Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Capri Global Capital Limited Q2 and FY26 earning conference call hosted by Go India Advisors. As a reminder, all participants' lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, you may press star and then zero on your touch-tone phone. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Hardik Doshi from Capri Global Capital Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Q2 FY26 earnings call for Capri Global Capital Limited. This is Hardik Doshi, Head Corporate Finance and Investor Relations. Before we begin, as a brief disclaimer, the discussion on today's call regarding Capri Global Capital Limited's earning performance can be based on judgments derived from the declared results and information on business opportunities available to the company at this time. The company's performance is subject to risk, uncertainties, and assumptions that could cause results to differ materially in the future. Given these uncertainties and other factors, participants on today's call may observe caution while interpreting the results. The full disclaimer is available on slide 63 of the earnings presentation. Participants are requested to kindly take note of the same. Let me now introduce the management team on today's call. With us today on the call, we have Mr.
Rajesh Sharma, Managing Director and Promoter of the company, Mr. Monu Rathra, Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Kishore Lodha, Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Sanjeev Srivastava, Chief Risk Officer, Ms. Divya Sutar, Director of Business Strategy, Mr. Ajay Manglunia, Executive Director, Fixed Income Markets. I would now request our Managing Director, Mr. Rajesh Sharma, to present his opening remarks on the results. Over to you, sir.
Good afternoon, everyone. I hope you all are doing well and had a joyful Diwali celebration. We announced our unaudited financial results for the second quarter of FY 2026 on 29 October. I trust you have had the opportunity to go through our earnings presentation, which is also available on our website. Before I move on to the financial and operational highlights, I would like to touch upon a key development during the quarter. We strengthened our leadership team by the appointment of Mr. Monu Rathra as CEO of the company. Mr. Rathra brings over two decades of experience in the financial services and mortgage finance, and having held leadership roles across leading banking and financial institutions. We successfully completed our maiden public issuance of secured rated listed redeemable non-convertible debentures for INR 400 crore.
The issue received an overwhelming response, being oversubscribed across all investor categories: institutional, non-institutional, high-net-worth individuals, and retail investors. The strong subscription reflects the trust and confidence investors place in our business model, governance standard, and long-term growth outlook. This successful issuance not only broadens our investor base but also enhances our access to debt capital market, paving the way for larger issuance and further diversification of our borrowing profile in the future. Coming to our business and earning performance during the quarter, if we talk about business performance, we begin FY26 with a strong momentum across all our lending businesses and sustain that trajectory through the second quarter. As of September 30, 2025, our consolidated AUM is today INR 27,040 crore , reflecting a robust 40% year-on-year growth and 9% quarter-on-quarter growth. This performance was underpinned by broad-based expansion across segments.
Gold loan grew an impressive 58% year-on-year, while housing loans rose 37% year-on-year. Our co-lending AUM also surged 61% year-on-year to INR 5,677 crore, now accounting for almost 21% of total AUM, up from 18.9% in Q1 FY26, highlighting our steady focus on capital efficient growth. Disbursements for the quarter rose 64% year-on-year to INR 8,952 crore, supported by a widening distribution network and growing customer base. Our growth remains granular, diversified, and retail-led, with our customer base now exceeding 590,000, reaffirming the scalability and resilience of the business model. In our gold loan business, we achieved a significant milestone this quarter with the gold loan AUM crossing INR 10,000 crore and over 1,000,000 customer service since inception. Gold loan AUM grew by 58% year-on-year to INR 10,406 crore, reinforcing our strong position in this high-yield secured lending segment.
During the quarter, we added 21 new gold loan branches, further expanding our presence in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and marking our new entry into Bihar. Branch productivity continued to strengthen during this quarter. Average AUM per branch increased to INR 12.4 crore, supported by improved employee productivity, with AUM per employee rising from INR 1.4 crore in Q2 FY25 to INR 2.1 crore in Q2 FY26. As of September 2025, 762 branches are operating above the break-even threshold of INR 5 crore AUM per branch, underscoring enhanced operating leverage across the network. With a fully digitized loan journey offering TAT of less than 30 minutes, AI-enabled security systems, and stronger customer stickiness, evidenced by 55% plus repeat borrowers, the gold loan business remains a key growth engine, driving profitable and scalable expansion for the company. Our MSME AUM grew to INR 5,602 crore, up by 18% year-on-year.
