Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to DelfinGroup Investor Webinar. Today the CEO of DelfinGroup, Didzis Ādmīdiņš and the CFO Aldis Umblejs will walk us through the recently announced and audited financial results for 2023. While we'll be listening to the presentation, I encourage every one of you to share your questions in the Q&A section on the bottom of your screen. Questions can be submitted either anonymously or with your name. This session is being recorded and will be available for rewatch shortly after the call. That being said, let me hand over to Didzis and Aldis.
Thank you, Ieva. Hello everyone. Hello our shareholders and our investors. Today we will present an audited results for last year, and today here is Didzis Ādmīdiņš, CEO of DelfinGroup, and Aldis Umblejs, CFO of DelfinGroup.
Hi.
I have to say that last year was really quite fulfilled with events, with new products, with innovation, and also I could say that it was quite good financial results side of view. Yes, and today we will tell you about our key results. I will show you key results of last year and also about business highlight of last year, and later Aldis will comment on business performance, and also we will be glad to answer to your question. So if you look at last year on last year's numbers, I could say that it was quite good because as you see there is no single digits, only double digit growth.
If you look at consumer loan and on our credit business lines, I could say that last year was quite good, +13% for consumer loans and +20% for phone loan segment, and that corresponded to +32% for loan portfolio growth. As we already inform our investors, already in the middle of last year we fulfilled our guidance, and our guidance for credit portfolio for last year was EUR 77 million, and at the end of year we reached a credit portfolio of EUR 89 million. Portfolio-wise it was quite good year for our company. If you look at revenue, +41%, of course this revenue comes from credit portfolio for main two business lines, which is phone loans and consumer loans, but also a significant part there is growth of revenue of retail.
If you look at EBITDA +39% and profit before tax +14%, there is quite good development of those key results. But also I have to explain that there is a difference of EBITDA growth and profit before tax growth, and as you understand, the main difference there is because of interest rate increase and also the total interest which we paid for our liabilities. But actually looking forward we are quite positive on the interest expense side because from now on the interest rates will go down. If we go more detail into our business segments, first of all, all credit business lines, one is consumer lending +47% of income increase and +21% of income increase for phone lending. Of course it's because of credit portfolio growth.
And if you look at retail revenue stream, the main reasons why we managed to significantly increase the revenue from retail is one reason is that we managed to buy more business-to-customer items from our clients because we developed that business line, but also we managed to sell more via our internet shop and we have very good improvements how much we sold items via internet shop and also we improved our other two retail business lines, which is electronics and also jewelry. So very good improvements if you look at revenue side of our business. Talking about key results of how it all looks together, yes, as I already tell that we have quite good improvement year-on-year basis on loan issuance levels. If you look at quarter-on-quarter basis you see that it's quite stable for last year.
The one reason is because we managed to very good increase the credit portfolio and this, which I already explained that already in the middle of last year we exceeded our guidance for last year. So we were able to credit the better customers and let's say in jargon to pick the best customers and the very good outcome of that is also that credit portfolio is very solid and very good performing. If you look at revenue on quarter-over-quarter basis you see that it almost correlates with loan portfolio and it's very good improvements. If you look at credit portfolio and also revenue you see that it's almost for credit portfolio it's more than double if you look at the point when we had our IPO and also almost double in revenue side if you look at the moment we had the IPO.
If you look at profit before tax you see that we also had very good improvement of overall profitability. Our guidance for last year was EUR 8 million and we exceeded that and the result is EUR 8.3 million and that's I could say I evaluated as a very good result and actually that was despite these larger interest rates and actually it was the best year for the company and also the last quarter was the best quarter for the company. So if we go more into details for our business highlights and our business performance, I want to say that in business side we focused a lot of technology in the last year and also for innovation. Actually we innovate in every of our business lines. For example, for phone loans we are working on a solution for digital phone shop.
At this point it's not already launched, but it will be launched very, very soon, and that will allow our phone loan clients to get this service online. And also, if you look for innovation in consumer loans, then there is a mobile app, there is virtual credit card, and so on. And also for retail there is a lot of improvements. One is new online platform and also solutions inside this platform. But now I will tell briefly a bit in details. Yes, one thing about business highlights of last year, one of our largest projects of last year is business expansion to Lithuania. And last year in December we launched operations in Lithuania and we opened five branches in December and we introduced our product of phone loan in Lithuania and also retail in offline stores.
