Harmoney Corp Limited

Hello and welcome to Harmony's half year 2023 results presentation. I'm David Stevens, the CEO and Managing Director of Harmony. With me today is Simon Ward, our Chief Financial Officer. Just a reminder that from this half year we have changed our reporting currency to Australian dollars. All numbers in this presentation are in Australian dollars unless otherwise noted. Also in this half year and going forward we've also retired our pro forma reporting that was adopted as part of our IPO process. All numbers in this presentation are now on a statutory basis. We've also included in the appendix the translated historical numbers to Australian dollars on a statutory basis. Now turning to slide two. We bring to your attention important information relating to the disclosures in today's presentation. We leave this for you to review at your own leisure. Now turning to slide three. Today I'll begin with highlighting our results for half year 2023. I'll then go into an overview of our business model. Many of these themes will be familiar to you if you've followed our progress, but it's useful to keep these top of mind as we go over what this model is delivering today and we'll continue to do so into the future. I'll then hand over to Simon who will take you through our financial results. Finally, I'll discuss our strategy and outlook for financial year 23 before responding to your questions. You can submit a question on the webcast at any time during the presentation by typing it into the ask a question box and then hitting submit. We'll then endeavour to respond to your questions during the Q&A at the end. Now turning to slide four and then on to slide five. This slide presents our key performance metrics. For the six months, we grew originations by 23% to $241 million compared to PCP, from a combination of new business growth in Australia and existing customer growth across both Australia and New Zealand. This culminated in a loan book of $701 million at 31 December 2022. We also grew our revenue by 55% to $50.1 million. Very pleasingly and highlighting the scalability of our consumer direct business model, our cost to income ratio dropped by a massive 34% to a market leading 29%. Please note we have reclassified servicing and verification costs from our preliminary results released on 31 January 23 as this new classification will be used going forward. This all resulted in a cash impact for the year of $2.3 million, and for the first time we were able to report a cash return on equity which was 8%, with a medium term target to be achieving 20% cash return on equity. Now turning to slide six, where I'd like to provide some further context and perspective on these results. There are nine key points broken up into financial, customer value and risk management. Think of it this way. If you remember anything from today's presentation, these are the key points I'd like you to remember. In terms of financial, we've reported a cash NPAT of $2.3 million for the half-year with a cost-to-income ratio of 29% and unrestricted cash of $30 million. This is a significant endorsement of Harmony's 100% consumer direct model and our execution of it through technology and automation. Our net interest margin, or NIM, of 9.8% is testament to the power of Harmony's customer acquisition and credit assessment models, key components of our Stellair technology platform. It's also important to know that our 100% direct model allows us to more easily adjust rates. This is not something easily done in traditional broker models. We've also achieved an annualized 8% cash return on equity in the half year and are targeting a 20% cash return on equity in the medium term. This is the first time we've guided to a return on equity target. We feel this is achievable and at a level of a highly valuable technology business in financial services. In terms of customer value, our customer satisfaction record remains high with an average score of 4.7 out of 5 on over 50,000 reviews across both Google and Shopper approved. Of course, keeping our customers happy is why many return to Harmony for their future borrowing needs, and they do so at minimal customer acquisition cost to Harmony. Our Australian expansion continues at pace with the Australian loan book surpassing the New Zealand loan book for the first time. We feel this is an outstanding result considering our AFX listing was just over two years ago. In terms of risk management, our net interest margin is achievable with a quality portfolio with over 40% of borrowers owning their own home and when combined with lower arrears rate reflects quality throughout the entire loan book. We have a highly diversified funding. with warehouse facilities from three of the big four Australian banks and our own securitisation program. And finally, 75% of our floating rate borrowings are hedged to mitigate any impact from interest rate market movements. Now turning to slide seven. This slide presents other key metrics we share with investors at each update. First half 2023 has seen strong account growth of 18%, whilst at the same time reducing marketing by 3.6 million, being a significant 36% reduction. The underlying story here is our marketing algorithms are getting smarter and we're able to generate more accounts with less spend. New loan originations have grown 20% over the same period due to improved conversion of accounts to loans. Again, that's with a 36% reduction in marketing. So clearly to see that 20% growth with a third reduction in marketing is significant and shows the progress this business is