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spk21: I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Mr. Clark S. Susie. Thank you. Please go ahead, sir.
spk20: Thank you, Operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the call today. Up FinTech Holding Limited second quarter 2021 earnings release was distributed earlier today and is available on our IR website at ir.itiger.com as well as Globe Newswire Services. On the call today from Up FinTech are Mr. Wu Tianhua, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. John Zung, Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Huang Lei, the CEO of US Tiger Securities.
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spk07: and Mr. Kenny Zhao, our financial controller.
spk20: Mr. Wu will give an overview of our business operations and discuss corporate highlights. Mr. Zong will then discuss our financial results. They will both be available to answer your questions during the Q&A session that follows their remarks. Now, let me cover the safe harbor. The statements we are about to make contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement. For more information about factors that could cause actual results to materially differ from those in the forward-looking statements, please refer to our Form 6K, furnished today, September 10, 2021, and our annual report on Form 20F, filed on April 28, 2021. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law. It is my pleasure to now introduce our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Wu. Mr. Wu will make remarks in Chinese, which will be followed by an English translation. Mr. Wu, please go ahead with your remarks.
spk02: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Tiger Broker's 2021 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. The overall market environment of the second quarter has declined compared to the first quarter, but thanks to the development of Tiger International and the continuous strengthening of the company's product service, the company also achieved a high-speed growth in the second quarter in 2021. The total income of the second quarter is 60.2 million US dollars, which is 98.7% compared to the same period. This quarter, we have also increased our investment in goods, self-calculation, and recruitment of talents, and the cost is obviously rising. But we believe that these investments can better determine our competitive advantage and growth momentum. After the adjustment of the supply price of 1,370 million US dollars to the year-end issuance, this quarter's net profit has been reduced to 4.4 million US dollars. The global open stock market has increased by 24.9 million US dollars, reaching 164.9 million US dollars, which is nearly the same as last year. The net profit has increased to 52.9 million US dollars, The number of new recruits per quarter is 15.3 million, which is 4.5 times that of the same period this year. Compared to this year's first quarter, the return has also increased by 30.4%, which is a new high in the history of the quarter. Of which, more than 60% of new recruits come from overseas. The international development has shown significant results. In the first half of 2021, the number of new recruits was 270,000. It has exceeded the historical sum from the top line in 2015 to 2020. Although the market environment is not very small, we still have relatively high asset inflows. The total asset of the client has increased to 239.3 billion US dollars, which is nearly three times that of last year. Compared to us, this year's interest rate has also risen by 11.8%.
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spk01: They say all good things must come to an end. And there it was, the inevitable client handover.
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spk20: Although market sentiment was weaker in the second quarter, we still achieved substantial growth. thanks to internationalization and the strength of our comprehensive product and service offerings. Total revenue in the second quarter was $60.2 million, representing 98.7% growth year over year. This quarter, we also increased investment in user acquisition, self-clearing, and talent recruitment. We are confident such investment will bolster our market-leading position and fuel future expansion in our business. Factor in the $13.7 million fair value change to convertible bonds we issued earlier this year, and non-GAAP loss is $4.4 million for this quarter. Total customer accounts increased by 249,000 in the second quarter to 1.649 million, which is two times the total number of accounts in the same period of last year. We added 153,000 funded accounts this quarter. 4.5 times that of the quarterly addition last year, and a 30.4% increase quarter over quarter. The number of total funded accounts rose to 529,000. Of the 153,000 new additions this quarter, over 60% came from offshore, exhibiting the growing momentum of our internationalization strategy. Total newly funded accounts in the first half of 2021 reached 270,000, surpassing the total number of funded accounts acquired since our platform went online in 2015 through 2020. Even with a weaker market backdrop, we still see healthy asset inflows. Total AUM reached $23.9 billion this quarter. up nearly three times year-over-year, and 11.8% quarter-over-quarter. I would now like to take this opportunity to provide investors with an update on three key business initiatives at our company.
