Intercorp Financial Services Inc. (NYSE:IFS) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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So that’s moving ahead. And then we have the other part, while we’ve got the second part, tier 2 part of our strategy, which is deploying different things to create the ecosystem, like payments, like what we did with Tunki, like what we’ve been doing with open banking, connecting with other players that are not financial related so we can complement and provide our services. And that part has also kind of two-ways to look at it. Some are completely new ventures that we are very ready to kill if we don’t see that traction. Kill or pivot, if we don’t see that traction is coming where we were expecting. We are not in the game of just thinking someday, we will see how this gets monetized. We are very disciplined in targeting short-term and medium goals and analyzing exactly how we do.

An example of that is what we did with Rappi, for instance. We launched Rappi Bank, and there are certain assumptions. And we’ve been pivoting that effort. We have not scaled it because one alternative is to continue pouring money into the effort, but another is to maintain the scale, small, trying to find its market, its destiny, its segment. So far, we have not been very successful there. That’s why we keep it as a very small initiative. We don’t even talk about that anymore because we still have not been able to shake that initiative. But we have that discipline. That’s what we do. And then we have other types like payments where we are investing heavily in the ecosystem because, as you mentioned, it will be both an enabler of developing better, more strong relationship with customers and merchants, creating new avenues and new sources for growth for us, but also it will allow us to tap in new segments that we have not been tapping before, like merchants, for instance.

So that’s the way we are looking at this. We are not based on the fintech thought of scale will bring everything and sometime in the future, money will come in. So, we do have short and medium-term goals in order to see how these ventures are rendering the results. And you’re right that the Peruvian market has not seen lots of disruption from new fintechs or digital players. I think it’s the incumbents that are cannibalizing themselves in terms of the business, some with more positive results than others. But we are getting ready, as we’ve discussed before, to receive potential competition from local fintechs, international fintechs or digital banks. They will come to this market. We’re very conscious of that. It’s just a matter of time. And what we’re doing is as quickly possible to receive them, therefore, when they come to our Peruvian market.

Okay. So I hope that this kind of addressed your question. By monetization of what we do is very present, what we are deploying our Tier 1 transformation or the new initiative of Tier 2 transformation. On number 2, in terms of the OpEx, I’m going to pass it on to Michela, who will have obviously our numbers to 2023. She will be able to give you a little more detail. However, I anticipate, as she mentioned, that there might be some changes because of some reclassifications coming from IFRS 17. But she can provide you a snapshot of how we’re approaching discipline in OpEx for next year.

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