Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for participating in the third quarter 2022 earnings conference call for FinVolution Group. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, there'll be a question and answer session. Today's conference call is being recorded. I turn the call over to your host, Jimmy Tan, Head of Investor Relations for the company. Jimmy, please go ahead.
Thank you, Anthony. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. The company results were issued via Newswire services earlier today and are posted online. You can download the earnings release and sign up for the company email alerts by visiting the IR section of our website at ir.finvgroup.com. Mr. Feng Zhang, our Chief Executive Officer, and Mr. Jiayuan Xu, our Chief Financial Officer, will start the call with their prepared remarks and conclude with a Q&A session. During this call, we will be referring to several non-GAAP financial measures to review and assess our operating performance. These non-GAAP financial measures are not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with U.S. GAAP. For information about these non-GAAP measures and reconciliation to GAAP measures, please refer to our earnings press release.
Before we continue, please note that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements made under the Safe Harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. As such, the company results may be materially different from the views expressed today. Further information regarding these and other risks and uncertainties are included in the company filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, except as required under applicable law. Finally, we post a slide presentation on our IR website providing details of our results for the quarter. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Mr. Feng Zhang. Please go ahead, sir.
Thanks, Jimmy. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining our earnings call. With China's macro environment rebounding gradually from the low points of the second quarter, our domestic operation is also demonstrating progressive improvements. Powered by our proven strong track record in strategic execution, our industry-leading technological capabilities and our diversified borrowers across China, our business remained resilient. We continue to deliver solid financial and operational performance despite rolling lockdowns affecting multiple cities in China. Although we are experiencing pockets of improvements in terms of both pandemic restrictions and the macro environment, our operations in the third quarter remain challenging. We continue to adaptively navigate these challenges by leveraging our advanced technological capabilities, as well as our experienced management team of seasoned leaders who have successfully traversed multiple credit cycles during our 16 years of operations.
Our total transaction volume in the third quarter reached RMB 45.5 billion, representing sequential growth of 10% and a year-over-year growth of 19%. Concurrently, our total outstanding loan balance reached RMB 60 billion, representing an increase of 7% sequentially and 34% year-over-year. With the completion of our business transition, our proportion of Category A and B borrowers in the domestic market who meet our highest credit standards further expanded to 75% of our total borrowers in the third quarter, compared to 58% in the same period last year. We are also pleased to share that we have completed our pricing transition and the current average borrowing rate for our loan is around 23%, reflecting our commitment to promoting financial inclusion as well as our increased compliance level and alignment with the regulatory directives.
Technological innovation remains the cornerstone of our operation, empowering us to achieve consistent performance during challenging periods. Ongoing adjustments have been made to our credit risk assessment models, adapting to the COVID lockdown environment, which enabled a steady and progressive growth, while our risk performance has barely fluctuated, even during the Shanghai lockdown. These solid operational results are mainly due to our sophisticated cutting-edge technologies, such as MagicCube, our all-in-one fund management platform, which supports a wide variety of protocols and effectively matches institutional funds with borrowers in real time. It can operate up to 55 fund management projects simultaneously with a daily processing capability of over 50,000 cases. Bolstered by a prudent and effective risk management framework, coupled with reliable credit risk assessment models and a fraud detection system, we have improved our risk metrics on multiple fronts.
Our day one delinquency metric was 5.5% in early November, while delinquency rates below 90 days as of September showed further improvement to 1.34% from 1.44% in the previous quarter. As the impact of rolling lockdowns become more manageable, we expect our vintage delinquency rate for the third quarter to remain stable at around 2.3%. Encouragingly, our loan collection recovery rates also remain stable and strong at above 90%. Separately, we continue to take a prudent approach towards supporting small business owners. In the third quarter, we served a total of 504,000 small business owners and facilitated RMB 11.3 billion of loans for this segment, representing 25% of total transaction volume, an increase of 43% from the same period last year.
