StoneCo Q2 2026 Earnings Report

StoneCo EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.47
• Consensus EPS: $0.46
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.01
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

StoneCo Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $129.73 million
• Expected Revenue: $708.24 million
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$578.51 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

StoneCo Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2026
• Date: 8/13/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, August 13, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 5:00PM ET

StoneCo (NASDAQ:STNE), commonly known as Stone, is a Brazilian financial technology company that provides integrated digital payment solutions and related financial services to merchants. Through its cloud-based platform, Stone enables businesses of all sizes to accept a variety of payment methods, including point-of-sale (POS) terminals, mobile card readers and e-commerce gateways. In addition to payment acceptance, the company offers value-added services such as working capital loans, digital banking products and automated billing tools designed to help merchants manage cash flow and streamline operations.

Since its founding in 2012 by André Street and Eduardo Pontes, Stone has focused on serving over half a million merchants across Brazil’s retail, restaurant and services sectors. The company’s headquarters are in São Paulo, and it has established regional offices to support local sales, customer service and technical assistance. Stone’s platform emphasizes reliability, transparent pricing and customer support, positioning it as a challenger to traditional payment networks and banks in Latin America’s rapidly evolving digital economy.

Stone went public on the Nasdaq Stock Market in October 2018 under the ticker STNE, marking one of the largest Latin American tech IPOs of that year. The firm continues to expand its product suite through partnerships and in-house innovation, developing APIs that allow third-party developers to integrate Stone’s payment and banking features into their own applications. With a leadership team rooted in technology and payments expertise, Stone remains committed to enhancing financial inclusion and operational efficiency for merchants throughout Brazil.

StoneCo Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: TPV growth accelerated to 4% year over year as retention initiatives began to take effect, while retail deposits rose 22% and the credit portfolio more than doubled to BRL 3.8 billion.
• Negative Sentiment: Credit provisions increased to BRL 188 million, cost of risk remained elevated at 21.5%, and larger-ticket exposures in the dedicated lending desk experienced defaults amid increased bankruptcy filings.
• Negative Sentiment: Stone maintained its 2026 guidance but acknowledged a tougher-than-expected backdrop, with higher-for-longer interest rates creating an estimated BRL 300 million-plus pretax headwind and management now targeting the lower end of its ranges.
• Positive Sentiment: Government-backed credit programs, which guarantee roughly 75% of defaults under the FGI Pix program, are enabling more competitive pricing and should help reduce credit risk toward the high-teens range over time.
• Positive Sentiment: The company integrated Pagar.me into the Stone platform to combine online and physical commerce, expand digital transaction volumes, and support additional credit and cross-selling opportunities; it also returned BRL 4.3 billion to shareholders in the first half.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good evening, everyone. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to StoneCo's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. By now, everyone should have access to our earnings release. The company also posted the presentation to go along with this call. All material can be found online at investors.stone.co. Before we begin the call, I advise you to review the disclaimer included in the press release and presentation, which outlines important information about forward-looking statements and non-IFRS financial measures. In addition, many of the risks regarding the business are disclosed in the company's Form 20-F filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is also available at www.sec.gov. Before we begin, I would like to highlight that the company is restricting the number of questions to one per analyst. The Head of IR, Roberta Noronha. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mateus. Please proceed.

[Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO at StoneCo]

Thank you, operator, and good evening, everyone. Let me start with some perspective on the quarter. This was a quarter of steady progress on the priorities we laid out earlier in the year. We are accelerating TPV growth through better retention, deepening our banking and credit franchises, and keeping a disciplined approach to cost. TPV growth accelerated to 4%, an early signal that the retention initiatives we launched this year are beginning to work, though there is still a lot of work to be done. Banking and credit kept advancing with retail deposits up 22% year-over-year, and our credit portfolio now more than doubled its level from a year ago. On costs, we kept expense growth well below revenue growth while scaling the use of AI more broadly across the company. Finally, we continue to return meaningful capital to shareholders throughout the quarter.

[Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO at StoneCo]

Having said that, today I want to spend a few minutes on something that goes beyond the quarterly numbers. How we are positioning Stone today for the long term, and how our ecosystem is coming together for the merchants. Let's turn to slide three. This quarter, we launched our new brand positioning, Stone, the bank for entrepreneurs. This is not a changing strategy, and it does not depend on anything new. We already have the complete offering, payments, banking, and credit working together in a single relationship. The gap is in the perception. Many clients still see Stone mainly as a payments company. This positioning is our way of closing that gap, so that when an entrepreneur needs banking or credit, Stone is part of the consideration from day one. As that perception builds, it naturally opens the door to more cross-sell, deeper relationships, and growth across the ecosystem.

[Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO at StoneCo]

To bring this to life, we also launched a campaign film. The link is on this page. Moving to slide 4. This is what the bank for entrepreneurs means in practice. Everything starts with a complete account. Money comes in through whatever channel the client sells, in person or online. It goes out to pay employees, suppliers, and taxes. In between, it stays within Stone, where clients can hold a balance, invest their money, or take credit. On its own, this is just what a complete account should do. The difference is what we build around it. Helping entrepreneurs run their day-to-day by charging customers, issuing invoices, managing orders, with AI increasingly doing part of that work, from enhancing catalog images to creating content that helps merchants sell more. On slide five, we recently reached an important milestone in that direction.

[Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO at StoneCo]

Pagar.me, which historically was our digital commerce front, has been integrated into Stone. For the merchant, this means online and physical operations in one account with one view of the business. It brings our full digital commerce suite into the Stone platform. With sales consolidated in one place, we understand the business better, which unlocks more credit and more cross-sell. One brand, one account, one experience. For Stone, this opens a new growth avenue, capturing a larger share of digital transactions, a part of the market that is growing faster than the average. Now, let me connect this to our financial commitments for the year on slide six.

[Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO at StoneCo]

In the first half, we delivered BRL 3.1 billion in adjusted gross profits and BRL 4.58 in adjusted basic EPS against our full year 2026 guidance of BRL 6.6 billion to BRL 7 billion in adjusted gross profits and BRL 10.8 to BRL 11.4 in adjusted basic EPS. While our guidance remains achievable, interest rates have stayed higher for longer than expected, making the backdrop considerably more challenging than what we anticipated at the start of the year. In that context, while the scenario today is more challenging than it was last quarter, we continue to be focused on delivering towards the lower end of these ranges. Our year-to-date effective tax rate of 15.4% remains consistent with the mid-teens level we guided to, and we stay disciplined on execution, with performance weighted towards the second half as credit revenues compound and our commercial initiatives continues to take hold.

[Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO at StoneCo]

With that said, I will pass it over to Diego, who will go over our financial and operating results for the quarter. Diego?

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

Thank you, Mateus, and good evening, everyone. Let me start on slide seven, where we present our main financial metrics for the quarter. Our revenue grew to BRL 3.6 billion, led by credit as our portfolio continues to scale. Adjusted gross profit was broadly stable year-over-year at BRL 1.6 billion, as higher revenues and lower financial expenses were offset by the provision expenses that come with the credit portfolio growth. Adjusted net income was down slightly on an an annual basis, while adjusted EPS grew 9%, with continued share buybacks over the past year meaningfully reducing our share count. On slide eight, our active client base reached 4.8 million merchants, and RPAC grew mainly as credit keeps gaining penetration and weight in our client base. Turning to slide nine, TPV growth accelerated to 4% annually, a small improvement over the pace we saw in the first quarter.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

We're still facing the churn challenges we detected earlier this year, and they still weigh on our overall performance. However, this is the first tangible sign that our initiatives are gaining traction. Our work here is focused on three fronts: simplifying our offerings and bundles, aligning salesforce incentives, and improving client experience to reduce operational friction. So far, the effect is more meaningful on micro merchants as simpler offerings and an easier contact allowed us to move quickly and bring churn down. With larger merchants, the breadth of the offerings and needs make the operation more complex and riskier. Therefore, we calibrate it cautiously before scaling. We expect the benefits of our initiatives to become more visible as the year progresses, and therefore accelerates TPV. Looking at TPV mix, Pix QR code continues to grow faster than card volumes. In banking, our deposit franchise keeps building.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

Retail deposits reached BRL 10.8 billion, up more than 20% year-over-year as we further engage clients with our account offerings. On slide 10, we present the growth metrics of our credit business. Our portfolio reached BRL 3.8 billion, two times larger than one year ago, driven mainly by working capital solutions. During this quarter, we also began disbursing government-backed loans, which already account for roughly BRL 300 million of our portfolio, while credit cards reached BRL 400 million. Moving to revenues. Given the continued growing contribution of our credit card, we have revisited our credit revenue and yield metrics to include credit card interchange fees as we see it as part of the overall product P&L. Credit revenues grew 14% in the period with flat-ish yield. The stability reflects the entry of government-backed lines, which carry lower rates and lower risk profile.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

That takes me to slide 11, where I want to spend some time explaining how government-backed facilities will impact our P&L going forward, considering its growing relevance in our portfolio. Let me first explain how we segregate clients on working capital products based on the two main distribution channels we have. Our automated desk handles the smaller tickets, about BRL 40,000, and typically up to 18 months tenor at an average rate of 4% per month. Our dedicated desk serves larger clients with an average ticket to date closer to BRL 700,000, but with tenors going up to 30 months and lower rates of roughly 2.5% per month. Through those desks, we are currently operating two government programs, each with a different profile and focus. We began disbursing FGI Pix in April, and it has already gained some relevance in our book.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

