HealthEquity Q1 2027 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
May 28, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: HealthEquity said first-quarter results showed strong execution, with revenue up 7% year over year, Adjusted EBITDA margin expanding to 46%, and fiscal 2027 guidance raised across revenue and profitability metrics.
  • Positive Sentiment: The company highlighted solid account and asset growth, including total HSA assets up 19% and total HSA growth of 8%, outpacing Devenir’s reported market growth of 6% for calendar 2025.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management emphasized growing member engagement through investing and Marketplace, noting HSA investors rose 18%, invested assets grew 38%, and mobile monthly active usage increased 90% year over year.
  • Positive Sentiment: HealthEquity said AI and automation are lowering service costs and improving efficiency, including a 25% reduction in manual handling of service emails and more than 90% automation in certain workflows.
  • Neutral Sentiment: The company increased its share repurchase authorization by $1 billion and said it remains confident in long-term cash generation, while also preserving flexibility for debt reduction and potential acquisitions.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
HealthEquity Q1 2027
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good day, Welcome to the HealthEquity first quarter 2027 earnings call. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Richard Putnam. Please go ahead, sir.

Richard Putnam
Richard Putnam
Investor Relations at HealthEquity

Thank you, Chuck. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us this afternoon, HealthEquity's first quarter fiscal 2027 earnings conference call. My name is Richard Putnam. I do investor relations for HealthEquity, and joining me today are Scott Cutler, President and CEO, Dr. Steve Neeleman, Vice Chair and founder of the company, and James Lucania, Executive Vice President and CFO. A press release announcing our first quarter financial results was issued after the market closed this afternoon and includes certain non-GAAP financial measures that we will reference. You can find a copy of today's press release, including reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures with comparable GAAP measures, on our investor relations website, ir.healthequity.com. Our comments and responses to your questions reflect management's view as of today, May 28th, 2026, and will contain forward-looking statements as defined by the SEC, including predictions, expectations, estimates, and other information that might be considered forward-looking.

Richard Putnam
Richard Putnam
Investor Relations at HealthEquity

There are many important factors relating to our business which could affect our results. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause our actual results to differ materially from statements made here today. We caution against placing undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. We encourage you to review the discussion of these factors and other risks that may affect our future results or the market price of our stock, as detailed in our latest annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent periodic reports filed with the SEC. We assume no obligation to revise or update these forward-looking statements in light of new information or future events. With that, let's go over to Scott.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Thank you, Richard, and welcome everyone. Our first quarter results demonstrate disciplined execution against our mission and the strength of HealthEquity's financial model. We delivered higher profitability, expanded Adjusted EBITDA margin to 46%, and are raising our fiscal 2027 guidance. The execution of our strategy alongside accelerating growth is reinforcing confidence in the long-term growth outlook for the business. That confidence is reflected in our raised fiscal 2027 guidance and disciplined capital allocation, including our decision to increase our share repurchase authorization by $1 billion. Healthcare affordability remains among the biggest financial challenges families face, while rising healthcare costs are driving a structural shift among employers that continues to expand the overall market. Against that backdrop, this quarter's results reflect our ability to empower healthcare consumers while driving operational leverage and durable growth across the business. HealthEquity is not simply an administrator.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

We operate a scaled healthcare financial platform that connects accounts, assets, payments, investing, Marketplace, digital engagement, investment advisory capabilities, and service. Our strategy is to make that platform the healthcare financial operating system for members and clients, expanding the value of each relationship while improving efficiency as we scale. In the quarter, we outpaced industry account growth, grew assets, deepened engagement, and applied technology and AI to improve service speed, strength, and security, and lower cost to serve. At a high level, our growth is driven by two forces working together, growth in accounts and assets, and expansion in lifetime value of each member relationship. Together, these support durable compounding as accounts mature. Let me start with account growth. The structural challenge of healthcare affordability continues to support demand for HSAs and healthcare financial solutions.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

As more costs shift to consumers, employers and members need better ways to prepare for, manage, and pay for healthcare. We believe this dynamic supports long-term category growth. The HSA remains the entry point to a long-duration financial relationship. In the first quarter, total HSA assets grew 19%. New HSAs from sales grew 15%, introducing 172,000 new HSAs to our platform. Importantly, we bent the growth curve with total HSA growth of 8%, outperforming Devenir's reported market growth of 6% for calendar year 2025. We are encouraged by the early momentum in our selling season. Client retention remains strong, and we continue to see opportunities to win new clients and expand existing relationships. Our data and analytics capabilities are an important differentiator as clients look for ways to improve adoption, increase contributions, and manage healthcare costs over the long term.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

While account growth remains an important entry point, it is only one driver of our business. That brings me to engagement. Members are engaging more deeply as they save, spend, and invest. That engagement expands the value of each relationship over time. Marketplace is an emerging driver of engagement. Marketplace is helping more than 10,000 members access health-related programs and products. This month, we expanded into diagnostics and men's health. We expect Marketplace to become an increasingly meaningful contributor to the lifetime value of each member. On investing, HSA investors grew 18%, and invested assets held by our HSA members grew 38%, with only about 10% of HSAs using the full tax benefits of investing industry-wide. This represents a substantial long-term opportunity. As a reminder, investors tend to hold larger balances, exhibit higher engagement, have higher average contributions and spending over time.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Over the past year, we've significantly expanded digital engagement with mobile monthly active usage increasing by 90% year-over-year, and in the quarter, over two-thirds of Marketplace transactions occurred through our mobile app, underscoring our long-term strategy to deliver an engaging, secure, and trusted digital experience that meets members where they are. Together, account growth, asset growth, engagement, Marketplace, and investing support a flywheel that expands value per member and strengthens the durability of our revenue engine. The third part of this story is efficiency. We're applying technology and AI to improve the member experience, strengthen security, and lower cost to serve. We view AI as an operational amplifier. In the quarter, AI-driven tools reduced manual handling of member and client service emails by 25%, improving response times and lowering workload.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

In certain targeted workflows, such as card servicing and claims inquiries, AI-enabled automation reduced manual efforts by more than 90% and accelerated processing times by up to 50%. AI-enabled self-service and automation contributed to more than 50,000 fewer card-related service center contacts. Fraud remained below target, card acceptance improved, and fraud costs declined nearly 90% compared with the first quarter of last year. For members, that means fewer calls and faster access. For clients, less administrative complexity. For HealthEquity, a more scalable operating model. As we scale, revenue driven by assets and transaction activity enhances durability and visibility.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

As accounts mature, they become more economically meaningful, reducing reliance on new account volumes in any single year. Taken together, these dynamics reflect our evolution beyond administration to a healthcare financial operating system that helps members and clients address healthcare affordability while expanding value per member and improving efficiency over time. With that, I'll turn it over to Jim to walk through our first quarter financial results, the drivers of our margin expansion, and our raised fiscal 2027 outlook.

