Experian plc (EXPN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Experian's First Quarter Trading Update Webcast and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to our first speaker today, Mr. Brian Cassin, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much. Hello, everybody, and welcome to our Q1 trading update call. I'm here as usual with Lloyd, who will take you through the trading performance after my opening remarks. So organic revenue growth in Q1 was 7%, which is a very good result in line with our expectations. Total group revenue growth was 8% at constant currency and 7% at actual rates. So we started the year well, consistent with our expectations. It reflects successful execution of our growth strategy. A special call-out goes to Consumer Services, which achieved double-digit organic revenue growth and encouraging performance across all geographies, taking our total installed free membership base to over 185 million. Touching now on the regional Q1 highlights and starting with North America, which again showed sequential improvement overall, delivering organic revenue up 8%. Both B2B and Consumer Services delivered well, up 7% and 10%, respectively. B2B benefited from good balance across the portfolio, including strength across automotive and health. In CI and BI, we saw positive contributions from Experian Ascend and mortgage. The unsecured credit environment has not changed a lot since we last spoke with lending standards remaining tight, but with some signs now that delinquencies are approaching their peak. Automotive performance was helped by recovering new vehicle sales and increased dealer marketing activity, while Health delivered a very good start to the year for bookings, supported by our expanded product suite. Double-digit growth in Consumer Services is a great performance, which illustrates how diversified our platform has become. Progress in the insurance marketplace has been excellent. We've expanded our insurance panel and we're launching new features like insurance rate monitoring. And while credit market-based volumes are still soft, we're very confident of our market positioning for when credit recovery comes. Other revenue streams also contributed positively. We paid membership benefiting from higher enrollments, which follows the investments we've made into new features, and we've also had another good quarter of data-breach services wins. Turning now to Latin America, which delivered organic revenue growth of 5%. Overall, we continue to make a lot of strategic progress to introduce our integrated platforms and to new growth markets and expand our consumer propositions. It was a slower quarter from B2B, up 1% due to deal phasing and the recent floods in Brazil, and we expect an improved performance in Q2. The build-out of our fraud and analytical services is progressing well and with further progress in our agribusiness vertical. Consumer Services delivered a very strong quarter, up 24%. We've established multiple new revenue streams, which have steadily diversified the business and provide new avenues for growth. Q1 included strong contributions from payments and our credit marketplace while Limpa Nome also continues to perform well, benefiting from platform enhancements, for example, enabling consumers to view their debts in one place and make it easier to pay them off. U.K. & I delivered organic revenue growth of 2%, with B2B up 2% and Consumer Services up 4%. In B2B, growth is supported by our superior data quality, programs of new product introductions and through the proceeds of our platform strategy. Macro is still subdued with credit card vendors having been out of new credit origination for the best part of 18 months. There isn't a widespread pickup yet in new credit issuance with activity varying a lot by lender. U.K. Consumer Services has made very strong progress. We've made a lot of enhancements to our platform, which have enhanced the experience for both consumers and lenders, and it's driven growth across both subscription and marketplace. EMEA Asia Pacific has had a positive start to the year, delivering organic revenue growth of 7%. We continue our focus on generating high-quality revenue with a larger innovation contribution and less dependence on one-off software contracts. Also good to see growth in the quarter, fairly evenly spread across all of our focused markets. So with that, I'm now going to hand it over to Lloyd.

