Affirm - Q2 2026

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good afternoon. Welcome to the Affirm Holdings' second quarter fiscal 2026 earnings call. Following the speaker's remarks, we will open the lines for your questions. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded, and a replay of the call will be available on our investor relations website for a reasonable period of time after the call. I'd now like to turn the call over to Zane Keller, Head of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Zane Keller (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, operator. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone listening that today's call may contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, including those set forth in our filings with the SEC, which are available on our investor relations website. Actual results may differ materially from any forward-looking statements that we make today. These forward-looking statements speak only as of today, and the company does not assume any obligation or intent to update them except as required by law. In addition, today's call may include non-GAAP financial measures. These measures should be considered as a supplement to, and not a substitute for, GAAP financial measures. For historical non-GAAP financial measures, reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings supplement slide deck, which is available on our investor relations website.

Hosting today's call with me are Max Levchin, Affirm's Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Michael Linford, Affirm's Chief Operating Officer, and Rob O'Hare, Affirm's Chief Financial Officer. In line with our practice in prior quarters, we will begin with brief opening remarks from Max before proceeding immediately into Q&A. On that note, I will turn the call over to Max to begin.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

Thank you, Zane. Not a lot to add to the results, which were excellent once again, in my obviously biased opinion. But I did want to take a moment to announce that we will convene our next investor forum on May 12th this year, so it's coming up. For once, at the event, you'll hear from a larger subset of our management team, where we'll talk about our commercial and product initiatives and update our medium-term financial framework, and there'll be plenty of Lebowski references. Please look for additional information, including registration details, on our investor relations website as we get closer to the event. Back to you, Zane.

Zane Keller (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Max. For those of you that are interested in attending the upcoming investor forum in person, please reach out to us and we will do our best to accommodate your request. Now, let's get to your questions. Operator, please begin the Q&A session.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now be conducting the question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. And our first question comes from Andrew Jeffrey with William Blair. You may proceed with your question.

Andrew Jeffrey (Research Analyst in Financial Services and Technology)

Thanks, appreciate it. Great to see the solid results here. Max, could you talk a little bit about the dynamics of your growth, namely the top five merchants growing 23% and blending down as a concentration? As I recall, they had been growing faster than overall GMV. Can you just talk a little bit about what you're seeing? The new merchant adds look great, the transactions per active look great. Is the business truly widening out? Is that the right way we should be interpreting those results?

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

You know, I might offer Rob up as the interpreter of these results, just because to be completely transparent.

Andrew Jeffrey (Research Analyst in Financial Services and Technology)

Okay.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

I mostly look at the growth of the business through the lens of things like transactions per user, active consumers, active merchant numbers are really important to us. Generally speaking, of course, we want to have less concentration, more diversity, but we also are frequently driven or drafting behind the growth and promotional initiatives of our partners, big and small. So I think it's a little bit difficult to sort of piece it out, but I imagine Rob has a much more detailed answer.

Rob O'Hare (CFO)

And tactically, Andrew, I would just point you to the fact that the top five that we disclose for Q2 of FY 2026 is actually a different subset of five merchants that we're comparing to in fiscal 2025 in the same period. So I think all the more reason not to read too much into that stat. Obviously, there's, it's been well-publicized that we have a large merchant partner that was transitioning off of the Affirm integration, and so that weighed on that metric. You know, we have a new top five as a result of that. So I think that's really the crispest answer we can give there. But otherwise, I mean, we're, the business is growing quite well, and we're quite happy with the diversification, as Max alluded to, that we see in the GMV.

Andrew Jeffrey (Research Analyst in Financial Services and Technology)

I appreciate it. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from the line of Ramsey El-Assal with Cantor Fitzgerald. You may proceed with your question.

Ramsey El-Assal (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, guys. Thank you so much for taking my question. I was wondering, Max, if you could give us an overview of what you're seeing out there in terms of consumer trends, credit trends, overall economic health. It's such a tumultuous moment. Maybe also comment on what you've seen sort of quarter-to-date.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

So the one-liner answer is, the consumer we see today is quite healthy, so they're able and willing to pay us back. They're borrowing money. Obviously, the growth numbers are out there in the sprint, so we are not seeing... Again, our consumer is now reaching quite a large subset of North Americans and growing nicely in the U.K., but we're not everyone. We don't always say yes to a loan. So it's a little bit selective, but we feel pretty good about both the demand and the ability and willingness to repay. I don't have anything dramatic or alternative to offer on the state of affairs in the current quarter either. I think we're not seeing a big deviation from what I just said about the past one.

Ramsey El-Assal (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. I think no news is good news. Appreciate your comments. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from the line of Will Nance with Goldman Sachs. You may proceed with your question.

Will Nance (VP)

Hey, guys, appreciate you taking the question. Very nice results. This one might be for Rob, but I was just hoping we could unpack sort of puts and takes in the RLTC margin, just looking back over the last year or so. You know, there have been a ton of tailwinds, you know, both kind of structural to the company as well as sort of outside of your control, very favorable funding market tailwinds. And just wondering if you could kind of talk through the trajectory of margins, as you see them from here. It seems like, you know, if we look at the guidance in the remainder of the year, it seems like you're kind of still expecting to be hovering around 4%.

You know, as we think about, you know, you had a very large beat on gain on sale this quarter, 0% loans have been increasing with the percentage of the mix. And so just maybe wondering on your perspective, like, should we be anchoring, you know, more to kind of the, the, the 4% range that, that you're kind of talking about for the second half of the year versus, you know, being comfortably above 4% over the last couple of quarters? And just any kind of meaningful puts and takes, as you see it from here. Thank you.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

Yeah, sure. I mean, as we outlined in the guide, I mean, we do expect to see RLTC take rates that are slightly above 4%. I think that's true in both Q3 and Q4 in the guidance that we've provided. So, we're gonna stick to that, obviously, and that's the plan that we'll execute against. I think to your point on the puts and takes, I mean, I would probably frame it very closely to what we saw in Q2, to be honest. We did see benefits on the transaction cost side, particularly on funding costs, as we've seen cost of funds come in, particularly within the ABS market. So we would expect that trend to continue. You know, we typically don't guide to specific transaction cost line items or even revenue line items.

