Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the IDFC FIRST Bank Q4 FY 2023 Earnings Conference Call hosted by ICICI Securities. As a reminder, all participant 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 the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star and 0 on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Chintan Shah from ICICI Securities. Thank you and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Tanvi, and good evening to everyone present on the call. This is Chintan Shah from ICICI Securities. Today we have with us Mr. V. Vaidyanathan, Managing Director and CEO, Mr. Sudhanshu Jain, CFO and Head Corporate Centre, and Mr. Saptarshi Bapari, Head Investor Relations from IDFC FIRST Bank to discuss their Q4 FY 2023 and annual FY 2023 earnings. Thank you and over to you, sir.
Hello, everyone. This is Vaidyanathan. I'm really happy to hear to be with all of you today.
Good evening, everyone. Sudhanshu here.
Hi, everyone. This is Saptarshi Bapari.
Good evening, everybody. I was informed by Chintan that, some other conference call is going on and he may need a little more time for people to assemble. Chintan, I'll go by your advice on when to start.
Sure, Sakto.
Sir, we are in the main call. You may continue your proceedings.
I think, sir, yeah, we can start.
Okay.
You know, like, a couple of, 40 seconds.
Sure. I think that that'll probably be fair respect for people who join on time. Hopefully we will be able to indulge with others who join a little later. Let me just give it a start and Sudhanshu can help with the numbers. First of all, I want to thank every one of you listening to the call very, very sincerely for being with us over the last three or four years while we were building up, building out the bank and building out its foundations and all that. We believe that after this first three or four years of building the liability practice has come out really very strong. By building the brand, it has come out very strong.
By building systems, people, processes, technologies, all that stuff. Now we believe we are in a very strong position to roll out our products, scale up our businesses, get the revenue lines in and start seeing the opening of the doors on profitability. I don't know if you'll, if you'll remember that somewhere in 2021 when the COVID loss was going on, I had made a statement to everybody saying that this bank will never make a loss again. There was a purpose for this. First of all, I'm very happy. It's been many quarters since then. two years, not a single quarter has gone anywhere close towards that word, "L".
The reason is that, which many people didn't understand, is that, in the initial stages of the bank, the core issue for the bank was not that there were a few infrastructure loans and all that. The core issue was that the bank did not have operating profit, because this was largely a DFI bank, in 2018 or so. As a domestic finance institution, as all of you know, we've seen this at ICICI, seen this at IDBI. Everywhere, initially the infrastructure loans are lent at maybe 10%, 11%, cost of funds are like 9%. You're left with a NIM of like 1%, about 1.6%, 1.7%.
With that NIM, really all of us know it's going to be very profitable and with that then very difficult to invest and so on. What really, but it was really an amazing thing for this bank to have gone and got itself a bank license, which really talks a lot about a lot of positive things about my predecessors, Rajiv Lall and all, who really built an amazing institution enough to go and get a license. Now the license is there on the hand. Now what to do?
I think, from that situation, or from that merger point, so to say, after Capital First and IDFC, the first, you know, the Q1, the operating profit of the bank, operating profit, remember the loan book was about INR 1 lakh crore and the operating profit was INR 276 crores. Operating profit meaning the core operating profit. Core NII, core fees minus core OpEx. Right? That is what is available for taking provision for credit loss and all that. That number of what core operating profit was INR 276 crores. Even after that of course we had been missing branches and all that. By the period of 2021, 2022, Q1 2022, that is April, May, June of 2021.
In that year also, we did not have much of an operating profit, but we had COVID on our head. The good news is that that operating profit for the bank, let me tell you a trend line for the last four quarters and then you will see where this game is headed. That INR 276 crore of core operating profit in Q1 FY 2023 was INR 987 crores. Q4 FY 2023, it is INR 1,052 crores. The first time we decisively crossed the INR 1,000 crore barrier of core operating profit. In Q3 FY 2023, that is October, November, December of 2022, our core operating profit is INR 1,225 crores.
In Q4 FY 2023, which is this quarter, our core operating profit is INR 1,342 crore, INR 1,300. Now, even if there's a COVID critically, and even if there's the same intensity of what came in Q1 of FY 2022, which is that, you know, two months of lockdown, three, no moratorium. Even that extreme situation, our bank will be, like, sailing through comfortably because we have a lot of operating profit now. This is a very, very fundamental point to note that we are on a very strong wicket.
We believe we are, you know, the way the incremental economics are coming about, which is what is giving us this kind of operating profit, that is going to look, that we believe is almost reached a level of permanently. Now whatever happens to the global ecosystem, the Nord Stream crisis comes, something comes, something goes. That happens to everybody. We will deal with it very, very comfortably. Now, the second part of the conversation is that this is the trend line of profitability over the last four quarters on a PAT basis. You know, it was Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 of FY 2023 has now moved from INR 424 crore Q1. The Q2 was INR 566 crore. Q3 was INR 605 crore, Q4 is INR 803 crore.
There was some one-time income through treasury. Even if you take it out, core operating profit of the PAT of this quarter is probably INR 701 or INR 702 crores. Therefore, you can think of it like, you know, sequentially it's more consistent INR 500-INR 700. We believe this is a story for growth and, you know, we're all pretty feeling good about that. It actually gives us confidence more than anything else. It gives us we were frankly, we were insiders, so we always knew that the bank is headed for really good times. I always tell people what the bank, I feel very bullish.
From the market point of view, until you see the numbers, you won't believe it. You know, I agree with your feelings. Now at least I'm feeling very content. Hopefully, you know, after hearing today's call, you will have good color about where the bank is headed. I'd like to, you know, close here, and I'll request Mr. Nishad to take us through the numbers.
Yeah. Thanks, Vaidya. Friends, I will start with the balance sheet metrics and then talk about asset quality, and this will be followed by profitability. On the balance sheet, the overall balance sheet of the bank grew by 26% on a YOY basis to reach about INR 240,000 crores at March end. We continue to see a healthy growth out of our lending book and in deposit mobilization. Customer deposits for us grew strongly by 47% YOY to reach INR 136,000 crores. The yearly growth in CASA deposit was 40.7%, and for term deposit it was 54.2%. CASA balances grew by 8% sequentially, and we saw a relatively faster growth in term deposits at 13.6% due to increase in overall .
CASA ratio was stable at around 50% as on March 31st, 2023. Average CASA ratio stood at 48.5% for the year. Even on average current account deposits, we saw an increase of 48.6% during the year. CASA and term deposits less than 5 crore was at 83% of the customer deposits as on March 31st, 2023, which points to granularity of deposits. Retail deposits stood at 76% of the total customer deposits at March 31st, 2023, it grew at 53% on a YOY basis. We opened 102 branches during the quarter, the branch count now stands at 809 branches. The bank maintained an average LCR of 120% during Q4 as against 122% in Q3. We would like to maintain the same around these levels.
