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spk07: Hello, and welcome to the Paysafe third quarter 2021 teleconference and webcast. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Kirsten Nielsen, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
spk00: Thank you, and good morning. Welcome to PaySafe's third quarter 2021 earnings conference call. With me today are Philip McHugh, Chief Executive Officer, and Izzy Dawood, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, a friendly reminder that this call will contain forward-looking statements and should be considered in conjunction with cautionary statements contained in our earnings release and the company's most recent periodic SEC reports. These statements reflect management's current beliefs, assumptions, expectations, and are subject to factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Forward-looking statements during this call speak only as of the date of this call and we undertake no obligation to update them. Today's presentation also contains information that will constitute non-GAAP financial measures under SEC rules. You can find additional information about these non-GAAP measures and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures in today's press release and in the appendix of this presentation, which are available in the investor relations section of our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Philip.
spk10: Thanks, Kirsten, and thanks, everyone, for joining us. On today's call, I'll provide an update on the business and then turn the call over to Izzy to review the financial results and guidance in more detail. Starting with a few key messages, our third quarter adjusted EBITDA of $106 million was in line with our expectations despite revenues of $354 million coming in below our expectations for the quarter, primarily reflecting softer than expected results from digital wallets. We continue to see strong momentum across our strategic priorities that we set out at a time of going public as we grow with some of the true leading edge companies in faster growing segments of the market. In North America iGaming, we announced several customer wins in the third quarter across multiple states, and really like our position as new states and online players come online. Additionally, the Skrill wallet, while still small in the U.S., continues to show good progress. Outside of iGaming, we continue to position ourselves as a disruptive, specialized payments platform with our combination of cards processing, e-cash, wallet pay-in and pay-out, and real-time banking solutions. In particular, our pipeline across crypto, digital wallets and financial services continues to build. The U.S. acquiring business continues to perform well with solid growth, and our direct marketing vertical now shows strong signs of recovery. Lastly, we are on track to meet or beat all of our cost takeout and tech platform milestones. At the same time, we are facing challenges within the digital wallet business, which has performed below our expectations. We've identified the cause of the headwinds, both internal and external, and we're taking action to improve the core wallet and to pursue the real growth opportunities in front of us. However, with the headwinds we're seeing in our markets, coupled with a low exit rate in 2021, we believe it's going to take another year to reset the digital wallet business and get us back on a path to growth. As a result, we are lowering full-year guidance for 2021. In that context, we're also providing a preliminary update on 2022. While this is disappointing, We have a strong growth plan, exceptional talent under new divisional leaders in wallets, and the right core assets in place to reposition digital wallets for success. And when we combine wallet capabilities with our e-commerce and e-cash solutions, we are winning the deals with the leading players in fast-growing markets. Turning to slide four of the presentation. While Izzy will provide more detail on financial results and guidance, I want to share some context on what we're seeing today compared to what we discussed on our last earnings call. When we reaffirmed the outlook back in August, we'd expected a return to double-digit growth and strong margin performance in the fourth quarter. At that time, our confidence was supported by four main drivers. First was our expectation that the direct marketing headwind would start to improve in the second half. This is recovering as expected with revenue up sequentially, and continued strong growth of new merchants in the third quarter and early fourth quarter. Next, we expect a continued execution on cost savings. We've delivered $26 million year-to-date and expect to deliver $35 million in 2021, 17% higher than our original target. Third, we had signed agreements in place on large deals in our e-commerce pipeline. These are still in progress. However, the scope and timing will differ from our initial agreements. meaning volumes will be more spread out versus the ramp we initially expected in the fourth quarter. Finally, we had an expectation that digital wallets would see a soft third quarter, followed by improvements in Q4. So I mentioned the performance of digital wallets has been lower than expected in the second half of the third quarter, and we see this continuing into the fourth quarter, driven by market softness and performance challenges that are being addressed. Turning to digital wallets on slide five. I'll start by unpacking the headwinds here and specifically our current expectations relative to what we last discussed. Earlier in the year, we saw the fundamentals improving with a stronger, firm baseline following our exit of network referral accounts and solid indications that we were lapping these headwinds as we approached the second half of the year. Turning to the summer, we are seeing quiet European activity coinciding with the removal of most lockdown restrictions. This softness coupled with our expectations for a return to normal seasonality, informed our outlook for Q3 as communicated on previous calls. At that time, we expected improvement in Q4 driven by seasonal growth as well as uplift from prior marketing incentive programs. However, what we are seeing is continued market softness, particularly due to the regulatory environment in Europe. Overall, the third quarter came in below our expectations for wallets, and we see this extending into the fourth quarter. As an example, in Germany, adoption of new regulations had a more meaningful impact than we anticipated, with several operators reducing activity or leaving the market. Additionally, in the Netherlands, we're seeing a medium-term impact related to local licensing requirements. To put some numbers around this, we characterized the impact of our headwinds in 2021 as the following. First is the network impact, which is north of 20 million. We are lapping this at the end of the year. we expect this to be partially offset by growth in the core business as discussed on prior calls. However, since then, our expectations have changed. First, the softness in the European market, including the regulatory impacts, which has dampened the uplift we'd anticipated in the back half of Q3 and in Q4. These factors, combined with the impact of some counterproductive customer pricing and tiering, have brought us to a lower base of the business as we sit here today. We are actively driving changes to strengthen our core proposition, particularly in more mature markets. As you recall, we transitioned to new leadership within our digital wallets business in Q3, bringing on Chirag Patel, who brings extensive global payments experience to Paysafe. Together, we are moving quickly to reset the business and respond to the real growth opportunities and funds. Let's now go to the next level of detail on the slide six. First, what are the challenges One, we have the legacy issue of network accounts, and we are lapping those items. Two, the core wallet has to be more competitive in terms of customer user experience and in terms of pricing in more mature markets. Third, the digital wallets become too complex over time. We have to simplify the product offering, right-size the organization, and clean up the balance sheet. Lastly, we have to deliver on the bigger initiatives in front of us. Moving to the right-hand side of the page, you'll see we're taking immediate short-term and