TCS Group Holding PLC (TCS)
TCS Group Holding PLC reports robust profit in 1Q'20; announces 2nd 2020 interim dividend
LIMASSOL, CYPRUS - 13 May 2020. TCS Group Holding PLC (LI: TCS, MOEX: TCSG) ("Tinkoff", "We", the "Group", the "Company"), Russia's leading provider of online financial and lifestyle services via its Tinkoff ecosystem, today announces its interim condensed consolidated IFRS results for the three months ended 31 March 2020.
Oliver Hughes, CEO of Tinkoff Group, commented: "The first quarter of 2020 was a strong one for us, despite the unprecedented challenges facing Tinkoff customers and consumers in Russia as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our net income rose by 26% to RUB 9.0 bn, aided by a RUB 3.4bn pre-tax gain from disposals of debt securities, and despite a RUB 5.9bn pre-tax impact from adjusting our IFRS9 provisioning models in light of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Importantly, we saw 1.0mn new Tinkoff Black current accounts opened in the first three months of the year - this is a record for us, and this strong growth has continued through the current crisis. The growth of Tinkoff Black was given a further boost by the migration of Rocketbank customers to Tinkoff. As a result, more than 50,000 customers have moved to Tinkoff and this will continue as Rocketbank winds down its operations.
As a branchless, online provider of banking, investment, insurance and other lifestyle services, we are able to continue offering best-in class service to customers undisrupted by the current COVID-related problems in the face-to-face world. We are also leveraging our ability to innovate and adapt quickly, and we see opportunities in the current challenging situation. We have expanded cashback offers for Tinkoff Black and made them more tailored to current online shopping needs. Tinkoff Bank launched an offer called 'Surviving Quarantine', which allows customers to benefit from discounts on popular digital services and subscriptions, such as film streaming, home fitness, audio books and online courses.
As a responsible lender who is committed to long-term relationships with its customers, the Group launched a range of flexible repayment restructuring programmes for customers adversely impacted by the current crisis (these programmes supplement and work in parallel with the Government-backed options).
Tinkoff Investments is going from strength-to-strength. We launched a new process to onboard new customers through the mobile app, without the need for an in-person meeting; we redesigned and enhanced our web terminal; we launched six new currencies that can be traded at the interbank rate; and we established a series of online events and webinars for Tinkoff Investments customers. All of these efforts and a lot more fuelled the opening of more than 600,000 brokerage accounts year-to-date (reaching 2.0 mn) and record inflows in April (RUB 23 bn). The average balance of a Tinkoff Investments account rose by 12% YTD. More than 250,000 customers are currently using Pulse, our social network for investors. I am pleased to report that Tinkoff Investments has been the #1 retail brokerage on MOEX by number of active customers for the fifth consecutive month in April.
We are also paying close attention to the needs of our SME banking customers, as Tinkoff Business remains a very important business line for us. To help these customers, Tinkoff Business launched a service that enables self-employed customers to register with the tax authorities and gives them a convenient way to manage their tax returns. We are assisting small offline businesses to move to online and we also lowered merchant servicing fees for online acquiring.
Tinkoff Mobile now allows customers to open virtual SIM cards. We also implemented a service that allows customers to delay payment of mobile services by up to two weeks without penalties, waive roaming fees for customers who aren't able to return to Russia due to lockdown and to use unlimited data for remote working apps including Zoom, Skype and Slack.
We adopted a conservative stance on lending from early March. We are managing the portfolio and credit limits very tightly and have shifted resources to our cloud-based pre-collection and collection teams. We will see how the situation develops from here and make further adjustments if necessary.
While continuing to innovate and work flexibly in response to the current circumstances, as always, we remain focused on profitability. Our ROE was 37.5% in the first quarter of this year, one of the highest ROEs in the world, even as we created significant prudent provisioning cushions.
The business environment remains fluid. We understand the need to be sensible about capital returns in this uncertain environment. We have no plans to alter our dividend policy of paying up to 30% of quarterly net income, but we will prioritise the capital needs of the business ahead of dividends if the situation demands it.''
