Good day, and welcome to the Axis Bank conference call to discuss the Q4 and Financial Year Ending Results as on 31 March 2022. Participation in this conference call is by invitation only. Axis Bank reserves the rights to block access to any person to whom an invitation has not been sent. Unauthorized dissemination of the contents or the proceedings of the call is strictly prohibited, and prior express permission and written approval of Axis Bank is imperative. As a reminder, all participants will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions at the end of the briefing session. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded.
On behalf of Axis Bank, I welcome all the participants to the conference call once again. On the call we have Mr. Amitabh Chaudhry, MD and CEO, Mr. Puneet Sharma, CFO, Mr. Rajiv Anand, Deputy MD, Mr. Ravi Narayanan, Group Executive and Head, Branch Banking, Retail Liabilities and Products, and Mr. Sumit Bali, Group Executive and Head, Retail Lending and Payments. I now hand over the conference to Mr. Amitabh Chaudhry. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Nirav. Good evening and welcome everyone. Financial Year 2022 was yet another extraordinary year. You could say these kind of years are coming thick and fast now. We had the impact of wave two in the first half, a strong rebound thereafter, and macroeconomic headwinds because of war and rising inflation by the time we ended it. At Axis Bank, we took these uncertainties in our stride and used them as opportunities to redraw the baseline in multiple business segments. We gained market share in them, and we made significant progress on our journey of distinction. This has been possible through the collective effort of our employees and partners who serve the needs and aspirations of our customers. I will share with you how we have fared on the execution of our strategy in the years gone by. Puneet will give you the details of the financial performance.
We focused on the three core areas of execution to move forward on our GPS strategy. The first one was deepening a performance-driven culture, second was strengthening the core, and third was around building for the future. Let me now discuss each one of them in further detail. On deepening of the performance-driven culture, growth has accelerated across the bank, driven by a culture of high performance and relentless execution. First, we have lifted the growth trajectory. Our customer deposits have grown at a CAGR of 15% in the last three years and 16% year-on-year in financial year 2022, led by our focus on granularization and premiumization of deposit franchise.
On advances, we continue to grow faster than the industry, with overall advances growing at 15%, while the growth in our focus segments comprising mid-corporate, SMEs, small business banking and rural has been higher at 17% CAGR in the last three years. On credit cards, we have seen huge customer interest in our proposition. We have grown 26% over last year, and we issued a total of around 2.7 million cards during financial year 2022. We have gained significant incremental market share of 31% at 11 times faster than the industry on Merchant Acquiring Business. We are the second-largest merchant acquiring bank in the country with an installed capacity of 9.52 lakh terminals. We have built a Burgundy franchise. We're one of the top brands in wealth management space.
We now have an AUM of INR 2.6 lakh crores growing at a strong 25% CAGR in last three years. Second, we are improving our profitability metrics. Net interest income has grown at a CAGR of 15% in last three years despite the COVID challenges. PAT CAGR has been 41% in last three years. Our subsidiaries continue to deliver industry-leading performance and remain an integral part of our One Axis strategy. They delivered 61% CAGR in profits in the last three years, crossing the INR 1,195 crore mark and contributed 80 basis points in quarter four financial year 2022, Axis consolidated ROE of around 6.67%. I would like to reiterate that our aspirations are bigger, and we continue to work to raise our performance on margins. Third was around fostering a winning mindset.
There is a constant cultural change in the bank and in our ability to stand out in the market. This is reflected in Axis Bank delivering many industry firsts and winning external recognitions for its performance. During the quarter, we were awarded IFR Asia Asian Bank of the Year and the India Bond House Award for our breadth of coverage and depth of expertise in the Asian investment banking space. On slide 5 of our presentation, we have listed our awards and achievements across various segments. The winning mindset is also seen in our business performance with multiple all-time highs that we have recorded during the year. New candidate liability relationships acquired have continuously trended upwards over the last three years, touching new highs.
In quarter four, we opened 2.4 million liability relationships, up 30% year-on-year, taking the total accounts open in financial year 2022 to new highs of 8.6 million, up 29% year-on-year. We added highest number of salary accounts during the year, 1.5 million new accounts, with all-time high balance contribution from them, reflecting growth in both quality and quantity. On the wealth management side, we saw highest ever gross mutual fund sales of over INR 21,200 crore and alternate investments over INR 2,300 crore in the year. We issued our highest ever quarterly new credit cards at 1.1 million in quarter four. In February 2022, we were the largest issuer of credit cards on net basis in the industry.
We crossed a significant milestone of 2 billion Flipkart Axis Bank credit cards in force. We also entered into a strategic partnership with Airtel that will help us to offer credit cards and various digital financial offerings to Airtel's 340 million customers. There are more partnerships in the pipeline. Digital disbursements overall from FY 2022 were highest ever for any quarter, growing 21% year-on-year. The acquisition of Citi Personal Banking Franchise further builds on this momentum and reflects our desire to win in our focused customer segments. Our One Axis Philosophy has been a key area of distinctiveness in the wholesale banking segment. Actually, we have seen highest ever contributions from new business underwriting during the year at 53%. Similarly, mid-corporate, we have seen high CAGR growth of 36% over the last two years. Our second pillar was strengthening the core.
I start with building a strong balance sheet. Sustainability continues to remain the foundation of the bank's GPS strategy. We have taken concrete actions towards strengthening our policies, processes and controls. Our legacy asset quality issues are firmly behind us, as the numbers show. Bank asset quality is among the best in class. Non-performing loans declined by 0.42% and 1.15% on QoQ and YoY basis respectively, and credit costs declined by 0.12% and 1.16% on QoQ and year-over-year basis respectively. GNPA, NPAs and PV books are down by 244, 133 and 57 basis points respectively in the last three years at 2.82%, 0.73% and 0.75%.
We hold cumulative non-interest provisions of INR 12,428 crore and standard asset coverage ratio of 1.77%, amongst the highest in the industry, with one of the lowest restructured portfolios of 0.52%. Our balance sheet buffers remain strong with CCR of 35%. Bank's strong balance sheet and healthy capital with CET1 ratio of 13.24% ensures that we enter this cycle from a position of strength. Deepak Maheshwari, Bank's Chief Credit Officer, played a key role to help us establish the right underwriting framework and credit culture in the wholesale bank over the last three years. We had persuaded Deepak out of his retirement to guide us on this journey. He would be moving on completion of the contract on 30 April. However, he will continue as board member of Axis Bank.
