Enova International, Inc. (ENVA) Q1 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good day, and welcome to the Enova International First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Lindsay Savarese, Investor Relations for Enova. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Enova released results for the first quarter 2026 ended March 31, 2026, this afternoon after market close. If you did not receive a copy of our earnings press release, you may obtain it from the Investor Relations section of our website at ir.enova.com. With me on today's call are Steve Cunningham, Chief Executive Officer; and Scott Cornelis, Chief Financial Officer. This call is being webcast and will be archived on the Investor Relations section of our website. Before I turn the call over to Steve, I'd like to note that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements, and as such, is subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially as a result from various important risk factors, including those discussed in our earnings press release, and in our annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Forms 8-K. Please note that any forward-looking statements that are made on this call are based on assumptions as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events. In addition to U.S. GAAP reporting, and over reports certain financial measures that do not conform to generally accepted accounting principles. We believe these non-GAAP measures enhance the understanding of our performance. Reconciliations between these GAAP and non-GAAP measures are included in the tables found in today's press release. As noted in our earnings release, we have posted supplemental financial information on the IR portion of our website. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to Steve.

Thank you, Lindsay, and good afternoon, everyone. I appreciate you joining our call today. Our first quarter results marked a great start to the year. Strong originations growth and solid credit across our portfolio once again drove outstanding financial results that were in line or better than our expectations and highlight the power of our balanced growth strategy and our experienced team's ability to drive differentiated and consistent performance by leveraging our diversified product offerings, scalable operating model and advanced risk management capabilities. Our results also highlight the resiliency of our consumer and small business customers despite recent market volatility and concerns about potential impacts from geopolitical or domestic policy issues. First quarter originations increased a healthy 33% year-over-year to nearly $2.3 billion. As a result of the strong originations growth, the portfolio increased 28% year-over-year to nearly $5.3 billion of small business products representing 70% of our portfolio at the end of the quarter and consumer products accounting for 30%. Strong demand and solid credit performance enabled us to be more aggressive with our marketing than we typically see in the first quarter of the year as we leveraged our sophisticated technology and analytics to meet this demand while maintaining attractive unit economics. Looking ahead, we'll continue to opportunistically lean into marketing to meet demand that delivers strong returns and meets our unit economics hurdles. With strong quarterly portfolio growth, revenue increased 17% year-over-year to a record $875 million in the first quarter. Profitability metrics grew even faster as adjusted EPS increased 30% from the first quarter of 2025 driven by strong credit and our significant operating leverage. SMB revenue increased 37% year-over-year to $418 million, and our consumer revenue increased 3% year-over-year to $446 million, both quarterly records. In addition to our strong growth this quarter, credit metrics across the portfolio reflects stable or improving performance with the consolidated net charge-off ratio for the first quarter falling both sequentially and year-over-year to 7.6%, our lowest consolidated quarterly net charge-off rate since the second quarter of 2023. Looking at our consumer business, year-over-year growth in originations accelerated to 10% as we continue to lean into the strong demand and stable credit that we discussed last quarter. As expected, credit metrics for the consumer portfolio were stable or improved both sequentially and year-over-year. Our SMB business continued to deliver remarkable growth and stable credit. As our leading brand presence, scale and strong competitive position drove 42% year-over-year growth in originations to a record $1.7 billion. Our SMB portfolio has grown 37% over the past year and remains intentionally well diversified across geographies and industries. In addition, the SMB net charge-off ratio remained in a tight range consistent with the past 2 years. Our performance this quarter and external data reflect a stable and resilient macroeconomic environment despite recent concerns about rising energy costs as a result of the Iran War. The most recent Federal Reserve book released last week continued to highlight increases in economic activity across most districts. In addition, our most recent small business cash flow trend report released in conjunction with Ocrolus, found that 93% of small businesses expect