Okay. All right, guys, why don't we kick in and start off with Affirm. So first of all, thank you guys all for being with us again this afternoon on day one of the Wolfe FinTech Forum. We're really happy to have Affirm with us. It's a fascinating story that we've been watching really pretty closely, actually. We don't formally cover it right now, but we're certainly watching closely, and it's been extremely impressive what you've been able to accomplish. We have Rob with us, the CFO of the company, who's really been the CFO for roughly six months, but with the company, as we just said, for four and a half years now, right?
Yes, that's right.
So, maybe just let's jump in there. I mean, there's a lot to talk about. Start with the latest views on what you're most proud of in terms of what Affirm has been accomplishing over the last, let's call it, the last year. I mean, it's been a big, big, even transformation, even in that limited amount of time. So, maybe rewind for 12 months and catch us up.
Great. Thanks, Darrin. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I think when we look at the last 12 months, if we look at calendar 2024, I mean, we're really proud of a couple of things. We've scaled the business really nicely. We did over $31 billion of GMV in that 12-month period. In our December quarter, we reported results that showed accelerating GMV growth. We grew over 35% on the GMV line. We grew over 45% on the revenue line and over 70% on the revenue less transaction costs line, which is sort of our gross profit metric. So I think across all fronts, we're seeing really nice scale and growth. The units that we produce have been incredibly profitable. We're really proud of that. There's been a lot of work that's gone into increasing the unit profitability in the business.
And then beyond the financial results, I think we've done a nice job of continuing to scale some of our direct-to-consumer initiatives, things like Affirm Card, which is a big strategic priority for us. We've seen really nice traction there. We're north of 1.7 million cardholders as of the December quarter. So really nice traction there, and I think we still have a lot of room to grow that product in particular. Additionally, we've launched a new international market in the U.K., which adds to the U.S. and Canada before the U.K. So I'm excited to get going in that market. I think we've got some large partners coming as well. So it's still early days, but it's exciting to be live there. Yeah, and then overall, I think the profitability. We have a marker to be GAAP profitable as of the fourth quarter of our fiscal year, so the June quarter for us, and I think we're well on our way, and that goal seems like it's in reach, and we've done a nice job of driving adjusted income profitability, but GAAP profitability is next for us.
Nice. I mean, putting aside financial targets for a moment, just thinking about the actual innovation and launches, and help us just explain to us again what you're most excited about for the rest of this fiscal year. You touched on a little bit of it, I think, just a moment ago, but even into next fiscal year, 2026 as well.
Yeah, I mean, we've got a great base of merchants, right? So I think there's a tremendous opportunity, even just in the markets where we're live today, to grow with those existing merchants. We work with sort of a who's who across U.S. e-commerce. Amazon and Shopify are two of our larger partnerships. And so we're seeing really nice traction there. But when we look at the penetration we have within those programs relative to what we think the market opportunity is for buy now, pay later in the U.S., we still feel like it's early innings and we have a lot of room to grow. Outside of those direct efforts, we're also growing with partners, right? So partners like Adyen, who I know is here today. I mean, those distribution partnerships have been great in augmenting our reach and our ability to serve an increasing number of merchants, large and small, and then international, right? I touched on it, but international is the other one. Continuing to expand outside of the U.S. is definitely something that we're excited about.
Okay. So now going back to financial targets again. Look, I mean, focusing on the remainder of the year, you obviously had earnings in February just raised your outlook really across the board. Expectations for GMV, revenue, and operating income all coming in higher than you previously expected. Maybe just remind us what trends you were seeing that gave you the conviction to increase that outlook compared to your initial expectation first, and we'll go from there.
Yeah, I think we saw just really strong execution across the board, right? We think that obviously we need to have the footprint with merchants. We need to deepen those relationships. That's important in terms of driving GMV. But from there, we need to make sure that we're doing a good job on the credit side, right? Because the credit side really is the gate that allows us to access the capital markets to fund the business. So really, we feel like we've had strong execution across all three of those fronts, and that's what gave us the conviction or the increased optimism for the back-end.
So it was pretty broad-based.
It really was. I mean, it was hard to single out one thing, but really across the board, we saw really nice traction.