The second program we just launched, so it's still very small. What these programs have in common is a guarantee that reduces losses upon an event of default from a client of ours, considering the reimbursement of guarantees that we obtain from the government. As a result, this reduction on provision expenses affects the coverage for loans on stage 1 and 2. This kind of guarantee allows us to be more aggressive in pricing for clients where we were previously not that competitive, improving the risk-adjusted returns on what we lend. In short, this is about expanding access to credit and deepening merchant relationships while keeping the risk profile of our growth under control. On Slide 12, we turn to credit quality and cost of risk. In the quarter, provision expenses reached BRL 188 million. The growth on expenses is a combination of, first, the record expansion of the portfolio.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

Second, the roll-forward effect of the loans disbursed in late 2025 and early 2026 that are moving to later provisioning stages. Finally, the continuous pressure that we've been noticing on the dedicated desks, with records in bankruptcy protection filings all over the country. Although the dedicated desk represents less than 25% of our total merchant portfolio and the average ticket today is BRL 700,000, as I've mentioned, we've been facing defaults precisely on some of the largest tickets we have in our books, in some cases north of BRL 10 million. On the other hand, on the automated desk, the improvements that we rolled out during the second quarter are showing significant results, with first payment defaults consistently trending down and the June cohort presenting the best result during the last 12 months.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

These combined effects pushed our NPLs higher across all indicators and kept the cost of risk at 21.5%. On coverage, the ratio came down to 204%, and I want to address that directly. Two main effects explain the move. One, it's mix related, and the other is simply a mechanical effect. In the mix, we're steering new disbursements toward better-rated clients and ramping our government-backed facilities, which carry a guarantee and therefore require lower provisioning. Therefore, these two effects combined structurally lower the coverage we need to hold. The mechanical part is simply the math of a seasoning book. This quarter, our over 90 NPLs grew faster than our provisions as the strong late 2025 and early 2026 vintages rolled into over 90 buckets while write-offs, which cleared the oldest and most heavily provisioned loans, come with a lag.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

Slide 13 provides a bit more color of the NPL composition by product and channel. On the short end, sequential increase came mainly from new delinquency cases in our dedicated desk, as I've mentioned. The automated desk by contracts actually pulled this early metric down in line with the improvements of first payment default metrics we previously mentioned. Later stage delinquency tells the opposite story. Here, the automated desk was the main driver of the increase as weaker vintages are rolling forward to over 90-day stage. On slide 14, we present the evolution of our costs and expenses. Cost of services, excluding provisions, was broadly flat year-over-year as we continue seeking operational leverage using technology and start benefiting from the workforce reduction carried out in the first quarter. Net financial expenses have been flattish for quite some time now as we've been growing clients' deposits.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

This shows in our funding cost, which has come down to roughly 85% of CDI. Admin expenses were lower year-over-year on reduced personnel and third-party services expenses. Selling expenses were up modestly on higher marketing investments, partially offset by lower distribution channel expenses. Other operating expenses were higher year-over-year, mainly reflecting a non-recurring gain in the prior year and higher net provisions for POS. These effects were partially offset by lower share-based compensation. Our effective tax rate was 16.4% in the quarter, slightly higher than the mid-teens implied in our guidance. We certainly have a long path towards the efficiency levels we want, but we'll keep evolving in time. Finally, on slide 15, we present our capital position and return on equity. Our capital ratio stood at 26%, normalizing after the extraordinary dividend paid in May from the Linx sale proceeds.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

In total, we have already returned BRL 4.3 billion to shareholders during the first half of the year. To wrap it up and coming back to Mateus' opening remarks, this was a quarter of steady execution. TPV growth is re-accelerating. Our banking franchise keeps building up, and credit continues to scale despite the short-term headwinds we keep facing. Ultimately, this all comes down to the merchant. Our goal is to be the bank that Brazilian entrepreneurs rely on to run and grow their businesses, and we believe that improving our banking and credit capabilities, it's how we deepen that relationship over time. With that, let's open it up for questions.

[Operator]

We are going to start the question and answer section for investors and analysts. If you wish to ask a question, please press the button Reaction and then click on Raise Hand. If your question has already been answered, you can leave the queue by clicking on Put Hand Down. Our first question comes from Eric Ito from Bradesco BBI. Please, Eric, you may now proceed.

