Prepared remarks
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 a 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 described in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are 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. Joining the call today is StoneCo's CEO, Mateus Scherer; the CFO and IRO, Diego Salgado; and the Head of IR, Roberta Noronha. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mateus. Please proceed.
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: reaccelerating TPV growth through better retention, deepening our banking and credit franchises and keeping a disciplined approach to costs. 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. 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 3. This quarter, we launched our new brand positioning, Stone, the bank for entrepreneurs. This is not a change in 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. To bring this to life, we also launched a campaign film. The link is on this page. Now 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 5, we recently reached an important milestone in that direction. 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. And 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 6. In the first half, we delivered BRL 3.1 billion in adjusted gross profit 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 profit 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 continue to take hold. With that said, I will pass it over to Diego, who will go over our financial and operating results for the quarter. Diego?
Thank you, Mateus, and good evening, everyone. Let me start on Slide 7, 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 annual basis, while adjusted EPS grew 9% with continued share buybacks over the past year, meaningfully reducing our share count. On Slide 8, our active client base reached 4.8 million merchants and ARPAC grew mainly as credit keeps gaining penetration and weight in our client base. Turning to Slide 9, TPV growth accelerated to 4% annually, a small improvement over the pace we saw in the first quarter. 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 sales force incentives and improving client experience to reduce operational friction. So far, the effect is more meaningful on micro merchants as simpler offerings and 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 calibrated it cautiously before scaling. We expect the benefits of our initiatives to become more visible as the year progresses and therefore accelerate TPV. Looking at TPV mix, PIX QR Code continues to grow faster than card volumes. In banking, our deposit franchise keeps building. 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. 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 flattish yield. This stability reflects the entry of government-backed lines, which carry lower rates and a lower risk profile. 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 today 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 PEAC in April, and it has already gained some relevance in our book. 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 in provision expenses affects the coverage for loans in 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 in expenses is a combination of: first, the record expansion of the portfolio; second, the roll-forward effect of the loans disbursed in late 2025 and early 2026 that are moving to later provisioning stages; and finally, the continuous pressure that we've been noticing on the dedicated desk with record 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. 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 towards 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 clear the oldest and most heavily provisioned loans, come with a lag. Slide 13 provides a bit more color on the NPL composition by product and channel. On the short end, the 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 days stage. On Slide 14, we present the evolution of our cost 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 client deposits. This shows in our funding costs, which has come down to roughly 85% of CDI. Administrative 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 nonrecurring 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 over 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 Link sale proceeds. 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 reaccelerating. 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 is how we deepen that relationship over time. With that, let's open it up for questions.
Questions and answers
Our first question comes from Eric Ito from Bradesco BBI. This was a quarter of steady execution. TPV growth is reaccelerating. 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 is how we deepen that relationship over time. With that, let's open it up for questions.
I have two here on my side. The first one: I think in the release we saw a BRL 200 million nonrecurring allowance for expected losses on issuers in distress. Could you please give us some color on the main trends there? What happened? And then the second one: I'd like to touch on credit. You 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. Could you share more expectations going forward? How does that change your guidance for the credit book forward?
Eric, thanks for the question. I will 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. So in terms of the provision we did for selected issuers this quarter, maybe it's worthwhile to give some context on the topic. As you know, the Central Bank ordered the liquidation of a large financial group earlier this year. One of the subsidiaries of that group was a sizable credit card issuer. It has now been a little over 90 days since we last received the cash flow from that issuer. As a matter of accounting prudence, we decided to make a provision. In terms of how we evolve from here, our position is that ensuring these amounts get settled by the issuers is the role of the card networks. The reason for that is straightforward. Whenever a merchant accepts a credit card transaction, the merchant generally doesn't look at the name of the cardholder or who the issuer is behind the transaction. For that to work, merchant acquirers need to trust the networks to manage the risk of their members and to ensure that every authorized transaction gets settled to the merchant acquirers so we can pass it through to our merchants. If merchant acquirers had to underwrite every issuer one by one and accept only those we judged to be creditworthy, the card system would lose a lot of its value and be worse off. So in summary, we have an issuer that has been liquidated and it has been more than 90 days since we last received funds. While we do expect to settle this issue and receive the settlements that are due to us, for accounting prudence we decided to make the provision. I'll hand it over to Diego to give more color on that and to address the credit question as well.