What are the merchants? Just remind us the targets again for anyone in the room that may not be as familiar with some of the key targets for the year.
I mean, I think the biggest one, I won't recite all the outlook that we have, but we have at the high end for the current quarter that we're in, I think $8.3 billion of GMV. I'm doing this from memory so it's a little dangerous.
But growth rates-wise.
But yeah, I mean, so we're seeing, we grew the business 35% in Q2. We're slightly below that. I think we're at 31% roughly on the high end for the March quarter. So still really healthy growth north of 30%. And really, I think that one of the most important things we have in the guide is getting to GAAP profitability on a sustained basis in the June quarter. So again, we see that still in our sights.
Right. Yeah. It seems like you're moving a little faster on that than I think a lot of us thought, right? I think if we just take a step back, I mean, you're talking about really good growth rates in the backdrop of what everyone sees as some scary headlines and tariffs and questions on policy and necessarily see it. I mean, if you listen to the other fireside chats today, it doesn't sound like anyone's really seeing too much change in the consumer yet. But I don't know if you can give a quick comment on anything you're seeing out there in terms of the state of the consumer and the health in your business. And then more importantly, I mean, just inflation questions come up all the time. Rate volatility comes up.
If you could just remind us how you incorporate macro assumptions in your guidance and then potential implications of whether it's higher inflation or anything else?
Okay. I'll take it in parts.
Thanks.
I think in terms of what we're seeing from the consumer, obviously we took up our expectations for the back half of the year when we gave guidance in early February, and so we have increased confidence, and that's continuing. I mean, we're not seeing any change really in the trajectory of consumer spend, nor are we seeing changes in the verticals or the industries where consumers are choosing to spend. I think that's something we're keeping an eye on.
So far behavior seems consistent.
Yeah. And I know we got some questions today around the travel vertical. I think our travel business is obviously a consumer-driven travel business, and so we may have different patterns or different, I don't know, just different puts and takes relative to a business travel-led business. Anyway, and then I think.
By the way, for what it's worth, Visa or Mastercard actually just said cross-border for them, travel and card seems like it's been stable into February and into March.
That's in line with what we're seeing, and the other piece is really the health of the consumer. We tend to let the data dictate our credit posture. We think that the nature of what we do, extending credit in rather small increments on rather short terms to consumers, gives us a pretty nimble loan book, and we look at first payment delinquencies from the most recent cohorts that we originate to monitor the health of the consumer. Right now, we're seeing outcomes that are in line with expectations, and I think when we look at delinquencies in the business, which we publish monthly as part of our ABS reporting, we're seeing year-over-year improvements. There can be some seasonality on delinquencies, but on a year-over-year basis, we're seeing delinquencies down year on year.
All right. So so far so good.
So far so good.
In terms of the consumer for now at least. I mean, I don't know. Tariffs is obviously going to have this question of whether or not it's inflationary. And your thoughts on the potential impact to your business, if you could walk through any either first, I don't know, or second order effects in your mind.
Yeah. I mean, I think the point you made there was subtle, but an important one to amplify. I mean, every recession has its own flavor and can be different. In terms of rates impacting our business, we've established a framework that a 1% movement in benchmark rates would translate to about 40 basis points of funding cost headwind for us. So that's the nature of our book being pretty short duration. So it wouldn't be a full flow-through. We wouldn't expect. In terms of inflation, I mean, really our job is to help consumers finance goods that they want or need and also to drive conversion for merchants. And so if there is an inflationary environment and consumers are impacted, that's why we're there, right? We're there to help with affordability. We think that there could be a scenario where we benefit from an inflationary environment just because consumers are buying things that they need and now those costs have gone up and they're looking for alternative ways to finance those purchases.
Okay. That's helpful. That makes sense. Let's talk about international. I mean, again, you brought it up before as something you're excited about, the U.K. and area you've been focused on. And so just give us a quick update on how that's been going first.
Yeah. Still very early. I think the next important milestone for us is going to be getting Shopify live, which we would expect to happen in the coming months. And right now, I mean, we're really in a phase of proving out that the platform is working and that we're able to underwrite consumers effectively and that we're able to drive conversion for the handful of merchants that we have live. And then the next step, as I mentioned, will be getting live with a larger partner, which we think has the potential to really help us scale there.
