StoneCo Ltd. (NASDAQ:STNE) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Thiago Piau: Yeah. Lia thank you. Hi Will, this is Thiago speaking. I think in terms of trends, the only thing that we are seeing which is actually a good result is that peak in is increasing a lot. So we are seeing that as the banking increased engagement with our clients, we experienced more cash in volumes coming from PIX both from P2P and P2M type of transactions. So I think that we are capturing this evolution. And this — and we do not account in our TPV that additional volume that comes from PIX. So it’s a positive effect that we are seeing in our banking execution.

Will Carlson: Thanks team. That’s very helpful.

Thiago Piau: Thank you, Will.

Lia Matos: Thanks Will.

Operator: The next question comes from Tito Labarta with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Tito Labarta: Hi. Good evening. Thank you for the call and taking my question. A couple of questions, I guess, first I think good job on maintaining the take rate despite the seasonality and the TPV growth was still strong. So just, how do you think about, I guess when the competitive environment and your ability to further re-price because it does seem that you were able to gain some share in SMB segment. Do you think that’s sustainable? Do you think there’s still room to increase pricing anymore from here? Just to think about how that can evolve? And then my second question also good on the financial expenses. You continue to use your balance sheet there. Do you see more room to sort of view some of the cash on your balance sheet to continue to reduce financial expenses here, or what’s the level that you feel comfortable with to kind of reduce the financial expenses further? Thank you.

Thiago Piau: Hi, Tito Thiago here. I will take the first part of your question. I think that regarding competition the landscape has been much more stable throughout the year and we continue to do so in the fourth quarter. In terms of take rate as you just said, there are some seasonality between third and fourth quarter because of additional debit volumes. So maintaining take rate is a positive for us. And because of that seasonality we expect take rates to increase in the MSMB in the first quarter, as the seasonality gets more credit and debit on the first quarter. So we think that the industry now have a very healthy level in terms of prices. All players’ adjusted prices upwards over the last year mainly because of the cost of capital that obviously increased to everybody and our competition continues to be on a rational level.

Rafael Martins: Hi. Tito, Rafael here. Regarding your second part of the question about financial expenses, as we have mentioned, the cash generation of the business gave us comfort to use part of our own cash to reduce financial expenses. I think that we are a more stable level now. So when you look at our financial expenses compared to our revenue, I think that we shouldn’t change much from where we are right now. So we have been doing this for two quarters in a row. And as we have also indicated previously, financial expenses should grow over time more in line with our TPV and the changes in interest rates in the country. So I think that we are comfortable where we are right now. And, of course, we’ll keep looking at opportunities to optimize our funding.

Tito Labarta: Okay. Great. Thanks, Thiago. Thanks, Rafael.

Rafael Martins: Thanks, Tito.

Operator: The next question comes from Jeff Cantwell with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.