During the quarter, we further expanded our MSME presence in Uttar Pradesh and the addition of 13 new branches. We are also broadening our reach through MSME Prime, a focused offering designed to cater to low-risk self-employed customers in urban markets of Maharashtra and NCR. Within MSME, our micro-lab business continues to gain strong traction, with AUM rising to INR 543 crore. This vertical enables us to serve emerging self-employed borrowers with smaller ticket size requirements. The micro-lab business is now present across 137 locations, following 43 net branch additions during the quarter, expanding our footprint in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and marking our entry into Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Our immediate focus is on enhancing sales productivity and operational efficiency across these new branches before undertaking further expansion.
This is significant long-term protection in the MSME segment, and with the recent network additions, we expect growth momentum to accelerate in the coming quarter. Housing AUM is today INR 5,972 crore, yielding a year-on-year growth of 37%. We continue to see resilient demand across the affordable housing segment, where rising income levels and lower interest rate regime are driving demand for housing loans. We also announced our foray into Southern India housing market with the opening of four new branches in Telangana to deepen our presence in this high-quality affordable housing market. This expansion marks an important milestone, positioning Capri as a national player in the housing finance space. This strategic expansion will further enhance portfolio granularity, strengthen asset quality, and support healthy yield expansion over time.
Our construction finance AUM grew 48% year-on-year to INR 4,969 crore, now funding over 286 active residential projects with an average sanction ticket size of INR 51 crore and outstanding portfolio ticket size of INR 17 crore, reflecting very granular ticket size in construction finance too. The book remains well diversified by geography and granularity, reflecting our focus on working with mid-size and small developers in metro and tier-one cities. We continue to emphasize disciplined underwriting through rigorous due diligence and escrow-based cash flow management, ensuring a risk-first-free approach. Our total branch network expanded to 1,224 locations in Q2 FY26, with a net addition of 86 branches during this quarter, while our employee base increased marginally to 12,197, up by 6% quarter-on-quarter. During the quarter, we also entered several new geographies, further strengthening our ambitions of building a Pan-India footprint.
This expansion not only enhances our customer reach and brand visibility across newer territories but also lays the foundation for the next phase of growth as we continue to deepen presence in existing high-potential states and selectively enter under-penetrated regions. Now coming to earning performance, let me now provide an update on core earnings. Our yield and spreads on net advances remain healthy in the quarter at 16.5% and 6.9% respectively, reflecting a 50 basis point improvement year-on-year. The increase in yields was broad-based, driven by expansion across all key retail products, that is, MSME, gold loans, and affordable housing loans. Our net interest income for Q2 FY26 is today INR 480 crore, representing a strong 57% increase year-on-year and 15% quarter-on-quarter. This robust performance was supported by continued loan book expansion, improved pricing, and enhanced margin efficiency.
We continue to strengthen our non-interest income streams in Q2 FY26, reinforcing our strategy of building a diversified and resilient earning profile. Non-interest income grew 97% year-on-year and 22% quarter-on-quarter to INR 203 crore, contributing 29.8% of our net total income for the quarter. This strong increase was largely driven by growth in commission on insurance distribution and co-lending fee income. In our insurance distribution business, we generated a net fee income of INR 28 crore during the quarter. We further broadened our product offering with the inclusion of products such as Capri Jewel, a jewelry insurance product, and a group personal accident cover for customer groups. With the launch of our digital distribution platform, Capri CRV aimed to enhance insurance penetration across our growing retail customer base. Over time, we expect insurance to evolve into a meaningful contributor to our overall fee income.
Meanwhile, our co-lending income is today INR 81 crore, reflecting continued strength in the segment, driven by higher disbursal volumes and deeper engagements with partner banks. Our car loan distribution business maintained its steady momentum with origination of INR 2,830 crore in Q2 FY26, up 14% year-on-year. With a growing footprint and deep relationship across 13 partner banks and finance institutions, we have built a scalable platform with the Pan-India network in this segment, with the potential to monetize further for distribution of other products. On the expense front, our operating expense increased 29% year-on-year and 25% quarter-on-quarter. The year-on-year increase was primarily driven by increase in our employee base, while the sequential rise reflected salary increments, bonus, and incentive during the quarter and the impact of one-off benefit of INR 15 crore in the previous quarter. Adjusting for this, the quarter-on-quarter increase would have been around 18%.
Our continued focus on operation efficiency is clearly visible. The cost-to-income ratio improving significantly to 49% in Q2 FY26, compared with 64% in Q2 FY25. This sharp improvement underscores the benefit of a maturing branch network, rising productivity, and strong operating leverage across our business. As a result of margin expansion, improvement in operating efficiency, and strong traction in fee income, our pre-provision operating profit surged 137% year-on-year to INR 345 crore during the quarter. Further, we continued our strong profitability momentum in Q2 FY26, delivering a robust PAT of INR 236 crore, up 143% year-on-year. Our return ratio considerably improved during the quarter with ROE of 14.4% and return on average assets at 4% for the quarter. This sharp growth was driven by consistent performance across all key business segments.