Eric, thank you for the question. As Mateus mentioned, since the last time 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 balance sheet management, and you should always expect that from us. We are adjusting this effect in our results because we understand it's a temporary effect arising from our accounting standards and not our view on recoverability. We understand it is the responsibility of the network to ultimately settle these amounts, as Mateus mentioned. This is clear under Central Bank legislation, which defines who bears responsibility for risk management. This is not the first time an issuer goes bankrupt in Brazil. Historically, we have always collected 100% of these accounts receivable from the networks because of that chain of responsibility and trust, which is what creates value for the overall system. So I'm cautiously optimistic about a good outcome here, but we're going to be careful with balance sheet management. To your second question on the government programs and the overall impact on the forecast or guidance, it doesn't change anything. When we set expectations last quarter that cost of risk should trend down to the mid- to high-teens, we already had some of these programs in mind. Naturally, the mix of disbursements on a quarter-over-quarter basis may fluctuate. So it's not every quarter that we're going to disburse the same mix of products to the same kinds of clients. Short-term fluctuations are natural. But the guidance still stands that cost of risk will trend down to the mid- to high-teens in the medium term, probably by the end of the year already at the high-teens level.
Perfect. Just to be clear on the first point, Diego, you mentioned that you are optimistic about the outlook. So going forward, we shouldn't expect more provisions, correct? And the recovery will depend on the process?
We may need to provision more. The provision level we have today is a weighted probability scenario for different outcomes, including a possible litigation. So all outcomes are on the table. I'm optimistic about a positive outcome because of the reasons we've mentioned. We think a litigation would destroy value for everybody, so we expect negotiation, but it may not happen during the next quarter or it may not happen at all. So we need to be ready for everything. In terms of size — which I suspect is your next question — our total exposure reflects the market share we have in payments generally. So the exposure to this issuer is proportional to our market share, just as it is for any given issuer.
Our next question comes from Daniel Vaz from Safra.
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 that strong compared to TPV, which has recovered quite a bit — congrats on that, mostly on PIX. PIX might not be bringing the same unit economics as cards when we look to your financial income. And then you have a headwind on the other financial income portion given that you might not have the same cash position, right? So how can we deliver the low end of the guidance with the new take-rate levels that look a bit more sluggish than in the past? And if costs, the COGS, which you delivered well this quarter, is that where you want to surprise or where you want to have most upside to deliver the low end? How should we treat the balance between revenues with take rates and headwinds from the cash position and then your COGS? Is it costs where you want to meet the guidance rather than revenues?
Thank you for the question. Gross profit was flattish during the first half of the year mainly because of the reasons we've mentioned in the presentation. Credit revenues keep adding to the top line, while payments revenue is affected by marginally lower prices. More importantly, what weighs is the cost of provisions that come with the credit portfolio growth. As to the second half of the year, we expect growth to accelerate both on credit card TPV and on PIX, and we expect to start benefiting more from the churn initiatives we've mentioned. These things, combined with credit portfolio growth and an improvement in the overall risk profile for the portfolio, should capture an additional benefit for 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%. Today that number is probably closer to 14%, maybe 25 basis points below that depending on the next Central Bank meeting. As we have disclosed already, every 100 basis points on Selic carries a pretax 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 expected, in line with broader market trends. None of this changes our guidance ranges, but it does make the backdrop more demanding than it was at the start of the year, which is why we're focused on delivering towards the lower end of the guidance. I don't think it will depend on the total cash balance of the quarter or any one-off COGS effect from the second quarter.
Okay. If I may follow up, do you have any specific target for your cost of risk for the second half of the year?
It is going to trend down to the high-teens that we've mentioned. Naturally, short-term fluctuations are possible because of the mix of disbursements and specific cases on the dedicated desk. As we disclosed, this quarter a big impact on the 15- to 90-day NPLs came from the dedicated desk, which is hard to forecast. So short-term fluctuations may occur, but we are optimistic about moving down to the mid- to high-teen levels we've guided.
Our next question comes from Antonio Ruette from Bank of America.
My question is actually a follow-up on Vaz's question related to the cost of risk in the credit business. My question goes to these large cases on the dedicated desk. Could you provide a little bit of detail on what happened here? Why you decided to lend to these clients and which kind of problem you had? How are you addressing this going forward — did you reduce the size of loans or the size of clients going forward?