Thanks, Brian, and morning, everyone. As you've seen, we delivered good growth in line with our expectations for Q1 with organic revenue growth of 7%. We saw consistent growth in the U.S. Bureau, strong double-digit growth in North America Consumer Services, supported by the insurance marketplace and elevated data breach activity. Latin America Consumer Services also delivered another strong double-digit quarter. B2B globally grew by 5%, while B2C grew very well at 11%. Acquisitions added 1% to growth and exchange rates were a 1% headwind following some depreciation in the Brazilian real, meaning total revenue at actual exchange rates grew by 7%. Turning to the performance by region and starting with North America, where we delivered strong organic revenue growth of 8%, with 7% in B2B and double-digit growth in Consumer Services. Within B2B, the bureau, excluding mortgage profiles, grew 2% in the quarter. The performance of the core bureau was consistent with last year, remaining broadly in line with Q3. Credit conditions have remained stable and in line with our expectations. And as we mentioned back in May, there was some strong batch and archive activity during Q4, which was one-off in nature. Ascend delivered another double-digit quarter through both new client wins and growth of our existing client base. Mortgage profile revenue grew 37% on a volume decline of 12%, the difference coming from passing on the FICO price increase. And this takes total organic bureau growth to 6%. Elsewhere in data, Automotive had another strong quarter, growing 9% and targeting delivered good growth in a challenging market for off-line retailers as we added new logos in digital, which continued to grow double digit. Decisioning grew 8% organically with health growing 8%, following good growth in coverage discovery and claims products, just under half of the growth coming from new product innovation. And Decision Analytics grew well in the quarter as Fraud and ID delivered double-digit growth. In Consumer Services, Marketplace grew well, following the continued strength in our insurance proposition. Credit marketplace declined during the quarter similar to the trends we saw last year. Premium subscription delivered good growth following higher acquisition volumes and diversification of some new product introductions. And there were also some one-off data breach deals in the quarter, and we're seeing more activity here in recent quarters. But given the nature of the business, it's quite difficult to forecast. Moving on to Latin America, which grew 5% organically, with 1% growth in B2B and 24% in Consumer Services. In B2B, there was some deal phasing in the current and prior year within the Bureau. There was also an impact of the severe flooding in Rio Grande do Sul, which limited credit activity in the region. In our strategic focus areas outside the Bureau, we continue to see strong growth in fraud and ID following key client wins in the quarter. And our agribusiness also delivered double-digit growth with quite a number of new clients added during the quarter. And we expect more normalized levels of growth in B2B and Latin America in the second quarter. Consumer Services had another strong quarter with growth of 24%. Limpa Nome continued the trend of double-digit growth in our payments platform grew very strongly during the quarter. Turning to the UK&I, which grew 2% organically. B2B was up 2% with the bureau growing 4%. We continue to perform well in a subdued credit market with good contributions from Ascend and Fraud and ID. Consumer Services delivered organic growth of 4% with growth across both subscription and marketplace. I'm moving now on to EMEA/Asia Pacific, which grew 7% with good progress across most markets through a combination of a strong bureau performance in Southern Europe and growing innovation across the region. Looking now at our expectations. There are no changes from the outlook that we gave in May. So all outlook and expectations are unchanged. And with that, I'll hand you back to Brian.

Great. Thanks, Lloyd. And so in summary, we started the year really well with Q1 in high single digits, and we continue to make excellent strategic progress. Our prime focus is on investing behind a range of growth initiatives, several of which are adding materially to our performance. Unsecured credit is still a headwind, but this will reverse and when it does, it will increase our growth. We are on track to deliver our full year guidance and the medium-term outlook we previously shared. And finally, I would like to acknowledge the announcement today that Craig Boundy has decided to leave Experian and will step down as CEO -- as COO and from our Board in August. Craig is joining McAfee, the U.S.-based online protection company as their CEO. Craig has had a huge contribution to Experian. We're immensely proud of what we've achieved together. We wish Craig well on his next chapter of his career journey, and we thank him for everything that he's done at Experian. And with that, we'll open the line up for questions. So back to you, operator.

[Operator Instructions] Now we're going to take our first question and it comes from the line of Simona Sarli from Bank of America.

