Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Aavas Financiers Limited Q3 FY 2024 Earnings Conference Call. This conference may contain certain forward-looking statements about the company, which are based on beliefs, opinions, and expectations of the company as on date of this call. These statements are not the guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in 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 then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Rakesh Shinde, Head of Investor Relations at Aavas Financiers. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Riya. Good morning, everyone. I extend a very warm welcome to all participants. Thank you for participating in the earnings call to discuss the performance of our company for quarter three and nine-month FY 2024. The results and the presentation are available on the stock exchanges as well as on our company website, and I hope everyone had a chance to look at it. With me today, I have entire management team of Aavas, including Mr. Sachinder Bhinder, MD CEO; Ghanshyam Rawat, President and CFO; Ashutosh Atre, President and CRO; Siddharth Srivastava, Chief Business Officer; Surendra Tyagi, Chief Collection Officer; Ripudaman , Chief Credit Officer; Jijy Oommen, Chief Technology Officer; Anshul Bhargava, Chief People Officer; and Rajaram Balasubramanian, Chief of Strategy and Analytics.
We will start this call with an opening remark by our MD, Sachinder Bhinder, CFO, Ghanshyam Rawat, and CRO, Ashutosh Atre, followed by a Q&A session. With this introduction, I hand over the call to Sachinder Bhinder. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, Rakesh. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining the call early morning. I want to take this opportunity to wish all of you and your family a very happy new year and a 2024 filled with health, happiness, and success. We are delighted in yesterday's interim union budget announcement. The continued government trust to boost housing for all and the plan to build additional 20 million houses in the next 5 years, with promoting to buy or build own houses under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana Gramin, augurs well with the Aavas vision and mission. Let me now take you through the key highlights of our performance. As a part of our Aavas 3.0 strategy, we embarked on the journey to become India's most trusted, affordable housing finance player, led by people, process, and technology.
Our investment in technology will help the business deliver sustainable growth and superior customer experience. Our digital transformation journey is progressing well and equally well adopted among our employees. The implementation of best-in-class technologies like Salesforce, which is a part of LOS, Oracle Flexcube elements and Oracle Fusion will help us in building scalable and sustainable platforms. After rolling out phase one of Salesforce, we have successfully processed 100,000+ applications and sanctioned cases worth INR 45 billion through our Salesforce platform. We have now rolled out phase two by implementing Account Aggregator integration and further, other upcoming modules like lead management, customer service integration, app score, will be going live in the coming months. Oracle Fusion, ERP system was made live from September 2023, and stabilization of this new system is progressing well.
The new loan management system on the Flexcube is currently under testing and migration. We have successfully piloted a ChatGPT-powered GenAI chatbot with multilingual support in our customer app. With the help of scalable infrastructure on hyperscaler clouds, omni-channel experience for our customers, a modern application ecosystem built using Salesforce and Oracle products, machine learning models for analytics, technology is playing a key role not only in organizational transformation, but also in bringing down TAT meaningfully. Our login to sanction TAT has reduced from 13 days at the peak to 9 days as we speak. We are expecting to complete our major business systems transformation in next 3-4 months. In terms of business update, in Q3 FY 2024, we saw pickup in our disbursements. We disbursed INR 13.62 billion, registering 8% QoQ and 13% YoY growth.
We are witnessing a month-on-month improvement in disbursement. In January, the month our disbursements also has, shown growth, which gives us confidence to deliver on our guidance. We continue to grow our AUM in line with our guidance of 20-25% YoY growth. We have registered AUM growth of 23% in quarter three FY 2024, versus 22% in quarter two FY 2024, and have crossed an INR 160 billion mark. As a pan-India organization, we are seeing well-diversified growth in disbursements across the states, especially from states like Karnataka, UP, Maharashtra, have shown a robust growth. We opened new branches, five new branches during this financial year in our existing states to deepen our reach. In terms of the new states, that we're deepening our understanding in the southern states like Karnataka.
That gives confidence to expand in the existing states in the southern India, which has a huge potential. We expect our disbursement growth to catch up and will be faster in FY 2025, enabling us to deliver on our stated guidance of 20%-25% AUM growth across the cycle consistently. We expect doubling of our AUM in the next three years. In terms of our quarter's financial performance, our AUM grew 23% YoY at INR 160 billion during the quarter. During the nine months, we reported a net profit of INR 3,480 million, registering a growth of 15% YoY, led by 18% YoY growth in the net total income. We continue to maintain spreads above 5%.
Further, important to note, OpEx to asset ratio has moderated by 30 basis from a high of 3.79 in Q1 to 3.49 in quarter three, FY 2024. While maintaining our operating metrics, we have delivered operating profit growth of 11% YoY for quarter three, FY 2024, and 18% year-on-year for nine-month period, FY 2024. We believe with increased productivity led by our tech transformation, coupled with rising contribution from OpEx light channels, would further help us in improving our OpEx ratio. In terms of asset quality, it remains pristine, with 1+ DPDs at less than 4% at 3.75 during the quarter three, FY 2024. Our GNPA are broadly steady at 1.09%, with 5 basis QoQ rise in line with the seasonality nature. Credit cost continues to remain below 25 basis.
In terms of liability, we have one of the best well-diversified liability franchise. We have one of the unique HFCs, where the tenure of liabilities is higher than the tenure of assets. Our incremental borrowing cost remains slightly above 8%, indicating a cost of borrowing peaking out in line with benchmark rates. I will now hand over to our CFO, Ghanshyam Rawat, to discuss the financials in detail.