We continue to see a reduction of high-cost legacy borrowings. It has reduced by INR 7,500 odd crores during last one year, and the residual amount left is now INR 17,673 crores, which will run down in next two to three years. About INR 5,100 crores is scheduled for rundown in FY 2024. We have given details around this on slide 29. Moving on to assets, I'm happy to report that the overall funded assets have crossed INR 160,000 crores and grew by 24% on a YOY basis. Retail and commercial book, which is well diversified, grew to INR 126,000 crores. We saw strong growth across all product segments. To give some more color, home loans grew by 39% on a YOY basis.
We saw disbursements holding up well in this segment despite increase in interest rates. Vehicle segment, which includes two-wheelers and cars, registered strong growth of 53% on account of festive demand and our increased distribution. Consumer loans comprising of consumer durables, personal loans, and crop loans grew by 20% on a YOY basis. Rural finance book grew strongly by 48% on a YOY basis. Credit cards, which comes off from a small base, grew by 74% on a YOY to INR 3,510 crores. The bank has issued more than 1.5 million cards since launch in January 2021. Spend on credit cards increased by 92% on a YOY basis. On the wholesale side, non-infra corporate loans grew by 9% YOY to reach INR 26,000 crores.
The infrastructure book de-grew further by 32% on a YOY basis to INR 4,664 crores and is now merely 2.9% of the total funded assets, as compared to 5.3% a year earlier. Moving on to asset quality, the gross and the net NPA of the bank has further improved by 45 basis points and 17 basis points respectively QOQ, and stood at 2.51% and 0.86%. PCR gross of technical write-off stood at 80.29% at end of March quarter. The bank has significantly increased the PCR in the last one year from 70% to 80%. In fact, if we exclude the rundown infrastructure lending book NPA, then GNPA, NNPA at bank level stood at 1.84% and 0.4%.
6% respectively, and provision coverage gross of technical write-off moves up to 87%. Retail GNPA also improved sequentially by 22 basis to 1.65%, and Net NPA is down to just 0.55%. The corporate loan book continues to be well provided with a PCR of 99.8%. Net slippages during the quarter were lower by 21% despite increase in the overall book at INR 468 crores. The overall standard fee structure book as a percentage of total funded assets has further reduced to 0.6% as compared to 0.9% last quarter. The bank holds a provision cover of 25% on this book.
The SMA-1 and SMA-2 on the retail book is stable at around 1% and much lower than 2.2% a year ago, which is a good indicator of portfolio quality. Even on the corporate book, the ratio of SMA-1 and -2 is some 0.2%. Moving on to the last section, profitability. Our profits for the year have increased to INR 2,437 crores as against profit of INR 145 crores reported last year. This is on account of increase in Pre-Provision Operating Profit, including treasury gain by 60% as compared to last year and also lower provisions by 46%. Profit after tax in Q4 increased to INR 803 crores versus INR 343 crores in Q4 FY 2022, up by 134% YOY and 33% QOQ. This was largely driven by strong growth in operating income.
On a quarterly annualized basis, the ROE continues to expand, and for the full year it stood at 1.16%. The ROE has crossed, I would say, 10%. In fact, it's at 10.95% for full year FY 2023. The net interest income for Q4 FY 2023 grew strongly by 35% YOY to INR 3,597 crore. Fee and other income also witnessed an increase of 40% YOY to INR 1,181 crore for Q4. Retail fees contributed 91% of the overall fee and other income, and hence it is quite granular. We have given more details around the fee breakup on slide 51. The bank had a trading gain of INR 216 crore in Q4 FY 2023 as compared to a trading gain of INR 36 crore in Q4 FY 2023.
The gain during the quarter was primarily due to monetization of certain DPS investments. The bank utilized INR 679 crores out of this to increase the provision coverage on loans during the quarter. Core operating income excluding trading gains for Q4 FY 2023 increased by 36% to INR 4,778 crores, aided by strong NIM fee income growth, which I mentioned before. Operating expense was INR 3,436 crores in Q4 FY 2023. Cost to income ratio improved to 71.9% in Q4 FY 2023. In fact, for the full year it has improved by 525 basis points. Core operating profit excluding trading gains grew by 61% YOY and 10% QOQ. This is INR 3,042 crores.
Provisions for the quarter was INR 282 crore due to certain additional provisions done during the quarter as mentioned earlier. The credit cost as a percentage of average funded assets for Q4 was at 1.26%. For the full year it was at 1.16%, much lower than our earlier guidance of 1.5%. The bank has maintained strong capital adequacy and CAR including profits was at 16.82% as on March 31, 2023, with CET ratio at 14.2%. The bank is well above the regulatory threshold and looks to forward to continue to grow in a profitable manner. With this, I close my opening remarks. We are happy to take questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star two. Participants are requested to use answers while asking a question. We will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Mohit Surana from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Congratulations for great numbers. Sir, my first question and thanks for giving the disclosure on cost to income. I just wanted to understand that in a little bit more detail when you say that the cost to income and liabilities has gone down from 198 to 174. How should we read it, right? What should be the income that we would be getting from liability? Simple.
Hi, Mohit. I'm happy to hear you. Hello to everyone again. Yeah, this time we have given much more detail about this cost income ratio. As everybody knows that.
You know, our cost income, we had people always talk about cost income. This time they have given two sets of information. One is they have given a full trend line year by year, what the cost income was over the last four years. It was 95.13% in Q2 of FY 2019. In H2 it was 85.22%. FY 2020 it was 76.86%, then 78%, then 77%, then now 72%. We should not... It should, you should expect this should come down from here. Now, with regard to the break up, since you refer only to liability, but in the benefit, for the benefit of others on the forum who may not have seen that particular slide, let me just read out the numbers to you.
On the retail side, our cost income last year has retail lending side, cost income has come down to 63.4% to 55.0%. On the wholesale side, cost income has come down from 38.1% to 31.6%. We might say that, listen, if the cost income is at towards 55% in retail on the lending side, with 31% on the wholesale side, really what is lifting the cost income? There are two items. One is the liability side, which is 1.3% we referred to, other is credit cards, which is 164%. The sigma of all of these four put together is the number that you see, the 72%. Now let me just explain this number what we asked for liabilities, 1.3%.
In the liability business, just what happens is that the, you know, a branch raises deposits. The branch could be raising savings accounts, could be raising current account deposits. On savings accounts we give them a particular transfer pricing, which is a benchmark for them. The difference between the transfer pricing and the actual money the branches pay out to the customers, the differential is the income of the branch. The difference between the benchmark and zero is the income of the branch as far as current account is concerned. That is income for the branch. The expense for the branch is really cost of the branch, people and to my front rent and all that. The other income is of course the fee income.