Early this year we also introduced internet shop in Lithuania and also jewelry sales. If we talk about the strategy in Lithuania then mainly the strategy is that we will expand our branch network in Lithuania and also we will introduce new lending products and the product portfolio will be mainly the same as in Latvia, but we will of course adapt it to Lithuania market. If we talk about other innovations, I already mentioned about mobile app. Actually we heavily invested in the mobile app and that we are, let's say, kind of turning a company to be mobile-first organization because very soon there will be more and more services available in our mobile app. One of the first, of course, is this, and one of the reasons why we developed a new mobile app is that we introduced virtual credit card in mobile app.
That is an important solution for our business development because one thing is that we can get new client segments with this solution, which is not our clients at this point, but also we can utilize the credit limits for our clients, which is not used at the moment. With this solution clients can make purchases online, but also offline by paying with Apple Wallet or Google Pay. This product we introduced very early this year and at the moment it's not a significant part of our consumer lending business, but we will increase credit portfolio for this product in this year. If we talk about improvements and development of our branch network, I could also say that last year was quite fulfilled with new branches and with new concepts of new branches. Actually we opened Banknote XL, which is a large pawn shop in Baltics.
It is a large pawn shop with a large shop. Actually we see very good client interest and clients are coming and we have a lot of sales in this particular pawn shop. Also we have this Riga City pawn shop, which is already more than 200 years long history. We will relocate this pawn shop to new very beautiful premises in Old Riga. Also this is a very good improvement. We get very good traction from tourists in Old Riga from this pawn shop, but also from regular clients. Also we just launched a new branch in Mārupe, that's near Riga, and also introduced a new branch in Jēkabpils. Of course, the five branches in Lithuania, which I already mentioned. If we talk about the online store and the retail development, we had a very good year for our online shop.
We more than doubled actually the sales via our internet shop and also revenue point of view and also from count-wise. Actually last year we introduced also a new platform for internet shops and it works quite good. At every given moment actually clients can buy more than 50,000 items in our shop and it's almost every item which we are selling in our branches is also in the internet shop. We see very good interest from our clients for our internet shop. Also as a special gift for today's listeners, we did a special promo code for you, which is on the screen and you can use our shop and try it out in Lithuania and Latvia and get a 15% discount for one week. You are more than welcome to share this with your family, friends, or colleagues.
Also talking about this year's hot topic, artificial intelligence, I could say that we are investing quite heavily also in artificial intelligence. One thing there is that we are teaching our colleagues and our employees how to use it on an everyday basis. And that's mainly popular solutions like ChatGPT. But also we are investing in a tailor-made artificial intelligence solution. One thing which we already introduced is an AI solution for internal documentation. Actually, we as a regulated market participant, we have quite many internal procedures and policies and documentation. It's almost 200 of this kind of documentation. There are hundreds of procedures totally for front desk employees. With that kind of solutions, we have made the process for them more efficient. What does it mean?
Does it mean for maybe some work, which we previously take like five minutes, now it takes only like one minute. And it's very efficient for them. They don't need to know every procedure like previously. And we also are working on AI solutions for our internet shop. And that will allow also us to be more efficient on how long does it take to put some item for sale. Because those 50,000 items for our internet shop, they are all almost unique. And that's quite different because we are working with brown goods. So there are already some investments in that. And we are looking very positive on that. And we will continue to invest in these kinds of solutions to be more efficient.
Before I give a screen to all this and with business results, I want also to share information with our improved mission and vision and values. Actually we focused more on our value side and also improved our vision. And I actually really like and I really trust these values which we have. And it's actually deeply inside in our everyday work. Also our vision to be the best place for everyday financial service and circular retail. It's mainly very focused on what we do and what we want to be in the future. So I will give a screen to Aldis. And Aldis will explain about business performance.
Yeah, thanks, Didzis. Okay, going forward, I will touch upon the business results. To start with the consumer loans. As the slide shows, our consumer loan portfolio has grown significantly during the last year. At the end of the last quarter, the net loan portfolio was EUR 81.6 million, a 33% increase from EUR 61.2 million at the end of the previous year. The growth of the portfolio was driven both by the increase of the active client numbers as well as the increase of the average loan amount that grew by 20% on a year-to-year basis and was at an average of EUR 1,837 at the end of the last quarter. The NPL ratio remained flat during the last quarter and was 1.6%.