moderate to significant growth over the next year. which is consistent with prior surveys. Similarly, the most recent NFIB small business economic trends report indicated that the number of small business owners rating the health of their business as excellent or good is mostly steady. In the April, ADP National Employment Report noted that small businesses have been the engine for hiring across the country for the second consecutive month. Supported by a stable labor market and growth in real wages, consumers continue to spend and participate in the economy. March unemployment rate ticked down to 4.3%. New and continuing weekly unemployment claims remains relatively low and manageable and March hourly earnings increased 3.5% compared to a year ago. While market consumer confidence remains stable, consumer sentiment as well as small businesses express concerns about the future impact of the recent spike in gasoline prices. During our more than 20-year operating history, we have successfully managed our business during several energy price spikes, including as recently as 2022. During that energy shock, we observed that significant gas price spikes don't necessarily translate into higher spending as today's consumers have more methods to manage gas price spikes than in the past with the advent of more fuel-efficient autos, electric vehicles, ridesharing services and on-demand delivery. A review of the electronic bank statement data we collect across our consumer businesses support this. Prior to the start of the Iran War, our consumer borrowers were spending roughly 2% of income on gas. And then even with a meaningful increase in gas prices, we've seen only a small increase in spending on gas relative to income as consumers adapt their behavior to higher cost at the pump. This trend is similar to what we observed during 2022 when geopolitical issues sparked an even sharper rise in gas prices that persisted for many months during a period of much higher overall inflation. Importantly, during that period in 2022, we didn't observe material impacts to our consumer or SMB originations or credit performance as a direct result of the energy price spikes. Notably, historically, we have seen that demand for our products typically increase as customers look to bridge temporary cash flow gaps that could arise from spending due to transitory higher prices. Before I wrap up, I'd like to spend a few moments discussing our strategy and key focus areas for the remainder of 2026. We've demonstrated a long track record of consistent and profitable lending while navigating a wide range of economic environments. We thoughtfully diversified and built our operating model to be resilient in any economic environment, and are confident in our ability to continue our success by following our focused growth strategy and by leveraging our diversified product offerings, advanced technology and analytics and disciplined unit economics approach. One key to our success for many years has been the extensive application of machine learning models, automation and other advanced technologies, including applied and generative AI across our company to remain nimble, improve the customer experience, manage risk and increase efficiency. This tech forward and innovation mentality is ingrained in our culture and it's how we've approached our work every day for many, many years. While we've taken a more understated approach to highlighting our innovation compared to others, preferring to let the results speak for themselves. Make no mistake that we've embraced the opportunities to apply generative AI across our organization to defend and extend our competitive advantages and enable our teams to move faster with powerful insights while working smarter and more efficiently. Finally, we are excited about our combination with Grasshopper Bank later this year. Since our last update, we continue to make great progress and remain engaged in a constructive dialogue with both the OCC and Federal Reserve as we progress through the typical application process. Internally, our teams are deep into integration planning, and we are highly encouraged by the readiness we are building to ensure we hit the ground running on day 1 to deliver on the significant synergies for geographic expansion of our existing products, and lower funding costs from Grasshopper's deposit businesses. As a reminder, we expect net synergies related to the transaction to drive adjusted EPS accretion of more than 25% once the synergies are fully realized in the first 2 years post closing. We continue to anticipate closing the transaction during the second half of this year. To wrap up, we're pleased with the strong start to the year. And based on what we're seeing today, we're raising our outlook for the year, which Scott will describe in more detail. We believe our diversified product offerings, nimble machine learning powered credit risk management capabilities, talented team and solid balance sheet position us well to continue to drive sustainable and profitable growth this year and beyond. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Scott Cornelis, our CFO, who will discuss our financial results and outlook in more detail. And following Scott's remarks, we'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. Scott?