Okay. And then moving beyond U.K., just thought process around other international markets, whether it's developed or even emerging markets?
Yeah. We shared some thoughts on that in our investor day in November of 2023. A lot of those thoughts were localized around Western Europe. And so I would expect that Continental Europe is probably the next leg for us from an expansion perspective.
Is that a buy or a build approach?
Yeah. We've got a corporate dev team that does a great job of making sure that we have options on the buy side, and then we always do the work to understand what the build, what would be required with a build. And so typically we look at both. I think given the nature of the merchants and platform partnerships that we tend to work with, there is a bit of a bias towards building it ourself. Those partners have very sophisticated requirements, and oftentimes it's an expansion of some work that we've already probably done in the U.S. And so that does, I think, tilt the scale a bit towards building.
I want to shift to the merchant side more broadly now, and we're going to go back to the financial questions and profitability and whatnot. But first, just on the overall side of growth, you've added, I mean, I think it was 21% overall active merchant growth and 25% growth in merchants above, I think, a pretty good size annual GMV. And so for those less just familiar with the story, if you could summarize your value prop and how are you winning that kind of a merchant base to grow that fast off of what's already a pretty decent size base now?
Yeah. I think it's a couple of things. I think for one, we have a really broad product offering. And what that allows for when we're talking to merchants is we can customize a financing program or a set of financing programs that meet the merchant where they are, right? If the merchant is laser-focused on cost of acceptance, we can craft a low-cost program that's maybe more interest-bearing heavy. If they're selling higher ticket items or longer dated items or a premium good, we can craft a program that has more 0% financing and maybe converts a bit better than the interest-bearing. And so we can do everything in between. So I think that's really important.
Again, I touched on it a little bit already, but the distribution partnerships we have with Shopify, Adyen, Stripe, I mean, those are helping to accelerate our reach into merchants, especially on the smaller end of the merchant spectrum. It's a really efficient way for us to connect with those merchants via Shop Pay and other partnerships. So that's really important too. Just being everywhere that the merchant wants us to be and easing that integration to make it really easy for them to start with us.
Okay. I mean, so from your perspective, the ability to add at these rates seems sustainable to you, at least for the time being?
I think so. I mean, to be honest, I think the merchant count is in large part a product of the success that we've had with Shopify. It's not necessarily a North Star metric for us in and of itself, just given the range of merchant sizes that are live on the platform. But so I would say GMV is probably a bit of a more primary metric, but we're really proud of the depth and the reach that we have with merchants.
So active customers might be probably an even better metric to keep an eye on, right? And that also was growing 23% last quarter. So just touch a little more on the strategy there. Obviously, there's a little bit of a flywheel, right, with more merchants, more consumers, but help us understand your go-to-market on that front.
Yeah. I think you hit on it. I mean, we had over 21 million consumers at the end of December. We're really proud of that figure, and I mean, the honest answer is most of our consumers, most of our new consumers come to us through our largest programs, right? It's as simple as that. We earn the right to work with consumers through the prominence that we have at checkout and on merchant sites, so that, as far as I can tell, will continue to be the playbook for us. You're not going to see us spend heavily on marketing or direct-to-consumer marketing. We've experimented with that in the past, but really the best way for us to engage with consumers is to be everywhere that they shop, and that's worked really well for us.
Engagement levels, I mean, that's another metric that I think you've seen growing. I mean, certainly not 20%, but it's up a few% year-over-year also, right?
I think it's up roughly 20% of the frequency metric that we put out, and it's really difficult, obviously, to grow both the numerator and the denominator and to grow them at the rates that we've done, so we're really proud of that metric. I would say frequency is something.
No, you're right. It's actually more than doubled over the past few years.
Yeah. It's something that we focus on a lot. We're north of five transactions per user per year today. That's a trailing 12-month metric, and we have parts of our business. Affirm Card is a good example, where we're seeing multiples of that in terms of frequency. So that gives us confidence that we have tender types and products that allow consumers to deepen their relationship with Affirm, and that gives us confidence that we can continue to sustain increased frequency.