James Lucania
James Lucania
EVP and CFO at HealthEquity

Thanks, Scott. Hey, everyone. I'll review our first quarter FY 2027 GAAP and non-GAAP financial results. Reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP measures are included in today's press release. First quarter revenue increased 7% year-over-year. Service revenue was a record $122.9 million, up 3% year-over-year, supported in part by Marketplace activity. Custodial revenue grew 11% to a record $174.3 million. Annualized yield on HSA cash was 3.84%, reflecting higher replacement rates, increased participation in enhanced rates, and a one-time breakage fee from a depository partner that exited a custodial cash contract early. Excluding this one-time revenue, our annualized yield on HSA cash would have been 3.78%. Interchange revenue grew 5% to $57.4 million, reflecting higher member spend and transaction activity. Gross profit was a record $256.3 million, or 72% of revenue, compared to 68% in the first quarter last year.

James Lucania
James Lucania
EVP and CFO at HealthEquity

Service costs included approximately $0.3 million of fraud reimbursements to members, down from approximately $3.2 million in the first quarter last year, reflecting improved fraud prevention and detection capabilities and higher adoption of our secure mobile tools. Net income was $69.4 million, or $0.82 per diluted share on a GAAP basis. non-GAAP net income was $105.1 million, or $1.24 per diluted share. Adjusted EBITDA was $164.5 million, up 17% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA was 46% of revenue, compared to 42% in the first quarter last year. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $265 million in cash, generated $98 million of operating cash flow, and had approximately $943 million of debt outstanding net of issuance costs. During the quarter, we accelerated our share purchase program, buying approximately $123 million of our outstanding shares. This week, the board increased our share purchase authorization by $1 billion.

James Lucania
James Lucania
EVP and CFO at HealthEquity

We expect to remain an active buyer of our shares while the market continues to, in our opinion, undervalue our consistent revenue growth and margin expansion. Before discussing our raised guidance, I want to briefly address the HSA cash maturity schedule included in today's earnings release. We have $3.2 billion of remaining HSA cash contracts maturing in fiscal 2027, weighted toward the back half of the year. We also have forward treasury contracts outstanding that effectively lock in five-year treasury rates at approximately 3.9% net of costs on $3.5 billion of maturities across fiscal years 2027 through 2029. With current five-year treasury yields higher than our average locked forward rates, we remind you that the purpose of this program is to reduce volatility and narrow the range of potential outcomes tied to movements in the five-year treasury benchmark.

James Lucania
James Lucania
EVP and CFO at HealthEquity

Because these forward contracts are tied to future depository contract maturities, we'll have greater visibility into the economics of custodial cash placements into enhanced rates contracts. We'll continue to evaluate additional forward hedges as appropriate. We now expect average yield on HSA cash will be approximately 3.85% during fiscal 2027. As a reminder, our custodial yield assumptions are based on projected HSA cash deployments and rollovers, schedule of which is contained in today's release, as well as analysis of forward-looking market indicators such as the secured overnight financing rate and mid-duration Treasury forward curves. These indicators are subject to change and may not accurately predict future market conditions.

James Lucania
James Lucania
EVP and CFO at HealthEquity

Our raised fiscal 2027 guidance reflects the expected carryforward of the trajectories for revenue and margins the remainder of this year, including technology and security investments to drive operational efficiencies, Marketplace adoption and expansion, and reduced volatility of yield placements this year benefiting from our rate lock program. For fiscal 2027, we now expect revenue between $1.41 and $1.42 billion. GAAP net income of $242 million-$248 million, or $2.88-$2.95 per share. Non-GAAP net income of $392 million-$398 million, or $4.66 and $4.73 per share, based upon an estimated 84 million shares outstanding for the year. Adjusted EBITDA between $625 and $633 million. We continue to invest in protecting our members' assets and data while providing them with a remarkable experience. Our guidance also reflects expected capital allocation activity, including additional share repurchases under the expanded authorization and potential reductions in revolver borrowings during the fiscal year.

James Lucania
James Lucania
EVP and CFO at HealthEquity

With continued strong cash flows and revolver availability, we expect to maintain ample capacity for portfolio acquisitions should attractive opportunities become available. We assume a GAAP and a non-GAAP income tax rate of approximately 25%. As in prior periods, our fiscal 2027 guidance includes a reconciliation of GAAP to the non-GAAP metrics provided in the earnings release. Definitions of these items are included at the end of the earnings release. In addition, while amortization of acquired intangible assets is being excluded from non-GAAP net income, the revenue generated from those acquired intangible assets is included. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Our first question for today will come from Stan Berenstain with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Stan Berenstain
Stan Berenstain
Analyst at Wells Fargo

Yes. Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. 1st, on Marketplace, would just love your thoughts on the strategic reinvestment there. Just, I don't know, not to make this a multiple choice question here, but what's the gating function for you to start investing in sales or marketing to drive Marketplace? Is it broader app adoption? Is it more products within Marketplace? What's the gating function there? Thank you.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Yeah. There's really no gating function because it's not a channel that's dependent on marketing spend like other e-commerce sites would be. It actually starts with engagement, Stan. In driving that, we need to get people into the mobile experience. Marketplace is available in mobile and on the portal experience. We want to drive engagement to our monthly active users, and then to be able to expose those members to the Marketplace opportunities. As we look at where we're at, Q4 was just a proof of concept on Marketplace. Q1 was about scaling the foundations, which included expanding the footprint of how visible it is across the interface, enhanced capabilities around MarTech, which is really just marketing to our existing members, and then adding new programs.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

We added TRT and diagnostics into the Marketplace. Again, as we look at how that grows over time, it really is how we are converting our active members that are captive to HealthEquity into the Marketplace experience. That really is just, again, driven by, first and foremost, getting them into the digital experience.

