Weekly 10Q: Affirm and Intuit report their quarterly earnings — bitter or sweet?

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Affirm and Intuit report their quarterly earnings -- bitter or sweet?

AFFIRM
BNPL lender Affirm Holdings reported its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2022 results:

• Revenue in FY Q4 22 was $364 million compared to $262 million in FY Q4 21. For the year, revenue was reported as $1.35 billion.
• Interest Income was $138 million in Q4'22, compared to $104 million in the same period last year.
• GAAP Operating Income/Loss increased to $277 million in Q4 22, from $114 million in Q4 21 -- and Adjusted Operating Income/Loss is $29 million in Q4 22, from a positive $14 million in Q4 21. For the year, the loss widened to $707.4 million, or $2.51 per share. 

Shares of the firm slumped 11% in morning trading on Friday after the company released its earnings. Surging interest rates, geopolitical turbulence, and a sector-wide sell-off in technology stocks seem to have played the part in flattening investor sentiment -- along with red hot inflation tightening consumer wallets -- resulting in billions being swept away from the consumer finance company's market cap with shares tumbling nearly 70% this year to date. 

INTUIT
Financial software firm Intuit unveiled its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2022 earnings:

• Total Online Ecosystem revenues surged 66% year over year to $1.28 billion. QuickBooks Online Accounting revenues were up 34% year over year to $623 million.
• Online Services revenues, which include payroll, payments, time tracking, and capital, soared 116% year over year to $657 million.
• The Credit Karma business contributed $475 million to Intuit’s fourth-quarter total revenues, up from $405 million in the year-ago quarter. For the year, Credit Karma contributed $1.8 billion compared to $865 million the previous year.
• GAAP Operating Income/Loss was $75 million this quarter compared to $402 million in Q4'21.

The strong performance of QuickBooks Online payments solutions, an increase in the charge volume per customer, and ongoing customer growth contributed to a smooth quarter for the company. The Credit Karma business led to high levels of monthly active users and revenues per monthly active user on account of credit cards and personal loans.

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Top stories of the week

BANK OF AMERICA
BofA boosts tech as consumers welcome digital channels with open arms
After experiencing a record number of consumers logging into digital channels during July followed by the second quarter of this year, Bank of America is getting prepared to increase its tech budget to broaden its electronic banking tools to a greater extent. During the second quarter, customers logged in to the bank’s electronic platforms 2.8 billion times — up 11% year over year. In July, users logged in 1 billion times, the highest month on record -- while more than 72% of the bank’s households are actively using digital channels for more of their daily needs and to plan for the future. (PYMNTS)

BLACKROCK
BlackRock broadens its ETF range with financial tech fund
BlackRock has expanded its Megatrends platform with the launch of the BlackRock Future Financial and Technology ETF. The Fund is overseen by BlackRock’s Fundamental Equity franchise and aims to beef up the total return by strategically investing in companies providing innovative solutions to disrupt the financial services industry. (Fintech Finance)

BLOCK
Block is disappointed that the CFPB elected to file its petition linked to Cash App's payments tool
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has asked a federal judge to force Block to act by a couple of scrutinizing questions related to its Cash App payments tool. The probe aims to find out about Cash App’s handling of complaints and disputes. However, Block has yet to provide all of the documents and data the CFPB requested in August 2020 and August 2021. (PYMNTS)

Square merchants across the UK can now extend BNPL through Clearpay
Block/Square is integrating Clearpay (known as Afterpay outside the UK and Europe) directly into its ecosystem in the UK, providing access to the BNPL feature to sellers across the region -- online and in-person. This marks a milestone in the global integration of Clearpay post its acquisition by Block, as the UK will be the first market to launch BNPL available across all platforms at the same time and can also be integrated by Square’s developers and partners. (Finextra)

DTCC
Wall Street's Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. is live testing a private blockchain
US-based post-trade financial services company DTCC, which processes most trades in the US stock market, has launched a private blockchain project aimed at settling trades more quickly for clients. Project Ion, as it is called, is designed to support T+0 or end-of-day, settlement cycles by using blockchain technology. Currently, stock market trades take two days to settle, however, DTCC is now processing an average of over 100,000 bilateral equity transactions per day in a parallel processing environment, and almost 160,000 on peak days. (CoinDesk)

FED
FedNow to go live by mid-2023
The Federal Reserve has announced that the FedNow service will launch by mid-2023 to make faster payments more widely available in the US. This will take place through a government-backed payments system operating at all times, seven days a week, and 24 hours a day -- without smaller banks being cautious of larger rivals’ ownership. It is intended to be a flexible, neutral platform that will support a broad variety of instant payments for financial institutions of every size. (WSJ)

PAYPAL
PayPal is expanding further into the charitable donations business
PayPal is originating ‘Grant Payments’ to switch charitable giving from paper checks to electronic transfers. The new offering has been created in partnership with National Philanthropic Trust (NPT) and Vanguard Charitable that enables Donor-Advised Fund (DAF) sponsors, community foundations, and other grant-makers to transact their donations electronically using PayPal’s platform -- in addition to a dashboard made available to both, funders and charities to view all the grant details. (TechCrunch)

VISA
Visa tokens surpass physical Visa cards in circulation
Visa has now issued more than 4 billion network tokens worldwide through Visa Token Service (VTS), marking a major milestone in its proprietary offering to help secure digital payments and further accelerate e-commerce innovation and acceptance. This technology, which helps to protect the underlying account information from fraudsters and bad actors, nearly doubled Visa’s token count in one year and surpasses the number of physical Visa cards in circulation worldwide. (Reuters)

Visa joins hand with DailyPay on a prepaid debit card offering
Visa is partnering with DailyPay, an on-demand pay platform that delivers early access to earned wages, to launch a prepaid debit card that allows users to access their wages the day before payday. In addition to access to earned wages, the offering also provides cardholders with free instant DailyPay transfers and no-fee ATMs -- along with the card being linked to a mobile banking platform that lets customers track their income and spending habits. (The Paypers)

Tweets of the week

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Charts of the week

1. How does card tokenization work?

2. US secures the third spot in VC funding per capita in 2022

What's trending

Here's a look into Dave’s digital marketing strategy (The Financial Brand)

Fintech CFOs seek reliable funding as investors pull back, and demand higher yields (WSJ)

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