[Eric Ito, Analyst at Bradesco BBI]

Hi. Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. Mateus, Diego, Roberta, thanks for the call taking my question. I have two here on my side. The first one, I think, in the release, we saw a BRL 200 million non-recurring allowance for expected losses on issuers in distress. Could you please just give us some color on the main trends there or what happened there? Just for us to have more color on that. The second one I'd like to touch on the credit. I think you guys provided very good details on the different desks, but my question is towards the government-backed loans already reaching BRL 330 million in the quarter. I just wanted to see if you could share more expectation going forward and how does that change your guidance for credit book forward. Thank you.

[Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO at StoneCo]

Hey, Eric. Thanks for the question. I'll start giving some context around the provisions and then hand it over to Diego to talk about the accounting piece and the path forward as well as the credit question.

[Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO at StoneCo]

In terms of the provision we did for selected issuers this quarter, maybe it is worthwhile to give some context on the topic. As you know, the Central Bank has ordered the liquidation of a large financial group earlier this year, and one of the subsidiaries of that group was a sizable credit card issuer. It now has a little bit over 90 days since we last received the cash flow from that issuer, and then as a matter of accounting prudence, we decided to do the provision. But in terms of how we evolve from here, we have the position that ensuring that these amounts get settled by the issuers is the role of the card networks. The reason for that is quite straightforward in our view.

[Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO at StoneCo]

Just to give you some example and some color on that, whenever a merchant accepts a credit card transaction, usually the merchants do not look at who is the name of the card holder or who is the issuer behind the transaction. In order for that to work, the merchant acquirers need to trust the networks to manage the risk of their members and to ensure that every transaction that is authorized gets settled to the merchant acquirers so that we can pass it through our merchants. If we merchant acquirers had to underwrite every issuer one by one, and then accept only those that we judged to be credit-worthy, the credit card itself would lose a lot of the value that makes it such a good item to make purchases of services and goods, and the system would be worse off.

[Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO at StoneCo]

In summary here, we do have an issuer that has been liquidated. It has been more than 90 days since we last received. While we do expect to settle this issue and receive the settlements that are due to us, for a matter of accounting prudence, we decided to make the provisions. I will hand it over to Diego to give some more color on that and to address the credit question as well.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

Eric, thank you very much for the question. As Mateus mentioned, since the last time that we collected from that issuer was over 90 days ago, we decided to treat the asset as a distressed asset and start provisioning accordingly. We are being prudent on the balance sheet manage, and you should always expect that from us. We are adjusting this effect in our results because we understand it is just temporary effect arising from our accounting standards and not our view on the recovery. We understand it is the responsibility of the network to ultimately settle these amounts, as Mateus just mentioned, as it is very clear on the Central Bank legislation who bears the responsibility for the risk management.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

This is not the first time that an issuer goes bankrupt in Brazil, and historically, we have always collected 100% of these accounts receivables from the networks precisely because of that chain of responsibility and trust that Mateus just mentioned, which is what creates value to the overall system. I am cautiously optimistic about a good outcome here, but we are going to be very careful with the balance sheet management. To your second question on the government programs and the overall impact on the forecast or on the guidance and so on, it does not change anything. When we, during the last quarter, mentioned that you should expect cost of risk to trend down to the mid to high teens, we already had some of that in mind.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

Naturally, the mix of the disbursements on a quarter-over-quarter basis may fluctuate, so it is not every quarter that we are going to be disbursing the same mix of products to the same kind of clients, so on and so forth. It is natural to have some short-term fluctuation. But the guidance still stands that cost of risk will trend down to that mid to high teens, in the medium term, probably ending the end of the year already at the high teens level.

[Eric Ito, Analyst at Bradesco BBI]

Perfect. Just to be clear on the first point here, you mentioned, Diego, that you are optimistic with the outlook. So going forward, we should not expect more provisions, just to make sure, if we should expect more provisions related to that, and then the recovery will depend on the process. That is correct?

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

We may need to provision more. The provision level that we have today, it is a weighted probability scenario for different outcomes, including a possible litigation. All cards are on the table. I am optimistic about a positive outcome because of the reasons we have mentioned. We think a possible litigation destroys value for everybody. We think it is just a matter of time getting to that agreement. But it may occur that it will not happen during the next quarter, or it will not happen at all. So we need to be ready for everything. In terms of size, which I am pretty sure is going to be your next question, about how much else we may need to provision. Our total exposure reflects the market share that we have in payments generally.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

The exposure that we have for this issuer is proportional to our market share, just as it is to any given issuer.

[Eric Ito, Analyst at Bradesco BBI]

Very clear. Thank you so much.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Daniel Vaz from Safra. Please, Daniel, you may now proceed.