As regards to asset quality, our impairment cost for the quarter is today INR 31 crore in Q2 FY26, down from INR 81 crore in Q1 FY26. 4.6% of the gross loan book and our provision coverage ratio on stage three loans improved to 43%, demonstrating our proven provisioning and conservative approach to risk management. Stage two asset remained flat quarter-on-quarter and stage two issue provision increased by INR 8 crore quarter-on-quarter. Stage three asset declined INR 61 crore quarter-on-quarter and stage three issue provision declined by INR 19 crore quarter-on-quarter. This was on account of INR 79 crore of MSME portfolio sale to ARC. Gross stage three asset at 1.3% was down sequentially by 39 basis points, while net stage three is today at 0.7%, down 26 basis points sequentially.
As regards to capital liquidity position borrowing, following equity capital infusion of INR 2,000 crore in Q1 FY26, our balance sheet is now significantly stronger, providing ample headroom to support accelerated growth across business segments. Our standalone capital adequacy ratio of CGCL is about 32.9% and 26.1% for Capri Global Housing Finance Limited. Our leverage ratio remains quite comfortable at 2.5 times. Liquidity remains comfortable with over INR 3,200 crore in cash and bank balances investment and underwriting credit line across CGCL and CGHFL. Our borrowing increased by 31% year-on-year and incremental borrowing sanction limits year-to-date. This fiscal was around INR 3,500 crore. We continue to diversify our funding mix by raising funds through other instruments such as NCD and commercial papers. As I mentioned earlier, we raised INR 400 crore through NCD at a coupon rate up to 9.7% and tenure of up to four years.
With the softening of interest rate environment and decline in MCLR, we expect further benefit to accrue in our cost of borrowing in the next couple of quarters. As regards to technology, our technology investment remains central to our ability to scale securely, efficiently, and profitably. During the quarter, we invested INR 29 crore in technology deploying several artificial intelligence-driven initiatives aimed at strengthening asset quality and enhancing recovery. For instance, our newly launched digital auction platform is enabling higher realization by attracting a broader pool of bidders for repurchase property. We are also leveraging artificial intelligence to refine customer and collateral evaluation processes. Our AI-based bureau analytics tools empower teams with data-driven insights, enabling smarter and faster credit decisions. On the data analytics front, we are transitioning to real-time analytics capability, which will allow proactive portfolio monitoring and sharper business decisions across functions.
In parallel, our Capri communication portal, a state-of-the-art omnichannel platform, now ensures seamless, consistent, and faster communication with both customers and employees across multiple touchpoints. Cybersecurity and compliance-led upgrades remain core priorities as we expand our digital footprint. I am pleased to share that systems reliability has significantly improved, with outages now virtually eliminated, and our infrastructure is fully equipped to perform at scale. Coming to ESG, on the ESG front, we achieved a significant improvement in Sustainalytics ESG risk rating from 31.1 to 24, moving us from the high risk to the medium risk category. This 7-point improvement reflects our continued progress in strengthening ESG management system, governance framework, and data-driven reporting practices across the organization. We also published our annual business impact report and sustainability report, highlighting our progress initiative across ESG and broader sustainability goals.
To summarize, we delivered consistent and all-round performance in the current quarter, achieving our highest ever quarterly profit. With a strong capital base, a scalable branch network, and a diversified portfolio, already having invested heavily in the technology, we are well placed to deliver 25%-30% annualized AUM growth and sustainable return on average equity of 16%-18% plus return on average assets of 4%-4.5% by FY2028. We shall now take the questions. Thank you. Thank you, sir. We'll now begin with a question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use headset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles.
Our first question comes from the line of Aman Bhatti from Increte. Please go ahead. Hi, thank you for the opportunity, sir. My first question comes in the context of our branches. Our net addition for this quarter was 86 branches, which was quite sharp compared to the earlier quarters, and most of these are non-gold branches. How should we look at the overall branch expansion strategy as the focus now shifting back towards MSME and housing verticals? This quarter, we added 86 branches. MSME added about 13. Micro-lab, we added about 43, which is a newly introduced product one and a half years ago. Gold loan, we added 21 branches. Focus is back to MSME, you can say that. At the same time, gold loan also, we are going to add more branches.