Okay. If we keep going down sort of the offering levels, I mean, obviously the result is strong active customers and merchants, but the Affirm app also. I know it's one of the things that Max talked about. Your recent shareholder letter was just revamping the Affirm app. So what improvements and changes have been made in the user interface and just the offering in general?
Yeah. I think first and foremost, we are of the view that consumers engage with Af firm because they're looking for financing. And so making the financing that's available to them really prominent, that's been a structural change that we've made in the app. The app, we've also tried to make it easier for merchants to engage with us around incentives that they're running in their business. And that includes merchants that are already integrated with the firm, but also merchants that haven't integrated with us yet. So just making it easier to use for merchants, increasing the diversity of offerings and the diversity of merchants that are live. I mean, all of those things are helping to drive engagement with users.
Maybe we could shift and keep going down the path of offering and products and talk about the card now, which has been a really successful. I don't know, when was it exactly really initiated and launched? It was about a year and a half ago, was it?
Yeah. Maybe, yeah, two years ago.
I mean, you have 1.7 million cardholders today. The average spending around $2,500 per cardholder. I know you have an ambition of having 20 million with $7,500 per average spend per year. Just help us understand the roadmap ahead of us on this front.
Yeah. I mean, that $7,500 per user per year, that's sort of grounded in user surveys and user research that we've done for our user population, and that's a subset of the discretionary spend that we think is available across our user base, so I think getting to that metric on the annual spend side is going to be a sign that we've won and we've become top of wallet with our consumers. We're seeing really nice traction in terms of newer cohorts are spending more frequently on card and also spending more from a dollar perspective on card, so that gives us confidence that we have the right trajectory in terms of annual spend, and then getting to the 20 million active cardholder count, I think that's going to be a function of a couple of different things. One, continuing to penetrate the existing Affirm user base.
That's the 21 million today, but also there's roughly 50 million consumers that we've underwritten in the past. So the boundary isn't drawn just to the active users. There's a deeper pool. And then also we announced a partnership with FIS recently as well, which will allow Affirm Card to expand off of the Affirm platform. And the hope is that we'll be able to power the debit programs for banks using the FIS technology and allow consumers to use their debit cards issued from a bank to also finance purchases. So I think that's another way that we augment.
That's pretty cool. But I mean, how do we go about converting more of the 21 million users from one? In other words, what's the actual tool and what are you actually proactively doing to get 1.7 much higher?
Yeah. I mean, we have a whole team that's focused on removing friction from the card. So it's going to be a mix, of course, of continuing to grow the overall user platform for Affirm, finding the right messaging that resonates with new consumers and helping them through the education curve that comes with the product that's a bit unique relative to some of the offerings that are out there. Yeah. And then just building trust and retaining the consumers that we have on the card.
Okay. Let's go back to the financial metrics again now because the underlying KPIs seem strong. I guess profitability-wise, again, you talked about moving to profitability, I think, in terms of GAAP profitability, right? In Q2, we saw the company actually did deliver positive net income, GAAP net income for the first time in the company's history. So could you just remind us on the targets, again, the targets on timeline around GAAP profitability and the priority for management for the management team on this front?
Yeah. So the target that we have is that in our June quarter, which is fiscal Q4 for us, we want to be profitable on a GAAP operating income basis. So we did, to your point, we did benefit in Q2 and we were able to achieve positive GAAP net income. We did have a capital markets transaction where we retired some convertible debt and we had about $80 million of income. So there's a bit of a one-time benefit in Q2, but it was great to see GAAP net income be positive in the quarter. And again, the goal is to get to GAAP operating income positivity in Q4 and then to maintain that going forward on a sustained basis.
Your ability to invest the way you need to invest and balance that feels right to you in terms of the timeline?
I think so. Yeah. I mean, we've done a really good job of placing, I would say, a healthy constraint on the business in terms of OpEx, and we've seen a nice return in terms of focus. And I think we've executed well on a lot of the big strategic initiatives that we wanted to deliver, right? We've launched really important partnerships with Apple. We've scaled Affirm Card, which is a big direct-to-consumer push for us. And then we've launched in new markets, right? So all of those things require development work. They require work from all of the firm, basically. And so to be able to have a pretty strong set of new launches is something we're really proud of despite basically flat headcount over the last year.
