Hello, everybody, and welcome to Kaspi.kz Second Quarter and First Half 2025 Financial Results. My name is Elliot, and I'll be your coordinator today. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand over to David Ferguson. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you, Elliot. Good morning, good afternoon to everyone who is joining us. Welcome to Kaspi.kz's Second Quarter and First Half 2025 financial results. I'm David Ferguson from Kaspi, joined on this call by Mikheil Lomtadze, CEO and Co-Founder of Kaspi.kz; Yuri Didenko and Tengiz Mosidze, deputy CEOs. So as usual, Mikheil will start the presentation, run you through an update on some of the key initiatives in the second quarter and first half of the year. I'll take you through the financial slides, and then we'll open the call up to Q&A. So on that note, over to you, Mikheil. Thank you.

Thank you, David. So let's move straight away into the updates. So for the second Q, we had a good strong performance in spite of the still continuing environment of high interest rates. Our payments continue to perform well, and this is a very sizable business, as you all know our TPV plus 21%; revenue 16% and net income plus 19%. So we're pleased with the performance. Marketplace continues strong growth, GMV plus 15%, revenue plus 25% and net income plus 13%. GMV, especially on e-commerce side, continuous strong growth, except the smartphones plus 31%. I will cover this later in the presentation. And then Fintech continues to generate strong volumes, plus 17%, 21% revenue and net income plus 8% in spite of the high interest rates this year. Consumers continue to be engaged strongly, probably one of the -- we believe, being the leading business in terms of transactions per consumer of 75 transactions per month and revenue plus 20% and net income plus 14%. e-Grocery, the business, which we started, if I recall correctly, around three years ago, continues to be our probably fastest-growing e-commerce business, plus 57% year-over-year in terms of the GMV. We already have over 1 million consumers, 1.1 million in the end of second Q and generating 3.4 million transactions. In transactions, we're up 63%. And in the GMV, we're up 57%. We continue expanding the grocery across the country and entering the new cities. So we are now in the five largest cities of Kazakhstan, which is Almaty where we started, Astana, and we also opened this year in Aktobe and Shymkent and we're also expanding in Karaganda. So we have five cities now and we are expanding further in Astana and Almaty. We're adding another dark stores or logistic centers from which…

All right. Thank you, Mikheil. So just to run quickly through the performance, financial performance of the respective parts of the business, starting with payments. Demand volumes remained robust and consistent throughout the first half of the year. Volumes up 14% year-on-year in the second quarter, up 15% year-on-year for the first half. Faster TPV growth versus volumes is a function of higher ticket size. Inflation, up 21% year-on-year in the second quarter, up 22% year-on-year for the first half. So again, strong and consistent trends with, as usual, sort of 3 key products: Kaspi Pay, B2B and bill payments or contributing take rate move down, a function of mix effect, again, consistent with what you've seen now over the last couple of years. Basically, as QR grows in the mix, its take rate dilutive, but this is consistent with the long run trend. Payments revenue up 16% in the second quarter. So even with take rate dilution ahead of volume growth, volume growth was 14% in the second quarter. So that also reflects both strong volume growth but also good growth in liquidity revenue. And then again, as you've consistently seen with the payment business, strong top line drops through to the bottom line. So faster bottom line, high profitability and faster profitability growth, up 19% in the second quarter of the year and up 20% for the first half of the year. Moving on to marketplace. Again, marketplace demand overall remains very strong and consistent, up 35% year-on-year in the second quarter, up 36% year-on-year for the first half. GMV growth is lower than volume growth. Although we did hold Juma in the second quarter and it was successful overall in the second quarter. Number one, we ran fewer promotional campaigns. And number two, as Mikheil talked about,…

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Wayne with Citigroup.

This is Wayne [indiscernible] on for Ygal, really. I just wanted to ask about what you're working on in terms of product improvements with Hepsi? Could you highlight to us which ones are the most important? And what we should expect as we progress through 2025 and 2026?

Mikheil, do you want to provide a bit of color on some of the projects that are ongoing at Hepsi, please?