That sigma of all that is at this point of time for the bank as a whole is a loss and that is what is giving us the 1.3%, which is basically income ex-income is less, expense is more than income. How will this come down? Well, very simple. By the way, I described the equation to you. If the branch grows more deposits, then the difference between the numbers I told you, the benchmark minus the what they pay the customer, that keeps increasing and then the branch becomes profitable. Of course, if the branch sells more fee, savings products, et cetera, et cetera, the branch makes more income.
This is the short of it is that, as the branch gets more scale and size and more customers and more deposits and all that, this is a self-solving problem. We believe that this is for us also it will turn that way.
Okay. sir, thanks for the explanation. Just one follow-up. What should we, you know, what should be a reasonable transfer pricing for, you know, deposit that a branch gets? Any any color on that?
Normally I don't think banks disclose that number. I'd say that clearly, you know, if you look at the GSEC pricing of the moment, you should expect that that could be a bit of a risk-free pricing for the situation.
Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it. Thank you, sir. The second question is that when we look at IDFC Bank, it's obviously done very well on deposits and a part of it is because, you know, the branch efficiency, or the deposit efficiency per branch is, you know, quite a healthy number. Just one, you know, color on that is that how many years probably, you know, even a rough ballpark, you know, does it take for a branch to reach its full potential in terms of getting liabilities and deposits? Any color on that?
We don't know if you've been to any of the IDFC Bank branch and have spoken to any of the employees there. They'll probably give you a good color and you could. I really invite you to do this visit a branch of any banks in the country. Our people are really very happy, you know, the branches are not the only thing. The brand that powers the customers to come to the branch, the service that you give to the customers at the branch, all that is also playing a role. In our case, all these machinery is playing very well. Some of the bank's image is really very good.
Mm-hmm.
Our branches are typically in about 24 months you can see a break even or probably even a bit earlier, depending on branch to branch, depending on the cost of the branch. We are at least finding that our branches are frankly very productive.
Got it. Got it.
We are feeling frankly that we really got this liability machinery fantastically going for the bank. We're not really, we feel very confident for the next year and we feel that money will keep coming in comfortably and now we have the peace of mind to grow assets comfortably in a safe, safer manner.
Got it. Got it. Thanks, sir. Sir, just last two questions. One is, if you could explain what we had healthy treasury gains in the quarter, what explains that? If you could also give the comparable NIM number versus last quarter of 6.36. Sorry if I missed that in the presentation.
Yeah, it's there in the PPT, but maybe it came a little late for you. You may not still have formed to re-read that. Let Sudhanshu answer the question first and then I'll come in.
Yeah. Thanks, Mohit Surana, for the question. First on the treasury gain, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, that we had certain gains from redemption of venture capital fund investments which we were holding. That came as a gain during the quarter. It's one-time in a strict sense. That was about slightly more than INR 200 odd crores. On the NIM for the quarter, NIM was 6.41% gross of sell down in IBPC, the corresponding number for the previous quarter was 6.13%.
Okay. Sudhanshu, last quarter the total NIM was, if I'm not wrong, 6.36%. If you could also give a like to like or probably I can take later if it is not handy.
That you can take like to like. you know, you can probably just do, you can just adjust for the fact of this sell down and all that. Let me just say that last quarter was 6.13. You can make the appropriate adjustment.
Okay. Okay. Understood. Okay.
Thanks. That, that was it.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Mohit.
The next question is from the line of Vivek Ramakrishnan from DSP Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Sir, congratulations on excellent performance. My question was going to be about the deposits only. This year seems to be a year of scramble for deposits. What do you think is going to propel your deposit growth? You seem very confident about that. Is it might by tweaking the rates, giving a higher rates? What is the secret sauce for getting more deposits? That's my only question, sir.
No. thanks so much for that. honest answer. Have you been to any of our branches?
Yes, sir, I'm, yeah, I have.
It's okay. Do you feel a comfort?
Yeah. generally they've been very pleasant, sir.
Okay. Well, thanks for that. No, because the reason I ask is that we, if you, if you talk informally to people there or something, they'll probably give you a color. This is our, somehow, you know, we are probably paying similar interest rates like what, let me say the peer banks are paying, what we call peer banks or the mid-tier banks. Think of IndusInd as bank than our bank or maybe, you know, one or two more banks, maybe a bank on that category. Think of these as mid-tier. We all pay similar rates. Probably we are a bit lesser than them, but somewhere the bank. Somehow our, hit rate per branch is significantly better and, now we've got to allocate, figure out what is the reason if you're paying similar rates.
I think it's definitely our bank is just seen as a really good brand, not that others are not. There are also good brands. Somehow we've acquired that very strong institutional image feel. I think the customers are experiencing us are referring more customers because they say bank of the share, you know, that kind of stuff. I think all that is coming together, rates are what we pay.
Thank you very much, sir. Actually, beyond asking for INR 2,000 key notes are not impacted that much to be honest.
No, you must. No, you must. You see, if you see a deposit growth this year our deposits have now come to INR 71,000, you know, yeah, the CASA deposit is INR 71,900 crores. That INR 71,000 is not actually in the INR 71,000 because, you know, the last two, three days before the quarter ended, somehow some large government institution gave us INR 2,131 crores. Really sharp the money. We don't think, we don't want to count that money. Even if you subtract INR 91,000, INR 71,983 minus 2,131, it comes to something like INR 59,800 crores. That's a very solid growth coming from INR 51,000 crores of last year.
We are definitely, a strong beneficiary and things are moving for us well.
Congratulations, sir, and all the best.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Vivek.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Lalit Dev from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir, congratulations on good set of numbers. I have two questions. Firstly, sir, during the quarter, we have seen some increase in our SA saving rates as well. Like on a blended basis, like what would be our rates on the saving deposits and like how much would it could increase going ahead in terms of the repricing?
Sudanshu.
Yeah. Yeah, Lalit, SA rates for the quarter for us was about 5.37 basis points. Sorry, 5.37%. This was up by about 10 basis points only during the quarter.
We basically, you know, up to INR 10 lakhs we're still paying only 4%. As you know that that's where the bulk of the customers are and we pay on a progressive basis after that.
Like the bulk of the major repricing has been done or like is it, are there some parts which is likely to come in the coming quarters as well?
We don't know. We don't know. I, as you know, I never take a position on this.
Okay. Like when in the retail loan, so while there has been a broad-based growth across segments, but particularly in the rural finance we are seeing some strong growth over there. Could you qualitatively tell us, like what is the nature of this book and where in which segments are we lending in this particular segment?
