Calls
Source: S&P Capital IQ transcripts via Xpressfeed · latest indexed call 2026-05-27 · generated 2026-07-27.
Latest call digest
Qfin Holdings, Inc., Q1 2026 Earnings Call, May 26, 2026 · 2026-05-27T00:30:00
Q1 2026 call (held May 26, 2026). Prepared remarks were built around a single message: after a regulator-driven downturn that ran through the second half of 2025, the risk cycle has turned. Management said FPD 7 for new loans fell roughly 20% versus Q4, and the C2M2 delinquency ratio dropped about 17% sequentially to 0.8%, back to July-August 2025 levels, while the 30-day collection rate rose 1.8 points to 85.8%. The trade-off was scale: total loan facilitation and origination volume fell about 7.5% sequentially to RMB 65 billion, non-GAAP net income fell 11.6% to roughly RMB 950 million, and average IRR slipped to 18.7% from 19.5% as the mix shifted toward high-quality, lower-priced users (marketing spend on that segment up about 40% sequentially). Alongside the core, management leaned hard into two secondary stories: an "AI-native organization" push (98.4% of technical staff using AI tokens by May) with tech-solutions loan volume up sevenfold year-over-year to RMB 9.96 billion, and overseas expansion, now live in the U.K. and a newly launched Latin American market.
The Q&A reality was more skeptical. Morgan Stanley pressed on why Qfin's loan pricing keeps falling while peers hold steady, and where it settles; management defended the decline as a deliberate high-quality-user pivot (pricing down about 80 basis points sequentially, 2.2 points over two quarters) but did not name a floor. UBS asked when risk appetite loosens and volume returns to sequential growth; management declined to commit, repeating that it "won't chase volume growth blindly." On capital return, the notable shift was the CFO calling share buyback "once again" a viable option after pausing it through the downturn, having repurchased roughly USD 577 million of the convertible bond. Guidance actually stated: Q2 2026 non-GAAP net income of RMB 900 million to RMB 980 million, a 47% to 51% year-over-year decline.
Participant coverage from the latest call.
| Group | Participants | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Management | Operator; Karen Ji — Senior Director of Capital Markets, Qfin Holdings, Inc.; Haisheng Wu — CEO & Director, Qfin Holdings, Inc.; Zuoli Xu — CFO & Director, Qfin Holdings, Inc.; Yan Zheng — Chief Risk Officer, Qfin Holdings, Inc. | 5 |
| Analysts | Richard Xu — Managing Director & Equity Analyst, Morgan Stanley, Research Division; Xiaoxiong Ye — Analyst, UBS Investment Bank, Research Division; Yun-Yin Wang — Research Analyst, China Renaissance, Research Division; Yujie Jing — Associate, China International Capital Corporation Limited, Research Division | 4 |
Curated latest-call exchanges; one row per analyst topic.
| Analyst | Firm | Topic | What changed in Q&A |
|---|---|---|---|
| Richard Xu | Morgan Stanley | Loan pricing trajectory and shareholder returns | Pressed on why average pricing keeps declining while peers hold steady, and where it eventually settles. Management framed the fall as a deliberate pivot to high-quality users (pricing down about 80bps sequentially) and a near-term-profit-for-LTV trade-off, but gave no settle point. CFO said buyback is again a viable option alongside a progressive dividend. |
| Xiaoxiong Ye (Alex Ye) | UBS | Loan-growth outlook and risk appetite | Asked, given stabilized asset quality, when the company would raise risk appetite and whether volume returns to sequential growth. Management declined to commit to a timeline, stressing continued prudence and that it will not loosen standards just on short-term improvement. |
| Yun-Yin Wang (Cindy Wang) | China Renaissance | April-May risk performance and acquisition channels | Management said C2M2 stayed stable and improved marginally into April and May, with new-loan FPD 7 roughly flat versus March; blended acquisition cost was kept roughly flat while spend on high-quality users rose about 40% sequentially. |
| Yujie Jing | CICC | Cost reduction and overseas update | Management pointed to further funding-cost savings from a higher ABS mix (down about 10bps) and G&A/collection efficiency plus AI as operating-cost levers; overseas is now live in the U.K. and a Latin American market, with early results described as in line with expectations. |
Theme tracker
Themes are curator-classified across supplied calls.
| Theme | Status | Quarters mentioned | Read-through |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regulator-driven industry restructuring and consolidation | persisted | Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026 | First raised as a positive signal when April 2025 loan-facilitation rules appeared, then reframed through 2025 into a systemic restructuring that suppressed demand, pricing and liquidity. Management consistently argues the shakeout ultimately favors leading platforms. |
| Pivot to high-quality users over scale | persisted | Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026 | Escalated from a mix tweak into the central strategy in the last two quarters, with management explicitly subordinating volume to asset health and accepting lower near-term pricing and profit for better lifetime value. |
| Overseas / international expansion | emerged | Q4 2024, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026 | Absent through 2023 and most of 2024, formalized as a wing of the One Core, Two Wings strategy in Q4 2024, operationalized with a small U.K. launch in Q2 2025 and a Latin American market in Q1 2026. Still early-stage and investment-only. |
| AI-native organization, AI agents and tech-solutions business | persisted | Q3 2023, Q4 2024, Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026 | AI/LLM emerged as a theme in late 2023 and steadily intensified into branded AI agents (AI Loan Officer, AI Credit Officer) and a fast-growing FocusPRO tech-solutions line, most recently framed as a full AI-native transformation with cost savings as a byproduct. |
| Shareholder returns (dividend and buyback) | persisted | Q2 2023, Q3 2023, Q4 2023, Q1 2024, Q2 2024, Q3 2024, Q4 2024, Q1 2025, Q2 2025, Q3 2025, Q4 2025, Q1 2026 | Present every call, but the emphasis shifted: aggressive open-market buybacks in 2024 and early 2025 gave way to a paused buyback, a progressive dividend and convertible-bond repurchases in H2 2025, with buyback described again as viable only in Q1 2026. |
| Tariff / U.S.-China trade-war impact | dropped | Q1 2025, Q2 2025 | Dominated the H1 2025 calls as a driver of demand and risk uncertainty, then disappeared from Q3 2025 onward as the domestic regulatory shock became the sole focus. |
Guidance ledger
Quotes, calls, and speakers are source-verified; outcomes are curator-classified.