We are happy about that. As you may know, we have communicated earlier that during the last quarters of last year, DelfinGroup was focused on improving the quality of the loan portfolio.
And as already during the middle of the year, we reached our target for the loan portfolio. The age analysis of the consumer loan portfolio illustrates that the quality of the portfolio has actually slightly improved when comparing to the last year. And the low proportion of the delayed loans can serve as proof that our outstanding portfolio reflects its recoverable value and that, in fact, what we have on our books can be recovered from our clients. The phone loan portfolio slightly increased at year-end and was around EUR 4 million for the last Q3 . And although given the specifics of the product that it's actually a short-term product, an average of 31 days, and also that the size of the market is smaller when compared to the consumer loans, nevertheless, we managed to increase our revenues from the phone loans by 21%.
The amount of loans issued grew by 20%. What's also good that during the last quarter, the proportion of the repaid loans has increased and right now is by 77%. Also, the sales of retail of pre-owned goods increased both in the last quarter and throughout the whole year. In both cases, about 20%. That's a record high for us. During the last quarter, we reviewed our inventory. In order to promote the sale of slow-moving items, we launched a special sales campaign providing discounts to customers in order to sell these older items. As a result of that, the gross margin for the last quarter was lower, 35%, but that was expected when we launched the campaign. Regarding this graph, I think I won't be going into much detail there because the split of product categories hasn't changed when comparing to previous periods.
The smartphones and jewelry are still our number one and two sellers. As for the diversification, then revenue-wise, obviously, the consumer loan products are our main generators. And actually, during the last quarter, the revenues of consumer loans grew slightly by 3% and was 70% altogether. Also, the revenues for the phone loan increased. Yes, in this slide, I would like to provide our listeners more context on how the recent corporate income tax changes impacted our net results. As Latvians, obviously, know that there had been changes at the end of the last year when the Latvian government approved changes to the corporate income tax law whereby banks and non-bank lenders are obliged to pay 20% corporate income tax advance from the yearly profits starting from 2023. As opposed to the previous model where corporate income tax was payable when only profits were distributed.
As a result of these changes, DelfinGroup had to recognize an additional cost of EUR 1.30 million that we did not plan initially. Although the tax relates to a full year since the changes were adopted at the end of the year, so the full charge was recognized in the Q4 results, resulting in a decrease of net profits for the last quarter as well as affecting the performance of certain financial ratios. Actually, given our view that this tax was unfairly applied to our industry and since it's not fulfilling its stated objectives, we have engaged legal consultants to advise us on how we could proceed further on this specific matter. Short comments about the income statement. As Didzis already mentioned, then we had quite a large increase in revenues both for the last quarter and for the full year, 32% and 41% respectively.
Also, obviously, given the increase of loan portfolio that is quarter by quarter, also the provisioning cost is increasing. But that's something we are fine with and that we have expected. And obviously, the corporate income tax change, this is in relation to the change of the law that I mentioned previously. And altogether, we were able to generate EUR 2.3 million profit before tax for the quarter, again, the highest for every single quarter up until now. And for the full year, EUR 8.3 million that actually exceeds our guidance that was EUR 8 million. We managed to increase our balance sheet by 36%. And that's mainly coming from an increase in two positions. One of them is net loan portfolio, a 32% increase there. And the other is cash balance. That's an increase by 150%.
The reason for that being that at the end of last year, we managed to sign a new loan facility with Multitude Bank. These were the funds coming in from them as well as from the sale of some of our new bonds. The cash balance was decreased later on and was used for loan issuance as well as to refinance some of interest-bearing liabilities. On the liability side, we increased our equity by retaining profits as well as borrowing externally to fund the portfolio growth. For the financial ratios, we see some negative changes there. These are mostly due to the corporate income tax changes, as I mentioned. For instance, both the equity ratio and the return on equity decreased because of the additional cost in the Q4 . Although it's for the full year, it's booked on the Q4 .
