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Date
Thursday, April 23, 2026 at 5 p.m. ET
Call participants
- Chief Executive Officer — Steven Cunningham
- Chief Financial Officer — Scott Cornelis
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Takeaways
- Originations -- $2.3 billion, up 33% year over year, with small business originations rising 42% to $1.7 billion and consumer originations up 10% to $559 million.
- Total receivables -- $5.3 billion portfolio, up 28% year over year, with small business receivables at $3.7 billion (39% growth) and consumer receivables at $1.6 billion (8% growth).
- Revenue -- $875 million, a record, up 17% year over year, comprised of $418 million from small business (37% growth) and $446 million from consumer (3% growth); component figures do not sum to total revenue due to segment allocations.
- Non-GAAP adjusted EPS -- $3.87 per diluted share, up 30% from 2025, with management reporting "significant operating leverage" and "strong credit."
- Net charge-off ratio -- 7.6%, lowest since 2023, down 100 basis points year over year, with the consumer ratio at 14.3% (down 90 basis points) and small business ratio stable at 4.6%.
- Net revenue margin -- 60%, at the high end of the company's range, supported by stable credit trends and portfolio performance.
- Expense metrics -- Operating expenses at 36% of revenue (versus 33% in 2025); marketing expenses rose to 22% of revenue ($189 million), operations and technology at 8.7% of revenue ($76 million), and G&A expenses at 5.5% of revenue ($48 million), including $2.7 million in Grasshopper deal-related costs.
- Liquidity and funding -- $1.1 billion in liquidity at quarter end, with $436 million in cash and marketable securities and $654 million available under debt facilities; four warehouse lines were upsized by $377 million at existing terms.
- Cost of funds -- 8.2% for the quarter, down from 8.3% in Q4 2025, attributed to "strong execution in recent financing transactions."
- Share repurchases -- 110,000 shares acquired in the quarter for $16 million, with the company stating continued interest in opportunistic buybacks.
- 2026 guidance -- Projected full-year originations growth of approximately 20%, with revenue growth "similar to originations," and adjusted EPS growth of at least 25%, excluding any impact from the Grasshopper acquisition.
- Q2 2026 outlook -- Anticipated revenue growth of 15%-20% year over year, net revenue margin of 55%-60%, marketing expense at ~20% of revenue, O&T expense at 8%-8.5%, and G&A at 5% of revenue.
- Grasshopper Bank acquisition -- Transaction expected to close in the second half of 2026; management expects "adjusted EPS accretion of more than 25% once the synergies are fully realized," with teams "deep into integration planning."
- Technology investments -- Ongoing adoption of machine learning and generative AI across operations, with management emphasizing "risk management" and efficiency gains.
- Credit trends -- Consolidated 30-plus day delinquency rate and fair value premium remained stable, with the fair value premium at 115%, consistent with the past two years.
- Consumer fuel spend -- Electronic bank statement data indicates only a slight increase in gas spending relative to income, maintaining a 2% proportion, despite energy price volatility.
Summary
Enova International (ENVA +0.85%) delivered record revenue and double-digit growth in both small business and consumer originations, with management reporting further improvements in credit quality and net charge-off rates. The company highlighted a robust liquidity position and the successful expansion of secured financing, while emphasizing continued efficiency in marketing spend. Management reiterated guidance for strong full-year growth and provided a clear timetable for the Grasshopper Bank acquisition, projecting significant synergy-driven EPS accretion post-close.
- The CFO stated expectations for "full-year 2026 revenue growth similar to originations growth and adjusted EPS growth of at least 25%," excluding the impact of Grasshopper Bank.
- Management described current credit trends as "stable or improved" across both portfolios, citing stable delinquency and portfolio fair value metrics.
- The CEO affirmed adoption of advanced technology, saying, "make no mistake that we have embraced the opportunities to apply generative AI across our business."
- Scott Cornelis anticipates "continued operating leverage and disciplined expense management" based on scalable fixed costs and variable expense control.
- Management confirmed that banking regulators are reviewing the Grasshopper transaction and indicated the integration process is "making progress" toward a second-half closing.
