Seeking Alpha • Jan 24
Lufax: Debt Growth Slowdown
Summary
Despite the solid performance of the top 10 fintech companies, Lufax underperformed its competitors in Q3 2022 with its revenues down 22.5%.
We believe the company's revenue growth was impacted by Covid-19 lockdowns across China as well as new regulations related to online lending platform loan funding requirements.
We conservatively forecasted its Retail Credit segment revenue at a 5-year forward average of -3.2%.
In this analysis of Lufax Holding Ltd (LU), we examined the company following its poor performance in 2022 with its Q3 revenues down 22.5%. We compared it against the top 10 fintech companies based on its Q3 performance and guidance. Moreover, we then analyzed the Chinese market loan growth to understand if the debt crisis in China had affected the company. Finally, we analyzed its retail credit segment breakdown by loan volume, and customer and revenue growth and forecasted its revenue growth for the next 5 years.
Lufax Performed Poorly to Fintech Competitors
Q3 2022 Revenue ('mln')
TTM Revenue ('mln')
Revenue Growth YoY %
Q3 % Analyst Revenue Difference
Stock Price Change (Q4 2022)
Q4 Guidance YoY
Types
American Express (AXP)
50,831
24.0%
-0.1%
9.20%
24.0%
Card Network
Visa (V)
29,310
18.7%
3.1%
17.12%
18.0%
Card Network
PayPal Holdings (PYPL)
27,057
10.8%
0.4%
-18.02%
9.0%
Payment Facilitators
Mastercard (MA)
21,640
15.5%
1.7%
22.46%
17.0%
Card Network
Fiserv (FISV)
17,115
2.6%
0.0%
8.47%
11.0%
Merchant Acquiring
Block, Inc. (SQ)
16,964
17.6%
1.1%
14.42%
19.0%
Payment Facilitators
FIS (FIS)
14,483
2.7%
-0.3%
-10.22%
6.5%
Merchant Acquiring
Intuit Inc. (INTU)
13,319
29.5%
3.8%
0.49%
11.0%
Financial & Accounting Software
Lufax Holding
10,652
-25.5%
-7.6%
-23.62%
-7.0%
Online Lending
Global Payments (GPN)
8,691
-6.5%
1.0%
-8.08%
10.5%
Merchant Acquiring
Average
9.0%
0.31%
1.22%
11.90%
Source: Lufax, Khaveen Investments
Based on the table above, the top 10 fintech companies had positive growth in Q3 2022 with an average of 9%. Only two companies which were Lufax and Global Payments had negative growth in the quarter.
In terms of analyst consensus expectations, the top 10 companies were on average in line with analyst estimates with 3 companies (American Express, Lufax and FIS Global) underperforming with a negative difference.
Furthermore, 4 companies' stock prices declined in Q3 while the average stock price change was flat. Notwithstanding, the average revenue guidance for Q4 is positive and higher than the average revenue growth in Q3, thus indicating a potential acceleration in the top 10 companies' growth outlook.
By Fintech types, the Card Network providers had the best performance in Q3 with an average revenue growth of 19.4% YoY in the period, higher than the top 10 companies' average of 9%. Based on Insider Intelligence, Visa and Mastercard had strong cross-border volume growth of 44% and 38% respectively and boosted their volume growth. According to Visa, travel across the US was strong and Asia Pacific and Latin America recovered. Card network providers such as Visa earn international transaction revenue (33% of revenue) for cross-border transaction processing which...
arises when the country of origin of the issuer or financial institution originating the transaction is different from that of the beneficiary.
In comparison, other fintech companies such as Payment Facilitators like PayPal earn transaction revenues charged on merchants and have a lower exposure to international transactions with a low cross-border % of TPV of 16% in 2021.
Overall, despite the solid performance of the top 10 fintech companies, Lufax underperformed its competitors in Q3 2022.
Affected by Lockdowns and Regulations
Lufax Revenue Forecasts ($ mln)
2019
2020
2021
2022F
Average
Retail Credit
5,566
6,047
5,586
4,388
Growth rate %
8.6%
-7.6%
-21.4%
-6.8%
Wealth Management
369
270
341
285
Growth rate %
-26.8%
26.3%
-16.3%
-5.6%
Other Income
1,062
2,280
5,111
4,484
Growth rate %
114.6%
124.2%
-12.3%
75.5%
Total Revenues
6,997
8,597
11,038
9,157
Growth rate %
22.9%
28.4%
-17.0%
11.4%
Source: Lufax, Khaveen Investments
In Q3 2022, Lufax's revenue had declined by 25% YoY and by % YTD 2022. In the table above, we prorated the company's segmental revenue breakdown from Q1 to Q3 2022 for its retail credit, wealth management and other income to obtain its full-year 2022 forecasted revenue which is a decline of 17% which is in contrast with its positive growth in the prior year and its 3-year average growth rate of 11.4%. From the table, our 2022 prorated revenue shows all 3 of its segments declining with retail credit having the highest decline. Its competitor Ant Group's consumer financing unit also performed poorly with a decline in net profit by 63% in Q2 2022 according to Bloomberg.
According to the company's earnings briefing in Q3 2022, the company's "revenue was negatively impacted by the economic environment". Thus, we examined the loan growth rate in China to determine whether it was mainly affected by the macroeconomic environment.
Investing.com, Khaveen Investments
According to Investing.com, China's loan growth rate had been decelerating in the past 5 years since 2018. The average loan growth rate in China in the past 5 years was 12.4% but had further declined to an average of 12.2% in 2021 and slowed down sharply in 2022 with an average of 11.1%. Thus, since China's loan growth rate had slowed down in the past 5 years, we believe this not to be the main factor for Lufax's slowdown.
Since 2020, China had imposed lockdowns across various cities in the country. In 2020, it imposed lockdowns in 19 cities but only 1 city was a sub-provincial city, Wuhan, with more than 11 mln population. Furthermore, in 2021, it reimposed lockdowns in Shijiazhuang and Xi'an with more than 8 mln population as its retail credit revenue contracted compared to 2020. In 2022, it imposed lockdowns on its largest city, Shanghai and Shenzhen as the company's retail credit revenue decline accelerated in 2022.