Stan Berenstain
Stan Berenstain
Analyst at Wells Fargo

Got it. That's helpful. For the follow-up, maybe on services, it was nice to see progress on services gross margins. Obviously, you have some easy comps there versus last year, excluding those, can you just update us on the progress you're seeing in AI automation and the efficiencies they're unlocking and maybe how that may progress through the balance of this year? Thank you.

James Lucania
James Lucania
EVP and CFO at HealthEquity

We're really pleased with the progress that we've made around improving our service cost per account, which is really the metric that we're driving across our teams. We're driving that first and foremost by reducing contacts. Reducing contacts is purely a reflection of the quality of the product experience that we're delivering principally to our members and making sure that those experiences are seamless, and that their ability to get a response can be driven by more self-service and automation. When we look at the gains that we have experienced over the last year, we're seeing call reductions associated with reduced fraud, call reductions associated with no longer needing your password because you've adopted passkey, automating journeys, like replacing a card, checking a balance.

James Lucania
James Lucania
EVP and CFO at HealthEquity

Increasingly more claims automation. Collectively, the reduction of contacts, the automation of those contacts is what drives efficiencies. We actually still believe, while we've made great progress year-over-year, that we have so much more to go. That opportunity is going to continue to be unlocked by more and more of those journeys and those experiences, in self-service, in real time, in a digital experience, as well as just improving the overall quality of the service that we provide. Thanks, Stan.

Stan Berenstain
Stan Berenstain
Analyst at Wells Fargo

Thank you.

Operator

The next question will come from Gregory Peters with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Gregory Peters
Gregory Peters
Managing Director at Raymond James

Well, good afternoon, everyone. Hey, I wanted to kind of stick on the AI theme. You talked about some of the substantial progress that you've reported as a result of AI adoption. I was just curious how this might manifest itself, like, in when I'm looking in your statement of cash flows, looking at the software and capitalized software development costs. Because I guess, Scott, at some point, I would anticipate that this investment phase in AI would yield some savings on the expense side in that area or category.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

You mean in tech and dev?

Gregory Peters
Gregory Peters
Managing Director at Raymond James

Yes.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Yeah. Okay. A couple of things. As we introduce more AI into these journeys, we're obviously seeing the cost reduction associated with that. The offset can be token usage and our use of compute to be able to drive that. Now, while we are seeing that increase of cost associated with token use in our company, we're keeping that within the framework of our percentage of revenue associated with tech and dev, which we believe across all of our lines, sales and marketing, G&A, tech and dev, that we're going to continue to be able to drive operating efficiency even with some of that spend shift happening. Again, we think of our spend overall within the envelope of tech and dev.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

I think, again, speaking to the opportunity I highlighted in my remarks, across journeys that we're automating, we're seeing that manual process or that time to resolve being reduced by 90%. The effort associated with a member getting resolution, being able to be resolved automatically, seamlessly, self-service. These are significant improvements in the member journey. I'd say the other two areas that I would highlight where we're barely in the first inning, I'd say first pitch, is really in client integrations. That's kind of that second bucket within the service cost. In the back office in claims automation, where we have millions of claims over the course of the year, we're still at the very beginning of that journey, introducing AI in those areas. We're very excited about what we're seeing.

Gregory Peters
Gregory Peters
Managing Director at Raymond James

Yeah. I'm going to pivot for my follow-up question just to the balance sheet and capital management initiatives, including the stock repurchase. One of the line items I track and pay attention to is the cash and cash equivalents that you guys are holding at the company quarter to quarter and year-to-year. Even as the company has grown, both with accounts in revenue and earnings, not seeing a corresponding increase in the demand or the necessary need to hold on to more cash at the holdco level to cover costs. I was wondering maybe if you could sort of bridge the gap on what the cash requirements are. Maybe they're coming down because of these improved efficiencies, but that's sort of what I wanted to focus on for my second question. Thanks for the answers, by the way.

James Lucania
James Lucania
EVP and CFO at HealthEquity

Yeah, maybe I can take that one. Yeah, regulated entities are pretty light at HealthEquity. We're not a bank, right? This massive capital requirement that you'd expect to grow with assets just doesn't exist in the company as it's currently formed. Sure, our trust company has capital requirements, and our registered investment advisor will have some capital requirements. Yeah, you shouldn't think of it like a financial or an insurance company with this massive regulatory capital that would grow significantly with scale.

James Lucania
James Lucania
EVP and CFO at HealthEquity

I think in the history of the company has sort of sat with lots of excess cash and there's less of a need to do so going forward. Yeah, this is probably the lowest cash number that you've seen in a little bit. Just read into that as a function of we haven't had to drive every last $ of discipline out of the cash, but have the ability to do so. Obviously, we repurchased more shares than we planned, and that's why we had the flexibility to do that without having to borrow. Thanks, Greg.

Operator

The next question will come from Allen Lutz with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Allen Lutz
Allen Lutz
Senior Equity Research Analyst of Healthcare Technology and Distribution at Bank of America

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. One for Jim, to follow up on Stan's question on the service cost line item here. It was much better than I think the Street expected. Even if you back out about $3 million of fraud from last year, it was still down. The service costs were down about $6 million year-over-year. Is there anything that's one-time in the first quarter here? As we think about the trajectory for the rest of the year, how should we think about taking that $6 million and applying it as an improvement? Is there anything we should contemplate as we think about the improvement you're seeing within that line item? Thanks.

James Lucania
James Lucania
EVP and CFO at HealthEquity

Thanks for that question. If you read the details in the Q, we do highlight one particular area, and whether it's one time or not, we will see. Relative to what we guided to, our medical claim usage utilization for our teammates was way down and below our expectations. We have pushed that beat back out into the forecast. In talking to our outside advisor, talking to our contacts at the various payers, this appears to be a phenomenon seen across the market, and we are not declaring victory on that. Right?

James Lucania
James Lucania
EVP and CFO at HealthEquity

I don't have any particular intel that says my 2,800 people are miraculously much healthier than they were three months ago when we had the last medical claims forecast. Just in the service line alone, that was about $2 million of the year-over-year improvement. That just feels seasonal to me. Our current expectation is that cost is going to come back. We pushed that beat back out into the forecast, and hopefully that proves to be conservative. Nothing has changed in the cost assumptions that the actuaries are telling our corporate clients to expect.

Allen Lutz
Allen Lutz
Senior Equity Research Analyst of Healthcare Technology and Distribution at Bank of America

Okay. Really interesting.