Industry glossary
- Originations: The total dollar amount of new loans or credit lines initiated during a specified period.
- Warehouse facility: A secured funding line where loans or receivables are aggregated and financed, often pending securitization or sale.
- Fair value premium: The amount by which the reported fair value of a loan portfolio exceeds its amortized cost, indicating embedded profitability and risk-return profile.
- Net charge-off ratio: The percentage of total loan balances written off as uncollectible net of recoveries, relative to average receivables.
- Net revenue margin: The ratio of net revenue (interest and fees less losses) to total revenue, reflecting profitability after credit costs.
Full Conference Call Transcript
Steven 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 Steven, I would 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 of 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 Form 8-K. Please note that any forward-looking statements that are made on this call are based on assumptions as of today.
We undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events. In addition to U.S. GAAP reporting, Enova International, Inc. 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 would like to turn the call over to Steven.
Steven Cunningham: 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 with 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 dollars. As a result of the strong originations growth, the portfolio increased 28% year over year to nearly 5.3 billion dollars, with 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 revenue increasing 17% year over year to a record 875 million dollars in the first quarter. Profitability metrics grew even faster, as adjusted EPS increased 30% from 2025, driven by strong credit and our significant operating leverage.
SMB revenue increased 37% year over year to [inaudible], and our consumer revenue increased 3% year over year to 446 million dollars, both quarterly records. In addition to our strong growth this quarter, credit metrics across the portfolio reflect 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 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 dollars. 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 two 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 Beige 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 Oculus 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. And 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.
The March unemployment rate ticked down to 4.3%. New and continuing weekly unemployment claims remained relatively low and manageable, and March hourly earnings increased 3.5% compared to a year ago. While March consumer confidence remained stable, consumers as well as small businesses expressed concerns about the future impact of the recent spike in gasoline prices. During our more than twenty-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 do not 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, ride-sharing services, and on-demand delivery. A review of the electronic bank statement data we collect across our consumer businesses supports this. Prior to the start of the Iran war, our consumer borrowers were spending roughly 2% of income on gas, and even with a meaningful increase in gas prices, we have seen only a small increase in spending on gas relative to income as consumers adapt their behavior to higher costs 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 did not 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 increases as customers look to bridge temporary cash flow gaps that could arise from spending due to transitory higher prices. Before I wrap up, I would like to spend a few moments discussing our strategy and key focus areas for the remainder of 2026.
We have 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. We 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; it is how we have approached our work every day for many, many years. While we have 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 have embraced the opportunities to apply generative AI across our business 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 have continued 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 one 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 to drive adjusted EPS accretion of more than 25% once the synergies are fully realized, in the first two years post closing.
We continue to anticipate closing the transaction during the second half of this year. To wrap up, we are pleased with the strong start to the year and, based on what we are seeing today, are raising our outlook for the year, which Scott will describe in more detail. We believe our diversified product offerings, nimble machine learning 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 would 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 will be happy to answer any questions you may have. Scott?
Scott Cornelis: Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. As Steven noted in his remarks, we are 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 dollars increased 17% from 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 2025 to 2.3 billion dollars.
Revenue from small business lending increased 37% from 2025 to 418 million dollars, as small business receivables on an amortized basis ended the quarter at 3.7 billion dollars, or 39% higher than the end of 2025. Small business originations rose 42% year over year to 1.7 billion dollars. Revenue from our consumer businesses increased 3% from 2025 to 446 million dollars, as consumer receivables on an amortized basis ended the first quarter at 1.6 billion dollars, or approximately 8% higher than the end of 2025. Consumer originations grew 10% from 2025 to 559 million dollars. 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 and 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 two 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 33% of revenue in 2025.
As Steven noted, our marketing spend continues to be efficient, driving strong originations growth. Marketing costs increased to 22% of revenue, or 189 million dollars, compared to 19% of revenue, or 139 million dollars, in 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 dollars, compared to 8.4% of revenue, or 62 million dollars, in 2025, driven by growth in receivables and originations over the past year.