mid-term steps to address these challenges. First, we're taking actions to address customer experience and pricing to be more in line with the market. As an example, we are overpriced in certain deposit forms, which has had some counterproductive outcomes. Equally, we are underpriced in other parts of the world where we see opportunity. We have tangible actions underway and are already seeing some positive results. Additionally, We will be streamlining the organization, including rationalizing subscale product features. And finally, we are taking on actions to right-size the division as we focus on the core wallet. Turn to the midterm, we have several programs underway, and these absolutely underscore why I continue to see digital wallets as a true differentiator with the opportunity to partner with some of the most disruptive players in the market. We have an active program underway to strengthen our relationships with our top merchants, We've reset and increased our engagement with all our top clients. They're having very constructive discussions around their pain points, ways to collaborate, and ways to drive better conversion and growth. We're already seeing positive developments here, recently opening several new markets with one of our largest and oldest clients. In North America iGaming, we will continue to grow and deliver on our enhancements to the Skrill digital wallet, where the numbers are small today, but we're really pleased with the early progress, including our expansion to 11 brands, strong conversion rates, higher than market average deposit size, and great proof points with some up and coming operators. We are now capturing double digit share of their cashier. Lastly, we will continue to invest in expanding our crypto presence, where we are not only expanding in terms of our ability to trade more cryptocurrencies within the wallet, but are also seeing very tangible interest from some of the top crypto platforms due to our unique combination of card processing, real-time banking capabilities, and wallet pay-in and pay-out capabilities. Although these initiatives all drive real value next year, we expect 2022 to be a transitional year for digital wallet, followed by strong growth as we reset the division and deliver on initiatives. To summarize, while we have challenges to address, we have a strong plan, exceptional talent, and the right core assets in place to reset the business and unlock value that exists within our digital wallets. We're a leading provider of a highly functional digital wallet to a large active customer base of gamers and traders. Additionally, our pay-in and pay-out functionality across the globe continues to create excitement with some large disruptive players. That combination of capabilities continues to drive my personal excitement for our digital wallets as the most unique and highest value asset within PaySafe. Turning to slide seven, I'll now quickly touch on direct marketing. As we discussed in our last two earning calls, we exited a discrete set of clients and referral channels as we entered 2021, based on our views of the market and our anticipation of compliance changes. So we've been in a transition period this year as the market adjusted to these new rules. The recovery is well underway and in line with our expectations. In June, net new merchants turned positive and we saw this progress continuing into the third quarter. Additionally, We expect a strong fourth quarter with net new merchants for the month of October already exceeding the levels from the entire third quarter. Overall, we're on track for direct marketing vertical to return to growth. I'll now move on to slide eight. When we look at the rest of our business across eCash and integrated processing, representing 70% of our revenues, we see continued strong momentum with high teens growth this year, as well as strong trends relative to pre-pandemic levels. Looking ahead, We expect continued normalization of the growth rates in e-cash, as well as continued double-digit growth in integrated processing. Now let me dive deeper into some of our strategic pillars. Turn to slide nine, starting with North America iGaming. We've grown revenues 50% year-to-date in North America, reflecting strong momentum as the market continues to open up. Within this growth, we're expanding relations with new and existing operators who trust, pay safe, to provide customers with all the ways they want to pay. We are now live in 19 of the 21 legal jurisdictions across the U.S., having recently launched in Arizona, Wyoming, Connecticut, as well as Louisiana, which is live for deposits ahead of a full launch expected in early 2022. We're also looking forward to upcoming launches in Maryland, Florida, and New York. We're seeing multiple operators sign up for the full suite of our payment options with several more Tier 1 operators on the way. Turning to Canada, we're building on 10 years of market leadership as the exclusive payments provider for regulated online gaming traffic. We are well positioned to be the dominant player as the Canadian market opens up to private operators, specifically in Ontario, where we have signed multiple deals with tier one operators that we expect will be the leaders in that market. It's a real testament to our deep industry relationships, our superior offering, including an acceptance rate of more than 90% and multiple acquiring options. Lastly, as mentioned earlier, we continue to advance our Skrill wallet revamp and add new brands to our pilot in the U.S. As I mentioned earlier, the volumes are small today, but we're pleased with the early results with 11 brands, strong conversion rates, higher average deposits, and achieving double-digit share with some of our earlier operators. Overall, I'm really pleased with our progress. We have a number of key announcements on the horizon, and we're really happy to have Zach Cutler on board leading this highly focused team dedicated to winning in North America at gaming. Turn to our other key digital commerce verticals. In eCash, we continue to see a lot of traction and exciting use cases across financial services. We are further expanding our network, supporting financial inclusion, enabling cash consumers to pay bills at more than 4,600 Walmart stores across the U.S. in partnership with Income. Building on some of our prior announcements, our e-cash business now partners with the largest neobanks in Europe, including Moniz, Bunk, and N26. In crypto, we continue to add cryptocurrencies available to trade in digital wallets, and we're seeing very compelling pipeline opportunities with crypto operators interested in our global risk management and pay-in and pay-out capabilities. Lastly, with our partnership with Visa, we've launched Visa Direct, further enhancing more payment options. Now, turning to slide 10, We are on track to meet or beat all of our cost takeout and tech platform milestones, which will set us up to go to 2022 with a more efficient cost position. We've been focused on migrating the business to cloud, and we've already achieved our target for 21, with 70% of our business across Paysafe now on our new tech stack from effectively 0% two years ago. We've also made strong progress in our cost savings program, taking out $26 million year-to-date, We expect to deliver $35 million for the full year ahead of our initial target. On our recent acquisitions, we're well on track with integrations, and we're enthusiastic about the interest we're seeing from both existing and prospective new clients, particularly across iGaming and crypto. While it's early days, we already have several cross-sell initiatives underway. Before I hand the call over to Izzy, I'll reiterate a few points. Our strategy remains intact. we continue to see the unique combination of payment solutions as a real differentiator, particularly in more demanding markets and with more disruptive clients, where alternate payment methods and risk management have a true premium. We're winning deals in North America. We really like our pipeline and growth opportunities in emerging verticals like crypto. We're delivering against our cost and tech milestones, and we're very happy with initial progress on our recent deals. However, there is work to do with digital wallets. but the combination of our capabilities position us well to win in the right markets with the right players. With that, I'll turn the call over to Izzy.