making, particularly in Australia. The last column on this slide shows the customer annuity. Harmony's 100% consumer direct model delivers long-tail benefits in the form of an ongoing annuity, something we explore more on slide 13. Here we are graphing the cumulative originations over time, and it's useful to compare New Zealand's historic growth with Australia's, which shows clear similarities. What we saw in New Zealand is now being mirrored in Australia, and New Zealand experiences customers subsequently borrowed an additional 130% of their first loan amount over the next five years with minimal customer acquisition costs. This is starting to play out in Australia too, remembering a market nine times out of New Zealand. Now turning to slide eight. As mentioned, we listed on the ASX a little over two years ago with a goal of accelerating our growth in Australia, so it's pleasing to see how successful the expansion has been to date with the group loan book increasing 21% in the last six months to 31 December 22. In this first half year, our loan book Revenue grew by 55%, whilst the scalability of our data-driven, highly automated Stellair platform was able to deliver a cost-to-income reduction of 43% to 29%, this resulting in a cash-in pad of $2.3 million. Now turning to slide 9 and then to slide 10. Our loans are personalised to the customer, meaning interest rates and term options are matched to each person based on their individual credit characteristics. Our technology plays a big role here. We offer loans up to $70,000 with loan terms of three, five or seven years. Our average new loan size is $22,000. Our processes are fast and are intentionally designed to be simple for customers to use and understand. Again, our technology plays a key role here, enabling us to make a lending decision within minutes for most applications and funds arriving in bank accounts within 24 hours of the customer accepting the loan. Carrying on the theme of keeping it simple for customers, we have just one fee, a loan establishment fee. All loans of course are fully compliant with applicable laws and regulations in both countries. We offer loans to help customers start or achieve just about anything. The examples listed on the right are most common starting with renovation loans and debt consolidation through to helping people with life events such as travel, education and weddings. Now turning to slide 11. Our strategy is 100% consumer direct. There are a number of well-known distribution strategies in our industry, such as broker and broker-direct hybrids, but for Harmony, 100% direct has proven to be the right strategy for our unique business model. The reason for this is captured in the formula at the top of the slide. It shows how our deep consumer data and tech-driven strategy on the very left of the equation produces high shareholder returns on the very right. While in between sits four key value drivers connecting strategy to returns, These are lower acquisition costs, lower credit losses, lower funding costs while keeping operating expenses low. We'll come back to this formula throughout today's presentation to help illustrate how the results connect to this unique business model, but it's important to note here that personal loans are just a starting point for Harmony and that our consumer direct business model supports growth opportunities throughout a whole range of consumer finance products. In January we launched our new secured car loan product, which I'll talk about later, and you can see further diversification possible into other credit products such as line of credit, credit cards, right through to home loans, for example. Now turning to slide 12. This slide talks to the very left side of our business model formula on the last page, data machine learning and automation. To properly build scale it's clear that you need automation. For that, you need advanced and integrated machine learning capability. To do that successfully, you need more than just tech. It needs massive amounts of quality first-party data. We consistently attract over 12,000 new customer accounts each month. All of this data is used to constantly train our machine learning models. This is a huge number of new customers for any business. The high volume of consumer financial data combined with over eight years of historic data effectively supercharges training in our machine learning so we can optimize for sophisticated, highly efficient marketing with platforms such as Google giving us the right customers at a low cost. And you've seen that come through in our results this half with new originations growing by 20% and marketing reducing by 36%. Risk adjusted income of 7%, so this is after losses, gained through a more accurate risk assessment of customers. This combination of data, machine learning and automation built into our technology platform, Stellair, has been a core feature of Harmony since our inception. Now turning to slide 13. The power of Stellair's machine learning goes far beyond assessing customers at the point of their loan application. It plays a significant role throughout the entire lifetime of our relationship with the customer. As mentioned earlier, Machine learning is used to train our customer acquisition models so we can attract the right customers for the right cost. Harmony is highly selective when it comes to audience targeting. We have important responsibilities as a lender and we also need to ensure our marketing spend is efficient and effective. This is where sophisticated customer acquisition models play a key role and again