The numbers on the last quarter are affected disproportionately. When considering the cost of interest-bearing liabilities, then I believe we have reached a maximum there since the Euribor rate rise has stopped and the market expects a decrease during this year. Accordingly, we expect also to see a decrease in total financing costs within this year. Although the cost of income ratio was slightly higher when compared to our expectations, then this objectively happened because of the unexpected rapid growth of the Euribor rates that happened during last year. Similarly to the interest-bearing liabilities, with the decrease of the borrowing rates, we expect to see also a further improvement there. For the capital structure, we are continuing employing a balanced structure, having bonds, equity, Mintos as our source of funding. As mentioned, during the last quarter, we also added the bank financing.
Right now, at the end of the year, it accounts for 7% of our capital employed. During November, we repaid our EUR 10 million bond emission. To do so, we issued another new bond with a EUR 15 million value. That is still outstanding. We expect to finish that within a short period. Altogether, in 2023, DelfinGroup issued in total three new bonds. Actually, we were the most active bond issuer in the Latvian bond market for sure and potentially in all of the Baltics. Also going forward, we will continue to be an active participant in the capital markets. When we turn to the dividends, we are keeping our dividend promise and paying them out. On the last half year, we paid out payments in total of EUR 1.8 million.
Also, following the release of the full unaudited results for the 12 months, we are proposing a dividend that will be decided by the shareholders in the next meeting. What I would like to mention that in the respect of additional dividends for the full year, then just recently, we made a public explanation regarding this on the procedure for paying out annual dividends. And I would like to, let's say, point out that the decision on an additional dividend for 2023 will be made by the management board of DelfinGroup following the audited results and annual report after we have released that. And we will take into the context the company needs and long-term development strategy. As for the share performance, then this was not satisfactory throughout the last year.
In my opinion, the reasons for that are somehow unclear to me because DelfinGroup delivered strong performance over each of the quarters in the last year. Nevertheless, the market did not pick up on that. Also, our fundamentals of the company are strong. The capital is increasing and so on. Sure, I can see that maybe geopolitics and potentially the war might have some effects as well as the size of the market. Also, I have read that some analysts suggest that due to the higher yields on the bond market during the last year, part of the funds have transferred from the stock markets and moved to the bonds for better yields. But nevertheless, we believe that the share price does not reflect the fair value of the business. And the shares are undervalued. Yes, and that would conclude our presentation. And yeah, please subscribe to our newsletter.
As previously mentioned by Didzis, visit our online shop and try this discount referral code. Now we're happy to answer questions.
Yes, exactly. Didzis, Aldis, thank you. We have received many questions, and they still continue coming in. We'll be taking them one by one. If any of you haven't submitted your question yet, please use the Q&A section that you can find on the bottom of the screen. The first question, what interest rates do the bank loans hold? Is it secured? And why wouldn't you disclose the terms of the loan as for other debt sources?
I will answer that. To start with this, this is a secured loan, and it's secured with part of our loan portfolio. Regarding the rates, I would prefer not to mention that. The reason being that these are commercial terms, and I would love not to publish them.
What's different with our other lending sources, these are public. Our bonds are public, and also Mintos is public. That's the difference why we publish the rates there and why we choose not to do it here. But I can say that the rates are very competitive.
What are key business challenges and risks in 2024 and 2025?
Yes, I will cover this one. I think if we talk about risks, I think one risk, of course, and maybe share investors see that one is geopolitics. That doesn't somehow change our daily operations. But the risk is here and how investors see that. One other risk, what I can mention, is lower than expected interest rate decrease. That could be one not the major risk, but there will be some impact on the bottom line.
Why are there so few loans offered through the Mintos platform at the moment? Will the supply increase in the future?
Okay. I would assume that the question relates to our loans because I won't be able to answer why other loan originators are not posting loans there. But for us, actually, we are placing loans on Mintos when we need funding there. And so when the business grows, then we place more loans. And also, if we have other sources of funds, we are not placing as many loans as maybe in other periods. And coming back to what I said earlier, at the end of the year, we attracted additional funds through bank financing. And we are using also that source of funds. And that's why at some point, it might feel that there are a lower amount of loans on Mintos from us.
Thank you. A listener would like to understand whether you'll be paying the annual dividends for 2023. Since you've covered this question during the presentation, I'll move on unless there's anything you'd like to add.
No. Yeah, I would repeat myself again, what I said earlier.
Thank you. Are you expecting any new issues of bonds in the near future? What will be the yield?