You know, what we are growing on the lending side is frankly very, very well disclosed by now. In the sense that, we have already put out our lines of businesses, you know, home loans, affordable home loans, cars. Now we started new cars also, by the way, not in a big way, but still we've already started new cars. We started tractor financing and now we started. Of course, we've already been doing used cars for a long time. We are good in two-wheelers. We're doing micro enterprise loans. You know, the list is very, very long. In fact, somewhere in investor presentation, we have actually put out a full list of the products that we are doing.
You know, with this commercial vehicles, then business banking, then, you know, the list is long. It's a very, very long list, you know, we did in last seven or eight years, we just launched a long list. For us, frankly, the for us growth, at least we don't think of this as a bother at all. At all. It's just coming. In fact, we just don't have to touch a credit criteria. We don't have to relax anything. If you need more businesses, have open more locations, and keep launching new products. At least for us to, at least for many years to come, I don't think growing credit is an issue at all.
Sure. Sure. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ishan Agrawal from Erevna Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you for the opportunity. First of all, congratulations to the entire team for a superb set of numbers once again.
Thank you.
I must say that the, that the execution by the management has been to the T since merger and has exceeded my projections almost every quarter. Now I'll begin with my questions. We have reported total provisions of INR 483 crores this quarter, out of which I believe INR 79 crores is one time in nature, so as to improve the provision coverage ratio. Excluding this, our provisions for the quarter stand at INR 404 crores, which when analyzed stand at 1.03% of the book, which is lower than what we have been reporting in the past quarters.
Correct.
Is this a structural lowering of credit cost due to better quality of sourcing and overall better quality of the book?
You know that we have always put out our credit cost numbers for 10 years now. We put out our gross numbers, we put out our net numbers, we put our credit costs also for 10 years now. We have given a guidance, as you know, for 2% credit cost. If you remember, we always talk about 2-1-2 formula, right? 2% gross, 1% net, 2% credit cost. Somehow, the credit cost for us is very low at this point of time. To your question on whether it is structural, we believe that this part has become structural and we keep the guidance there because it's just that we don't want to let anyone down in what we're guiding. We believe that.
I'm just asking you without any one-offs or any other-
That's what I'm saying. Basically we have given a guidance of two because we don't want to let down people, but we feel that structurally, to answer your earlier question, structurally we believe it has come down. We believe we'll actually not touch two.
I think you had mentioned 1.5 previously. I mean, no?
Yes, yes. We used to, we had on our annual report guided for 2.12. For the last year we did guide 1.5, but we have come below 1.5.
Okay. Okay. Okay. For the next year it could be 1.5 or lower than that.
Could be there. Could be. Our own internal estimates are more like there, but we have kept a public guidance where we always left it. If you had to pencil in what should be a good number, I guess, yeah, somewhere there what you're talking about. The other thing is that the more important thing is that to your earlier question, I thought you asked an important question. It's kind of slipped between the cracks. Is this issue about, is it structural?
Right.
Really we believe it's structural. We can't take the eyes off the ball. We are, as a bank, we should always be careful. Structural meaning, what I mean by structural is that now, you know, credit appraisal processes, you know, information. Let's think of a process. Think of KYC. You know, earlier KYC was coming through, say, through a passport copy or a license or whatever. Now it is coming digitally, biometric authenticated and the eKYC and all that, you know, it's become more authentic. What is the next step? You do credit appraisal. Credit appraisal was coming through some physical paper and all that. Now it is coming digital and is that much more authentic. After that is monitoring. You used to have frequency monitoring is probably monthly or something. Now you are practicing doing weekly or daily monitoring.
That's also becomes better. Collections was coming in, you know, somebody was calling the customer and going and collecting from the customer or all that. Now all that is gone. It's sending UPI links and collecting. Everything has become better now structurally and bureaus have come. You know how this works.
The bank itself intentionally is also sourcing better quality customers along with the systems becoming better. Is that right?
That is 100% correct, because now our cost of funds is less, we don't have to take risk like a NBFC. We can play like a bank, like a good large bank.
Okay. Okay. Okay. That answers my question. Moving on to the next question. This year, our core PPR, PPOP growth has been phenomenal. I mean, we have reported a 67% growth as compared to FY 2022. My question is, given that a significant portion of the operating leverage is still to play out in terms of cost to income, and I remember in one of your media interviews you had mentioned that core PPOP could grow by 40%-45% in FY 2024 and 25 as well. Do you believe by your internal estimates the bank can achieve that kind of growth?
First of all, this year also we said 45%, 50%. It's now turned out to be 60%.
Correct.
We're very happy at least we didn't let you down this year. Yeah, but next year, definitely we're feeling very good. We believe that we will outrun the our cost growth. If we are, if our balance sheet grows by 25, yes, of course, our EBITDA should grow. Definitely it should grow faster than that.
Sure.
Now the scale is playing out, yeah.
I have a few more questions if I can-
Yeah. Sorry, Ishan. I would request you to please come back in the queue. There are many participants waiting.
Okay. Okay.
Ishan, just in case we don't get a chance, nice speaking to you. If we get a chance, we'll talk to you.
Sure. It's great to be on the call, as always. Thank you.
Thanks. Bye.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Anand Dama from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. Thank you for the opportunity and congratulations on a good set of results. Sir, one question is that if you can provide some breakup in terms of your CAR deposit, how much is present and, like, how much is outstanding? That would be really helpful to start with.
I don't think we're giving that number. Sudhanshu, do you have the number?
No. we are not-
Broadly, could you give us-
No. The broadly question is less than INR 10 lakhs. No, ask the question more specifically.
Yeah. The question was about how much of your CAR deposits would be less than 10 lakhs and above 10 lakhs.
Maybe I don't even have the number offhand, but I.
INR 1 lac?
I don't know. I don't have the answer right away. Maybe, you know, let me just say that our bank, if you're trying to get under the hood and trying to get a color of a customer profile, if that gives you a better sense, we are, let me say, getting a slightly higher than, let me say upper middle class-ish customer base, if that's, and a slightly HNI-ish kind of customer base. Maybe the location of our branches or the look and feel or whatever. That, our average balances that we're getting are, let me say at least 30%, 40% more than maybe the similarly placed banks.
Okay. With that more of the deposits seem to be above INR 10 lakh balance?
Yeah. For example, when you open a savings account, we have, as you know, we have two categories. One is a 25 k account and one is a 10 k account. Okay? The 10 k account minimum balance is INR 10,000, but people are keeping INR 40,000, INR 50,000 with us. The 25 k account minimum balance is INR 25,000, but people are keeping INR a lac and a half with us. you know, that gives the color of the profile. Somehow it is the way it is and the bank is getting that kind of deposits.
Okay. Is there any breakup in terms of retail deposits and some kind of institutional CAR deposits which come by in the overall CAR breakup?
Again, your words are not coming so clearly. Repeat your question, if you don't mind.
