Jiayin Group Q1 2026 Earnings Call - Tech Empowerment and AI Drive Structural Shift Amid Regulatory Headwinds

Operator: Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Jiayin Group’s first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Currently, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Instructions will follow up today’s call. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Sam Lee from Investor Relations of Jiayin Group. Please proceed.

Sam Lee, Investor Relations, Jiayin Group: Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone. Thank you all for joining us on today’s conference call to discuss Jiayin Group’s financial results for the first quarter of 2026. We released our earnings results earlier today. The press release is available on the company’s website, as well as from Newswire Services. On the call with me today are Mr. Yan Dinghui, Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Fan Chunlin, Chief Financial Officer, and Ms. Qi Dan, Chief Risk Officer. Before we continue, please note that today’s discussion will contain forward-looking statements made under the Safe Harbor Provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Such, the company’s actual results may be materially different from the expectations expressed today. Further information regarding these and other risks and uncertainties is included in the company’s public filings with the SEC.

The company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law. This call includes discussion of certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to our earnings release, which contains a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP financial measures. Please note that unless otherwise stated, all figures mentioned during the conference call are in CNY. With that, let me now turn the call over to our CEO, Mr. Yan Dinghui. Mr. Yan will deliver his remarks in Chinese. I will follow up with corresponding English translations. Please go ahead, Mr. Yan. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining our first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. During the first quarter of 2026, the consumer lending industry remained in an adjustment phase. The recovery in credit demand continued at a relatively gradual pace. The industry as a whole remained under pressure.

Against this backdrop, we focused on refining the operations of our high-quality existing borrower base and the structural enhancement of our business model. During the quarter, we achieved transaction volume of CNY 19.3 billion, representing a year-over-year decrease of 45.8%. Revenue was impacted by industry cyclicality and volume contraction, while temporary cost pressures persisted during the period. As a result, we recorded a net loss of approximately CNY 61.7 million for the quarter. This quarter, we concentrated on the refined management and engagement of our high-quality existing borrower base. Through cross analysis of user risk scores and platform behavioral insights, we segmented our existing borrowers into groups and implemented differentiated engagement strategies and operating strategies tailored on each group’s credit profile and borrowing intent. Repeat borrowing contribution accounted for 76.3% of transaction volume during the quarter, representing an increase of 4.4 percentage points from the same period last year.

These highly engaged users not only contributed to stable repeat borrowing demand, but also validated the initial effectiveness of our strategy to deepen engagement with existing borrowers. The 90-plus day delinquency ratio was 2.25% as of the end of the first quarter, increasing sequentially. For higher risk borrower segments, we continue to tighten underwriting criteria and credit limit controls to facilitate an orderly run-off of portfolio risk exposure. For high-quality borrowers, we further analyze borrower needs and work closely with our operations team to refine borrower management and engagement strategies with a focus on improving retention. Meanwhile, we are embedding AI capabilities into our operations to drive the productization of risk management and continuously refining and developing reusable standardized solutions.

Yan Dinghui, Chief Executive Officer, Jiayin Group: 在业务拓展方面，延续上季度的整体策略，我们围绕三条主线推进结构化升级。第一条主线是联合运营模式的优化升级。本季度我们积极推进对于金融机构的科技赋能业务。在此模式下，公司作为技术与运营服务方，深度嵌入合作银行的信贷全流程，提供从流量运营、技术服务和风控模型的全链路输出，利用先进的数据技术和成熟的运营经验，赋能合作伙伴。一季度科技赋能业务体量达到15.2亿元，环比增长67.6%。这是多年积累的技术服务能力向更深层次合作的自然延伸，也是我们在当前周期下的创新实践。我们看好该业务模式的长期价值，未来规模有望持续提升。

Sam Lee, Investor Relations, Jiayin Group: On the business development front, we continue to execute the overall strategy established in the previous quarter and advance our structural upgrade through three key initiatives. The first initiative is the enhancement of our joint operations and tech empowerment model. During the quarter, we actively expanded our technology empowerment services for financial institutions. Under this model, the company acts as a technology and operations service provider, deeply integrating into the entire lending process of partner banks. We provide comprehensive solutions covering borrower engagement and operations, technology services, and risk modeling capabilities. Leveraging our advanced data technologies and extensive operational experience, we empower our partners throughout the credit lifecycle. In the first quarter, the transaction volume generated through our technology empowerment business reached CNY 1.52 billion, representing a sequential increase of approximately 67.6%.