We sincerely thank him, and we wish him the very best. He has built a strong team that will sustain our credit and risk culture. Second one on strengthening the core was around building our next generation technology architecture. Technology is at the core of future-ready Axis we are building. We continue to make significant investments in building digital and new age capabilities, invest in talent, and work on transformation projects across our businesses. Our IT team strength has grown to 75% over the last 24 months, with focus on modern engineering tools. Overall, our year-on-year tech spend has gone up by over 2x. On cloud, our leadership continues. We have been the first among peers to create three landing zones. AWS, Azure and GCP support our multi-cloud strategy. We already have 65+ of our critical applications on cloud.
Our efforts to modernize the core received accelerated recognition during the quarter, with International Data Corporation recognizing the bank as Asia's Best Infrastructure Modernization program at the 2022 Financial Insights Innovation Awards. We have built DataStack 3, which is a cloud-based, real-time, flexible architecture covering structured and unstructured data. We now have a rich mesh library towards making customer journeys more impactful and personalized. Further to our initiative on universal underwriting, we are building capability to underwrite a significant section of the lendable population in India. Our third thing around strengthening the core was organization-wide transformation projects to accelerate our GPS journey. We have 19 transformational projects being managed directly by our management committee members. The strong rhythm and rigor that we have built across our distribution engine led by these transformation projects are reflecting in our acquisition numbers.
Now let me talk about building for the future. Investments to position ourselves favorably for the future continue. Digital continues to be an area of relentless focus. The impact of this is now visible across the business segments. This quarter, we launched new digital lending programs, including account aggregator-based lending, usage of alternate database underwriting programs, et cetera. New products that we launched continue to see good traction. GNPL's witnessed quarter-on-quarter growth of 50% in GMV for the quarter. Retention rates are very healthy at 70%. Plus, digital merchant cash advance, a new product we launched in quarter three this year to aggregate small merchants, has witnessed 12x quarter-on-quarter growth in terms of volumes. 68% of our FPs are opened digitally. We have launched new-to-bank entry opening on our platforms and also with our partners.
We are now entering into over 18 partnerships at both product level using APIs and wholesale level banking. We have 300+ APIs, among the largest set of open banking APIs for external partners now. On UPI, our market share stood at 15%, and we managed more than 25 million transactions daily and amongst the lowest rates of technical declines per million transactions. We now have 5.6 million non-Axis Bank customers using our Axis Mobile and Axis Pay apps. Our corporate digital project NEO has made strong progress, and the first journeys have gone live in quarter four. The second pillar on building for the future was around bank-wide program to build the seamlessness. During the year, we launched Sparsh, our Customer Experience Transformation Initiative. This is a multi-year program to embed customer obsession across the bank and building the seamlessness.
The Bharat Banking initiative is running ahead of timeline. The Bharat Banking segment delivered a strong 34% quarter-on-quarter growth in disbursements in quarter four financial 2022. We also achieved highest ever monthly disbursement in March 2022 across all the major product segments. The bank is working towards expanding its footprint in rural and semi-urban geographies by using the existing BC network and leveraging the vast network of common service centers, where 40,000+ village level entrepreneurs have been identified as business correspondents across 2,055 branches. ESG has bank-wide sponsorship. During the year, we saw an improvement in our ratings across assessment platforms like S&P, Dow Jones, MSCI and CDP. We featured in the prestigious FTSE4Good emerging index for the fifth consecutive year in 2021.
During the year, we entered into $300 million loan guarantee program that is going towards accelerating the e-mobility ecosystem in India. Also, we recently signed an initial outlay of $150 million partial guarantee facility agreement with the Asian Development Bank to support supply chain financing with focus on ESG and priority sectors. Further, the bank has also committed available finance of up to $150 billion through SAMRIDH, an initiative supported by the United States Agency for International Development towards centering India's healthcare infrastructure. Before I conclude, let me touch upon the key financial highlights for the quarter. Puneet will of course provide detailed updates. On a sequential basis, our performance has been strong. Key growth measures quarter-over-quarter are as follows. CASA growth of 7% period-end basis. Deposit growth of 6% period-end basis.
Retail assets loan growth of 9%. RUSU banking loan growth of 34%. Fee growth of 12%. Core operating profit growth of 8%, and PAT growth of 14%. This is all quarter-over-quarter. Above performance has been a direct outcome of our rigorous execution of GPS strategy over the past 3 years and the initiatives that I just highlighted in the earlier themes. In closing, we have strong momentum going into financial year 2023, and we will continue our steady upward movement on business and financial metrics. There is a positive cultural change within the bank. We remain optimistic and confident about our future. I'll now request Puneet to take over.
Thank you, Amitabh. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us this evening. I'll discuss the salient features of the financial performance of the bank for Q4 FY 2022 and FY 2022, focusing on our operating performance, capital and liquidity position, growth across our deposit and loan business, asset quality, risk offsetting and provisioning. We have consistently stated that we are focused on strengthening our core businesses and ensuring that our balance sheet is resilient across cycles. I'm happy to state that we have been able to deliver on both objectives. Amitabh focused at length on the progress made on each of our businesses and transformation initiatives and key sequential metrics. My focus then should be on our financial performance. Our operating performance is robust. Year-over-year improvements are reflected through growth in net interest income, operating profits and PAT.
On a sequential basis, business traction is visible through strong growth in annual retail fee, core operating profits and PAT. Net interest income for Q4 FY 2022 stood at INR 8,819 crores, representing a 13% YoY growth and a 2% sequential quarter-on-quarter growth. INR 83 crores of net interest income was prudently reserved as it related mainly to realized interest on an NPA investment account where principal is still outstanding. A contested arbitration order where interest has been awarded against client and some miscellaneous items. This has adversely impacted our NIMs for the quarter by 4 basis points. NIM for Q4 FY 2022 stood at 3.49% at the higher end of our indicated range last quarter of 3.45%-3.5%. NIM declined sequentially 4 basis points and 7 basis points respectively.
Improvements in NIMs over the medium term will be driven by balance sheet mix shift from investments to loans and within loans and currency segmenting and product composition towards better yielding assets. Continued improvement in low cost deposits base and the quality of our deposit franchise has reduced share of low yielding RIDF models. At 3.54% of assets in March 2022, down from 4.75% of assets as of March 2021. The improving liquidity franchise has resulted in cost of deposits declining 25 basis points YoY. The bank has been improving the risk profile of its loans. Our NII as a percentage of average risk-weighted assets stands at 7.11%, improving 50 basis points YoY.
