HealthEquity, Inc. (NASDAQ:HQY) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

And that includes, the fact that we utilize, change as our partner for, what we call virtual cards. So these are payments to physicians. The virtual card systems of change were not impacted by this incident. And so, we continue to be able to pay get our providers paid and get the our members reimbursed and get our pharmacies paid, and that seems like a good thing. And maybe I’ll just as long as you break the topic, I’ll say one other thing about it, which is that from a security perspective, while Optum United change have not come forth with much clarity with regard to the sort of underlying vulnerability that was the source of this. We have, there’s been a lot of discussion in the intelligence community about in the cyber intelligence community about what it might be.

And I suppose one benefit of that is that, it’s identified a number of what would have otherwise been zero day vulnerabilities. And our team has been very active in as those kind of come out in that world and we monitor those through our own resources and third parties. As we monitor those items, we identify whether there are threats within our own systems. And if there are any threats within our own systems, we take that. But at the end of the day, it’s yet another reminder of the fact that there’s a reason why we spend more on cybersecurity than we do on marketing. It’s both the right thing to do and it’s an appropriate thing to do. And if you’re going to be a market leader, you’re going to have to step up to that, particularly in an industry where you have both health and financial data in your systems.

Operator: The next question comes from Greg Peters with Raymond James.

Greg Peters: I think this is a good segue. So you’re just talking about cybersecurity and it’s your focus on that and it’s being important. I wanted to pivot to credit risk, not only with your depository, but also your enhanced yield partners. And the reason why is because you’re seeing some continuing challenges inside some of the bank companies. And then secondly, there’s this persistent concern about commercial real estate exposures. And when I’m just curious how you evaluate your partners both on the depository enhanced yield in the context of these types of external risks that we read about, seems like almost every day?

James Lucania: You want me to start with that one, Jon? Look, I mean, I think this is this is the purpose of our we have a custodial cash committee within the company, and the board also provides oversight of the activities of that custodial cash committee. This is what we do. We try to diversify the portfolio of partners that we work with and we do monitor the activity of each of those partners. On the bank deposit side, we’re not placing like these deposits are not treated as mass deposits of health equity into the member banks. They’re treated as many small deposits that are fully FDIC insured by the federal government. So they add up to $2,000 here and there adds up to a large deposit with the bank. And then on the insurance side, I think as we’ve talked about, right?

We are, at the start of this program, working with highly rated, the blue chip insurance company partners here. And we are adding another criteria there of being a small percentage of their of any of our insurance partners’ balance sheet, right? It’s not just diversifying the dollars across our partners. We are trying to make sure that we’re a very small part of the liabilities of said insurance company. But yes, acknowledge that as we mix shift towards more insurance partner, our ability to risk manage becomes marginally heightened there as we don’t have the FDIC pass through.

Greg Peters: Jon, did you want to add anything or should I just plow on to my follow-up question?

Jon Kessler: Now ahead, sir.

Greg Peters: So BenefitWallet is the integration is underway. So again, when you’re dealing with M&A and you guys have a track record of this, there’s always surprises and unforeseen challenges. Is anything popped up on your radar that you want to call out that has been unusual so far? I know you’ve sort of identified the expectation of when we get expect to transfer everything over. But just curious if it’s meeting plans or where there’s been some deviations?

Jon Kessler: I think by and large, Greg, so far so good. As you know and others may not, I know you do. But one of the things we did with this transaction is that we structured it such that we’re not acquiring any technology systems or the like. And that has a number of benefits. First of all, it significantly reduces the possibility of surprises. But in addition, it also reduces things like temporary cyber security threat environments, those kind of things. And it’s been a good model for us for smaller transactions. This will be the largest of not only in fact, this will be the largest HSA transfer, I believe, ever done, but certainly the largest of this type. And so, so far so good. What we will do is once the transaction is complete, as we do with other transactions, we’ll give you a precise reporting of accounts, assets or precise is the wrong word, but we’ll give you a final tally of accounts and assets, so that you’re able to understand the distinction between organic and these kinds of acquisitions.

There was if you look back, we talked about kind of where these numbers might end up, but also the agreement itself contemplates the possibility of them being slightly higher or slightly lower depending on any number of factors. And so you’ll be able to get a pretty clear view of how this thing ends up and that’ll be that. But so far, the team, Brad, Mike Reske, Kelly King and the whole team at HealthEquity as well as at BenefitWallet, the conduit team there have done a great job of moving this thing forward. And we’re really excited about the fact that we now begin to welcome members as we’ve begun to do in the last couple of weeks as each of these tranches is getting 10-K or 8-K I should say.

Operator: The next question comes from Sean Dodge with RBC Capital Markets.