This business represents a natural extension of the technology service capabilities we have accumulated over many years, enabling us to deepen our collaboration with financial institutions. It also represents an important innovation initiative in the current operating environment. We remain optimistic about the long-term value of this model and expect its scale to continue expanding in the future.

Yan Dinghui, Chief Executive Officer, Jiayin Group: 第二条主线是多元化产品布局，利用车抵贷和数字微贷拓展特定场景或客群。车抵贷方面，年初上线了3.0系统，已实现全流程线上化。公司聚焦于前端的流量运营、风控赋能和撮合匹配，贷后管理及车辆处置环节则由专业合作方承接，使我们能够将资源集中与上下游合作形成优势互补。自今年年初以来，车抵贷业务增长势头良好，整体用户转化率在纯线上业务规模中处于领先地位。多元化产品线持续推进，有助于触达差异化客群，同时为资方机构提供更丰富的资产选择。

Sam Lee, Investor Relations, Jiayin Group: The second initiative is the development of a diversified product portfolio, including auto-backed loans and digital intelligent microloans, which enables us to serve specific scenarios and borrower segments. For our auto-backed loan business, the version 3.0 system launched earlier this year has achieved end-to-end fully digitalized operations. We remain focused on borrower engagement and operations, risk empowerment, and matching, while specialized partners handle post-loan servicing and vehicle disposal. This collaborative model allows us to concentrate resources on our core strengths while creating complementary advantages with upstream and downstream partners. Since the beginning of this year, the auto-backed loan business has maintained strong growth momentum, with overall user conversion rates ranking among the highest in the market under a full online operating model. The continued expansion of our diversified product portfolio helps us reach differentiated borrower groups while providing funding partners with broader asset options.

Yan Dinghui, Chief Executive Officer, Jiayin Group: 第三条主线是海外业务。印尼地区一季度放款规模环比增长20%，同比翻番。通过深化与当地资金方的合作，不断拓宽合作版图。墨西哥地区目前业务规模尚小，但增长较快。我们在当地的合作伙伴一季度放款规模同比增长35%，相较去年同期已实现高速增长。报告期内，海外地区收入规模逐步提升，我们将继续秉持全球化战略，以投资布局为切入点，输出先进的技术与运营经验，稳步构建公司未来发展的增长引擎。

Sam Lee, Investor Relations, Jiayin Group: The third initiative is our international business. In Indonesia, loan volume increased by 20% quarter-over-quarter and more than doubled year-over-year in the first quarter. By deepening cooperation with local funding partners, we continue to expand our presence in the market. In Mexico, while currently small in scale, growth has been even faster. Our local partner loan volume increased by 35% sequentially during the first quarter and also delivered strong year-over-year growth. During the reporting period, revenue scale from overseas markets continued to increase. We will continue to execute our globalization strategy, leveraging strategic investments as an entry point to explore our advanced technology capabilities and operational expertise, and steadily build this segment into a growth engine for the company’s future development.

Yan Dinghui, Chief Executive Officer, Jiayin Group: 在人工智能领域，我们依旧沿着清晰的战略主线在推进，将AI融入金融科技服务场景，加速推进科技服务能力。工程智能方面，风控模型迭代周期从天数压缩至1小时以内，确保策略能快速响应市场环境的变化，也是向合作机构输出的核心技术能力。在研发加速方面，智能体生成代码占总AI代码量的30%，研发效率提升约20%，进一步夯实AI规模化投产的工程基础。坐席辅助方面，智研模型全面上线客服环节，意图识别率从78%提升至93%，坐席效率提升的同时，模型调用成本降低90%。此外，在办公智能领域，我们对OpenCloud进行了企业安全化改造，部署了AI助手灵犀 AI Agent，覆盖多种场景，逐步构建整个组织的工作范式，让AI成为每位员工的合作伙伴，持续释放人员效率。AI正从辅助工具演变为公司运营效率提升的内生驱动力。

Sam Lee, Investor Relations, Jiayin Group: In artificial intelligence, we continue to execute against a clear strategic roadmap by integrating AI technologies into our Fintech ecosystem and accelerating the evolution of our technology service capabilities. In intelligent engineering, the feature iteration cycle for our risk management models has been reduced from several days to less than one hour, enabling strategies to respond rapidly to changes in market conditions. This capability has also become a core technology offering provided to our institutional partners. For R&D acceleration, AI agents now generate approximately 30% of all AI-assisted code, improving development efficiency by around 20%, and further strengthening the engineering foundation for large-scale AI deployment. In service assistance, our proprietary models have been fully deployed across customer service operations. Intent recognition accuracy improved from 78% to 93%, significantly enhancing service efficiency while reducing model inference costs by 90%.

