VCREDIT Announces a Final Dividend of HK15 cents

Mar 24, 2022 09:09 JST

Source: VCREDIT Holdings Limited

Targets to Maintain a Payout Ratio of between 20% to 30%
Striving to Create Sustainable Investment Returns for Shareholders

HONG KONG, Mar 24, 2022 - (ACN Newswire) - VCREDIT Holdings Limited ("VCREDIT" or the "Group"; stock code: 2003.HK), a leading independent online consumer finance provider in China, is pleased to announce its audited consolidated results for the year ended 31 December 2021 (the "Year").

During the Year, the Group's total income increased significantly by 34.4% year-on-year to RMB3,458 million (2020: RMB2,573 million). The Group successfully achieved a turnaround, with net profit of RMB1,179 million (2020: net loss of RMB870 million). The Group is committed to creating sustainable investment returns for its shareholders, sharing the fruits of success in its operations. Therefore, following the declaration of dividend for the first time during its interim results, the Board has recommended a final dividend of HK15 cents per share for the Year. Together with the interim dividend and special dividend totalling HK20 cents per share already paid out, the full-year dividend was HK35 cents per share.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic and evolving macro-economic environment brought challenges and uncertainties, VCREDIT delivered an outstanding operating performance and promising financial results during the Year driven by its technology-focused risk management and dynamic operational strategies. As a result of the recovery of the macroeconomy in China, the loan origination volume achieved significant growth, coupled with the Group's strategies in migrating to a higher-quality borrowers and customer acquisition model, the Group successfully improved its overall asset quality, leading to a significant increase in loan facilitation service fees by 115.9% to RMB1,540 million. The interest income amounted to RMB1,972 million, remained at a stable level as compared to the previous year.

The Group primarily offers two credit products through its pure online loan origination processes, including credit cards balance transfer products and consumption credit products, both of which are installment-based. For the Year, the total number of transactions was 3.4 million. The average term of the Group's credit products was approximately 9.4 months and the average loan size was approximately RMB11,965. The Group constantly adjusted its risk management and credit policies to maintain a prudent risk approach and efficiency of operations, so as to deliver outstanding business growth and a controllable credit risk performance.

Both quantity and quality of the customer base witnessed remarkable growth
As a result of its proactive management, enhanced communication channels, focused marketing and higher profile brand recognition, the Group successfully expanded its user base. The number of registered users of VCREDIT reached the level of "over 100 million" and increased to 112.5 million during the Year, which also led to a significant increase in its loan facilitation volume. Meanwhile, with the application of big data customer acquisition models driven by artificial intelligence, the Group improved its operational efficiency and enhanced the target customer identification and market penetration. In addition, the Group continued to refine its online APPs and system to enhance customer experience, which has improved the loyalty and retention rate of customers. Benefitting from this, the Group has successfully transitioned its customer base towards higher quality near-prime and prime borrowers, resulting in a significant improvement in its delinquency levels.

Optimising risk management to enhance asset quality
The Group places great emphasis on technology-focused risk management, iterating its credit risk models through the introduction of multi-dimension data sources, deep analytics of credit risk performance, and sophisticated testing. The Group also constantly adjusted its risk management and credit policies to maintain a prudent risk approach and efficiency of operations to deliver outstanding business growth and a controllable credit risk performance. In addition, the Group's credit risk management capability enables it to maintain its core competitiveness and well positions it to sustain healthy business growth and defend macroeconomic uncertainties. During the Year, through adjusting policy timely and optimising risk models, the Group managed to maintain its first payment delinquency ratio at an industry-wide low level of around 0.42%, which is conducive to improving the Group's asset quality.

Win-win collaboration and close partnership with funding partners
To support the rapid and sustainable development of its businesses, the Group worked closely with 69 external funding partners during the Year, including nationwide joint-stock commercial banks, consumer finance companies and trusts, that constituted a diverse and affluent funding pool. These long-term and stable collaborative relationships have allowed the Group to improve its funding costs. Furthermore, the Group's guarantee companies, third-party guarantee companies and asset management companies form an ecosystem that ensures the Group's funding flexibility and provides protection to its funding partners.

Outlook
Looking ahead, to create sustainable investment returns for its shareholders, the Group will seek to provide shareholders with regular dividends with a normal target payout ratio of between 20% to 30% of the Group's audited consolidated net profits each year, subject however to factors that the Board deems relevant namely the Group's financial results, available distributable reserves and cash position, etc.

At the same time, in order to contribute to further growth in its consumer finance business and fulfilling the financial needs of high-quality customers, the Group will strive to proactively hone its business strategies and upscale its technology, in order to better serve its customers to improve brand recognition. While enhancing risk management capability through ceaselessly evolving technology and artificial intelligence, the Group will strengthen regulated and long-term collaborations with licensed financial institutional partners and other business partners, in hopes of building a wide moat for business development. In addition to growing its existing consumer finance operation organically, the Group will also seek to expand and diversify its business through actively identifying suitable investment and acquisition targets, thus maintaining its competitiveness in an ever-changing macro environment.

About VCREDIT Holdings Limited (2003.HK)
VCREDIT Holdings Limited ("VCREDIT") is a leading player in China's consumer finance industry with over 10 years of track record. The Group caters to prime and near-prime borrowers underserved by traditional financial institutions by offering online consumption products. To match the funding needs for these products, the Group primarily engages institutional funding partners through three types of sustainable and scalable funding structures: trust lending, credit-enhanced loan facilitation and pure loan facilitation. Through such funding structures, VCREDIT provides institutional funding partners with solutions at varying levels of risk discretion and flexible profit-sharing arrangements.

Website: http://www.vcredit.com/

Source: VCREDIT Holdings Limited
Sectors: Daily Finance