Thank you, Sachinder. Good morning, everyone, and warm welcome to our earnings call. In terms of borrowing, we continue to borrow judiciously, and we raised around INR 42,934 million at 8.14% during first nine months of FY 2024. For Q3, we raised around INR 12,173 million at 8%. Total outstanding borrowing as of December 31, 2023 stood at INR 145,011 million. Overall borrowing mix of December 31, 2023 is 47% from loans, 44.2% from assignment and securitization, 18.8% from NHB refinancing, and 10.1% from debt capital market. During the quarter, overall cost of borrowing increased by nine basis point, quarter-on-quarter to 10.95%.
Our incremental cost of borrowing for Q3, FY 2024 was 8% versus 8.3% in Q2, FY 2024. Lender support continued to remain extremely strong as our in our journey. There is an access to diversified and cost-effective long-term financing, a strong relationship with various development finance institutions. As of 31 December 2023, we maintain a sufficient liquidity of INR 40,750 million in form of cash and cash equivalent, and unavailable CC limit of INR 18,510 million, documented unavailable sanctions of INR 22,240 million, including INR 7,000 million from National Housing Bank.
In terms of spreads, as of 31 December 2023, the average borrowing cost 7.95% against an average portfolio yield of 13.07%, resulted in a spread of 5.12%. We have been able to maintain our spread above 5% in line with our guidance, despite competitive pricing pressures. Our margin mix as a percentage of total assets during the nine months stood at 7.94%. Our mix in the absolute term has increased by 18% year-on-year for nine months, FY 2024. In terms of operating cost, our OpEx to assets ratio improved by 30 basis points to 3.49% in Q3 FY 2024, from peak of 3.79% in Q1 FY 2024.
Similarly, our cost to income ratio for the quarter was 45% from 47% in Q1 FY 2024. Our total cost has increased by 18% year-on-year in nine months FY 2024, against a 31% in FY 2023 full year. We are committed to bring down OpEx ratio in a gradual manner towards 3%. Credit cost during the quarter stood at 25 basis points and 22 basis points in nine months, FY 2024. In terms of other parameters, profitability during the quarter increased by 8% year-on-year to INR 1.16 billion and 14.6% year-on-year basis for nine months FY 2024 to INR 3.48 billion. ROA stood at 3.22% and ROE was 13.45% for nine months of FY 2024.
IGAAP to Ind AS reconciliation has been explained in detail for profit after tax and net worth on slide number 30 and 32 of the presentation. We are well-capitalized with a net worth of INR 36,314 million and capital adequacy ratio at 45%. Our CAR was impacted by 200 basis points, 277 basis points on account of new regulation pertaining to high-risk weight, 125% on Loan Against Property portfolio, that is LAP book, which is around 15% of total AUM.
Total number of live account is stood at 206,618, translating into 18% year-on-year growth. Employee count is back to March level, around 6,000. Now, I would like to hand over the line to CRO, Ashutosh Atre, to discuss the asset quality.
Thank you, Ghanshyam. The key portfolio risk parameters, asset quality, and provision. One day past due stood at 3.75% in nine months, FY 2024, as against 4.05% at the nine months of last year. Gross Stage 3 stood at 1.09%, and Net Stage 3 stood at 0.79% as of December 31, 2023. During financial year 2022, a resolution plan was implemented for certain borrowers, borrower accounts, as per RBI's Resolution Framework 2.4, dated May 5, 2021. This is the perceived risk, and as a matter of prudence, some such accounts with an outstanding amount of INR 713 million as of December 31, 2023, have been classified as Stage 2, and provided for as per regulatory guidelines.
Out of INR 713 million, INR 544.3 million is into less than 30 DPD bucket. Total ECL provisioning, including that for COVID-19 impact, as well as Resolution Framework 2.2, stood at INR 845.6 million as on 31st of December, 2023. Aavas is strongly placed to continue delivering industry-leading asset quality. With this, I open the floor for question and answer. 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. If you wish to remove yourself from question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. First question is from the line of Abhijit Tibrewal from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you, and good morning, everyone. So my first question is on, on disbursements. I do not want to labor too much on disbursements, since I've asked this question to you last quarter as well, where you had shared that you need a couple of quarters to get your disbursement run rate.
Abhijit, you are not audible. Can you come closer?
Is it, is it better now? Is it better now?
Yeah. Abhijit, it is better. Yeah.
Yeah. So, sir, what I was saying is, I mean, the first question was on disbursements. I mean, I'd asked you this question last quarter as well, where you had shared that we need a couple of quarters to get the disbursement run rate back on track. But very clearly, I mean, I mean, I'm sure you'll also acknowledge the disbursement engine is maybe not working as one would have liked right now. So just wanted to understand, is this something unique for us, or is it because of the sectoral demand itself being weak? Is it some kind of a zero-sum game wherein some player becomes aggressive in a particular quarter and then the other peers kind of suffer?
Maybe a related question, during your opening remarks, you had shared that your LOS has already been implemented, but you also acknowledge that the LMS is under testing now. So by when will it be implemented, and when it gets implemented, will we again have an impact on the disbursements?
So, Abhijit, I'll answer the question, touch on the besides. I'll answer the question in two parts here, two-phased question. I think, as we've guided earlier, we continue on the AUM growth of 20-25%. I think on the disbursements, what you're referring, we've seen a sequential month-on-month growth, and that gives confidence to us as management team to, in the coming quarters, to come back to the growth, on the lines what is expected. That's one. Secondly, I think on the tech transformation, you would have to really appreciate that it's a pro-overall of the entire tech transformation, right from an LOS, LMS, and ERP. The phase one of LOS and the phase two of LOS, which is the Loan Origination System, has gone live.