Thank you, Steve, and good afternoon, everyone. As Steve noted in his remarks, we're pleased to deliver another solid quarter of top and bottom line financial performance. We started 2026 with strong growth in originations, receivables and revenue along with solid credit, operating efficiency and balance sheet flexibility. Turning to our first quarter results. Total company revenue of $875 million increased 17% from the first quarter of 2025, exceeding our expectations driven by 28% year-over-year growth in total company combined loan and finance receivable balances on an amortized basis. Total company originations during the first quarter rose 33% from the first quarter of 2025 to $2.3 billion. Revenue from small business lending increased 37% from the first quarter of 2025 to $418 million as small business receivables on an amortized basis ended the quarter at $3.7 billion or 39% higher than the end of the first quarter of 2025. Small business originations rose 42% year-over-year to $1.7 billion. Revenue from our consumer businesses increased 3% from the first quarter of 2025 to $446 million as consumer receivables on an amortized basis ended the first quarter at $1.6 billion or approximately 8% higher than the end of the first quarter of 2025. Consumer originations grew 10% from the first quarter of 2025 to $559 million. For the second quarter of 2026, we expect total company revenue to be 15% to 20% higher year-over-year. This expectation will depend on the level, timing and mix of originations growth during the quarter. Now turning to credit, which is the most significant driver of net revenue and portfolio fair value. Consolidated credit performance for the first quarter was solid with year-over-year improvement in the net charge-off rate, the 30-plus day delinquency rate and a stable fair value premium. The consolidated net revenue margin of 60% for the first quarter was at the higher end of our expected range and reflects continued solid credit performance across our portfolios. The consolidated net charge-off ratio for the first quarter of 7.6% declined 100 basis points from the first quarter a year ago as the consumer net charge-off ratio decreased to 14.3%, 90 basis points lower than the first quarter last year, while the small business net charge-off ratio remained stable at 4.6%. These results underscore the strength and consistency of our credit risk management and the quality of our originations. Importantly, we expect future credit performance to remain stable as demonstrated by the year-over-year stability in the consolidated 30-plus day delinquency rate and the consolidated fair value premium, which at 115% remained at levels we have seen over the past 2 years, indicating a stable risk return profile and strong unit economics. Looking ahead, we expect the total company net revenue margin for the second quarter of 2026 to be in the 55% to 60% range. This expectation will depend upon portfolio payment performance and the level, timing and mix of originations growth during the second quarter. Now turning to expenses. Total operating expenses for the first quarter, including marketing, were 36% of revenue compared to 32% of revenue in the first quarter of 2025. As Steve noted, our marketing spend continues to be efficient, driving strong originations growth. Marketing costs increased to 22% of revenue or $189 million compared to 19% of revenue or $139 million in the first quarter of 2025. We expect marketing expenses to be around 20% of revenue for the second quarter, which will depend upon the growth and mix of originations. Operations and technology expenses for the first quarter increased to 8.7% of revenue or $76 million compared to 8.4% of revenue or $62 million in the first quarter of 2025 driven by growth in receivables and originations over the past year. Given the significant variable component of this expense category, sequential increases in O&T costs should be expected in an environment where originations and receivables are growing and should be around 8% to 8.5% of total revenue going forward. Our fixed costs continue to scale as we focus on operating efficiency and thoughtful expense management. General and administrative expenses for the first quarter were $48 million or 5.5% of revenue compared to $42 million or 5.7% of revenue in the first quarter of 2025. The current quarter includes $2.7 million of onetime deal-related expenses associated with the pending Grasshopper acquisition. Excluding these items, G&A expenses were $45 million or 5.2% of revenue, reflecting continued operating leverage and disciplined expense management. While there may be slight variations from quarter-to-quarter, we expect G&A expenses in the near term will be around 5% of total revenue, excluding any onetime costs. Our balance sheet and liquidity position remains strong, giving us the financial flexibility to successfully navigate a range of operating environments, while delivering on our commitment to drive long-term shareholder value through both continued investments in our business and opportunistic share repurchases. We ended the first quarter with approximately $1.1 billion of liquidity, including $436 million of cash and marketable securities and $654 million of available capacity on our debt facilities. Continuing our track record of strong capital markets execution, during the first quarter, we upsized 4 of our secured consumer and small business warehouse facilities by $377 million at existing terms, providing additional capacity to support our growth. Our cost of funds for the first quarter was 8.2%, down from 8.3% in the fourth quarter, reflecting strong execution in recent financing transactions. During the first quarter, we acquired approximately 110,000 shares at a cost of approximately $16 million. We continue to believe there remains additional upside in our valuation given our track record of consistent growth and earnings, our expectations for 2026 and the significant future opportunities associated with the Grasshopper acquisition. With that in mind, we will continue stock repurchases opportunistically while ensuring we are prepared to close the Grasshopper Bank acquisition and transition to a bank holding company later this year. Finally, we continue to deliver solid profitability this quarter. Compared to the first quarter of 2025, adjusted EPS, a non-GAAP measure, increased 30% to $3.87 per diluted share. To wrap up, let me summarize our near-term expectations. For the second quarter, we expect consolidated revenue to be 15% to 20% higher year-over-year with a net revenue margin in the 55% to 60% range. Additionally, we expect marketing expenses to be around 20% of revenue, O&T costs of around 8% to 8.5% of revenue and G&A costs around 5% of revenue. With a more normalized tax rate, these expectations should lead to adjusted EPS for the second quarter of 2026, that is 20% to 25% higher than the second quarter of 2025. For the full year, we expect growth in originations compared to the full year of 2025 of around 20%. We expect that the resulting growth in receivables with stable credit and continued operating leverage should result in full year 2026 revenue growth similar to originations growth and adjusted EPS growth of at least 25%. Our second quarter and full year 2026 expectations will depend upon the path of the macroeconomic environment and the resulting impact on demand, customer payment rates and the level, timing and mix of originations growth. As a reminder, our 2026 financial expectations do not assume any contribution from the pending acquisition of Grasshopper Bank, which, as Steve noted, we continue to expect to close in the second half of 2026. We are confident that the demonstrated ability of our talented team, combined with our world-class technology and analytics have us well positioned to adapt to an evolving macro environment, and continue to generate meaningful and consistent financial results. Our resilient online-only business model, diversified product offerings, nimble machine learning-powered credit risk management capabilities and solid balance sheet, support our ability to continue to drive profitable growth while also effectively managing risk. And with that, we'd be happy to take your questions. Operator?