where huge amounts of first party consumer data is key. With these models are used with powerful digital marketing platforms like Google, Microsoft, Ads and Facebook. the result is highly targeted and cost-effective customer acquisition. What this means in practice is that we can acquire the right customers for the right price at scale, and critically, we can forecast this with a high level of reliability. We can then use our direct relationship with the customer to tailor existing products to their needs and devise new services to offer. Proof of our ability to target the right customer with the right product is reflected in our Google reviews and Shopper approved scores. with over 50,000 reviews and an average score of 4.7 out of 5. Now moving to the second column. Nationally we work hard to ensure we deliver a great customer experience so we can create annuity revenue as satisfied customers return with minimal customer acquisition cost. This experience is underpinned by our automated, simple and streamlined 100% online process. In the third column, our ability to scale remains an important factor in the Harmony Model, and our continued investment in technology remains a key enabler. Already in this half year, we have achieved a cost-to-income ratio of 29%, which is exceptional. The diagram bottom right of the page shows how all these factors combine to support the lifetime value of a customer. Our customer acquisition model helps us attract the right customers Our application and loan experience is highly tuned to customer satisfaction, so customers return to harmony for their future needs. This virtuous cycle is expected to lead to 130% in additional originations to the same customers over the next five years at minimal customer acquisition cost. Now turning to slide 14, I'll now hand over to our Chief Financial Officer, Simon Ward, who will talk you through our financial results in more detail.

Thank you, David, and hello everybody. Please turn to slide 15, which summarizes our key financial performance metrics for the year. I'll begin by going through each of these items briefly now before going into more detail on the following slides. Beginning with the loan book, as David mentioned earlier, Harmony's loan book continues to grow rapidly, up 21% in the half and up 63% from the prior comparative half to $701 million. This loan book growth has driven revenue growth of 55%, up from $32 million in the prior comparative half to $50 million this half. Our net interest income percentage, which is our interest margin after funding costs, and our risk-adjusted income percentage, which is our interest margin after funding costs and incurred credit losses, are both down this half compared with the first half last year, driven primarily by increased funding costs central banks have lifted rates to combat inflation. Funding costs have increased more rapidly than the influence of increases to new lending rates on the average loan book lending rate.

It's important to note at this point that the prior comparative period did represent an exceptionally low point for funding costs, which I'll expand on later in the slide, and a corresponding high point for the net interest income of 13%. Harmony has a very strong margin, so even with increases to funding costs, using a dynamic pricing and hedging strategy, were able to target a net interest margin of 10% and risk-adjusted margin of 7%, achieving 9.8% net interest margin and 6.7% risk-adjusted margin for the half. Moving next to acquisition costs, Harmony was able to grow originations by 23% while reducing acquisition costs by 36%, providing further proof of the success of our data-driven Stellair marketing platform, twined with our consumer direct model. A consumer direct model is delivered through 100% online, highly automated platform. This high level of automation enables the business to scale rapidly without having to similarly scale OPEX, as demonstrated by a significant reduction in our cost-to-income ratio down from 43% to enviable 29%. These components combined enable Harmony to deliver a cash end pad of $2.3 million and annualized cash return on equity of 8%. Our statutory NPAT was a $3.4 million loss, with the main driver of the difference between this and our cash NPAT being the $4.6 million increase in our expected credit loss provision, with movements in that provision not included in our cash NPAT. Importantly, our cash NPAT does include all actual credit losses that were incurred during the period. The reason that we exclude movements in our expected credit loss provision from our cash MPAT is that this is not a cash expense. It's driven by our strong loan book growth with an accounting provision for expected future period losses being required to be taken on all new lending at a time of origination ahead of recognising any interest income that may be earned on that new lending. Now turning to slide 16 to look at revenue in a bit more detail. As mentioned earlier, the loan book grew by 63% on PCP to $701 million, which delivered revenue growth of 55% to $50 million. The Australian loan book growth continued to lead the way, up 130% to $351 million, now making up more than half of the total loan book. Revenue growth, while still very strong at 55%, was lower than loan book growth, as the average interest rate on the loan book reduced from 16.6% to 15.4% with a loan book weighting naturally shifting towards lower rate calendar year 2021 originations as earlier period loans paid down. This half average interest rate at 15.4% marks a low point with the average already