The second phase, which is the Loan Management System, is under implementation, and it will take another 3-4 months for us to get it live. I think once all of them, the 3 systems are live together in the coming 3-4 months, we see a real tech initiative transformation benefits really flowing in actually. So I think this is what will really help us. It'll help us on 2 counts, end-to-end. At this period of time, when we speak, our ability to have 30% lead generation from the digital channels and 10% disbursements coming from those channels will get augmented, and we will move towards more defined business sourcing channels like the Mitra, eMitra.
The recent tie-up which we have done is the eMitra tie-up in Rajasthan, which has a fixed slide kind of a model, where the sourcing is really defined in the peripheries and deep down of Rajasthan, and a couple of them which we are in actually talks. So this will help us in sourcing, in defining and transforming the technology, what we have implemented, to really see the benefits. But in the initial phase, as we talk, I think on a system which you've got implemented, having seen 100,000+ applications going through and INR 4,500 crore of sanction going through, gives us a confidence that the stabilization on the LOS is there, and we see green shoots on those lines, actually. And we see that in numbers on month-on-month improvement on the disbursement side, Abhijit.
Got it, sir. So sir, I mean, I mean, if I might ask, I mean, what was the disbursement trend rate like in January?
So as we speak, it is in, compared to last January, we are in excess of 20-25% of the previous year. But, that gives us confidence and improvement over, December, so to say.
So it is confident, and yes, please go.
Yeah. That gives us the confidence and, and what-- see, Abhijit, you will to appreciate the two parts. It's a foundation of the tech which has been implemented as a whole hog and across, and this has started showing green shoots. It's a foundation which has been set up, and, without, what I really appreciate with the management team or the tech transformation and with our partners, that this has been a very laminar, rather than being anything which would create road bumps or anything which disrupts actually in such a major tech transformation. So I think one is the tech transformation, second is the behavioral adoption across 350 branches, 13 states, across the, length and breadth, and the direct sourcing model, which we do.
So I think that is a big amount of behavioral adoption, which is there, and, the green shoots of that in improvement, green shoots, as I talk about, reducing the turnaround times from 13 days to 9 days are there. As and when to which you'll see those kind of initiatives which will really have a monetization happening. One of the key factors which we said that you'll have to really appreciate with this time, from a 3.79 OpEx ratio to a 3.49. A sequential reduction with that is also one of the testimonies of the, the fact, actually. So there are green shoots, a good, sound tech foundation with process people will are showing signs, actually.
Okay. So my second question was around your yields and margins. I think during our opening remarks, also, we acknowledge the competitive pressure, which is there on yields. But very clearly from what it looks like, right, I mean, we are having to kind of retain customers by offering them lower interest rates, which is obviously having an impact on our high yields and consequently on margins and spreads. But a related question here, I think I also heard during your opening remarks that you are guiding that cost of borrowings have now peaked out, and you will expect it to kind of remain stable. So if you could just explain the competitive dynamics, which is leading to this kind of yield compression. And then, I mean, how should we think about cost of borrowings going ahead?
I'll divide the question in two parts. The first question on the compression because of the competitive pressure. I think two things are three things happened, actually. One is the time when you try to retain the right kind of a customer, which is BTN, which reduces the rate. I think that puts pressure. The second is when the BT out happens, you have the high yield which goes. But I think we are ready to let that go and fly, because what we've seen in our observation is, whatever we let go because some of the players in the market try to overleverage the customer, has resulted into customers being 3x worse off than what it was at Aavas. But that loses across a certain amount of yield there.
A yield because you retain a good customer, and some part of it is on the competitive pressure. So that's the three sides, if I were to talk about that. But as we say, with the quality and with the maintaining the 1+ , what is right for the institution as risk-adjusted returns, we'll continue to do that, what is right for the institution. On the cost part, I'll let Ghanshyam talk about how is it peaked out and how it will span out to the coming quarters.
Thank you, Sachin.
Could you please return to the question queue for follow-up questions, as there are several participants waiting?
Yeah. I think the cost of borrowing question was there. Let me address that question first then. Cost of borrowing, if you see, Abhijit, on quarter-on-quarter, with the last quarter, we borrowed at 8.3%. This quarter, we borrowed at 8% at incremental cost of borrowing. And, secondly, we see our now overall liability portfolio is at 10.95%, and we are at a incremental borrowing at around 8%, basically. So that give us the confidence that we are almost at a peak level of cycling at a cost of borrowing. A few basis points here and there, that's all. I think another, almost we are at a peak level, basically.
Got it, Sachin. Thank you so much, Ghanshyam.
Thank you so much. The next question is from the line of Shweta Daptardar from Elara Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you, sir, for the opportunity. Just a couple of questions. So our employee count stands at around 6,000, right? And we have also been progressing well on LOS systems and the tech transformation. So how do you see going forward, the productivity improvement, and do you see consolidation around the 6,000 odd count? And if you could just bifurcate how much of this is part of collections and how much is actually, you know, on the ground or on the business acquisition side? That's question number one.
Okay. So Shweta, thanks, Shweta. I think on the collection side, we can go on the call saying that, despite the increase in AUM in the last couple of years, we did not have any manpower addition in the collection side. I think that's a great thing about the team, the quality, the underwriting, and the credit goes to the entire team, effort there. I think that's very important and, parameter to really talk about. Secondly, as I talked about, that, in a such a big transformation, it becomes important on certain green shoots, which we are seeing, and we've seen the green shoots in the turnaround times. Definitely, that will have a good activity impact.
As you see that the frontline has an attrition, the time it takes to settle down, I think takes its own time to really monetize on their productivity level. That's, that's, that's answer number two. And thirdly, we will work across on those OpEx-like models which are digital, and, we talk about tech transformation, keeping in mind our customer type, which is one-third, and there's unbanked and unserved in that segment, and how do we really make that happen?