Given the significant variable component of this expense, 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 dollars, or 5.5% of revenue, compared to 42 million dollars, or 5.7% of revenue, in 2025. The current quarter includes 2.7 million dollars of one-time deal-related expenses associated with the pending Grasshopper acquisition. Excluding these items, G&A expenses were 45 million dollars, 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 one-time costs. Our balance sheet and liquidity position remain 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 dollars of liquidity, including 436 million dollars of cash and marketable securities and 654 million dollars of available capacity on our debt facilities.
Continuing our track record of strong capital markets execution, during the first quarter we upsized four of our secured consumer and small business warehouse facilities by 377 million dollars 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 thousand shares at a cost of approximately 16 million dollars. We continue to believe there remains additional upside in our valuation given our track record of consistent growth in 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 2025, adjusted EPS, a non-GAAP measure, increased 30% to 3.87 dollars 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 2026 that is 20% to 25% higher than 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 Steven noted, we continue to expect to close in 2026. We are confident that the demonstrated ability of our talented team, combined with our world-class technology and analytics, has 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 would be happy to take your questions. Operator?
Operator: We will now open the call for questions. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touch-tone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble the roster. The first question will come from Moshe Orenbuch with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Moshe Orenbuch: Sorry, I was on mute there. Thanks very much. I guess for starters, you have very strong results overall, but it has 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 relate it to the respective marketing costs—where were those higher marketing costs incurred, how did it drive the originations, and whether there is an outlook for that consumer or any reversal, if you will, of that kind of disparate growth between the two businesses?
Steven Cunningham: Moshe, thanks for the questions. A couple of comments. Number one, our SMB business has been growing plus 20% every quarter over the past two years. Sometimes it is more than that, like we have seen over the past couple of quarters, or sometimes a little bit closer to that—so pretty consistent, pretty steady. There is nothing remarkable to call out as it relates to marketing. Our marketing remains very efficient, and we lean into that marketing where we see opportunities to drive really good growth with strong unit economics. On the consumer portfolio, if you look at the year-over-year trends, we have been reaccelerating growth as we have talked about over the past couple of quarters.
If you recall, back in the 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 has been picking up. The pace has picked up. In particular, 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. You should expect to continue to see consumer year-over-year growth accelerate as we lap some of the quarters last year where we had purposely slowed down.
I expect we will continue to see healthy SMB growth, but I also think we will continue to see that acceleration in consumer. So the disparity, all things being equal and with the strong operating backdrop, should diminish. Similar to SMB, on the 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 economics framework. We feel very good about the quarter, the growth that we were able to deliver, and, as Scott highlighted, we nudged up our outlook based on what we see today.
Moshe Orenbuch: Got it. Thanks. And clearly, you have one of the better lenses into repayment given the shorter term that you have. Just talk a little bit about what you are seeing both on consumer and small business side. We see the delinquency rates at the end of March, but has that continued into April, and what are you seeing on the repayment side?
Steven Cunningham: The results speak for themselves. At the end of the quarter, credit looks really strong. SMB has been operating in a tight range for charge-offs for quite some time. Our consumer charge-offs are operating toward the lower end of the range that we typically would see for a first quarter. A few weeks into the second quarter, we are pleased with what we are seeing as it relates to portfolio performance and demand. Regardless of the volatility and the headlines out there, sometimes what people are actually doing versus the backdrop and the headlines is very different, and we are encouraged with what we are seeing as we move into the second quarter.
Operator: The next question will come from David Scharf with Citizens Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
David Scharf: Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks. Steven, maybe just following up on Moshe's comment about the mix of originations. Can you remind us, as we think about the unit economics between consumer and SMB, are we as investors basically indifferent as it relates to the asset mix? Are the unit-level returns, risk-adjusted, pretty much the same? Are you underwriting to similar economics still?
Steven Cunningham: Our unit economics and ROE frameworks are designed to be mix-agnostic. We go where the demand is and where we can efficiently underwrite and market to drive volume. We have talked about this a lot over the years, and you have seen us do that. There are some slight differences between the two—yields are different, charge-off rates are different, which means net revenue margins are a bit different, and you can work your way down through financing intensity across the two—but ultimately you get back to a pretty similar ROA across the two portfolios.