Our small business owners are spread across various Chinese cities in different industries such as retail, wholesale, and light manufacturing, among others, which further reduces our related risk through geographic and sector diversification. We would also like to highlight that around 60% of our small business owners have been in operation for more than three years, illustrating their overall stability. We will continue to monitor the economic recovery and gradually adjust our strategy to keep up with the pace of small business recovery. Moving on to our international expansion. We are very excited to report that with improvements across multiple operational fronts, revenue contribution from this segment reached 12% of total revenue in the third quarter, marking the first time our overseas revenue contribution exceeds double digits.
We also refined our international branding strategy, producing stellar results across numerous operational metrics, such as number of downloads, number of new registration and the conversion rates. These achievements earn our AdaKami application a spot on Apple Search Ads success story page, a notable commendation of our strategy's effectiveness in reaching new audiences. With stronger branding in the local market, our transition to better quality borrowers in Indonesia has outpaced our expectations, with the proportion of better quality borrowers in the third quarter expanding to 68% from 62% in the previous quarter. Coupled with Indonesia's improving macro environment and an easing COVID-19 policy, this brought transaction volume in international markets to RMB 1.1 billion, representing a sequential increase of 22% and a year-over-year increase of 6%.
The ongoing transition to better quality borrowers also helped us deepen our relationship with local funding partners, evidenced by an expansion in the portion, in the proportion of loans they facilitated to 48% in the third quarter, compared to 39% in the previous quarter, and in sharp contrast to zero local funding in the same period last year. Looking ahead, we are confident in our ability to further increase the proportion of loans funded by local financial institutions as we secure more local funding partners with a large number of better quality borrowers. Even more excitingly, our international outstanding loan balance reached RMB 640 million, representing a sequential increase of 33% and a year-over-year increase of 88%. Our outstanding performance in the Indonesian market clearly demonstrates that we can leverage our technologies and business models in the overseas markets.
Going forward, we are confident that the revenue contribution from international markets will continue to increase and that we can replicate these achievements in the Philippine and other suitable countries. Last but not least, I'd like to provide an update on our ESG performance. We continue to make strides in advancing our ESG initiatives and doing our part for the environment this year, this quarter. Notably, we obtained the ISO 14064 verification from SGS, a well-known international standard certification organization. ISO 14064 provides industry and the government with a set of tools to develop programs aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This verification is a powerful global acknowledgement of our environmentally suitable, sustainable efforts in pursuing carbon footprint reduction and will ensure that our report, our reporting is reflected internationally.
In summary, our stellar results in the third quarter of 2022 speak to our resilient business model, state-of-the-art technologies, and extensive operating experience and resources. Looking ahead, we will continue to focus on acquiring better quality customers, refining our credit risk profile and management framework, while pursuing premium quality growth opportunity in China and abroad. Taken together, we believe that these efforts will position us to smoothly navigate the rapidly evolving market while delivering sustainable growth and creating great value for our customers, shareholders, and all stakeholders. With that, I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Jiayuan Xu, who will discuss our financial results for the quarter.
Thank you, Feng, and hello everyone. Welcome to our third quarter 2022 earnings call. In the interest of time, I will not go through all of the financial line items on this call. Please refer to our earnings release. As mentioned, despite multiple operational challenges in the third quarter, we are encouraged that our quarterly results were in line with our expectations, including quarterly transaction volume, improvement in risk metrics, and the strengthened gains in our international business, among others.
With a larger number of high-quality borrowers coupled with our successful pricing transaction and advanced technologies, our funding partners are more willing to offer us attractive interest rates, evidenced by our funding cost improvements to 7.1% in third quarter from 7.5% in the previous quarter. In addition, the cumulative number of our institutional partners expanded to over 70, with a robust pipeline of potential partners in place. Going forward, we plan to diversify our funding channels through ABS and secure a wide range of financial institutions to further optimize our funding cost. Driven by our relentless efforts to optimize our operations, effective execution of our overall strategy, and a skillful deployment of our technological capabilities across business. Our net revenues for the third quarter grew to around RMB 3 billion, up 18% year-over-year.