So that is a progress which we will come, try to make so that, there, there's a business origination which gets really, tight, and we are able to monetize the, the technology by the routes of digital channels. I think this overall will help us out, and we have seen the green shoots in there. It's early at this period of time, but yeah, there, there surely is the green shoots. And some parameters that we talk about is the turnaround time, and definitely it will flow in, in the productivity in the coming months.
Okay, fair point, sir. So second question is, so correct me if I'm wrong, if I recall correctly, last quarter you had mentioned that you have increased PLR by 40 basis points. So, didn't we get any benefit on this side? Because you had also highlighted on risk-adjusted ease earlier. So did you get any such benefits from your, on the ease front?
We, 40 basis point, we have increased our yield on our customers in the month of April, in Q1. After that, I think we didn't increase any new PLRs in last two quarters. Our overall, I think if you see, I think in the earlier question also, and then similarly on this yield front again on quarter-over-quarter progress, our journey, quarter one on a year-over-year basis, we are -2%. Quarter two, year-over-year, we are 10% +. Now, in quarter three, we are 13%+ in our disbursement growth, basically, which shows that, yes, we are strongly bounced back our business funnel.
Our all verticals are growing very well in the organization as we consumed, invested on those verticals in last couple of months or couple of years. If you see more on the data points, like December month, we have generated new business leads, which is a fee base, which is around 13,500 lead basically originated, which is amounting to INR 2,100 crore, basically. In January month, we have further increased that lead origination on 14,600, which is amounting to INR 2,200 crore. So all these are giving us the confidence that we are very much back to our business growth, not only in the December last quarter, but in the coming quarters also, basically.
Our thanks to the disbursement ratio, in the third quarter we mentioned, that we lost somewhere something, where we also come back to 82, now 83% on that ratio, basically. That is again, let's say, our positive development on that side. Now in third phase, where we are emphasizing as a management team, we are again reinforcing, re-energizing our core product, basically, which is our INR 7.5 lakh core product, where we are working in detail with the all business team, along with the management team, is emphasizing that product. Because that product gives us a better yield than the other product, basically, and which is there today, we are targeting to increase that product in our disbursement mix around by 5% in the next few quarters, basically.
That will help us to improve our new business yield, basically. But quarter-on-quarter basis, we are already in December quarter, eight basis points better yield on the new business. So, I just, I want to communicate here, things are coming in the very much in the better shape, on the yield front and the growth front. And core side, as I earlier mentioned, core side borrowing is almost at a stabilization level, basically. So I think all three factors are coming up in the good shape now.
That is very, very helpful, sir. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that management is able to address questions from all participants in the conference, please limit your questions strictly to only two questions per participant. Next question is from the line of Vivek Ramakrishnan from DSP Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Sir, congratulations on a very steady performance. My two questions are as follows: Your GNPA coverage ratio is about close to 70%, so 67%. Does it actually reflect the loan loss that you will get on your GNPA? That's question number one. Question number two, you know, you are relying on or you're moving towards a more origination model, which is based on tech, and whereas your earlier model was more in terms of self-origination. So how do you expect this to play out, and what is the level of saturation in your current geographies that will mean that you'll have to move to new geographies? Thank you.
Yeah. I think your credit cost and provision, we are very much confident, and we are steady state in last, I think, so many quarters, somewhere 60-64 basis points on overall AUM basis. And NPA level, we are somewhere 25% our risk provisioning is enough to take care of any loss on the NPA asset, because we are steady state back at 1% gross NPA and 4% is a 1-day past due. So we don't see any undercoverages and overcoverages on NPA provisioning. And yeah, on the sourcing side, I think it is just it is one of the facilitators. I think what has happened in the last couple of years is that Bharat has moved more digitally literate than what it was.
So as we speak, within our framework, we have about 85,000-90,000 customers who are on customer app. We have part disbursements which go online in, in the category of customers which we get. So I want to reiterate that in the segment which we are, which is Tier 3-Tier 5, unserved, unbanked, and this segment, we continue to do that. There's no segmental shift. It is the way you approach the, the customer and the way customer comes across to us, I think that is what we would like to take an advantage of, and that is because of, A, India's tech and upcoming ONDC stuff, actually. So it's more from the sourcing, it's more segmental shift or change in the customer focus or the customer segment shift. It's the way you approach the customer, the way you service the customer, the way you underwrite the customer.
The existing geographies, there's still enough depth for you to originate this p retty much what you're saying?
Yeah. So I think the other part, that's another interesting piece. So existing geography doesn't have a saturation level that makes us to go to the new geography. I think that is in with the fundamental philosophy of continuous expansion of geographies, and the existing still continue to have that potential. The new ones which we actually have entered, and I think one thing which is very unique to our switch, one has to note that we are moving as a pan-India organization and some organization which is moved to southern belt in Karnataka. Having seen the good amount of traction, good amount of underwriting, good amount of our experience, gives us a boost, saying that we can do and set up and expand in those regions also and take the advantage of the potential which lies there.
That is not because the existing markets are saturated, so that is, that expansion is not because of that, actually. That continues to have potential, whole potential for us.
Excellent, sir. Wish you all the best.
Thanks.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Nischint Chawathe from Kotak Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Just two questions. You know, one is on the spread side. As, as I look at your, you know, spreads, you're closer to around 5% now, and, what is the broad thought process? You know, where can you go up to and, what is the range that you would want to maintain, through the years?
Thanks, Nishant. Nishant, as we guided that, we are at around 5.1%- 5.13%, so our consistent endeavor would be to keep the spreads in excess of 5%. So I think we will try. And as earlier what Rawatji talked about, that some of the incremental focus on the lower ticket size, where you get the yield, I think that's more direct distribution led, which is an RRO-led or direct salesforce-led kind of a model which is there. So we are reinforcing that and focusing on that, and our endeavor is to really push that segment where we have our confidence, our expertise, and scale that up actually to maintain that. But our continued guidance continues to be that we are endeavor to maintain 5% +.