FINANCIAL AND OPERATING REVIEW
In 1Q'20, the Group's total revenue grew by 38% y-o-y to RUB 47.1 bn (1Q'19: RUB 34.0 bn). Gross interest income increased by 37% y-o-y to RUB 31.5 bn (1Q'19: RUB 22.9 bn), driven by the continued growth of our balance sheet, customer base, and credit product range. Gross interest yield rose marginally to 32.2% in 1Q'20 due to our stable asset mix. The interest yield on the Group's securities portfolio decreased to 6.0% (1Q'19: 7.1%), primarily due to declining interest rates.
In 1Q'20, interest expense grew by 26% y-o-y to RUB 5.6 bn (1Q'19: RUB 4.5 bn), driven by significant growth of our customer base and account balances. At the same time, our cost of borrowing decreased to 4.8% in 1Q'20 following a gradual decrease in deposit rates.
In 1Q'20, net margin grew by 40% y-o-y to RUB 25.3 bn (1Q'19: RUB 18.1 bn), primarily as a result of solid net loan growth.
Cost of risk rose to 15.9% in 1Q'20 (1Q'19: 7.5%), of which 6.0pp were due to the adjustments made to our IFRS9 provisioning models in light of the expected macroeconomic deterioration due to the decline in oil prices and the COVID-19 outbreak. Absent these adjustments, our cost of risk would have been 9.9%, a small deterioration y-o-y. Therefore, our risk-adjusted net interest margin decreased to 7.6% in 1Q'20 (1Q'19: 15.8%).
Our non-credit business lines continue to deliver robust performance thanks to customer base growth, and now represent 34% of the Group's revenue. Fee and commission revenue rose by 33% y-o-y to RUB 8.9 bn in 1Q'20 (1Q'19: RUB 6.7 bn), accounting for 19% of total revenue, while Tinkoff Insurance more than doubled its revenue y-o-y to RUB 4.8 bn (1Q'19: RUB 2.3 bn), accounting for 10% of total revenue.
As at the end of 1Q'20, the Group had:
In 1Q'20, operating expenses increased by only 7% y-o-y to RUB 11.6 bn (1Q'19: RUB 10.8 bn) mainly due to a slight decrease in customer acquisition expenses. Despite this, the cost-to-income ratio decreased to 32.5% in 1Q'20 (1Q'19: 42.3%).
The Group reported solid quarterly net income of RUB 9.0 bn in 1Q'20 (1Q'19: RUB 7.2 bn). As a result, ROE for 1Q'20 stood at 37.5% (1Q'19: 64.4%).
In 1Q'20, the Group continued to maintain a healthy balance sheet with total assets growing by 4.7% since the end of 2019 to RUB 606.7 bn (31 Dec'19: RUB 579.5 bn).
The Group's gross loan book grew by 4.2% in 1Q'20 to RUB 399.9 bn (31 Dec'19: RUB 383.9 bn), while the net loan book grew by 2.0% to RUB 335.8 bn (31 Dec'19: RUB 329.2 bn).
The Group's NPL ratio rose to 9.4% (31 Dec'19: 9.1%) primarily due to the denominator effect as loan book growth slowed in 1Q'20, while our loan loss provision coverage increased to 1.7x non-performing loans.
The Group's customer accounts increased by 1.9% to RUB 419.6 bn (31 Dec'19: RUB 411.6 bn).
Tinkoff's total equity only rose a marginal 0.5% in 1Q'20 to RUB 96.6 bn (31 Dec'19: RUB 96.1 bn), due to the payment of the dividend for 4Q'19 and the negative revaluation of our securities portfolio. As of 1 April 2020, the Group's statutory N1.0 ratio had increased to 12.8%, and its N1.2 ratio had declined to 11.2%. N1.1 stood at a comfortable 8.7%.
GUIDANCE FOR 2020 WITHDRAWN
Because of the current uncertain operating environment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Group is withdrawing its previously issued 2020 guidance, and will not issue new guidance for 2020 unless and until market conditions stabilise.
