Wisr records maiden positive EBITDA half after tumultuous year

The Australian fintech space may not be a large industry, but it certainly has its share of innovative players. Wisr (ASX: WZR) lays claim to being the first ASX-listed neo-lender, but investors shouldn’t assume this is where it stops, or that it has been without challenges.

After all, the business not only had to contend with the challenges of inflation but also turmoil within its management team. In August last year, Anthony Nantes was terminated as the CEO, with Andrew Goodwin stepping into the position. After Mr Nantes' termination as CEO, criminal charges (not related to the running of Wisr) were brought against Mr Nantes by NSW Police.

But outside of the press, who is Wisr?

Wisr aims to be a “one-stop shop” as CEO Andrew Goodwin describes it for financial wellness.

“We have a personal loan product and a secured vehicle loan product which we distribute through three key channels. 

Alongside that, we have a whole range of tools and products including credit score checks, roundup tools and what we call “smart moves”, which is a whole range of things you can do to improve your finances,” says Goodwin.

A key feature of the app, Smart Moves, was developed in conjunction with psychologists to support positive habits and attitudes towards finance in customers.

While the principle is certainly interesting and innovative, the question usually comes back to ‘Can it turn a profit?’ As of this week, Wisr announced that it has hit "EBITDA profitability" (Wisr's words, not ours) for the first time for H1FY24 and generated an 11% increase in revenue.

For Goodwin, that means the focus can turn back to growth, to recommence in the second half.

“For around five years, we were a high-growth pre-profit business. We’re now a moderated growth profitable business, and we want to be both,” he says, also pointing to plans to continue to build out the non-loans component of the business.

In the following interview, Goodwin shares how the business recalibrated its loan portfolio in the past 12 months to reach EBITDA profitability, efforts to restore trust in the business after challenges in the management team and the pipeline ahead for the newly profitable business.

This interview was recorded on 20 February 2024.

Time Codes:

• 0:00 - Introduction
• 0:20 - What makes Wisr unique in the ASX tech space
• 1:22 - Key figures from the first half report
• 2:32 - Restoring trust after a challenging year
• 4:13 - Balancing innovation with regulation
• 5:10 - The impact of inflation on the loans portfolio
• 6:02 - The pipeline for Wisr