Sure. Well, I mean, in general, I would say that our strategy is to introduce quite a lot of products which we have in our core market. Initial focus or the priority is still to make sure that existing customers and merchants are extremely happy with the current services. Just to remind everyone, our business model is -- and our execution skills are really based on ability to innovate at unprecedented rates, if you look at the history of Kaspi and the things we have innovated around in a marketplace or Fintech or the payments area. But in order for that strategy to be successful, it's super important that your current customers and merchants are extremely happy. And I'm not saying just like happy like for any ordinary business, but really happy. And that is a foundation of the future success. And therefore, at the moment, the main focus is really to make sure that the existing services provided, specifically through e-commerce business or in the payments and Fintech to a certain extent, even though it's really small, those are brought to the level of Kaspi KZ's standards. And there are multiple projects, which teams are running and there is everything starting from the delivery to user experience and the Fintech products. So the year -- this year, as I mentioned on the previous call, is really the quality and just bring those services to the level, which is required by the desire to innovate all next services being a very high adoption. So the current performance is very encouraging. The results from some of the projects which have been already implemented or are in the process of being implemented and giving a very successful results. And you can see that in the growth acceleration in the second Q, but we really are focused on the quality rather than the quantity still this year. So our main priority again is core business, which is e-commerce, and all the services around the e-commerce. And then -- yes, and the rest, Fintech side of things is the major innovations are -- will be coming when we complete acquiring the banking license.

Got it. And then maybe a second one for me is, how do you think about your growth initiatives in Kazakhstan, the opportunities that remain there? And how should we think about the progression of the restaurant business or maybe any other verticals we should consider?

Well, the growth in Kazakhstan is -- the market is still underpenetrated. And you can see an example of the specific verticals, we really showed like clothing and fashion growing at very high rates. I think it's, what is it, around 60% or something, we've showed. So there is a growth, and what we are executing really the strategy, which is going after specific verticals. Again, this is something which will already have done before and also articulated e-grocery is a strategy around specific vertical. Buying e-grocery is different from buying electronics. And travel, it's a strategy around specific verticals. The same now we're doing pretty much in all major verticals and restaurants is one of those. It's a major vertical in the household spending. We've just launched a very simple sort of functionality, which brings immediate value. In our estimate -- in general, every sort of vertical we're entering, it has to be in the range of $1 billion size sort of market potential, like the same was with travel, the same was with grocery. So it really applies pretty much to all major verticals. If we take a vertical-specific strategy, that scale matters, frequency of transactions matters. And this is how we are picking those verticals to deliver the value. And again, we're working on the both sides always. Our business is to connect merchants and the buyers, sellers and the buyers, restaurants and their customers and our consumers from the mobile applications and our technology it enables just to connect them to deliver the value. And then on top of it, we can start bringing up some additional value-added services. In e-commerce, value-added services are around advertising, for example. And the same opportunities exist in restaurants. So we have just really started. We are rolling out at…

We now turn to Gabor Kemeny.

This is Gabor from Autonomous. I have a few questions on -- firstly, on the Fintech. So I believe your funding costs increased as you expected, that will be significantly in Q2. Maybe 13%, 14%, the blended average. Can you help us think about the outlook here? So how do you expect your funding costs to develop if rates stay where they are? My other question would be on the -- on asset quality. I noticed the uptick in the NPL ratio and that your quarterly provisions seem to imply a 2.5% provisioning rate. I believe you formally guided for 2%. Just some color on how you think about asset quality going forward? And finally, on your comment on a balanced capital deployment from next year between cash and -- or like distribution and the investments. Can you help us scale the investments in Turkey beyond the banking business, the $300 million you indicated? And in relation to that, I mean, given the stock's valuation, at what valuation levels would you say that you rather allocate a substantial part or most of your free cash generation to share buybacks?

All right. Gabor, I can make a few comments on that. So cost of deposit funding increased 70 -- I think, 70 bps year-on-year in the second quarter. And the second quarter pretty much reflects the full impact, i.e., we raised rates not on the first of April, but very, very early in the quarter and the new products are out there. So adder between that and around sort of 100 bps level is probably a reasonable expectation in terms of how the cost of funding increases over the course of the year. So that's on your first question. On -- and that's actually consistent. We said that at the first quarter results. On the second question on cost of risk, what you should remember is in the first quarter, we did put through additional macro provisioning related to higher interest rates. So that's sort of separate from underlying risk. Underlying risk trends, so what we actually see are stable year-on-year. So let's see if that macro provisioning is needed. So that's on that. On the third question from my side, I would just say, I mean, the bank acquisition is happening. So that needs to complete in the second call on capital. That decision has been made and it's fundamentally important. And I mean it's actually a major competitive advantage to secure a banking license within such a short period of time. I think going into 2026, again, the point is that we're very, very fortunate that we have this massively cash-generative business in our home market, and nothing has changed in that regard. Now I said a decision around sort of mix between -- if there is a mix between dividends and buybacks, we make that at the appropriate time, and that's true. But I think it would be fair to say today, we were making decision today is an incredibly strong case for share buybacks. And I doubt we would see any push back from anyone on this call around that, but we'll make that call at the end of next year, next year beginning -- end of this year, beginning of next year.