But in total, you know, I think the take rates and the dynamics will be pretty similar to what we saw from a trend perspective in Q2, where there is a little bit of softening on a year-over-year basis in terms of revenue take rates. Again, it's important to remember that we've driven a lot of 0% mix, and we think that's really good for the network. And then we are seeing really nice benefits on the transaction cost with funding costs being the clearest example there.

Will Nance (VP)

Great. Appreciate the commentary.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Jason Kupferberg with Wells Fargo. You may proceed with your question.

Jason Kupferberg (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Hi, guys. Great numbers here, and it feels like some others in the space are trying to play catch up and maybe getting a little bit more aggressive over the past couple of quarters in terms of pursuing more prominent presenting, you know, looking to win, new merchants, in some cases, offering cash back incentives to consumers. So I'm just wondering what you're actually seeing in the field. Is this having any discernible impact on Affirm's merchant pricing, just in terms of like-for-like take rates, your go-to-market strategy, anything along those lines? Because I think there's a big debate in the investment community on that right now, but your numbers seem to speak for themselves.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

We do. We like to speak with numbers. Short answer to the question is no. I think this is like a social science theory, so discount appropriately, but we're probably in one of the noisiest environments as far as information headed for consumers' heads, maybe ever, certainly in my lifetime. Like, there's news every day, and some of it reads like science fiction, and some of it is science fiction, or at least slop. And so the... You can have a deal, and here's five paragraphs of explanation when it's valid, and it's 5%, but only if it's Tuesday. And, like, all the sort of promotional go-to-market that we're seeing from a lot of our competitors just doesn't seem to make a dent in what we sell, which is always, like, on the nose, brain dead simple. You are getting no interest.

If you buy this thing, you can split it into 12 parts or 24 parts or six parts, and you'll pay no interest at all. Like, 0% sells as well as they do, not just because it's, you know, free money or free loan, it's because it's so easy to understand. The thing that we've built over the last decade plus is when a firm says no interest, we actually mean no interest, and there's no asterisk, there's no explanation as to what might happen if you are a penny short or a day late. So our calling card has kind of become our moat, has become associated with us, which is an inherently defensible position. We don't get into conversations with merchants around what if it's zero, but it's not really zero?

Like, there, there's a lot of sort of details to hash out if your offers are not super crisp and transparent, and that's exactly what we do. So no, we saw no effect in sort of the some of the more ultra-aggressive, you know, whatever it was, 50% cashback or I lost track of the exact offers, but we did not see any effect.

Jason Kupferberg (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Just a quick follow-up. I'm looking at the GMV categories and that, that other category, you're now up to 15% of total. I think it's basically your second largest vertical, tied for your second largest. It's growing triple digits. Can you unpack what's actually in there? What are some of the major pieces or any of them getting to the size where you'd maybe start breaking them out on their own?

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

... Sure. That's actually a great question, although Rob is rolling his eyes. Sorry, Rob.

Jason Kupferberg (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Sorry, Rob.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

I know. We anticipated it because it is a juicy number, and yet it is, you know, nondescript. So it's actually, if you wanted to look for diversification in the business, I wouldn't look at top five, I would look at the other. So if we broke it out into categories, you would see all sorts of cats and dogs of really exciting categories like, you know, I have a fledgling sticker empire, and, you know, you really can't classify that other than novelty or other. That's what you see there. It's a huge number of relatively small merchants that are realizing that they're at a disadvantage if they do not offer Affirm.

As that sort of knowledge spreads across the merchant base, it becomes somewhat more difficult to invent new categories for them. And if you decide, well, we're gonna have to be very, very precise, then you either end up in a giant bucket called other, which is what we chose, or you start doing things like stickers and either novelty items or something like that. So it just really is the long tail, and we're excited to serve them all. And, you know, as we've seen certain categories get to a critical mass within other, we have broken them out. So services is a good example. We started breaking that out, I believe, two quarters ago now. And so, you know, if and when we get to critical mass within other, we'll continue to be very disclosive there.

If my sticker store really takes off.

Jason Kupferberg (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you, guys.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Nate Svensson with Deutsche Bank. You may proceed.

Nate Svensson (Director in Equity Research)

Hey, thanks for the question. You know, there's a lot of exciting press releases from Affirm intra-quarter. I guess I wanted to ask on the bank charter news. I think that was pretty interesting. I was hoping you could talk more about the decision to potentially go down that path. It seems like there's been some evolution in your thinking on that particular topic over time. So maybe just more color on what you see the benefits from that being, what new products and services can be unlocked, and then, I guess, any sense on the timeframe or hurdles to clear as you, as you look to get that secured.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

Sure. I would quibble with the evolution of thinking merely because we've answered this question a bunch of times, obviously, before we disclosed that we have applied. We've always been pretty clear, they're kind of one, a reason to have a bank charter is regulatory certainty. You operate as a bank partner, you want to know that your bank partner is on excellent footing, that there are no hidden rocks for that particular bank, and if you own a subsidiary, you would presumably understand it a lot better, and that's the primary motivation of why we applied. Obviously, the climate at the regulatory bodies that issue such approvals has changed, and that's something that we track very carefully. The timeline is certainly years, so I would step away from any model modifications. You know, we don't know if we get approved.

