World Acceptance Corporation (NASDAQ:WRLD) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Vincent Caintic: Okay. Thank you. And then last one for me. We’ve been hearing about maybe macro improvement, maybe soft landing, and certainly, you talk about increasing approval rates and you’re not seeing — you’re getting more comfortable with your underwriting, not seeing reduction in credit quality. Is there a point — is there a macro trend or maybe it just takes a little bit of time before you feel really comfortable in leaning in, and we can see the portfolio significantly grow? Just wondering what you’re looking at before we see significant portfolio growth. Thank you.

Chad Prashad: Yeah, I would say we’re very conservative in how we look at the macroeconomic picture. We began tightening in April 2021. Personally, I expected a rather tight and quick change to the economy, which obviously didn’t come for another year, year and half, and it was much slower than I expected. So in terms of loosening up, we have loosened up where we have seen prudent over the last couple of quarters. Again, our approval rates are up pretty substantially. But in terms of loosening up for growth, we’re not in a position at all where we are considering loosening up and reducing credit quality, or in any way sacrificing credit quality for growth. The opposite is actually pretty true, where we have spent a lot of time making sure, from a marketing perspective, an underwriting perspective, we can drive applications and approve applications that are within the acceptable credit box.

So going forward, that will continue to be one of our main focuses is to grow the business, kind of move out of this, wait and see, and be very conservative growth approach into a more aggressive approach from a growth perspective, but still very prudent and conservative on the credit side.

Vincent Caintic: Okay. Very helpful. Thanks very much.

Chad Prashad: Thanks, Vincent.

Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Prashad for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Chad Prashad: Thank you all for taking the time to join us today. And this concludes the third quarter earnings call for World Acceptance Corporation.

Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.