengthening communications and tailored services for seniors through adopting bigger fonts. We provide enlarged letters and menu layout helping seniors to better navigate digital financial services. We also offer sharing feature amongst family members through Family Security Keeper to prevent financial fraud including voice phishing. We also have fun and educational content for senior users. Attempts at mastering the use of digital services delivering fun and easy manual for Kakao Pay usage. Next, Jeff who is in charge of services will run through quarterly highlights for Kakao Pay App, Kakao Pay Securities and Insurance.
[Foreign language]
Good morning, I'm Jeff. I will run through the Kakao Pay's growth and performance that strengthen Kakao Pay's platform and competitiveness. Kakao Pay app, MAU and WAU is moving very quickly and in terms of WAU we've seen an improvement of increase of 79% and MAU of 58%. The growth of KakaoTalk Pay-based securities and offline payment benefits and Kakao Pay app's monthly usage growth is hence picking up speed.
[Foreign language]
Users of both KakaoTalk Pay and the Pay app increased 60% year on year, showing particularly high activity rate driving the overall competitiveness of the greater Kakao Pay platform. Users using both, the so-called duo users, visit Kakao Pay Services 2x more than Pay app-only users, with retention at 98% on an M+1 basis, which really attests to the high loyalty. And dual users generate over 2.4 x more revenue per user than Pay app-only users in 2025. We will continue to drive up the WAU metrics and broaden the pool of such users and so as to further strengthen competitiveness of the Kakao Pay platform.
[Foreign language]
Looking at Kakao Pay Securities, its total deposit asset reported KRW 3.9 trillion up 73% year on year from last year's KRW 2.2 trillion on the back of growing stock balance. It's worth noting Kakao Pay Securities stock balance has exceeded KRW 2.3 trillion rising 120% year- over- year driven by uptrend in new user acquisition and MTS enhancements. Q4 stock trading volume was KRW 17.3 trillion up 81% year on year. Number of domestic and overseas stock trade transactions jumped by more than 4x year on year reporting 54 million transactions. Higher trading volume drove fee income up and Kakao Pay Securities posted quarterly profit from operations in Q4.
[Foreign language]
Kakao Pay securities is strengthening specialized MTS features including touch-based ordering enabling a quick single touch to initiate transactions in the order submission window as well as investment return calculator. We also provide differentiated investment data using AI and AI-powered U.S. Market update summaries which will help lock in broad base of customers.
[Foreign language]
Moving on to Kakao Pay Insurance, we are making a leap as Asia's leading digital insurance company powered by the success of Overseas Travelers Insurance and launch of many new products accomplishing a stellar growth of 5x versus 2023 supported by great accessibility through KakaoTalk and the Pay App. Overseas Travelers Insurance 1.3 million customers in just two years since the launch. While shaping the market.
[Foreign language]
Kakao Pay Insurance was recognized for its distinctive product characteristics and innovative coverage against daily needs and has been awarded Asia's Insurance Industry Award and selected as five-star Insurance Innovator which was a first for a domestic insurer to be recognized for its innovation on the global stage. Based on innovation, we will make the leap towards becoming Asia's leading digital insurer going beyond the bounds of the domestic market.
[Foreign language]
Aside from 1P Insurance Business of Kakao Pay Insurance, Kakao Pay offers insurance management and diagnostic services based on industry's top tier MYDATA link up, delivering user convenience via consultation on insurance services. We support policyholders to make the right choice by offering diagnostics on their insurance status scope of coverage based on real life information of the user's insurance, promptly responding to questions via online chatting or phone conversations as we recommend the most optimal product for policyholders. As a result, number of insurance consultation requests with Kakao Pay jumped 7x between Q1 and Q4 of 2024, showing a fast uptake.
[Foreign language]
In 2025, we will further scale up and segment diagnostic scenarios and increase the number of partners we work with to provide frictionless consultation so as to develop a business model that satisfies different needs across the digital. Before ending, I will invite back our CEO to present on ESG and future plans.