spk02: Thank you, Philip. Let's turn to slide 12 for a quick summary of our performance versus our guidance. Revenue and gross profit came in lower than our expectations due to market softness and challenges in digital wallet segment, as Philip described earlier, and integrated processing, which was also lower than our expectations. reflecting lower activity in our ISO channel. On a positive note, expenses were better than expected, including strong performance and cost savings, and adjusted EBITDA was in line with our guidance range. Turn to slide 13. Volume for the third quarter was $31.1 billion, up 19% year-over-year, with growth in integrated processing and e-cash, partially offset by decline in digital wallets. Total revenue for the third quarter was $354 million, down 1% year over year, with take rate compression reflecting business mix. Excluding the impact of the pay later business, which was divested in October of 2020, revenue would have increased approximately 2%. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $106.4 million, down 1% versus the prior year, resulting in adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 30%, consistent with the prior year. Excluding the impact of pay later, adjusted EBITDA would have been flat last year. Lastly, free cash flow was $70 million of 66% conversion on an adjusted EBITDA basis. Year-to-date, our free cash flow conversion is approximately 70%, and we currently expect free cash flow conversion for the full year to end up around 70% as well. On slide 14, we're provided the same supplemental view as we did last quarter. Demonstrate growth excluding the divestiture of pay later, and the direct marketing vertical. With these adjustments, year-to-date revenue for the rest of Paysafe's business grew 13%, and adjusted EBITDA grew 16%. We provided the same view on the integrated processing segment in the appendix as well. On slide 15, I'll touch on a few additional line items, including our GAAP results. Interest expense was $19 million for the quarter, and we expect interest expense to increase in Q4 to approximately $27 million. as a result of the completion of our debt rate in early October. For Q3, our net loss was $147.2 million, which included an impairment charge of $322 million relating to intangible assets within our digital wallets business. This was partially offset by a fair value gain, $94 million, resulting from the re-measurement of warrant liability at quarter end. Our effective tax rate with an income tax benefit for the third quarter was 34.3% compared to 27% in the third quarter of last year due to the tax impact of the impairment charge recognized in the quarter, as well as the impact of deferred tax balances of the increase in the UK statutory rate. Moving to segment results in slide 16, starting with eCash. Volume of 1.3 billion and revenue of 90.2 million both increased 10% compared to the prior year. as we see continued strength in the business as we enter a post-COVID environment. Excluding Germany and Netherlands, which have been impacted by recent regulatory changes, revenue growth is greater than 20%. During COVID, many merchants and specialized e-commerce verticals enhanced their cash capabilities. Compared to Q3 2019, our current revenue run rate is approximately 26% higher on a constant currency basis. Adjusted EBITDA was $36.3 million, an increase of 18%, resulting in adjusted EBITDA margin of 40.3%, an increase of 270 basis points year over year. Moving next to digital wallet on slide 17. Volume for the third quarter was $4 billion, down 17% year over year. Revenue in the digital wallet segment for the third quarter was $83.7 million, a decrease of 15% compared to the prior year. Take rates remained elevated compared to historical levels, yet stable. The year-over-year decline, which was worse than expected, reflects a combination of regulatory impacts in Europe and performance challenges that we are addressing, including the unfavorable impact from pricing and tiering initiatives from late Q2 2021. Adjusted EBITDA was $39.9 million compared to $48.1 million in the prior year. Now moving to slide 18. Integrated processing volume of $26 billion was strong, up 28% led by the U.S. market, and up 39% versus Q3 2019. Revenue for the third quarter was $186.9 million, an increase of 4% compared to the prior year. Excluding the pay later divestiture, revenue increased 8% with growth from our U.S. acquiring and e-commerce merchants partially offset by lower revenue from our direct marketing channel. Take rate was roughly 70 basis points, down from Q3 2020, but flat sequentially, which we discussed on our prior call. Adjusted EBITDA was $44.4 million, compared to $48.7 million the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margin of 23.8%, decreased year-on-year due to merchant and channel mix, in addition to the decline in our direct marketing channel. Excluding the impact of pay later and direct marketing, Revenue grew 16%, adjusted EBITDA 19%, reflecting margin expansion. Our North America iGaming activity, which is predominantly driven by the integrated processing segment today, grew more than 30% year-over-year and is up approximately 50% year-to-date. North America iGaming is roughly 1.5% of total company revenue year-to-date. Moving next to slide 19, I will review the components of our consolidated take rate which continue to be driven by business mix and have been consistent over time within our business segments. eCash continues to generate a take rate over 7% in line with long-term expectations. Visual Wallet has increased its take rate over time as you build up functionality and access to new markets such as FX trading and crypto trading. We anticipate long-term take rates to be around 1.8%. Finally, the take rate in our processing segment has decreased for the last few quarters to roughly 70 basis points, primarily driven by the business mix within integrated processing. As you can see from the pie charts at the bottom left of the page, the meaningful growth of integrated processing