In addition, in workplace intelligence, we have completed enterprise-grade security enhancements for OpenCloud and deployed our proprietary AI agent, Jiayin Cloud, across a wide range of daily work scenarios. These initiatives are gradually reshaping the way our organization operates, enabling AI to serve as a collaborative partner for every employee and continuously unlocking productivity gains. AI is steadily evolving from a supporting tool into an intrinsic driver of operational efficiency across the company.

Yan Dinghui, Chief Executive Officer, Jiayin Group: 我们始终视安全与责任为企业的生命线，充分发挥多模态AI技术优势，持续筑牢用户权益的安全防线。一季度累计识别并阻断七大借款人约29万人，拦截黑产恶意攻击11.3万件。我们持续推动风控战略从事后防御向事前主动拦截转变，尤其是在声纹识别、图像识别等多模态大模型领域已取得了实质性进展。通过引入声纹识别、图算法、剧烈分析等技术，推动反欺诈能力从传统结构化规则识别逐步升级为多模态感知，加图算法，加工程化落地的综合防御体系。截至目前，多模态反欺诈识别累计识别了500万条疑似黑产音视频样本，识别准确率超过90%。

Sam Lee, Investor Relations, Jiayin Group: We have always regarded security and responsibility as the lifeline of our business. Leveraging the advantages of multimodal AI technologies, we continue to strengthen the protection of user interests. During the first quarter, we identified and blocked approximately 290,000 fraudulent borrowers and intercepted 113,000 malicious applications associated with organized fraud activities. We continue to advance our risk management strategy from a reactive defense model towards proactive prevention and preemptive interception. In particular, we have achieved substantial progress in multimodal large language model applications, including voiceprint recognition, image recognition technologies. By integrating voiceprint analysis, graph algorithms, clustering technologies, and other advanced techniques, we are transforming our anti-fraud framework from traditional structured, rule-based detection into a comprehensive prevention and control system built upon multimodal perception, graph analytics, and scalable engineering implementation.

To date, our multimodal anti-fraud system has identified approximately 5 million suspicious audio and video samples associated with fraudulent and illicit activities, with an accuracy rate exceeding 90%.

Yan Dinghui, Chief Executive Officer, Jiayin Group: 股东回报方面，公司已将现行回购计划展期至2027年6月12日，剩余回购额度约为4960万美金。我们将结合市场环境和公司的实际运营情况，统筹安排各项股东回报举措。

Sam Lee, Investor Relations, Jiayin Group: Turning to shareholder returns. We have extended our current share repurchase program through June 12th, 2027, with approximately $49.6 million remaining available under the program. We will continue to evaluate market conditions and our operational performance and comprehensively evaluate and implement various shareholder return initiatives. Given the continuing uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment, we remain prudent in our outlook. We currently expect transaction volume for the second quarter of 2026 to be between CNY 9.5 billion and CNY 10.5 billion. Looking ahead, we will continue to prioritize disciplined operations and sustainable development through deeper operational experience and enhanced organization resilience. We aim to build a durable competitive moat. With that, I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Mr. Fan Chunlin. Please go ahead.

Fan Chunlin, Chief Financial Officer, Jiayin Group: Thank you, Mr. Yan, and hello everyone. Thank you for joining our call today. I will now review our financial highlights for the quarter. Please note that all numbers will be in CNY and all percentage changes refer to year-over-year comparisons unless otherwise noted. As Mr. Yan noted earlier, we remained disciplined in our execution during the first quarter and delivered the transaction volume in line with our previous guidance. Transaction volume was CNY 19.3 billion, representing a decrease of 45.8% from the same period of 2025. Our net revenue was CNY 756.7 million, representing a decrease of 57.4% from the same period of 2025. Moving on to costs. Facilitation and servicing expense was CNY 331.6 million, representing a decrease of 1.3% from the same period of 2025.

Allowance for uncollectible receivables, counterassets, prepaid expenses and other current assets and others was CNY 1.1 million, compared with CNY 17.5 million for the same period of 2025, primarily due to the decrease in allowance for overseas contingent guarantees. Sales and marketing expense were CNY 340.1 million, representing a decrease of 49.6% from the same period of 2025, primarily due to decreased borrow acquisition expenses. General and administrative expense was CNY 44.1 million, representing a decrease of 16.5% from the same period of 2025, primarily due to decreased professional service fees. R&D expense was CNY 109.8 million, representing an increase of 24.6% from the same period of 2025, primarily driven by an increase in technology infrastructure expenses and employee costs. Non-GAAP loss from operation was CNY 70.1 million, compared with CNY 606.6 million non-GAAP income from operation in the same period of 2025.