[Foreign language]
Hello, it's Allen again. In 2024, Kakao Pay was able to achieve quite many things both internally and externally thanks to its unwavering commitment towards sustainable growth. We are the only fintech company from financial services sector included in S&P Global Dow Jones Sustainability Korea Index for two consecutive years which is a recognition of our ESG efforts. Blindspot Pay School Senior Class was awarded for bettering senior citizens access to digital finance at Consumer ESG Innovation Prize in the senior safety category. In 2025, we will continue to create social value for those who are socially vulnerable in terms of digital finance and will live up to our social responsibilities and deliver the value of Together Closer which is Kakao Pay's campaign slogan for shared growth.
[Foreign language]
As presented. Despite the challenging business environment, Kakao Pay achieved its target across all its business domains set at the start of the year including the top end of revenue growth target of 25%. In 2025, we plan to capture both growth and profitability under three strategic directions which are vertical expansion of core business, traffic based business and data monetization. First, we will explore additional growth by expanding into upstream value chain within our core business domain that we are currently in.
For instance, we can broaden the scope of payment business by going beyond easy payment into checkout and value added services for the merchant, making inroads into businesses for sellers and merchants. In terms of the loan business, we wish to increase value add by offering credit scoring capability to financial and IT companies and for insurance. We plan on expanding business scope by offering services that customer agents can use, expanding from simply brokering for customer consultation.
[Foreign language]
Next is fostering traffic-based business, which is about growing total traffic based on stronger content servicing and quickly increasing traffic into Kakao Pay app through activation programs, and we will leverage this as an opportunity for gaining non-financial businesses going beyond intermediary services for telecommunications advertising, which we began in 2024. We will be expanding the revenue stream into other non-financial businesses. Last but not least is on data monetization based on more than 20 million MyData subscribers coupled with 40 million Kakao Pay subscribers. Last year we completed an upgrade of targeting platform and user profiling, which will form the basis of utilizing users log base. This will in turn help personalized services inside Kakao Pay and enhance customer satisfaction as well as drive business performance.
Kakao Pay will continue to deliver better experience to users through continuous growth and innovation and set itself up as a company that fulfills its social responsibilities. Thank you.
Now Q and A session will begin. Please press Star one, that is Star and Number one, if you have any questions. Questions will be taken according to the order. You have pressed the number Star one. For cancellation, please press Star two, that is Star and Number two, on your phone.
[Foreign language]
The first question will be provided by Kim Dong-w oo from Kyobo Securities. Please go ahead with your question.
[Foreign language]
Thank you for taking my question. I understand that Kakao Pay has adopted AI technology and its service offering, especially on Kakao Pay's insurance intermediary business. It is being powered by AI. If you could share with us what the performance of this initiative is and also, do you have plans to adopt AI to your investment and other tax related services and what are your plans going forward in 2025?
[Foreign language]
First on AI for Insurance Diagnostics the thought behind this is that we felt insurance is considered most difficult by the financial consumers, so we took AI to first train on insurance. Now this insurance AI service will use the most recent health checkup information and see whether the user is insured for the health related conditions that they should be aware of and provide diagnostic results on the optimal coverage.
While it's too early to share specific results as the service is still in beta phase and the entry point is deep, we are seeing a meaningful increase in the percentage of users who receive diagnostics, eventually applying for insurance consultations. In 2025, w e will continue to improve the quality of AI counseling and consultation through training the model on the terms of services of the insurance company policies and health related indicators relevant to the user's health screening results and update the model that are optimized for different scenarios.
[Foreign language]
Aside from insurance, we are currently also working on AI powered spending and consumption management model. We are also discussing the expansion of services related to investment and tax that you just mentioned that you asked about. For now, we want to provide users with personalized consumption and spending management through the use of the so-called spending agent so that we could improve their immediate spending habits and provide real savings to users. We are also working on scenarios for this so that we can collect data and improve service effectiveness and gain synergies with the company's other service offering.
[Foreign language]
Thank you. We'll take the next question.
