czech fintech Twisto Last year ended again at a huge loss. In 2021, it was minus 164 million crowns. In the previous year the loss was 124 million and even before that 137 million. Sales jumped about 35 percent to 151 million.
Most of the income, ie 117 million, came via interest. Fees and commissions generated 34 million and 47 million other operating income.
Twisto has high costs. It dropped $57 million on benefits and similar costs. The cost of fees and commissions is 13 million. Administrative costs amounted to 240 million. This mainly includes wages and other employee fees. Depreciation, creation and use of association reserves far more than 50 million dollars.
Zip is now controlled by the Australian company Zip, which bought Twisto for more than 2 billion kroner. Twist shareholders did not receive cash, but Zip shares. They’re down 90 percent in the last year and haven’t recovered yet.
Other Czech fintechs focusing on deferred payments are also taking losses in the long run. According to ČSOB, which now controls the company 100%, it will continue to do so for some time.
Twista head Michel Omeda He commented on the results in the financial statements as follows:
We continue to see the e-commerce space as key to our further growth, which is complemented by the growth of card transactions in traditional stores. Merchants’ strong demand for deferred payments has led to the growth of important business and partnership opportunities. This resulted in more than 7.6 million transactions in both markets in 2021.
Moreover, our clients make extensive use of the possibility of deferring maturity beyond the interest-free period, as well as the possibility of distributing larger individual transactions in installments ranging from 3 to 12 months. Thanks to this, we recorded a significant revenue growth in the Czech Republic of 34% YoY (79% growth in both markets combined). Together with the incremental optimization of risk costs, we were able to achieve 28% annual growth in the Czech Republic (and 72% in both markets) on gross margin (revenue adjusted for risk costs).
At the same time, we were able to keep operating costs under control in both countries, despite the aforementioned expansion activities (supporting Zip in Turkey and the Middle East), which is particularly reflected in the increased capitalization of technological development.
While 2021 was marked by significant growth and expansion plans within the ZIP Group, 2022 brings some changes in strategy and focus. We are witnessing severe macroeconomic pressures in the form of inflation, higher interest rates, geopolitical pressures and uncertainties. Therefore we need to re-evaluate our strategy towards the profitability and sustainability of our business in key markets with a view to achieving group profitability over the next 12-18 months. Therefore, we will critically evaluate regional expansion plans in relation to the above. However, we are optimistic about further developments and focus on building a strong player in the BNPL field not only in Europe.