[Operator Instructions] And the first question will come from Moshe Orenbuch with TD Cowen.

I guess for starters, you've got very strong results overall but has kind of tilted a little bit certainly from an asset growth standpoint towards small business. Could you talk a little bit about your originations in both consumer and small business and related to the respective marketing costs, like where were those higher marketing costs incurred and how it drove the originations and whether there's an outlook for that consumer or any reversal, if you will, of that kind of disparate growth between the two businesses?

Moshe, thanks for the question. So I think let me make a couple of comments. Number one, I think our SMB business has been growing plus 20% now for every quarter over the past 2 years. Sometimes it's more than that, like we've seen over the past couple of quarters or sometimes a little bit closer to that. So pretty consistent, pretty steady. I don't think there's anything remarkable to talk about as it relates to marketing. Our marketing remains very efficient. And again, we lean into that marketing where we see opportunities to drive really good growth with strong unit economics. On the consumer portfolio, if you just take a look at the year-over-year trends in the consumer book, we've been reaccelerating growth, as we've talked about now over the past couple of quarters. If you recall back middle of last year, we were making sure that we had credit where we wanted it. There was a product that we slowed -- that slowed our overall consumer growth down a bit, but that's been picking up, the pace has picked up. And in particular, if you look at our consumer products, you can see that our consumer installment growth has been very healthy now for quite some time on a year-over-year basis. And the LOC product year-over-year growth has been accelerating over the past several quarters as we expected. I think you should expect to continue to see the consumer year-over-year growth to accelerate. As we look back into some of the quarters last year where we had purposely slowed down. So I think I expect we'll continue to see healthy SMB growth, but I also think we'll continue to see that acceleration in consumer. So the disparity, I think we should -- all things being equal and with the strong operating backdrop, I think you'll see that disparity diminish. And similar to what I mentioned on the marketing for SMB, the marketing on our consumer side, our teams do a great job of identifying the channels that deliver the best marketing value for the growth that we can achieve against that unit economic framework. So I feel very good about the quarter, the growth that we were able to bring. And as Scott highlighted, our outlook, we nudged up a bit what we think we will be able to do with what we see today with our growth.

Got it. And clearly, you have one of the better lenses into kind of repayment given the shorter term that you've got. Just talk a little bit about what you're seeing both on the consumer and small business side. And if you can talk about -- obviously, we see the delinquency rates at the end of March, but if you can kind of talk about whether that's continued into April and just talk about the repayment side of things.