I have 3, please. So first of all, if you could please provide more color on the impact from flooding and contract phasing in Brazil? And what is supporting your conviction that growth might return to double digit from Q2 onwards? Secondly, if you can give a little bit more color on your expectations going into Q2 and the growth trajectory for the rest of the year? And in particular, what are the moving parts that might bring Experian to the low end of guidance, also considering the boost in -- that you are benefiting from the data breach solution versus the high end of your guidance? And the last question is related to the Supreme Court overturning in June, the Chevron doctrine. So if you can please elaborate on the implication from your point of view for the U.S. credit bureau factor and in particular, for Experian.

Okay. Lloyd, do you want to handle the guidance question and hand back for the supreme court.

Yes, sure. So I'll start with your second question, Simona, the expectations for the rest of the year, we expect each quarter to be in the 6% to 8% range. And if you look back, we've been pretty firmly in these levels with stable lending conditions, and we expect really to be there until we see a more broad-based recovery in lending. What might call the range, where we are in the range, it's really the things that would drive some variations. So if we see a drop off in the data breach activity, that's been quite firm that would put us in the lower end of the range, 6% to 7%. If we see it continuing firm, we'd probably be more likely in the middle of the range. And some other strengthening in some other bits of the portfolio would be probably what we would need to be at the top end of the range. But expectation just now is the middle of that range and in the range each quarter. In terms of Brazil, we were expecting a slower first quarter based on our forecast of the deal pipeline and deal phasing. What came on top of that was the weakness in relation to the flooding. If you've been watching the news, it's a very extensive flood in the south of the country across a huge area. So we think that the impact of the floods was somewhere between 1% and 2% of the Brazil growth rate. The underlying lending conditions in Brazil are progressing well. Lending volumes are growing. We have some caps and collars around volume growth in some of our contracts. So a number of our contracts are at the cap in terms of volume, and we have a good line of sight of those for the second quarter. So we expect that to come back to more normalized levels from the second quarter and for the full year, Brazil to grow very well double-digit. I think those were the first 2 questions. Brian, on the supreme court.

Yes. So I think on the supreme court, I mean I think you're referring to the decisions in Loper Bright, which really sort of looks at where the power resides between courts and regulatory agencies and how they can interpret federal law. I think in the short term, it doesn't really have much of an impact. I think in the longer term, we think it probably brings a bit more certainty into interpreting how federal law will be applied. And I think less variability in terms of some new rules that can be imposed by the agencies when there's lack of clarity. So I think summing it up, I think it's a good decision from our perspective in terms of understanding where we stand with respect to legislation and perhaps sort of giving a little bit less room for interpretation for new rules to be introduced by the regulators. So overall, pretty positive, I would say.

Now we are going to take our next question and the question comes from the line of Suhasini Varanasi from Goldman Sachs.

I just have one question, please. As we head into the first half results in November, can you please talk about the margin expansion phasing between first half and second half? And any FX drag that we need to think about on a reported basis?

In terms of FX, no change to the guide of 0% to 1%. I think we've started probably nearer with the 1%, given where we've seen a little bit of weakness in the Brazilian real. But we'll see how that progresses during the year. In terms of margin, we're obviously only a few weeks since we announced the enhanced margin progression in our midterm framework. We're very confident in our ability to deliver that within this revenue range. And as always, we manage margins quite closely to the full year. So I think we'll obviously report first half in November. But the underlying ability to control our margin within our framework, I think, is pretty high, and you've seen that in recent years.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from the line of Annelies Vermeulen from Morgan Stanley.

Brian and Lloyd, Annelies from Morgan Stanley. I have 2 questions, please. So firstly, on data breach, you clearly had another good quarter there, and I appreciate it's difficult to predict how that will pan out through the year. You've mentioned one-off deals in the quarter, which I think you've said in previous quarters as well. So I'm just curious that data breach activity, has that accelerated in Q1 relative to what you saw in Q3 and Q4? Or has it remained or continued roughly in the same sort of levels that we've seen in the last couple of quarters? And then my second question was just on acquisitions. I don't think you've announced anything new for Q1. But correct me if I'm wrong, so how is the pipeline looking for Q2 and beyond? Are you still confident in completing further deals in the current fiscal year?