James Lucania
James Lucania
EVP and CFO at HealthEquity

Us included. Yeah. Ourselves included. Yes.

Allen Lutz
Allen Lutz
Senior Equity Research Analyst of Healthcare Technology and Distribution at Bank of America

Okay. Thanks for that, Jim. As a follow-up.

James Lucania
James Lucania
EVP and CFO at HealthEquity

The rest is real beat. The rest is real year-over-year efficiency. Yeah. Super strong.

Allen Lutz
Allen Lutz
Senior Equity Research Analyst of Healthcare Technology and Distribution at Bank of America

Perfect. Then, for my follow-up here, around the Marketplace, you mentioned more than 10,000 members utilizing that, which I think could be low millions of revenue. Can you remind us, is that Marketplace revenue in the guide as of the update here? Thanks.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Yeah.

James Lucania
James Lucania
EVP and CFO at HealthEquity

Yeah. Go ahead, Scott

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Jim, you can speak to the guide. I can

James Lucania
James Lucania
EVP and CFO at HealthEquity

Yeah. That exit rate is reflected in our outlook now. Scott can speak to the rest of that question.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Yeah. Allen, when we look at that, we crossed over well over 10,000, actually. I think when you look at it, and you look at it over time in building that model from a member perspective, it's going to be how many members are transacting in the Marketplace, what are they transacting in? Do they stay in those programs? If you look at the five things that we have in the program today, men's and women's health, metabolic through GLP, Oura Ring, diagnostics, each of those have a different revenue profile, and a fee profile associated with that. I think we're still very pleased with what we're seeing at launch, and quite frankly, the week-on-week growth of participating members in the Marketplace that we're experiencing.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Just last week, when we launched diagnostics and men's health, we saw a very rapid uptake in the absence of any marketing rhythm against it, just introducing new tiles into the Marketplace, which again, gives us a significant amount of confidence that even the adoption curve of our early products in Marketplaces are being followed by other programs as we add them into the Marketplace. Thanks, Allen.

Operator

Your next question will come from Sean Dodge with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Sean Dodge
Sean Dodge
Equity Research Analyst and Managing Director of Healthcare Tech and Services at BMO Capital Markets

Yeah. Thanks. Good afternoon. Maybe just on the app downloads now, and Scott, you talked about the flywheel effect of all this starting to kind of have. With the new app users, when we think about the app and how it mitigates customer service costs, it increases engagement, also provides you the conduit for the Marketplace. If we add all of those things up, is there a way to kind of quantify, how does an app user compare economically, both in terms of the revenue benefits and the cost benefits? How does an app user compare economically to a non-app user?

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

It's not exact, but in terms like right now, there are a few features in the app that allow you to, for example, activate a card with the push of a button, as an example. As the app develops over time, and this is one of our key product priorities, is bringing together all of our products into one single app, powered by AI, powered by personalization, including self-service across all of our different service functions. Be able to do that digitally. That will come at a lower cost because you're able to self-serve a lot of those things. Going to engagement is a really important part of driving lifetime value. When you look at two-thirds of our transactions happening on app in the Marketplace, that's an example of driving lifetime value.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

As you look at our ability to drive investors, certainly the significant growth that we had in investors on a year-over-year basis, is really driven by enrollment through the app, ad enrollment, to be able to get you to sign up and become an investor very early on. As we introduced new experiences in that flow on the app, we saw improvements there. I see it as both a service and a revenue benefit. The revenue, again, being more of the engagement flywheel for all of that means, and all of the different areas where we drive lifetime value. Service being able to introduce AI, self-service, education, and help right into the app experience.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Again, when we can do that, it's also part of that flywheel, because if you're going to the app for self-service, then you're actually seeing the other things that we can offer and provide. That, in a nutshell, is the digital strategy.

Sean Dodge
Sean Dodge
Equity Research Analyst and Managing Director of Healthcare Tech and Services at BMO Capital Markets

Okay. That's great. Maybe just going back to the Marketplace, you said well over 10,000 members now. I know you said there's some variation in terms of what people can participate in, or the different programs. Is there anything you can share more specifically around how much revenue is Marketplace contributing now? The three initial programs you launched, the Oura Ring, the GLPs, and the HRC, is there one of those in particular you're kind of seeing most traction with?

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

We're not breaking out Marketplace revenue at this time. I think it'll be a while before it's material relative to our overall revenue. It will actually show up in service revenue. I think of our three earliest programs, metabolic health through access to weight loss is the most active program. The economics, in terms of administrative fee per member, $90- $100 per member, per month participating in that program. That's our most robust program. You just do the member math on that. As long as they stay on, that's a very active program. I will say, even though it's new, adding in men's health through TRT just in a week, we're seeing actually very significant daily adoption already at a very aggressive growth curve.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

That, while not as large of an economic opportunity as maybe more of a longer-term subscription, that will likely be longer lasting than potentially weight loss. The economics of that are north of $50 per participating member per month. Again, as we develop this over time, we will have other areas in Marketplace. For example, we are part of and will be launching Oura Ring 5 next week, which we're excited about, and we're receiving a per transaction charge associated with that. Diagnostics, as another example, a different program, different economics. You're signing up for an annual subscription, and then it's going to be a function of that annual subscription and that renewal.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Again, on a blended basis, what we're looking for is putting in front of our members very valuable products and programs and services that are very much informed by what we know they're already spending dollars on.

Sean Dodge
Sean Dodge
Equity Research Analyst and Managing Director of Healthcare Tech and Services at BMO Capital Markets

Okay, great. Thanks again.

Operator

The next question will come from Scott Schoenhaus with KeyBanc. Please go ahead.

Scott Schoenhaus
Scott Schoenhaus
Managing Director at KeyBanc

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I want to focus on account growth. Clearly, you're taking market share. Any color from where we stood last quarter on the Bronze accounts, what you're seeing in the Marketplace, what you're seeing in terms of taking market share in that category, and what their contributions are here early on? Thanks.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

I'd say Bronze opportunity is still very early. The market expansion's been real. You've actually seen Bronze adoption be significantly higher given expiring subsidies. That being said, the materiality of Bronze right now, in terms of both accounts or contribution or revenue, is very low. We expect them to come in over time. A portion of our 172,000 new accounts came through the retail channel that we would associate with that Bronze opportunity. That's how we think about it. Relative to the overall market, I think what we are very pleased with is bending the curve in the growth rate of the business overall represented by HSA account growth. To be able to see quarter-on-quarter acceleration there. If you spent any time looking at the Devenir report, 60% of new account growth in the industry last year came from the top two players.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Most other players not really seeing growth. It is a winner-take-most, in terms of growth and who is capturing that growth in the industry. We're very pleased with what we see there. I'd say the other factor that we see, and I commented on it

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Is that we are seeing a very active enterprise sales pipeline, which you will see later on in the year as we finish integration and as you go into open enrollment. It's the largest pipeline of enterprise sales that we've seen in years. I think we're very encouraged by both our win rate and what we're selling to those new clients in terms of the vision of this flywheel and product experience to those prospective new clients.