Yes. I mean, I think the results speak for themselves. At the end of the quarter, as you mentioned, credit looks really, really strong. I mean SMB has been operating in a tight range for charge-offs for quite some time. Our consumer charge-offs are operating, what I would say, towards the lower end of the range that we typically would see for first quarter. And so a few weeks into the second quarter, we're pleased with what we're seeing as it relates to the portfolio performance and the demand regardless of the volatility that -- and the headlines that are out there, sometimes the -- what people are actually doing versus the backdrop and the headlines is very different, and we're pretty encouraged with what we're seeing as we move into the second quarter.

The next question will come from David Scharf with Citizens Capital Markets.

Steve, maybe just kind of following up on Moshe's comment about kind of the mix of originations. Can you just remind us, as we think about the unit economics between consumer and SMB. Obviously, they're approaching sort of 50-50 revenue at this point. But are you still -- should we be indifferent as an investor outside looking in, should there basically be a difference as it relates to the asset mix, are the unit level returns, risk-adjusted pretty much the same? Are you underwriting to kind of similar economics still?

Yes. I mean, listen, we are -- the way our unit economics and our ROE frameworks work is that we're pretty agnostic to the mix. We go where the demand is and where we think we can efficiently underwrite and market to drive volume. And we talked about this a lot over the years, and you've seen us do that. There are some slight differences between the two. Obviously, the yields between the two portfolios are different. The charge-off rates are different, which means the net revenue margins are a bit different. And you can kind of work your way down all the way through, including financing intensity across the two. But ultimately, you get back to a pretty similar ROA across the two portfolios. And so we feel really good that the unit economics and our approach to how we go about meeting that demand is going to work really well for us. Whether we see sometimes where SMB grows a bit faster like we've seen over the past year or so. But we've also seen times where consumers are going to grow faster than SMB. So you should expect that those types of opportunities will continue. Obviously, most recently, it's been more impacted by just the reacceleration as we get consumer rolling again after the middle of last year. So we feel really good about where we're headed, and we feel really good about the economics across both portfolios.

Got it. That's helpful. And switching to credit. I think you read my mind, I literally have written down to ask about sort of gas prices and spending based on the bank data that you started purchasing several years ago. I just wanted to make sure I heard what you said that, that basically as a percentage of income. So far, you're really not seeing any kind of noticeable change and where your borrowers -- how much they're allocating to gas or energy-related expenditures? And are they spending more in total when you look at bank account information and debit charges? Or is the gas spending pulling from other categories of spend?

So I think overall, spending compared to income is about where it has been. So on average, it's about the same. I mean the proportion spending on gas is pretty small. I mentioned it's around 2%, and we saw a slight increase. So it's not materially crowding out like other categories of spending. And that's kind of what we saw, again, as I mentioned, in the last shock we saw in 2022 it really reflects, I think this isn't sort of a static environment, right? These consumers and small businesses as well are going to adapt to the environment, change their behaviors if it's becoming a pressure for them. But I think it should encourage you that we've got a bit of a track record. We have a handle on what we expect to see. We're going to keep an eye on it. And like we always do, we'll adapt if we see something different. But right now, we think we're not really seeing anything that would cause us concern about the recent gas price increases on our consumers.

Okay. Got it. Which is consistent with what pretty much all lenders have been saying thus far. If I can squeeze just one more in, a lot of calls this reporting season have had questions focusing on agentic commerce and particularly for sort of any kind of point-of-sale lender, there's more talk about kind of having to integrate with some AI platforms, ultimately. Could you talk about how you best guess how you see your digital marketing evolving as traditional search kind of transforms into some other platforms, perhaps directing consumers to various financial services providers. Are certain integration kind of planning underway. How should we be thinking about how the customer acquisition model might change over the next few years?