spk02: Singapore, New Zealand, and other countries and regions, as well as the economy, investment banks, financial management, etc. In this country, we have offices. Due to the development of the second system of internationalization, we have more than half of our customers coming from overseas this quarter. Up to 630, the number of overseas users has reached 40% of the total number of incoming customers. Then the internationalization has only been going on for more than a year. We have proven our internationalization capabilities. can get a large number of overseas users in a relatively short time. Internationalization has not only greatly improved the speed of user value, but also broadened the scale of the user platform, and allowed Tiger to have professional experience under different supervision in many places, making it possible for us to better serve the global market by investing in individuals and institutional users. We are also very happy to be with you. Currently, the unit price of Singapore has exceeded 200,000 US dollars. We are full of confidence in the development of internationalization.
spk20: Tiger Brokers is continually expanding our global reach and our network of subsidiaries covers the U.S., Australia, Singapore, and other countries. Our subsidiaries are licensed to conduct a wide range of security businesses, including investment banking, asset management, and brokerage. our internationalization continues to accelerate. More than 60% of newly funded accounts this quarter came from offshore markets. And as of June 30th, 40% of our total funded accounts were from international users. We only started executing on our internationalization strategy just over a year ago. But our progress thus far is a testament to the value proposition of our platform in foreign markets. We see vast, latent demand for our services across a wide range of countries and regions and expect that internationalization will not only spur growth in new accounts, but also raise the ceiling for the future size of our client base. As we expand to new countries and add products and markets to our trading platform, our firm gains new experience and knowledge for engaging with regulatory bodies, enabling us to further enhance the client experience. I am pleased to report that as of today, We already have over 200,000 funded accounts in Singapore. We firmly believe internationalization will drive further growth. Although the market has been weak since the second quarter, we are confident to achieve our guidance of 350,000 new funded accounts this year. 2B Services. Today, our growth strategy envisions simultaneously developing our expertise in investment banking, ESOP, and brokerage to augment our capabilities to meet our clients' global financial services needs.
spk02: 2B Services. The rapid expansion of our ESOP business continues to exceed our expectations. In the second quarter, we added 51 new ESOP clients for a grand total of 216 clients.
spk20: We serve not only U.S. and Hong Kong listed companies, but we also help A-share companies manage their employee options.
spk02: Thank you very much for your trust in us. In the second quarter, we participated in 17 IPOs and follow-on offerings in the U.S. markets.
spk20: and also serves as an underwriter for 14, including Boss, I Play Show, International, and Ding Dong, among others. In light of the recent concerns over ADR IPOs, I would like to highlight for our investors and stakeholders that we possess extensive capabilities to act as an underwriter in Hong Kong. In the past year, we participated in many popular listings in Hong Kong, such as those of NetEase, Xpeng, Bilibili, harbor biome and antigen among others. Finally, I would like to provide an update on our self-clearing kit book.
spk02: With over 30 years of experience in self-calculation, we have acquired the U.S. Self-Calculation Certificate. This is a very important milestone. It really realizes the self-development from the front to the back, and has deeper technical barriers. It has higher requirements for compliance, operation technology, and so on. As of the second quarter of 2021, we already have more than 50% of users using Markov self-calculation. In July of 2019, we acquired TradeUp Securities Inc., formerly Marsco, a broker-dealer with over 30 years' experience in self-clearing and its own self-clearing license, because we wanted to establish the technical, operational,
spk20: and compliance capability to manage our own proprietary brokerage system. I am pleased to report that as of the second quarter, 2021, more than 50% of our clients were having their U.S. cash equities self-cleared by trade-off. We project that by the end of this year, we will be self-clearing over 70% of our clients. Thank you.