By the end of March 2026, we should have a gold loan branch in the range of about 995. There will be more branches we will be opening in the south. Microlab, we will be adding some more branches in the last quarter. Expansion will continue to remain. Last quarter, we are expected to add another 50-plus branches, and this expansion will remain continue. The more branches we will open in the gold, but some expansion already happened in the Microlab, and Microlab also will keep adding on the branches. Okay, sir, got it. Second question was about co-lending. Now our co-lending forms about 20%-21% of the total AUM. How are the unit economics working out in terms of the spread and the fee income? Do you see a meaningful improvement in ROE in this space?
Co-lending, as regards the spread, it remains the same. It is just a tool to use your treasury in a manner that you need not to provide any capital and credit line. The exposure by the bank sits in the books of the bank on the individual borrower rather than the NBFC. Nor do those limits count in our borrowing. At the same time, we get the entire spread. There is a lower capital requirement. While we get the spread on the entire 100%, capital is required only for 20%. It is a very capital-efficient model without compromising any margins or the spread. Going forward, I think our co-lending tool will remain in the range of about 20%.
Last quarter, there's a change in the co-lending guidelines, and that will not impact it such because all the banks will shift from CLM 1 to the one common CLM new guideline. We expect that all the banks will align and will be able to maintain this. In longer term, we intend to keep this co-lending in the range of about 20%, plus minus 2-3% here and there. Okay, sir, one last question. You have started issuing NCDs, and the share of market borrowings are going up. Over the next year or a couple of years, what's your target mix between NCDs and bank loans, and what will be the blended cost of funds? Cost of fund currently is about INR 9.6%.
We expect that reduction of MCLR rate plus diversification and some mix of commercial paper and short-term borrowing should bring our cost of fund down by another 30-40 basis points gradually in the next two to three quarters. As regards to the mix is concerned, now the more borrowing will happen from the alternative sources. That mix will go up. It will be publications of the bond. It could be borrowing from the various other sources, ECB, foreign currency loans, as well as the borrowing from the mutual fund. We believe that next year, which is by end of 2027, you will see a significant jump in getting the finances from non-bank sources. Okay, okay, sir. Thank you so much for answering. Thank you, sir. Our next question comes from the line of Karan Kamdar from Choice Institutional Equities. Please go ahead. Hello, hope I'm audible.
Congrats on a good set of numbers. Sir, the MSME provision has decreased. How do we see the stress in this segment going forward? Do we see that the stress has declined? It's been on a declining trend, or do we see something happening here? I'm sorry, but there is no voice from the management. I'll ask Kishore to answer this with the CFO. Yeah, good afternoon. So I will take this. If you look at the quarter-on-quarter, then MSME NPA numbers have reduced from 4.3% to 3.1% on gross, and subsequently, the net NPA has also gone down. However, there is no significant change in the external environment as far as overall MSME book is concerned. This reduction is largely on account of the ART sale, which we have done.
What we have done as a strategy, wherever we have lended, where the property value is below INR 2,000,000, where we do not get the benefit of SARFAESI, we have transferred those to an ARC, which is with the value, as sir has earlier explained, that it is INR 79,000,000. That way we can invoke ARC level, the SARFAESI Act is available for anything, any exposure above INR 100,000, so that we can invoke SARFAESI and expedite our collection effort. If we take that out, then we are almost flattened quarter-on-quarter as far as overall NPA in MSME book as well as credit cost. Got it, got it, sir. Sir, consequently, anything on the construction side also, or is construction finance stable? Any movement there do you expect on credit quality?
Construction finance book, if you've seen over the period of the years, it has remained very stable. As you understand, our construction finance book is also in a very retail way of being very smaller ticket size. Outstanding basis is INR 17 crore, sanctioned basis is INR 51 crore. That reflects that risk is very granular. Markets are doing well. Housing market is very, very strong. We do not see any risk emanating from that. Besides, our underwriting standard is such that we do only residential projects, money is disbursed linked to the construction only after RERA approval is in place. With all these parameters, we do not expect any slippage or surprises in that segment. Got it, sir. Thanks. One last question, if I can squeeze in, about gold loans. Now that gold price has rocketed, like everyone knows, what kind of top-up loans are we seeing?
What is the consumer behavior regarding this? Top-up loan or repeat loan, they are one and the same thing in the gold loan because the same customer keeps repeating, coming again and again. Be it a top-up loan or be it even after repayment of the 100%, again, he comes back. Or he comes back for the increased value of the top-up loan. 55% customers are repeat customers. Top-up loans keep happening, it is a regular feature. I think with the increase in the gold loan, that helps growing book better. Even though if you look at our loan-to-value, despite top-up, it still remains very, very conservative at the level of about less than 65%. Okay, got it, sir. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'll get back in with you. Thank you, sir. Our next question comes from the line of Sagar Shah from Spark PWM.