We don't know exactly when we would, if we did, and there are all sorts of timelines that are prescribed by the approver to prepare, then to open, then to stay in a de novo period, and then finally to operate sort of with fewer restrictions. So it's definitely a long-term investment in regulatory certainty. Down the road, you can start imagining products that are only possible with a bank charter in your available tools. That's so far away, it's really not worth talking about right now. But it is a great investment in our regulatory stability for the years to come, assuming it actually ends up in the approved category.

Nate Svensson (Director in Equity Research)

Thanks, Max, and point taken on the evolution of thought. Appreciate it.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Dan Dolev with Mizuho. Please proceed.

Dan Dolev (Senior Analyst in FinTech Equity Research)

Hey, team, great results as always. Just a quick question on the ABS deals. The execution there seems to be really, really strong. Maybe if you can make a few comments, and if I can squeeze just a very quick one on the AI. That was a big surprise. I just want to know how much of this AI boost is actually contemplated in the guide and if it's fully rolled, rolled out. Thanks again, and great results.

Michael Linford (COO)

Thank you. Take the AI first.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

I think, I think Dan's asking about the guide. I'm not allowed to speak to the guide.

Michael Linford (COO)

Yeah, I think in terms of the guide, we're not... You know, we have a pretty nice trajectory with those two product lines, but we haven't called out specifically how much is in the GMV guide there.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

It's definitely, it's definitely early days for the Boost AI. I was trying to sneak into the letter exactly how few merchants have adopted Boost AI. AdaptAI has been around for a couple of years. It's generally speaking, batteries included part of the product. Boost AI is new, and it's super cool because it does automated AB testing, but it also has a channel. It is a channel for incremental merchant dollars. Like, the thing that's, I tried to describe and ultimately got edited down a little bit more, Boost AI allows a merchant to say: You know what? I have $100,000 more dollars I'd like to put into Affirm-specific promotions, 0% or just reduced APRs. You guys go and AB test who would be the most likely to convert with that kind of offer in front of them. Go deploy it.

I don't need to know exactly what happens. I just want to maximize my dollar-for-dollar investment into sales. So it looks more and more like an advertising model versus a cost of acceptance model, which is exciting because it just gives our machine learning engineers a lot more freedom to really do some amazing things for our merchant customers. So super excited about the product. It is pretty early. We're not breaking out what it does for our numbers, so tell me, Rob.

Rob O'Hare (CFO)

Then, as for the ABS deal we just did, and just generally-

... The market is still very constructive, and the team is executing really well out there. The last deal we just priced was done with a spread of under 100 basis points. It's really remarkable. We haven't done that since 2021. The weighted average yield in the deal was below 4.6%. Again, we haven't seen that kind of cost of financing since the reserve. And so we're operating and executing in the capital markets really the best we've seen post the rate movement part of the world. And it's a reflection of two things. One is just the continued vote of confidence that the market has in our ability to control credit outcomes and deliver the kind of returns that we sign up to deliver, and of course, just really excellent.

Dan Dolev (Senior Analyst in FinTech Equity Research)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from the line of Moshe Orenbuch with TD Cowen. You may proceed.

Moshe Orenbuch (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Thanks very much. You know, the first question kind of asked about, you know, growth and, you know, grow your specific merge. But there's

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

You're really breaking up.

Moshe Orenbuch (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Sorry. Let me-

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

Okay. You're really, really breaking up. We cannot understand what you're saying.

Moshe Orenbuch (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

All right. Sorry. Can you hear me now?

Rob O'Hare (CFO)

Oh, we can.

Michael Linford (COO)

Much better.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

Much better.

Moshe Orenbuch (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Okay. Sorry about that.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

It's good.

Moshe Orenbuch (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

All right. You know, you talked about the growth in your merchants and both in the number of merchants and the, you know, the growth at the merchants. But both the Affirm Card and international expansion are kind of two areas in which you can get significant growth. In addition to that, could you just give us, like, some update? You know, I saw the, you know, the attach rate and related stats on the Affirm Card, but I mean, can you just flesh that out for us as to how those are going and what, you know, how you see the development over the course of the next several quarters? Thanks, and sorry for this background noise.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

No worries at all. So the card is just continuing to grow very quickly. GMV year-over-year for the quarter we're reporting was up just under 160%. Active cardholders went up 121%. 0% deals on the card went up 190% year-over-year. So, like, it's not the only growth engine, but it's a big growth engine for our metrics, and it's now material to the overall business. It's no longer a kind of a cool novelty product for our diehard users, and it's helping us create more diehard users. So the card is doing really well. We have a lot more planned for the card, so we don't intend to slow it down, if you will.

Probably my personal focus on the product side of things is still predominantly on the card and adjacent things in the card. And then on the international, I'm happy to speak more. And there's definitely some stuff in the letter, just talking to those numbers, and more on the card specifically. International, I don't know if you saw, we announced a couple of really nice deals in the U.K., specifically. A couple are U.S. brands lighting us up or something that they will light us up soon in the U.K. So we're, and obviously, Shopify announcement was a little while ago. That's scaling. We're still actually not at sort of peak run rate there, so we expect to improve those numbers.

Wayfair, we just announced literally a couple of days ago that we are live in the U.K. in the kind of a beta, pre-beta type thing, but that's gonna scale up, and they've been a partner in the U.S. for a very long time. We have a bunch more. VMO2 is, obviously, I think it's the largest or certainly one of the, one of first or second largest, device company, device selling company in the U.K., so we announced that. We have a whole long pipeline of sales happening there, and we're excited about that. So, and then there's more countries to come, for sure. So both international and the card are still significant drivers. The card is much larger than international. International is now growing consistently at a pace that excites us.

Feel good about both.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from the line of Rob Wildhack with Autonomous Research. You may proceed with your question.