volume as a percent of total is driving the overall take rate lower for the company. On the bottom right, we dig a little deeper into our integrated processing volumes and take rates. The meaningful increase in volume for U.S. acquiring and integrated e-commerce continue to impact the overall take rate for integrated processing. Now let's turn to slide 20 to look at our balance sheet and liquidity. Total debt outstanding was approximately $2.2 billion as of September 30th, and our net debt to LTM adjusted EBITDA ratio was 4.4 times. We expect our pro forma leverage to be approximately 5.7 times by year end, reflecting the additional debt raised and the LTM adjusted EBITDA of the three deals, excluding synergies. We remain focused on delivering and moving towards our target of 3.5 times adjusted EBITDA. Let's move to slide 21 to discuss our guidance for Q4 and the full year. For Q4, we expect revenue of $355 million to $365 million on a reported basis, with minimal impact from the smaller acquisitions we recently closed, Faga Efectivo and Via Fintech. We expect mid to high single-digit growth in integrated processing and a 10% to 15% decline in both e-cash and digital wallet. For e-cash, I'll point out that Q4 of 2020 was an exceptionally strong period driven by COVID-19 restrictions across Europe. So Q4 is a tough comparable period for that segment. For gross profit, we expect to be between $205 million and and $215 million, and adjusted EBITDA between $90 to $100 million. As a result of our revised outlook for Q4, we expect full-year revenue in the range of $1.47 billion to $1.48 billion, reflecting growth from eCash and integrated processing, partially offset by decline from digital wallets. We expect adjusted EBITDA in the range of $425 to $435 million. We understand this is a meaningful change from our prior guidance. I'll reiterate why our expectations have changed. In early August, we expected four major drivers that gave us confidence in our full year outlook. First, we expected to pick up momentum in direct marketing, and we are seeing the recovery in our performance in Q3 and October. Second, we expected to continue to drive efficiencies to our cost savings program, which we are exceeding. Third, We expected digital wallets to grow double digits, but clearly the current unexpected performance is lower than we expected. Finally, we anticipated onboarding meaningful clients in our e-commerce verticals and invested to create the necessary capacity. Expanding further, we had signed agreements in place, which supported our confidence in onboarding the clients in early October. We remain excited about working with them, but the scope and timing will differ from our initial agreements. meaning volumes will be more spread out with components going live throughout 2022 instead of the ramp we initially expected in Q4. Now turn to slide 22. While we will provide formal 2022 guidance on our next call, we believe it's important to provide an update on our preliminary expectations for next year, given the meaningful reset of our Q4 and full year 2021 guidance. For 2022, on a reported basis, We expect revenue in the range of $1.53 to $1.58 billion. Integrated processing is expected to grow double digits, and e-cash is expected to grow in the mid-teens, including the inorganic contribution of our three acquisitions. Visual Wallet is expected to decline in the mid-to-high teens as we reset the business. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $440 million. to $460 million, resulting in flat margins year over year. At our Q4 call, I will be able to provide additional color on volumes, gross profit, and other variables. We will also provide more detail on the quarterly cadence of revenue. At this time, we anticipate Q1 being down year on year or roughly flat substantially, given our current expectation for the Q4 run rate this year. Overall, there is no sugarcoating that our financial results are disappointing. and not up to our expectations. We have a strong plan to get digital wallet back to double-digit growth, but we have to go through the necessary transition in 2022. We remain excited about Paysafe's outlook to continue to deliver on our strategy and see strong growth and execution across the majority of our businesses, which continue to exhibit strong momentum. Now, I'll turn the call back to Philip for closing remarks.
spk10: Thanks, Izzy. Although we are revising our financial outlook, we have a strong plan to turn around digital wallets and remain very optimistic about our future as a leading specialized payments platform. To put this into perspective, last week I met with my wider global leadership team. We went through our performance and the road ahead. Despite the revised financial outlook, the level of energy and engagement was just at an all-time high. And that's because we see the deals we're winning. We see the pipeline that we're building. We see the combination of our API connectivity, the multiple payment types, and risk management. It's a real difference maker in the market. While it will take us longer to accomplish the financial goals that we had planned, the team and I firmly believe that PaySafe is absolutely positioned to be a winner in the marketplace, partnering with leading-edge companies in some incredibly exciting markets. This concludes today's presentation. Now let's open up the call for questions. Thank you.
spk07: Thank you. We're now conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to be placed in the question queue, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Once again, that's star 1 to be placed in the question queue. Our first question is coming from Jamie Friedman from Susquehanna. Your line is now live.
spk08: Hi. Good morning, everyone. Good afternoon. Phillip, I was hoping to get your perspective on why are you still confident in the long-term potential of the digital wallet despite the reset? Is it your conversations when you go into accounts, the strategic position? Why do you think digital wallet can turn around?