Please go ahead, sir. Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. First of all, congratulations to the entire team of Capri for delivering such numbers. Sir, I had a few questions. My first question was related to the previous participant's question. Actually, what kind of, as we are growing very fast, actually in gold as well as housing. Now our focus, as you said, that we'll be shifting towards MSME. What kind of mix are we targeting for next year between these three segments out of your total loan portfolio, sir? I think our gold will remain in the range of about 40%, plus minus 2%-3% here and there. The rest of the segment of affordable housing, MSME, and construction finance will remain in the range of 20%-22%. Okay.
Are we going to see any change in the yield on advances or the NIMs due to this change in mix, sir, by next year? Our current portfolio yield is in the range of 16.9%. There could be a slight improvement of 25 basis points or so on account of gold and on account of Micro-lab. However, we are also improving our yield in affordable housing. Overall, you can expect that about 25 basis points improvement in the yield of the advances will be there. Besides that, we also expect our cost of fund to go lower. That is also bringing some benefit, which can be in the range of anything between 30-40 basis points. Right, sir. My next question was related to the gold loan AUM. We saw almost 58% growth actually in that segment.
I wanted to know how much was the tonnage growth actually that we have as collateral in our total AUM out of that? The growth in the tonnage is about 16.4, which is an increment of about 0.18% year-over-year and 3% quarter-on-quarter. Okay. Our tonnage is around 16.4 as of second quarter FY26, which implies an 18% growth year-over-year. Right, sir. My next question was related to MSME. The MSME AUM growth is around 16%. But our live accounts under the MSME actually are up by only 35%. Basically, what I wanted to know is, are we incrementally on the MSME side, are we incrementally increasing our average ticket size? Are we looking to tap actually higher turnover MSME clients? Is the change in mix there? Is it there in MSME? Management is on mute. Thank you. Can you repeat the question, please? Yeah.
MSME AUM growth is around 16%. The number of live accounts which we envisage, they are actually down year over year. They are growing quarter over quarter, but a very marginal number. What I wanted to know is, are we incrementally increasing our ticket size? Are we looking for higher ticket clients than MSME? While you are taking the growth, you are taking the growth of MSME, including Micro-lab. While you are taking the number of customers, you are taking only MSME. That is why this disconnect is happening. On the contrary, Micro-lab ticket size is lower. The average ticket size is about INR 500,000. Overall, Micro-lab is a sub-segment of the MSME. The total number of customers is 45,000. It is not 31,000.
Sir, I was referring to the slide number nine of yours, which states the live accounts are 31,100 for MSME business. I was referring to that slide. If you have to see, then you have to see MSME AUM and then MSME customer and Microlab and Microlab customer. On one hand, you are seeing the number of MSME. On the other hand, you are seeing the only customer of MSME without Microlab. I think that is causing a disconnect. Total number of MSME customers, including Microlab, are 45,000. The growth within that is happening at about 16%. It is not 31,000, 45,000 customers. Okay. Got your point, sir. My next question was related to housing yield. The housing yields actually, even though we saw almost 100 basis points of repo rate cuts, still our housing yields have not decreased.
Is it safe to assume that you will be passing on some sort of benefits to our housing customers in the next two quarters, sir? I think passing on the benefit is taken care of by the open market competition. It is a ticket size granularity and a conscious decision how you play between salaried, non-salaried self-employed, and then you focus on the yield. Our focus is that our yield, which is currently 13.3, we are targeting the yield has to improve to 13.7. For that, we are going a smaller ticket size, smaller locations, tier three, tier four, and focusing on improving the yield of the overall housing finance business. The housing yields will not decrease even in FY 2026, that you are saying basically? No. Incremental yields have already started coming in the range of 13.5. Our target is to take it to about 13.7. Okay.
My last question, sir, was related to Mr. Shem, sorry, Shem, Shem. Please come back and wait for the next question. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management will be able to address questions from all the participants in the conference, kindly limit the question to two questions per participant. Should you have a follow-up question, please rejoin the queue. Our next question comes from the line of Varun Dubey from Share India Securities. Please go ahead. Sir, thank you for giving time for asking questions and congratulations on your strong set of numbers. I just wanted to understand what's your view on, I mean, what's driving the overall net interest margin for the company because the net interest margins have gone up by around 60 basis points on a quarter-on-quarter basis.