Scott Schoenhaus
Scott Schoenhaus
Managing Director at KeyBanc

That's fantastic on the pipeline side. My follow-up is, we're talking about this mix shift on the consumer marketplace. Given this growth that you're seeing and eventually this mix shift, where do you see service gross margins expanding to, given that there's high degree of incremental margins that flow through from the consumer marketplace? Thanks.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Marketplace has no real cost of acquisition or cost to serve, and so most of that flows through. I think Jim and I repeatedly say there's no such thing as service gross margin. Our service costs, which go against all of the things that we do, go against all of revenue, not just service revenue. Just a bit of a clarification associated with how we think about that. The incremental margin on a Marketplace transaction obviously is very, very high, because there is no marketing cost of acquisition or cost to serve.

Scott Schoenhaus
Scott Schoenhaus
Managing Director at KeyBanc

Thanks, Scott.

Operator

The next question will come from Steven Valiquette with Mizuho Securities. Please go ahead.

Steven Valiquette
Steven Valiquette
Managing Director of Healthcare Technology and Distribution Analyst at Mizuho Securities

Thanks. Good afternoon, everyone. For us, just coming back to the healthcare utilization questions for a moment. Aside from your commentary about the low healthcare utilization trends of the internal HealthEquity employees in the quarter, with more of a growing view in the investment community that we could see just a slowdown in overall U.S. healthcare utilization for the full year, calendar 2026 versus calendar 2025, can you just remind us how that would sort of flow through your financials and your guidance, either positive or negative? I think the most visible variable in my view would just be less-

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Yeah

Steven Valiquette
Steven Valiquette
Managing Director of Healthcare Technology and Distribution Analyst at Mizuho Securities

money flowing out of HSAs to pay medical bills, which would be positive. Just curious any other moving parts we should be thinking about if that does start?

James Lucania
James Lucania
EVP and CFO at HealthEquity

Yeah, no, great question. Yeah, I think you're exactly right. Where are we seeing it a little bit? You can see it in the interchange line right now, right? We grew interchange little more than 5%. That's a little slower than it's been growing. That's one of those lines where we'll watch it, right? We're not calling a big behavior shift, but it may be just as simple as folks went to the doctor a little bit less, and we're seeing slight downshift in average transaction per account, slight downshift in average ticket size per account, right? It's a trend that we'll watch, and we've reflected a little bit of interchange conservatism, in the current outlook versus the last one. Again, our base expectation is that we expect it to snap back to the prior actuarial assumption for the year. Yeah, you're right.

James Lucania
James Lucania
EVP and CFO at HealthEquity

If folks don't spend money, then the money stays in their accounts if they don't change their savings. It's probably a little bit of positive to balances and a little bit of positive to investment revenue, right? If the dollars are in the market as opposed to being spent at the doctor.

Steven Valiquette
Steven Valiquette
Managing Director of Healthcare Technology and Distribution Analyst at Mizuho Securities

Okay. All right. That's helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question will come from George Hill with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Patricia Maxion
Patricia Maxion
Trade Support Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Hi, it's Maxion for George. Thanks for taking the question. One of your major competitor is getting acquired by the largest insurer in the U.S. How do you see the competitive environment change post the deal, and have you seen any change in partner conversations or pipeline activity as health plans and employers evaluate the implication of more vertical integration in the space? Thanks.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Yeah. I think you're speaking to the Alegeus acquisition, by UnitedHealth. Alegeus is a white labeled software provider. We do not compete providing white label products. We sell direct into our client base. We'll note that what we'll be watching for are those existing clients that may view that tie-up as competitive in terms of sharing data or opportunity, which could be interesting for us. We'll track and watch what that movement, but the acquisition itself, we view it as a result of what I just said as it being a net positive, from a HealthEquity perspective in the market.

Operator

The next question will come from Destiny Jackson with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Destiny Jackson
Destiny Jackson
Equity Research Associate at JPMorgan

Hi, this is Destiny, one for Alex Gogola. Thanks for taking my question. I was excited to hear the additional programs you added to Marketplace, how are you prioritizing which Marketplace categories to add next? As it relates to the GLP cohort, I know it's early, but any color you can give on just behavior of this group specifically as it relates to retention and program duration? Thanks.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Sure. We prioritize what we add first informed by what our members are spending their dollars on. We have billions of dollars of spend. We look at that spend. I think we look at what we're trying to accomplish in the Marketplace as a curated set of products and experiences rather than commoditized products, that anybody could spend that would qualify for reimbursement. As we look at that, we think about it from a category perspective, as I've highlighted, metabolic, men and women, dermatology, sleep, allergy, diagnostics, wearables. Those are all programs that we could bring in that aren't a large number of SKUs. Then what's also very interesting to us is the growth that we're seeing of merchants, of high-quality brands selling products that could qualify for an HSA directly or be unlocked for qualification through a letter of medical necessity.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Those are some really interesting brands, and we would be expecting to bring in those brands and products into the Marketplace, overall. That's kind of like how we think about building out the catalog of Marketplace. With respect to your question around cohort performance, it's still very early when you think about it, particularly on the metabolic side. The adoption rate overall, what we're looking at is, what is the churn of those subscribing members? How long do they stay into the program? That's another reason for us to be conservative, because we're literally only months into this cohort to truly understand what they're going to perform like.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Again, now that we're seeing growth, particularly on the metabolic side of growth week on week, and we’ve seen week on week growth since we started, we’re very pleased with probably how those cohorts are going to build quite aggressively over time. Thanks, Destiny.

Operator

The next question will come from Mark Marcon with Baird. Please go ahead.