Uh-
Can I have a request? Please speak through the handset in case you're using-
Yeah. Is it better now?
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah. I was saying that, within the CAR deposit, what's the share of the retail individual deposits and the non-individual deposits?
Well, everything is individual only in the savings side.
Yeah. As I mentioned, retail deposits are 76% of the total deposits. We have seen a good growth during the year. In fact, it grew at 53% on a YOY basis.
That includes term deposits as well, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm just talking about the CAR deposits.
The CAR is also.
Yeah. It's predominantly retail.
Retail only. I tell you one thing. There's one weakness our bank has. it is actually the fact that, see, frankly, CAR our bank is, like, hitting it out of the park. I'm telling you, we are really doing well. Just take our word for it. The weak area for our bank is that we have low on CASA. If you see peer banks, or at least peer bank, meaning the larger peer banks so to say, close to about 30%-35% of their balances is current account balances out of the CASA. For us, it's like 15%-16%.
18%.
18%. It's about 18%. This is a, you know, as you know, current account takes, you know, a long time to build, because you've got to get the whole ecosystem and all that. We're working on that. I think we'll get there.
Yeah. On your earlier question on CAR, 97% is retail. It's predominantly retail.
Okay. We got your answer while you were on the call.
Okay. That's a good number. Secondly is that what's the current employee base? If you look at the cost income ratio where you have guided that, you would look at about a 65% kind of a cost income ratio maybe two years down the line. If that is the case, how do you see that cost income ratio coming down? I understand that one element is that income growth is a little stronger. There's a lot of.
It's a good call. Just to save other people's, you know, other's feelings, let me just. I got the question. Let me answer your question quickly. How will it come down?
I got it.
I got it. How will it come down? Okay. We've guided for it to come down. The question is how will it come down? It's very simple actually. It's not so complicated. You know, first of all, I told you the trend how the last four years have been. It should give you confidence that it will. But rather than just believe, I'll tell you specifically. For example, our key gap is credit cards. I mean, actually, we have two key gaps. I called them out to you. It's on the page. The, there were two things we called out for you. One was the credit card. Second was liabilities. Liabilities I asked, I answered one of the prior gentleman who spoke, saying that, I think it was Mohit.
They were just saying that, "Look, you know, book growth, branches will pay back." It's straightforward. I'm making it too straightforward. Of course, they've got to do their work. They've got to, you know, sell the other products. They've got to cross-sell multiple products, et cetera. They get the fee income. Generally book grows, NIM grows for them and they break even. It's very straightforward. The second piece is the credit cards. In the credit cards, we are current. Last year, last to last year, that is in FY 2023, while we haven't put out the numbers on the presentation, but I remember it was something like about 300%. Last year, FY 2022, it came down to 240%. This year, FY 2023, it came down to 160%.
We believe in FY 2024, this should like convincingly come down. It's more like maybe 100% or maybe even less than that. FY 2025, we expect to break even credit cards. Think about it. If that amount of credit card business starts breaking even, that is straight to the P&L, and that reduces cost income. That is one factor. You can do the math for yourself, you'll get it. The second part is that what Satish earlier pointed out to you that we have that 17,000-18,000, maybe Sudhanshu said that we have 17,000-18,000 INR crores that we are funding today at 9%.
Now, moment we replace that with today's money, you know, this 5.7%, 5.8%, you know, you see the difference, that 3% on that INR 17,000 crores, that's INR finite crores. That is also going to come to the income line. That straightaway installs your core cost-income ratio. You should not at all be surprised as they come down. What you should actually look back and think is that if you're already posting 1.2-ish ROA, and now at our current cost income at 70 odd percent, imagine when the 70 comes to 55, whenever it comes, just see whether, do the math for yourself.
You know that 10% on a NIM, you know, of our NIM, just do the math and add it with the ROE, you'll know where this ROE will hit. That is pretty good actually.
Sir, you have basically put out the slide number 53, I mean, where you have put out the cost-income ratio across segments. Apart from cards, which is about 165%, is there a chance that basically the liabilities and the wholesale banking cost-income ratio can come down further? And if yes, any rough estimate you can put up?
Yeah, yeah. See, even liabilities will come down. You know, the liabilities is a long game to break into zero, let me tell you. I, you know, in one of the prior banks I worked, it didn't break even for like 12- 13 years. These things do take a long time because what happens that we are starting a startup bank, you might say that, you know, end of the day, remember that we've got to raise deposits, we might put more branches. Those branches we put in will have its own life cycle to start becoming profitable again. These things drag, sometimes tend to drag a little bit longer.
See, the end of the day, my own sense is that we shouldn't get, you know, keep knocking our head on this one line item of cost income. Well, end of the day it is what return on equity do you generate. And we are pretty clear that even at our current cost income, even with a marginal dip from this, you know, 70s coming to 60s, one, there will be a massive improvement in ROE. And frankly, once our bank goes to 17-18-ish ROE, forget 17, 16, even if it goes to the 15-ish ROE, lot of the people who think about this issue a lot, all of you will calm down, and we'll become happy. Just watch the trend. Just watch 3 quarters more, 4 quarters more.
Certainly, I mean we'll all be happy, if we can get some guide path, as to like, you know, which element basically would see that, you know, improvement?
Okay. Let me I think, you know, there are, I told you two separate things. One is credit cards, second are the liabilities. You don't know how. Third, I tell you that three, that legacy cost of funds, that 8.9%. Fourth is that fee income. These are all, these are the ones that are looking in the eye. Let me tell you two more line items which are also important. Fee income, because we are not exactly doing a great job in getting fee income from our, on the liability side. As you know, most of our services are free there.
And even our cross-sell, you may not have got very many calls from the bank to, you know, to sell you this product or that product because we keep it very little toned down because we don't wanna disturb customers. Net-net, there's a fee income, there's a big opportunity for us on the fee income side to grow it. Wealth management is growing about 40% per year. That will give us fee income. You know, FASTag business is growing, that will give us fee income. We have many buttons to press. Just watch the game and fee income will go up. You know, the other buttons I told you will work. It will come. Just watch this quarter. I mean, watch this year end, watch next year end. I assure it will come down.
Sir, lastly, just wanted to check, like, you know, you have given this cost-income ratio of 174% for liabilities. For this cost for other banks, I mean, I'm sure that you would be aware about broadly what kind of cost-income ratio that they operate. Is it something similar or far lower?
No, no. It depends on life stage. If you go and pick a bank like, you know, one of the big banks of which has lived this 25- 30 years, like ICICI or HDFC, obviously this will be profitable, undoubtedly. It's a life stage. Now everybody's forgetting. Man, our bank is just 4- 5 years old. five years, meaning four years after merger, and that time our balance sheet was in the loan book. Our deposits were INR 5,000 crores, INR 6,000 crores of deposits we had retained. Let me talk it, take it that to clip start. Really, well, hello, you give me 15 years, I'll show you what cost income and what ROE this bank will make. It's really early. It's 5 years. Meanwhile remember we've, we're rolling out all the brands, this, that, et cetera.