spk10: Yeah, it's the right question to ask, Jamie. Look, the way I look at it is we made some changes last year. We attacked those network accounts and felt really good that we'd baseline the business, and then we were focusing on getting to that next level of growth. So this recent step down was clearly unwelcome, and clearly a sign that there's more to do to fix on digital wallets. That we can't escape. In terms of what we've done, we've done really three things. One, we've run multiple scenarios, country by country, client by client, to really assure the baseline and clear out our view, our forward view on risk to the business. So that's the first thing we've done. The second thing we did, we started making management changes in kind of mid-summer. Chirag joined in September, so we made quite a few changes there. And we did that because we certainly felt there was always more to do in the wallet in terms of streamlining it, getting rid of kind of subscale products and initiatives that were being invested, and frankly, reengaging more proactively with our larger clients. So where we are right now is a few things. In terms of quick actions, some of the pricing and tiering campaigns that haven't worked as effectively, we have changed those. We're already tracking those and seeing positive outcomes. Two, some small changes in client customer user experience. Three, stopping some non-core pieces, just stripping some complexity out. And we will be doing a right-sizing of the organization as well. So there's a lot of just get to the basics, baseline it, focus on the core wallet. But the reason for the belief of this business continues to be high growth, continues to be an extremely valuable asset, can go to the next level, is really a few things. Over the past few months, we've really upped our engagement at the C-level with all of our top clients, and especially with Chirac coming on board to introduce them to all of our largest clients. And the conversations have been great. There has been recognition that we need to do more. They like some of the quick changes we're making, but they like the focus. They like the breadth of payment options within the wallet. They like the multiple markets we can support. They like what we're doing in the U.S. with a wallet. And so one of our largest and oldest clients actually opened up eight new markets to us in the last month on the back of those conversations. So that's the first piece is real utility for our clients. They need us. They like us, and we focus on them. They react very positively. The second one, while it's still small, is Skrill U.S. We have 11 operators now. what we're starting to see is a higher average ticket versus the market. We're able to do very large one-off bank deposits for high rollers. The conversion rates are now what we consider top tier versus the best payment options there. And with two of our smaller operators and more up and coming, we have double-digit share of the cashier. And that was always the view, can we get there? We've got to keep proving those proof points. and then start working with the larger tier one operators to prove to them that this product has that type of cut through, that type of utility for them in the U.S. market. And then probably the third piece that's the most interesting to me is we're starting to, not only in terms of selling Skrill, but taking the capabilities of the digital wallet platform, so being able to integrate into our digital wallet platform, leveraging our pay-in, pay-out capability, leveraging our KYC and bank network and, frankly, our EMI licenses in some cases, and really create some really, really unique solutions for some pretty fast-growing companies in iGaming and travel and especially in crypto. So we're still working on those deals. Some are signed and ready to go, and we look forward to announcing those in the coming months. So those give me the excitement that, We can win deals. When we combine our e-commerce, the wallet capabilities, and our e-cash, we have a set of solutions that we are winning deals with some great names in the disruptive areas where we need to. At the same time, as I described earlier, there's a lot of blocking and tackling for us to do on some of the legacy part of the wallet, and that's where we are today.
spk08: Okay. That was a thorough response. Thank you. I'll just drop back in the queue.
spk07: Thank you. Next question today is coming from Dan Perlin from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now live.
spk11: Thanks. Good morning, guys. Tough day, tough quarter for you. A couple of questions, obviously, on digital wallets. So you called out you're seeing issues around the customer experience. So I wanted to dig into that a little bit. I mean, to me, that sounds like shared loss. So I'm anxious to hear what you're changing there. Where are these consumers going? If there still remains demand in the market to you, it's called out pricing in particular and more mature markets, which means that, you know, someone got that wrong. So what's, What's the reset there? How big is it? And then can you just define what you're talking about when you say your core wallet? Because I think, you know, I've always thought of Europe as being an incredibly strong market for you guys, and yet this is where we're seeing all the weakness. So if you could address those, that'd be great. Thank you.
spk10: Yeah, yeah. Let me unpack. There's a couple things to unpack on that one. So in terms of the share, the UX, and the pricing, I think are all kind of related pieces. Are we losing some share in the mature markets in Europe? The answer is we've lost some mild share, certainly have, and we see that as both some external pressures but also internal. On the external side, we're not losing to other wallets. The biggest driver is going to be real-time banking or the open banking network is creating an attractive option where the digital wallet used to fill that more disproportionately for some of our operators. So that's That's probably the biggest external pressure point we have in terms of volumes in Europe in particular. The second piece is much more internal, and it goes back to that part about being much more engaged with our clients, working more closely with them on campaigns, working more closely with them on making sure we market and bring the types of customers where it's a win-win for both of us. And that re-engagement we've been having – We absolutely are seeing dividends from that re-engagement, and that was some of the drivers, some of the changes we made starting in midsummer at the management level as well. In terms of the pricing in the UX, in the opening comments, we touched on that. In certain areas, the team has a good and long history of pricing and tiering. That means you get certain rights the more you use the wallet, the more you deposit in. They've had a really good track record over the last few years. The campaigns that were done in the first half of the year overshot the mark on some deposit costs in and undershot the mark in some other fees where, frankly, there's more opportunity in terms of wallet-to-wallet transfer with withdrawals. So as we tracked those campaigns on a campaign-by-campaign basis, we saw that they weren't working as well. And we've reset those. We've reset probably about 85% of them. We have a few more tweaks to do through the quarter. We're already seeing the benefit and the positive impact in terms of actives, in terms of conversion rates, and in terms of deposits coming into the wallet. So those are the factors there. When I talk about core wallet, Dan, what I'm talking about is a follow-up. It's not a reference to Europe. It's a reference to adding on too many side initiatives. So we think about the remittance business. There's initiatives to put in stock trading. There are too many small initiatives that we were pushing back on. And when we made the management change, we just stripped out a lot of those pieces and really focused on the core wallet. Fund the wallet in. Make sure the pay-in, pay-out experience with the merchant works extremely well. add more APMs and make that as smooth and as competitive a process as possible versus adding other new silver bells and whistles on the side. Does that help explain? Yeah.
spk11: No, that's very helpful. And just on one other quick one, you know, you called out regulatory issues in particular in a couple of countries. But they sounded like they're pretty onerous. And I have to admit, I'm no expert on the regulatory environment there. So can you just help us understand, you know, how stringent some of these are that would cause these operators to actually leave, which it sounds like in the market?