Your cost of borrowing is down by 10 basis points and spreads are up by around 20 basis points. What is actually driving the overall net interest margin? With the 30-40 basis points decline in cost of funds that you are expecting in the next two to three quarters, where will this stabilize? I think because this net interest margin also improved the capital and this infusion of capital. That is happening because of that and also little margin have expanded on account of the higher mix of the gold loan and the Micro-lab. Okay, sir. By this 30-40 basis points that you are expecting cost of funds to go down, where will your margin stabilize going ahead? Expecting a 30-40 basis points decline in cost of funds.
Also, when you say 30-40 basis points decline in cost of funds, are you factoring the further rate cuts by RBI? No, we do not expect the further rate. I think what we are saying is because a lot of our interest rate loans are now happening at the lower rate. Plus, old loans are getting reset, and those dates are happening on an annual basis. Whenever the annual reset date comes, they get aligned with the MCLR of the latest. MCLR has already gone down between 15-30 basis points. Plus, new loans are happening at a slightly better pricing on account of capital infusion and better risk profile. Because of the two things, our cost of funds will come down. It will happen in a gradual manner in the next two to three quarters. You will see that getting reflected in our cost of funds.
Okay. Sir, just one clarification I wanted. You said in the starting that you will be ending with 995 gold loan branches by end of FY2026. Is it 995 or 895? Because currently you have 842 branches. 995. So it's going to be an addition of 150 more branches for next two quarters in gold loan? Yes. Yes. South we are entering. There could be some rollover in the April, but we already have planned that. I think the intention is to close the March by 995 branches gold loan. What would be the total branch addition if 150 branches addition would be in gold loan alone? What would be the total branch addition for next two quarters? We'll add about mix of Micro-lab, Housing, and Gold Loan. It will be in the range of about 200 branches in the next two quarters. Okay.
Thank you, sir. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Priyanshu Jan from Growth X Infinity. Please go ahead. Hello. I hope I am audible. Yes, sir, you are. I hope you are audible. Thank you for the opportunity. First of all, congratulations on a good set of numbers. The whole Capri team is doing a phenomenal job over there. I have a few questions. Most of the questions have been answered already. I just want to know what will be your credit cost going forward because it has been in a range less than 1% as of today. While credit costs have been lower than 1%, but on a safer side, while we are to project, we will say it will be in the range of about 80 basis points to 90 basis points. Sorry, can you repeat?
While credit costs have always been lower than 80 to 90, when we are to project, we always remain conservative. We would like to say credit costs we have taken into account about 80 basis points to 90 basis points. Okay. Your target for the upcoming year for ROA and ROE, can we expect around? Our ROA, we are targeting to next year, we are targeting anything between 4.25%-4.5% and ROE in the range of about 16%. Okay. Sir, my last question will be on the gold yield. As a customer, I just want to know who are those people who are paying this 20% yield on gold loan? How does the process take place? Can you just throw some light on it? Yeah. It is a very good question.
We have to understand what amount, who is borrowing, and what purpose. Somebody is borrowing INR 100,000, let's say for the sake of convenience, you assume 20%. Somebody is borrowing INR 100,000 for 20% for six months would mean that he has to end up paying INR 10,000 of interest cost. Now, he is using that money. For example, somebody is giving advance to farmer, buying some crop, getting a 20-30% discount, or somebody putting the agriculture product in the cold storage when he knows the prices are lower at the time of crop and selling it later, earning a margin of 30-40%. These are the businesses.
They look at, "My cost will be INR 10,000 for this loan, whereas in the six months, I will generate 40,000-50,000-60,000 rupees of margin." For example, recently concluded Deepavali, there are a lot of people on a seasonal business. They will buy the firecracker in bulk, set up two or three stalls in the town, and on a INR 100,000 inventory, they will make 70,000-80,000 rupees. By paying just INR 10,000 interest even for six months, most of the people borrow for three to four months. They do not calculate the rate of interest. It is the availability of money. Without going through a complex credit sanction requirement within 30 minutes, that makes them availability of money. Their business essentially runs on return on effort rather than return on equity.
It is absolute interest in such a low amount, is very practical for them rather than just looking at the rate of interest. Thank you, sir. That's all from my side. All the best for your future. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Aditya Sen from Robo Capital. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. My first question is about the spread. The spread, as of now, the spread is 6.9% in this quarter. Can you please let us know how will it shape going forward? Can you speak a little loudly? We are not able to hear clearly. Can now? Please carry on. The spread as of now is 6.9%. Going forward, can you please let us know how will it shape? The spread should become slightly better by reduction in cost of fund and operational efficiency.