We will roll out more also. Honestly, I've told you people many, many times before that I am building this bank for the long run. I'm not taking shortcuts to say that, "Oh my God, I've got to please everybody, post some ROE this and onto it now and kill it." We're not playing that game. We are just building for the long run and it'll take a little more time. I will deliver ROE, that I'm telling you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Pranav Tendolkar from Rare Enterprises. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thanks a lot for the opportunity. I've got some retail picture. I just wanted to ask one question. In which of the credit origination-
Pranav, sorry to interrupt. Your voice is not clearly audible. Please use the handset, please.
Hello. Can you hear clearly?
Yes.
Okay. Yeah. I just wanted to ask one question. I understand the philosophy that credit origination yield is given by market, and then we do better by selecting better credit in that assets category. Can you just qualitatively or quantitatively highlight in which credit categories we have the best credit origination processes, and what are we doing about it? Is it SME, NSME, is it vehicles, and how we are improving it. Can we proudly say that we are number one in terms of credit yield minus provision cost? Metric. Big. Thanks a lot.
Yeah. Pranav, as you would see from the presentation, we have a very diversified retail book, right? We have been doing home loans. That book has been increasing. It increased by 40% YOY this year. We have a loan against property which we have been doing for quite a number of years, right? Even on, I would say, on the wheel segment or the two-wheeler space, we have been gaining market share there, right? Rural, we saw a very healthy growth during the year, right? That also meets our PSL requirements. We are a formidable player on, I would say, consumer durables and so on. It's a wide asset class, and we have a stated strategy to grow each and every product.
Of course, while at the same time ensuring that the credit standards are not compromised. If you see the presentation on slide 36, we have given that we follow a very elaborate process in terms of credit screening. In this process, we do reject many applications which come into the bank. It's all scorecard driven, which has also quite evolved, I would say, over a period of time. The data from the bureaus is also quite enriched now. All these are sort of playing out, and all this results into a lower check bounce, lower SMA, and the result in NPA formation and so on. We feel that with the model which we have, where on the retail assets we have a blended yield of about 15 and a half percent.
The credit cost is quite currently manageable. If we are able to maintain at this pace, then we feel that we are in a good run.
See, one of the key things to note for our bank, I think very, very important, is to actually think of what is the collection efficiency. Well, you know, right now, Sudhanshu talked about that we have good underwriting process. Yes. Okay. By definition, if you do good quality underwriting, then the present check we should not bounce. Yes. Okay. Our check bounce is very low. Very low. When the checks are bouncing very low, then whatever is bouncing, someone should collect on them. I'll tell you a number, this, you know, you can compare this. One of the large NBFCs even report the, they report these numbers as well. Now We have actually even disclosed our check bounce percentage. Sorry, collection percentage. It is 99.5% is our collections.
Let me explain 99.5 to you. This is EMI collected divided by EMI due. This does not have arrears. This does not have prepayments. You know, sometimes some entities report I got a 104% collection. How can someone collect a 104%, 107%? Only because they're collecting other prepayments or collecting arrears. I am telling you pure what is due and what is collected. That's 99.6%, and it is not a fluke once in a while. It's been like 12 months in a row, it is 99.5. Therefore, only 0.5% slips to 0 to 30 bucket. That's it. That's impressive. That's very phenomenal. Then that's it.
After that is why, that is what gives us the confidence to commit this 2%, 1% and whatever we tell you.
Superb. Superb. Sir, I just got confused about how you calculate branch, cost to income. If you just explain that to me, that will be great. Thanks a lot. I am done with my questions.
I think somebody else has asked the question, if it's not clear, we'll explain it one more time. Think of a branch. Let us say a branch has a cost. People, premises, whatever is the cost of the branch. Suppose the branch gathers deposits of INR 100 crores. Suppose the benchmark X% is what is payable to that particular branch for raising Savings Account. Suppose the branch has INR 100 crores of Savings Accounts, suppose the benchmark is X, suppose the branch paid 5.5% to customers. The difference between the X and the 5.5 becomes the income of the branch. If that branch now grows to INR 200 crores, the income will become 2X. If the branch becomes INR 300 crores, income becomes 3X. OpEx will not become in 3X.
OpEx is the what is the cost to our parent of people. That differential with scale goes up. On a current account, the branch will get, in the same example, will get the X minus zero, when you get the full amount because you pay nothing to the customer. That's how the economics works.
Got it. Basically, you are communicating this to branches and that is very, very good communication mechanism actually.
Yeah.
The branch level profitability is driven by it. Yeah.
You know, just for sake of argument, let me just pick a number. Let me say 7%. Suppose we told the branch that, you know, whatever deposits you get, I'm gonna pay you 7%.
Right.
Okay?
Now, if the branch gets, say, INR 100 crore of savings account-
Mm-hmm.
They paid the customer, say, 5.5, that 7 minus 5.5, 1.5% on INR 100 crores belongs to the branch. They made INR 1.5 crores.
Right.
You got it? Now if the branch is now a INR 200 crore branch, that is going to make INR 3 crores. That's how it came and productivity, a branch starts making money.
Right.
We are not worried. This is how it works. I've done this before for a long time now. It works.
Right. Right. Right. Actually, you, is it getting used for communicating various targets that your bank has to branches also? Is that a future plan? Like I see that there are many branches and many banks where transfer pricing is also not clear. You have taken this step, and that is a great step actually.
It gives clarity, no, to that person also.
Yeah.
The person knows what to do. The other thing is there. If the branch, suppose the cross sells a loan of the bank itself. Obviously from a branch manager point of view, they have spent their time selling a loan instead of raising savings, for example. We tell them, "Okay, you raised it, give me a home loan." The liability, the assets team will say, "Okay, take this much money from me." That's how you pay for a job. Internally done, they get paid. Externally done, they get paid. That's how it makes money. There's fee income over there.
Super, super. Thanks, sir. Thanks a lot.
Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kunal Shah from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Congratulations. Good set of numbers.
Yeah.
Firstly, on the growth side, and given that, within a short span we had seen almost 250 odd basis points kind of a rise, and all through over last two and a half years we have grown at a very rapid pace. Firstly, maybe on the home loan, do we see any moderation in the prime segments that we operate in? Even in the other product segments, no doubt, you maybe you have highlighted in terms of the quality of book which we are at, we are writing, but just merely because of the rate increase, inflation, okay, do we see a risk in any of the retail product segments, yeah?
See, in home loan.
I mean, we are growing at this pace, yeah.