spk10: Yeah, you've seen some Q3. You'll see some Q3 highlights from some operators that have been recently published in Europe. So you'll see some common themes there. So we certainly saw there's been a wave of European regulation coming through. So we had anticipated some of it, but some of the impacts have certainly been sharper and bigger than we expected. So the two that we're calling out, in Germany there are two changes. There is a cap on how much a single person can bet. So regardless of what they, it's not on a single operator, it's across all platforms. So when we cater to higher end bettors, that cap has a pretty high impact. The other issue has been the tax on many casino and poker games that have made the games, frankly, unprofitable for operators. So you've seen a few, I think Betfair recently publicly announced that they're actually outright exiting You've seen some other operators talk about 70% drops. So there is a big adjustment happening in Germany, and that's an extremely large market for us. We do believe this is point in time. The operators are all getting locally licensed. They're getting adjusted to these new regulations. They're understanding which payment forms work. So we do think over the next six to eight months, there'll be an adjustment and a settlement and then get back to growth. But it has been an impact. And then in Holland, which is also a meaningful market for us, they really created a surprisingly small, and this is probably to the industry, not just to us, a small amount of operators that could be licensed in Holland. And they absolutely outright limited lots of payment types initially. We're confident that will be reversed over the next kind of four to five months. It feels like kind of an unexpected overreach from regulators. And there's a lot of activity to reverse that. So just two examples. Oh, that's very helpful. Thank you, and good luck.
spk07: Thanks, Dan. Thanks. Our next question is coming from David Target from Evercore. Your line is now live.
spk06: Thank you. Good morning. Just on the topic of repricing in digital wallets, your take rate was 2.1% in the third quarter. Your long-term guide is 1.8%. Once you go through all of the repricing initiatives that you've discussed, what's the timeline to go from 2.1% take rate to 1.8? In other words, is 1.8 embedded in your fourth quarter in 2022 guidance for digital wallets?
spk02: Hey, David, it's Izzy. I'll hop on that one. Nice to hear from you. It's not embedded in Q4. Actually, our take rates have been stable yet higher The pricing element is more driving volume, but the overall take rates is really being driven by our mix, especially around our crypto business, which still is growing very well year on year, although small. That's part of it. So the moderation back to the long-term 1.8, I'll probably spend more time on it on our Q4 calls, but we don't see that reversing in a very near future. It'll probably take a couple of quarters to get there.
spk06: Understood. And then If you could talk about your strategy to reduce debt, your net debt to EBITDA is just over four times. When you look at the revised guidance on EBITDA for this year and 2022, are you more inclined to accelerate the pace of debt pay down and slow the acquisition pace just to shore up the balance sheet?
spk02: Yeah, David, clearly, obviously, with the revisions, our debt to EBITDA ratio does go up. and does put pressure on the leverage ratio. Obviously, no impact of any covenants or operations. Our free cash flow conversion is still pretty high, so we feel pretty good about that. As you mentioned before, we will pay down debt as fast as we can with the excess cash flow to bring that down. So obviously, our long-term commitment to three and a half times is still there. It's just going to take us a little longer to get there.
spk06: Understood. Thank you.
spk07: Thank you. Next question is coming from Jason Kupferberg from Bank of America. Your line is now live.
spk05: Good morning, guys. So just given where we are with digital wallet, it sounds like you're going to have to make a lot more investments there to get back to growth. And you talked about some of the pricing adjustments. I guess I'm just trying to think through what the EBITDA margin assumptions for that segment should be in 2022, like what's baked into that overall segment. EBITDA guide for next year?
spk02: Yeah, hey, good question there, Jason. Like I mentioned, I'll probably get into more details in our Q4 call, but with the guide we gave about mid to high teens decline, I think from an EBITDA margin perspective, we're still going to be, I'm going to still assume safely in the mid-30s EBITDA for the business.
spk05: Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it. And I guess just coming back to the regulatory questions, it sounds like that kind of caught you off guard, but like what percent of the European digital wallet business is Germany plus Netherlands? Just so we have an idea how to kind of draw a box around this.
spk02: Yeah, good question there. I don't have it down at my fingertips, but given Germany's size, relative size in Europe, it's a pretty large marketplace. Obviously, UK is a big market as well and other places we operate in. But, Jason, we can follow up offline. I can provide you more information on there.
spk05: Okay.
spk02: I appreciate that. Thank you.
spk07: Thank you. Next question today is coming from Timothy Chiodo from Credit Suisse. Your line is now live.
spk01: Great. Thanks a lot. One on the WorldPay partnership in the U.S., but first I want to see if we can just hit on a couple of numbers real quick. For the 2021 in Q4, I believe two of the three acquisitions, you mentioned a minimal revenue impact, but I was hoping you'd give the dollar amount in Q4. And then also, more importantly, perhaps for the 2022 revenue guide, are you able to provide the inorganic contribution from the three acquisitions? I know that previously you had mentioned the $60 million figure, which I don't believe included via FinTech, which is, I understand, smaller, but maybe you could just give the the total number for inorganic revenue in 2022?
spk02: Yeah, so Tim, I think there's two questions. On Q4, I'd say roughly $5 million would be the contribution, right? And going into 2022, the 60 and 20 that I quoted prior basically includes all three. The VFintech is a smaller tuck-in, so a little bit of impact but not as meaningful.
spk01: Great, okay, and 60 and 20, meaning REVs and EBITDA. Yep. Correct, yeah. Okay, great. I really appreciate that. Thank you, Izzy. The next one is on the WorldPay partnership in North America. Just thought it would be a good topic to revisit. If you could just talk a little bit about, one, the history of that partnership and then the forward-looking in terms of how long is this partnership? Do you always go to market together for North America integrated processing? In other words, is that the entirety of your business? Do you have separate? Do they have separate? those types of mechanics would be really helpful. Those are common questions we get from investors.
spk10: Yeah, yeah. So we do have a long and fruitful partnership with WorldPay, and we continue to do great business together. The partnership is not exclusive, and we are currently already a multi-acquirer provider. So our gateway locks in about 75% of the operators. You know, we do the card processing, wallets, cash, We're adding other APMs to be as complete as possible. We currently acquire with WorldPay. We have some active deals with Fiserv. And we have one or two other acquiring relationships that we will be expanding over the next six months. This is absolutely a demand from the market. Operators want that. They want that resilience. They want that breadth. And it's a priority for us. So we're building that out. It's still the vast majority of world pay and still a great relationship, but we're definitely following the customer here. So we've got the integrations, adding more products, but we're also adding more acquirers. And in Canada, it's the same thing. We're a multi-acquirer solution already, and that drives kind of best-in-class 90% conversion rates there.