[Foreign language]
The following question will be presented by Lim Hee-yeon from Shinhan Securities. Please go ahead with your questions.
[Foreign language]
Thank you for taking my question. Following the performance of Q3, we've also seen in Q4 the growth of the Pay app had been quite strong and I believe that this is also contributing to making the overall Kakao Pay platform much more solidified. You also mentioned that the number of dual usage is going up. What were the key levers behind the increase in this metrics and also what is your strategy going forward for 2025 and onwards?
[Foreign language]
Hello, this is Jeff. Since the major update in June of 2024, Pay App has seen sustained uptrend in its weekly and monthly active user count in Q3. Moving on into Q4, this was thanks to first Pay App centric USP development for stocks, offline payment and user benefits and variety of growth activities that we engaged in which we've done to drive installs, visits, usage and return visits to the Pay App as well as continuous improvements to the notification feed and basic tools of the app.
As a result, the pool of users using both the Talk Pay and Pay App have increased by approximately 60% in one year and Kakao Pay continues to drive cross use of various different financial and daily services through data driven recommendations and notifications across various channels including KakaoTalk and the Pay App and to these users with dual usage habits, we are also driving up frequency of visits and repeat visits, eventually strengthening the foundation of revenue expansion.
[Foreign language]
In 2025 we will continue to grow Pay App's weekly and monthly WAU and MAU profile while expanding its dual user base. While much has changed in 2024, there is still much to be done in terms of strengthening Pay App's core USP and improving its usability. We will hence execute on this in Q1 and continue to grow the user base.
At the same time, we also want to more actively drive cross usage so that the growth of the platform directly contributes to the growth of our financial and key revenue generating services. In 2024 we were able to find the optimal traffic conversion method for revenue contribution through various validations and analytics and in 2025 we want to expand this and leverage user profiling and targeting platform to maximize the efficiency of traffic conversion. To this end, we are setting and monitoring new metrics across range of Kakao Pay products.
[Foreign language]
Next question.
[Foreign language]
The following question will be presented by Park Siny oung from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead with your question.
[Foreign language]
Thank you for taking my question. I am Siny oung Park from Goldman Sachs. In 2024 the growth that we've seen from your digital finance services was mainly driven by the securities business, the brokerage business. Can you share with us in terms of what your market share and strategy for your brokerage services going forward? And also to what extent would that have an impact on improving your overall profitability? And as investment has become an important pillar of your business going forward, can you consider providing us with a separate, I guess a separate number that specifically relates to your investment business?
Second question relates to the payment business. To date the payment business has been a key lever behind your top line growth, but recently we've seen the momentum has lost its steam compared to the past. So what is your outlook and your strategy from mid to longer term perspective on your payment business?
[Foreign language]
Hello, this is Eddie. I will respond to your question about our securities and brokerage business. As you know, Kakao Pay's financial services revenue in 2024 grew 71% year- over- year with the securities business up 87% year on year contributing to the overall revenue. In Q4, if you look at the breakdown, we saw revenue growth in both retail and investment banking, and retail revenue also saw large increases in trading volume on the back of overseas trading picking up and coupled with 10 basis points increase in fees. In Q4 of 2024 there was 178% year- over- year growth and 101% QoQ growth.
In 2025 we plan to grow by more than 40% year- over- year through revenues from overseas trading as well as new businesses that are currently in the pipeline. In addition, based on reaching breakeven for the first time in Q4 of 2024, our aim is to post a turnaround in profit in 2025 through stable and expanded profit.
[Foreign language]
Regarding our strategy for 2025, as was the case in 2024, overseas stock trading services will continue to be a key driver of growth and we plan to further strengthen our position in the market by securing top tier trading volume based on scaled up services. In addition to this, we plan to diversify our financial product portfolio to continue the top line growth and profit enhancements in the retail business. Pension savings which was launched at the end of 2024 is actually a good case in point.