Annelies, on data breach, what we saw the second half of last year was a step up in activity. And I think anybody reading the press, you've seen there's a lot of data-based intrusions into companies that we help support. So we saw outsized growth from Q3 last year, and it was contributing about 1% to group growth per quarter, and that's continued into the first quarter of this year. It's hard to forecast. If it carries on at this level, then -- which we've got every indication, it will, that's probably more likely in the middle of the range for Q2. If we see it soften, it's probably more in the 6% to 7% range. But it's hard to forecast, but we are seeing a period of elevated activity. And then our acquisitions, we've done a couple of small acquisitions in the first quarter, small bolt-ons. We acquired an insurance marketplace business, auto insurance marketplace business in Brazil, which we are following the strategy of being able to add on different products and services and now that we've built the audience and the consumer business and following the great success that we're having in North America, we've also added an employment and income verification business, small bolt-on also in Brazil. But those are very small bolt-ons. In terms of pipeline, strong. I think this is -- as we said, at the full year, this is a good time for us to have capacity as we've seen. I think valuations get to a more normalized level. And our focus will be, as you would expect, in the core areas of our business, anything with the data asset, anything where there's a fraud technology that we can distribute or anything that we can put on our consumer platform. So pipeline continues to be quite strong.

Now we're going to our next question, and it comes from the line of Sylvia Barker from JPMorgan.

One question left for me. Could you talk about the insurance marketplace? Could you maybe update us on the revenue run rate and the scale of the revenue growth that you're seeing at the moment?

Yes. Just a general comment, I think we're extremely pleased with how that's developing. It's sort of exceeding our expectations and it should. I think we talked a little bit about this at the year-end. I think some pretty significant milestones last year and building that out, and we're starting to see that come to fruition, really. Lloyd?

I think last year, we saw some particular product introductions in that marketplace where we're able to provide a very differentiated service to consumers that are searching for auto insurance. And we saw some major carriers go on to the marketplace for the first time. And the coming together of those things, you can see the progress we're making. Annualized run rate from the quarter is now up to $80 million. So it more than doubled in the quarter, so quite strong. As we've grown the carrier coverage, we've been growing out state by state as we went through the second half of the year. And I think what this shows is the power of the audience that we've built in our consumer business and the ability now to add different products and services to help consumers in their financial lives. In the membership product, I mentioned in my remarks, we've added some money-saving types of services, which have enhanced the inflow of new members into the subscription products. So now that we've built this audience, I think, will start to be a very powerful platform as we add new products and services.

The question comes from the line of Rory McKenzie from UBS.

It's Rory here. Two, please. Firstly, on the lending conditions in the U.S. overall, which you described as a stable. I think, it's about where you've been for a year now. Can you share any more detail on the clients or market segments? For example, what's happening in those lower deciles of consumers as delinquencies have picked up recently? And then secondly, just a follow-up on that last question from Sylvia. Can you give us some more stats on the U.S. consumer audience? What is the total number of active users you have in the U.S.? And can you say how many individuals have engaged with the insurance marketplace so far?

I think there's really no change in terms of lending conditions. I don't think even when we think back, it's only about 8 or 9 weeks since we spoke to you. So really, there's nothing material to add. What we see is -- and I think you can see this from the macro stats, a few more tick up and slight tick up in delinquencies at the lower end of the credit spectrum, but nothing really significant. And we see stabilization across the rest of the piece, but no material acceleration at this stage. And I don't think that we're going to see that in the short term. I think that needs a bit more time to play out, but play out, it definitely will, and we expect that to come back. So from our perspective, this really is just a timing thing. Lloyd mentioned, I think in Brazil, where we actually -- despite the fact that B2B was weaker in Q1 for some one-off factors, we actually are seeing volumes starting to move in the right direction in Brazil, which easy to forget that in '24, we had a very strong performance in Brazil, but actually the underlying credit conditions were quite difficult. So that's potentially a very important development on the horizon. And I think even when we look across the U.K., it's also significant to see that the marketplace in the U.K. has started to move into positive territory, which tells you that there is credit issuance starting to happen again. It's not widespread, it's patchy. It's not consistent across the piece, but we think that's a bit of an early sign. So I think overall, we feel okay where we are. We think it is more or less the same, but maybe a few green shoots here and there.