increasing as the targeted rate increases passed through on new loans through calendar year 2022 become a larger portion of the loan book. Now turning to slide 17, providing more detail on acquisition costs. Now this is really a key slide as it focuses on the latest proof point of the power of our data-driven Stellaire marketing platform, twined with our consumer direct model. This half harmony was able to deliver a 23% increase in originations on PCP with a 36% or 3.6 million reduction in acquisition spend. How are we able to achieve this? For some of you this will just be a reminder. The first element is that Harmony's consumer direct model provides deep consumer data to which we apply continuous machine learning to focus our online marketing efforts on desirable high intent customers. This has proven successful in lowering marketing costs per origination in New Zealand and is now doing the same at scale in Australia. The second key element is that offering a great Customer direct experience means that our new and existing customers return to us the next time they want to start something new, and when they do, because of the existing direct relationship, those subsequent loans have minimal acquisition cost. This has long been a feature of the New Zealand business, where more than half of originations are from existing customers and is now replicating in Australia, our rapid expansion there. Combined, these two features drive our decreasing marketing cost to origination ratio, shown in the chart on the right. Over time, the Australian ratio should approach the New Zealand ratio as a mix of new to existing customer originations converge, with existing customers making up 60% of the first half originations in New Zealand, but only 25% in Australia. A final feature I'd like to point out here is that our prior year acquisition spend level was a one-off. As we sought to accelerate the training and learning of our Stellia marketing algorithm in Australia, we're not anticipating to return to that level. focusing on credit performance.

The deep consumer data provided by our consumer direct model also powers our machine-learned credit models. This has enabled us to build a prime loan book of resilient borrowers, with more than 40% being homeowners, 73% are employed in either professional, office or trade roles, and 86% are aged over 30. Further demographic detail on the loan book is provided in the appendix to this presentation. Harmony's prime loan book continues to deliver low credit losses at 3.1% for the half, up from 2.2% in the prior comparative period, with that increase flowing from the ageing or seasoning of the Australian loan book following the strong growth last year, with personal loans tending to reach peak hazard for loss during the period 12 to 18 months after origination. 90 plus day arrears remain steady at 46 basis points, which is about one third of the current Australian personal loan market average. Our confidence in Harmony's credit model continuing to deliver low credit losses enables us to target a risk adjusted margin of 7%, achieving just shy of this at 6.7% for the half. Now turning to slide 19, providing detail on our funding. Harmony's average funding rate has increased from an exceptionally low 3.9% in the prior comparative period to 5.9% this half. This increase was driven by increases to market interest rates, as central banks have listed rates to combat inflation. However, it should be noted that the prior comparative period was a particular low point for funding costs, with most borrowing peaked at very low spot rates, rather than higher hedged forward rates. in that period also having low unused capacity with associated line fees. Harmony's floating rate borrowings are now 75% hedged, with hedging having been around this level for the past 12 months, which, as the chart on the right shows, has significantly dampened the impact of central bank rate increases. This lowers the risk of funding cost increases by enabling Harmony to match the pace of these with targeted borrower rate increases on new lending to maintain a target net interest margin of 10%, achieving 9.8% this half. Harmony's robust processes and track record of solid credit performance have enabled us to establish warehouse facilities with three of the big four Australian banks, providing capital efficiency with overall borrowings at 94% of our loan book, delivering strong returns on capital employed. At 31 December, unused warehouse capacity was $220 million, and unrestricted cash was $30 million, providing capacity for further lending growth. Now turning to slide 20, looking at our operating expenses. One of the key features of Harmony's Stellia platform is its high level of automation. This has enabled Harmony to continue to scale its loan book much faster than its operating expenses. As shown in the chart on the right, with the loan book growing from $429 million in the prior comparative period to $701 million this period, while the cost-to-income ratio has fallen from 43% to 29%. This scale effect compounds in future years as book growth delivers multi-year annuity revenue, with customers returning for future borrowing needs due to Harmony's great consumer direct experience. The ability for Stellia platform to scale is ultimately what underpins our ability to deliver both our $2.3 million cash impact and our 8% annualised cash return on equity this half. It also underpins our ability to target a 20% return on equity in the medium term. Now, turning to slide 21, I'll hand you back to David to take you through our strategy and outlook.