We are looking into also launching overseas derivative services based on our recent strategic alliance with Eugene Futures and just as we are seeing meaningful results with pension savings, we will also launch and promote brokerage ISA accounts that can provide tax benefits to customers, emphasizing Kakao Pay Securities' strength of accessibility and ease of use. In summary, we view 2025 as an important year for Kakao Pay Securities to further strengthen its positioning in our existing business verticals as well as add new businesses and achieve our goal of a turnaround to profit, thus gaining self-sustainability . With regards to a separate carve out breakdown information sharing regarding our brokerage and securities business. We will review that request and come back to you with an answer.
[Foreign language]
Hello, I'm Jason in charge of the business responding to your question about the payments business. As you've correctly mentioned, payment business still remains an important part of Kakao Pay's revenue stream and payments continue to grow at a double-digit rate as you've seen in 2024. While it is true that the growth rate of online payment was lower than in previous years due to sluggish domestic commerce market including the TMON and WeMakePrice incident, offline and cross-border payment revenue reported 40% to around 50% year-over-year growth and its share against the total revenue base is gradually increasing. We believe hence that there are still a lot of opportunities for market expansion as the penetration rate is still low.
[Foreign language]
And in particular, as you've mentioned, despite the decrease in the number of large merchants accepting payments following the TMON and WeMakePrice default, MAU has increased to more than 20, and we think the fundamentals have become stronger. And based on this, we expect that the payment business will continue to grow meaningfully in the year 2025 and beyond as we expand into upstream value chain through vertical expansion, which will entail more of a value add business opportunity with sellers and merchants.
[Foreign language]
Kakao Pay's mid- to longer-term goal for the payment business is to become the top of mind payment service for users. We aim to establish ourselves as a payment method that is used most frequently by users at every moment when they need to make a payment. In terms of business, we plan to increase the number of active merchants by increasing payment users in conjunction with enhanced offline payment benefits. In cross-border payment, we will continue to increase the number of overseas merchants through collaboration with our wallet partners and promote unique marketing collaborations fit for each country.
[Foreign language]
To share with you a bit more of a detail. First, for online payment to expand the profit source we will focus on Pay Money-based marketing and on generating repeat usage through point scheme activation to increase the share of Pay Money usage and our market share within the Kakao captive and for key merchants off-platform and we'll secure additional growth engine by attracting large strategic merchants and expanding into new markets such as EVs and MVNOs so that we may drive external growth.
[Foreign language]
Offline payment will focus on growing the user base by focusing on the payment user expansion in killer categories and to drive repetitive habit to trigger volume growth and increase the number of point of payment using kiosks and table ordering at acquired merchant base so that we may drive up activation rate at merchant touchpoint.
[Foreign language]
For cross-border payments starting with online, we plan to expand the basis through strong coupling of marketing efforts with existing large merchants such as Google, Apple, Temu, and AliExpress and securing new merchants such as Amazon and Disney+ as well as enhanced payment failure rate for offline payment. We plan to expand wallets and new countries based on successful cases such as Japan, China, and Macau such as seen in Japan, China, and Macau and strengthen collaborations with Alipay and Kakao merchants through differentiated marketing which befits each country and also combine MyData and Kakao Pay's payment data to strengthen targeted marketing against the entire journey cycle of overseas travelers for both inbound and outbound. To strengthen new payment user acquisition and retention.
[Foreign language]
We spent about one hour. We would like to take the final question before we close.
[Foreign language]
The following question will be presented by Yoon from Citi Securities. Please go ahead with your questions.
[Foreign language]
Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I would like to gain some color with regards to the guidance in terms of your growth rate for TPV and your revenue top line growth rate and also if you could provide additional color on each of your business lines, that would be helpful. Second question is on your margin excluding the one-off expenses in Q4 accounts. The overall margin trend seems to be quite positive. So can we look forward to a turnaround in profit in year 2025 or should we wait a little more as you would need to make continuous investment into your securities and investment business? If you could explain that, that would be helpful as well.