Okay. And then I guess if we go back up the income statement a little bit, I mean, RLTC.
A mouthful.
Revenue Less Transaction Costs. Just when we think about the actual margin you guys target, it's, what, 3%-4%, right? And you've already been kind of running at pretty close levels of that now, right? So just help us understand what the flexibility allows you to do from an investment standpoint and how this is going to shape out and play out in your business, in your model, your financial.
Yeah. Yeah. We've delivered a couple of quarters recently that were slightly above the high end of that range. And we think there's an opportunity to take some of that profit and deploy it back into tools that will convert better for our merchants and may resonate with a different group of consumers. So 0% loans is probably the best example. In a 0% loan, it's still very much a profitable loan for Affirm, but it doesn't have quite the economic profile that our interest-bearing loans have. And so we are foregoing the interest income, obviously, in that loan product. And we think that's a really interesting way to deepen the relationship with merchants and to bring on a new subset of consumers that are maybe a bit more APR-focused. So you saw us grow 0% loans about 70% in the December quarter. Some of that was deepening relationships with existing merchants, and some of that was being a bit promotional, again, in partnership with a merchant, so.
Can you just remind the audience and myself even of the magnitude of profitability of those types of products just based on, I mean, a lot of it is just explain the profitability profile of that versus your traditional interest-bearing loans?
Yeah. I mean, again, it'll depend a bit on the merchant because there's a range of merchant discount rates across our base. So it's hard to put a precise number around it given what we're talking about ranges.
Right. You just need to paint a broad brush.
Yeah. But I mean, if you look at our business overall, we have about a 9% revenue take rate. And as we discussed, we're north of 4%, just north of 4% on a revenue less transaction cost basis. That really is a function of mix. We're doing roughly three-quarters of our volume is interest-bearing loans. And interest-bearing loans are far and away our most profitable loan. So as we thought about establishing this 3%-4% range around the time of our IPO, we really wanted to give ourselves flexibility to potentially grow into other loan products, things like Pay in Full or things like more 0%. And so if we were to move towards more 0% volume in the overall portfolio, that would bring our revenue less transaction cost margin down. We think that would be healthy, though, because it's a way for us to engage maybe with consumers on the higher end of the credit spectrum that are more interest rate sensitive and also interested to drive outsized conversions.
I was just going to bring it to the credit spectrum question, actually. I mean, I guess all of that sounds great as long as credit quality is okay, right?
Right.
So maybe go back to that. You mentioned a second ago, I think some of the data you're seeing in the ABS data has been good, right, from a delinquency standpoint. I think there was also a bit of an increase, maybe just based on, I think it was last quarter, right, based on pricing initiatives enabling extension just to more consumers. But where do you see credit now? Again, more broadly speaking, where are we in the cycle? What do you think you can manage in different types of environments?
Yeah. I mean, I think the most important thing for us is that we look at the data and that we continue to be really nimble, right? We let the data dictate if we have the right credit posture, and right now, the data is telling us that we do. Again, as I mentioned, we're seeing delinquencies that are down on a year-over-year basis, so that's a really healthy sign.
Yeah. That's great.
And yeah, I mean, again, if the data were to change, we're really confident in our ability to pivot the book and to change the credit posture. And we can move the whole portfolio in less than a week if we need to. So credit, in almost all cases, that decision is on our side of the ledger, and that's something that we can move onward.
So I guess it would impact growth a bit, right?
It could, yes. And again, that's a trade-off that we've had to make in the past. Again, there's nothing to suggest that we need to make that trade-off today. But yes, that's a trade-off that we would make. I mean, credit really is job one for us. And it's important to us as a business. It's important to our capital partners on the funding side. And so it's really critical that we manage credit tightly.
And from a funding standpoint, I mean, I know you guys had this large funding partnership with Sixth Street Partners. You indicated the partnership's going to take time to ramp. So maybe just if you could share some more details around that partnership, what the ramp might look like, and then maybe we'll get into just the bigger picture funding.