spk01: Excellent. Thank you for taking both of the questions.
spk07: Thank goodness. Question today is coming from George Mahalos from Cowan. Your line is now live.
spk12: Great. Thanks for taking my questions, guys. I guess first one for me, as it relates to some of the Delta and the third quarter expectations, I think you guys highlighted some contracts. Some was timing. Some was scope. I was hoping you can delve a little bit into the scope commentary. Should we be thinking that maybe the total contract value is a little bit different than what was originally signed?
spk10: Yeah, so we obviously can't go into too much detail. We had a few contracts, two in particular, that were very sizable, are sizable. And we had signed agreements with them, but as we went through with both clients, the timing to ramp up definitely changed. And then two, in some cases, the product mix in terms of how much is card processing, how much is bank payments, What we're seeing is actually we are building pretty deep integrations with some of these players, and we will be looking forward to making some announcements in the coming weeks to give people a sense. But we do see them as larger clients. We're being more conservative in our outlook and forecasting those until we see them really come to fruition and growth.
spk12: Okay, that's helpful. And if I could ask one also on the digital wallet side, you highlighted some of the regulatory changes, I guess, in Germany. You know, curious how you guys are thinking about or how concerned you are about that maybe spreading to some other markets in the future, if you're hearing any rumblings around that. And then, again, related to the wallet, your confidence in the pricing algorithm. I mean, are you sort of at a point where you're testing different things and You know, maybe that long-term pricing outlook of 1.8%, you know, maybe that sort of changes as things progress. Just trying to get some clarity around that. Thank you, guys.
spk10: Yeah, so two things. So on the regulatory front, Europe's definitely had a wave of regulatory change. And some markets have had smaller pieces. Italy and the U.K. have also had some items that have restrict it. But the Germany and Netherlands are certainly the two biggest ones. So as we kind of cascade across the globe, the way I break it down is the following. We've certainly exited what we consider the very high-risk markets, which could create a lot of volatility. We've exited those. U.S. and Canada, very clear. They're regulated, opening up state by state, province by province. In Europe, as we look forward, we're not seeing any – Any new regulation in any major states, any major countries right now, even early stage regulation that's coming through. So we do see that this wave is pretty much a good baseline for where we are. And over the next six, seven months, the operators will adjust. And we'll get back to kind of a good kind of predictable growth pattern there. When we look around at the rest of the world, You know, across Latin America, Asia, and Africa. That's a long tail of countries. And, of course, those countries can have ups and downs against gaming regulation. We think it's a tailwind across Latin America. We think it's mixed across kind of Eastern Europe and Asia. So as we stand here today, there's probably about $20 to $30 million of total net exposure if you were to take all of the negatives and add them up on the same time. We certainly would never expect that to happen. But in our go-forward forecast, we are now being more prudent, expecting some of that to happen, just to be cautious. You had a second question, George. I forget the second question.
spk12: Apologies. Oh, your confidence in that long-term 1.8% take rate for the digital wallet.
spk10: Yeah, no, I definitely think deposit options, particularly in Europe, have gotten much more competitive. I think that's an absolute fact, and we are reacting to that. So that is a downward pressure, and in the forecast we do see some take rate coming down. At the same time, we are seeing some charges in withdrawals. We continue to really like the crypto business. These items drive up revenues as well. So there is a netting effect. But overall, I think the general trends will be more competitive, much more competitive on the deposit in and the deposit in fees versus where we are today. And we've got that baked into our outlook now. It also does underline, by the way, when we bought safety pay, the real-time banking capability, it's in 19 markets, including seven in Europe. And we're absolutely seeing demand for that as well. So it's also that's been a kind of welcome addition to our toolkit.
spk07: Thank you. Thank you. Our next question today is coming from Josh Levin from Autonomous. Your line is now live.
spk03: Hi. Good morning. I have two questions. The first is what role is Bill Foley playing these days with regards to the company and the ongoing issues? And then the second, you said that 2022 is a reset year and that you expect growth to come back in 2023 as you right the ship. But instead of having shareholders wait until 2023 to see if the ship can be righted, and you are raising some serious issues that the company is facing, have you considered that at this juncture the best way to create shareholder value is to potentially explore selling the company? Thank you.
spk10: Yeah, thanks, Josh. So I'll answer on the bill and on the second question. So look, Bill and I, we speak on a weekly basis. He's engaged. He's aware of all the issues, good and bad. The board is also very, very active across the board in terms of all the points. So look, in terms of the conversations, he's clearly disappointed in the performance and the fact of the cleanup that we have, that we've got more to do. And, you know, he and I are both working very closely on the actions we're taking, the right sizing of the organization, the stripping out of some areas. So he's involved in those pieces quite a bit. He's equally involved in the upside we get from both the inorganic and the organic deals that we're pushing and sees the opportunity and the momentum there. So, you know, you'll have to speak to him personally, but I think it's – Definitely not happy with the outlook and performance, but also sees the value of where we're growing in iGaming, growing in crypto, and growing in some of the disruptive areas that were always the attraction of Paysafe. So that's the conversation with Bill. We don't have a conversation on selling. We know it starting from myself to the board. Don't see us at this value. We know they're low point. We know there's credibility to rebuild. But as I said in my comments, we see the deals that we are signing, we see the areas that we can fix, and we see the way forward. Simple as that.
spk03: Thank you.
spk07: Thank you. Our next question is coming from Darren Peller at Wolf Research. Your line is now live.