spk05: Hello, I'm Clark. Let me walk through our second quarter financial performance. All numbers are in USD. Total revenue was $60.2 million this quarter, up 99% year over year. Commissions were $31 million, up 64% year over year, but down 41% from the first quarter of this year. The drop in commission was due to weaker market sentiment in the second quarter. as total trading volume dropped 18% quarter over quarter. Plus, the proportion of higher unit economic products, for example, cash equity, dropped from 50% of the trading volume in the first quarter to 40% of the trading volume in the second quarter. The decrease in commission also resulted in a lower blended take rate of 3 pips in the second quarter versus 4.3 pips in the first quarter of this year. But in reality, the fee rate remains the same for both quarters. Interest-related income, which combines financing service fee and interest income, was $19 million, an increase of 115% year-over-year and 7% quarter-over-quarter. The increase was due to higher margin and securities lending balance and gradual ramp-up in self-clearing. Other revenue was $10.2 million, up 300% year-over-year. primarily due to more equity underwriting, IRPR services, and currency exchange services. Now switching to cost. Interest expense increased 154% year-over-year to $4.8 million this quarter, in line with our usual growth as the increase in margin activities. Execution and carrying expense were $6.6 million this quarter. increased 131% year-over-year as we have more funded account customers and higher trading volume. Employee compensation increased 82% year-over-year to $20.6 million as we keep adding headcounts in RMB self-carrying to support our global growth. Along with the headcount increase, this quarter occupancy expense increased 32% year-over-year to $1.5 million SG&A increased 84% year-over-year to 5.1 million. Marketing experts had the most uptake within OPEX, increased more than 700% year-over-year to 24 million. We are fully committed to internationalization, and in the second quarter, we increased marketing offshore, mostly in Singapore through both online and offline channel to drive brand awareness and user acquisition. We firmly believe grabbing more market share right now will help deliver better financial performance down the road. As a result of rapid user growth, communication and data usage also increased 143% year-over-year to $5 million this quarter. With the increased spending to drive growth and a fair value change of $13.7 million on the convertible bonds we issued earlier this year, our lay loss for the second quarter was $24. 21.5 million. Taking out the fair value change and other long gap items, our long gap loss for this quarter was 4.4 million. Now we have concluded our presentation. Operator, please open the mic for Q&A. Thanks.
spk21: Certainly. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel the request, you can press the pound or hash key. Please hold on until we compile the Q&A roster. Once again, it is star followed by 1 to ask the question. We have the first question. This is coming from the line of Han Ku from CICC. Please go ahead.
spk03: Hi, I'm Suhan. I have two questions for you. The first one is that we see that the growth of goods in the second quarter is getting stronger. As of now, I would like to ask you a question about the entry of customers in the third quarter, including the cost of investment. The second question is about our net profit. Compared to the first quarter, the net profit of net profit is still rising, but our net profit ratio is still growing. What is the reason for this? Let me translate it. Thanks for taking my question. This is Han from CICC. I have two questions. The first one is about the guidance of the Q3. We see the strong growth of users in Q2. Could you give us more color on the number of clients and the growth of client assets and the cost of spending in the coming quarter? The second question is about the clearing free rate We are wondering why the exclusion and the canary failure to our convention webinar went up in Q2, while we see the continuous increase in the flow of canaries. Thanks.
spk05: Thank you, Fuhan. So I will answer your two questions. First is on the guidance for the third quarter. So looking at tonight, all this data, We see higher UE products, like cash equity option, versus the second quarter. So we feel if market stays like this, then we would expect commission to have a moderate increase in the third quarter. But ADR underwriting is on hold due to the current policy from China and the US regulators. So short-term, this could have a negative impact on our revenue. But the impact should be manageable, as ADR underwriting only accounted for less than 10% of our revenue. So we think the ADR equity offering will resume once regulators give more clarity. And in the meantime, as Tianhua mentioned earlier, we are very active in Hong Kong IPO as an international underwriter. And we already underwrote Bilibili, SharePoint, those popular IPOs. So this could offset some shorting impact from the hold in U.S. equity underwriting. In terms of customer acquisition, so the biggest OPEX is sales and marketing. We expect the third quarter marketing expense to be in line or less than second quarter as we don't offer any offline events in Singapore. But we will be very optimistic to acquire users when we see fit. In terms of AUM per users, so in July and August we still see very healthy net inflows for both months. But due to market sentiment, average AUM is down around 10% to 15% by end of August versus end of June. And your second question regarding the clearing expense went up. So the main reason of the increase in clearing expense is we have a lot more Singapore clients and we offer Singapore stock trading. Based on local regulation, if the client is trading Singapore stock, the client's asset needs to be hold at a SGX clearing member. Our Singapore subsidiary is not a SGX member yet, so we pay third-party custodian fee for each client's open account with us. Given we have over 200,000 Singapore clients already, we paid close to 2 million custodian fee the second quarter, which counted as our clearing expense. As you might know, our Singapore subsidiaries already received AIP from SGX to become a clearing member. So once we officially become the SGX clearing member, we can greatly reduce the custodian fee. I believe we can see some reduction in custodian fee starting in the first quarter. Thanks.
