Transcripts
Qfin Holdings, Inc.'s management answers for the business every quarter. These are the exchanges that explain it best — verbatim, from the call transcripts preserved in Sources. Each link opens the full transcript at that page in a new tab.
Q1 2026 Earnings Call — Q1 2026
The current playbook: with China's consumer-credit market shrinking for a fifth straight quarter, management explains the deliberate retreat to high-quality, lower-priced borrowers, the fast-growing capital-light tech business, and how it returns capital through a downturn. · Open the full transcript →
The market QFIN is lending into: household short-term consumer loan balances fell for a fifth straight quarter.
Haisheng Wu (CEO): Demand for consumer credit remained soft, and asset quality faced broad based pressure. Household short term consumer loan balances declined for the fifth consecutive quarter. Decreasing by approximately RMB470 billion or 5% sequentially.
p. 5 · Read in context →
The capital-light future: a tech-solutions business serving banks priced at 3-12% grew sevenfold year on year.
Haisheng Wu (CEO): Turning to our tech solutions business. We have continued to deepen collaboration with financial institutions and actively cultivate our enterprise facing technology offerings. As another long term strategic pillar. […] Supporting banks in serving customer segments priced between 3% and 12%. At this stage, we are focused on validating these capabilities at scale. Which will lay a solid foundation for long term commercialization opportunities ahead. In Q1, loan volumes empowered by our tech solutions business reached RMB9.96 billion, representing 7- fold year over year growth. This demonstrates that our tech driven capital light model is steadily gaining industry recognition and being validated across multiple use cases.
p. 8 · Read in context →
How QFIN books revenue: capital-heavy credit-driven versus capital-light platform, and how regulation gutted the ICE line.
Zuoli "Alex" Xu (CFO): Total net revenue for Q1 was RMB3.91 billion versus RMB4.09 billion in Q4 and RMB4.69 billion a year ago. Revenue from credit-driven service, Capital-Heavy, RMB2.96 billion. In Q1 compared to RMB3.43 billion in Q4 and RMB3.11 billion a year ago. […] Revenue from platform services, Capital-Light, was RMB951.9 million in Q1, compared to RMB660 million in Q4 and RMB1.58 billion a year ago. The year on year decline was mainly due to significantly lower ICE contribution in response to the regulatory changes.
p. 10 · Read in context →
Why pricing keeps falling: a deliberate trade of near-term profit for stickier, higher-LTV prime users.
Haisheng Wu (CEO), responding to Richard Xu (Morgan Stanley): we also optimized pricing for our existing users with better risk profile. By giving them more competitive offers, we intended to increase their stickiness on our platform. […] As a result of these efforts, our average pricing was down 80 basis points sequentially. […] Strengthening our capabilities to serve high quality users is a longterm play. […] In the short term, it requires investment. But in substance, it is a trade-off between near term profit and long term sustainable value.
p. 14 · Read in context →
Capital-return philosophy in a downturn: dividends for certainty, buybacks when the price is right.
Zuoli "Alex" Xu (CFO): In terms of shareholder returns, our balance sheet is still pretty robust, and we have strong capital base to support both the business growth and the shareholder returns. At the same time, our business continue to generate substantial profit and healthy positive cash flow which steadily build up our capital base. Both dividend and the buybacks are considered as options for us. At this stage, we see dividend as a way to give shareholders certainty in uncertain environment.
p. 15 · Read in context →
The unit-economics discipline: CAC 'is just a number' - every dollar judged on payback, LTV and per-loan ROI.
Haisheng Wu (CEO): And I want to emphasize that customer acquisition cost is just a number. Which is heavily impacted by channels and acquisition mix. Therefore, we do not simply chase a low absolute CAC. Instead, for every dollar we spend, we track payback period. the user LTV, and measure eficiency based on ROI.
p. 19 · Read in context →
Q4 2024 Earnings Call — Q4 2024
The victory-lap FY2024 call: record profit and a 27.9% ROE from the shift to a capital-light platform, an unusually candid AI roadmap, and the fullest statement of the buyback-plus-dividend return policy. · Open the full transcript →
The platform-model shift paying off: record FY2024 profit, ~12% of shares repurchased, a 27.9% ROE.
Haisheng Wu (CEO): As our business model gradually shifts to a platform model, our organizational capabilities have been upgraded alongside it. […] In 2024, with our take rate continuing to improve, full-year non-GAAP net income rose 44% year-over-year to reach an all-time high of RMB6.42 billion. Additionally, we successfully executed USD410 million share repurchase buying back approximately 12% of our share count at the beginning of the year. […] our ROE for 2024 increased further to 27.9%, significantly outperforming most financial services and Internet companies in China.
p. 2 · Read in context →
The return framework in full: a new $450M buyback to accrete EPADS, plus a semiannually rising dividend.