Yes. I mean, our marketing teams are -- have been very active in this for quite some time, looking at shifts. You talk about search to the extent that people are using the AI models to do more search versus the traditional browsers, all over the tools that allow you to understand where you stack up very similar to how you would look at -- how you stack up in a search. So we're well underway on that. It's not so dissimilar from when you think about traditional TV a few years ago and how things have quickly migrated into social media and a lot more targeted marketing versus a little bit more scatter shot. So I think our teams are very good at understanding where our customers are trending towards in terms of where they look to find products that we would offer. And we're making great progress on making sure that we're migrating and being a leader in marketing in those channels so that we can maintain our competitive advantage and continue to meet our customers where they want to be met.

The next question will come from Bill Ryan with Seaport Research Partners.

First question, just kind of following up on the consumer loan origination side, specifically on the line of credit. It looks like it was up about 3%, 4% year-over-year on what was arguably a very difficult comp a year ago of 22%. And so the comps are getting quite a bit easier as the year progresses. But just overall, what's kind of -- what changes have you made that gives you a lot more confidence about stepping back into that market.

Yes. So we talked about this a bit over the past couple of quarters. In particular, the line of credit was that particular segment that you were talking about with those growth rates was impacted by our purposeful look at credit back in the middle of last year, slow growth, make sure we were calibrated correctly, meeting our unit economics. And then we started reaccelerating, right? And so we've reopened. We're back to business the way we historically had been. And I feel pretty confident with what we're seeing and what we've seen thus far into the second quarter as well that we're making good progress in getting back to business that's very different than where we were say, in the second or third quarter of last year. So I think a lot of it has to do with the demand we're seeing, the credit metrics that we monitor on a regular basis every week, and the results that we've been able to generate, not just this quarter but so far into the second quarter.

Okay. And just one follow-up on the consumer loan yield, not overly material, but it looked like a little bit of a dip in the yield. I think it's about 300 basis points quarter-over-quarter. Any specific call-outs on that?

It's Scott. Yes, I think Steve mentioned it earlier, some of the mix on the consumer side, more installment that has a little lower yield than the line of credit. So that's most of that. But we expect that, as Steve mentioned, again, flip back a little bit to the norm.

[Operator Instructions] The next question will come from Vincent Caintic with BTIG.

First, I wanted to go back to the origination volume and marketing discussion. So really strong origination grew at 33%. The marketing expense as a percent of revenues, that was a bit -- a little bit higher than your guidance. We just fine with the origination growth you're able to get. But I was just curious if in the quarter after you gave the guidance last call. What did you see that was -- that drove that incremental originations? And is the originations you're seeing kind of a better margin business than what you kind of typically plan for, kind of is that originations from maybe less competition? Or I don't know where the outsized growth we come from? I'm just curious about that.

Yes. I mean, sometimes it's hard to tell. I mean, I think what the demand that we saw, I think, again, as I mentioned in my comments, is a reflection of our consumer and small business customers have been resilient as they navigated some of the market volatility and really the concerns about the future because if you look at the macro environment right now, it's actually in pretty good shape and really good for driving our customer demand to us. And so I don't think anything really changed other than we saw a lot of healthy demand from those customer bases. And we were able to underwrite that with our unit economics approach. So I think that's -- at the end of the day, that's really what it's reflecting is that regardless of the headlines, and regardless sometimes of what customers say about the future, which, by the way, can snap back pretty quickly when things stabilize. I mean their behaviors have been relatively stable over the past several quarters.

Okay. Great. That's helpful. And then second question on the funding side. I don't know once you have Grasshopper, this will be less of a concern. But if you could talk about kind of the funding appetite right now from your partners for whether it's small business loans or subprime consumer loans, given that there's been -- there have been some concerns in the quarter about private credit and just the funding appetite out there, if you could talk about how your spreads are doing and your funding partners are.

Yes. Vincent. So you saw us talk about the access we had on increasing four different warehouses across both consumer and SMB. So I think that's testament to the performance and the track record that we have in those portfolios. So we're able to upsize those warehouses, about $377 million in total to give us room to grow. So that's been our latest touch point and spreads held firm, and we did that at the existing terms with no widening like you've seen maybe in some of the other funding markets. So we feel good about where we're at.