spk09: Hey, guys. I just want to understand what you can really do to turn the course in the digital wallet side, especially around the user base, customers, consumer side specifically. Obviously, it sounds like some of this is regulatory, some of this is open banking, trust and the like, which may be a little bit out of your control. Just wondering, from a customer acquisition, consumer facing standpoint, since this is really a two-sided network. Help us understand better what you're specifically tangibly doing. Just give us examples if you can and what you can do to actually change that course and maybe a little more on the timing. It sounds like you'd expect, I guess, 23 to be that change in collection.
spk10: Yeah, thanks, Darren. Those are all the right questions. First of all, at the total pay-safe level, the e-cash business is growing at 17%, 18% year-to-date. The integrated processing is also going to be at kind of 17%, 18%. We do have a lot of good growth engines in the business, but clearly digital wallets has some areas to clean up. So it does, look, I kind of touched on a few pieces here. One, the client engagement, Darren. It's absolutely critical. We've made a lot of money in some of the higher risk areas of the market and haven't paid as much attention as we should have to some of the more mature markets and more regulated markets, especially in Europe. So that re-engagement alone is a big part of the formula. Spending time plugging in the right APMs, working on co-marketing agreements, and all of those conversations are happening. I personally had it with all of the kind of top 10, 20 kind of C-suite clients. And the reactions have been really positive and open. They like Skrill. They like the customer base. They like the focus. And some have called out very directly that it's great to see this regular engagement. And that absolutely drove some of the management change decisions in midsummer. So that's absolutely one. And that is the number one source of customer signups is from our merchants, Darren. So that has to be the focus. Two is some of the pricing and tier that we talked about. The market has gotten more competitive. So we do see that. We don't see those as complex fixes. A lot of those fixes are already in place and happening, and we're already seeing, like I said, some turnarounds in terms of signups and conversions. And we'll continue to track that very, very closely. But that's really the second piece. The third one is really that point about exposing the wallet capabilities to clients. versus pushing just a pure Skrill brand, but almost allowing the wallet capabilities to be embedded with some of our clients. And that's where we're seeing some opportunity as well that could drive lots of volume and customer growth. And we think that's very unique. We have a platform that already has two brands on it, Skrill and NetTeller. And we're seeing lots of interest in that capability as well.
spk09: All right, that's a little more helpful to get just some tangible examples. When we think about the percentage of the business that your offerings account for at your customers, I guess it's kind of important to remind us to maybe what percentage or how important Skrill is for your customers on the merchant side now, on the operator side. I think it's a pretty, you know, the VIP customer base you bring is the value proposition. You know, how much is that still resonating with customers is just to put some sort of a floor under this to some degree for investors. And then on the same topic on the digital side, just the U.S., you know, we were hoping to see some bigger brand names announced over time. Do you still anticipate that for the U.S. reach? Thanks.
spk10: Yeah, so we, in Europe, we, you know, it depends on the operator. But in general, we cover about 7% to 10% of the cashier share with a Skrill wallet. So it is an incredibly important part of the proposition there. it does tend to skew towards the high roller as well. So that's, again, having those client-by-client conversations. It absolutely resonates. It absolutely resonates. But I do think our client engagement and focus did weaken in Europe. We were making, like I said, lots of money in much less regulated places. And, you know, earning our keep in more competitive markets, we lost a little bit of touch there. But the importance and the volumes matter tremendously to these operators. So there is engagement. There is openness. They see the reach that we have, so that works. And, you know, look, in the U.S., it is taking time, Darren. Like I said, we're not going to do some big blowout campaign. The LTVs and above-the-line marketing in the U.S. are very high. We're working on those proof points. We're now getting what I'd consider kind of top, top decile conversion rates, so beating the market there. The average tickets are higher, and we're doing some jumbo tickets now. And with two smaller operators, we're at 10% to 15% of cashier share. We really love that data point because those operators can access any payment product, right? It's not just us, but we've really focused with them. And the way we're approaching the larger operators is we're proving to them the product works It attracts the type of customers we need, and we're having active conversations. But it's going to take time before we get some of the really big ones to push this. But we like the direction it's going right now.
spk09: And just last one is on the e-cash side of the business. The wallet capabilities of that and the digitization of that, how's that been going still? I mean, I know you guys seem more optimistic on that part of the story, so if you'd At least on an organic standpoint, if you can give us a little more color on your expectations and why that's going better.
spk10: Thanks. Yeah, 80% of the revenues now go through our PaySafe card app. So we basically moved 12 million customers are active on a stored value app, which is effectively a wallet. Obviously a very different profile, more underbanked and younger. we will be adding some banking capabilities, so virtual debit account, and to be able to move money back and forth. The back-end capabilities of that product are the same as Skrill and NetTeller. So when we talk about being a multi-wallet company, that is absolutely a great proof point of where it is. So we remain very, very positive on that point. All right.
spk03: Thank you.
spk07: Thank you. Go ahead. Go ahead, please. Go ahead. Looks like we've reached the end of both question and answer session. I want to turn the floor back over to management for any further closing comments.
spk10: Thanks. Thanks, everybody, for the questions. Clearly, it's not the result we were looking for. There's stuff to clean up. There's things to fix. But as I said in my closing comments, we had a team meeting with all of my top 80 leaders. We went through this. We went through the adjusted financial outlook. We went through the road ahead. And it's hard to describe. The energy and enthusiasm was extremely high because the team does see the capabilities. They do see the actions we're taking, the changes we've made in the digital wallets team. and frankly, the clients that we're winning and the pipeline that we're building. So it's going to take us longer. It's not where we want it to be, but we remain totally focused on delivering the strategy we talked about from the beginning, from winning in iGaming, winning in other verticals, driving out those costs, and making the recent transactions really come to life. So we're going to obviously make ourselves available for everybody for more Q&A. and to go deeper than this first session. Thanks, everybody.
spk07: Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference webcast. You may disconnect or line up this time, and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.
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