And then on auto insurance, Rory, we've been rolling out to incremental states. And just last week, we launched a major new advertising campaign for the insurance portal. So we'll let that progress over the summer, and we'll give you some more stats around how it's progressing probably at the half year, but we're really pleased with progress. We think the product is very differentiated. The ability for a consumer in some areas and with some bits of the product to be able to do the three-click apply for an insurance product to do real-time monitoring of comparator rates on the insurance hub, it's a very differentiated product. And as we get all the state coverage completed, more carriers onboard, I think we're quite excited about how it will continue to grow. But more detail probably at the half year.

Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Ripper from Liberum.

I've just got 2 small follow-ups, really. Just building on Rory's questions about the macro. I think I'm right in saying your 6% to 8% guidance for this year is largely based off sort of self-driven factors. You've not assumed any improved -- any particular improvement in credit conditions. Just wondering what your view is in terms of how reductions in interest rates may affect the business, not necessarily just the next couple of quarters, but over the medium term?

Yes. Well, I mean, obviously, I think interest rates -- reducing interest rates were going to be a beneficial impact from the business because it's going to have a positive impact on credit issuance. But I think we also need to look at the cycle, how this works. As interest rates increase, there was a sort of a delayed impact. And I expect as interest rates decrease, there will also be a delay -- a bit of a delayed impact. But I think what you would say is credit conditions are the same, but again, the credit industry remains in a very good position. And I think, as we said in May, people are sort of looking and anticipating and waiting to see what gives them the confidence to actually start moving forward. There are signs that some people are arguing that. But as I said, it's not widespread. And so that's why we say sort of conditions are more or less the same as they were. But I mean, ultimately, Andrew, you're right, as interest rates decrease, we will start to see that activity pick up. And it's difficult to pin that down to a quarter, but it's inevitable, that will happen.

Yes, I think there's no typical cycle. When you look back from the point that you see the first reduction in base rates, anywhere between 9 and 18 months until you see very broad-based recovery in origination activity. But it's hard to forecast. There isn't really a typical cycle. So that's why we think it isn't this year. We think it's next year to start seeing that. But we'll obviously see what happens as we start to move into a more reducing rate environment.

And then second question, just coming back to insurance. You mentioned Lloyd, the run rate is up to $80 million now. What sort of visibility do you have or expectations do you have for how that might evolve over the next 12 months or so in terms of where the run rate could get to?

Yes. I think this is the power actually of having established an audience and being relevant to consumers in their financial life. What we've proved out is that a credit intent membership base that we've built actually can convert into other areas of financial well-being, including insurance. I think to do that, you have to have products, and you have to be able to talk to people with something that's unique, and we think we can do that. I think we'll have more information on that, Andrew, as the year progresses. We've been building out the state-by-state coverage, building out the panel, and we've just launched this advertising campaign. So I think we'll know a bit more. We'll have a bit more visibility of that as we come into the half year. But we're certainly well ahead of the expectations that we had when we developed the product and we signed the other partnerships this time last year.

Okay. So maybe a bit more color on that at the interims. And then just coming back to breach. Obviously, it's been a significant benefit. I think you called it out as a 1 percentage point benefit for the last couple of quarters. Can you just reaffirm that? And then maybe just in terms of sort of how the revenue is recognized and the nature of the support that you're providing to people that might have been affected by a breach. Does it tend to be just for sort of 3 to 6 months? Or do you have a bit more visibility on that? And how does that relate to how you recognize revenue on those bridge-related deals?