Yeah, thank you, Sachin. Nishant, what Sachin just said, if you, we all are in this market last so many years, and if you see our journey before, let's say, interest rate falling started, we were at 5.19% as a spread, basically. Then in that journey, we peaked around 5.75% in falling market scenario. When rising started, obviously, first we pass on to the at AUM, basically. So we maintain at the same level, basically. But obviously, cost on borrowing catch up will happen in a, in the due course of time with the, with the, with the lag impact, basically. Now, we have gone back towards where we started at a 5.15% around, basically. So this is a normalization of spread.
This is not a spread as falling, basically. Because in the journey, rising and falling in market, you will have that impact in your spread, basically. But ultimately, we reach at a normalization, which we say 5% and above the normalization level of spread in our journey, basically. No doubt, as Sachin just said, as I earlier said, we are repricing, we are reinforcing our core product, which will give us a better yield in the coming quarter.
Sure. You know, it's really strange. You said that your incremental cost of borrowing was 8% this quarter and 8.3% in the previous quarter. I mean, you know, incremental cost is going up for all the other players, so, you know, how come it's coming down for you?
Nishant, I think there are certain, I think, internal, some borrowing side, we made certain new products which are, I think, is difficult to, I think, to say off of this large call, but we brought certain long-term product which bank found is very suitable for them, which we got at a, from that at 8% to 10-year or 15-year money. So those products helped us, to bring down our cost of borrowing, as well as NHB funding is there, with us, basically. That is also still INR 700 crore yet to draw from NHB out of INR 1,000 crore. We are judiciously borrowing from NHB also.
I think these 2-3 discussions with the ALCO committee members, where we brought certain product of pulling money with age, because we found 1-year MCLR money is not effective now, because almost all of the banks have increased that money, so we tilted towards that. Our MSME, 4 years back, I think, our last, I think, let's say entire management team, on some products work in advance, that goes very well in the journey to Aavas, basically. We started MSME product 4 years back, and now today there is 100% matching liabilities available for MSME product, basically, from various institutions, very cost effectively.
When RV increased risk weight, I think our out of 30% NHL book, 50% book not got impacted because that is MSME book, basically. Those things have gone our favor, and we are confident ki in the coming quarter also, I think incremental cost, if things remain same, so it will be around 8%.
No, but, just curious, how much of the component, how much will the incremental cost ex NHB?
From NHB, for this, for this quarter, we borrow from NHB, so for this quarter, we borrowed from NHB INR 300 crore only.
So no, I'm saying that ex of NH. So you said incremental cost is down from 8.3 to 3.
Ex NHB, if we do total as 8%, we do ex NHB, it become 8.24-8.20%.
Okay. And last quarter, I believe there was no NHB. Okay. I think, I think that's sort of, sort of, sort of clarified. So my just simple question is that, you know, the, the rate of interest is kind of, you know, going up for all the players. Chances are there that, you know, it, you know, it would go up for you as well, and in that sense, would you kind of anticipate into some rate hike for your customers? Because you are kind of now to your target spread for 5%.
Yeah. Yeah, Nishant, we are cognizant and about that. If cost of borrowing got increased, then cost will increase. So accordingly, we will discuss with our ALCO committee and board. And in the past also, we have passed our cost, and our all customer got absorbed. And because of that increase, we didn't see any spike in our balance transfer also, which is also in the range of what we budgeted, what we communicated earlier.
Got it, got it. Helpful. Thank you very much, and all the best.
Thanks, Nishant. Thanks, Nishant.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Kunal Shah from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. So firstly, with respect to this entire omni-channel experience and eMitra, so if you can just highlight, no doubt, you mentioned like it's more in terms of changing the approach and changing the way in which we approach the customers. But eventually, maybe earlier, we used to be more like focused on direct sourcing. And where could we see the proportion of maybe eMitra in terms of the sourcing going up over the medium term? Yeah.
Kunal, on this, I think, it is not that it's a strategic shift on the customer segment, it is only the sourcing channel. So these are the outlets which are there, in the eMitra specifically and Rajasthan, and which are spread across the length and breadth. And wherein it is only the customer where we get a lead referral, and the completion and everything, gets done by our, direct channel, actually, so to say. So that is, that is one. And what it really helps is to become OpEx light, because at least you have some sourcing which is there, and it is really, really appreciated. Last call, when you were talking about the RRO attrition, I think there, there is some point of it which we have a certainty of the origination which gets really defined.
So we are moving towards those channels which are OpEx light, but getting serviced by our own by our own in-house channel. So we are. So there's no strategic shift in the sourcing pattern. It is. And again, at that period of time when we were looking at it, I think we did not have the technology which will really take. Once this is there on the element side, on the lead management system, it will have a pure fulfillment journey, which will help us in that. So our endeavor continues to be focused on the customer segment, service it through our direct channel, but look at OpEx light channel, where the origination happens, actually. Like the way we talked about Mitra, which is an ecosystem of the building material suppliers and stuff which is there.
We try to actually push that channel to build a process, at least we have a sourcing which gets refined, right? So that's
Yeah. No, so get that, but just in terms of if you have to look at it, even in Rajasthan, where if we see the eMitras, what could be the proportion? So would this be as maybe 1/4, 1/3 of the overall sourcing per RM? So maybe if he's maybe sourcing or maybe finding the leads for 4 or 5 files, could 1 or 2 be from eMitras? Would that be the kind of proportion which will eventually happen? And would the payout be also like 30-40 odd basis points, which is there for the other players?