Non-interest income for Q4 FY 2022 stood at INR 4,223 crores, representing a YoY growth of 19% and a sequential QoQ growth of 10%. Our fee income stood at INR 3,758 crores, growing 12% QoQ. 91% of our fee is annual. The fees for the quarter is after giving effect to some customer focused actions taken by the bank, including reducing fee across many charge types, mainly in the retail liability area and Q3. Despite that, total retail fees grew 14% YoY and 14% QoQ. Fees on retail assets excluding cards grew 31% YoY, 16% QoQ. Fee from third party distribution grew 23% YoY and 31% QoQ. Our transaction banking fee grew 11% YoY and 6% QoQ. Our commercial banking business group fee grew 4% YoY and 38% QoQ.
Operating expenses to average assets stood at 2.17% for Q4 FY 2022, within our indicated range of 2.2%, as was called out last quarter, higher by 21 basis points YoY and 2 basis points sequentially. Operating expenses for this quarter stood at INR 6,576 crores, growing 23% YoY and 4% sequentially. The sequential quarter-on-quarter increase in rupee crore expenses can be attributed to the following reasons: 47% of the growth is linked to volume, 51% to one-time expenses, 17% attributable to collection expenses. This has been offset by GAU and statutory expense savings by 15%. One-time items for the quarter relate to reclassification of provisions into operating expenses and the proposed Citibank acquisition-related expenses mentioned to the PN. Our technology expense grew 56% YoY.
Technology expenses stand at approximately 8% of our total operating expenses. Staff costs increased by 13% year-over-year and declined 3% quarter-over-quarter. We've added 7,500 people from the same period last year, mainly to our growth businesses and our technology teams. We have continued to maintain the Code on Social Security provisions. The cumulative Code on Social Security provision in the books of the bank now stands at INR 225 crore. Other operating expenses grew 27% year-over-year and 7% quarter-over-quarter, mainly attributable to higher business volumes, higher collection expenses, one-time transaction expenses relating to the business purchase transaction. The year-over-year increase in Rupee crores on operating expenses can partially be attributed to the following reasons: 38% is volume linked, 24% is attributable to investing in the future growth of the franchise and our technology-related spend.
11% is attributable to collection expenses and equity expenses, and the balance 37% constitutes AE growth. Operating profit for Q4 FY 2022 is INR 6,466 crores, growing 13% year-over-year, 5% quarter-over-quarter. Our operating profit for Q4 FY 2022 is INR 2,235 crores, growing 3% year-over-year and 8% quarter-over-quarter. Provisions and contingencies for the quarter were INR 987 crores, declining 54% year-over-year and 26% quarter-over-quarter. Our provisions and contingencies for Q4 FY 2022 include prudent additional provisions of INR 576 crores. The bank has not utilized any of its COVID-19 provisions in the current quarter. This is entirely prudent and in no way a reflection of the credit risk coming to the bank.
The annualized credit cost for Q4 FY 2022 is 0.32%, declining 116 basis points year-over-year and 12 basis points quarter-over-quarter. Profit after tax stood at INR 4,118 crores, growing 54% year-over-year and 14% quarter-over-quarter. Annualized Q4 FY 2022 ROE stood at 15.87%, improving 415 basis points year-over-year and 168 basis points quarter-over-quarter. The strength of our balance sheet is reflected through the cumulative non-NPA provisions at 31st March 2022 at INR 12,428 crores, comprising COVID-19 related provisions of INR 5,012 crores, restructuring provisions of INR 1,411 crores, which are at first-party NPA, and lease assets and other provisions of INR 6,005 crores.
Our provision coverage, all provision NPA plus non-NPA divided by GNPA, stands at approximately 132%, improving 1,188 basis points YoY and 212 basis points Q1Q. The bank is well-capitalized and carrying adequate liquidity buffers. Our total capital adequacy ratio, including profits for twelve months ended March 31, 2022, is 13.54%, and our CET1 ratio is 16.24. The prudent COVID provision translates to a capital cushion of 60 basis points over and above the reported capital adequacy. Our average LCR ratio for the quarter was 116%, increasing sequentially by approximately 150 basis points Q1Q. Our excess surplus stands at INR 96,190 crores.
The risk-weight assets of the bank as of 31 March 2022 stand at 61%, compared to 63% as of December 2021 and 64% as of March 2021. This improvement in RWA is reflective of the quality of the business being done by the bank. Growth across our liabilities and loan franchise. Amitabh discussed the strong progress made on the liability franchise in his opening remarks. Please refer slides 21 and 22 for further details. Our overall loan book grew 15% YoY and 6% sequentially. The loan book continues to be managed with retail advances constituting 57% of the overall advances, corporate loans at 32% and CBG at 11%. The retail book represents healthy characteristics, with 80% of the retail book being secured.
Retail loan book grew 21% YoY and 9% sequentially, led by secured products like home loans growing at 18% YoY, LAPs at 29% YoY, and our small business banking business growing at 50% on a YoY basis. Disbursement on secured products continued to grow, with personal loan disbursements growing 23% YoY and 24% Q1Q. Wholesale banking. We have progressed well in our endeavor to build a profitable and sustainable corporate bank. The wholesale books grew 4% YoY and was flat quarter on quarter. Details of rating composition, incremental sanctions, and quality are set out on slide 41. We continue to have strong positioning in NEFT and RTGS payments with a market share of over 9%, approximately 9% each. The offshore wholesale advances, which are largely trade finance related, grew by 42% YoY.
The growth in our overseas profit book is primarily driven by our GIFT City branch exposures. 96% of the overseas standard profit loan book in GIFT City branch is in dollar-linked and 94% is rated C and above. Our commercial banking book grew 26% YoY and 13% sequentially. Our commercial banking card deposits on a quarterly average balance basis grew by 25%. The overall fee from the CBG business increased 38% sequentially. CBG customers contributed 24% to our book MD franchise in terms of Q4 sourcing. Each of these reflect a quality of the strong relationship-led franchise we are building. Our ECLGS share is low and dominantly to ECGLS 1 and 2.
Asset quality metrics in the CBG segment have held up well with net slippages of INR 85 crore, negligible restructuring and substantially improved provision cover for this segment to 75% as of March 2022 from 52% at the end of March 2020. Detailed performance of our subsidiaries is set out on slide 70-76 of the investor presentation. The One Axis strategy is playing out well. Subsidiaries contributed 80 bps to the consolidated Q4 FY 2022 annualized ROE of 16.67%. The domestic subsidiaries reported a net profit of INR 1,195 crore, up 44% YoY. This translated to a return of investment of 54%.