Consequently, our net loss for the first quarter was CNY 61.7 million, compared with CNY 539.5 million net income in the same period of 2025. Our basic and diluted net loss per share were both CNY 0.29, compared with CNY 2.63 basic and diluted net income per share in the first quarter of 2025. Basic and diluted net loss per ADS were both CNY 1.16, compared with CNY 10.12 basic and diluted net income per ADS in the first quarter of 2025. Each ADS represents four Class A ordinary shares of the company. We ended this quarter with CNY 43.4 million in cash and cash equivalents compared with CNY 61.8 million at the end of the previous quarter. With that, we can open the call for questions. Ms. Qi, our Chief Risk Officer, and I will answer questions. Operator, please proceed.

Operator: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Thank you. We will now begin with our first question. This is from Jihao Li from CSC. Please go ahead.

Jihao Li (Jerry Lee), Analyst, China Securities: Okay. Hello Management, I’m Jerry Lee from China Securities. We have seen the company reported a net loss of almost CNY 62 million for the first quarter. It is fourth quarterly loss since listing. What are the primary drivers behind this performance? Any operational adjustments to improve profitabilities moving forward? Thank you.

Yan Dinghui, Chief Executive Officer, Jiayin Group: 我是公司CEO严定贵。我想就您提出的两个问题做如下的作答。第一个就是我们这一季度录得的亏损到6170万元。自从去年的Q2开始提及九号文件，从11月1号开始执行这个九号文件，整个行业实际上是面临一个非常巨大的业绩下滑。不仅是我们，整个行业皆是如此。因为九号文件要求把贷款的最高利率从36%压降到24%。从去年的11月1号到今年的6月份，整个市场已经总体压降了接近5000亿的贷款规模。所以我们从去年的11月1号开始，根据监管的要求，把利率水平调整到24%，整体的业绩规模下降还是很明显的。由于业绩下降非常的剧烈，再叠加去年11月1号开始，由于规模急剧下降，借款人由于供给不足造成的这种踩踏，违约率持续上升。所以的话，在今年。Hi, Jerry, I’m the CEO Yan Dinggui. I will answer your question. On the loss of CNY61.7 million, ever since the new regulation came out last year and implemented in October, where the lower rate cap was enforced from October to June, the overall market loan volume has reduced by CNY500 billion. Due to this significant lowering of the loan volume, there has been a liquidity crunch from the borrower side. 所以叠加九号文件造成的信贷供给严重不足，由于借款人的供给不足，所以造成了违约大面积上升，给行业带来了非常巨大的冲击。所以从去年的11月1号开始，我们就在用非常高效、非常低顺位的这种努力去解决可能带来的资产恶化带来的冲击。Ever since the new regulation and the liquidity crunch on the borrower side, since the implementation on October 1st, we’ve tried many methods and to be highly efficient to resolve the credit risk brought on by the after effects of the implementation. 所以我这个回答也可以回答你第二个问题，也就是说从今年春节以后，实际上我们经历了非常艰难的二月底，待偿是一个非常庞大的数字。但是从三月份开始，整个的信贷持续向好，我们已经度过了最艰难的这段时间。由于我们在这个11月1号开始压缩了我们的信贷规模，让我们能够更选择性地去接受优质资产，因为本身资金供给也不足。规模下降导致的收入的减少，叠加我们在当时没有去考虑裁员等等费用压缩的计划，所以造成了我们一季度收入方面和我们的支出不太匹配，所以造成了亏损。Ever since Chinese New Year, we’d had a very difficult adjustment period combined with no cost reduction actions last year. There’s a faster decrease in loan volume than the decrease in cost reduction, so that explains most of the difference in the loss. 所以我们从Q2开始已经取得了一定的进展，首先第一个就是我们压缩了我们的成本，使我们在现金流这个方面得到了有效的支撑。在业绩方面，我们也很好地去平衡了我们的收入和我们的支出，让我们在Q2很好地度过了由于供给不足所造成的这个大面积的客户风险的出清。所以到今天为止，我可以非常负责任跟您说，我们现在已经

Sam Lee, Investor Relations, Jiayin Group: [Foreign language] Ever since Q2, we’ve implemented a lot of cost control and reduction. The cash flow will be better next quarter. From the volume and revenue perspective, we’ve balanced out our cash flow and revenue and expenses. We’re better equipped to have better cash flow and better liquidity for the upcoming quarter. [Foreign language] That’s my response to your question.