Kunal, as Ashwani said, just we started this model, and initially we first, like, we tied up only just 10% of total eMitra, and we are experiencing and progressing in that, but we strongly believe that this model is a very cost-effective model. Without increasing our branch infra, we can get additional business at low cost, basically. So our endeavor is that to increase all these components, whether it's eMitra, Aavas Mitra, social, digital sourcing, all we put together want to increase instead of our direct sourcing. This is our, let's say, non-conventional methodology of sourcing of the business, which we definitely want to improve in overall business.
So, Kunal, as we speak, it just got launched, so it is we are seeing the initial green shoots. So we definitely would look at that as one of the period of time. We'll keep you updated as we progress on quarter-on-quarter.
Yeah. No, so only thing was maybe Aavas Mitra, eMitra, all put together, the way Aavas always has positioned to be more like, say, direct sourcing. So I was just trying to see if there is any kind of a shift wherein a component of business would come through, maybe at least in terms of the sourcing, it could come through from, say, Aavas Mitra, eMitra, all of them.
And, yeah, and a related question in terms of branches. So you alluded, but, still hardly like one odd branch getting added compared to what we highlighted, 20 branches for the second half. So would we really go slow in terms of the branch expansion, or is there something which is there in the pipeline and which we should see the ramp-up in Q4?
S o now, as we speak, I talked about that we had 5 branches which came up in this year. So this quarter we'll have another 15 or 20. So we are very conscious of the fact that how we move across with OpEx light and more touch points rather than being a physical infrastructure. So we have this RRO model, which is a regional rural officer model, where we feel that once it satisfies, only then we start believing in opening the branches. So our endeavor is to go much deeper to get the deep penetration, but try to be OpEx light. But we continue that expansion on that front. So as I said, that 5 are there.
In this quarter, we will have addition in some in the existing states and some in the new states, which will be there. And that will be in line with our contiguous location expansion strategy, what we've already been clear on.
Sure. Okay. Yeah. Thanks a lot. Yeah.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Manish from ICICI Bank. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Congrats on a good set of numbers, sir. So just two questions from my side. One, again, on this, you know, shift in the ticket size, where incrementally, sort of we are targeting towards, 7.5 lakh rupees ticket size, which is, you know, far lower than our blended ticket size. So, of course, it will help us in improving yield and so the spread, but do you foresee this will actually lead to a lower business line?
No, I think that is one of the facilitator which is there. So we are saying that it is not that it pulls out on the absolute volume. So I think that gets compensated by the other parts, which is INR 10, INR 10 lakh, INR 10 lakh, and above stuff. It is more on reinforcement of getting the right kind of consistently right, getting right kind of sale. As we talk about the risk-adjusted returns. In that segment, where we have understanding, where we have knowledge, where we have large layers of understanding in that segment, we would like to scale up on that segment.
As we were speaking earlier, I think this gets sourced directly by the RO model and direct model, and some of the intermediate, the Mitras and stuff, which will lead to the referral and facilitate this growth. But directionally, it doesn't seem or it will not result into the disbursements going down. It will add up in the spread and add up as an incremental volume. What Ravathi also pointed out is we are endeavoring to increase by 5% on this segment per se.
We are saying our disbursement in the composition t he low ticket or high-end product need to be maintained or need to be increased. It's not substitution. It's not substitution of the product. It's be mainly, first is there, so we need to maintain low ticket, which is a high-yielding product, need to be maintained. We have a growth journey. So this is increased.
Got it.
By 5%.
Got it. Thank you, sir. And just a last question on this, you know, again, sorry to circling back to the, tech transformation. But when, let's say, we have already implemented LOS, you know, which is our front, and, application, wherein LMS is more of a back-end application. So if you can just throw some light, let's say, after implementing the LOS and let's say our sales staff, by now, will be used to it, you know, in terms of how to use it.
So can you please throw some light on, let's say, improvement in the number of logins, et cetera, let's say, pre Salesforce and post Salesforce, which essentially, you know, I'm just trying to get a sense whether, one day down the line, we'll see a significant improvement in disbursement or not?
So I think, when it gets, in two parts, one is the incremental logins and one is the behavioral adoption, which we have seen, and that really shows across in our, sanction numbers, in our disbursement numbers. And secondly, the other part is that as we speak, we talk about the turnaround times of sanctioning from 13 days to 9 days. So that frees up the bandwidth for the RO to really work on the new cases. So definitely that is, there. And with the adoption and with the phase two coming across, I think it will further, help us in that, journey.
So we have already seen logins improving month by month, because sanctions s o as Ravathi talked about earlier, we were at 13,500 in December. As we speak in January, we were 14,000+ of logins. So there is definitely month-on-month improvement in the number of logins, actually. And the very other substantiated parameter which talked about is login to sanction days, actually, the turnaround times. So that is moved from 13 days to 9 days. So one is the sourcing part, the second is the sanctioning part also. And thirdly, on sanction to disbursement also, there is an improvement from 79%-80% to 84%. So that's another the positive side. So green shoots are there. And Manish, I would appreciate this is a big transformation across.
So behavioral adoption is being there, and 1 lakh + of files getting processed itself is a big landmark, if I were to put across, seamlessly, without any bumps or without any disruption. I think that's one of the very key parameters which one has to look through, and then seeing the green shoots of increase in logins. So I think one is adoption, second is stabilization, third is monetization.
Got it. Just to follow up on that: so, let's say, within six months from now, everything should be stabilized. So would you like to give any guidance on FY 2025 AUM growth side? I mean, historically, we have always been maintained a 20-25% kind of a growth range. But that point in time, you know, the tech impact was different versus what we have now. So any comment on that?
