Consumer finance company Wisr’s move to moderate loan origination to focus on profitability and balance sheet strength had mixed results in the December 2023 half. The company increased revenue and margin as it raised loan rates, made inroads into salary and marketing costs, reduced its borrowings and cut the provision for expected credit loss. But it was only able to reduce its pre-tax loss from A$6.6 million in the December half 2022 to a loss of $1.7 million in the latest half. In addition, it reported a loss of $14.1 million arising from the fair value adjustment of cash flow hedging instruments, leading to a bottom line loss of $15.8 million. The company has a new senior management team. Following the sacking of chief executive Anthony Nantes last August, chief financial officer Andrew Goodwin was appointed CEO, and chief risk and data officer Joanne Edwards was appointed chief operating officer. Goodwin and Edwards presented the interim results at a briefing yesterday. They did not mention the loss or the large fair value adjustment. The company prefers to focus on its EBITDA, which was $200,000 on a “normalised” basis, compared with an EBITDA loss of $900,000 in the previous corresponding period. Loan originations during the half were $103 million, down from $302 million in the previous corresponding period. The value of the loan book fell from $916 million to $847 million. During the half, Wisr originated loans at an average rate of 13.43 per cent – up from an average rate of 11.54 per cent in the previous corresponding period. The overall portfolio yield rose from 9.75 per cent to 10.51 per cent. The re-pricing allowed it to achieve a small increase in its net interest margin. NIM rose from 5.23 per cent in the December half 2022 to 5.34 per cent in the latest half. Credit quality deteriorated a little. The arrears rate rose from 1.07 per cent to 1.31 per cent year-on-year. It wrote off $12.2 million of receivables, compared with $17.6 million in the 2022/23 year. Wisr has introduced a couple of product features to facilitate repayments. Borrowers can now make one-off additional payments and they can use a round-up facility to make payments. Goodwin said the company is satisfied that its current settings will allow it to maintain EBITDA profitability and he plans to restart loan volume growth in the June half.