Mark Marcon
Mark Marcon
Senior Research Analyst at Baird

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Most of my questions have been asked, but I just want to follow up on one element. Scott, you mentioned the pipeline is as big as it's been. I'm wondering, it's pretty early with regards to the Marketplace, the mobile first kind of approach. What I'm wondering is, when you're approaching enterprises and medium-sized businesses now, what sort of reaction are you getting from those clients that would make the decision from an employer perspective in terms of the direction that the company's going in? Obviously, you've been winning share, but I'm just wondering, are they even more excited now? Do you think your win rate's going to be even higher, on a go-forward basis, or how are you thinking about that?

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Yeah, great question. Mark, we actually do see our win rate as higher. Our ability to compete and win more large logos in competition is higher than it has been before. What I would say is the three top areas of focus for new customers, and this is also applied to our existing customer base, but particularly when we're pitching a new customer, it's three things. Number 1, show us the mobile experience and show us the future roadmap of what that mobile experience is going to look like. And when we lay out the vision of our mobile and digital engagement, across bringing our products together, AI-enabled, personalized, driving towards health and wellness behaviors, our clients are thrilled, and our prospective clients are thrilled with the direction and the vision that we're painting from a product perspective. Number 2 is data services.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

When we look at the integrations that we have with our plan partners, as well as the data that we have across all of our enterprise base, we're able to go in very specifically with data to be able to tell our clients, "This is the opportunity for cost savings that you can have, and here are the three or four strategies that you could deploy to go after those cost savings," which, quite frankly, are much greater than the fees or the administrative fees that you would pay us associated with that. Number 3 is security. Trust and security is at the forefront of every client. We're obviously a financial technology platform. Trust and security is very important. Our security team is typically involved in all of those conversations. Our roadmap, obviously, the great progress that we've made.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

This is also supported by a white paper from Visa that actually shows that we are best in class in terms of the lowest fraud rates in the industry, 6x and 7x better than most industry participants, with also card approval rates 10 percentage points higher than others. Which just means that a more secure platform and using your card and having that approved more than others. Those are really key features to the quality experience, and those would be the three things that I believe that we're winning on, but we're also differentiated again versus the competition.

Mark Marcon
Mark Marcon
Senior Research Analyst at Baird

That's great. Thank you.

Steve Neeleman
Steve Neeleman
Vice Chair and Founder at HealthEquity

Thanks, Mark.

Operator

Your next question will come from Brian Tanquilut with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Brian Tanquilut
Brian Tanquilut
Senior Analyst at Jefferies

Hey, good afternoon. Congrats on the quarter. Maybe Scott, as I think about the broader macro backdrop here, are you seeing any change in HSA contribution levels tied to, say, consumer pressure or employment churn, especially as we think about the lower balance accounts? Maybe another way I would ask the question is the demand for HSAs, is there a worry that at some point with utilization levels across commercial healthcare softening or decelerating, does that decrease the demand for HSAs, or is there any sensitivity? Just curious for your thoughts on that one.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Yeah. I'll talk first about what is the dynamic that's driving HSA adoption and a re-acceleration of the industry, and maybe Steve can comment on this as well, is really healthcare affordability.

Steve Neeleman
Steve Neeleman
Vice Chair and Founder at HealthEquity

Sure.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Healthcare affordability is the pressure that enterprises face relative to healthcare costs, and driving high deductible health plan and HSA adoption is certainly a way to get after that first point. I'll give one more and I'll turn it over to Steve. 2nd is contributions. If you looked at the industry report last year, we were actually able to drive contributions quite significantly greater than industry growth rate, where contributions grew by 1%. We grew contributions across our book of business at multiples of that. That's largely because of what we're doing in the digital experience to drive contribution, as well as what happens with the flywheel of spend, which is when you spend, you contribute more. I think that, again, speaks to the industry. Maybe Steve, you have any more to add?

Steve Neeleman
Steve Neeleman
Vice Chair and Founder at HealthEquity

I think you did a great job. Scott's learning the industry so fast, and I think you've nailed it. The only thing I would add is, Brian, that we've seen these countercyclical times where maybe the economy's a little bit shaky, and then employers are like, "We've got to save money." They all of a sudden wake up and say, "Why aren't we getting more people in Health Savings Accounts?" We've done some independent research, we've mentioned this before. We looked at our own book of business and interviewed clients. We've got several case studies out there that show that if clients can go from 30% adoption in HSAs to 60% or 70%, they can save a lot of money per person. I think that's only half the story. The most important part of the story is the people that go into the HSAs have money put aside.

Steve Neeleman
Steve Neeleman
Vice Chair and Founder at HealthEquity

We talk about having personal healthcare financial security for those people. Ultimately, that saves money because if people avoid care because they don't think they can pay for it, that's horrible for the whole system. It's horrible for affordability. People delay care. This concept that we've been preaching now for over 20 years of empowering healthcare consumers, it's right embedded in our mission, is so critical to this. You actually see the opposite. When times get a little tough for people, they kind of finally wake up, and they say, "What's the best way to provide the most efficient benefit for our people and still take care of medicine, HSA?" I think this is a real opportunity for us now in this time where affordability is so critical. Costs are up.

Steve Neeleman
Steve Neeleman
Vice Chair and Founder at HealthEquity

We don't know what's going to happen with inflation, but we're really leaning in, and I think we've got a fantastic team we've put together. I think it's going to drive more account growth. Scott's done a fantastic job of saying, "Okay, once we have the account, how do we then help that person better save, spend, and invest for health?" That brings in the Marketplace and these other initiatives. I think HealthEquity is bullish on where we are right now as we ever have been in this market. I can tell you that right now.

Brian Tanquilut
Brian Tanquilut
Senior Analyst at Jefferies

Awesome. Thank you.

Steve Neeleman
Steve Neeleman
Vice Chair and Founder at HealthEquity

Thanks, Brian.

Operator

The next question will come from Peter Warendorf with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Peter Warendorf
Peter Warendorf
Equity Research Analyst of Healthcare Technology and Distribution at Barclays

Hey. Yeah, thanks for the question. I just wanted to clarify on the HSA cash maturity schedule that you guys talked about. It looks like the 2027 cash number that you reported this time is a little bit lower than what was on the last quarter. I'm just kind of curious what's going on there, and if that's maybe related to the one-time partner cost that you mentioned earlier? And yeah, just what's driving that dynamic? Thanks.