No, no. In home loan there is never risk at all. I mean, I can't say never. We have to always be careful. generally we've not had any delinquency and all that. The thing is that in home loan there's.
No, no. In demand. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah.
There's very little margin. I mean, if you think of a bank like us just about starting up the home loan business, you know, our cost income, for example, in home loans are pretty high. You might say, "Why?" Because, you know, our book is small. You know, if you book a home loan today, you probably pay 1% to the DSA or whoever brought you the loan or even to the branch for that matter, then you also incur the cost of legal, valuation, technical, you know, all the credit appraisal processes, running their shop, doing diligence, all that stuff. All that hits you today when you book the loan. Year two onward, there's no OpEx in a home loan.
That is the reason if there is an upfront cost of booking a home loan, but annuity income, it makes money with scale. For us, we are early stage of a home loan, like INR 20,000 crores. It's not a very profitable business, but it's okay. We are building a bank for generations, if it 10 years from now somebody else, you know, will enjoy this business. Think of HDFC today. Think of HDFC today. The cost income is nothing. It doesn't mean it was always like that. Because someone built it one day, it's what it is today.
Yeah. overall retail, no concerns with respect to higher credit cost after having grown at this pace over last two and a half, three years. Quite confident...
No, no. Kunal, correct yourself. After running it like 12 years.
Yeah. I was just saying in terms of build up of the retail. Yeah, definitely it's been going on also.
Yeah.
During COVID, so I was just highlighting maybe during this pandemic as well we have grown.
Listen, you've been tracking this business from Capital First time.
Yeah.
When it was Capital First, when you were at Ruralwise.
Yeah.
You tracked it when it came to ICICI, now you're at Citi. Have you ever seen a bank having NPA more than 2%? Ever?
No. Yeah.
Have you ever seen a net NPA more than one or marginally one maybe, one, 1.1, whatever?
Yeah.
Have you ever seen our credit loss being high? This business is fantastic.
Yeah.
It never, at least we, the way we underwrite it and the way we constantly improve our credit underwriting norm, you know, we've been like 12th year in business, but we still don't let our guard down.
Yeah.
Every quarter we still sit and tighten some part of the machinery or the other, and so we do that. This, so we don't think we will drop this standard of 99.5% collection. If we don't drop that, we will not have an NPA problem. That's our plan.
Right.
If we were to have a problem, we'll come to know 12 months in advance because the 99.6 will dip to, it has to dip to something. It should come to 99. Our risk management committee will see it. Our board will see it. Before them, of course, we will see it. The world will see it next quarter because I'm reporting these numbers. We are putting it every quarter out publicly.
Yeah.
If we have a problem, you'll come to know much in advance. At least we'll make sure as management that we have any problem with this one. We have our own track record to protect.
Yeah. Sure. Sorry, I missed your earlier remarks. Any runoff in margins, reported margins in this quarter?
Sir, I think Sudarshan answered that question.
Yeah. 6 point something. 6.3 or something.
Yeah.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Got it. On PSL positioning, how is it now? Arrears is an interest coming off every year. Otherwise, overall DSL requirements are given margin. Are we through and there is no drive over there?
Yeah, Kunal. We have given the presentation that we have not been investing in any more in RADS, so that book has been running off.
Yeah.
Of course, a proxy to that to meet PSL requirements is PSLC certificates which a participant can buy from the market. I would say we are doing quite well on this front. In fact, for us, the PSLC drag for the year was just about INR 30-odd crores, right? We are, I would say, very much there, and we want to ensure that we meet PSL requirements on our own and that would continue to be our endeavor.
This INR 30 crore would compare to how much last year?
It was a much larger number. It was about INR 160 crores in the previous year.
Okay. INR 130 crore downtime this year. Okay, great. Okay, thank you and all the best. Yeah.
Thanks, Kunal.
Thank you.
Thanks, Kunal.
The next question is from the line of Jai Mundra from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, sir. Sir, two questions actually. One is on ROA progression, right? If I were to adjust on slide 60 of the PPT, you know, the adjusted for the one-time item, the ROA would have progressed to 1.23, which is like 10-12%, 10-12 basis point increase. If you can sort of, you know, talk about the likely progression from here on, that would be really helpful.
First of all, I hope you and all members listening today will recall that we have guided for double-digit ROE fourth quarter. Double digit is 10% and many people, I think, pretty much roasted us saying that, "Guys are not going to do it. Very hard," and all that. Listen, I'm happy to report all of it's not 10, it's 12, right? We are happy about that. Now, guidance, yeah, we have already guided for, you know, a couple of times ago, I alluded that we will meet our ROE targets. Not only targets actually, it's coming naturally. We're not even having to force things. We said, you know, if you remember the guidance we gave that at the time of merger, that we will touch 13%-15% ROE in the, by FY 2025.
I am happy to say that we will touch the upper end of the guidance.
Sure. By 2025, right?
Yeah, yeah. It won't stop there also. That's how the economics of the bank are.
Right. Right.
Yeah, yeah.
Just.
We use the word exit quarter because every quarter it will keep moving in that direction, yeah.
Sure. Sir, maybe from next quarter, if you can redo the guidance slide, right? You have already achieved quite a number of parameters in the guidance slide that we had given at the time of the merger. You are already ahead on asset quality and some of the other parameters. Maybe you can put out the new slide for the next maybe two, three years, based on current numbers that we are delivering.
Okay. We'll think about it, yeah. Let's just close. You know, we have to meet every one of the guidance, and that's when we'll feel more happy. Let's get close to it. 25 is still a year away.
Sure. Lastly, sir, if you have the number for slippages in this quarter, and maybe for the full year, the gross slippages and the recovery, write-off and upgrades? Yeah.
I don't have it offhand, but maybe we'll put it out. It's there somewhere in the presentation. See, end of the day, you know, it is what does it translate to credit loss, right? Because you may have slippage, you may have collected. There are some natures of portfolio which have, which are, you know, you have some portfolios which have maybe 1.5% slippage, but have lesser collections in their bucket. Some portfolio have 2.5% slippage, but the collection from that bucket is more. Net-net, it all comes back to what is your credit loss. That's it. As long as we meet guidance of 1.5 credit cost, and we met for the last year, I think we should be okay. We'll share the numbers more.
Sure. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sonal Minhas from Prescient Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi there, this is Sonal Minhas. Am I audible?
Yeah. Yeah. Hi.
Hi, sir. great set of numbers. I've been an investor for last, I guess, three and a half years. I've been looking at the.
Thank you. Let me interpret this as a special thanks to you, because if you've stayed with us for 3 years at a stretch when the numbers are not good, that we want to thank you for that.