| Verbatim guidance | Call | Speaker | Curator outcome | Outcome note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| “For the second quarter of 2026, the company expects to generate non-GAAP net income between RMB 900 million and RMB 980 million, representing a year-on-year decline between 47% and 51%.” | Qfin Holdings, Inc., Q1 2026 Earnings Call, May 26, 2026 · 2026-05-27T00:30:00 | Zuoli Xu | pending | Guidance for Q2 2026; no later call in the supplied history to confirm the result. |
| “For the first quarter of 2026, the company expects to generate non-GAAP net income between RMB 900 million and RMB 950 million, representing a year-on-year decline between 51% and 53%.” | Qfin Holdings, Inc., Q4 2025 Earnings Call, Mar 17, 2026 · 2026-03-18T00:30:00 | Zuoli Xu | kept | Q1 2026 non-GAAP net income came in at roughly RMB 946 million, within the guided range. |
| “For the fourth quarter of 2025, the company expects to generate non-GAAP net income between RMB 1 billion and RMB 1.2 billion.” | Qfin Holdings, Inc., Q3 2025 Earnings Call, Nov 18, 2025 · 2025-11-19T00:30:00 | Zuoli Xu | kept | Q4 2025 non-GAAP net income was RMB 1.07 billion, within the guided range. |
| “For the third quarter of 2025, the company expects to generate non-GAAP net income between RMB 1.6 billion and RMB 1.8 billion.” | Qfin Holdings, Inc., Q2 2025 Earnings Call, Aug 15, 2025 · 2025-08-15T00:30:00 | Zuoli Xu | missed | Q3 2025 non-GAAP net income was RMB 1.51 billion, below the guided range as the regulatory shock hit harder than assumed. |
| “For the second quarter of 2025, the company expects to generate non-GAAP net income between RMB 1.75 billion and RMB 1.85 billion, representing a year-on-year growth between 24% and 31%.” | Qifu Technology, Inc., Q1 2025 Earnings Call, May 19, 2025 · 2025-05-20T00:30:00 | Zuoli Xu | kept | Q2 2025 non-GAAP net income was RMB 1.85 billion, at the top of the guided range. |
Q&A pressure map
Question counts and firms are curator tallies; analyst coverage shown above.
| Topic | Questions | Firms | Pressure / response |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loan pricing and take rate | 6 | Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities, CICC, China Renaissance | The most persistent pressure point across the window. In Q1 2026 Morgan Stanley pushed on where pricing settles; management gave strategy and direction but no floor, a mild non-answer. |
| Asset quality and risk trajectory | 6 | UBS, BofA Securities, China Renaissance, Morgan Stanley | Analysts repeatedly probed the month-by-month delinquency and collection trend and when risk would stabilize; management answered with specific FPD and C2M2 figures each quarter. |
| Shareholder returns (buyback versus dividend) | 4 | Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, BofA Securities | Pressed on the pause and resumption of buybacks relative to the progressive dividend, especially after the share-price decline. |
| Loan-volume growth and risk appetite | 4 | UBS, Morgan Stanley | Analysts sought a timeline for volume to return to growth; management consistently deflected to prudence and health over scale. |
| Funding costs and ABS issuance | 3 | CICC, UBS, China Renaissance | Recurring questions on how far funding costs can fall and how the 4x LPR cap affects ABS plans. |
| Overseas expansion | 3 | CICC, China Renaissance, JPMorgan | Analysts asked for concrete progress; management kept answers at the level of market selection and early-stage results. |
Language shifts
Only language evidence verified against the referenced component is shown.
| Observation | Verbatim evidence | Call ID | Component |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early-2025 tone was confident and beat-oriented, before the second-half downturn reset expectations. | “achieved high-quality growth, delivering results that surpassed our expectations” | 1942525283 | 2 |
| By Q4 2025 management flagged portfolio risk at a multi-year peak, the sharpest caution vocabulary in the window. | “increased to 0.97%, the highest recorded since COVID in 2020” | 1988494776 | 2 |
| Capital-return language turned defensive in Q4 2025 as the buyback was effectively paused. | “we take a little bit more cautious view approach for this, just given what's happening in the macro environment” | 1988494776 | 7 |
| One quarter later the buyback tone turned constructive again, tracking the improvement in risk metrics. | “we believe share buyback once again becomes a viable option for shareholder returns at this juncture” | 2000262312 | 7 |
The call history frames the debate cleanly: profits have roughly halved year-over-year and guidance stepped down four quarters running, yet Q1 2026 offers the first hard evidence the risk cycle is turning. The question the transcripts leave open is whether stabilizing asset quality arrives fast enough to offset the pricing and volume management is deliberately giving up, given its own Q2 guidance still implies a roughly 50% year-over-year profit decline.