We now turn to Darrin Peller with Wolfe Research.

Just real quickly, I mean, the smartphone impact, I know you called out the actual quantitative impact in the quarter. But number one, I mean, do you feel like the progress you're making on certain partners is going to help stabilize that? And should we just expect that to be something that anniversaries in a couple of more quarters? Or is it a gradual impact that progresses in any way? And then when thinking about the marketplace segment, I know you talked about less promotions around Juma. Just curious what the dynamic were and the thought process was there. And putting it all together, I mean, sustainable growth, you have some puts and takes this quarter. So sustainable growth, I mean you have a lot of drivers that are being innovated right now that you talked about before, but help us understand your updated and latest thoughts on the recent growth trends, how you think about that segment over the next year or two, just given what's really in front of you going forward?

Do you want to take that, Mikheil, on the smartphones and promotional.

Yes, sure. I mean, Darrin, in general, thank you for your question. In general, I would say, we did -- we are trying to sort of explain just showing the growth in other verticals, right? So as we have explained the growth in e-commerce without smartphones is 31%. So it's really healthy sort of growth rates. And for example, clothing and the beauty are growing around 60% year-over-year. So that's, I think, it's a good indication of the potential really of the marketplace business. And the smartphones, the projections for, what's going to the smartphones, I mean, we haven't been really in a similar situations before. So the only thing what we are doing is what can bring the results and what we can -- our self-control, right? And what we are developing is a service, which gives comfort and peace of mind to both merchants and the consumer. So demand for the smartphones, for example, is there. It will have to be satisfied at some point. I think we are doing the services, which will enable to sort of cross this obstacle or doubt that consumers and merchants currently have around these devices. And we just believe on our side that this demand will have to be satisfied eventually. So that's basically where we are in terms of the smartphones, and we are doing our part of the job. And yes, we're not overpromising anything. What we're saying is we look at the -- this is our job is to understand the merchants and consumers because this is where our expertise is, and they do see the obstacle in their purchase decision. And we have developed the service, which will enable them to overcome this hesitation to acquire smartphones. And hopefully, the market -- the trends will recover because again, there is a demand. So nothing happened really with the demand. This is sort of the obstacle which was created with the introduction of requirement to register the smartphones. But again, if you take the smartphones separately, you can see that the growth, even in electronics, excluding the smartphones, growth on our platform was 26%. Home and Garden and Furniture, 35%, clothing 54%. So those verticals are growing really at very healthy rates. And therefore, yes, we just -- on our hand, we just believe that demand is there, it will recover, and we just need to do our job. And our job is to enable transaction between sellers and our partner merchants and the customers, consumers and enable this transaction through the technology, which we know how to develop and the pools of data, which we know how to use to help both parties.

So that -- and then just on -- I mean, I was touching on also your decision there and then just the sustainable growth rate there. Just real quickly, profitability on Fintech also and how we should think about that platform now with rates where they are, where they're likely -- and just given your success on deposit rates and deposits in general? I'll leave it there.

Well, yes, I think the basic sort of observation there is quite simple. If we're in a high interest rate environment, we have to take this as an opportunity to acquire more customers with the savings and build up these capacities because customers with the savings are the most valuable customers really for any of our products. And yes, we are in a high interest environment. I'm not macro person. So this is not my specialty to explain. But our job is when we see this environment, we take most of it and interest rates eventually will go down. And the way we sort of look at this in our business that there are high interest rates, which evaluate our interest expenses. But this is almost like the cushion on the expenses side. And eventually, it will go down. And as we're focused on a very healthy user base, as we're focused on a healthy risk metrics on the Fintech side, eventually profitability will follow because the top line is there and the risk is world class and interest rate eventually will go down. And therefore, this will flow to our bottom line.

We now turn to Reggie Smith with JPMorgan.

I guess I just wanted to clarify the comments around the dividend and share repurchase potential. It sounds like you guys obviously have some capital commitments on the bank licensing side this year. But as we think about '26, can we assume a similar, I guess, return of capital ratio? I think it was like 60% in '24. Should we assume that going forward? I know you said -- you suggested that I guess you would resume a similar type cadence, but I'm just curious about the ratio, recognizing that there may be some investment in Turkey. So should we think about it being in the same range as '24 split across dividends and share repurchases or something less than that?