Axis AMC has been one of the fastest growing AMCs in the last three years, with average AUM growth of 32% and 43% in FY 2022 and the last three years respectively. Axis AMC full year PAT grew 47% to INR 357 crore. Axis Finance delivers strong growth on a full service customer focused franchise offering retail as well as wholesale lending solutions. In FY 2022, disbursements grew 67% YoY. Around 31% of these disbursements are from the retail segment, with the retail book at 33% of total loans, up from 3% in the last two years. Within wholesale, focus remains on well-distributed granular books. 75% of the portfolio book is A-minus and above.
Axis Finance's book quality continues to be strong with a net NPA of 0.46% and negligible restructuring, commendable for any NBFC in this space. Axis Finance's FY 2022 PAT grew 72% to INR 364 crore with an ROE of 20% and a healthy capital adequacy ratio of 20%. Axis Capital continues to maintain its position among the top ECM segments. It completed 44 ECM deals. Its PAT grew by INR 200 crore, up 20% YoY. ROE improved from 16.4%- 32.8% in the last three years. Axis Securities broking revenues of Axis Securities grew 36% and 56% for Q4 and FY22 respectively. Its FY22 PAT was up 40% and ROE improved from 15.5% to 38.7% in the last three years.
Our direct exposure to Russia and Ukraine domiciled companies and students studying in these geographies is negligible and stands at an absolute value of INR 21 crore. Overall asset quality has been improving sequentially for the bank. As we had indicated last quarter, the GNPA, NPAs, CCR ratios for the bank and segmentally for retail, SME and corporate are provided on slide 59. The GNPA at 2.82 improved 80 basis YoY and 35 basis QoQ. Net NPA at 0.73%, improving 32 basis YoY and 18 basis QoQ. At March 31, 2022, we have nil net exposure to IL&FS entities and 3 retail entities, 3 entities that are being reviewed by RBI. Healthy provision cover of 75%, improving by 135- 137 basis points YoY and 269 basis points QoQ.
Gross slippages for the quarter were INR 3,981 crore, lower by 25% YoY and 4% sequentially. Gross loans slippage ratio for the quarter stood at 0.38%, improving 121 basis points YoY and 91 basis points QoQ. For the quarter, 54% of gross slippages are attributable to linked accounts of borrowers which were anchored when classified or have been upgraded in the same quarter. The bank as a whole takes greater policy for its retail and CBG business. The net slippages for the quarter of the bank as a whole, which is -INR 502 crore, adjusted for recoveries and upgrades of INR 3,763 crore and recoveries from written off accounts of INR 719 crore. Consequently, the net slip-net NPS slippage ratio for the
Net NPS slippage for the quarter in rupee crore terms is INR 218 crore, declining 75% QoQ and 88% YoY. Net slippage ratio for the quarter on an annualized basis is 0.13%, improving 150 basis points YoY and 40 basis points QoQ. On a segment basis, retail net NPS slippage is INR 193 crore, CBG at INR 85 crore. For the WBCG segment, we have negative net slippages of INR 60 crore. Standard COVID restructuring under one and two stands at INR 4,029 crore and is 0.52% of GCA, one of the lowest in the industry. Overall provision cover for retail restructured loans stands at 24%, with 100% provision for unsecured restructured retail loans. We collected provisions from the restructuring book clearing phase two FY 2022.
D and below for the bank declined 26% YoY and 18% sequentially. Upgrades and recoveries in the quarter aggregate to INR 1,671 crores, constituting 13% of the opening D and below book. Downgrades for the quarter were INR 377 crores. More details of the D and below and restructuring have been provided on slide 60 of our investor presentation. For the full financial year FY 2022, the key numbers are as follows. NIM stands at 3.47% as compared to 3.53% previous year. GNPA stands at INR 32 crores-INR 132 crores, YoY growth of 13%. Fee stands at INR 13,001 crores, YoY growth of 22%. Operating profit at INR 24,742 crores, YoY growth of 7% Cost to assets is 2.17%.
Credit cost at 0.70%, improving 96 basis points YoY. PAT stands at INR 13,025 crores, increasing 98% YoY. GNPA and NNPA declined by 88 and 32 basis points respectively on a YoY basis. ROE of 12.91% to 536 basis points YoY. We summarize the bank's journey so far and the broad outlook on key performance drivers. Our balance sheet resilience is visible through strong capital adequacy. Legacy NPA issues behind us with net NPA at 0.73%, limited restructuring at 0.52%. Consistency and quality of the granular liability growth is visible. Average CASA to average deposits ratio has improved to 43% on a month-end balance basis, it's up at 45%. Growth in healthy granular businesses, both secured and unsecured.
Focused segments like retail and within wholesale, SME and mid-corporates with better ARO continue to grow faster at 21%, 26% and 45% respectively. The forward-looking view for FY 2022 annualized ROE is at 16.67%, net of subsidies, 480 basis points to the underlying ROE. We remain committed to invest for our long-term future and would not hesitate to spend more on transformation projects, upfronting technology investments and granular growth. This could then lead to a negative impact on cost to assets ratio in the short term. We continue to closely monitor two key variables, geopolitical risk and its first- and second-order impact on inflation, liquidity and growth, and any potential future COVID waves and resulting government policy action thereon. We would be glad to take your questions now. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. An operator will take your name and announce your turn in the question queue. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. First question is from the line of Mahrukh from Edelweiss Financial Services. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hi. My question is, there are three questions.
Ma'am, I think your voice is not very clear. May I request you to speak over the handset?
Yeah. Can you hear me now?
Not that clear, ma'am.
Yeah, go ahead. We'll try to decipher it. Please go ahead.
My first question really is that, in terms of your cost to asset ratio, the guidance you have given on standalone numbers of exit rate of 10% around in FY 2023, is that still applicable?
Mahrukh, thank you for your question. Yes, we had indicated previously that we will exit FY 2023 at a 2% cost to assets ratio. We've updated our commentary on the cost to assets, and like I said earlier in my opening remarks, we believe that this is the right time to invest for the long-term future of the franchise and make sure that we spend the right amount of money to deliver our transformation projects and get to upfronting our technology investments to support the granular growth you are seeing through the last few quarters. Therefore, we do expect in the short term, expenses to increase. As of now, we are moving away from the 2% exit guidance that we have previously provided. We will guide at a future date on what that number could be.