James Lucania
James Lucania
EVP and CFO at HealthEquity

For the current year, it's just one less quarter is in there. Those are amounts that matured, either basic rates renewals, basic to enhanced rate switches. The last piece is just the organic growth, right? They're not static pools. If my members contribute more, the balance goes up. If they withdraw more, the balance goes down. It's just normal activity. The maturity pull forward was actually not in this current year, but we were able to pull forward sort of future maturity into the current Q1.

Peter Warendorf
Peter Warendorf
Equity Research Analyst of Healthcare Technology and Distribution at Barclays

Great. Maybe just on the accelerating repo, it seems like you guys are pulling some of that forward. I'm curious if there's anything to read through into maybe what private valuations look like, and what you're seeing on the M&A front? Yeah, how you just weigh repo versus maybe M&A? Thanks.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Yeah. Our capital allocation philosophy has not changed, and our priorities have really been buying back stock, paying down debt, and being prepared for M&A. On the repurchase program itself, given our growing confidence in the long-term cash generation of the business, the accelerating growth that we're seeing, we see our capacity to put more into the repurchase program as being enhanced, and that's obviously reflected by how that program has increased.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

At the same time, it does not impact our ability to finance and to go after the right M&A opportunities as they present themselves. We've maintained the flexibility to do both, while actually being in a really strong position, not adding debt associated with that in a repurchase, but using our cash flow to do so. That's really our capital allocation philosophy.

Richard Putnam
Richard Putnam
Investor Relations at HealthEquity

Thanks, Peter.

Operator

The next question will come from Ryan Halsted with RBC. Please go ahead.

Ryan Halsted
Ryan Halsted
Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to go back to the Bronze account questioning. Considering the growth in enrollment in these plans, I'm just curious if you've had further discussion with your channel partners or other sort of engagement in trying to maybe capture more of that new HSA eligibility earlier, either through driving education or other ways. I appreciate that.

Steve Neeleman
Steve Neeleman
Vice Chair and Founder at HealthEquity

Sure. Yeah. Thanks for the question. Yeah, we've thought a lot about it. One of the, I think, really remarkable things about the HealthEquity model, because we sell to all sizes of employers, I mean, even down to two life employers all the way up to obviously some very big employers, is that we've always kind of thought about HSA growth from an evergreen perspective. This even makes almost more sense in the case of Bronze plans, because even though there's this big push for people to get their Bronze plans and then hopefully sign up for HSAs right around the end of the year when the portals open up and the exchanges open up, the reality is they can fund those accounts throughout the course of the year.

Steve Neeleman
Steve Neeleman
Vice Chair and Founder at HealthEquity

We're always kind of thinking about what is the best channel, you said the word channel partner, and we're kind of thinking very deeply about that. Many of our Blues plans, many of our other vertically integrated plan partners throughout the country are often, if not the biggest, close to the biggest providers of Bronze plans in the market. One of the challenges is people just still don't know. There is an education perspective to that. Give you just a little bit of perspective. Only 2% of people a year ago that bought on exchanges were in an HSA-qualified plan. Now, nationally, it's 30% are in HSA-qualified plans, just because of the Bronze stuff. There's some markets where it's 50% of people. You got to get the word out. We work through the channel partners.

Steve Neeleman
Steve Neeleman
Vice Chair and Founder at HealthEquity

There's brokers out there that sell a lot of these plans. There's been a lot of talk about ICHRAs and stuff like that. I think they're still pretty early. We're looking at every one of these channels. We have people that are in charge of each of those channels to really push this because, look, we don't really know how these are all going to perform at the end of the day. Maybe there's less funding. That could be even in the sub-channels, like maybe in an ICHRA channel where there is an employer around that the funding will be comparable to what we've seen in our traditional employer market. Yes, we are looking at every one of those channels. We're doing everything we can to get people in these accounts. It's almost like a public good, honestly. It's like a PSA.

Steve Neeleman
Steve Neeleman
Vice Chair and Founder at HealthEquity

It's like if you are going to have any medical expenses and you have to pay that higher deductible that comes with a Bronze plan, you have to run that through an HSA. Not only that, if you have an HSA, you can start doing things like Marketplace and run it through. Yes, we're all over it, but we also want to temper this enthusiasm because this is a new muscle for not really HealthEquity. Again, we've been doing this for a long time, but it's a new muscle for consumers because they don't even know, right? It went from 2% of people in an HSA-qualified plan a year ago, and now it's 30%. We're after it, but we're still trying to learn a lot from it.

Ryan Halsted
Ryan Halsted
Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets

Very helpful. Thank you.

Steve Neeleman
Steve Neeleman
Vice Chair and Founder at HealthEquity

Thanks, Ryan.

Operator

The next question will come from David Larsen with BTIG. Please go ahead.

David Larsen
David Larsen
Analyst and Managing Director at BTIG

Hey, Steve, can you talk a little bit about the regulatory environment and the timing of it? What happened January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2026? How does that change in January 1, 2027 and going forward? Then just any comments on the stacked card product. When can you stop using plastic or paper cards? Thanks.

Steve Neeleman
Steve Neeleman
Vice Chair and Founder at HealthEquity

Yeah, I'll take the first half. Do you want to talk about stacked card?

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Yeah.

Steve Neeleman
Steve Neeleman
Vice Chair and Founder at HealthEquity

Yeah. Obviously, there's a lot going on in D.C. right now, and we are always looking for these little windows of opportunity to insert, like what happened last year. David, to start your question, a lot of these changes that happened in the big beautiful bill around Bronze and things like that really all kind of went into effect on January 1 of 2026 with the law being passed last July. We've been doing a lot of work on implementing those changes. We continue to look for opportunities to insert things that were left out of the final bill that did pass the House bill. These are things like letting people roll their HRAs and FSAs into HSAs. That makes a lot of sense.

Steve Neeleman
Steve Neeleman
Vice Chair and Founder at HealthEquity

Actually, quite low score when they came out of the Congressional Budget Office scoring process, and so that wouldn't cost a lot, and there's a lot of people that would be like, "Yeah, I'd love to convert my FSA or HRA into that." Medicare for working seniors, or sorry, HSAs for working seniors. We've talked a lot about that as well. I think from just the congressional calendar perspective, I think right now the big focus is to try and get this reconciliation 2.0 bill that the Republicans have talked a lot about. They were close, backed off. That was the one where the ballroom came out of it and all that other stuff. There's no healthcare stuff in that that we've seen.