[Daniel Vaz, Analyst at Safra]

Hi, Mateus. Hi, Diego, Roberta. Thank you for the opportunity of making questions. I was looking at your 2026 guidance, which you kept unchanged. You need to catch up a bit under your run rate. I know the fourth quarter usually is stronger, but to reach the low end of gross profit and looking at your revenue trajectory quarter-over-quarter, it didn't look so well when we compare to the TPV, which has recovered quite a bit. So congrats on that, but mostly on Pix, right? Pix might not be bringing the same unit economics as the card when we look to your financial income, and then you have a headwind on the other financial income portion, given that you would not have the same cash position. Right.

[Daniel Vaz, Analyst at Safra]

How can we deliver the low end of the guidance with these new take rate levels that look a bit more sluggish than your past? If the costs, the COGS, which you delivered a good COGS this quarter, is where you want to surprise or where you want to have your most upside to deliver the low end. How to treat this balance between revenues with take rates and headwinds from the cash position and then your COGS is there where you want to meet the guidance with the costs and not the revenues? Thank you.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

Hi, Vaz. Thank you very much for the question. The gross profit was flattish during the first half of the year, mainly because of the reasons we have mentioned in the presentation. Credit revenues keep adding to the top line. Payments revenue, not necessarily because of marginal lower prices in payments, which you have mentioned as well, but most importantly, what weights is the cost of provisions that come with the credit portfolio growth. As to the end of the second half of the year, we expect growth to accelerate both on credit card TPV, but also on Pix, as we have mentioned, and we start benefiting more from the churn initiatives that we have mentioned.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

These things, combined with the credit portfolio growth, and an improvement on the overall risk profile that we have for the portfolio, should capture an additional benefit for the gross profit during the second half of the year. That said, when we set our guidance for the year, we assumed that the Selic would end 2026 at 12.5%, and today, that number is probably closer to 14%, maybe a quarter of a point below that, depending on what happens on the next Central Bank of Brazil meeting. As we have disclosed already, every 100 basis points on Selic carries a pre-tax impact of roughly BRL 200 million to BRL 250 million. So rates alone are a headwind north of BRL 300 million for 2026. On top of that, the credit environment has been tougher than we all expected, in line with what the broader market is seeing.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

None of this changes our guidance ranges, as we have mentioned before, but it does make the backdrop more demanding than it was at the start of the year, which is why we are focused on delivering toward the lower end of the guidance. I do not think it is going to have to do with the total cash balance of the quarter or of the year, or the benefits that we have on the second quarter in COGS.

[Daniel Vaz, Analyst at Safra]

Okay. Thank you. If I may follow up, do you have any specific target for your cost of risk for the second half of the year?

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

It's going to trend down to those high teens that we've mentioned. Naturally, as I've mentioned, short-term fluctuations are natural because of the mix of the disbursement, but they also may occur because of specific cases on the dedicated desk. As we've disclosed, for example, this quarter, a big impact that we had on the 15 to 90 days NPLs were cases coming from the dedicated desk, and that's hard to forecast when those cases will happen, if they do happen. So short-term fluctuations may occur, but we are optimistic about going down to those mid to high-teen levels that we've always guided the market.

[Daniel Vaz, Analyst at Safra]

All right. Thank you. Thank you, and congrats.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Antonio Ruette from BofA. Please, Antonio, you may now proceed.

[Antonio Ruette, Analyst at BofA]

Hi, thank you for your time. My question is actually a follow-up on Vaz' question related to the cost of risk and the credit business. My question goes on these large cases of the dedicated desk. If you could provide a little bit of detail of what happened here. Why you decided to move to these clients, and which kind of problem did you have, and how are you addressing this going forward? Did you reduce the size of loans that you are originating, the size of clients going forward? That's pretty much it. Thank you.

[Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO at StoneCo]

Hey, Antonio. Thanks for the question. I'll give a little bit of color and then talk about the changes that we've made. First of all, you're right, we have seen some delinquency cases in the dedicated desk, and I think Diego mentioned this in the beginning of the call as well, that the delinquency we saw was particularly among the larger ticket exposures that we have on the desk. If you remember the overall profile of the desk, we have an average ticket of around BRL 700,000, which is precisely the core clients that we serve. It's part of the core offering. But whenever you try to disburse to higher clients, I think we were a little bit exposed to the record judicial recuperations that we're having in the country as well, and that's part of the problem.

[Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO at StoneCo]

In terms of how we are addressing that, I would say we're doing two main things. The first one is that we're shifting originations towards the government-backed credit lines, particularly for clients where we do not have a longstanding relationship or sufficient historical data prior to the disbursement. The second thing, we are minimizing the amount of maximum tickets on the dedicated desk, so that we don't have exposure to any single client that can hurt the portfolio or create volatility going forward. Overall, the things I would say is that the dedicated desk itself is part of the core offering. It's something that we have some success whenever we stay around our core clients. I think the issue here has been related to specific cases, especially when we had higher tickets.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

Antonio, just to add a little bit more color on what Mateus was saying. There are different cases, naturally, but just to give you an example, one of the cases that we had on the second quarter was an old client of ours, both in payments and software, which had a longstanding relationship, a large client. We had a ticket of BRL 11 million, if I'm not mistaken, BRL 11 or BRL 12 million. Large list of banks, so on and so forth. And we were supporting that client because of the overall business that we were getting from them. We started discussing them banking opportunities, and then we were all taken by surprise with this account, with this client filing for bankruptcy protection. Once that happens, we move that client immediately from stage 1 to stage 3, and that has an impact on the overall metrics.