Thank you, Reggie for your question. I think that basically what -- from our perspective, we -- again, we mentioned always that we'll be prioritizing the investment for the further growth and that's a very exciting opportunity because we're building business for many years in front of us. And we have this internal ambition, as we mentioned that we would like to be a company of 100 million users. And that's what it is on our minds, and that's very important. So always, we have to keep that in mind. At the same time, what we're also saying is this year has been an extensive year for investments. I mean, the size of investments that we have done are quite substantial. And when we go into the next year, there will be a balance between our ability to distribute capital to our shareholders either through the dividends and the buybacks or -- and investments. Again, investments will be important but we're lucky to have a very profitable and cash-generative core business, and that's what allows us to think in those terms for the next year. I mean what is their specific payout ratio or anything like this, at this stage, it's quite early to have those specific discussions. So we'll make those decisions as we go forward.

I just sort of -- just to add to that. Just one point. There will be investments and there always has been investments. You should keep that in mind. So e-Grocery has been a massive investment, the largest poster network in the country in Kazakhstan has been a massive investment. So again, the business has the potential to achieve a balance, make investments and return capital.

Got it. Understood. And then just thinking about the banking license. Does this put you on par with competitors there? Or does it kind of extend a gap where you'll have capabilities that some of your competitors in Turkey won't have? And then finally, as I think about the investments, obviously, capital or the banking piece would be one. But like what do investments look like? Is it rewards to consumers? Is it -- maybe talk a little bit about the nature of what investment looks like in Turkey.

Well, I mean, in general, I would say that the license -- obtaining the license is a very important step for a very simple reason, that the license really gives you an operation that can offer products to consumers and the merchants both on the savings side or on the lending side. And that's basically what license really allows you to do. At the same time, I would say that if you think about the Kaspi and the way we really operate, we're focused on the quality of the services we provide and we are focused to the lesser extent on competition. And from our perspective, I think the products which -- and the services and the expertise we have on the Fintech side is world class and the products that we have, which can be introduced in Turkey is also world class. So from that perspective, once we get the license, I wouldn't -- again, I wouldn't expect like quick wins. You never saw from us that will be -- we always like to discuss the results and actual trends when we do something rather than just tell you about some ideas which we have been working for three or six months in the pipeline. So we always do something and then we tell you the initial encouraging results and how it's going to evolve. So step number one, get the banking license. Step #2, just put the framework to launch the innovative financial services for consumers and merchants. And then we just believe that we can make a difference in the consumers' and merchants' lives just because the services we have are technology and machine learning AI driven, and they're really improving everyday life of our customers and merchants and their needs. But that's basically -- so the big -- taking and building up the bank, of course, it also requires our diligence with the compliance, risk management and all other requirements, which we have a lot of experience in, but that obviously also requires from us to be very detail-oriented and execution driven. But once we get the license, again, we'll be introducing and launching the services which you already guys know on the Kaspi side for a long time.

We now turn to Cihan Saraoglu with HSBC.

I have two quick questions. One is, in the past, we -- you used to distribute dividends or announced buybacks on a quarterly basis. So based on your comments about resumption of dividends in 2026. Shall we expect dividends to start in the first quarter of '26? Or is that just a broad guidance? That's one. Second question is about Fintech bottom line, which on a Q-on-Q basis seems to have grown despite the increase in funding costs. So you could explain what mitigated the increase in funding costs beyond volume growth there?

Okay. So thank you for your question. On the dividends or buybacks, basically returning the capital, I think, as we said, there is not much really to add. We can't really commit to you at this stage on quarterly or semiannually or whatever. So we're just saying that we have a very good, solid cash-generative business, and there is a -- the next year, we will have -- will be finding the balance between the investments and distributing capital to our shareholders. I mean everybody should also keep in mind that I'm a shareholder in the company, and I'm making decisions based on what is going to bring the most value to the company and its shareholders long term. So I'm investing alongside with other shareholders. In terms of the question about the Fintech business, I think we did mention this before, exactly what happened. The volumes increased. With the volume increase, revenue increased, with the revenue increase, profit increased. So the revenues just picked up in the second half -- in the second quarter of this year. And I think we did have a discussion in the first Q about it and volumes are nice and therefore, the profitability is following on the Fintech side. But profitability would be growing much faster if interest environment would be -- interest rates will be smaller. So therefore, we're focused on the top line and the bottom line will follow in the future. It has been our strategy always.

That's all the time we have for Q&A today. And I'll hand back to David Ferguson for any final remarks.

Okay. So thanks, Elliot. We've got to wrap things up now. We have another meeting starting shortly. So thanks a lot for everyone's time today. Please feel free to get in touch if you have any questions, but thank you. Have a great summer, and we'll speak to you at our Q3 results. Thanks, everyone.

Thank you, everyone. Have a good week.

Thank you, everyone. This concludes today's webinar. You may now disconnect from the call.