Rob Wildhack (US Consumer Finance & Fintech Analyst)

Hey, guys. One question on the updated outlook. As we see it now, you know, you're kind of pointing to a slowdown in GMV growth to 30% in the third, 25% in the fourth quarter. I know a long time between now and the end of the fiscal year, but could you just talk us through the cadence there, and if there are any specific call-outs for the decel in the coming quarters?

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

No specific call-outs. I mean, we are obviously comping the transition with a large retail partner. Obviously we had that headwind from a comp perspective this quarter as well and grew at 36%. So really nothing specific to call out in terms of drivers for the decel. Yeah, we'll leave it there.

Rob Wildhack (US Consumer Finance & Fintech Analyst)

Okay. And then, one more on funding. You know, we see, you had the new forward flow deal, but we also see some of the headlines and concern around private credit, many of whom are Affirm loan buyers. So just what's the current temperature from the forward flow and loan buyer channel right now?

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

... Yeah, I think it's still extremely constructive. I think the conversations we're having with our partners is usually around having to disappoint them on how much allocation we can give them right now. And that's a qualitative read, but tends to be the conversation we're having today. I think a lot of the conversation about the market more broadly really doesn't pick up the specifics of what Affirm's asset creates and the kind of people that we partner with. We've been very selective about how and who we partner with, and that puts us in a position, we think, to have a very durable set of partners who are really excited to continue to go deeper with us.

Rob Wildhack (US Consumer Finance & Fintech Analyst)

Okay, thanks a lot.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from the line of Rayna Kumar with Oppenheimer. You may proceed with your question.

Rayna Kumar (Managing Director and Head of Fintech Equity Research)

Good evening. Thanks for taking my question. Could you just comment on what you're seeing out there in the regulatory environment? Like, are you hearing anything about potential caps on BNPL rates? And, you know, if so, how would Affirm react to that?

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

We're not hearing about potential caps on BNPL rates specifically. Obviously, very dynamic set of conversations happening at the federal level about credit card rates. One good rule of thumb about regulatory realities, if you will, whenever Republicans are in the White House, you can expect more attentive and active attorneys general from all 50 states, both red and blue, because they feel that you would expect a more relaxed posture by the federal regulators. And whenever Democrats win the White House, the executive branch starts, you know, puts more attention into various laws and regulations at the federal level, and then the state attention typically fades a little bit.

It has as much to do with the employment of the people that work in these agencies, both at state and federal level, and the overall posture of the various political elements we have. So right now, just from a practical perspective, obviously, we're tracking all the things, both federal and state level, have an active conversation with all of our regulators. Generally speaking, we have positive relationships with them. Doesn't hurt that we don't charge late fees, don't screw our customers, typically do the right thing, and as much as we can and then some. Nothing sort of too exciting to report. Obviously, we felt compelled to apply for an industrial loan company bank charter, so clearly we believe that the sort of really grown-up regulators, FDIC in particular, would...

We expect them to see us as a good actor that's prepared for, "the big leagues or the beginning of the big leagues." So generally speaking, feel pretty good about it, but we are always regulated. So we're always regulated by 51 distinct entities, federal and 50 states, and that's part of the job.

Rayna Kumar (Managing Director and Head of Fintech Equity Research)

Very helpful. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Dan Perlin with RBC Capital Markets. You may proceed.

Dan Perlin (Managing Director)

Thanks. Good evening, everyone. I wanted to, I just wanted to jump in a little bit on the big nothing. And the question really is on the derivative benefits. You called out the Affirm Card sign-ups, so I kind of understand that. My bigger question is kind of the uplift in credit quality that comes with that consumer set, and then how do you apply those learnings to kind of everyday shopping for Affirm? Because clearly, the GMV uplift across the board was pretty significant for those three days. Thanks.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

Yeah, and by the way, not to sort of... I'll take the compliment, but I will point out this is our first rodeo with that particular one, and we expect to get better and smarter, and we're planning the next one, and we're super excited about all the things we're gonna do differently and just smarter. So it-- there's more money in that banana stand, we're sure about that. In terms of, I don't always refer to the Big Lebowski. Sometimes I refer to the rest of the elements. So on the, in the GMV boost, the conversion boost is really powerful. It's in the letter. You can see how well it did for us.

It does skew higher credit quality because of the self-selection that always happens in reduced APR, 0% APR. It did have excellent second-order effects. We saw outsized, actually, the gains in cardholder growth outpaced the gains in GMV, which is kind of interesting. I think that's right, if I remember correctly. I think the card growth was two handle, and GMV went up 15%. No. I don't wanna perjure myself without looking at the cheat sheet, but the card grew even better than the GMV. So all of that was really solid. One thing that's worth knowing, it's not in the question, but it should be.

We have really good evidence, just lots and lots of months of data showing that folks that come in through a 0% APR loan are quite happy to use us for both interest-bearing and non-interest-bearing products. There's a sort of an industry myth that you self-select into an APR, and then you react violently when it changes upwards. That is not the case with the Affirm consumer, and we can sort of debate exactly why, but it is factually correct that people who sign up with a 0% deal do not mind other offers that we give them. That's because it's so effective, we are obviously very hard at work telling merchants about how effective this is and inviting them into the next big nothing, et cetera. I said lots of things. I feel like I may have answered the question.

Dan Perlin (Managing Director)

Yep. Nope, that's great. Nope, that's great. Thank you so much.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Matt Coad with Truist Securities. You may proceed with your question.