Instead of formal guidance, below the Group provides some illustrative performance indicators for the remainder of 2020. Although the business environment in Russia remains fluid and may change quickly:
Second 2020 Interim Dividend Announcement
In line with the Group's dividend policy, and given our confidence that the Group will remain profitable and can maintain adequate capital ratios during the year, the Group's Board of Directors has approved a second 2020 interim gross dividend of USD 0.14 per share/per GDR (with each GDR representing one class A share) with a total amount allocated for dividend payment in relation to 1Q of around USD 28 mn. Subject to London Stock Exchange regulations, indicatively the dividend will be payable on 1 June 2020 to those shareholders on the register as at the record date of 29 May. The ex-dividend date will be 28 May 2020. According to the terms of the GDR deposit agreement, holders of the Group's GDRs should receive their dividends approximately 3-5 business days after the payment date.
1Q'2020 AND POST-REPORTING PERIOD OPERATING HIGHLIGHTS
Superior and innovative offering combined with targeted marketing activities secure Tinkoff's place as a leading fintech brand
Resilience and investment in customer loyalty amid the global COVID-19 pandemic
Focus on enhancements to corporate governance
Focus on acquiring best talent to strengthen the Group
CONFERENCE CALL INFORMATION The Tinkoff management team will host an investor and analyst conference call at 14:00 UK time (16:00 Moscow time, 09:00 US Eastern Daylight Time), on Wednesday, 13 May 2020. The press release, presentation and financial statements will be available on the Tinkoff website at https://www.tinkoff.ru/eng/ir/financials/quarterly-earnings/ To participate in the conference call, please use the following access details:
A live webcast of the presentation will be available at: https://webcasts.eqs.com/tcsgroup20200513
Please register approximately 10 minutes prior to the start of the call.
About Tinkoff Group TCS Group Holding PLC is an innovative provider of online retail financial services. It includes Tinkoff Bank, mobile virtual network operator Tinkoff Mobile, Tinkoff Insurance, management company Tinkoff Capital, Tinkoff Software DC, a network of development hubs in major Russian cities, and Tinkoff Education. The Group is currently developing Tinkoff ecosystem, which offers financial and lifestyle services.
The Group was founded in 2006 by Russian entrepreneur Oleg Tinkov and has been listed on the London Stock Exchange since October 2013.
The Group's key business is Tinkoff Bank, a fully online bank that serves around 10 mn customers and forms the core of the Tinkoff ecosystem.
Tinkoff Bank is the second largest player in the Russian credit card market, with a share of 13.4%. The 1Q 2020 IFRS net income of TCS Group Holding PLC amounted to RUB 9.0 bn. The ROE was 37.5%.
With no branches, the Group serves all its customers remotely via online channels and a cloud-based call centre. The centre is staffed by over 10,000 employees, making it one of the largest in Europe. To ensure smooth delivery of the Group's products, the Group has a nationwide network of over 2,500 representatives.
In 2018, Global Finance named Tinkoff Bank the world's Best Consumer Digital Bank, and in 2019, 2018, 2016 and 2015, the Best Consumer Digital Bank in Russia. In 2017 and 2013, the Banker recognised Tinkoff Bank as the Bank of the Year in Russia. The bank's mobile app has been consistently praised by local and global independent experts as the best of its kind (in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 by Deloitte and in 2018 by Global Finance).
Forward-looking statements Some of the information in this announcement may contain projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of the Group and Tinkoff Bank. You can identify forward looking statements by terms such as "expect", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "intend", "will", "could," "may" or "might", the negative of such terms or other similar expressions. The Group and Tinkoff Bank wish to caution you that these statements are only predictions and that actual events or results may differ materially. The Group and Tinkoff Bank do not intend to update these statements to reflect events and circumstances occurring after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Many factors could cause the actual results to differ materially from those contained in projections or forward-looking statements of the Group and Tinkoff Bank, including, among others, general economic conditions, the competitive environment, risks associated with operating in Russia, rapid technological and market change in the industries the Group operates in, as well as many other risks specifically related to the Group, Tinkoff Bank and their respective operations. |
ISIN: | US87238U2033 |
Category Code: | QRF |
TIDM: | TCS |
LEI Code: | 549300XQRN9MR54V1W18 |
Sequence No.: | 63393 |
EQS News ID: | 1043273 |
End of Announcement | EQS News Service |
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