Louis Hoch
Analyst · Spartan Capital Securities. Please go ahead with your question
Thank you, Joe, and welcome, everyone. I’m pleased to report another great quarter for Usio, our eighth consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth and our highest card processing quarter in the history of the company. It was also another quarter in which we undertook decisive actions to build value for our shareholders. In May, we announced the share repurchase agreement, and in the second quarter we repurchased nearly $0.5 million dollars of our stock in the open market. We also strengthened and expanded our Board with the addition of accomplished financial professional Michelle Miller. All of our business lines grew over the first half of 2022. And with a strong pipeline of new business opportunities and the potential of substantial spoilage from prepaid cards beginning in the third quarter, and with the flexibility afforded by our strong unlevered balance sheet, we are optimistic that this will be another record revenue year for Usio. Considering the ongoing uncertainty of the Voyager Digital exiting from bankruptcy quickly and continuing it as a customer of Usio, we’re revising our expectations for the full year 2022 revenue growth to 12% to 18% conditioned on the continued enthusiasm in the FinTech lending industry and favorable economic conditions. For the quarter, revenues were $16.2 million, a 6% increase from a year ago, while adjusted EBITDA was a $600,000 loss. Revenues in card processing prepaid card issuing Output Solutions were all up for the quarter and year-over-year. While ACH was up for the first six months of the year, it was down from a year ago quarter when cryptocurrency market was at its peak. In the first quarter, we called out our expectations for ACH for this quarter. Crypto also distorted our year-over-year total dollars process comparisons in the quarter, but on a sequential basis, total dollars process $2.4 billion in the second quarter was up sequentially in the – from the first quarter. This quarter was a clear illustration of the value of our strategy of being diverse FinTech payments processor, delivering our services to a variety of end markets with a mixture of electronic payment channels. Despite challenges in cryptocurrency that affected one of our most valuable customer relationships, we were able to grow revenues. Now, let me offer some high level comments by business lines. ACH and complimentary services was $3.9 million in revenue down slightly from a year ago when we realized record ACH volumes and transactions as a cryptocurrency market boom. Electronic transactions and dollars processed and returned check transactions processed were all up sequentially from the first quarter. There were no expectations. There are no expectations of any material contribution from the cryptocurrency market for the balance of the year, but we are seeing increased activity from our lending accounts and other verticals as the economy cools and inflation rises. As previously stated, our cryptocurrency customer that accounted for approximately 8% of our revenue, which is which – most of which was ACH. The ACH business has been through challenges before, so the next quarter or two, we believe ACH transactions will be down 25% to 30% as compared to the same period a year ago. Over the long-term, we believe our value propositions NACHA certification synergies with our other electronic payment products and more aggressive marketing will grow the business. We also expect return transactions to be up as much as 50% in the third and fourth quarters of 2022 as compared to the same periods in 2021. As always ACH continues to board new customers and just recently we are named to be among the first of just a handful of technology firms to be chosen to participate in the Mastercard Engage partner network. This program sponsored by Mastercard is designed to help businesses and FinTechs quickly deploy open banking solutions for payments and lending decisions at scale. This is quite an honor and one that we think that can lead to many exciting new opportunities and should lead to growth in our ACH revenues, as we are the only provider that’s selected that is NACHA certified. Card had a record second quarter, total dollars process exceeding $332 million with $2.8 million transactions process. PayFac remains cards, growth engine, and PayFac revenue was up again strongly in the second quarter even more impressive when considering growth was over the highest revenue base of any of our business lines. With over $650 million in volume already processed this year and several exciting large opportunities on the doorstep, card is on pace for another record year. On a percentage basis, prepaid was our fastest growing business line, both for the quarter and for the first half of 2022 with revenues up 29% in a quarter and 112% year-to-date. Transactions processed in the quarter nearly tripled from a year ago while load volumes and purchase dollars both increased by more than 75%. Prepaid continues to have very active pipeline of new opportunities. From financial perspective, many of the original COVID relief and older card programs are ending [ph]. Beginning in the third quarter and continuing somewhat steady from that point forward, we expect this to lead to a stable stream of expiring cards. Upon expiration, we will be able to realize any breakage or spoilage from unused cards remaining from on these – any breakage or spoilage from unused funds remaining on these cards, which could potentially account for millions in revenue. Houston Frost will talk more about this and other new prepaid card programs in just a minute. Finally, Output Solutions had a strong quarter with revenues up 12%, as they process $2.1 million transactions or pieces. Although down somewhat sequentially from the first quarter, much of the second quarter consisted of more reoccurring or repeating business, a much more valuable revenue stream than some of the one-time programs such as tax notices or voter registration cards recognized in the first quarter. Again, that addition of dedicated sales organization and the synergies with our other businesses has been a real benefit to Output Solutions. We expect to see Output Solutions continue to make a valuable contribution to our revenue growth and profits and it’s – and it is outperforming management’s expectations. Let me take a minute to talk about margin and expenses. Margins will continue to reflect the relative contribution of our various business lines in the quarter, as each have a different margin profile. In the second quarter, margins were impacted by the slowdown of ACH, our highest margin business, and a larger contribution from our other business lines, for instance Output Solutions, which has a lower margin profile. Going forward, we’re working on efficiency and productivity improvements that we believe will raise margin in each of our businesses and Usio as a whole. Expenses reflect spending that was needed to catch up with our growth as well as maintain our growth and momentum. Again, we are looking closely at our cost structure, for instance, some of the investments we made in anticipation of adding a large card program in the second half of the year, while some of those card – some of those costs were contingent. Some of – such as some of call center outsourcing, we are already unwinding some unnecessary spending. Usio is dedicated to optimizing the leverage in our business, so we can continue to contribute more to the bottom line from our strong top line growth. This was another growth quarter for Usio. We demonstrated the resilience of our diverse – diversification strategy. Serving a variety of end markets with a mixture of electronic payments and related solutions, we expect the second half of the year to be exciting time at Usio, as we continue to introduce innovative new products into large and rapidly growing markets. Our balance sheet is strong and we are committed to creating shareholder value, not only through continued strong growth, but also through shareholder friendly actions such as our shareholder repurchase program. Tom will talk more about the remainder of the year, but we expect to be back to adjusted positive EBITDA in the fourth quarter due to increased revenue and lower SG&A. On a final note, our sales pipeline is stronger than ever. One of our large ISVs that services governmental entities for tax fees and fine payments has alerted us that they will be boarding Los Angeles County on our platform in September for payment processing and print and mail for the county’s fees, fines, and notices, and their associated payments. LA County is the home for over 10 million residents. With that, I’d like to conclude my opening remarks and turn the call over to Houston Frost, our Senior Vice President of Prepaid Services.