Matt Coad (Equity Research Director)

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. One more maybe on, like, the other bucket in terms of, you know, new verticals that may enter that other bucket. There were some press releases over the quarter about entering B2B through the partnership with QuickBooks Payments, and then maybe moving into the rent vertical as well. And I know it's kind of, like, early days for both, but I just was hoping that you guys could talk about, you know, the growth opportunity there, and then kind of how you think about underwriting, especially in rent, and how that may differ from your current book of payments and underwriting. Thanks.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

Yeah. So I'll take it in the inverse order, but super important, the rent test is a very, very small test. It is definitely not our MO to take what is essentially a subscription product and turn it into a differently contoured subscription product. So, like, the product cannot be, you want to pay your 12-month rent over 18 months, like, that, that doesn't help our consumers. It's, it's not the right product to build. That's not what this is. The test we're running is, if we allowed you to time shift, e.g., you get paid on the 16th, but your rent is due on the 15th, that's a strain on your personal finances. What if we allowed you to move that or split it into two parts? So that, that's the thing we're testing. Very small.

The number of loans we are allowing through is countable on, you know, several people's hands, sort of thing, at least in the very first portion of this, and deliberately so. This is not an area we think obviously going to happen. So, you know, we'll find out, we'll test, but put nothing in your model for now. On the Intuit side, that's actually super exciting, and it's not B2B. What it is, is there is a whole facet of the services world that gets billed through QuickBooks, and until just now, or whenever it launches, you would pay for these services with a credit card. The service provider would tell you, "It's going to cost you $5,000," and, you know, off you go, you decide if you want it.

As soon as we launch, which is, you know, on a fairly accelerated timeline, you'll, the service provider will tell you, "I can make this $5,000 over the course of six months. All you have to do is use Affirm. You already know the name." It will be in your invoice. And so it is the usual Affirm, if you will, B2B2C. Intuit is a fantastic aggregator of small service providers, businesses that bill consumers. We will be included in those invoices, and the consumer will be educated that they can pay over time for these services. And we feel like we have unlocked another side of, transactions that, you know, until recently, were just not exposed to buy now, pay later at all. Super excited about that. There's a lot more to do there, but that's the first step.

Michael Linford (COO)

Yeah, and then just the other point I would make on the other category to the—to your first question, we do include our wallet partnerships in other. So, as Max alluded to, there is sort of the long tail of merchants, but then wallets would be another part of other that is pretty high growth for us today.

Matt Coad (Equity Research Director)

Really helpful. Thanks, guys.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Adam Frisch with Evercore ISI. You may proceed with your question.

Adam Frisch (Senior Managing Director)

Thanks, guys. Given the value you generate for merchants with the 0% offers, what are your thoughts around the potential to continue to raise pricing there? It seems like there is an excess buffer between your fees to the merchant and the lower revenues they avoid by not having to initiate a 25% or 30% off sale. It seems like pricing did tick up for the long-term piece of this book, flat for the short term on, at least on page 16 of the deck. So maybe some color there on the mix between long term and short term and the potential to raise prices.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

Great question. I, yeah, I would say, you know, I think it does vary a bit by merchant size, and we have had nice traction with a couple of our, our go-to-market packages that we use for, some of the platforms that help us aggregate distribution into smaller merchants. We actually have seen nice uptick of merchants starting with a base package and then moving into a higher-converting package that includes more 0% offerings in their financing program. So I, I think that that is working for us in terms of the go-to-market motion. And then, honestly, I think with some of the larger merchants, it's really on us to prove that 0% offerings drive conversion.

I think those conversations take time and are going to be a function of the success that we drive, and then it's on us to make sure that we're being compensated for what we're delivering to the merchant.

Michael Linford (COO)

Yeah, and just really small add, I think flat pricing in a declining rate environment is actually the same thing as taking price.

Adam Frisch (Senior Managing Director)

Yeah. What's the mix between short term and long term on the 0% book?

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

We haven't disclosed that.

Adam Frisch (Senior Managing Director)

... Okay. If I could just squeeze in one more. The loss provisions ticked up a few basis points. Nothing crazy at all. I'm just trying to figure out why the stock might be down a couple bucks here in the after-hours. Do you think—did you see something in the quarter? Is it taking advantage of some strength this quarter and being proactive, or just some color around that would be great? Thanks, guys.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

Thank you. I think I already said it. Consumer is healthy. We are not seeing any disturbances in the forest, which gives us freedom to optimize for RLTC. So you can see the RLTC number is just shy of the upper side of the long-term goal. We manage credit to a NCO number, and if you look at the chart of the NCO curves, you'll see that these are, like, super tightly run lines that are just one on top of the other. That's what I look at when I worry or don't worry about credit results. So that's sort of the North Star is NCO doing okay? And it certainly is right now.

So I'm not sure I can help you interpret why the stock is down, though. So that's not... But yeah, we're managing credit very, very attentively at all times.

Adam Frisch (Senior Managing Director)

I think you guys are doing a great job. Thank you.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from James Fawcett with Morgan Stanley. You may proceed.

James Fawcett (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you so much. Max, I wanna follow up with one of the answers you gave just a moment ago. In terms of the behavior of those that are coming in for 0% promotions versus maybe others, can you give any more detail in terms of their frequency of engagement, what products they, they're tending to be attracted to? It seemed like you were suggesting that they would use also interest bearing and maybe gravitate towards the card. But just help us understand, like, where you're seeing success continuing to engage with those customers and what that behavior looks like, say, versus those that come in either through kind of a interest bearing or very short duration, 0%.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

Everything you just said sort of answers your own question a little bit already. The very last thing you said is not what I said, and I don't want to imply that. In other words, I would not encourage you to think of short-term zeros as a great feeder into something else. What I was trying to say is zeros, writ large, short and long term, and obviously longer-term zeros, are a higher form of value. If you're getting a six-month 0% loan or 12-month 0% loan for a large ticket purchase, that's an extraordinary deal. Like, that is exactly sort of the conversation with merchants around, "Don't run a 25% off sale.