Antonio, thanks for the question. I'll give a little color and then talk about the changes we've made. First, you are right: we have seen delinquency cases in the dedicated desk, particularly among larger-ticket exposures. The dedicated desk's profile has an average ticket of around BRL 700,000, which is part of the core clients we serve. The issue relates to record judicial recuperations happening in the country, which has impacted some large clients. In terms of how we are addressing that, we are doing two main things. First, we're shifting originations towards government-backed credit lines, particularly for clients where we do not have a long-standing relationship or sufficient historical data prior to the disbursement. Second, we are minimizing the maximum ticket amounts 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 dedicated desk remains core to our offering and works well when we stay within our core client profile. The issues were related to specific cases, especially higher-ticket disbursements.
Antonio, to add a bit more color to what Mateus said: there are different cases, but one example from the second quarter was a client with no long-standing relationship in payments and software that filed for bankruptcy protection. We had a ticket of BRL 11 million or BRL 12 million; it was a large exposure. We were supporting that client because of the overall business we were getting from them and we were discussing banking opportunities. When they filed for bankruptcy protection, we moved that client immediately from Stage 1 to Stage 3, and that impacted our metrics.
This is great color. If I may follow up: when you look at most of your large corporate cases, are these clients distressed by the poor macro environment and high rates? Or do you consider that most of them are some kind of fraud or is it more macro related?
No, this is mostly macro related. In this case, Antonio, it was a large retailer impacted by the macro environment.
Our next question comes from Neha Agarwala from HSBC.
You mentioned in your press release that you've seen good results from your efforts in the micro clients, but you're still working on SMB clients. Could you explain why it has been more difficult to regain SMB clients? Are you already seeing improvements starting in the third quarter so we can see results in 3Q? Or will it take more time for SMB churn to reduce?
Thanks for the question. I can give some color and then Diego can add. It is true we've seen more success faster with micro merchants. The reason is simple: offers for micro merchants are usually a lot simpler and the distribution channel is also simpler. For SMBs, the base spans different offerings, channels and needs. There is no single fix, so we have to adjust offers across many segments and intensify retention work, which is by definition distributed and requires much testing and careful calibration before rollout. So it's not that we've been unsuccessful; it's that SMBs require more time. Both trends are improving in micro and SMB segments, but SMBs will take longer to show the full impact. I wouldn't expect a flip of a switch — it's a gradual process.
Neha, most of the capital we deploy for selling goes towards SMBs. Most of our TPV comes from SMBs, so it's a very large engine and you must be careful when changing it significantly. These things take time. We're evolving and are optimistic, but it will take a little longer than we'd like.
Perfect. One more question: we've seen strong growth and a mix shift towards PIX volumes. I believe you've been offering incentives where PIX volumes are processed for free or at very low rates. Should we expect continued pressure on take rate from that? And as you try to reduce churn, you probably give more benefits to merchants. Should we see pressure on take rate coming from your initiatives and the change in mix?
Neha, yes — on the margin, take rates in payments are falling, mostly due to mix because PIX is growing proportionally in total TPV and in some segments there are other pricing moves as well. That said, we've been saying for some time that looking at take rates by product tells less of the story because we price the client's relationship and not the product standalone. It's not uncommon to have clients with very small take rates in payments that we bundle with credit and other services, bringing overall economics to healthy levels. Once the client is on the base, we manage the relationship holistically and not by product in isolation.
To add, we don't provide PIX for free unconditionally. Any such pricing is usually tied to a commitment of volume or another commercial agreement, which connects to what Diego said: unit economics should be viewed at the relationship level rather than piece by piece.
Our next question comes from Arnon Shirazi from Citi.
My question relates to communication with the client base. From past conversations, it was clear you had some problems communicating with core SMB clients, while communication with micro merchants seems to have improved. How is communication with larger SMB clients? How is the offer improving? I see the integration with Pagar.me is part of this, but I'd like more information.
We keep evolving on that front. It's still easier to reach micro merchants than SMBs, especially larger SMBs that don't use the app every day or check our communications daily. Those are two different processes. We are improving how we communicate new offerings and current profiles and plans assigned to clients, but it's a longer journey than fixing it in one quarter.
Understood. Is there any expectation on timing? Should we see this advance by the end of this year or into 2027?
It's going to be a gradual process that will come with lower churn. You will see the improvement gradually; the best way to observe it is via churn metrics.
Our next question comes from Renato Meloni from Autonomous Research.