We also delivered a healthy non-GAAP operating profit of RMB 683 million. Our capital-light model proportion also remained stable at around 18%, and we expect to maintain this proportion near the current level going forward. Furthermore, our leverage ratio, which is defined as risk-bearing loan balance divided by shareholders' equity, remained stable at 4.2x. Thanks to the continuous improvement in funding costs, our stable risk performance and consistent investment in research and development, we have managed to maintain positive results in our business operations. Going forward, we will continue to closely monitor the trends in funding cost and the risk metrics. Between January 2022 and October 2022, we deployed around $40 million to buy back our shares in the public market.
Since we initiated our repurchase program in 2018, we have cumulatively deployed around $171 million to buy back our shares on the public market. A testament to the company's commitment to returning value to shareholders on a long-term basis. Before I conclude my remarks, let me provide some additional color on our business outlook for the fourth quarter of 2022. Despite the challenging macro environment in China, we will continue to forge ahead by strengthening our international initiatives, optimizing operational efficiency, reinforcing our successful transition to higher quality borrowers, and propelling technological innovation. We would like to reiterate that our total transaction volume guidance for full year 2022 remains unchanged in the range of RMB 175 billion-RMB 180 billion, representing year-over-year growth of 27%-31%. With that, I will conclude my prepared remarks. We will now open the floor to questions. Operator, please continue.
We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, press star then one on your telephone keypad. If using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question will come from Yada Li with CICC. You may now go ahead. Pardon me. You may now go ahead.
Okay then. I will do the translation part. The first one is, compare with our peers and we will achieve higher growth rates on lower origination volume, amid the slowing growth of the whole consumer finance market. Could you please elaborate more about the reasons? And looking forward, is it possible that we can keep growing at a higher growth rate compared with the market and our peers? This is the first one. And the second one is regarding the international business. How much it will contribute to our new loan sales and the total revenue by the end of this year and next year? Thanks.
[Foreign Language]
Hi, let me do the translation for [Alexis]. During the third quarter, the situation still remain complicated. For example, in the Q2, we experience the Shanghai lockdown and consumer confidence is still relatively weak. Of course, the resurgence of the COVID has affected the macro environment with rolling lockdowns. Despite the macro environment remain largely unchanged, we still manage to achieve positive results. Total loan origination volume in the third quarter reach RMB 45.5 billion, validating the resilience of our business. This is due to several reasons. For example, our experience accumulated in navigating multiple credit cycles, our successful business transitions to better quality borrowers, which enable us to achieve positive results during uncertain times. Also our technological capabilities accumulated over the years. Let me share an example of the COVID situation with you.
For example, when we encounter a situation of lockdown, we will make ongoing adjustment to refine our risk models tailored to different categories of risk areas such as low, medium, high. When an area has been identified as a risk area, we will monitor and make the necessary adjustment to the models and rules within two days. Specific strategies will also be tailored for different areas. As a result of our proactive strategy, we have made very positive improvement. For the outlook, the macro environment is complicated, and without major changes in the core policies and with the uncertainty still persist in the economy. Although loan demand remains stable, but there might be some fluctuations in the future. On the longer term, we are still very confident of the growth in China consumer market.
[Foreign Language]
Hello, Yada. Let me do the translation for [Alexis] again. Our international business transition to a better quality began in the second half of 2021, and we have also reported successful transition in different stages since the last quarter. During the third quarter, we continue to strengthen our international business and revenue contribution from this segment, which double digits of revenue contribution in the first time this year. Transaction volume in the third quarter reached RMB 1.1 billion, representing a sequential increase of 22%, and concurrently outstanding loan balance also reached RMB 640 million, representing a sequential increase of 33%. Going forward, we are confident for our international markets, because the policies in Indonesia and Philippines are much more confirmed right now. In the Indonesia market, our transaction volume is increasing along with the transition to better quality borrowers.