Pay us 11% and offer 12 months ± 0% loans on your large items." You're right, though, I did suggest that a 0% as the first loan does not preclude, in fact, does not seem to bear any relevance as to your propensity to take out an interest-bearing loan, which is mostly just a freedom for us to correctly price the transactions whenever merchants do or do not subsidize the interest rate. Like, it maybe the shortest form of the summary here is consumers we sign do not fall, by and large, into only transacts with X type of transaction or only transacts with Y type of transaction. They cross-pollinate nicely. To the sort of who is more engaged, that's a great question.

We're not. I'm not sure I wanna talk too much about it, but a lot of our product strategy is shaped by the observations that consumers that come in through a particular type of a transaction find us in more and more services. And a lot of how Boost AI and AdaptAI actually work, it's the fact that we are seeing consumers across multiple differentiated services. So you start typically at the point of sale, you end up taking out the card. You might use Affirm Anywhere before that, which is sort of the cardless version of the card that, you know, was developed a couple years prior. As you start compounding, if you will, these different kinds of Affirm use, your engagement goes up, your transactions per user goes up, your overall annual spend on Affirm goes up, and that's exactly what we want.

We are absolutely very attentive to what else might we offer you as you're increasing your transactions per user and your total Affirm spend. The 0% deals of various kinds are super valuable because they have such an outsized impact on propensity to convert.

James Fawcett (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

That's really good color. Thanks, Max.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Reginald Smith with JPMorgan. Please proceed.

Reginald Smith (Executive Director of Equity Research)

Hey, guys, congrats on the quarter. Most of my questions have been answered. I did have one. You know, a question I get a lot from investors is whether your expansion into some of these newer categories, home improvement, medical, auto repair, signals anything about, I guess, your base or your core retail BNPL business, whether it's competition or anything like that, or maybe even a shrinking opportunity. I guess, what would be your reaction or response to those questions? And then, you know, how did you decide or what was the signal that confirmed that now is the time to kind of make that move into those new verticals? And then lastly, is there any link or relationship between moves to those verticals and maybe getting a bank charter?

I'm just curious whether the lower funding and the longer duration of deposits played any role in that decision if not?

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

I'll go backwards, Reggie. So short answer to the last one is no. We are not figuring any sort of a short-term reduction in cost of funds. We need to get approved. We need to go through de novo. We need to gather deposits from which we could lend and, you know, any years into the future, we can talk about, "Hey, now that we have a lot of deposits, can we leverage some of that to fund our own book?" So that's very, very far away. That's not even a little bit related to these new categories. The way we choose new categories is entirely based on consumer pull, and because we have a card that works everywhere Visa is accepted, we get a really high fidelity daily print of, "Oh, check it out, people are using this for this thing. Well, that's interesting.

We should maybe talk to some of the people that sell whatever that thing is." And we knew that auto parts and adjacent things has been a huge component of our growth for a very, very long time. It made a ton of sense to go talk to people that sell auto parts and ask them, "Okay, so if we integrated directly instead of having our consumers come through the card door, what would that product look like? Would there be a reason for us to do something a little bit deeper? Would you be interested in sponsoring zero, et cetera?" So that's roughly how we pick new categories. And then the reason we went to new categories, the very short answer is we're building a network. Like, Visa is accepted everywhere, Amex is accepted everywhere, et cetera.

We see ourselves as a 21st century version of American Express sometimes, and the goal is to be on every convenience store door and all the doors, all the online doors, all the offline doors. Affirm wants to be the universal acceptance mark, and so it's not a matter of which one do we choose, it's which one do we choose next. And, you know, some number of years from now, we hope to just be a thing that consumers expect to see at any retailer, big and small, online and offline.

Reginald Smith (Executive Director of Equity Research)

Makes a lot of sense. Great answer. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Mihir Bhatia with Bank of America. You may proceed with your question.

Mihir Bhatia (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. Just wondering if you could talk about the announcement with Fiserv earlier this quarter. Maybe just describe what you're trying to do there, the interest you're seeing in the product from banks, regional banks. Anything you can share on how the product would work in practice, unit economics. Thank you.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

Definitely a little bit early to talk to the unit economics, given we've just announced the partnership there. But it follows our partnership with FIS, and we're certainly not stopping there. We are seeing excellent interest, hence the opportunity to partner more and broader in the community of folks providing services to such financial institutions. We think that we should not be the only people issuing debit cards with Buy Now, Pay Later capacity on them, and there's already on the order of 500 million debit cards in America, and many, many, many banks, where people bank locally, have a debit card, have a banking brand they love and don't feel like switching out of and would love to see Buy Now, Pay Later capabilities from their bank.

Their bank, on the other hand, does not have a software engineering team or an underwriting team or capital markets team. We do. We are excited to offer our platform to anyone who wants to be on it. The best way of reaching some of these folks, given their technical limitations, is through their core banking software providers and their integration teams, and that's what we're trying to do here. You know, at some point, we'll start talking a little bit more about specifically who'll go first, who'll go second in the actual underlying financial institution customer, but we're just not quite there yet.

Mihir Bhatia (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. I understand. Can I ask you just a follow-up on Affirm Card, just generally? I was wondering, Max, if your thinking on the card has evolved as you've seen customer usage of the card. I think early on, you've certainly talked about it as wanting it to be like the customer's top of wallet, everyday card. Is that how customers, consumers are using it today? Any, any evolution on that thinking? Thank you.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

Actually, Michael said something a little while ago, which sort of seemed obvious after I heard him say it. We have 25 million active users, and we still keep on talking externally, but also kind of internally, as if we have exactly one product that fits them all. Like, no one at that sort of scale has, "Oh, yeah, we got this one thing, and everybody should just use that." And it, it is true. The, the card is used fairly differently by different consumer categories. We have a category of consumers who are absolutely using the card as a top-of-wallet. Every transaction, they're, they're both power users, but they're also like... They've, they've completely been, I don't know, the, the color of our logo is, I guess, kind of purple, so maybe they've been purple-pilled. Is that the word?