spk03: Thank you.
spk21: Once again, ladies and gentlemen, it is start followed by one to ask a question. Please note there might be a slight pause as we collate the questions. We have the next question. This is coming from the line of Judy Zhang from . Please go ahead. .
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spk03: Excuse me, can you hear me?
spk06: I can hear you now, Judy. Please repeat the question. Thank you. Okay.
spk03: I just want to ask about the situation of the Singapore market. The situation of the entry-level clients, the size of the assets, and the cost of the customers and the payback period last year, a year ago, and now, the latest quarter. Is that clear?
spk06: Okay, thank you. Let me ask Tianhua to answer this question.
spk03: Thank you, Julie.
spk02: Okay, thank you. Thank you. If we use the sample of the second quarter of 2020 for our users in Singapore, we will find that most of the users' first average is around $6,000 to $7,000. But after a year, In the second quarter of this year, human resources can reach more than US$30,000. Every quarter of this year, the military's assets are in a very good state. We think this shows that users like our products. They are continuing to invest. The other thing is similar to what we saw in China. Many times, they are gradually So on the client, you know, from their client's profile, you know, so we use the users were acquired last year, say, second quarter of 2020 as a cohort sample.
spk05: Initial deposit among that group is around 6,000 to 7,000 USD. One year later, by end of second quarter this year, average client asset is around $30,000 USD. Since second quarter of last year, each quarter, this cohort group has net asset inflow, which means they are keeping deposit money into their account. And AUM growth is not only due to equity value appreciation.
spk02: Sorry, he has a problem with the user. OK.
spk05: If you look at, you know, your customer will acquire this quarter, second quarter of 2021, their average initial deposit is around 5,000 USD, slightly below the initial deposit of the second quarter of 2020 client. We don't think this is due to a deterioration of client quality. We feel it's more like, it's more due to the less attractive market backdrops. We feel similar to the clients we acquired last year. After several quarters, they will keep depositing money to trade on Tiger platform.
spk02: Regarding the payback issue, we use the second quarter of 2020 as the basis. The cost of mutual funds is about $130. At that time, the market was more active. So basically, it can be repaid in about two quarters. In 2021, our second-year users' purchase price has risen by about $160. The main reason is that the competition has become more intense. In addition to our同行, we can also see some companies in the currency circle are also competing in the同行. This year, the second-year market is generally in a good environment.
spk05: So on customer acquisition costs and the payback, we still use the second quarter 2020 as a cohort sample. Back then, customer acquisition costs was about $130 USD. And back then, the market was more active. So, if we only count that commission, you know, excluding interest, the payback was around two quarters for that cohort group. Look at nearly acquired users in the second quarter of this year. Due to more competition, the customer acquisition cost went up to around $160 per person. And that commission also dropped due to a weaker market drop, still we feel it's still going to be attractive for us to acquire those users, even though the payback increased to four to six quarters. Because our users are relatively young, as long as we can get them payback in a relatively short period, there will still be a lot of upside for us to monetize. Thank you, Judy.
spk21: We have the next question. This is coming from the line of Eric Liu from China Renaissance. Please go ahead.