Yeah. So we announced the Sixth Street partnership in mid-December. It's our largest forward flow partnership to date. So forward flow, for those that aren't familiar, that's just loan buying, right? So we have programs where investors buy whole loans from us on a programmatic basis. In terms of the Sixth Street partnership, it was a $4 billion capital commitment that they made. That's our largest to date. It's also a three-year commitment, which is our longest tenured from a new partner perspective. So really exciting and I think indicative of just how we've been able to differentiate ourselves in the capital markets. We do want to leg into scaling volumes with Sixth Street just to manage collateral and to give them visibility into what's coming. But we're beyond excited about the economic profile of that relationship and also just the size and the capacity that it brings to our overall funding program.
Got it. Got it. Just before I turn to the audience, just two more for me. I mean, one is just competitively, are you seeing anything different from other, whether it's pay later companies or BNPL companies or even just companies that are in the wallet space that are trying to say they can do more on the embedded finance front? So have you seen anything impacting you guys at all or just competitive dynamics that are different?
No. I mean, we were proud to be a launch partner with Apple Pay Later as they expanded to third parties and opened up that surface. We think that's a positive signal in terms of our capabilities. And then competitively, I think we're really proud of the growth that we're seeing in the U.S., and we're seeing accelerating growth. Most of our competition is largely focused in Pay in 4 as far as we can tell from the outside. And Pay in 4 is a small subset of what we do. So I think our product set is pretty differentiated when we're out talking to merchants. And again, the breadth of products that we have allows us to be very flexible in terms of how we engage with the merchant and the financing program that we set up.
Right. Guys, any questions you have in the audience? While we're waiting for the audience. I got one somewhere in the back. I have another one, but I'll let the audience kick in first.
Hey, can you talk about the credit quality on the Affirm Card, maybe relative to the customers who don't use it, and then just how that sort of informs maybe your underwriting decisions for expanding eligibility of the Affirm Card to other customers?
Sure. Yeah. Great question. I mean, I think it's important to remember that today, Affirm Card is what I would call a second-use product. So in order to be eligible for Affirm Card, you would have needed to have taken out an Affirm loan and proven yourself to be a good payer. So there's some nice positive selection in the population that's eligible for the card. And therefore, as a result, we're seeing a slightly better credit profile. And the other consideration in terms of the profitability of Affirm Card is going to be the loan product mix. And as I mentioned earlier, we're seeing roughly three-quarters of our volume is interest-bearing in the business at large. But Affirm Card is actually even more interest-bearing heavy. We're about 80% interest-bearing. And so that's also helping to drive really nice unit-level economics in the card.
Other questions?
Hi. Could you just remind us of your views on sustaining your 3%-4% RLTC margin target? Is this kind of just a function of diversifying and where you will continue to invest that excess margin?
Yeah. As I mentioned, I think leaning into 0% offerings is one lever that we've been deploying so far, and that will naturally depress the revenue less transaction cost margin. But that said, we have a very large portfolio, and those initiatives are small in the grand scheme of things. And we've given guidance for the back half of this year that has us above 4% for that six-month period. So as much as we are looking for ways to accelerate growth in the business, reach the right subset of consumers, and expand conversion for merchants, those efforts can only go so far. So yeah, that's one area.
So I mean, just to wrap it up, the macro is the macro, but you guys have in what you have in your control, what do you want to see that you accomplish between now and the end of the year and, let's call it, 12 months from today that would make this a successful outcome?
Yeah. I mean, I think it's a lot of the things that we're doing today, but more of them, right? I want to see continued growth with the merchants we know. We call that metric Share of Cart internally. We want to continue to deepen those relationships. In some cases, taking those relationships international is really important. So continued growth and traction in the U.K. and then the markets to come beyond that. And then continuing to scale card. I think we've got some exciting things coming with the FIS partnership down the road, not in the near term, but down the road. And then continuing to see nice growth and traction with card itself.
Yep. Okay. All right, guys. Well, why don't we leave it there? Thank you so much for joining us. It's really a great story. Guys, next up, we have.