Thanks, Simon. Continuing our strategy and outlook, please turn to slide 22. Australia continues to be a significant growth opportunity for Harmony. On the left side of the page, we return to our customer annuity chart. We can see that we're achieving in Australia the same impressive annuity growth trend that we saw in New Zealand, but now in a market nine times the size. This presents huge potential in the $143 billion market in Australia. The time series graph on the right-hand side shows a large and stable Australian personal lending market in black and illustrates the enormous growth opportunity for Harmony as consumers continue to gravitate online for financial products. Whilst the vast majority of personal lending is still provided by banks and traditional lenders, Harmony and others in our listed peer set continue to make positive inroads, which can be seen by the red line in the graph. Harmony's new customer lending in Australia grew 49% to $106 million. And with Harmony's progress in Australia mirroring New Zealand's performance, we're on track for these customers to add approximately 130% in repeat lending over the next five years with minimal customer acquisition cost. Now I'll turn to slide 23. The second strategic growth initiative is the expansion of our product experience and offering. In a nutshell, we have more qualified customers than we have products to offer them. And the opportunity is to devise a broader mix of products to meet the needs of all these customers. The diagram to the left shows this relationship. As mentioned earlier, we're generating 12,000 new customer accounts each month, 400 on average every day of the year, totaling over 140,000 new customer accounts a year. A portion of these customers are unsuitable for a loan as shown in grey, while some shown in blue are still prospecting, meaning the accounts are too early in the application process or have not progressed far enough to know their credit profile. But the majority of those 12,000 new accounts are qualified prime accounts, customers suitable for a loan. Some of those prime accounts, 1,000 on average, go to be a Harmony-funded loan, represented by the red segment. This leaves the green segment, representing 6,000 prime qualified accounts each month that are not served by our current offering, but they represent a large opportunity to convert customers through new features, such as always online of credit or an interest-only loan, or a new product beyond the personal loan, such as cards secured or credit cards. Along with this initiative are efforts to increase conversion for an even better user experience, combined with new credit and affordability models. I'll talk in more detail in the next two slides about our new initiatives that have just launched or are in progress that address moving the red arrow further into the green. Now, certainly to slide 24. Harmony is not historically focused on the car market up until now. We've only offered an unsecured product, and typically unsecured interest rates are a little higher. The car financing market is a large market, but most of the financing is provided by car dealers, who typically receive a commission for referring deals. At that point, the borrower can be quite captive to the rate and terms offered by the dealer's preferred financier, having already decided on the car they would like. We believe that our consumer direct model can disrupt the market by offering borrowers the ability to shop around privately or at dealers with the confidence that they already have the cash in their bank account to drive away with their new car on the spot. Once customers draw down the funds from us, they have 60 days to provide Harmony the car registration and certificate of insurance to keep the lower secured interest rate. If this isn't provided, the interest rate reverts back to the higher unsecured loan rate. This loan is underwritten on the customer's ability to repay. i.e. in the same way as our unsecured loan and not based on any value attributed to the security provided by the car. In addition, borrowers can also prepay their loan without any penalty if they no longer require some or all of the amount borrowed. As this area has not been a focus, we've not previously directed our marketing algorithm towards these customers. We commenced doing this in late January 2023 and early results indicate that customers are finding this disruptive car loan model attractive. Now turning to slide 25. As a technology-led lender, with over half of our employees involved in development, we're constantly working on enhancements to our Stellair platform. We're extremely excited to announce that we're approaching the release of a significant step change in our platform with the release of Stellair 2.0, which is expected to launch between July and September this year. This enhancement focuses on customer profile and process. and loan management, with the main advantage being that it will facilitate much faster development and deployment of new and innovative financial products that allow us to seize the huge opportunity we have from 6,000 prime customers every month who already create accounts that we don't currently serve. As an initial example, we're planning to launch being able to safely say yes with the right rate and the right amount for customers in the $2,000 to $15,000 loan range. which Stellair 1.0 is not calibrated towards. Stellair 1.0 is very successful at offering a great product to those seeking loans in the $15,000 