Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Q1 FY 24 Earnings Conference Call of Aditya Birla Capital Limited. 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 then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Vishakha Mulye, CEO, Aditya Birla Capital. Thank you, and over to you.
Thank you. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the earnings call of Aditya Birla Capital for Q1 FY 2024. Joining me today are senior members of my team, Bala, Rakesh, Tushar, Pankaj, Kamlesh, Mayank, Pinky, Vijay, Ramesh, and Sanchita. I will cover our strategy and approach across businesses, and Vijay will cover key financial highlights, followed by a discussion on performance of our key businesses by respective CEOs. The Indian economy continues to remain resilient amidst a slowing global economy. This is reflected in various indicators, such as increasing manufacturing and services PMI, real estate buoyancy, resilient urban demand, and continuing government-led CapEx. There were net FPI inflows of about $12.5 billion in Q1, compared to the outflow of $5.9 billion in FY 2023. Indian financial sector remains healthy and stable.
Though there has been a pause in the monetary policy tightening in India, trend in the inflation needs to be monitored closely. We expect these positive trends in the industry to continue and Indian economy to perform well in FY 2024. At Aditya Birla Capital, we follow one ABC, one P&L approach to focus on quality and profitable growth by leveraging data, digital, and technology. This approach has helped us accelerate our growth trajectory, build scale, and increase our market share across businesses. I'm pleased to share that during the quarter, our total lending portfolio of NBFC and SSC businesses have crossed INR 100,000 crore. We follow an omni-channel architecture for distribution and provide complete flexibility to our customers to choose the channel through which they wish to interact with us. We have 1,331 branches across all our businesses as of June end.
We have 621 co-located branches across 182 One ABC locations, where customers receive assistance to achieve their financial goals. We will continue to increase our presence of One ABC location. We follow a B2C first approach for our product innovation, customer selection, seamless onboarding, and improving service delivery. We have seen a strong response to our comprehensive B2B platform for MSMEs Udyog Plus. There have been more than 48,000 registrations and more than 13,500 loan applications since its launch. We have recently launched our payments lounge, which is an omni-channel collections platform for merchants. It can be in-integrated with the e-commerce platforms and digital platforms for merchants, enabling them to make collections seamless.
During the quarter, we raised equity capital of INR 3,000 crore, including INR 1,250 crore via preference allotment to our promoters, and INR 1,750 crore via QIP. The QIP saw participation from market foreign portfolio investors, sovereign wealth funds, and domestic institutional investors. The proceeds from the fundraise will be predominantly utilized for augmenting the capital base and improving the solvency margin and leverage ratios, meeting the growth and funding requirements based on the opportunities across businesses and strengthening our IT infrastructure and digital platforms. We are deeply honored and grateful for the incredible support and the faith reposed in us by our promoters and investors, which demonstrates their full confidence in the strength of the franchise. Looking ahead, we see a favorable prospect for Indian economy in the near and medium term.
We expect India's domestic consumption and investment drivers to continue to support healthy GDP growth. Our top parentage provides us seamless access to capital, both equity and debt, and our extended ABG and ABC ecosystem gives us multiple opportunities to accelerate our growth. Going forward, we will follow our One ABC, one P&L approach to continue to grow and build scale in each of our key businesses. Now, I request Vijay to briefly cover the financial performance of our three subsidiaries for the quarter. Over to you, Vijay.
Thank you, Vishakha, and good evening, everyone. Coming to the financial performance, consolidated profit after tax grew by 51% year-on-year to INR 649 crore. The total revenue grew by 39% year-on-year to INR 8,144 crore in Q1 of FY 2024. In our NBFC business, we continued with a strong momentum of disbursements and granularization of our book. Disbursement for the quarter grew by 65% year-on-year to INR 13,237 crore in Q1. This helped the loan portfolio to grow 49% year-on-year and 7% sequentially, to INR 85,891 crore as of June end. The NBFC business had a healthy ROA of 2.54% and ROE of 17.89% respectively in Q1 FY 2024.
Coming to our housing finance business, disbursements increased by 83% year-on-year to INR 1,620 crore during Q1. The loan portfolio grew by 19% year-on-year and 5% sequentially to INR 14,509 crore as on June end. The ROA stood at 1.9% and ROE was 13.23% in Q1. Coming to our AMC business, the mutual fund average AUM increased by 8% sequentially and 5% year-on-year to INR 296,937 crore, of which equity AUM was approximately 40% in the current quarter. With our continued focus on growing passive and alternate asset segment, the passive AUM reached INR 28,675 crore as on June end, which is about 2.3x the same AUM as of June end last year.
In life insurance business, we were among the fastest growing life insurance companies in terms of individual first year premium, with a growth of 32% year-on-year. Group new business premium grew by 20% year-on-year in Q1 FY 2024. Our net VNB margin was 11.8% in Q1 of FY 2024. In our health insurance business, our unique and differentiated Health First model helped us to deliver a growth of 22% year-on-year in Q1 of FY 2024. The market share of ADHI among standalone health insurers stood at 11.6% in Q1. Combined ratio was 117% in Q1 FY 2024. With that, I will now hand over the call to Rakesh to take us through the NBFC business performance in detail. Thank you.