As on date, we are not offering any updated guidance to the 2% number.
Thank you. My last question is on your transfer of standard assets to ARC. Can you tell us what sector?
Mahrukh, we've not transferred standard assets to ARC. We have one transfer, which is an NPA of INR 215.78 crore that we sold to an ARC in the quarter. That NPA was fully provided prior to sale, and we have an aggregate realization of INR 63.4 crore against that sale. That's net accretion to P&L. That is the only asset we have sold to an ARC.
Okay. Just to repeat what you said, IL&FS and Future have a net exposure of zero in your book. Correct?
Yes, Parag. That would be correct.
Ma'am, do you have any follow-up question?
No, thanks. Thanks a lot. Thank you.
Thank you. Operators, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Rohan Mandora from Equirus. Please go ahead.
Hello.
Go ahead, sir. You're on mute.
Thanks for the opportunity. In the opening comments, you indicated that the NIM expansion incrementally will be driven by mix changing on the spread side as well as from investment to advances. If I do a back of the envelope calculation based on the PCR, which you're disclosing 116%, and there's a potential of 8-10 basis point from NIM expansion there. Other than that, on the loan mix side, how do we anticipate the NIM expansion coming through? Like, which are the segments where we will look to grow faster? And also, would we look to take certain measured credit risk to increase the? That's the first question.
Thank you for the question. Two parts to the response, which is our focus segments as we look to grow. On the wholesale side, we've called out the mid-corporate segment. We've already delivered strong sequential quarter growth on the commercial banking segment that we have. On the wholesale side, those would be the two segments that we will continue to look to grow in a regular fashion. On the retail side, we have previously said that we are comfortable now taking on incremental unsecured exposure, that should be NIM accretive. I just want to clarify that all of our incremental NIMs will be accretive even on a risk-adjusted basis. It is not that we will add NIM and add credit cost. On a net risk-adjusted basis, we will see an accretion to the P&L.
That will be the loan segment shift that we alluded to in the opening comments. Further, we could potentially also have a currency composition shift where the rupee growth, the rupee book grows faster than the dollar book as we take loans as we move forward. Those would be the asset side NIM drivers other than our RIDF book reduction that we spoke of. Those are the three drivers to the asset side NIM and yield improvement.
Sure. Just checking on the savings deposit. If you look at the number of accounts that have grown year-on-year, that's almost 35% increase. If you look at the retail side balances, that's grown up in 16%. If you can share some details on how is the customer profile in terms of new accounts opened, and also what is the average balance compared with the entire book average balance in the savings account?
Thanks for the question. I think the way we look at savings account is that any acquisition that we do during the year has always a phase lag in terms of how we build the balances. The approach to the savings book is not to focus too much on the account, but at the customer who is behind the account. Our approach is to see that we kind of look at it in terms of product penetration that we want to do with them. That is reflected in the kind of profile of customers that we want to acquire. As you would have heard Amitabh and Puneet talk of, we are trying to move towards a profile which is also inclusive of the premier segments. There is a positive move in terms of the premiumization that we are doing.
That gets reflected in the continuous growth that we are seeing in terms of the ticket sizes that are available. The savings account is also contributed towards the salary book. That is something that we are using as one of our focus areas as we go into doing some of the transformation projects that we are doing. Therefore, a combination of how we profile customers, how we scope attachments in which our bank branches are, and look at including the premier segments also, plus an overlay of opportunities of salary corporates that we are chasing. All this combines together to help us look at savings accounts. Thank you.
Sure. Last, one data point question. How are we tracking on PSL? What will be the share of retail deposits in the Burgundy AUM? Thank you.
As far as PSL is concerned, this year we have met the PSL requirements for the second year in a row across all the categories. Obviously, whatever money we spent in buying certain certificates, it will obviously be taken to the P&L. I could not understand the second part of your question. You had some other question also.
What is the total deposits within the Burgundy AUM?
We don't disclose that amount separately. We disclose the Burgundy AUM on a consolidated basis. The Burgundy proposition and its delivery are set out on slide 37 of our investor presentation.
Sure, sir. Thanks a lot.
Yeah. The next question is from Adarsh Parasrampuria from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Hi, first question, among the retail TD momentum, can you explain what's happening? It's been quite sluggish lately, large part of the growth being funded by the retail TD.
Adarsh, we are struggling to understand you. Can you come closer to the phone? The static only fits for what you're asking.
Sorry, I'll try and repeat that. The question-
Now it's sounding much better. Much better. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Amitabh Chaudhry, the question was what's happening in the retail TV? The momentum's just been too sluggish in the last few quarters. A good part of the growth is being funded by the retail TV.
I think, Adarsh, nice. What we are trying to do is look at retail TV as a vector where we are trying to address constituency-based approach. Our entire effort through the last couple of years has been to correct our approach towards the individual side. While it is slow, but there has been some structural corrections on the constituency side that we have been parallelly doing. A combination of that, hopefully as we go forward, a focus on the individual and small business elements will see us getting an improvement over the next few quarters. That's the way I would put it. It's a path correction as well as increased focus, which is going to take us there.
Sir, can you tell me what correction, like what's the part that you felt needed a correction and how long is that journey? Because it's like one of the most important numbers that we were highlighting and it's kind of been kind of sluggish this year.
No. The correction is based on the fact that over the past few years, as we started this journey a couple of years back, our effort had been to ensure that we moved from what we call as institution-based non-retail term deposits to individual-focused term deposits. Our product penetration on the term deposits in the individual space, as I mentioned in the earlier question on savings, is what we have been trying to, you know, kind of get the engine moving on. As we push that engine of growth on the individual TD side, we definitely are that over the next few quarters the retail term deposits will also start delivering.
Adarsh, what Ravi's trying to say in very simple words is that when we move towards constitution-based TDs, there are part of retail term deposits which are getting reclassified as non-retail term deposits. It's part of that journey to do constitution-based deposits. When you look at the RTD, obviously that number shows a lower growth, whereas the RTD shows a higher growth. We are trying to correct it. Yes, the core growth, you know, is there because of this reclassification. It's the number change is obviously needed. I hope you got most of what we're trying to say.
Amitabh Chaudhry, the other question, a feedback and a question which, you know, when we had this build-up in cost rundown over the last few quarters, you know, I'm sure, you know, you would know that we have to invest and it's a good time to invest. What we're trying to understand is what's changed in a few months for you to not have visibility of how OpEx will pan out? Like, what's changed in the last few months?