In the third quarter, our proportion of better quality borrowers increased to 68% compared to 62% in the previous quarter. With a larger better quality borrowers, we are actually working with more local financial institutions right now. We are working with Bank Jago and another two local financial banks. Going forward, we are confident to further increase the proportions of loans funded by local partners. For the situation in the Philippines right, we are confident to replicate our success in the Philippines and other suitable countries. We are also actively exploring new products such as working with hypermarkets to develop consumption scenarios. Besides Indonesia and the Philippines, we are also actively evaluating new countries and markets, searching for the suitable local partners, looking for licenses.
We believe our technologies and capabilities can be leveraged into more countries and financial institutions. We believe the growth in the international markets will continue at double digits, with continued increase in revenue contribution.
[Foreign Language]
[Foreign Language]
[Foreign Language]
Okay, operator, please continue.
Okay, for the benefit of all participants on today's call, if you wish to ask a question in Mandarin to management in Chinese, we ask that you please kindly repeat your question in English. Thank you. Our next question will come from Alex Ye with UBS. You may now go ahead.
[Foreign Language] I'm wondering how do we balance your growth and risk management for the next year? If we do see China pushing ahead with the reopening sometime next year, how would that affect our growth, the pace of our growth? In other words, what kind of activities or signs do we need to see such that we will be more comfortable with our growth? The second question is on your sales and marketing expense for this quarter. It's up quite a lot sequentially. I'm wondering how, to what extent that is related to domestic or international markets. What are the key drivers for increase and outlook ahead? Thank you.
[Foreign Language]
Hi Alex, this is Jimmy. Let me do the translation for [Alexis one]. Let me share the company strategy with you. Our business is not only in the domestic market today, but because we also have an international business. The global situation is still complicated. If you take a look, there are different kinds of policies in each different country. What we are trying to do now is to pursue high quality and this can be reflected in a number of ways. For example, increasing the overseas market revenue contribution and penetration into more markets and finding the right customers.
[Foreign Language]
Hi, Alex, let me do the translation. Environment in China is much more complicated. Although we have experience or seen positive signs resurfacing in the recent days, but the impact on the economy is still uncertain on an overall level. We will still need to monitor certain signs such as the China Consumer Confidence Index. Of course, we will make the appropriate adjustments when we see any improvement in these signs.
[Foreign Language]
Alex, let me do the translation for you again. From the P&L perspective you can see that our sales and marketing cost has been increasing, but we are looking at it from a LTV perspective, which is still very healthy. Our funding cost in the third quarter has improved significantly and this has also given us a larger leeway for an LTV. Our borrowers has a LTV of 30, above 36 months. In the third quarter we have also increased our customer acquisition efforts compared to the second quarter. This is the reason why you have seen an overall increase in sales and marketing. However, in the fourth quarter we have begun to see improvement in our customer acquisitions and we have seen costs decreasing by above 10%, around 10%.
[Foreign Language]
[Foreign Language] Thank you.
Thank you Alex.
[Foreign Language]
Our next question will come from Frank Zheng with Credit Suisse. You may now go ahead.
[Foreign Language] This is Frank from Credit Suisse. Thank you management for giving me the opportunity to ask questions. I have two questions. The first is a follow up on the international markets. Can you provide more color on the take rate of international markets as we see in terms of revenue contribution they account for around 12%, but in terms of volume or outstanding balance is still quite small. In terms of net profit, what is the proportion that international markets contribute? The second question is on SME owners loans. Around 25% of loan volume is for SME owners. As we understand SME tend to be more cyclical and sensitive to macro environment. What kind of credit quality trend have we observed? Any notable difference compared to consumer loans? Thank you.