Yes. It's two types of deals, I would say. There are a very small number of very long-term deals. These are very large, very public deals where the support would be for somewhere 5 to 8 years. That revenue tends to be recognized over the period because it's quite a long-dated nature of the support. For other deals, they tend to be shorter. And we look at -- we recognize revenue based on our cost curve. So there's a lot of cost upfront where we onboard clients and consumers that are supportive. So it tends to be quite a front-end loaded revenue recognition. So maybe a 1-year deal or a 2-year deal with the majority of revenue in the first 2 quarters. So that's why it can be a bit lumpy.

Now we're going to next question. And the question comes from the line of Arthur Truslove from Citi.

Just a couple of questions for me, please. I can see that the U.S. mortgage business has done extremely well. And in terms of organic growth, obviously, that's pricing-driven to compensate for what FICO has done. I guess, firstly on that, is it right to think that your strategy remains to sort of maintain gross margin? And how should we think about the margin implications of a scenario where volume is down, I think you said 12% and obviously, pricing is up around 50% or so. So that's the first question. Second question, I don't think you've precisely provided it, but are you able to just give us an idea of the growth of the different verticals within consumer. So obviously, the subscription, you obviously mentioned the insurance has done really well and then a bit more precision on the consumer lending vertical as well.

Yes, I can do that. This is inside North America. So subscription growth was at the low end of mid-single digit. We released some new money saving products. This is a subscription manager hub that's resonated very well. So inflow of new consumers has been quite strong this last quarter. That takes a little while to feed through into revenue. So that was good. Credit marketplace was down about 10%, which is where it's been for the last few quarters, and that's really the soft lending environment. The insurance marketplace more than doubled, given my comments earlier and then very strong growth in data breach. In terms of U.S. mortgage, the volume continues to be weak. So down, as I mentioned, 12%, we think, for the second quarter, a similar sort of volume weakness, but with price bringing -- it's clearly a higher-margin vertical for us, but it's very small. So yes, it's a good margin, but it doesn't really move the needle at a group level given its size. But we remain very confident in the overall enhanced margin framework that we announced a few weeks ago. And that's all taken account of in that margin guidance.

Now we're going to take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Ryan Flight from Jefferies.

Just two for me, please. So firstly, on health, you're obviously quite strong there. Just wondered if you could give us some more color. So have you won some new mandates of new hospitals or any particular trends that stand out? And then number two, if you could give us a bit more color on EMEA/APAC, particularly Australia and New Zealand and I've obviously got some interest with illion there. So some more color would be helpful, please.

So I'll start with Health. Health continues to grow well, as you can see, that we have quite a high penetration in terms of physician practices and hospitals of about 2/3 of them. So most of the growth comes from, I think I mentioned this in my remarks, new innovations and growing out the services to the existing client base rather than the new wins. Some of our competitors have had some trivial in the last 6 months, which is helping with new customer acquisitions. So we're quite hopeful for continued progress in health. On EMEA/APAC, good growth across the region. Actually, we're seeing particular strength in -- you mentioned Australia and New Zealand in the decisioning area there where we've got a very strong position and that we built up over time. And we obviously announced some time ago, the proposed acquisition of another bureau there, which we're still going through the regulatory approvals for and we'd expect some more news on that about the middle of the year. But good progress, very stable performance actually across EMEA/Asia Pacific over the last 18 months.

Now we're going to next question. And the question comes from the line of James Rose from Barclays.

I've just got one on LatAm B2B, if I may. Could you help us understand the lumpiness in growth rates and contract signings that we see across different quarters? For example, data and decisioning activity in Q4 was really strong last year. So why isn't there a more obvious carryover into the first quarter from those signings? If you can help us understand that, that would be great.