Thanks, Vijay, and good evening, everyone. In our NBFC business, we saw a sustained momentum across all our segments in quarter one, contributing to 7% quarter-on-quarter and 49% year-on-year growth in our AUM, taking it to INR 85,891 crore. Our retail and SME segment AUM grew 56% year-on-year and now stands at INR 57,518 crore, contributing to 67% of the AUM mix. Our active customer base grew to 6 million compared to 4.8 million last year, a 25% growth year-on-year. New business sourcing was strong in quarter one. We disbursed INR 13,237 crore, which is 65% higher than quarter one last year.
All product segments supported this growth, with our business loan segment being the highest contributor in terms of disbursement mix at 40%, followed by personal and consumer loans segment at 36%. 88% of loans in personal and consumer loan portfolio have a credit bureau score of 700+, which speaks about our strong sourcing quality in this segment. Our NIM expanded by 43 basis points year-on-year to 6.98% in Q1. While the operating AUM ratio stayed flat year-on-year, our cost income ratio reduced by 224 basis points year-on-year to 30.48% for the quarter. This is despite us adding 141 branches in the last 12 months, increasing our geographical presence to 332 branches.
Our profit after tax for Q1 was INR 516 crore, growing at 54% year-on-year. As a result, the ROE for the quarter expanded by 441 basis points year-on-year and 134 basis points quarter-on-quarter to 17.89%. The asset quality has shown a consistent improvement over last year. Stage two and stage three book has come down from 8.91% in Q1 of last year to 5.46% in Q1 of this year. Gross Stage 3 book has dropped to 2.8% from 3.7% in Q1 last year. I also want to emphasize that more than two-third of our portfolio is secure. As I mentioned in the last quarter earnings call, we launched Udyog Plus, our unique and differentiated unified platform for MSME customers.
It is built to cater to holistic needs of MSMEs through a complete paperless digital journey. In addition to financial assistance, Udyog Plus also offers a host of value-added services for MSMEs to manage and grow their business. Through this platform, we are now in the process of integrating with digital public infrastructure, such as OCEN and ONDC, as well as our wider ABG ecosystem. In a short span of three months, we have over 48,000 MSMEs registered on this platform as on date. We will continue to scale this platform, as well as invest in strengthening our distribution capacity in this financial year to propel our next level of growth. To conclude and reiterate our performance, we had a strong quarter in terms of growth, leading to a return of assets of 2.54% in this quarter.
Going forward, we will continue to build a granular portfolio and enhance our retail and SME segment mix. As we forge into deeper customer and product segments, strengthen distributions capacity, and invest in technology, we remain committed to deliver sustainable returns in the forthcoming quarter. With that, I will now hand over to Pankaj Gadgil for housing finance business.
Thank you, Rakesh. Good evening, everyone. I'll cover the performance of ABHFL in Q1, FY 2024 now. At ABHFL, we have achieved a consistent growth in our loan book, profitability, and asset quality as well. We continue to invest in the areas of technology, digital reinvention, and analytics for superior customer experience and customer advocacy. To give you Q1 key highlights, first, disbursements of INR 1,620 crore, which is an increase of 83% YOY. Loan book as of June 2023, is INR 14,509 crore, an increase of 19% YOY, and now a customer base of 56,400 customers.
Net interest margin is 5.11%, an increase of 34 basis points YOY. Our profit before tax for the quarter is INR 84 crore, which is our highest ever in a quarter, which is an increase of 18% YOY. Very importantly, on asset quality, Stage 2 plus Stage 3 has reduced by 21 basis points QOQ and 401 basis points YOY. The PAT for Q1 FY 2024 is INR 65 crore, an increase of 17% YOY. ROA for the quarter is 1.9%. ROE is 13.23%. You can refer to the retail financials on slide 26 of the presentation. During our previous earnings call, we introduced our new loan origination system, Finverse.
I'm happy to share that we have successfully deployed Finverse in 33 branches as of June 2023, and our plan is to implement it across all branches by the end of August 2023. Finverse clearly embraces a low-touch, digital-first approach, supported by advanced analytics, bringing greater efficiency and depth to our processes. Put simply, this means higher face time, accelerated decision-making, accelerated disbursement, and customer satisfaction. Furthermore, the platform further streamlines the onboarding process for distribution partners and integrates real-time dashboards and verification modules, delivering a truly seamless experience to all our stakeholders. We are building our analytics capabilities in the areas of data engineering, data science, and digital science, where we are integrating application scorecards for customer onboarding and AI and ML-led behavioral scorecard for portfolio management.