[Antonio Ruette, Analyst at BofA]

This is great color. If I may follow up on this. When you look at most of your large corporate cases, are these usual clients that were distressed by poor macro and high rates, or you consider that most of them are some kind of fraud, or it is more macro related?

[Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO at StoneCo]

No, this is mostly macro related.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

In this case, Antonio, it was a large retailer.

[Antonio Ruette, Analyst at BofA]

All right. That is clear. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Neha Agarwala from HSBC. Please, Neha, you may now proceed.

[Neha Agarwala, Analyst at HSBC]

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. You mentioned in your press release that you've seen good results from your efforts in the Ton clients, but you're still working on the SMB clients. Could you explain why it has been a bit more difficult to gain back the SMB clients? Are you already seeing improvements starting third quarter, so we can see the results in 3Q, or would it take a bit more time for the SMB churn to reduce? Thank you.

[Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO at StoneCo]

Neha, thanks for the question. I can give some color and then maybe Diego can add. It is true that we've seen more success faster in the micro merchants. The reason for that is quite simple, which is the offer for micro merchants is usually a lot simpler, and the distribution channel is also a lot simpler. Whenever we talk about SMBs, usually the base spans different offerings, different channels, and different needs. Because of that, there is no single fix. We have to adjust offers in many different segments and intensify the retention work, which is by definition spread out. These changes, when we talk about SMB, there are no silver bullets, and they require by design a lot of testing and careful calibration before we roll out. I wouldn't say that we were unsuccessful in these initiatives.

[Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO at StoneCo]

I think by nature of the SMB business, we need to test more and the rollout takes a lot more time. When we see the results that we're having, the reality is that both trends are improving in both the micro merchant segments and within SMBs. I think it's just the definition that it's not a silver bullet. It's gradual, and therefore, when you talk about TPV acceleration, it's going to be gradual as well. I don't think it's going to be the flip of a switch.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

Yeah. Just to add on, Mateus, Neha. Most of the capital that we deploy in terms of selling goes towards SMBs. Most of our TPV comes from SMBs. It's a very large engine, and you've got to be careful when changing it significantly. These things take time. We're evolving. We're optimistic about it, but it's going to take a little bit longer than we would like.

[Neha Agarwala, Analyst at HSBC]

Perfect. If I can ask one more question. We've seen very strong growth and a mix shift towards the Pix volumes. I believe you've been giving some offers where you are giving Pix volumes are being processed for free or at very low rates. Should we expect continued pressure on take rate coming from that? Also, as you try to reduce churn, you probably are giving more benefits to the merchants. Should we see pressure on take rate coming more from your initiatives and change in mix? Thank you.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

Hi, Neha. Again, yes, on the margin, take rates in payments are falling, mostly as a result of mix because of what you just described, right? Pix is growing proportionally on total TPV, and in some segments there are other price moves as well. That said, we've been saying for quite some time now that looking at take rates by product tells less of the story, as we price the client's relationship and not the product on a standalone basis. It's not uncommon already to have clients with very small take rates in payments, which we would typically reprice in other times of the company, but that today we bundle with credit and payments, bringing economics to very healthy levels. So once the client's on the base, we manage the relationship holistically and not looking at payments on a standalone basis or credit on a standalone basis.

[Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO at StoneCo]

Just to add on that, Diego, when you look at our offerings in place, I don't think we have offers in place where we provide Pix for free unconditionally. It's usually tied to a certain commitment of volume or any other commercial agreement as well, which connects to what Diego has just said, which is we really look at the unit economics on a broad base. I think it's not a good proxy of unit economics to look at those offerings on a piece by piece.

[Arnon Shirazi, Analyst at Citi]

All right. Try to get back in.

[Neha Agarwala, Analyst at HSBC]

Thank you. Thank you so much.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Arnon Shirazi from Citi. Please, Arnon, you may now proceed.