We feel really good that our approach to meeting demand works well whether SMB grows a bit faster, like we have seen over the past year or so, or consumers grow faster than SMB, which we have also seen at times. Most recently, the mix has been impacted by the reacceleration as we got consumer rolling again after the middle of last year. We feel really good about where we are headed and about the economics across both portfolios.
David Scharf: Got it. That is helpful. Switching to credit, I have a question about gas prices and spending based on the bank data you started purchasing several years ago. I just wanted to make sure I heard what you said—that as a percentage of income, you are not seeing any noticeable change in how much your borrowers are 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 gas spending pulling from other categories of spend?
Steven Cunningham: Overall spending compared to income is about where it has been on average. The proportion spent on gas is pretty small—around 2%—and we saw only a slight increase, so it is not materially crowding out other categories of spending. That is also what we saw in 2022. Consumers and small businesses adapt to the environment and change their behaviors if it becomes a pressure for them. We have a track record, we have a handle on what we expect to see, and we will keep an eye on it and adapt if we see something different. Right now, we are not seeing anything that would cause concern about the recent gas price increases for our consumers.
David Scharf: Okay. Got it, which is consistent with what pretty much all lenders have been saying thus far. If I could squeeze just one more in: there has been talk this reporting season about changes in digital commerce and search, particularly around integrating with AI platforms. How do you see your digital marketing evolving as traditional search transforms, and are there integration plans underway? How should we think about customer acquisition changing over the next few years?
Steven Cunningham: Our marketing teams have been very active on this for quite some time, looking at shifts where users may leverage AI models for discovery versus traditional browsers. We use tools that allow us to understand where we stack up, similar to search. It is not dissimilar from the shift from traditional TV to social media and much more targeted marketing. Our teams are very good at understanding where our customers are trending to find products like those we offer, and we are making great progress migrating and leading in those channels so we can maintain our competitive advantage and continue to meet customers where they want to be met.
Operator: The next question will come from William Ryan with Seaport Research Partners. Please go ahead.
William Ryan: Good afternoon, Steven and Scott, and thanks for taking my questions. Just following up on the consumer loan origination side—specifically on the line of credit. It looks like it was up about 3% to 4% year over year on what was, arguably, a very difficult comp a year ago, up 22%. The comps are getting easier as the year progresses, but overall, what changes have you made that give you more confidence about stepping back into that market?
Steven Cunningham: We have talked about this over the past couple of quarters. The line of credit segment you are referencing was impacted by our purposeful tightening in the middle of last year to slow growth and make sure we were calibrated correctly and meeting our unit economics. Then we started reaccelerating. We have reopened, and we are back to business the way we historically have been. I feel confident with what we are seeing thus far into the second quarter. We are making good progress getting back to business, very different from where we were in the second or third quarter of last year.
A lot of it has to do with the demand we are seeing, the credit metrics we monitor every week, and the results we have been able to generate, not just this quarter but so far into the second quarter.
William Ryan: Okay. Thanks for that. 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, about 300 basis points quarter over quarter. Any specific callouts on that?
Scott Cornelis: Bill, it is Scott. As Steven mentioned earlier, some of the mix on the consumer side—more installment, which has a lower yield than the line of credit—that is most of it. We expect that to flip back a little bit toward the norm as mix normalizes.
William Ryan: Okay. Thank you.
Operator: Again, if you have a question, please press star then 1. The next question will come from Vincent Caintic with BTIG. Please go ahead.
Vincent Caintic: Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. First, going back to the origination volume and marketing discussion. Really strong origination growth, 33%. Marketing expense as a percent of revenues was a bit higher than your guidance, which is fine with the origination growth you were able to get. After you gave the guidance last call, what did you see that drove the incremental originations? Is the originations you are seeing a better margin business than what you typically plan for—maybe less competition—or where did the outsized growth come from?