Yes, we will be issuing new bonds as we have before. In fact, we have one bond maturing this year. And we will be refinancing that with another issue. Regarding the yield, I think it's too early right now to say what would be the yield. We would look into, let's say, the situation of the markets, what would be the interest rates there if the Euribor has decreased or not. And that would be the aspect that we would take into account.
What is the status and how big is the new Lithuanian business? I will cover like this. Lithuanian businesses, yes, as I mentioned, we opened just in December last year. We started with 5 branches in Vilnius. At the moment, from credit operations, we are offering there only phone loans. We are in the process to introduce other lending products. Also, there is our retail and e-shop. As you know, for example, in Latvia, the share of phone loan portfolio, of all loan portfolio, is about 5%. So mainly in Latvia, it's consumer loan portfolio if you look at our assets. In Lithuania, yes, at the moment, it's quite small, but it's growing. We see good traction. We see interest from our Lithuanian clients.
Also, I'm quite positive about Lithuania because if you look, for example, for phone loan market in Lithuania, it's quite fragmented. In Latvia, we have some professional large market participants. But that's not the case in Lithuania. There are many and not so professional market participants. So we see some business opportunities here. Thank you.
Will every new bond issue trigger Mintos buyback?
No, it will not. Actually, usually, when we issue new bonds, we refinance some existing and use funds for that or new loan issuance. Only in the case if there is some additional, let's say, funds remaining, we are purchasing something. We could purchase something back on Mintos, but it's not a given. Thank you. Now we have finished with the pre-submitted questions. Now we'll be reading, taking one by one, those received during the webinar.
Do non-bank lending companies have to follow exact same customer solvency evaluation criteria as banks? Actually, basically, yes, because it's regulated by law. It's for all the market participants, for banks and non-banks. The regulator is the Consumer Rights Protection Center for Credit Solvency Check. They are checking very focused on non-bank lenders, but also they are checking the banks. So basically, if we look from the client point of view, it's basically the same.
Has there been increased necessity of loan restructuring lately? What proportion of the total loan portfolio are restructured loans?
As I understand, that it's about consumer lending business. Actually, yes, we are offering our clients this, we called it a restructuring of consumer loan. But I have to explain that in our business, it's not when we offer this solution, it's not that we are offering it in very heavy customers.
Sometimes we offer this solution for customers, which is only delaying 15 days or 20 days. We are not dealing with very problematic clients. In that solution, we lose debt sales with our partners. Our policy and strategies are to keep the credit portfolio clean of these problematic loans. I can't answer at this point how large part of our credit portfolio is this at this point. But it's not a significant part. It's a tiny part, these restructured loans. As I said, it's not in bank portfolios or in credit debt or these portfolios. These are problematic clients, but it's not really problematic loans which we can get back. It's some normal part of business. How exactly is the phone loan market share measured? Active loan portfolio numbers do not match with the reported market share.
About this, first, I would like to explain that, let's say, the proportion of our share, it's an estimate from our side because there is no official body that is measuring the share. The differences might rise also because of how the data are reported by the market participants and what is accounted under the phone loan portfolios, some of which might account inventories as phone loans. Some of them don't. That could be the reasons why there's a difference. You cannot say tight so easily. Thank you. Are more inventory sales campaigns expected in 2024? Actually, I would not call it inventory sales like some regular process. But of course, we will do some regular discounts like other retailers. There are usually some discounts at January, usually something in August, and something before Christmas and so on. There will be some regular campaigns, but nothing unexpected.
What is the most realistic growth scenario for phone loan segments in Latvia? Organic or inorganic growth? I could say it's more organic. Somehow, as I see that phone loan market in Latvia, it's quite stable. It somehow correlates with growth of the economy. It's not picking up so fast as the consumer loan market. Actually, also, if you look at our assets or credit portfolio, it's a small part of that. But still, it's a very important part if we look at our profitability. So talking about market and how it will grow, I expect that it will grow. It will correlate with average salary growth and economic growth. Is consumer loan issuance growth expected to recover in 2024? Yes. I would not say that it needs to recover from something. It's quite stable for last year.
As I said, we have a very good development of increase of credit portfolio. We managed to exceed our expectations. That was the reason why we didn't issue more loans. That actually was our choice. Our philosophy is more that we are managing our profitability, not market share. But if you look how much we will issue, yes, our aim, of course, is to issue more and to grow our credit portfolio according to our budgets and our guidance. Yes, I see that there is strong demand for our products. I see that it will develop very good. I'm quite positive about that. Jumping from financials to ESG, what particular ESG targets do you have achieved in 2023? Actually, yes, we are one of the first such large companies in Latvia which is disclosing this ESG report and ESG targets.