We expect the spread quarter on quarter should improve. Ultimately, we expect the spread should be in the range of about 7.2 or so. 7.2. All right. That was my question. This has been answered. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Our next question comes from the line of Vikrant Pankaj Shah from Choice Institutional Equities. Please go ahead. Hello. Firstly, congratulations on a good set of numbers. Where do you see the AUM number and PAT at the end of FY2026 and FY2027? Hello. Am I audible? Sorry. Yeah. AUM at the end of FY2026 should be in the range of about INR 32,000 crore. Profit should be in the range of about INR 850 crore. At the end of FY2027, AUM should be in the range of about INR 42,000 crore, and profit should be in the range of about INR 1,200 crore.
My second question is, as the company increases its focus on the MSME segment, do you have any plan to further expand AUM mix for the segment in the future? Next three years' plan is frozen. We will continue to remain in the segment we operate in. As I said earlier, the overall mix will be gold 40%, MSME, affordable housing, and construction finance in the range of 2%. There could be variance between 2-3% here and there in any of the segments. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Our next question comes from the line of Akash Jah from AJ Wealth. Please go ahead, sir. Hi, sir. Just one question. I think last quarter you had guided for 70 basis points of credit cost, and now we have increased it to 80-90 basis points, I think.
Is this purely out of conservatism, or are we seeing something on the ground that led to this revision? No, no. I think when we have to give guidance, we should be a little keeping more conservative. We project that credit cost to be 90 basis points, while historically it has always been in the range of about 70 basis points. You always account for slightly increased credit cost when our Micro-lab portfolio is growing in proportion. Being on a conservative side, when we project, we have to say about 90 basis points. All right, sir. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Our next question comes from the line of Devansh Chandan from Findor. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. My question is regarding the cost-to-income ratio. In this quarter, it increased from 46.9% to around 49% quarter over quarter.
As we know that we are going to add branches going ahead, will there be any effect on cost-to-income ratio? First of all, the first quarter, there was a INR 15 crore one-off item. Last investor call, also, we have disclosed that. Because of that, the cost-to-income was lower. Actually, if we adjust that amount of INR 15 crore, it would have been in the range of 49%. Cost-to-income ratio more or less has behaved in the same. As you know, that despite putting up the 86 branches, the cost-to-income ratio has been fairly in the same range. Looking at the expansion, it can behave 1%-2% here and there. By and large, coming year, cost-to-income ratio will remain in the same range. We expect it to be maybe in the range of 47%-50%.
In a two-year's time, we expect it to come down by another 4-5%. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchstone telephone. Our next question comes from the line of Vansh Solanki from RSPN Venture. Please go ahead, sir. Hello. Are you audible, sir? Yes, sir, you are. Please go ahead. Yeah. So my first question on the credit score is only that we are going very aggressively on the gold loan and micro-lab and MSME. So as of now, our credit score is not coming because we have a very new. But when we see about the next two to three years, there can be a chance that our credit score and provisions may rise. So still, we are doing the 0.9 basis conservatism.
There will be an increase of this, or there can be a chance that this will increase also. Can you repeat the question? Your voice is echoing, so it is not very clear. Can you repeat it, please? Better now? Yeah. Yeah. My question is that as we have a very new book of Micro-lab and gold loans, our credit score is in a limit. In 0.70 basis points, you have told me this is very natural. If I see in the next two to three years, is there a chance that this will go to 1% or more even when our book gets old and Micro-lab also will increase? There is a chance that our credit score will also increase, right? I do not think that our credit cost will go up more than 1% ever.
If you talk about the gold loan, there is no higher credit cost. Credit cost is coming only from the mortgage business. Microlab, the way we are building it with the help of data analytics and technology, we expect to do better than many other players in the segment. So far, all metrics of collection efficiency and other are giving that indication to us that Microlab will also behave in a very predictable fashion to us. Okay. The second question is that you just guided for financial 2027, exit AUM with INR 42,000. That is very approximate. 30% YOY growth you have mentioned, right? Will this be achievable? Because now the growth is also slowing down. When I see the last year, we have a growth in March 2025 of 46% YOY. As of September 2025, we are standing at 40% growth.