[Foreign Language]
Hi Frank, this is Jimmy. Let me do the translation. The Indonesian market right now is our main focus, and it is very different from the China market in terms of pricing, risk and the profile of the borrowers. Our product is 100% compliant with the regulators and we are also in the process of shifting to better quality borrowers. The take rate is stable, and if you compare to the China market, it is much higher at around 10%. For the net income contribution, it is still small. The main reason is because we are still reinvesting into the Indonesian market as we are still growing that portion of our business.
[Foreign Language]
Okay, Frank, let me do the translation. In the third quarter, we have served a total of over 500,000 small business owners and facilitated loans amount of RMB 11.3 billion, contributing to around 25% of total transaction volume. Let me just remind you that our small business owners are a natural extension of our current business and users, and they have an average ticket size of around RMB 20,000 , which is not very large and the risk is very manageable if you compare to those, SME loans. Although the impact of the lockdown is more severe for businesses, I would like to note that around 60% of our small businesses have been in operations for more than three years, and their overall stability and risk performance is better.
In the past, right, we have observed that the risk performance of our small business and the performance of our consumer loans are on a similar level. Going forward, we intend to make adjustment and strive to achieve better risk performance for our small business owners in different industries to achieve a better risk performance for them.
[Foreign Language]
[Foreign Language]
Thank you, Frank.
Again, if you have a question, please press star then one. Our next question will come from Thomas Chong with Jefferies. You may now go ahead.
[Foreign Language] My first question is about the overseas business. Given that we have been seeing Sea, Grab and GoTo are investing in the Fintech business and a lot of progress is making so far. Just want to ask about our Indonesia and Philippines strategies, whether we would think about cooperation with them or the market is big enough for us to go into it standalone basis. My second question is about the domestic business. How should we think about the SME contribution in coming quarters? Thank you.
Hey, Thomas, this is Feng. Let me try to answer your first question. Yeah, I think it's a very good question, you know. I mean, overall, as Alexis has mentioned, we are very bullish about our overseas opportunities and particularly our current Market in Southeast Asia. Well, if you look at, you know, around the world, you know, there are like not many countries or markets as attractive as, you know, Indonesia and the Philippines. These countries presents, in our view, very good like in economic development opportunity and the growth prospect, and particularly for the consumer lending segment. When we look at them, you know, in a way like from many aspects, it's similar to, like, China, around, like, you know, 2014-ish. There are tons of opportunities.
I think, you know, we've been in those markets for several years, so I think we've established like, you know, a front-runner position, a very good position in competition. One of the things that, as you mentioned, I think that makes us like feel really excited about these markets is, I think, the market is much more open from both regulatory, you know, perspective as well as from competition perspective, which is, I mean, from both of those two perspectives are very different from our domestic China market. This bodes well for our growth potential and the development opportunities.
It presents more possibilities for us to do things that are, frankly speaking, not very viable in our domestic market. Things like getting into POS financing, things like partnering with you know upcoming giants like GoTo or even things like you know getting into segments like digital banking, right? These are things that you know are not quite possible like in domestic China, very difficult. There are tons of opportunities. It's wide open. I think as we continue to grow our business in these markets, we've established a very strong footprint there. I think all these things are possible and we are very actively looking into these growth opportunities. Yeah. Thanks.
Thomas [Foreign Language]
Hi, Thomas. Let me do the translation. Based on the current environment right now, small business owners loans will not be a main focus for our company. Going forward, we believe the current trend of around 25% we will maintain our proportions of small business loans at similar levels.
Okay, Thomas [Foreign Language]
[Foreign Language]
Okay. Thank you, Thomas.
Thank you.
As there are no further questions now, I'd like to turn the call back over to the company for closing remarks.
Thank you all for joining our third quarter earnings conference call. If you guys have any further questions, please feel free to reach out to our investor relations team offline or online. Thank you so much.
This concludes this conference call. You may now disconnect your line. Thank you.