to $70,000 range, but less so below this level. For a variety of reasons, our model tends to lean towards older homeowners that can draw larger loan amounts, which was a legacy from our peer-to-peer lending days. However, it's likely to knock out good credit quality customers that are looking for a smaller loan. Interestingly, we actually receive more inquiries for loan amounts below $15,000 than we do for loans above $15,000. So you can see the opportunity that is right at our feet. Important to remember as well that we're already attracting these customers, so no extra marketing cost is required. In addition, this has a multiplier effect as every customer we bring onto our platform, based on history, brings an additional 130% of loan drawdowns over the next five years with minimal customer acquisition cost. So by growing this $15,000 and below segment, we'll bring increased future lending as we grow with the customer. Now turning to slide 26. In terms of our outlook for the rest of financial year 2023, The interest rate environment and pricing response. As mentioned previously, Harmony has the ability to pass through targeted interest rate increases for our sophisticated risk-based pricing model, achieving a 10% net interest margin with a highly diversified loan book. Funding costs are protected with a diversified funding panel and 75% of borrowings hedged. Asset quality is supported by a high-quality diversified loan book with more than 40% homeownership and a lower rears rate of 0.46% 90 days plus. Growth is expected to remain strong due to the large total addressable market. Harmony's consumer direct model focused on customer experience is taking market share from banks with plenty of room to grow in the $143 billion market. And finally, our financial year 23 outlook, we're expecting to continue growth in originations, loan book, cash NPAT and a net interest margin of 10%. We're also for the first time guiding to a 20% cash return on equity target for the medium term. That concludes today's presentation and now we will turn to answering your questions. Just a reminder, you can submit a question on the webcast by typing it into the ask a question box and then hitting submit. Okay, so we have a few questions which I'll read out. It's impressive to see a strong return on equity, not common among your peers. Can you talk about this and the profile you expect in the coming years as you scale? Yeah, look, we're very proud to be able to talk about return on equity to the market. It's something that I believe every business should be assessed on and something that we refocused strongly in a previous role of mine. Look, we're at 8% annualised for the half, which we feel is fantastic. a great result, but it's only where we're starting. We're guiding to a 20% return on equity in the medium term. I feel that that's very achievable, and you can see that through maintaining a strong net interest margin of 10% and also reducing customer acquisition costs materially, and they're also continuing to drive that cost to income ratio down. KPIs across the business, I think we're certainly ticking the box there and it makes that sort of return on equity target very achievable. Our next question was, the NIM is high, albeit it's a little lower in this result. Are you able to maintain this level going forward? Yes, we certainly are. The previous half, Simon mentioned, was really an exceptionally high half. We still were setting up our funding warehouses. We didn't have swaps in place across the large majority of the book. I never really targeted a 13% NIM. The target has always been in the business at 10%, and that's what we continue to drive towards. Pricing increases that we've taken across the business from April last year, as they've become a larger part of the book. and the funding cost is hedged, we expect to maintain that 10% and are confident enough to guide to that for the remainder of the year. Last question I've got at the moment is, the cost income has changed dramatically. Is this significant reduction in customer acquisition cost sustainable? Look, Simon said in his section and mine, we did overinvest. in Australia in particular to educate our Google algorithms in particular. That was very, very important to be able to get the local learning. We obviously had a lot of learning in New Zealand, but we had to replicate that here. So we have reduced marketing to a lower level. But most importantly, our operating expenses, even in a high inflationary environment, We're managing very closely and we've got a great team. We're not looking to add to that team, certainly at a senior level. We obviously bring in more junior roles from time to time, but we've got a great team, well established in New Zealand, and we're not looking to change that. So we continue to keep those operating expenses low. The Stellair technology that we're rolling out in 2.0 again reduces some of our licensing costs as well. We're committed to that. We'll continue to drive that 29% down as low as we possibly can while still achieving the top line growth, which ultimately makes that return on equity target achievable. That's all the questions that I have online today. Just give another 10 seconds to refresh my screen, see if anything else has come through. Nothing there. So with that, I'll wrap up today's call. On behalf of Simon and myself, we thank everyone for listening to the call today, and we look forward to catching up with many of you in the coming weeks. Have a great day.