Actually, the things which we measure are CO2 emissions. Actually, we were in line with our targets, for example, for CO2 emissions.
You have a large increase in intangible assets in 2023. What this stands for?
Yes, there has been an increase in intangible assets. I wouldn't call it large because the starting base was small. And any increase there seems large. But the reason for the increase of the intangible assets relates to our investment in technology. And for instance, the new mobile app and the virtual card that Didzis introduced and other technological improvements, these are being recognized as intangible assets and are amortized on a longer period. Obviously, we are using them to generate our revenues for the longer period as well.
Will there be a shareholder loyalty program, for example, discounts in an online store?
At the moment, we are not deeply focusing on that. But we think about that. If there will be such interest, maybe we will introduce something like that. But there is one thing, maybe we don't have so much large overlap of investor base and the products which we are offering. But of course, for example, for internet shop and offline sales, it could work. I'm not saying that we will not introduce it in the future. It could be, but I'm not promising also at this point. How much was the growth in new clients? Okay. That depends what is the new client. If you look at our customer base, we have 59,000 active customers at the moment. If you look at the loans which we are issuing, about 90% of loans which we are issuing is to repeated customers. So we have a very strong repeated customer base.
But of course, to grow credit portfolio, to keep the customer base active, you need new clients every month. And actually, for both our credit business lines, phone loans and consumer loans, we see that there is very good interest from new customers. Despite that, for example, for our phone loan customer base, we have in this customer base about more than 300,000 customers in our history. But still, we are seeing many new customers coming in. And of course, talking about Lithuania, mainly, I could say that it's 100% new customers. What will be your average interest rate to pay for borrowings? I think there is no one question for that because obviously, that would depend on the type of the borrowing and the term of that. But as shown in the financial ratio slides, then right now, the blended rate for us is 12.2%.
As said, I wouldn't expect for that to go higher, to stay around there. Obviously, for the bonds that we have already issued, that will depend on the Euribor rate because we have floating interest payments there. But for attracting new funding, I would expect that to go lower and the blended being 12 and below.
Thank you. If we assume a multi-year recession, how recession-proof is the business in terms of default rates? What does it take to break the business in case of recession?
It depends on, of course, how deep recession could be. But if you look at our history for business and if you look at, for example, COVID years and some previous recessions, then actually, we see that our consumer lending business is quite stable. And we actually didn't see any significant default rate increase during those recessions.
Actually, I can also explain that, for example, in our business and in the consumer lending business, our product is not as long as, for example, bank loans or bank mortgage loans. And when there are some problems in the market, we can react very quickly. And our data science team can react to that. And we can change our underwriting really quickly. And that's actually the reason why you don't see fluctuations in default rates in our results. So that could be my answer on that.
Thank you. How do you characterize portfolio growth versus portfolio yields over 2023?
Actually, quite good because credit portfolio yields were in line. And I think maybe even better because we see a very good increase in credit portfolio and actually more than that increase in revenue.
How do you see your current liquidity situation? Do you need additional funding to continue growing in 2024? Which source of funding will you be preferring, Mintos or bonds?
Regarding the funding, yes, sure. We will need additional funding, one of them being to refinance existing maturing liabilities and also to grow our portfolio because, as for the guidance, we still aim to have this EUR 100 million portfolio. We will need funds to finance that. The liquidity situation right now is good. We are satisfied with it. Regarding the sources, obviously, it will be a mix of both long-term funding as bonds, maybe some other sources, and then also Mintos.
How much OpEx growth should we expect in 2024 given your expansion in Lithuania?
Actually, later, we will disclose the information about the guidance for next years. That's the level how much we can disclose on that at this point. Maybe I'll just add something.
Yes. We will be updating that for the whole group taking into account, let's say, the expansion and the needs for the capital there.
Thank you. What rate do you pay on the Multitude Bank facility?
I see that's a hot topic, this question. It keeps popping up again and again. Maybe there's somebody from other banks that's inquiring and trying to make an offer for us. But yeah, I will respond the same way that these are commercial terms between us and the bank. And we would, let's say, like to keep that for the time being.