Operator: Thank you. We will now take our next question. This is from Hua Rong from Jin Yu Asset. Please go ahead.

Hua Rong, Analyst, Jin Yu Asset: 管理层你好，我是来自金裕资产的分析师华蓉，我有问题想请教一下，能否请管理层介绍一下一季度以及四五月份的风险趋势，近期风险状况是否有所改善？Hello management, could you provide some color on the risk trends through the first quarter and into April and May? Are we seeing an improvement in the risk metrics? Thank you.

Sam Lee, Investor Relations, Jiayin Group: [Foreign language] 那 我 就 请 我 们 新 加 入 我 们 的 组 织 的 CIO， 祁 丹 女 士 去 回 答 这 个 问 题 。 祁 丹 女 士 在 加 入 我 们 这 个 组 织 之 前 ， 曾 经 是 腾 讯 微 众 银 行 的 风 险 官 。 然 后 请 祁 丹 女 士 回 答 问 题 。 I would like to welcome Miss Qi Dan, our new Chief Risk Officer, to answer this question. She’s from Tencent WeBank, and she used to be in risk management over there. I’d like to welcome her to answer this question.

Qi Dan, Chief Risk Officer, Jiayin Group: 我们的资产受去年整体风险的上涨冲击下，新客的风险在去年9月份达到一个风险的峰值，老客的新放款风险是在去年11月份在峰值。在这个之后呢，其实是一个逐步回落改善的趋势。

Sam Lee, Investor Relations, Jiayin Group: The deterioration in asset quality caused by the rise in credit risk last year has been improving. Credit risk among the new borrowers peaked in September last year, while the risk associated with new loans facilitated to existing borrowers peaked in November. Since then, both have trended downward and shown steady improvement.

Qi Dan, Chief Risk Officer, Jiayin Group: 在新客是从去年的Q4开始，我们通过主动地调整获客渠道的组合和优化模型策略，获客的整个体量进行了绝对控制，新客风险持续改善。今年3到4月的新客风险已经回落到去年全年的低值的一个水位。

Sam Lee, Investor Relations, Jiayin Group: For new borrowers, since Q4 of last year, we proactively really adjusted our borrower acquisition mix and the channel mix and optimized our risk models while really controlling the overall volume of new borrower acquisition. As a result, the new borrower credit performance has continued to improve. By March and April of this year, the new borrower metrics has already declined to the lowest levels recorded during the entire last year.

Qi Dan, Chief Risk Officer, Jiayin Group: 老客的新增资产方面，一季度的风险是逐步回落的。四五月份风险较去年高峰期已经下降了25%到30%，回落到了去年五六月份的水平。风险管理上，我们是挑选了融资和偿债能力更强、资产和资质更好的客户进行准入，主动对抗风险能力较弱的高负债、高资金饥渴和弱资产的客户，缩短了贷款的期限和压降了授信额度，从准入、授信、期限上主动地调整了资产的结构，通过收缩净体量，提升经营质量。

Sam Lee, Investor Relations, Jiayin Group: With respect to the newly facilitated loans for existing borrowers, the risk levels continued to decline throughout the first quarter. By April and May, the risk metrics has really fallen by approximately 25%-30% from their peak levels, returning to levels seen in May and June of last year. From a risk management perspective, we really tightened our borrower selection criteria by focusing on borrowers with stronger financial and repayment capabilities as well as more stable asset and credit profiles. At the same time, for the higher risk borrowers, such as those with elevated leverage, significant multi-borrowing exposure, greater liquidity stress or weaker asset profiles, for those borrowers, we have proactively shortened the loan tenures and reduced credit limits. By making these adjustments to the borrowing emission standards, credit limits and loan terms, we have really actively optimized our asset mix.

While this has resulted in a more measured pace of business growth, it has significantly improved the overall quality of our operations.

Qi Dan, Chief Risk Officer, Jiayin Group: 我再念了。

Sam Lee, Investor Relations, Jiayin Group: Yeah, that’s my answer to your question.

Hua Rong, Analyst, Jin Yu Asset: 谢谢管理层，我没有其他问题。

Operator: Thank you. Seeing no more questions, I will return the call to Sam for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Sam Lee, Investor Relations, Jiayin Group: Thank you, Operator. Thank you all for participating on today’s call. We appreciate your interest and look forward to reporting to you again next quarter on our progress.

Operator: Thank you all again. This concludes the call. You may now disconnect.