Gradually, the growth percentage is coming down when our book is getting larger in size. Will the 30% be achievable for us in 2027 or 2028 or so? Yeah. We will be able to do that. We will be able to do that because we are putting a branch expansion, and with that, it should be achievable. Okay. The last question from my side is that you have mentioned 55% is repeat customers in your cycle. What is the trend in the past? Was there a 70-80% and that is reduced to 55%, or is it increasing in the number of repeating customers? Can you just give the past history? I was talking about gold loan. Gold loan, there was earlier 50%. Now it has gone to 55%. Same customer keep coming back.
At least the business 55% customer are repeating, and that is very healthy. That is, I would say, the gold loan customers are keep borrowing, again repaying. This is the way gold loan operates. This is a good number to have that our customers who come experience us keep coming back to us. Okay. Thank you. That's from my side and all the best. Thank you, sir. Our next question comes from the line of Manishankar Mendel from Alim Bake. Please go ahead, sir. Mr. Mendel, you can proceed ahead with the question. Thank you. Sorry. Most of the questions that I had have been already answered. Yeah, you can pass on to the next question. Okay. No problem. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Shashank Jaff, an individual investor. Please go ahead. Mr. Jaff, you can proceed ahead with the question, please.
Mr. Jha, if you can hear us, please proceed ahead with the question. Since there is no response from Mr. Jha, we'll move forward to the next participant. Our next participant, the call from the line of Devansh Chandan from Findor. Please go ahead. Hi, sir. I have one follow-up question. Do you have any expectation regarding the PAT number or the revenue in the next three to four years? PAT number? Yeah. So we said this year 850, next year 1,200. And by FY2028, what number are you looking at? That number we are not projecting yet. Okay. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Gaurav Purohit from Systematics Group. Please go ahead. Hi. Thank you for this opportunity and congratulations on a great set of numbers. Just one question from our side.
You just mentioned that you are planning to grow the AUM to INR 32,000 crore this year and INR 42,000 crore next year. Are you essentially upping the growth guidance from the 30% figure to a 35% figure? Yes. Because the first half has gone very well. We already have 40%. Basically, these numbers, we have revised our guidance from earlier one to INR 32,000 crore. Okay. Okay. Thank you, sir. That was my only question. The rest of the questions have been answered. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Vansh Solanki from RSPN Venture. Please go ahead. Okay. Thank you for taking me the question. You just mentioned in 2027 that INR 1,200 crore of PAT on AUM of INR 42,000 crore. It is giving me approximately 2.8% ROI. We have just guided that it will be 4.25% or 4.5% in financial 2026.
We are guiding indirectly in 2027 of 2.8%, like very a big mismatch, as I see. I think you have to look at the number of return on average asset rather than return on average AUM because you have included the co-lending data also in that. If you look at the ROA, then there is a 20% co-lending also there. If you adjust those data, the ROA will be in the range of 4% plus. If I adjust and assume that the 20% book will be the co-lending and 80% of the AUM will be on-book AUM, then also it is coming around 3.5% only, very far from 4.5% what we have guided for 2026. Can you, just for the sake of us, can you explain how you are calculating?
You just told that INR 42,000 crore for AUM, then the 80% of told is INR 33,000 crore approximately will be my on-book AUM. And the INR 1,200 crore from INR 32,000 crore will be only 3.5%. That's why. Is there any mismatch what I am calculating or what? You have to do opening and closing balances average also, no? You cannot take only closing. I think the guidance which we just gave, 4%, that is a return on average asset. When you calculate, given the numerator is the P&L number, the beginning asset is somewhere in the range of around INR 24,000 crore, INR 25,000 crore. If you do an average, you will get to a number of around 4%. Okay. I want to explain it to you like this. Closing of opening of 2027 year will be INR 32,000 crore. Assume 20% co-lending. You have to do INR 6,400 crore from that.
So it will become about 25,600. Then you have to take closing. Closing will be about 40%. You have to do 20% co-lending. Add both of them. And then if you calculate ROA 4%, it's about INR 1,200 crore. With the same, we will be able to maintain for 2027, 2028 also. Just I want to put a bigger picture in 2028. Will it be possible for 4% in long term also? Yeah. We are going to do business in a manner that we are able to deliver 4% ROA minimum. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for all the questions and answering all the questions. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraint, that was the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to the management for the closing comments. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
To conclude, Q2 marked another quarter of a strong broad-based performance driven by geographical expansion, improving margins, enhanced cost efficiencies, and ongoing technology-led transformation. We remain well-positioned to achieve 30% plus annual growth while delivering sustainable ROE of 16-18%, ROA of 4-4.5% over a period of time. Thank you for your continued trust, and we look forward to building on this momentum in the quarters ahead. Thank you. Thank you, sir. On behalf of Capri Global Capital Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.