Steve Neeleman
Steve Neeleman
Vice Chair and Founder at HealthEquity

Our understanding is if the reconciliation gets done 2.0, then there's a lot of legislators who are saying, "Hey, look, we still have six months of legislating to do, and we've got a lot of people to help." We're going to keep looking for those opportunities. Just a little kind of cool fact. One of the bigger kind of expansions of HSAs that happened in 2006, even prior to the big beautiful bill, was in the lame duck session in 2006, and it was after the House was lost in November. We were pushing hard then, and they significantly increased the amount of money that people could put in their HSAs, and it was a lame duck session. It was the end of the year. There was a new Congress that was going to be seated, and so they got it done.

Steve Neeleman
Steve Neeleman
Vice Chair and Founder at HealthEquity

All of that being said, as we've said all along, we actually think that HSAs are bipartisan more than people appreciate. When you do the surveying out there, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, they all love Health Savings Accounts. We're going to just keep pushing, and no matter what happens in November, we're not going away, and people are going to keep hearing about why consumers need these accounts. Thanks for the question, and we're all over it.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

On digital card, as you know, David, a few years ago, we moved to a single card processor, which allowed us to offer a stacked card, which we've had in the market now for little over a year. That product today, we have what are called digital integrations into wallets. A lot of the digital wallets today that are very popular is already integrated. Then I think the next step is digital issuance, where you could issue without plastic. As we look at what our single app experience is going to look like and also having wallet and digital wallet integrated into that experience, that will be rolling out into the future. In that world, it may not be all cards replaced that way because people do like having something to carry with them. A physical card is a strong sense of loyalty.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

That's why most banks still have physical cards. Again, from a convenience perspective, we think there is an even more efficient way to issue cards for those that just want integration into wallets. Again, functionally, we already provide that.

Steve Neeleman
Steve Neeleman
Vice Chair and Founder at HealthEquity

Thanks, David.

Operator

The next question will come from David Roman with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

David Roman
David Roman
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

Excuse me. Thank you for taking the questions here. Maybe, Scott, I come back to something you mentioned in your prepared remarks around 10% of the tax benefit being fully utilized by members. What are some of the actions that you can take to increase that utilization rate, and how do you think we would see that kind of flow through the performance of the business? Maybe let us ask my follow-up here, just given we're at time on the call.

David Roman
David Roman
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

Jim, could you just help us think through just that, putting the pieces together here on the AI investment cycle and the AI benefits? For example, is the service margin today depressed, even though it's improving because you're deploying resources from an investment standpoint, such that as you start to see the benefits, we see an even bigger uptick in the margin? How should we think about the handoff there from investment to benefit?

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Yeah. I'll kind of, again, go back to the strategy and why it matters. An investor is a bigger spender and a bigger contributor. Investment balances are obviously growing significantly for the industry and for HealthEquity. The number of investors we've also been driving, that growth in number of investors, which you saw 18% year-on-year, is really, again, driving towards the flywheel of the why, which is again, bringing you from a contributor to a saver to an investor. Again, it is virtuous because they actually do hold higher cash balances, and they do spend more. The way we're doing that, again, is through the digital experience, really critical at enrollment that we do that.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

You can also see that flow through a bit because many of those, as they're going through that enrollment, are also signing up for Advisor, which is kind of automating that investment flow for that member to make it simple and easy. We're looking at other ways to essentially streamline how you become an investor and making sure that that fund lineup and our integration on the brokerage side gives you total flexibility to invest wherever you want to as a member. Jim, I think you'll take part too.

James Lucania
James Lucania
EVP and CFO at HealthEquity

Yeah. As for the current sort of deployment of tech, right? The cost is primarily hitting the tech line. You're seeing investment in the product solution that helps drive down service costs. The investment is in one place, and the benefit is in another place. Now, as the sort of future state of widespread deployment of AI tools and token-based pricing, I do think you're going to start to see that change a bit currently and probably for some time. The primary beneficiaries of these tools are in the technology development realm. As my finance team, as marketing teams are starting to use the tools for efficiency within their own departments, I think you're more likely to see us start distributing that cost out.

James Lucania
James Lucania
EVP and CFO at HealthEquity

Like, "Hey, finance or other G&A department, you need to cover your own cost of AI and then offset that with benefits." We're just not in that world yet. I do think the world, and many of our fellow companies reporting publicly, are going to head in that direction, too.

David Roman
David Roman
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

Great. Thanks so much.

Steve Neeleman
Steve Neeleman
Vice Chair and Founder at HealthEquity

Thanks, David.

Operator

This will conclude our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Scott Cutler for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Scott Cutler
Scott Cutler
President and CEO at HealthEquity

Thanks, everybody, for the thoughtful discussion and questions. To close, I hope your takeaway is that our execution and performance continue to translate into strong cash generation, gives us increasing flexibility to invest in the business, return capital to our shareholders. I think the acceleration and the growth underpins also our decision and confidence to increase our share repurchase authorization by $1 billion. We're reflecting our confidence in the long-term outlook for HealthEquity. We really appreciate your interest, your support. Look forward to updating you next quarter. Thanks.

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • James Lucania
      James Lucania
      EVP and CFO
    • Richard Putnam
      Richard Putnam
      Investor Relations
    • Scott Cutler
      Scott Cutler
      President and CEO
    • Steve Neeleman
      Steve Neeleman
      Vice Chair and Founder
Analysts
    • Allen Lutz
      Senior Equity Research Analyst of Healthcare Technology and Distribution at Bank of America
    • Brian Tanquilut
      Senior Analyst at Jefferies
    • David Larsen
      Analyst and Managing Director at BTIG
    • David Roman
      Managing Director at Goldman Sachs
    • Destiny Jackson
      Equity Research Associate at JPMorgan
    • Gregory Peters
      Managing Director at Raymond James
    • Mark Marcon
      Senior Research Analyst at Baird
    • Patricia Maxion
      Trade Support Analyst at Deutsche Bank
    • Peter Warendorf
      Equity Research Analyst of Healthcare Technology and Distribution at Barclays
    • Ryan Halsted
      Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets
    • Scott Schoenhaus
      Managing Director at KeyBanc
    • Sean Dodge
      Equity Research Analyst and Managing Director of Healthcare Tech and Services at BMO Capital Markets
    • Stan Berenstain
      Analyst at Wells Fargo
    • Steven Valiquette
      Managing Director of Healthcare Technology and Distribution Analyst at Mizuho Securities
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