Any future plans to expand the business to Estonia?
Actually, we are thinking about expansion. And as same as in Lithuania, in the future, you can expect that we will go somewhere else. And Estonia could be one of this market.
But I can't, at the moment, disclose more about our future plans and actually also about Estonia. But it could be one of our targets. Have there been any debt sales as of late? Apparently, there are hardly any bids in the market. About debt sales, actually, yes, we are using debt sales like this forward flow session when we are selling the late loans every month. And actually, we are using also quarterly debt sales. And doing that, we are keeping our credit portfolio clean of these non-performing loans. That's somehow, in my opinion, good from a shareholder and investor point of view because there are not at any given moment, there is no doubt about what's inside our credit portfolio. And that's also our strategy on debt collection.
Unlike Estonia, there are no local-owned banks in Latvia. In Estonia, we know that many companies that have been issuing loans and installments have become banks and successfully are now operating in the markets. Has DelfinGroup discussed this opportunity? If so, what are its advantages and disadvantages in it?
Actually, we have local-owned banks in Latvia. But I understand it's more the question is about consumer lending-oriented local banks. And we don't have such kind of banks. But we have foreign such kind of banks operating in Latvia. And about plans to becoming a bank, at the moment, it's not on the table, like I say, like that.
In the last two years, pawn portfolio has increased significantly faster than pawn interest income. What is the reason behind it?
Okay. Yeah. You can. Yeah. I think it's not the case that the portfolio is increasing faster as the income.
Maybe this is some perception when we look just on the financial data and how we look on that. If we look at the yields that we monitor internally, let's say they are in line and increasing. And there is no decrease in the profitability of phone loan products. The confusion might happen because of the classifications also of the products that we need to do because of International Financial Reporting Standards that we are showing in financial statements. I think maybe that's also that from an accountancy point of view because some of items which are already put up for sale are still in portfolio. Right.
Thank you. There has been a decrease of prices in the market of bad debt purchases. What is the impact for DelfinGroup?
Okay. I will cover this. And maybe Aldis then can add something. There is no market price for bad debt.
Every single case is a different case. We have to think about this like that. Of course, generally, interest rates and market situation impact how our bad debt is valuated. I can't say that there is a significant or serious decrease of these sales. As I mentioned, mainly, that's case by case. They are valuating our credit portfolio, the loans which we are selling. That's work like that. There is not a market price for bad loans. Thank you.
Three more questions to go. Have you considered any other platforms than Mintos for financing?
Yes. We have made some thoughts if it would be beneficial to be on some platforms. We haven't, up until now, taken any deliberate steps in that direction. Yeah, we might.
Does the group have a business emergency plan? What key risks it addresses?
Yes. As I already mentioned, key risks, we see geopolitical risk as one. And the other, we see the slower-than-expected decrease of interest rates. But if generally, we talk about risk policies in our organizations, we are quite serious about that. We are working all the time, I could say, with the old kind of risks which can affect our business. And we are quite serious on that. And we have an exact plan for every risk that could affect our company. That's our regular business, let's say that.
Do you see low Free floats as an issue? This is likely a factor affecting share price performance as well. It could be, but I think not at the moment because at the moment, Free float is quite healthy. And it has increased in the last year. And because of this one share offering of 2022 and also in 2023.
In 2023, it increased significantly, actually.
The last question submitted recently, considering the return on equity being slightly higher than finance sectors' average and P/E being proportionally higher, then do you still consider the company's stock to be undervalued?
First of all, I don't think that our return on equity is just slightly higher as opposed to the financial industry. The one reason being that, as I mentioned, it's lower in the fourth quarter because of this one tax charge that was booked for the whole year in the Q4 . And that unproportionately lowered the return on equity for the previous, let's say, periods. If there was no such, let's say, correction, then our return on equity was much, let's say, over 30%. And I am expecting that it will also be in this year.
Saying that it's just the same as the banks, I think it's not correct. And if adjusted for this factor, I still think, yes, we are in a more favorable situation and undervalued.
Thank you. This was the last question. We've done a good job today providing answers to all the investors and other listeners. The recording of the webinar will soon be available online. Therefore, please follow DelfinGroup announcements to stay up to date. On behalf of DelfinGroup, thank you, everybody. It was a pleasure to be with you today.
Thank you.
Thank you.