Okay, great. And maybe just sneaking one more in. I don't know if you could talk about anything in terms of the process of where you are with Grasshopper Bank acquisition. I know we're still planning for the second quarter close, but if there's any update on the regulatory or close process, that would be great.

Yes. It's actually the second half of 2026, not the second quarter, Vincent. So just so you're clear, I think we were clear in our remarks on that. But no, I don't -- I think we said it all. I mean I think there's a process you go through when you file a formal application with the regulators. We're going through that process now. It's pretty typical for anybody who's applying for a bank charter or to become a bank holding company. So as I mentioned in my remarks, I think we're making progress, and we remain engaged on that, what I would call, a pretty typical application process. And more importantly, just our ability to work with the Grasshopper team. We've been really pleased with the progress that we're making to be ready to go when we do have the approvals to close the deal and hit the ground running to deliver on some of these really significant opportunities that we expect from the combination of the two companies. So I think that sums it up, and second half of the year is still our expectation.

The next question will come from John Hecht with Jefferies.

Congrats on another good quarter. I wondered that maybe the first one was the origination, call it, flow pretty consistent during the quarter? Or did it -- was it -- is it back weighted from a seasonal perspective? Or did anything like geopolitical events accelerate or decelerate during the quarter?

No. John, I would describe our origination pattern pretty consistent with what we've seen in prior first quarters. As you know, SMB really doesn't have the same type of quarterly seasonality that we see on the consumer side. There tends to be some month-to-month variations. But in the quarter, we didn't see anything that was unusual as it relates to that typical month-to-month change that we would see from January to March. I think on the consumer side, as we mentioned on the last call, we saw some of the post-holiday strength into January, but that fades pretty quickly as you move into the later parts of January into the tax refund season, and then you start to see some of that come back a little bit later in Q1 and a little bit more in earnest as you move into the second quarter. So I would say pretty typical originations patterns. I wouldn't say that there's any influence that we could see related to any type of the macro or geopolitical type issues that are out there.

And then I guess, I mean, on a similar topic -- well, it's a similar topic in the sense that are you seeing any fluctuations in spend or payment patterns, but higher fuel prices and maybe they don't stay high for long, maybe they do. But do you -- in your mind, does that impact small businesses in any way like it does the consumer?

I mean, as I mentioned in the comments, if you look back at the last time we went through something like this in 2022 the fuel spike was actually much greater than where we are today, and it lasted for quite a while during 2022. And listen, I think -- just like I mentioned on the consumer side, I think small businesses, they will adapt to those cost pressures if they have them. But again, I think very similar to the consumer -- it's not a static environment. So to the extent that there's these transitory pressures, they figure out ways to manage that either through reduced spending or bridging or whatever it may be. More broadly, to the extent it impacts to specific industries. We've talked before about industries like trucking, which we are very careful with. Those are probably the industries that have the most direct impact because of the input costs are such a large part of their business. So those are the industries we've been watching for quite some time, and we know our exposures, they're manageable, and we choose operators that are -- that we think are high quality and that we'll be able to manage the credit that we extend to them.

Next question will come from Kyle Joseph with Stephens.

Most have been answered, but just kind of looking for an update on the SMB side in terms of kind of competitive environment where you guys have been taking share, from who you've been taking share and kind of just where you are now given the growth, kind of the overall share you guys retain in that market?

Yes, sure. So I mean, listen, this -- the SMB market is large to begin with. And we've talked about in the past, new business formation over the past 5 or 6 years has been really, really strong if you look at new business applications. If so those companies that are formed and they are a couple of years into their life and have shown staying ability, they're going to become our potential customers or part of that market. So the market is actually growing. It's probably growing a little bit faster than the overall consumer market. And then when you look at our -- just our presence in that market, our brand, our scale and our capabilities. Most of our -- most -- our set of competitors hasn't really changed much over time. And we feel like we have a lot of advantages on them. So it's kind of a great setup. We've got a large market. It seems to be growing quite nicely, and we've got some competitive advantages that allow us to be very successful, to be very selective and generate the growth that we think is going to create really strong returns for us and our shareholders.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Steve Cunningham, CEO, for any closing remarks.

We thank everyone for joining our call today, and have a good night. Thank you.

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