We now have a nationwide presence with 130 branches across 20 states, covering about 85% of the total addressable market of the housing finance industry. We witnessed 30% growth in channel partners QOQ. ABG ecosystem now accounts for 6% of our new disbursements, and we have maintained a very granular ticket size of INR 20 lakhs-30 lakhs. Coming to portfolio quality, our approach comprises three primary components: risk control at origin, pre-delinquency management, and an in-house collections team, which is supported by risk decision packs. The focus on quality of originations, 95% of our disbursements in Q1 FY 2024, are towards 700+ CIBIL or new to credit. The contribution of 730+ CIBIL to origination is now at 74%, which is significantly higher than the industry average of 50%.
Our Gross Stage 3 has shown significant improvement, decreasing from 3.69% in June 2022 to 2.67% in June 2023. We are maintaining Stage 3 PTR of 33%. The details of the same are provided on slide 24. Lastly, moving to treasury management. We've maintained an average cost of borrowings of 10.6% for the quarter, prioritizing diversified borrowing mix. The contribution of NHB to our total borrowings has increased from 14% in June 2022, to 20% in June 2023. In summary, we are focused on ensuring a risk-calibrated growth, healthy profitability, all while maintaining customer centricity at the core. With that, I now hand over to Bala, MD & CEO of our asset management company.
Thank you, Pankaj, and good evening to everyone. I'd like to share some highlights of ABSL AMC performance as represented in the AMC analyst call. ABSL AMC total average AUM, including alternate assets for Q1 FY 2024, stood at INR 308,000 crore, showcasing quarter-on-year growth of about 8%. Within this, our mutual fund AUM was about INR 297,000 crore and equity mutual fund AUM was about INR 190,000 crore. As part of our customer acquisition strategy, we added approximately 1.2 lakh new folios. Our overall folio count as of June 2023, was about 79 lakh. Our AET book size has witnessed about 10% year-on-year growth, at about INR 97,997 crore as it stands today.
We have strengthened our sales ecosystem and distribution network, bringing together the key levers like virtual relationship managers, Samarth, which is for onboarding of IFAs, and services sales, direct HNI channels, and digital distribution to support the overall retail initiative that we have. On the passive front, our product offerings grew by two times, to touch INR 28,675 crore as on June 2023. We have expanded our passive booking to encompass 40 products, attracting a growing customer base around 5 lakh folios. On the PMS and AIF front, we successfully raised the commitment of INR 893 crore in India Equity Services Fund, which is a Category AIF, by leveraging our multi-channel distribution footprint. This is the first success we have now brought in on the AIF side.
In addition, after setting up the Gift City in Gujarat, we have launched the ABSL Global Emerging Equity Fund, which is fed into the other emerging market fund, providing our investors access to the opportunities in emerging markets, especially to tap the investors who are looking for LRS investment in the overseas market. With respect to financial numbers, our revenue for Q1 FY24 was at INR 389 crore versus INR 274 crore in Q1 FY23 last year, which is up by about 42% year-on-year. Profit after tax grew by 79% to touch INR 185 crore, as against INR 103 crore of last year comparable quarter. With this, I'll hand over the hand over to Kamlesh Rao, ABSL MC and the MCEU.
Thank you, Bala. I'll give you some highlights of the life insurance business. The consistent growth journey of ABSLI in both individual as well as the group life insurance business continued in the first quarter of financial year 2024. Individual life insurance grew by 32% compared to the private industry growth of 8%, making us the fastest growing life insurance company for the quarter in the top 10 ranked players. Our success in launching new products was due to our growth, with the new products launched in the last 12 months contributing to 54% of our individual business for first quarter of 2024. Third quarter, we launched two new successful products under our Nishchay brand name in the area of saving as well as pension.
Profit of our new product combined with par contribution of 19% of the whole month of our business in Q1 2024. The individual business, with a healthy product mix of 81% traditional business, resulted in strong growth margins for the firm. In the group life insurance segment, the private industry saw a growth of 13% in Q1 FY 2024, while ABSLI registered a growth rate of 20%. We continue to remain number one in the group annual business, with a growth of more than 100% over last year's base same time. Our total premium of INR 3,105 crore has registered a growth rate of 19% over last year, with a 2-year CAGR of 33%, demonstrating our consistent business growth. This growth came from new business growth as well as renewal premium, growing at 12%.
Our digital collections now account for 79% of our renewal premium, and this growth is seen across persistency buckets from the 13th month right up to the 61st month, with the 13th month now at an industry best of 88% and the 61st month at 57%. Our assets under management now stand at close to INR 74,500 crore, with a YOY growth of 23%, with a 74/26 composition of debt versus equity. Our invested performance has been better than expected benchmarks across all three categories of equity, debt, or even balance funds, either from a 1-year or a 5-year perspective. Our digital adoption across various areas is demonstrated in slide 46. 100% of our new business customers are onboarded digitally.