Zuoli "Alex" Xu (CFO): Board of Directors approved a new share repurchase plan to buy back up to USD450 million worth of ADS over a 12-month period starting January 1, 2025. […] the management intend to further use share repurchase to accelerate EPADS accretion. […] We intend to gradually increase the dividend per ADS on a semiannual basis.
p. 9 · Read in context →
Where AI actually earns its keep: collection (Capella at ~84% adoption), fraud detection, and end-to-end credit decisioning.
Haisheng Wu (CEO), answering Richard Xu (Morgan Stanley): We believe credit is perfect scenario for AI application because this industry has a strong data foundation and a high degree of digitalization. […] So far, the adoption rate of the Capella system among our collecting team has reached about 84%. […] This year, we will put a more portion of our traffic into the end-to-end AI-driven risk decision-making process. We are really looking forward to the results of this test.
p. 10 · Read in context →
Risk-appetite philosophy: not chasing the lowest possible loss rate when take-rate cushion allows experimentation.
Yan Zheng (CRO): I also want to emphasize that we are not aiming to reduce our risk to the absolute lowest level as it doesn’t serve the best interest of the company. Right now, with a decent level of take rate we have a solid margin opportunity to experiment with new strategies and find a better balance between growth and risk.
p. 12 · Read in context →
The take-rate engine: net take rate approaching 6%, with cushion to 'test around the margin' for extra profit.
Zuoli "Alex" Xu (CFO): by the end of last year, in Q4, our take rate net approach to 6%. […] we have enough sort of cushion in our take rate, all our risk metrics that enable us to actually do a little bit testing around the margin.
p. 12 · Read in context →
Q4 2023 Earnings Call — Q4 2023
The clearest teardown of how the platform makes money: the ICE asset-allocation model and its 54% take-rate jump, the capital-light vs capital-heavy split, and the pivot to prioritise efficiency over scale after 2023's macro and telecom-line-control shocks. · Open the full transcript →
The strategic turn to 'efficiency over scale,' and the embedded-finance channel as sole fintech partner on a short-video giant.
Haisheng Wu (CEO): After thorough consideration by management, we have set quality growth and profitability as our primary objectives and shifted our operational strategy to prioritize efficiency over scale. […] Starting in July, we began working with a leading short-form video platform as their only fintech partner through our embedded finance model. […] In 2023, the percentage of new users with approved credit lines through the embedded finance channel rose to 31% with 82% increase in loan facilitation and origination volume.
p. 3 · Read in context →
How the platform makes money: matching loan assets to each bank's risk appetite lifted the ICE take rate 54% year on year.
Haisheng Wu (CEO): By aligning assets based on the risk appetites of different institutions, we optimized our asset allocation and increased overall returns on our loan portfolio. […] In 2023, our loan facilitation and origination volume under the ICE model steadily increased. The enhanced precision in asset allocation increased the underwriting efficiency from financial institution partners, resulting in a notable improvement in our take rate. In Q4, our revenue take rate as percentage of loan volume for ICE improved by 54% from the same period last year.
p. 4 · Read in context →
The 2023 asset-quality scare - telecom carriers' line controls - and the credit-tightening response.
Haisheng Wu (CEO): In the second half of the year, we encountered notable volatility in our asset quality due to the broader macro headwinds. The stricter line controls by China’s telecom carriers in Q4 added further pressure to our overall risk profile. In response to these challenges, starting in Q3, we have gradually tightened our credit standards and iterated risk strategies across the loan facilitation, credit operation, and post credit process to improve our risk metrics.
p. 4 · Read in context →
The two-engine model defined: capital-light already ~57% of volume, blended IRR trimmed to 21.3%.
Zuoli "Alex" Xu (CFO): For Q4, capital-light loan facilitation, ICE and other tech solution combined account for roughly 57% of the total loan volume compared to roughly 56% in the prior quarter. We expect this ratio to be gradually trending up through 2024 as we try to strike an optimal mix between riskbearing and non-risk bearing assets in an uncertain macro environment. […] During the quarter, average IRR of the loans we originated and/or facilitated was 21.3% compared to 21.7% in the prior quarter, as we purposely trimmed our direct exposure to high-price, high-risk assets in response to the macro uncertainty.
p. 7 · Read in context →
Guidance philosophy, tested by Morgan Stanley: loan-volume growth is 'not our primary goal' - quality of earnings is.