spk04: Hello, thank you very much for giving me a chance to ask questions. I have two small questions to ask. The first question is, we see that in the second quarter, the sales volume has actually dropped, but there is a rise in interest income and financing revenue. So I would like to ask the reason behind this. The second question is, we noticed that in the second quarter, our domestic new users are more likely to have a business. So I would like to ask the management team about the support strategy behind this and the support cost. So thanks management for giving me the opportunity to ask questions. So my first question is, you saw the trading volume decrease quarter over quarter in the second quarter, but the net interest income and margin financing balance both increased, especially the margin financing balance. So can I ask the rationale behind this? So for the second question, So we noted our number of new paying clients acquired from mainland China was more than our competitor. So can I ask what's our current customer acquisition strategy in mainland China and the cost of it? Thanks.
spk05: Sure. Thanks, Eric. So I will answer your two questions. So the first one was on the lead interest income. So the main reason of the net interest income increase while the trading volume can die is we're starting to improve our self-clearing capability. So once we're starting, given we have more and more trading volume and assets hold their own clearing form, we're starting to use some of our clients' adult cash, which gives us cheaper funding and also gives us more flexibility in terms of the cap we can lend to each customer. And also becoming a self-caring firm enables us to become a direct counterparty for securities lending business, which is pretty lucrative on the street. So we can generate more interest without sharing with other intermediaries. So that's the main reason our net interest income increased in the second quarter while the trading volume came down. And of course, the margin balance, if you look at our balance sheet, also increased versus the first quarter. But the one building margin balance on our balance sheet includes Hong Kong IPO. So take out Hong Kong IPO, which is not that profitable for us, for the Hong Kong IPO margin business. Taking out that part, our marginal balance is about $450 million, while in the first quarter it was about $400 million. So those two are the main reasons why late interest income went up in the second quarter. And in terms of the customer acquisition for, you know, onshore customers, so in the second quarter we have been, you know, actually working with more channels or intermediaries to target, you know, Chinese investors who already have SA offshore. So this is showing good results. And of course, our ESOP is also a pretty good user acquisition tool for us to tap into those Chinese users. In terms of customer acquisition cost, it's pretty much in line with our previous customer acquisition cost for Chinese users. The major increase of our customer acquisition cost actually came from Singapore, as we mentioned earlier. Thank you.
spk21: Thank you. We have the next question. This is coming from the line of Ya Zheng from TH Capital. Please go ahead.
spk03: Hi, management. Thank you for taking my question. This is Bella from TH Capital. I have one question. I was hoping management could shed some light on the trading asset distribution. You know, given the previous experience and regulations on Chinese ADRs in terms of your customer transaction behavior, do you see any shift to Hong Kong securities? And can we think this intensive competition was partly due to some kind of transaction habit shift? That's my question. Thanks.
spk05: Sorry, you were a little bit breaking up. So you mean the trading volume shifting to Hong Kong and we see more strong competition from the existing players?
spk03: Yes, exactly.
spk05: Okay. So in terms of, you know, so the thing is right now, If you look at all the Chinese ADRs coming back to Hong Kong, we think this will likely be a trend. As we mentioned earlier, we have been very active in Hong Kong as an international underwriter for Chinese ADR secondary listing in Hong Kong. So we think that part, we feel pretty confident we can keep getting more corporate clients and also use these opportunities to acquire more retail clients. And in terms of trading capabilities, Traditionally, our strength was in the U.S. market, but recently we have developed a lot more resources to develop our Hong Kong trading capabilities. For example, the Hong Kong Level 2 data, I think we are one of the few firms to offer it for free, and the Hong Kong options, we are one of the first firms to offer to investors. So we think the trading, no matter if it's from the primary market or the secondary market, we are much more capable versus where we were, you know, one or two years ago. So I think the training will still benefit, you know, once we develop more resources into the Hong Kong trading capability and R&D.
spk03: Okay, very clear. Thank you.
spk21: Thank you. We have no further questions at this moment. I would like to hand the conference back to our host for an ending remark.
spk20: I'd like to thank everyone for joining our call today. I am now closing the call on behalf of the management team here at Tiger. We do appreciate your participation in today's call. If you have any further questions, please reach out to our investor relations team. This concludes the call, and thank you very much for your time.
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