Can you expand on your net revenue from transaction activities declining 11% sequentially, which is the opposite direction from TPV? Can you comment on how pricing and mix affected that or if there were any reallocations in the numbers?
Basically, we had lower revenues from incentives we receive from card networks related to our activities as a credit card issuer. Some of those incentives occurred in the first quarter and didn't occur in the second quarter. So this is a short-term fluctuation.
Perfect. So we shouldn't expect to see this across coming quarters?
No.
Our next question comes from Guilherme Grespan from JPMorgan. Guilherme Grespan is having some technical problems. We are heading on to the next one. Our next question comes from Mr. Pedro Leduc from Itaú BBA.
A question on financial results: both financial income and other expenses slid down a bit sequentially and look controlled year-over-year. Can you remind us of your strategy in terms of own and third-party funding? And what should we think about for the next quarters — any levers we should consider, or is it just a lower Selic effect?
Pedro, there were two combined effects. First, Selic is slightly lower on average this quarter than last quarter or the same period last year. More importantly, we had more client deposits on average deployed in the operation. The mix of own capital and third-party capital has been pretty much the same, as the amount of capital we generate each quarter has been similar to the amount we return to shareholders through buybacks, excluding the extraordinary Linx dividend. As to levers for the following quarters, I would be cautious. We expect assets to grow faster than deposits until the end of the year, so let's see how that dynamic evolves. If assets keep growing faster, there may be pressure on financial expenses.
Our next question comes from Mr. Guilherme Grespan from JPMorgan.
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can now.
My question is specifically on credit and the government programs. It seems to be a very important point of growth for the business. I have two questions: first, can you explain in more detail the risk waterfall of the programs — how much the government guarantees in terms of NPLs? I think PEAC is the most relevant. Second, how are you going to treat provisions in this case? If you have a government guarantee, do you provision at all? How does the timing mismatch work between when you have the default and when you receive reimbursement from the government?
Great question, Guilherme, and it's precisely why we included Page 11 in the materials. The waterfall of programs is similar in objectives, but each has details depending on the public to whom you're lending and company size. On average, especially for PEAC, the government guarantees roughly 75% of the defaulted amount. So the loss given default for a credit under PEAC is about 25% on average, materially lower than our overall portfolio. That's why we provision less upfront when underwriting that credit. Other programs, such as the Sebrae facility and others, have different risk profiles, but the rationale is similar. Because of the guarantee, when a credit defaults you can collect a guarantee from the government. We have the right to collect the guarantee on the 91st day after default. So this reduces the provisioning requirement, especially for Stage 2 and short-term NPLs, while it doesn't affect coverage for Stage 3 or over-90-day credits as much.
Our next question comes from Mr. Kaio Prato from UBS.
I have two questions. First, could you comment on your current appetite for both the dedicated and automated desks given the current credit landscape? Today we've noted some contraction month-over-month in the portfolio as of July. Does this scenario imply a reduction in the pace of growth at this point, specifically on these two fronts? Second, your D&A declined this quarter, allocated across costs and selling expenses. Can you share more color on the drivers behind that and what to expect for D&A going forward?
Thanks for the question. On appetite for growth, we are mindful that the macro environment has been tough for Brazilian MSMBs with high rates for an extended period. That weighs on clients. Still, we see room for profitable growth: our share of wallet within our client base on credit is still around mid-single digits, so the opportunity is large, and we are in a strong position lending to clients whose daily sales flow through our platform. To navigate this tough environment while having low share of wallet, we proactively raised prices toward the second half of last year and are increasingly shifting portfolio mix toward lower-risk exposures, focusing on government-backed programs that have risk-sharing characteristics. For the dedicated desk, we are more conservative, especially regarding ticket size. We remain comfortable growing the portfolio but are cautious given the environment. Regarding FDIC data, I would be cautious reading too much into it. Not every disbursement will go through FDIC reporting, particularly with government facilities, so it becomes a less reliable proxy going forward. In summary, we have appetite to grow the book but will do so cautiously.
Kaio, on D&A, it's fairly simple. We can take it offline if you want, but basically this is an accounting improvement that has no effect on the P&L. 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. What we're doing now is merging these two effects on the P&L. So it's really just a reclassification between lines.
The question-and-answer section is over. We would like to hand the floor back to CEO, Mateus Scherer, for the company's final remarks.
Thank you all for the support, and we look forward to speaking with you again on the next earnings call.
StoneCo's conference call is now closed. We thank you for your participation and wish you a very nice day.