So, Manish, we continue to guide between 20%-25%. Any other opportunity comes across, when it is there, we will definitely, but our guidance continues to be in that range with the quality and with the metrics, operating metrics which are there. And as we speak, we said that we guided that another three years. In the coming three years, we'll triple our AUM. We'll double our AUM in the coming three years, actually. So with the guided 20%-25% of AUM growth.
And secondly, the other green shoot, Manish, is to really appreciate about the management team and the entire thing is you're seeing the green shoot even in the OpEx side. So if you have a peak of 3.79 to come at 3.49, is there. So I think we are working on multiple multiple vectors, which really have an impact on our operating metrics, right from tech, which is helping out on the origination, on sanctioning, on reducing the wastage, on 60% is the straight-through sanction through the system, which we are referring to when we got the system improvement in turnaround times.
I think these are the very important parameters and operating matrices which we are trying to figure out, so which helps institution to be sustainable, scalable in a right fashion, and to be a pan-India, robust, affordable housing finance company.
Got it. No, this is very, very helpful. Thank you for detailed answers. Best of luck, sir.
Thanks, Rakesh. Thanks.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Rajiv Mehta from YES Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Congrats on steady performance, and thank you for taking my questions. So most have been answered. Sir, you can just share the quantum of BT request that were repriced in this quarter, and the incremental disbursement in on blended basis?
Yeah. Our BT out is roughly, we as we mentioned earlier also, it's a 6% of opening AUM, and we remain in the same. You know, last year also we had the 6%, despite in the same year, we are seeing a 6% is a total BT out of our opening AUM.
No, sir, I'm asking the pool of BT requests which were repriced.
I think BT requests generally comes roughly 4-5% more. But out of that, few requests comes for they need more loan, basically, which we in the journey, they are not aware ki we can give them additional loan. So when we come for foreclosure, our centralized team immediately connect with them. Then we found that key 3 years back, we've given a loan, they performed well, their LTV is less than 30%-40%, and now they need a loan for their kids' education, their marriage. We offer them some small tranche, which is within our risk parameter, so that customer don't go out and remain with us, basically.
A few customers, which is, let's say, looking for a very competitive rate, we tell them, "Go allow." Certain customers which we feel is not, we don't want to retain them because their performance was very bad with us and industry want to take them, so we allow them to go.
Got it. So my remaining question is incremental disbursement even on blended basis, and what is the incremental cost of funds from banks?
I think incremental cost of funds, Ghanshyamji highlighted earlier, and we continue to have the spreads maintained at 5% +. That's been our guidance. And we say that in order to really improve that, we will focus on certain segments and certain product contribution, which is there. So we've guided on a 5% + of spreads, and on the bank borrowings, Ghanshyamji talked about the quarter three at an incremental rate of about 8%, and overall at a nine-month period, we are at 7.95%.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much, and best of luck.
Thanks, Rajiv.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Shubhranshu Mishra from Phillips Capital. Please go ahead.
Good morning, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. The first one is on the LOS, LMS. So one, are we running it on an OpEx model or a CapEx model? Is it SaaS-based? How are we running LOS and LMS? And any specific reason that we didn't opt for Nucleus Software led softwares? Because that's pretty much being used by rest of the industry. We've gone to some other vendor. So just want to understand the reason for that. And when we speak about 25% provision cover on the Stage 3, this is largely to do with the LAP or HL. What is causing this 25% Stage 3 provision?
The third question is, we are speaking about the growth rate of almost 23%-24%, because we're speaking of doubling of the loan book in 3 years. So how do we decompose those 24%? What would be driven by ticket size increase? What would be driven by productivity increase? And, if, if there is something else you can add on to the growth decomposition. Thanks, sir.
See, on the growth decomposition, we've always said that on 20-25%, we continue to focus as the DNA of Aavas is on unserved, underserved, unbanked segment of customers, tier 3 to tier 5 towns. Secular increase in the number of customers and not so even if you look at one thing you'll really appreciate that Aavas' volume growth has not even had retail residential real estate inflation also factored in. So it is pure number growth, which is there. We continue to grow granular, we continue to serve where heart lies. And in that, as we guided earlier, that the states which we are there, we go deeper, the states which we are invested in, we accelerate, and the new states, wherever we new geographies, we try and understand what it is there.
And as a result of it, the cumulative sum comes to an average of this. Some of the places it would be higher, some of the places it will be moderate. So this is what we follow. But when it comes to the quality and collections, I think we follow an asset model, which say that 1+ DPD will be less than 5% and not having, as we speak, the min-max doesn't go beyond 1.5 to maximum of 6, 6.5. So I think that is very important parameter. And really to appreciate that you grow pan-India, you grow granular, you grow modular with quality and with the kind of results and consistently. I think that's from on the growth decomposition side as we speak.
On the tech side, on the cost part, I'll just get a brief on that. I think it's a big transformation journey when it comes to the HFC of our kind of size. I think two important parameters which are there. One is that as you scale up, I think it is important to have the right kind of technology platform, which helps you to scale, to build, to get the confidence from a risk architecture perspective. Secondly, to really serve in a way which is digitally focused and in a way which is tech-oriented, and use the new age AI/ML model, which help you to service as a facilitator.
In that journey, we want to be as like, a trustworthy on the tech platform, like a bank, but agile as when we speak in the markets which we operate. So as a result of which, the entire stack, which is the loan origination system with its Salesforce, the loan management system, which is Flexcube and ERP, which is Oracle Fusion, the state of art, the best of the class, have been put in place for our tech transformation journey. On the CapEx and the OpEx part, I'll have Ghanshyamji really talk about what is that, how we have, and which sales and how does it impact?
This is all the tech investments, Salesforce, Flexcube, as well as, Oracle Fusion. Three major project transmission, transform we've done. All our paper use base, all are OpEx model, basically. Very low CapEx is there. As we use, that we will pay to the vendors, basically. For next five year, we have fixed the pricing also, basically. So next five years, there is no inflation, no, rising cost will impact to us. Next five years, we have block our prices. As we increase more, i t's pure variable model we built in for all three, four products, all three products, basically. That's one thing.