[Arnon Shirazi, Analyst at Citi]

Hi, all. Thank you for taking my question. Nice to be here again. My question is mainly related to the communication with the client base. From the past conversations we had, it was clear to have some problems communicating with them, mostly with core SME clients, while for some clients, it seems that the communication got better, as was just addressed in the past question from Neha. How is the communication with these larger SME clients, and how the offer is improving? I see that the integration with Pagar.me is part of this math, but it would be great to have more information on that. Thank you.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

Hi, Arnon. We keep evolving on that front. It is still easier to reach out to a micro merchant than to an SMB, especially when it becomes a larger client, which is not necessarily looking at the app every single day or looking at our communications every single day. So those are two different processes. We keep evolving on that front and communicating better both new offerings, both the current profiles or plans in which the clients are currently assigned. But it is a longer journey than simply fixing it from one quarter to the other.

[Arnon Shirazi, Analyst at Citi]

Okay, I got it. But is there any expectation on that? Should we see that advancing by the end of this year or something for a story for 2027?

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

It is going to be a gradual process that will certainly come with lower churn. So you will see that gradually. And the best way to see it is not going to be on any other metric other than churn.

[Arnon Shirazi, Analyst at Citi]

Okay, got it. Thank you, Diego.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Renato Meloni from Autonomous Research. Please, Renato, you may now proceed.

[Renato Meloni, Analyst at Autonomous Research]

Hi, everyone. Good evening. Thanks for taking the question. Can you expand your comments a bit on your net revenue from transaction activities declining 11% sequentially here, the opposite way from TPV? If you can maybe comment on how that pricing mix affecting that or potentially some relocations affecting the numbers. Thank you.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

Hi, Meloni. Basically, we had lower revenues from incentives that we get from the card networks related to our activities as credit card issuer. So every now and then, we collect certain incentives from the networks. Some of those incentives occurred in the first quarter and didn't occur on the second quarter. So short-term fluctuations.

[Renato Meloni, Analyst at Autonomous Research]

Perfect. So we shouldn't expect to see anything like that over the coming quarters?

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

Nope.

[Renato Meloni, Analyst at Autonomous Research]

Okay, thanks very much.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Guilherme Grespan from JPMorgan. Please, Guilherme, you may now proceed.

[Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO at StoneCo]

Grespan, we're not hearing the question.

[Operator]

Guilherme Grespan is having some technical problems. We are handing on to the next one. Our next question comes from Mr. Pedro Leduc from Itaú BBA. Please, Pedro, you may now proceed.

[Pedro Leduc, Analyst at Itaú BBA]

Good evening. Thank you so much. A question on financial results, both income but more expenses, not slide down a bit sequentially. Year-over-year, it seems very controlled as well. Can you remind us a little bit your strategy here, how you are in terms of own and third party, and maybe what we should also think for the next quarters here, if there are any levers that we should think about, or is it just the lower effect from this week maybe? Thank you.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

Hi, Pedro. Thank you for the question. There were two combined effects here. First, yes, Selic is slightly lower on average this quarter than it was last quarter or at the same period of last year. But most importantly, we had more deposits from clients on average deployed on the operation. The mix of own capital and third-party capital has been pretty much the same, as the amount of capital that we've been generating every quarter has been pretty similar to the amount of capital that we have returned to shareholders every quarter through buybacks. I'm excluding here the extraordinary effect of Linx's dividends. As to levers for the following quarters, if any, I would be more cautious on it, basically because we expect assets should grow faster than deposits until the end of the year. Let's see how that dynamic will evolve.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

Hopefully, assets will keep growing faster, and therefore, there may be pressure on financial expenses.

[Pedro Leduc, Analyst at Itaú BBA]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Mr. Guilherme Grespan from JPMorgan. Please, Mr. Guilherme, you may now proceed.

[Guilherme Grespan, Analyst at JPMorgan]

Hi. Hello. Can you hear me?

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

Yes, we can all.

[Guilherme Grespan, Analyst at JPMorgan]

Hi. My question is specifically on the credit and the government programs. I couldn't ask before. On the government programs, of course, it seems to be a very important point of growth to the business nowadays. I have two-fold questions here. Number one, if you can explain a little bit in more details what is the risk waterfall of the programs, how much the government guarantees in terms of NPLs. Especially, I think Pix is the one that is most relevant to you. Correct if I'm wrong, but I think it is. The second one is just how you're going to treat provisions. Diego mentioned that part of the lower coverage would be natural to be driven by the government programs. How will you handle provisions in this case?