No, no. I'll tell you. You know, when we get traction, for example, I'll give you know, where we're coming from. When you start getting the traction which you're getting, say, in our credit cards or MAB or retail asset space, or when you are investing in some technology projects which we believe or, again, we are getting the results, it's, you know, you have a choice to make. One is that do we not go for that growth and kind of be in a middling range and not have those expenses in place, or you actually go and spend that money upfront to some extent, and it reflects in long-term, you know, the right kind of return on equity, the right kind of returns for you. That's the choice we are making. We are seeing.
We have seen great traction in the last quarter, and we are asking ourselves, does it make sense to stick to that number or does it make sense to actually, if the opportunities come before us, should we do spend and get, you know, obviously much larger longer-term benefits? That's point number one. Second, if you look at our next slippages, you know, if we spend the right kind of money on collections, we are seeing a, you know, better return in terms of what we are collecting. Expenses are coming in the expenses line. Benefit is coming in some other line, right? We are continuing to meet our requirements for PSL, and obviously that also goes to the P&L.
There are some of these expense items where the choice is between sticking to a cost to revenue line or saying that, "No, these expenses is good for the long term and the return on equity for the bank." That's the choice we are making. Nothing has really changed. We are seeing better traction. The momentum is there, and we don't want to restrain ourselves because we have talked about expense to revenue number. Hopefully, we can balance it. When we have a better idea, we'll share it with you.
Is there a thought that because the credit cycle is, like, quite benign, right? Every bank's reporting undershooting of credit costs. Use some of that to, like, to spend and invest. Is that also the thought that's. But that's probably a driving force to allow you to spend a little bit more.
I mean, we are very clear. We have worked too hard to get to this level of our, you know, assets profile and what kind of, you know, quality of assets we have created. Given the risk targets which we have set for ourselves, we do believe our policies exist. Our market share and advances have gone up to 6%. We do believe and you look at the numbers, for example, in Bharat Banking. We do not want to restrain some of our businesses by saying, "Oh, because we have to meet our cost to revenue, you know, guidance, we are not gonna allow it to grow." If the policies are out there, which we are seeing as we speak, we will grow but within the defined guidelines.
I just want to be clear, this will not be at the cost of putting on riskier assets for the sake of doing it because we have to deliver a certain growth. Yes, when we do it, there are some upfront expenses which are required. You have to invest in the infrastructure, in resources. When you're working with partners, some upfront spend is required, and we will obviously be assessing each of these opportunities and deciding whether it makes sense to grow that much faster or at a lesser pace. This could mean that it will come in the way of our 2% cost to revenue. As and when we have a better idea, we'll share it with you.
Okay. That's good, Amitabh. Thanks and all the best.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kunal Shah from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
The question was on the employee side. When we look at it, the quarter-on-quarter decline in the employee count, and we are seeing that impact even in terms of the lower employee costs. What is actually getting into almost like INR 750 employee cost down to being lower quarter-on-quarter?
Well, it just shows our ability to be able to manage costs when we want to. I think it was very important for us. We had invested in the business, which was important to ask ourselves, are the resources productive to the extent we want? Are we getting the, you know, whatever we need to get out of each of the resources? As a result, as the management team, we decided that we need to tighten our screws a little bit. In that process, when we did that, we were able to obviously see a reduction in staff costs, which should tell you that we're not just throwing people at revenues.
We are being very conscious of are we getting the right productivity in all of the businesses, and that's the mantra we'll continue to use in the year, in this current year and the years going forward. Everyone is being asked to justify when they're spending money as to how the profitability numbers are moving. This obviously includes both costs of people employed by the bank directly and through outsourcing. That is being watched very, very carefully.
Sure. Secondly, in terms of this notes to accounts, where there is the loans which are transferred on the corporate side, what is the nature of these loans, and is anything to do with the provisioning? Because last time when we look at it, standard and non-NPA provisioning was INR 13,400 crore. Now that is down to INR 12,400 crore. What is the impact of that 1,000-odd crore which is coming off on a quarter-on-quarter basis?
Kunal, two things. First and foremost, let's talk about the standard asset provision. You would recollect that at the end of quarter four of last year, we had 100% provision on security receipts. We had a security receipt portfolio that carries 100% provision reported on a net basis. A reduction in the standard asset provision is nothing but a markdown of that portfolio. We've netted the provision down against the investments, and that has caused the reduction in both the SR figures as well as the standard asset provision number. There is no utilization. It's a simple markdown. The second question in the UFR of corporate segment assets transfer. First and foremost, they are standard assets that are transferred. Second is, if your reference is to the INR 5,068 crore number, it's principally our syndication business.
It's loans which we underwrite and then syndicate by virtue of innovation. That is the outflow disclosure as required by RBI. There is an inflow number and an outflow number, both related principally to our syndications.
Kunal, do you have any follow-up question?
Yeah. Just one last question in terms of when we look at the net NPA and the double B and below books and the overall provisioning that we are carrying and that trend has also been declining. Are we very much confident in terms of how the credit costs will pan out and would we like to give some guidance for FY 2023-2024 because it has surprised all its overlap quarters?
Kunal, before Puneet answers the question, let me just say that I wanna emphasize the point. Today we have reached a point where we believe when we compare ourselves to some of the other players, our asset quality is best in class, our provisions are some of the highest, our investment book is the lowest. It is not driven by what we are seeing in our portfolio. It is driven by our desire to become a conservative financial institution in terms of what policies and procedure we follow. I just want to raise that this point is very, very important because we worked very hard to get here. Puneet, now you want to add to the numbers.
Kunal, I think Amitabh has covered the response to your question. On guidance, we don't offer guidance on that.
No, having said that, maybe now we are well covered, so the confidence would also be high in terms of managing it well over next couple of years as well, looking at the last couple of quarters particularly. Yeah.
Boss, I've said it for these remarks and so does Puneet too. We remain optimistic and are confident about our future. We have said it.
Okay. Sure. Thank you. Thanks and all the best. Yeah.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Farhan from IIFL Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you. Just extending the cost-to-income thing which you had mentioned earlier in the guidance. We want to know that in near term, what happens to the return ratio. The you know, main thing is basically letting your cost income ratio you know, kind of remains elevated for few more quarters or a year. Will you be able to manage the overall return profile through some other line items? Or you think in the backdrop you know, in the near term, the return ratios outlook also some kind of you know, come off with respect to cost income ratio staying elevated?