83% of all our services are now available digitally, covering 56% of our customer transactions, and our customer self-service ratio now stands at 86%. We continue to manage the net margin story well. Last year in Q1, we achieved a VNB of 2.5% and ended the year at 23%. For the first quarter of this year, we are reporting a net VNB margin of 11.8%. We have shown a growth of 935 basis points in our net margins compared to the same time last year, last year. Our approach will be to continue the growth trajectory of this business ahead of the industry, backed by both productivity and capacity. Our forward guidance is that the quality of our book will get better across the 13 to the 61st month persistency from current levels.
Growth will come from a diversified mix of both proprietary as well as partnership channels. We will continue to be best in class in our digital infrastructure, cutting across prospecting and onboarding in sales at the front end, underwriting in the middle, and all customer touch points in service as well as claims. With this, I'll hand over to Mayank for details on the health insurance.
Thanks, Kamlesh. I'd now like to present the performance of our health insurance business. In Q1, FY 2024, we registered a gross premium growth of 22% year-on-year. Compared to industry growth of 21% and PI at 27, slightly lower because of the large base effect of a 71% growth in the Q1 of last financial year. We saw good growth in our larger retail channels, with the proprietary channel growing at 31%, backed by the capacity addition to the last 12 months and a focused geography strategy. Our corporate business grew at 37% year-on-year, driven by a strong focus on cross-sell and upsell, and the industry-leading OPD business enabling higher margins for our business. We continue to focus on mid-corporate and SME segments to create a sustainable and profitable corporate and affinity business.
Continuing to add new capacities in the bank insurance channel with the activation of PSB and UCO Bank and onboarding of India Post Payments Bank. I'm very confident that as we fully activate these new PSU bank partnerships, we'll be able to serve a wider customer segment across the deepest parts of the country. The new Expenses of Management and commission guidelines, we have made some strategic choices in terms of customer segment and channels to further consolidate our retail strategy. We expect growth, GWP growth to normalize in the coming quarters. By prioritizing and both growth and profitability, we are building a resilient franchise. Our net loss has reduced to INR 62 crore from a INR 71 crore in the same period last year....
against the challenges that we saw in retail claims last year, we have seen some positive outcome. Both claims and expense ratios across both retail and group businesses have trended very well overall at a company level. Our combined ratios of quarter FY 2024 is slightly higher compared to same quarter last year, mainly because of the impact of seasonality of growth that we saw the last 12 months. We expect this to normalize very well in the coming quarters again. As a tech and digitally enabled data-driven health insurance business, we remain committed to investing extensively in our tech and digital capabilities. Our digitally powered hyper-personalized engagement allows us to gain deeper insights into our customers, accessing a wealth of health and lifestyle data.
In the last quarter, we launched first of its kind digitally face scan-based health assessment feature to augment our customer health data gathering, working with a health tech partner. We now work with over 60 digital health and wellness ecosystem players across both physical and digital platforms. 87% of our customer interactions happen digitally, self-served by for the customers. Investment in building analytics capabilities has helped us increase opportunities for better customer selection, increase in the size of relationships with existing customers by way of upsell and cross-sell, that we've already demonstrated in our corporate business and is underway in our retail business as well, and our health management interventions for our high-risk customers. Similarly, our strong machine learning-enabled models to help us managing our fraud, waste, and abuse in the claims continues to give us good results.
Looking ahead, we remain highly optimistic of the opportunities in the health insurance industry. Our vision is to expand our franchise aggressively while maintaining best-in-class unit economics. Thank you. I'll now pass it back to Vishakha for our closing remarks.
Thank you, Mayank, and this concludes our comments on the FY 2024 Q1 performance. Now we will be happy to take any questions.
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 touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the 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. We have a first question from the line of Anuj Singla from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you very much for the opportunity. Vishakha, congratulations on the quarter. A very strong performance.
Thank you, Anuj.
Three questions on the lending business first. We have seen 5%-7% sequential growth across the businesses, and this does not even include the contribution from Udyog Plus, which will ramp during the course of the year. When you look at the growth target for FY 2024, and the, you know, beyond that, what kind of number should we be, you know, looking for?
We have, we have stated that we will double our book in the next 3 years. So, so that means 25% plus the kind of growth is what we are strategically looking at.
Okay. Given the strong performance, is it fair to assume it can be more front-loaded with the higher in FY 2024 and then tapering down to maybe 2025, 2026? Is that trajectory something we can look at?
Anuj-
Sorry.
Anuj, it is always a function of the opportunities in the market and our aspiration. we, as I, as Rakesh said, that strategically expect to double our lending books in the next 3 years. On an average, of course, you know, one expects the book to grow at around 25%. In Q quarters, depending upon the opportunity, it could be slightly higher, inter quarters it is. We believe that over a period of time, next 3 years, we should double our book.
It will be risk-calibrated growth, so that's the reason why we are saying, we will double it in next 3 years.