Steven Cunningham: Sometimes it is hard to pinpoint any one factor. The demand we saw reflects that our consumer and small business customers have been resilient as they navigated some market volatility and concerns about the future. The macro environment right now is actually in pretty good shape and really good for driving customer demand to us. Nothing really changed other than we saw healthy demand from those customer bases, and we were able to underwrite that with our unit economics approach. Regardless of headlines—and sometimes what customers say about the future can snap back quickly when things stabilize—their behaviors have been relatively stable over the past several quarters.
Vincent Caintic: Great. That is helpful. Second question on the funding side. I know once you have Grasshopper this will be less of a concern, but can you talk about the funding appetite right now from your partners for small business loans or subprime consumer loans, given concerns in the quarter about private credit and funding appetite? How are your spreads and your funding partners?
Scott Cornelis: You saw us increase four different warehouse facilities across both consumer and SMB. That is a testament to the performance and track record in those portfolios. We upsized those warehouses by 377 million dollars in total to give us room to grow. Spreads held firm, and we did that at existing terms with no widening like you may have seen in some other funding markets. We feel good about where we are.
Vincent Caintic: Okay, great. And just sneaking one more in. Any update on the process for the Grasshopper Bank acquisition—regulatory or close process? I know you are still planning for a close later this year.
Steven Cunningham: It is actually 2026, not the second quarter, Vincent. We were clear in our remarks on that. There is a process you go through when you file a formal application with the regulators; we are going through that process now. It is typical for applicants for a bank charter or to become a bank holding company. As I mentioned in my remarks, we are making progress and remain engaged in what I would call a typical application process.
More importantly, our ability to work with the Grasshopper team—we have been really pleased with the progress we are making to be ready to go when we have approvals, close the deal, and hit the ground running to deliver on the significant opportunities we expect from the combination. Second half of the year is still our expectation.
Vincent Caintic: Great. Thank you.
Operator: The next question will come from John Hecht with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
John Hecht: Afternoon, guys. Congrats on another good quarter. First, was the origination flow pretty consistent during the quarter, or was it back-weighted from a seasonal perspective? Did anything, like geopolitical events, accelerate or decelerate demand during the quarter?
Steven Cunningham: I would describe our origination pattern as consistent with prior first quarters. SMB does not have the same type of quarterly seasonality that we see on the consumer side. There tend to be month-to-month variations, but in the quarter we did not see anything unusual relative to the typical January-to-March pattern. On the consumer side, as we mentioned last call, we saw some post-holiday strength into January, but that fades quickly into the tax refund season, and then you start to see some of that come back later in Q1 and more in earnest as you move into the second quarter. So pretty typical origination patterns, and we did not see any influence related to macro or geopolitical issues.
John Hecht: On a similar topic, do you see any impact from higher fuel prices on small businesses, similar to consumers?
Steven Cunningham: In 2022, the fuel spike was greater than where we are today and lasted quite a while. Both consumers and small businesses adapt to cost pressures if they have them. To the extent it impacts specific industries, we have talked before about industries like trucking, where input costs are a large part of the business. We have been careful there for quite some time. Our exposures are manageable, and we focus on high-quality operators that we believe can manage the credit we extend to them.
John Hecht: Okay. Great. Thanks.
Operator: The next question will come from Kyle Joseph with Stephens. Please go ahead.
Kyle Joseph: Thanks for taking my questions. Most have been answered, but looking for an update on the SMB side in terms of the competitive environment—where you have been taking share, from whom, and, given the growth, your overall share in that market.
Steven Cunningham: The SMB market is large, and new business formation over the past five or six years has been really strong if you look at new business applications. Those companies that are a couple of years into their life and have shown staying ability become potential customers. So the market is growing, probably a little faster than the overall consumer market. Regarding our presence, brand, scale, and capabilities, our set of competitors has not really changed much over time, and we believe we have a lot of advantages. It is a great setup: a large, growing market and competitive advantages that allow us to be selective and generate growth that creates strong returns for us and our shareholders.
Kyle Joseph: Got it. Really helpful. Thanks, Steven.
Operator: This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Steven Cunningham, CEO, for any closing remarks.
Steven Cunningham: We thank everyone for joining our call today, and have a good night. Thank you.
Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