Another one thing, as you mentioned about the this provisioning piece, I think, we have a 27% overall, let's say, NPA or Stage 3 provisioning, which is, we are very comfortable. For home loan and non-home loan, we don't see there is a much variation in our customer profile, as well as our ticket size, as well as our LTV, basically. And in real life, in the collection, we are not seeing any major change also, basically. If it's our NPA also, is a 1.25% between home loan, non-home loan. So maybe, maybe few percentage change, but not a significant in this provisioning.
Understood, sir. And if I could just even one odd question more, sir. What is our premium that the bank charges above the EBLR and MCLR?
You will appreciate these things are very, I think, internal matters, and we're not able to b ecause as there are, we are related with the 31 banks, every bank has a different, different way to lend us, basically.
Yeah.
We are very competitive when we borrow from the market. We are the only HFC in India who borrow 11-year+ average maturity liability profile, with the average rate 7.95%, incremental borrowing at 8%.
Understood, Ghanshyamji. Thank you. Thank you for your time, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Jigar Jani from B&K Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Thank you for taking the question. Can you please share what would be the disbursement figure for the month of December and January?
Jigar, we don't share the individual numbers. As we speak, we see that there is a month-on-month improvement and every month we see a granular and a modular growth on the disbursement. I think we always have guided on the AUM growth. We continue to do that. I think if you look at the AUM growth, it has been on the quarter three at 22.8%, which shows us a good impact, and we'll continue maintaining that.
But the previous full year guidance on disbursement has been-
We've always given a guidance on the AUM, so we continue that we are confident as management team to deliver 20%-25% of AUM growth.
I n one of our interactions earlier, you had guided you are looking at certain other products like APF and, affordable housing, the, the Bada side of projects and also certain new, business lines. So, what is the progress on that, and how much of our incremental disbursements, say, next year, would be largely driven from these kind of projects? The reason I ask is probably these will be higher ATS projects and lower yielding projects, so how do we manage it with our new focus on the small ticket size? Also, we want to increase and we want to focus on these projects as well. So just want to understand the balance of how it would look at the moment.
Yeah. Oh, that's a very good question. I think we are a unique HFC to have serviced the customer at different price points. And, as we speak that on the affordable housing that we have is the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana related projects which we do, which is MHADA-CIDCO. But I think important to highlight there is, in that we identify segments, and typically these are LIG, MIG, and EWS segments which we cater to. Again, in that, our customer focus has been unserved, underserved, and unbanked customers. The quality of the property being good and the assessment, which we understand from a risk-adjusted return, is better.
So I think from a perspective of a distribution, having had the retail the part which is the affordable, which caters to specific on this, and we are very enthused by the fact that the government's focus in the interim budget continues to be there on this segment. And we have a good last 3-4 years kind of vintage in that segment will help us to monetize in the coming times when the opportunity opens up. Along with that, the focus on what Rawat and others talked about is on the STS, which is a small ticket size, and MSME loans, and the ones which are builder approved kind of loans. Again, our customers where the segment is the one which is unserved and unbanked and unreached, actually.
So these, these are the ones which, which really help us. So all of this, help us to really, be there consistently across the various customer segments and leverage the opportunities which arise in the market, actually. And we are ready, along with that, tech transformation.
Okay. So I was just trying to understand more from a yield perspective, that on a blended basis, then the yields won't move up higher, right? Because partly your these segment will be lower yielding as compared to what you have on these.
Yeah. So as earlier you spoke, that we said that we have an increased focus on the ticket size is 11, 10.5 lakhs were increased by as a contribution and 5% to try to get across that. It should not let the yield go because the segmental focus goes towards that, actually. So and we said that we guided on the spread, saying that we'll continue to maintain 5% + spread. And we'll manage and balance the yield portion, disbursement yield portion on the customer segment and the rest, but a continued guidance on 5% spreads is there.
Just last question, on once the full tech transformation is completed, I think our earlier guidance for stack would drop to six days. We will maintain that guidance .
Actually, yeah. So if you look at it, from 13 days, we have come down to 9 days. So there is, this is a journey as you would really appreciate. And the other part, that we have 60% of customers which are straight through sanction. So we have seen the green shoots and immediate in the, in, in that, if you see that kind of traction, we will definit- we are monitoring that to improve on a month-on-month basis. And this is two parts. One is, once the technology stable; secondly, as behavioral adoption picks up, we have the learning advantage, which comes across as a form and as the tech evolves.
Sure, sir. Thank you so much for answering my question, and best of luck. Thank you.
Thanks. Thanks.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question of the day. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Sachinder Bhinder, MD and CEO of Aavas Financiers, for closing comments.
As we conclude today's earnings call, I would like to extend my gratitude to our shareholders, employees, customers, partners, and regulators for their continuous support, encouragement, and trust. I'm confident that with our 3.0, we'll continue to deliver sustainable growth, profitability, and value creation for all our stakeholders. Looking ahead, I want to emphasize that we'll continue to maintain razor-sharp focus on governance, asset quality, profitability, and growth, leveraging technology and creating superior customer experience. We remain optimistic about the future and confident that our strategic initiatives will continue to drive sustainable growth and shareholder value, and continue to give us a confidence of the green shoots, which we see because of the tech transformation with a guided AUM growth of 20%-25%.
If you have any further questions or require additional information, please feel free to reach out to Rakesh, our head of Investor Relations. Thank you, and have a very wonderful year ahead. God bless.
Thank you. On behalf of Aavas Financiers Limited, we conclude this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.