I'm making this up as I go along, obviously. But that group exists. It's not small anymore, but it is a minority. Majority of our consumers still use the card as a considered purchase. When the transaction really matters to them, they pull out their Affirm Card. They also see Affirm logo. They might just go through the integrated path. If they're active Apple Pay, Google Pay, Chrome Autofill, Shop Pay users, there you know half dozen huge wallets partnerships that we power, and all of those are available to them, and so they don't always reach for their card, even if they have it in their wallet. And that group certainly thinks of us as they consider purchases. But again, within that group, there are people for whom $50 is a highly considered purchase.

Actually, if you turn to the first page of my section of the letter, we broke out just for the big nothing, the GMV lift merchants saw by size of basket, which is kind of a really, we don't really talk about it that much, but you can see there's like a nearly perfect linear curve. As the size of the transaction increases, the GMV uplift by offering 0% goes up as well. And that, and that explains a lot about the sort of the customer differentiation. And so we will, at some point, start talking a little bit more about the customer segmentation that we have or consumer segmentation that we have internally. Definitely not prepared to give a lecture on this topic right now, but it's starting to bifurcate, trifurcate fairly rapidly into groups that we need to serve a little bit differently.

We're actually very, very excited about that. Like, nothing is better than, as a product person, to know you have market pull, and the market is teaching you, we need a card that does this, and then we have another group, and they want something else entirely, and, you know, building that is cheaper and cheaper, thanks to all these programming techniques that we now have. So we're, we're excited to build more software.

Mihir Bhatia (Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Darrin Peller with Wolfe Research. You may proceed.

Darrin Peller (Managing Director)

Hey, guys, thanks. You know, last quarter, I know you mentioned you were in discussions with some key PSP partners, really to become a default payment method, and I think you were already live with one. So maybe just touch a little more on the benefits you're seeing from that PSP default method and how these conversations have evolved. Maybe just when you're in these conversations with PSPs, what's the pitch like to really convince them? Thanks, guys.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

Just goes right back to the thing I said earlier. You know, 10 years ago, if you said Affirm should be right next to Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, your average payment processor would say, "What firm? Sorry," if you're on the phone or Zoom. That's not, not the question anymore today. Fortunately, our name has now a certain degree of weight and becomes a conversation of, does this help my overall conversion? Does this, how does this change my economics, for, you know, as I pitch downstream merchant for my overall services? And so, I'm not sure I'm prepared to break it out into a ton of detail, but the default-on just means the consumer sees our logo as they select a way they're going to pay for a, a thing or a service.

For a large percentage of the merchants, both within these partnerships and outside, our logo is visible, not just on the payment sheet, but up funnel, where the consumer finds out that Affirm is available, and.

Darrin Peller (Managing Director)

Right.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

They can split their payment and expect no fees.

Darrin Peller (Managing Director)

Okay. All right. I mean, but I think that could be a key driver for you guys, assuming it's sticky and it actually resonates. I'm just curious if there's been progress, but I don't know, anything more you could share on that. But then, my other question was just on agentic.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

Well, I mean, I think-

Darrin Peller (Managing Director)

Yeah, go ahead.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

Sorry. I mean, I think we think about platforms, really when we talk about PSPs as well. And so I—obviously, the Intuit announcement is one that we're incredibly excited about. I think the size of that platform is immense, and, you know, it's on us to make sure that we maximize the opportunity-

Darrin Peller (Managing Director)

Right.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

... And build the biggest program there that we can. So that's one that's been in the pipeline that, you know, we're excited to have out in the public today.

Darrin Peller (Managing Director)

Right. Right, that makes sense. Thanks. I guess just quick follow-up would be on any quick comments you can give us on your latest view around agentic commerce? I know it's not a quick topic, but just given that it's gonna be, it could become such an important part of the ecosystem, I'd be curious to hear what steps the company is taking just to make sure you're ready to capture this kind of spend.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

I'm laughing because it's Michael's turn to roll his eyes. So we got the meaning of life question, and the short answer is, there's no short answer. Let's see. Still bullish, still think that it is hugely accretive for our financial product flavor to have agents that judge whether a financial service is a good one or a bad one. I think as the bots learn more and more about how things like deferred interest and late fees and compounding interest work, it's easier and easier to stand out because we don't do any of those things. So I think all of that sort of structurally, we benefit from that. In terms of just being there and making sure that we are in the mix, we certainly are very, very active.

I mean, we're—I can't always keep track of exactly what announcements we made, so I'll punt on saying exactly where we'll pop up next or first or second, but we are certainly-

Darrin Peller (Managing Director)

Okay.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

... Very engaged with the industry, trying to understand what's the best way of delivering-

Darrin Peller (Managing Director)

Right.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

... Our product. But, yeah, you should absolutely expect us to be in all those stories. I think I continue to maintain, from the sort of pure consumer product perspective, that there are purchases that are more like entertainment, and they will continue being largely human-driven and purchases that are more sort of human-computer partnership, where AI will help you research the product you're going to buy and maybe even serve up the final decision for you, and then you'll pull the trigger, but the purchase will still be human-supervised. And there'll be a large transition to transactions that just don't need humans anymore, and those will be wonderful, and you want to make sure that you're included in those, too, in some form of a default-

... Selection is available, and that, you know, some of those conversations are certainly very active, not just between us, but the industry.

Darrin Peller (Managing Director)

Okay. Thanks, Max. Appreciate it.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Bryan Keane with Citi. You may proceed with your question.