Got it. Got it. The second question is on NIMs. So again, a positive expansion there, despite the funding cost pressures across the 2 businesses, 8-10 basis points, QOQ. Can you talk about the factors which have supported this? During the course of the year, do we expect this NIM levels to sustain at the current levels despite the funding cost pressures?
If you look at Anuj, last quarter, our cost of funds went up by 19 basis points. Our yields went up by 30 basis points, so that's the reason you see an expansion of around 10 basis points on the NIM. As again, as stated, we have stated that we, we are looking at expansion of margins to 7.5% over the next 2-3 years. With the change in the product mix, we will achieve that. In terms of, yes, most of the cost in terms of cost of funds have already been factored in, but there will be some marginal increase in cost of funds in the coming quarters, but that will be mitigated through the change in the product mix and the higher yields coming from the retail and SME segment.
Got it. Lastly, on the asset quality, while the overall GNPA has declined for NBFC side, the forward flow seems to be strong in personal and consumer loans, where GS2 plus 3 combined has gone up by 50 basis points QOQ. Two questions there. One, is it possible to give some kind of color on the customer cohorts which are driving this? Secondly, is it also possible to give some color on how the sourcing done through digital partners is performing versus the direct and the DSA channels? If we can share some details there. Thank you.
In terms of if we look at the forward flows, I think it's very stable, and it's in the range which we have guided. It's within the guard rails or the rates which we have really defined. Even if you look at GS3 is 2%, which is very, I think, best in class compared to the personal loans in the NBFC industry. It's quite. Yes, it's gone from 1.7% to 2%, but it's depending on, I think, just some pool moving in, in certain quarters. We are very confident that we will be able to maintain this quality, and it will be in the same range.
We are not seeing anything which is at this point in time, the bounce rates and everything else is looking quite stable and quite good. In terms of performance, the partners and our performance, Anuj, again, we acquire customers on a similar scorecard, whether it comes through our channel or through the partners. The policy is the same. The credit bureau, which we have mentioned here, is is same for both our direct channel and through the digital partners. We don't see too much of a difference between. And we review this on an ongoing basis, and if we see anything, any partner which is, if it's going up, we really tighten it, control it, or if we have to stop it, we do that.
We are not seeing any too much of a variance between the two.
Got it. Got it. Thank you. Thank you very much. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We have our next question from the line of Abhijit Tibrewal from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good evening, everyone. My question is also on, on the personal and the consumer loan books. Understandably, you partly answered on what I was kind of trying to ask, but I just wanted to understand, I mean, incrementally, what we've been seeing, over the last 2 quarters, and more particularly this quarter, in terms of some of your peers who've reported, there is some anxiety around personal loans. There are peers who've started talking about this FLDG arrangements now kicking in, recoveries and the FLDG arrangements now coming in. Have you also had similar experiences where FLDG arrangements are getting triggered? If, if at all they are getting triggered, I mean, are, are whatever you're seeing being covered under FLDG, or is it also coming and hitting your balance sheet?
Is the first thing that I'm kind of trying to understand.
Your first question on competition and players getting... See, today, our personal and consumer book is only 20% of our overall portfolio. A lot of the players, it's much higher, at 50% and higher. We are still much within the range which we have defined for ourselves. I had mentioned in my initial comments also that more than two-third of our portfolio is secured. It's still within the, within the range which we had defined, and we track it very, very closely. In terms of your question on FLDG, yes, we are evaluating, we are discussing with our partners, and we are reviewing with all our partners in terms of of leveraging the FLDG, which is now being provided by RBI.
Yes, for sure, we are discussing and evaluating, and we will leverage that.
Okay. Simply speaking, right now, whatever arrangements we have with our digital partners, we don't have FLDG arrangements in place, is it?
No, right now, we have not dipped into any FLDG. We didn't have any FLDG. The guidelines which came in December of 2022 by RBI did not allow the digital lending guidelines, which came in December, did not allow any FLDG. We haven't dipped into any FLDG at this point in time. Right now, it's all the commercial arrangement, the sourcing arrangement which we have with the partners and the credit cost, the actual credit cost is sitting in our balance sheet. Yes, as I said, recently, RBI has come with the guidelines and allows 5% FLDG, which we are evaluating and assessing, and we are discussing with our partners.
Got it. That's glad to hear that. Just a follow-up question, why you, I mean, in your opening remarks, I mean, kind of shared that close to 2/3 of the, our book is, or 2/3 of the portfolio is secured. Very clearly, I mean, if I look at the disbursement mix, right, I mean, the proportion of personal and consumer loans has been increasing very, very strongly from March 2022, where it used to be 15% of the disbursement mix. Today, it's almost 35% of the disbursement mix. Very clearly, in terms of your loan mix as well, right, I mean, maybe 3, 4 quarters back, what used to be 15% of the loan mix is today close to 20%, 21% of the loan mix.
What is the comfort level where you want to keep personal and consumer loans? And maybe, just another question on housing loans. Understandably, you've kind of gone through the transition where you have implemented a new LMS. Now, is it now time that we pass those teething issues and loan group, even in your housing business, can start escalating just like it has done in the NBFC business?