Haisheng Wu (CEO), responding to Richard Xu (Morgan Stanley): given the macro uncertainties at this stage, we will continue to maintain prudent approach in our operations at least in the first half of 2024. Therefore, the overall loan volume growth is not our primary goal. Instead, our primary goal will be the quality of our growth and the quality of earnings.
p. 11 · Read in context →
Q3 2021 Earnings Call — Q3 2021
The reset call: as China's 24% rate cap and internet-finance crackdown hit, management laid out the capital-light pivot, the quarter-by-quarter price step-down, and a quantified 2022 stress test - the origin of the model QFIN runs today. · Open the full transcript →
The birth of the capital-light thesis: capital-light and tech solutions already ~57% of loan volume.
Zuoli "Alex" Xu (CFO): robust growth was mainly driven by continued progress we have made in capital-light and other technology solutions. During the quarter, capital-light and other tech solution contribute roughly 57% of total loan volume and capital-light facilitation revenue take rate also improved nicely.
p. 8 · Read in context →
The 24% rate cap arrives: pricing to step down ~1 point a quarter through mid-2022, with profitability defended.
Zuoli "Alex" Xu (CFO): During the quarter, average pricing was 26.1% compared to 27.2% in Q2 and 25.9% a year ago. As the 24% rate cap being implemented across the industry, gradually, we are expecting average pricing to trend down by about 1 percentage point each quarter through mid-2022 to satisfy the rate cap requirement. As we discussed in the past, even under a more restrictive and a steep rate cut scenario, we should still be able to maintain healthy growth and profitability in the transitional year of 2022 and resume to a more robust growth afterwards.
p. 8 · Read in context →
An early move upmarket - RMB150-200k-ticket prime users vs the RMB10k regular average, the same pivot seen in 2026.
Zuoli "Alex" Xu (CFO): During the quarter, we continue to maintain healthy pace of customer acquisition, while focusing on attracting high quality borrowers. In particular, we significantly increased the number of customers with much larger credit line and relatively low risk. The average ticket size of these type of customers typically runs between RMB150,000 to RMB200,000 compared to the average of RMB10,000 for regular borrowers.
p. 8 · Read in context →
The hardest question answered: sub-24% assets carry a take rate ~1 point below the 3% book, but better early risk.
Haisheng Wu (CEO), answering Richard Xu (Morgan Stanley): the asset below 24%, it's 1% lower than our current total loan book, which is 3% net take rate. […] as for the risk profile of this 24% cap asset, what we observe is in Q3, the new transaction has better risk performance than the existing asset. For example, in the day one delinquency result metrics, the new transaction is 4.2% and the total loan book is 5.1%.
p. 11 · Read in context →
Management's own downside case: a 24%-cap stress test assuming 20% volume growth and net take rate falling from 4% to 3%.
Zuoli "Alex" Xu (CFO), responding to Thomas Chong (Jefferies): But if you recall, after the second quarter, we did the stress test, which related to the 24% rate cap. […] we assume a 20% kind of volume growth for next year and then the net take rate, as I mentioned early in this call, will come down from 4% right now to about 3% in that stress test. So that assumption as well as the conclusion for that stress test still hold at this point, although I just want to emphasize again, this is not a oficial guidance.
p. 19 · Read in context →
More calls
Q4 2025 Earnings Call — Q4 2025 · 25 pages · The FY2025 annual call - where the April-2025 regulatory reset and the deliberate shift to high-quality, lower-priced users were first framed as a multi-quarter strategy, setting up the Q1 2026 numbers. · Open →
Q3 2025 Earnings Call — Q3 2025 · 23 pages · A mid-reset update: read here for the early results of the risk-tightening measures and the first signs of a tightening funding market. · Open →
Q2 2025 Earnings Call — Q2 2025 · 22 pages · The clearest read on the October-2025 ICE rule change: management's multi-scenario contingency plan, plus take-rate math at a 5.4% peak and record ABS issuance. · Open →
Q1 2025 Earnings Call — Q1 2025 · 22 pages · The last quarter before the April-2025 rules bit - peak profitability and buyback cadence, a useful 'before' baseline for the reset. · Open →
Q3 2024 Earnings Call — Q3 2024 · 22 pages · The recovery quarter: loan volume returned to sequential growth and the take rate resumed its climb, ahead of the record Q4. · Open →
Q2 2024 Earnings Call — Q2 2024 · 22 pages · Mid-2024 execution of the efficiency-over-scale strategy, with the embedded-finance channel and shareholder-return cadence reiterated. · Open →
Q1 2024 Earnings Call — Q1 2024 · 22 pages · The first quarter delivering on the FY2023 pivot - the seasonal trough management flagged, with risk metrics starting to mend. · Open →
Q1 2022 Earnings Call — Q1 2022 · 26 pages · The dual-shock call: navigating COVID-lockdown asset-quality stress and the 24% rate-cap transition, with management defending take rate via a lifetime-value argument. · Open →