Thanks for the question. I think, one, we stay committed to the aspirational ROE of 18%, which we set out. We stay committed to the fact that we have visibility of 16%-16.5% ROE. Despite our comments on cost, we believe both of our earlier comments stand steady over our plan period. Therefore, there is no revision to the ROE numbers that we are suggesting.
Okay. Not even the tenure in which you want to attain that.
Like we previously said that we do our planning over a 3-year period. The aspiration ROE of 18% is over a 3-year plan, so 2023- 2025. Visibility of 16.5 exists as of today for the plan period. Therefore, with that comment, we are not revising the tenor of our aspiration or our visibility despite continuing to invest in the business.
Sure. Thanks for that.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jaya Mundra from Axis Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity, sir. I have three questions. One is on your Airtel co-branded credit card tie-up. Clearly this is one of its own kind. Airtel does have a large captive customer base. If you can share the economics and what kind of a milestones are you looking here for Axis Bank specifically?
See, clearly, we started this journey. This is Sanjeev Moghe, chief of card business. We started this journey with the Flipkart partnership, which we started from July of 2019. Since then, we've struck a large partnership with Google as well. Airtel was a large opportunity which we cracked, this is around mid of last year. Since then, we were able to launch this card in a period of 6-7 months. It's a very large franchise. Obviously, all of us are very, very well aware of Airtel. We believe with the capabilities we've developed on risk, on technology, and experience with the customers, we have the ability to forge a winning partnership with Airtel. It has just started. It's been less than 60 days.
Actually, we launched it somewhere around first, I think around 10th of March or so. It's been only as we talk for the results for 20 days of March. We see healthy traction, and we will continue to see gains as we go along. You want me to elaborate something more? I'm happy to do it.
Jaya, do you have any follow-up question?
Okay, sir. If you can highlight by within what period probably this product will become breakeven or you know how does it help the entire ecosystem approach to kind of this thing if you have an answer for me as of now. Has Flipkart already sort of got into the breakeven zone or how quickly can it get there?
We don't discuss product-level financials any which way on this call. I think what we should know is Flipkart has crossed 2 million cards right now as part of our issuance this quarter, and we launched it in July of 2019. Obviously, this period was also in the midst of COVID wave one, COVID wave two, et cetera. Those issues if we don't anticipate, we anticipate Airtel to be at the same trajectory as normal and what we've seen on Flipkart. That's as much as we can put out right now.
Sure. Second question, sir, if you can highlight the gross slippages. You have given, of course, the net slippages, but if you can give the gross slippages on corporate, retail, and SME, that would be very useful.
If you look at it, our retail versus wholesale gross slippages would be 63% retail, 37% wholesale, which is wholesale plus CBT put together. I would again like to point out the fact that against the INR 3,981 crore gross slippage number, we have recoveries and upgrades of INR 3,763 crore. We have recoveries from written-off pool of INR 719 crore. Consequently, net for the quarter, we are -INR 512 crore. If I ignore the recoveries from the written-off pool, for the quarter, we have a net slippage of an absolute value of INR 718 crore. I think it's important to put gross and the net in the same context.
Additionally, 54% of gross slippage is attributable to linked accounts that were standard when classified as slippage, plus other standard accounts that slipped and recovered in the same quarter. That is the context that we would request this to be the INR 3,981 crores for you.
Sure. The last question is, sir, you have identified a few focus segments which includes SBB and rural. Obviously we are seeing very strong growth there. If you can talk about this in slightly more detail, that A, is this sort of a low base and hence such a high growth? B, would this? I mean rural is this what all products would it include? SBB, I think is normal business banking or is there anything more in these two products? Thank you.
Hi, this is Sumit here. SBB for us is small business banking. It's typically comprising 80% of secured business, which is less than INR 1 crore ticket size. Average ticket size is about INR 65 lakh and that's secured. It also comprises of balance. 20% is the unsecured business installment loan. Both are strong business segment for us, and we would like to grow them as the numbers speak for themselves. We continue to invest in these to have good growth ahead. These are closed business, so you can imagine. It creates a very strong value proposition at the entire banking level. Thanks.
Hi, this is Munish Sharda. Rural is a part of a Bharat Banking initiative where we are trying to drive higher business growth in the rural and semi-urban markets in the country. The initiative covers all the products of the bank serving the segment of customers and the geographical segments in this market. All the rural lending products like farm finance, farm equipment finance, gold loan, microfinance products, etc. All the retail assets and liabilities in our rural and semi-urban markets are part of this initiative. We believe that driving this deeper into this market will help us achieve our higher growth ambition, higher NIM ambition, help us get more accretive PSL business, as also drive more liability growth in these markets.
Sure. Thank you. All the best.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nilanjan from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Hi. I hope I'm audible. Quickly on that, recovery on the assets, where is it coming from? Any color?
Hi, Nilanjan. If I get your question right, you wanted to know where is the recovery from the return of pool coming from?
Yeah. It's a very large item. Any specific, you know, situation that we had because of which this recovery came through? Any sector?
Nilanjan, I think the way we would actually think about this is close to 65% of the recoveries from return of accounts have come in from the retail segment and the balance is coming from the corporate. Broadly, it would be a couple of large accounts on corporate side have been recovered. In retail it's broad-based recovery from the return of pool.
Right. The reason for asking this question to you is, you know, I mean, if you know, you have been articulating that, you know, we will not restructure more and we will basically take a hard path of reclassifying assets and building accounts as NPL. The question is, you know, assuming this is the path you have taken, do you see more and more upgrades? You know, at some point the proof in the pudding, what you have been saying has to materialize. Is there a steady run rate on these numbers that we might expect going forward?
Nilanjan, thanks for the question. I think the way you can look at it is in quarter three, our recovery from return of accounts was INR 800 odd crores. We've done a similar number in the current quarter. To our commentary that we let accounts slip and then provide this for them, but continued our endeavors to recover from the customer is demonstrated across multiple quarters of higher recovery amounts. We do think as something that we will continue to pursue on a go-forward basis too. The outcomes will get reflected in future quarters.
Right. Accounting-wise, this sits under other income, right? Not in the provisioning.
Under the new RBI circular, it sits under the provision bank.
This is under provision. Okay. You know, I kind of, you know, want to highlight. I mean, the guidance that you are putting out on AUM, I mean, don't mind me saying this, but it's looking like a little, you know, one-year roll forward every time. I think we have sort of been maintaining about 16.5% is what is visible and rest will come at, you know, certain conditions being met. Will we ever, I know, forget about 18%, but even getting to 17%, is there a hope that we'll get there?