I think if you think about the business, James, you have the core volumetric bid of the business. A lot of the contracts we have in Latin America have caps and collars. So you've seen quite a lot of good volume growth in Brazil over the last 18 months. You have a number of contracts now that are capped out in terms of the volume and a number of those renew in the second quarter, so we expect to see that release. And then in terms of the bundles, we're increasingly signing mixes of bundles across data and decisioning, which has some lumpy recognition and some ratable recognition. So it's just really the mix of that set of clients plus the caps and collars in the contract that means that the phasing can be a little lumpy. We expected that in Q1. Obviously, the floods, we didn't expect. So the two coming together gives us a slightly weaker position in Q1, but we'll be back to high single digit, low double digit for the rest of the year.

Now we're going to take our next question, and it comes from the line of Simon Clinch from Redburn Atlantic.

I've just got 2. I just wanted to circle back to the U.S. core CI bureau growth ex mortgage. And I was just wondering if you could help us think about the -- given the environment we're in and given the performance you delivered in the fourth quarter, what sources -- I mean is there potential for those contributors to the outsized growth in the fourth quarter that happen at any time during this year? Or is that something we need to think about as well? So maybe we can start with that. And then second -- my second question is about Brazil. I just wondering if you could just comment on the competitive environment there, if we see any real changes, any competitors staring to improve their performance, if that even features on your radar?

Let's deal with Brazil first since it's a pretty simple answer. No, we don't see any change to the competitive environment there, so we continue to progress our business very well. I think Lloyd can add probably a bit more detail on that. I think it's worth remembering that we do tend to perform more strongly in the back half of the year than in the first half of the year. And I think that's reflected and we called it out in May and in terms of Q4. Some of that is due to contract renewals and so on. But Lloyd, why don't you give more color on that?

Yes. I think there are a number of different types of business that we do. Some of it is one-off in nature, things like archives and retro jobs that we do and look back. And if you think about the sales team, I mentioned this in the fourth quarter, if they're pushing for the line, often in the fourth quarter, you can have an enhanced sale of some of those more one-off type of activity. If you exclude that, you look back at the CIBI, excluding mortgage, Q1 last year, we were 2%, Q2, 2%; Q3, 3% Q4-Q1, 2%. So we've been very firmly in this very stable soft lending environment now for 15, 18 months. And our expectation is that continues until you see a broader-based recovery. And that's all embedded in the 6% to 8% guidance that we had. Can you see one-off income at any time? Yes, of course. It's just not what we're forecasting. And I think to get out of this range, I think you need to see a broader improvement in lending conditions. So that's how we're thinking at the moment.

Thank you. Now we're going to take our final question for today, and the question comes from the line of Ben Wild from Deutsche Bank.

Apologies in some respects to come back again to the soft and stable lending environment that you described. But Lloyd, I think you talked previously about just over $1 billion of revenue being short term and volumetric in nature and perhaps more variable in the very short term. When you talk about the soft and stable lending environment, are you implying that revenue is still falling at stable growth rates? Or are you staying that within that batch revenue growth rate starting to flatten? And kind of as an adjunct, what absolute level of growth are you seeing in that batch of revenue? And given the stable environment you described, when would you expect the growth rate to start flattening out?

So I think the way I would best describe it is whilst in aggregate, it's stable. It continues to be quite volatile at an individual lender level, and that tells you that there's no broad aligned sentiment in the market. You see individual lenders come in and go out of origination activity at different times. And you can see that probably most clearly in the marketplace inside consumer services, where we're still down 10% in the first quarter. In our core bureau where we have more of a weighting to Tier 1 and more of a weighting to prime, you can see that we're more stable at about flat volumes now. So I think within a range that we're able to forecast. We expect this to continue for some time. And I don't think we're expecting to see any material change from that. So obviously, we'll keep you up-to-date as we go through the quarters. But I think 6% to 8% is as good a guide as I can give just now until we see something more broader happen to the lending environment.

There are no further questions for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker, Brian Cassin, for any closing remarks.

Well, thanks, everybody, for joining today, and thanks for all the questions. Hope you all have a good day, and we look forward to speaking to you again in November for our half year results. Thank you.

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now all disconnect. Have a nice day.