Yes, first, question on consumer, then I will ask Pankaj to address your housing question. If you look at, still, yet 35% of the personal and consumer, I will throw some light in terms of, these are small ticket, short tenure product on the consumer side, which we acquire customers at scale. We see their performance over a period of time, then only we cross-sell our personal loans to these customers. Clearly, not only looking at their credit performance in the, in the marketplace, through the credit bureau, but also performance with us, that gives us comfort in terms of, the growth, in this segment. If you look at our secured business also is growing same.
If you look at 31% of the mix on disbursement mix is coming from retail's secured business, and then the corporate also is completely secured. If you combine the two, our still secured stated strategy is that we will continue to be in terms of there will be a cap in terms of how much of unsecured business which we will have. Clearly, it's the secured also has grown quite well in the same period.
Your ultimate product mix question today, retail and consume- retail, consumer and SME is around 67% of our portfolio, balance is corporate. Going forward, and within 67%, around 50% is SMEs and the small business loans, and the balance is consumer and personal loans. We believe going forward, you know, this segment, which is consumer personal loans and the SMEs or the small business loans, will be around 75%, and the corporates will be around 25% over the next three years.
Yeah.
You know, that's the final thing that we would expect the product mix to be.
Abhijit, on housing loans, Pankaj here, I think, you know, over the last few quarters, you would have seen that the loan growth has been picking up. And in fact, the last financial year, we grew at a 14% Y-o-Y, which was slightly higher than the overall housing finance industry growth, which was about 11% Y-o-Y. I think the first quarter has been more promising, and we've touched 19% Y-o-Y growth in the housing finance industry. Your point that, you know, there is a low elements, yes, it is a very... I would say, it's the fastest implementation of a loan origin system that we have done in the housing finance, you know, space. We have been in the space for some time. We've done this in 6 months. And this is just not a standalone LOS.
It's an engagement platform that we're trying to create, which has the entire CRM also, you know, in-built, and it has a single sign-on, which ensures, you know, One Experience, One Customer, which, you know, we have been propagating as ABCL as a platform. It allows our distributors, our, you know, connectors, our partnership partners, our employees, all to come on one single platform and log in, you know, their cases. Most importantly, the anxiety of where the, you know, case is lying. I think that anxiety, it kind of quells because there's a dashboard which is very intuitive, interactive, which allows the customers to check, you know, where is he or she, you know, in the entire, you know, loan life cycle. That got stabilized.
33 branches, I already spoke about it, have already gone live with the platform. By end of August, you know, we should be going live pan-India. I also, you know, spoke about the ramp-up of distribution that we are seeing. Obviously, interest levels are being created, you know, in the, you know, in the channel fraternity. ABG is contributing to about 6% of our disbursements now. Yes, you know, looking forward to, you know, a, a healthy growth, you know, in times to come and leverage the opportunity with the entire housing sector, you know, to the full.
Abhijit, if I can just add on the secured/unsecured. In the business loan, unsecured business loans, if you refer to slide 12, there is INR 8,524 crore. Out of that, 21% is supply chain, which is in a way receivable, and there is a underlying trade which is there. The remaining INR 5,000 crore, I think the business loan is all, all backed by the credit guarantee by provided by SIDBI. That also, in a way, is secured. I think just keep that in mind. Thank you so much, and this has been very, very useful, and thank you for patiently answering all my questions. Best wishes to the team.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Avinash Singh from MK Global. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. A few questions. First one would be on the NBFC. If you can just help with some kind of data around, you know, your disbursement mix via direct and ecosystem, particularly in the retail and consumer and unsecured SME. So that's on NBFC. On housing, the question would be that, I mean, in your strategy, you have stated your sort of, you know, ambition to have a balance towards affordable as well as, I mean, the prime home loan. But if I sort of, look at your, you know, the bureau score mix, that is more or less suggesting you are more going towards prime, I mean, mostly going towards a prime customer.
The question will be: how are you going to sort of, you know, maintain your profitability here? Because, I mean, housing to prime, is a very, very kind of a thin margin business, and there is enough sort of a balance transfer that keeps happening because banks are also aggressive. And one more question on, you know, the capital you have raised, INR 3,000 crore. What sort of a deployment plan? Of course, the two lending businesses will require, but likely health insurance business will also require some capital, in a year or so. So, I mean, is there some sort of a plan for you to again, find, you know, outside investor for health insurance? Or, if you could just provide some broad color around the deployment of this INR 3,000 crore capital. Thank you.
If I can start by giving you, on this, the sourcing mix. If you look at our direct sourcing at a company level is 45% is direct, 23% comes through the DSAs, and 42% of the business comes through the digital. This is the mix at the company level. In terms of personal and consumer, 11% comes direct, 10% comes through the DSAs, and 79% comes through digital channels. That would have answered your question.