Nilanjan, I think, the way you need to look at it is what is called out for FY 2022 full year performance. I had said that we are at 13%, which is 12.91% full year FY 2022. We were at 9% last year. There's
Right.
There is a 536 basis point improvement in ROE year-on-year, which in some sense should clearly substantiate to you that the journey is clearly underway. That's one.
Mm-hmm.
Second is in the course of our call today, we specifically called out the fact that the consolidated bank ROE Q4 annualized is 16.67%. Which again demonstrates the fact that when we said we had visibility of 16.5%, there is demonstration of that visibility fully taking into account that Q4 is sequentially a strong quarter, but it should give you comfort that when we say visibility exists, we meant visibility exists. To your last point that we have extended the guidance of 18% ROE by one year on a roll-forward basis. Our GPS strategy is a three-year strategy. We have consistently maintained from March 2021 that we will get to the 18% ROE over our planned period, which was FY 2025. We stay true to that, and that is the aspirational number that we work towards.
I think that's the four parts to your answers to your question, but I'm happy to take a follow on if I haven't been able to address your question.
No. I'll take a follow on offline. Final question, you know, it does look like the overall system is a little bit sluggish irrespective of, you know, inflation-driven capital requirements, et cetera. As a management or, you know, driving business, which side of the balance sheet is getting more difficult as we speak this point in time? Is it the asset side or the funding or the granular funding side?
Well, you know, from our perspective, as we stand today, you know, nothing looks sluggish. Yes, as you very rightly pointed out, things are getting tough because of the war and the second and the third order impact of that. The driving force for us to get the numbers right finally would have to do with deposit growth, so we need to get that right. Once we get that right, we believe our engines can follow up with a certain amount of asset growth relatively easily. I mean, I'm not saying it is easy, relatively easy. Deposit growth is the key number for us, and obviously we need to drive it. We don't want to drive deposit growth just for the sake of it. We are very clear that we need to drive granular deposit growth, and that's what we're working hard toward.
Do we see something today which is really bothering us? Not as of now, but obviously we have to be very, very watchful. Everyone is, you know, bringing the economic growth forecast down for India. Inflation is rising. Interest rates are, as predicted by a lot of people, expected to rise. The, you know, and the consumer inflation will hit people, which could reduce the loan expenditure and so on and so forth. Yes, we are watching that space quite closely. Let's see how that pans out.
Okay. Sounds good. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Krishnan from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Are you able to hear me?
Yes, sir, we can.
Yes, we can hear you. Yes.
Thanks. Just one particular point which has been structurally visible with Axis, and just wanted your views on that. Was more around the fact that you have worked very hard to get the asset profile and the asset mix and the shape of the asset quality which you have gotten over the last four years. Because of that risk-averse approach is, I think, pricing power on the asset side something that you're finding difficult to transmit. Hence are you having to work too hard on the cost side? That's what I'm trying to get at.
I think if you look at what I said, the focus is really on increasing NIMs and focus on delivering 18% ROE. In an environment where pricing is extremely competitive, particularly at the short end for the larger corporates, our strategy of building out a granular book through our SME, i.e., CBG and mid-corporate is working well. It's not a question of risk aversion. I think you know, the point that the previous speaker spoke about is that in general, just the credit risk environment is benign and is expected to be benign into the foreseeable future. The issue in the large corporate space is really about pricing. I think pricing we do believe will begin to improve when credit growth, particularly in the large corporate side, begins to increase.
B is when repo rate, et cetera, begin. You know, the first time a first action by RBI will start to my mind begin to improve pricing on the large corporate side.
Having said that, we continue to deepen our relationships with the large corporates. It's not as if we are not doing business with them on other fronts. Amitabh mentioned the fact that our One Axis strategy is working well with the large corporates, and we are now the IFR Asia Asian Bank of the Year. We continue to serve our customers across the capital structure, whether it is domestic equity, global bonds, local bonds, loans, et cetera. Some of you know some of these fees are sitting in our own fee line and some of it is sitting in, for example, in Axis Capital, you know, fee incomes.
As long as we are able to deliver sustainable growth with these relationships, we are quite satisfied.
Okay. The other query I had was around the cards business. I mean, I know there was a little bit of discussion around this. With just the acquisition of the Citi portfolio, right? It's a great asset to have at probably a good price as well. Generally, your approach towards running the cards business is again being a little risk-averse. You have stuck to the existing bank customers. How are you sensing your own maturity in that business in terms of being able to re-risk the portfolio?
See, I'll not touch anything on Citi because that deal will take some time to actually substantiate. I'll just talk about our strategy. We went cautious on risk in FY 2021 as we saw the risk profile change. With COVID, first the first wave came in, it impacted the economic cycle in the country. We went cautious at that point of time. As you've seen that change in FY 2022, we have taken steps, right? You can look at our acquisition momentum for last quarter three, we did 7.5 lakh plus cards, highest ever for us. This quarter we've done monthly one million plus. We are confident the number of cards we put out in March is the highest in the industry ever. So these numbers are strong.
What we have now, with our portfolio, with our partnerships is a very solid momentum which we expect to continue. Second, we used to be a B2B dominant, actually strategy, channel focus. Today, 30%+ of what we do is not existing bank customers. They are what we call some part NTB, which is new to bank, acquired from the market, but through a very different channel. It's not DSA sourcing, et cetera. Second part, what we call known to bank, which is people known to customer partners of ours. They could be, they could be customers of Flipkart, they could be customers of Google, they could now be customers of Airtel as well. Between these, we believe the risk profile is much better than what we see in NTB. However, the spend and usage patterns are very, very healthy.
We believe this strategy is gonna work. Risk profile is good, spend pattern is pretty good, and the momentum we have seen right from quarter three and quarter four will continue. We have not been risk-averse. I don't know where that's coming from.
Okay. No, I mean, I just meant the number one on the NTB and also the fact that leverage, consumer leverage on our portfolio generally is a little lower. But anyway, I mean, I think you have answered, so both of these. Thank you.
Thank you very much. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Puneet Sharma for closing comments.
Thanks, Nirav. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for taking the time to speak with us this evening. Please do reach out to us if there are any questions that remain unanswered. We'd be happy to take them on, and let us address them happily today. Thank you. Have a good evening.
Thank you very much. On behalf of Axis Bank, thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.