Bryan Keane (Head of North America Payments Processors & IT Services Research)

Yeah, hi, guys. Jumped on a little bit late, but the spike in the active merchant growth up to 42%, I know that was running in the low 20s for a while, for a few quarters, and then moved up last quarter, and then again, a significant move. Is that one relationship or is that multiple relationships? Just trying to get a better understanding of the growth there.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

Yeah, I would say, the inflection in growth is being driven by, some wallet partnerships that we have. We're including, merchants from those wallet partnerships in that merchant count. So that is- that has been an accelerant from a growth perspective.

Bryan Keane (Head of North America Payments Processors & IT Services Research)

Got it. And how long does it take to get to corresponding volumes, you know, from those merchants, from those wallets?

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

Well, I mean, obviously or maybe not obviously, I mean, we're only counting the merchant if they're active with us. We're not counting doors, you know, if the merchant isn't taking transactions from Affirm. So we're only counting active merchants, whether it comes through a wallet or it comes through a more direct integration with Affirm.

Bryan Keane (Head of North America Payments Processors & IT Services Research)

Yeah. Yep.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

That is just a function of scaling, scaling with the merchant, right?

Bryan Keane (Head of North America Payments Processors & IT Services Research)

Right. Right. Yeah, that's what I was thinking about, is how fast it takes to scale with those particular merchants, maybe that they're not directly integrated. Okay, and then the other question just on, that I had was on adjusted operating margins. Just thinking about the first half versus second half, obviously strong margins in the first half, and then looks like a slight deceleration in margin growth, that you're just probably being a bit conservative there. But anything to think about in terms of the adjusted operating margins, first half versus second half?

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

No, I mean, I think we did have a really nice trajectory over the course of last year. So to your point, you know, the margin expansion is a bit lower in Q4, for example, in the guide, than it was in Q2. But you know, we are approaching... We're quite happy with the margin profile, and we're signing up for more FY 2026 margin expansion in this version of the guide than we had 90 days ago. So yeah, I think it's just continued operating leverage and continuing to scale nicely, and most of that is driven by the strong growth that we're seeing in revenue less transaction costs.

Bryan Keane (Head of North America Payments Processors & IT Services Research)

Okay, great. Thanks, guys.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from the line of John Hecht with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

John Hecht (Managing Director)

Afternoon. Thanks for all the color and details. Most of my questions have been asked. I guess one thing I'm just curious about is you're now forward flow agreements with private credit counterparties are an increasing part of the funding sources. I know you've been selling assets to off-balance sheet partners over time, but I'm wondering, is the characteristic of what the private credit partners want in such a way that it changes the mix of what you end up holding on balance sheet, or is it all the same?

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

No, definitely not. We still have an approach that says we, we allocate loans to partners on a vertical slice. And so our partners generally want broad exposure to everything that we originate, and we're, we're committed to not, you know, selecting particular assets for on/off. The only exception to that or asterisk is there's certain concentration limits or certain even test products that maybe don't get into our normal funding flows. But for the vast majority of the stuff that we originate, it's randomly allocated to partners, and we just decide how much we're gonna, we're gonna push to each partner. And I think the reason for that approach from a lot of our partners is, is when they think about partnering with us, they're not thinking about specific assets, our assets turn over way too fast for that.

They're really thinking about partnering with us as a source of origination flow, and they spend a lot of time making sure that they have confidence in how the company will operate, not thinking about, like, a pool of assets, like you might see with a longer-dated, longer-duration personal loan company.

John Hecht (Managing Director)

Okay, that makes sense. Thanks very much.

Operator (participant)

Due to time constraints, our final question will come from Timothy Chiodo with UBS. You may proceed.

Timothy Chiodo (Managing Director)

Great. Thanks a lot, everybody. So in agentic commerce, I want to circle back on the topic Darren brought up. So broadly speaking, we can think about three types. There's using ChatGPT to search and then clicking off. There's using ChatGPT to search and then staying within the interface and using an instant checkout button, if you will. And then, of course, there's the full agentic, with which, Max, I think you were alluding to. If we just confine this kind of conversation to the instant checkout portion, when we go into ChatGPT today, we can see the Apple Pay button, we can see the Stripe Link button, and we can see Pay with Card.

Is it possible that over time we will see the Affirm button within that ChatGPT and other, agentic platforms within that user interface for the, let's call it the instant checkout type of, transaction?

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

... It's possible, but we're making no such announcements right now. I think, I just think it's really important to note that this is very, very early. The entire agentic commerce thing is still super early. But yes, I think there are—there's absolutely room. Let's go down that road. There's definitely room for Affirm button in all, all possible forms of commerce, including agentic commerce. If there's human supervision involved, you should hold us to the account, to account of, "Hey, did you place your button there? And if you have not, why haven't you, and when will you?" I think that's a reasonable expectation from our shareholders or our analysts.

Timothy Chiodo (Managing Director)

Excellent. Thank you, Max. And also fully acknowledging that you can use virtual card, Affirm Card in that channel as well, but, yeah, I was specific to the button, and I appreciate your answer there. Thank you.

Max Levchin (Founder and CEO)

You can definitely. I mean, last I checked, I actually haven't tried in a little bit, but I think you can find Affirm on the Apple Pay, in through the Apple Pay door if you go there. So I think we're. So it's, but yeah, and Libor, who's not here with us, but I would be remiss without mentioning his mantra, "We love channel conflict." If you believe that you are a network, you better be included in every wallet.

Timothy Chiodo (Managing Director)

All right.

Operator (participant)

This now concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Zane for closing comments.

Zane Keller (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you for joining the call, everyone. We appreciate the wonderful list of questions you all submitted, and I look forward to seeing many of you on the conference circuit and talk to you again soon. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.