X Financial

And welcome to the exponential first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on a touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Tanya Wen. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. The company's results were released earlier today and are available on the company's IR website at ir.tellinggroup.com. On the call today from X Financial are Mr. Ken Lee, President, and Mr. Frank Friagin, Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Lee will give a brief overview of the company's business operations and highlights, followed by Mr. Chen, who will go through the financials. They are all available to answer your questions during the Q&A section. I remind you that this call may contain formulating statements under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Security Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are based on the manager's current expectations and current market and operating conditions and relate to events that involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond the company's control, which may cause the company to react to results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. For the information regarding this and other risks, and factors is included in the company's filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company does not undertake any obligation to update any full blocking statement as a result of new information, future events, or other effects as required under the law. It is now my pleasure to introduce Mr. Ken Lee. Mr. Lee, please go ahead.

Hello, everyone. We are pleased to start 2022 with a solid performance for the first quarter, despite of multiple challenges from the resurgence of COVID-19 and the economic slowdown in China. The total loan amount facilitated and provided in the first quarter increased on both a yearly and quarterly basis. We also saw our asset quality remain stable during the quarter. However, given the uncertainties of the macroeconomic environment, we are cautious about the business outlook for the coming quarters. We will continue to closely monitor the market dynamics and stay vigilant to any inefficiencies and issues related to the pandemic in China. During the first quarter, our total loan amount facilitated and provided reached RMB 15 billion, up 40% year-over-year and 17% quarter-over-quarter, in line with our previous guidance. The delinquency rate for all outstanding loans that are past due for 31 to 60 days as of March 31st, 2022 decreased to 1.31% from 1.48% as of December 31st, 2021. We are pleased to see that our tightened risk control measures have successfully stabilized our asset quality amid the complex environment and especially during the recent COVID-19 resurgence and lockdown. In the meantime, we have been actively working with various partners to jointly explore new opportunities in the personal financing market. In the fourth quarter of 2021, we became an indirect minority shareholder of the New Up Bank of Liaoning. Since the second quarter of 2022, we have started to provide loan facilitation services to New Up Bank. Now, we are in active discussions with the Newark Bank to jointly design and develop products and programs that cater to the financing needs of small and micro business in line with the government call for support of the development of small and medium enterprises in China. We look forward to deepening our cooperation with Newark Bank by leveraging our extensive experience in the personal financing market and our capabilities in cutting-edge and tech-driven risk control and assessments. We believe helping licensed financial institutions to grow their business will benefit both parties in the long run. On the regulatory side, the Chinese government recently highlighted the importance of promoting the healthy development of the platform economy in China. We believe a more visible market with clear and standardized regulations will benefit all the market participants, including us. We're fully compliant with and supported the government's initiatives and policies to promote the long-term development of the industry. We have laid a strong foundation and are very confident of our expertise to capture growth opportunities amid a healthy regulatory environment. Recently, we were included in the list for the first year under the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, which allows the U.S. regulator to delist companies if they fail to comply with American audit standards for three consecutive years. According to the Foreign Ministry of China, the Chinese securities regulator has regularly been in communicating with US regulators in this regard. Whether these companies will be delisted or not from the US stock exchange depends on the progress and results of the China-US quality supervision cooperation. We hope and look forward to the two governments reaching an agreement in the near future. In the meantime, We have been proactively exploring possible solutions to protect the interest of our shareholders and maintain our listing status on the New York Stock Exchange. Now, I will turn the call to Frank, who will go to our financials.