[Foreign l anguage ]
Hello, this is Aidan. Thank you for your question and I'll first tackle your guidance question. Despite the increasing competition that we are seeing in the payment market, we believe that Kakao Pay will be able to maintain a double-digit growth and our FY 2025 revenue guidance is set at 15% to around 25% year-over-year growth.
[Foreign l anguage ]
In terms of guidance breakdown, we see that for payments it will not be easy for us to maintain the same growth rate in 2025 because of increased competition around large merchants. Nevertheless, we will continue to find new merchants, expand transaction volume and enhance Pay Money-centered marketing so that we may secure profitability in offline. We expect to maintain the existing level of revenue growth by growing new transaction volume through promotions for PU expansion overseas payment. There's an opportunity for us in terms of aggressive expansion, and we expect to maintain high TPV and revenue growth compared to what we've seen in 2024. Continuing on from what we've seen in 2024.
[Foreign l anguage ]
For digital finance, we expect loans to maintain stable growth in terms of credit loans, mortgages, refinancing and auto loans, and in securities, we expect a double-digit growth in revenue powered by increased overseas trading. In insurance, we expect high growth rate to continue on the back of new insurance product releases, and we expect to grow the insurance database business using MyData as a new business vertical. In terms of other services, we expect stable growth in payment services that are based on non-franchise models such as customized advertising based on my data and affinity cards and other value-add businesses.
[Foreign l anguage ]
So you also asked about TPV guidance for 2025. As you've seen in 2024, we've seen a very steep growth of our digital finance revenue. We will make the preparation so that you could refer to the overall trading volume which will form the basis of your projections of the revenue.
[Foreign l anguage ]
Regarding your question about an operating profit turnaround, while there is no certainty as to when we will turn profitable in 2025, as we will depend on market conditions and our expansionary strategy, we do cautiously anticipate that there will be a point in time when we will have sufficient visibility.
[Foreign l anguage ]
So as you can see from our results this quarter, we've seen significant improvement in quarterly operating profit with an adjusted consolidated operating loss of KRW 0.9 billion in Q4 excluding the one-off cost impact related to TMON and WeMakePrice impairment.
[Foreign l anguage ]
Now, as you can see, stabilizing Kakao Pay's growth and reducing subsidiary losses are key to achieve a turnaround in OP on a consolidated basis. As Kakao Pay, the parent itself has been steadily generating standalone operating profit based on stable revenue growth from payment, loans and other services. We expect that the reduction in losses from our two subsidiaries, namely Securities and Insurance, will be crucial for reporting a consolidated basis turnaround.
[Foreign l anguage ]
As I mentioned just a moment ago, in the case of Kakao Pay Securities underpinned by profit turnaround in Q4 of 2024, we are aiming for a full year turnaround in 2025 through service expansion and stable profitability. In the case of reinsurance, FY 2024 revenue as you know was up 5x compared to 2023 and we believe that we are still in the expansionary phase so we are aiming to continue that growth in 2025. Now s o for consolidated financial service revenue we are targeting a double-digit growth for the second consecutive year based on two pillars which are securities and insurance business while aiming for monetization from securities.
[Foreign language]
In summary, in 2025 we plan to drive up margin by expanding the ecosystem centered on Pay Money in payment, which is business of Kakao Pay the parent, and drive profit-centered growth by expanding in high growth areas such as offline and cross border payments through efficient marketing. In terms of digital finance, stable growth in loans and higher market share in securities are expected to contribute to the turnaround target and will continue to invest into product lineup and the pipeline for our insurance business. On the cost front, Kakao and its affiliates as a whole will continue on with last year's efficiency drive. Given the uncertain macro environment regarding OpEx including marketing and labor costs, we will continue on with efficient execution of marketing spending at around 10% or less.
The total revenue and labor cost spending is expected to grow at a mid single digit year on year for new hires in 2025. Therefore, we do not expect a significant increase in expenses relative to sales growth in 2025 as compared to FY 20 24.
[Foreign language]
This brings us to the end of the fourth quarter earnings presentation by Kakao Pay. Thank you all once again for joining us this morning. For any further question, please do contact us at the IR Team. Thank you.