[Guilherme Grespan, Analyst at JPMorgan]

Like, if you have the guarantee of the government, do you provision at all or no? How it works, this time mismatch between when you have the default and when you receive the honor of the government. Thank you.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

Awesome question, Guilherme, and that is precisely why we added page 11 on the materials. The waterfall of the programs are similar in the objectives, but each one of them has its own nitty-gritty detail, depending on what is the public to whom you are lending, what is the size of the company, so on and so forth. But on average, especially on Pix, the government guarantees roughly 75% of the defaulted amount. So the loss given default for a credit under Pix, on average, it is about 25%, which is materially lower than what we have in our overall portfolio. That is the reason why we have to provision less upfront when underwriting that credit. Other programs, not only the Sebrae facility that we have here on the material that we did not talk very much, but others that we have been working on will have different risk profiles, but the rationale is similar.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

Because of that guarantee, upon a loss, we provision less upfront. So whenever one of those credits roll into default, the coverage, especially on stage 2, will drop. And the coverage for the loans between 15 and 90 days will drop because we have the right to collect the guarantee from the government on the 91st day after the default. So it does not affect that much the coverage for stage 3 or for over 90-day credits, but it does affect significantly the coverage for stage 2 and for short-term NPLs.

[Guilherme Grespan, Analyst at JPMorgan]

That is super clear. Thank you, Diego.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Mr. Kaio Prato from UBS. Please, Kaio, you may now proceed.

[Kaio Prato, Analyst at UBS]

Hello, everyone. Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity. I have two on my side, please. The first one is a follow-up on the credit portfolio. You talked about the. I think you comment about. Could you comment about your current appetite on both the dedicated and the automated desk? Given the current credit landscape that you talked about now, today we already noted some contraction month-over-month on your portfolio under the FIDCs as of July. Just wondering if this scenario implies a reduction in the pace of growth at this point, specifically on these two fronts, please. The second one is in terms of your D&A. We noted a reduction on your D&A this quarter, allocated both in cost and sell expenses.

[Kaio Prato, Analyst at UBS]

If you can share a little bit more color on the drivers behind that, and what can we expect in terms of D&A going forward as well. Thank you.

[Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO at StoneCo]

Hey, Kaio, thanks for the question. I will take the first one around credit growth appetite, and then hand it over to Diego for the second one. In terms of appetite for growth, we are very mindful that the macro environment has been very tough, especially for Brazilian SMBs, with rates being very high for so long, probably now over three years of high rates. This, of course, weighs a lot on our clients. That said, we continue to see a lot of room for profitable growth, because when we look at our share of wallet within our own client base, it is still really small. We estimate that our share of wallet within our own client base at credit is still at around mid-single digits.

[Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO at StoneCo]

The opportunity remains large, and we feel that we are in a strong position of lending to clients whose daily sales flow through our platform as well. In terms of how we navigate this environment that is tough while having a share of wallet that is still low. If you remember, a couple quarters ago, we started by proactively raising prices towards the second half of last year in anticipation of this tougher macro environment. Now what we are increasingly doing is shifting the portfolio mix towards lower risk exposure, focusing on government-backed programs that, like Diego mentioned in the previous question, have a risk-sharing profile built into itself. In terms of the dedicated desk, I think I approached this in a previous question as well, but we are taking a more conservative approach, especially in regards to ticket size.

[Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO at StoneCo]

Overall, I think the message is that we still have appetite to grow the book. The second thing that I would mention, you mentioned the FIDC data as well. I would not read too much into the FIDC data, especially now that we have not only many other products, but also the facilities from the government. Not necessarily every disbursement will go through a FIDC itself. I think the FIDC data becomes a read or a proxy that is not as good going forward. In summary, I think we remain comfortable growing the portfolio. We are taking a cautious approach because we think the environment is tough. But again, I think there is a lot of room going forward.

[Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer at StoneCo]

Kaio, on the D&A, it is fairly simple. We can take it offline if you want, but basically, this is just an improvement in our accounting practice that has no effect on the P&L. Basically, we had a provisioning mechanism for POS of inactive clients that was fully provisioned, but existed with a positive value in one line of the balance sheet and the same negative value in another line. So what we are doing now is merging these two effects on the P&L. It is really just a mix effect between lines.

[Kaio Prato, Analyst at UBS]

Okay, got it. Thank you.

[Operator]

The questions and answer section is over. We would like to hand the floor back to CEO Mateus Scherer for the company's final remarks.

[Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO at StoneCo]

Thank you all for the support, and we'll see you in the next earnings call.

[Operator]

StoneCo conference call is now closed. We thank you for your participation and wish you a very nice day.

Participants

Executives

• Mateus Scherer Schwening, CEO
• Diego Ventura Salgado, CFO and Investor Relations Officer

Analysts

• Eric Ito, Analyst at Bradesco BBI
• Daniel Vaz, Analyst at Safra
• Antonio Ruette, Analyst at BofA
• Neha Agarwala, Analyst at HSBC
• Arnon Shirazi, Analyst at Citi
• Renato Meloni, Analyst at Autonomous Research
• Pedro Leduc, Analyst at Itaú BBA
• Guilherme Grespan, Analyst at JPMorgan
• Kaio Prato, Analyst at UBS