Yeah, same, I mean, for unsecured business, if you can.
On unsecured business, 60% comes through DSAs, 35% comes through digital, and 6% direct. As we mentioned in our opening remarks, once the Udyog Plus is, I think once we have start, we have many more registrations on this platform and MSMEs starts coming on this platform, we expect that the direct sourcing to go up in this segment.
I think the second question, Pankaj here was on, was on housing, actually. I think you made observation on the, on the mix. You know, if you see, you know, the, the slides also which are there in the investor presentation, you will see the mix that, you know, we have, you know, kind of got today. You know, at the end of quarter 1, we have 50% of our book was in prime, about 42% is affordable and informal, and 8% is CA. We have been leveraging opportunities across all the segments. We've stated that, you know, we are going to grow, you know, in the most meaningful way and, and, leverage opportunities across the segment.
I think the strategies we have, you know, kind of articulated earlier also is maintain the right, you know, mix. We've been speaking about the right balance of the value segment and the growth segment. To be, you know, fair, I think, with ABC as a group, I think we are amongst the top quartile in cost of borrowings also. You will see, you know, triple A rated. I also spoke about the NHB refinancing. The percentage of the book warrants have moved up from 14% to 20%. I think the real crux is, you know, balancing the mix there. Very surprisingly, when you are seeing our bureau scores, you know, 88% of the book is 7 plus.
You'll be surprised that also within the affordable, you know, segment, which is, I would say slightly higher than the informal segment, which is, you know, INR 15 lakh to INR 50 lakh, INR 40 lakh. There are customers, you know, who have 10 lines, you know, very surprisingly, and when you scrub, you find out that they are very conscious also on the credit score. We're actively finding out, and our portfolio also will give them the detailed breakup also of, you know, what, what bands of, you know, bureau that we have, have got today. We have only 10% customers who are new to credit and 88%, you know, customers who are 7+. That's the shift which is happening in the country. That's real. Especially, you know, even in the metros and outskirts of metros, people are, you know, conscious.
It's a, I would say, judicious mix. Last but not the least, you know, again, when you're speaking about prime, I think there are, you know, internal sourcing also, which happens, which is in the prime. It could be the insurance or ABCL. It is also, you know, the large distributors that we have on the mutual fund, life insurance, and also, you know, health insurance, able to, you know, leverage, you know, the, in-house customers. That, that also really helps us in building the prime. It's going to be a judicious mix of, you know, all the segment, leveraging all the possibilities with, you know, risk caliber and growth that might offer.
If you can give some color on the balance transfer out, and, I mean, in your discussion, what have been sort of any balance transfer in?
Balance transfer is, you know, is, is always, you know, going to be there. You know, it, it comes in, you know, on, on two counts. It, it may be situations where somebody is giving you a higher, you know, limit, somebody is giving higher exposure. Sometimes it also happens with rates. What I can, you know, say very confidently is, I spoke about customer advocacy, I spoke about superior customer experience. You know, we are also seeing, you know, with the processes improving, you know, with the turnaround times improving, and with the overall, you know, I would say mindset improving, you know, of, of customers, of, of, you know, ICICI, H ome Finance in the last, you know, 10 to 12 months, I am seeing that trend also, you know, going down. I think that's very clearly coming in.
You know, we are in the business, and there, there will be. We also do balance transfers in, you know, in the business as well. It's, it's a part of the business that you, you know, you have to focus on, you know, both as well for the business.
Mr. Avinash?
Yeah, sure. Housing, I think your next question was on capital allocation, that how do we look at deployment of the capital that we have raised?
Yes. Yes.
First thing that the majority allocation of capital will help towards the lending businesses, depending on the market opportunity. Secondly, whatever growth capital requirement will be there from our LI and HI businesses, we will provide that. We'll not starve any business for capital. That's our stated policy. In terms of getting an outside partner for health insurance, see, right now we already have two strong JV partners in MMI and Aditya, and we feel that they will support all the growth capital requirement in their proportion whenever it is required. That's how we plan the way forward.
Okay, thanks. Just if you can, give some, I mean, question for Health Insurance. What is driving, I mean, if you can just give the breakup of 117% in terms of the claims ratio and OpEx? Avinash, we don't discuss the breakup of this in terms of, we can maybe subsequently look at addressing it.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We have our next question from the line of Dipanjan Ghosh from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. Firstly, two questions on the Health Insurance business. First, if you can quantify your retail new business growth on a year-over-year basis, that would be great. Or demonstrate between the new business versus renewals. Second, you mentioned that you have made some strategic choices post the change in Expenses of Management guidelines. If you can give some color on how has the payout strategies changed across different channels? How will the distribution mix incrementally change based on that? What are the parameters based on which you kind of made the strategic choices out there? Maybe you can answer this, then I'll have two questions on the Life Insurance business.