The first... Sir, just want to add to that. The first chart the gentleman before me was talking about, I think that was all that we saw as a promise three years back, and I think it's really wonderful to see numbers slowly and gradually inching towards what targets and benchmarks I think you put for yourself. Appreciate it again, sir. I have two questions, sir. First one is around the infra book basically, which is being run down slowly and gradually. I think we're retiring close to INR 12,000 crore of that as of FY 2024 end. What will it be most likely be refinanced by? Will it be CASA? Will it be CASA TD?
Just want to get to understand, like, what the spread we're talking about here, that we'll basically be saving.
Think of it and we replace it with deposits. It could be assuming for a minute that we keep our CASA in the zone of the same 45-ish to 50-ish. We'll repay them with deposits. Our mind is sorted on to this issue.
Okay. There'll be enough liquidity of that order in CASA TD to replace this? Because it's a large amount, that's what I just wanted to clarify.
No, no. We'll raise it. We'll raise it. We'll do it, no problem.
Got it, sir. Second question, just if you could throw some more light on your credit card business, be close to 15, 16 lakh odd cards. What card number or what matrix does it basically the business become breakeven? Secondly, like, probably little bit more about the competition you see in that business because there are some tech players coming and I think some other larger brands are also doing well. Aspirationally, what is your space in that market? Profitability-wise, how far are you basically in terms of card count, the kind of target audience you're approaching? Just want to get a sense of that part of it, sir. Thank you.
Yeah, yeah. Well, on an earlier occasion, I think someone else had also asked this question, not today, but one of the earlier calls and at that time we said like 2 million kind of cards, I thought we'll kind of breakeven. The thing is that, now maybe a better way when we reflect on it internally, we think issue is not whether it's 2 million or 3 million, issue is at a particular kind of book size, you know, the economics start playing in our favor. Our current estimates are very much what we had guided earlier. We had earlier also said that by, you know, I think twice in two conference calls earlier we said that by 2025 we will breakeven and we'll talk...
We're saying breakeven, but frankly our own internal estimates are that we'll be profitable by that time. Like, so think of it in terms of timelines, more than in terms of number of cards. to your second question. does that answer the profitability question or?
That broadly does, yes.
Yeah. Take 2025 and you can hold us to it. I think we'll get there.
Got it, sir.
That is actually one of the items that will help us on our overall, you know, economics, our ROE, what we're guiding for this 15% exit 2024. All that will come from there. That'll be our criteria, one of the input variables. Your second question, how we are doing as compared to, you know, the others. You know, there are really good players. You know all the good names, HDFC, Axis, they're all wonderful, like, people are doing wonderful jobs on this front. Of course, even other players we talked about. We somehow, like I said, we got a really good positioning of our own. Of our own meaning that people have, our brand enjoys a certain respect. People call for our card.
We don't have any DSAs, but people are requesting for the card and we are issuing to them. Our spends are pretty good. I don't know the number offhand, unless Siddharth you remember. The, our spends are really very good. And, we offer, you know, pretty attractive reward propositions. We make it evergreen, so we don't hurry customers to spend it. We are giving customers, you know, even the reward redemption option through online propositions. There are some really good things. People who experience the card, they will get to see it. If you don't have one, please have one also. I'll be happy.
I'll definitely do so. Just a follow on, sir. What it would be like-
I hope you're not being polite about this. If you are, seriously, you tell us. Someone will.
Two data points. On spends, we are almost reaching about a spend of over INR 1,800-2,000 crores per month. In fact, it has grown by 90% on a YoY basis. To the earlier question on liabilities, even this last one year, we successfully sort of paid about INR 7,500 crores of legacy liabilities. This year, we have about INR 5,000 odd crores. We feel we will be comfortably able to meet it.
Got it. Okay. Okay. All right, sir. Just one follow on, sir, if I can, on the cards. Like, what share of it would be people who are rolling over, if 100 cards are in force? What would be transactors who basically on time just trying to like get a broader sense of it?
I think it's like 24-ish, 25-ish% is the transactors. Other banks... No, sorry. Other revolvers. to the best of our knowledge, many other people in the industry have like maybe 30, 35%. We, like I say, we are a little less than the market. I see it as an opportunity to improve.
Just to add in addition, there are people who also opt for EMI conversions. I'm thinking when we see revolvers and these EMI put together, that number would be slightly more than 50% for us.
Yeah.
That's a combined number. Yeah. That's a combined number. Yeah. Exactly.
That's a combined number. Yeah. People also, you know, use the card and they take EMIs on. They convert their spends basically. That's not called revolvers. They are people who convert it to EMIs. We do that also.
Mm.
You know, we are a new, these things always catch up, build over time. Again, we're only two years in this business, you know, 21 or two and a half years. We have a lot of-
No, I agree. I think there is enough headroom and it's a high cost business. I think your tech stack is little better than a lot of people in the market I've been observing. I think that's the additional advantage you as a company have. Maybe it's a newer tech stack, that's why, I guess.
I don't know. There are many good players. The thing is that we, like I said, no, we are new, so our performance may be a bit under par today in terms of revolver and all that. Really, I'm not telling you just to, you know, just not like a statement for the heck of it. I'm telling you really we're treating customers differently. For example, we are not trying to, you know. I'll give you an example. For example, if customer went over a limit, you know, somebody has a limit of INR 1 lakh, and suppose customer is at INR 90,000. If the customer went over the limit and spent for INR 102,000, banks make a lot of fees out of that. He went over paying INR 500 or INR 400, whatever.
We are texting customers in that example to say, "Okay, man, you know, you reached 80,000. I'm texting you, don't spend any more. If you spend it, really, you know, you'll go over the limit." Yeah. There's not a lot of advance incentive there for the customer anyway. No, I think we try not to use the advance incentive. We are actually reaching customers and trying to keep the customer interest in mind and try to say that, listen, of course, if a customer chooses beyond our reminders to go and spend it over the limit and pay us fees, well, thank you. We are doing our bit to really run this bank in a way where it's truly customer-friendly. Small, small, small things, many things like this we do.
Got it, sir. Okay. Thanks a lot, sir. Look forward to it.
Yeah. Thank you. Bye.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Due to time constraints, this was the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to management for closing remarks.
Siddhant, sir. Yeah. Thank you, everyone. I know it's late in the day, but thank you for patiently hearing, and thank you for the valuable questions which sort of came across. Also thank you for last three years for being with us. I mean, you know, this is FY 2023, so you've been with us four years now. I think many of you may have felt that, you know, everything is fine, but the result is not showing, ROE is not showing cost income. This was the next. I feel that this is a startup stage. It was like that because we had to set up the bank. There's no other way of doing it. I think we didn't know.
From now on, we believe that the numbers will show and you will get more confidence if you see us for few more quarters. Thank you, everybody. Again, bye.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
On behalf of ICICI Securities, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.