Yeah. I think our overall retail business grew at about 17% YoY. You know, new business, as I mentioned earlier already, the choices was about, you know, some of the segments that we felt we need review in terms of overall economics. We have seen some numbers that are rural business come down, and there are some parts in the retail booking side that we felt that we need to review. Otherwise, we remain optimistic on all the other channels, especially proprietary. Our agency channel is doing very well. We've grown about 31%. Our bank insurance channel continue to grow. We are adding new capacities there. Our alliance's businesses, you know, we remain optimistic, which will grow well in the future.
There were some segments which we felt that looking at, you know, given our experience over the last five years now, where, where we forecast future economics, where we felt that it may be a good idea to, you know, review our strategy. We will continue to explore that opportunity because we've seen that some of these opportunities remain large. We will go into that segment once we have finalized our approach.
Sure. Just a follow-up on the first question, I wanted to check if you can split the growth between new business versus renewals.
I do not have that data completely ready. We can come back to you separately on that.
Sure. Just 2 questions on the life insurance business. You know, if you can give the work of your VNB margin movement over the last trailing 12 months between product mix, volumes, or assumption changes or something like that. Second, on the product mix, if you can kind of give some color on the traditional link and non-link business, and the mix within that, and how the guaranteed return product has been doing on a Y-Y basis, or even in July, for that matter. And lastly, I think, across one of your major bank insurance partners, which has now kind of merged with its merged parent, the sister concern seems to be suggesting continued counter share gains at that particular counter.
On that context, do you see any volume pressure, from a medium-term basis out there? Those are my three questions.
Hi, Kamesh, sure. Let me answer your last question first. You spoke about the largest banker partner. If you look at the numbers for the first quarter, in fact, as compared to last year, we have gained a little bit of mind share in that counter. In that counter, obviously, the size of the premium is so high, and there is aspiration for that bank to grow on a consistent basis. At this point of time, we are not seeing any change in approach. It's a function of how good your products are and processes are, and whatever has been there for the last three, four years, we have not seen any change in stance over the last three or six months.
Therefore, like I said, we registered about 30%+ growth rate there in the first quarter in that counter. That's to answer your last question. The answer to your question on traditional products, we have used the interest rate scenario during the period of the time that it has remained stable and benign for increasing the share on our guaranteed savings products. The average guarantees that we have in all our products put together roughly is about 5.15%-5.2%. We follow a very dedicated focus, risk mitigation strategy through FRAs, where 100% of our expected maturity benefits are fully hedged.
Once we keep looking at the opportunity of the guaranteed savings products, we also make sure on the risk side they are fully taken care of. During the period in the quarter, as I said, when the interest rates have started going down, we have repriced some of our guaranteed savings products downward, which is in line with bulk of what the competitors have done. Therefore, we haven't seen much impact in the area. Your first question on the bridge, I mean, normally we give a bridge on embedded value movements and give subcomponents of that, but I think you're focusing on the net VNB margins.
Yes. Yes.
Last year, claim, came largely out of our net VNB margins, as well as all our operating assumptions were positive, and that's the reason we added about INR 800 crore of net VNB margins last year, and our embedded value grew from about INR 9,000 crore. For the VNB of the 1st quarter is largely driven by a product mix strategy. Also, it is driven by a strategy of a significantly larger productivity, which is coming across our various channels. Our proprietary business grew at about 30%+. Our direct business grew at about 40%+. Our banker business grew at about 35%-40%. A combination of productivity, productivity-led growth as well as the product mix has actually contributed to expansion of margins in this quarter on a sequential.
Sure. Just if I can squeeze in one small question. Similar to the health insurance business, have you taken any strategic calls on the life insurance side also with respect to the UM guidelines?
Actually, on the guidelines that came in, for whatever business that we were doing through our various channels, we only capitalized on that more. Some of these channels, like Mayank mentioned, we never did large amounts of business, so there's not been any need for any change of strategy for us as far as life insurance is concerned.
sure. Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Saurabh from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
I have just 3 questions. One is, you know, what will be your target mix of, you know, this unsecured business? I'm just asking because an incremental disbursement business, this seems to be something nearly five-
Mr. Saurabh, can you use your handset mode? Your voice is breaking.
Is it better now?
Sir, you're able to hear his question, sir? Oh, I'm sorry, his line is disconnected. I'll take the next question from the line of Ramesh from ICICI. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, team. Just 2 questions. First, on the NBFC piece. If you look at the credit provisioning, you know, that has been little stickier around 1.5% of the lending book, despite of the fact that the Stage 3 of the lead, lead indicators of asset quality metrics keep on improving on quarter-on-quarter basis. Is it fair to assume that, given the, you know, book mix change, given a 0.5% grade cost is the new normal for us?
Trade cost, yes, we have said that it would be in this range, with the change in the product mix and unsecured business which has grown over the last couple of years. Yes, we expect the credit cost to be in this range, but as we mentioned, we will evaluate the FLDG, and we are assessing that, and we'll come back in terms of how do we leverage that.
Got it. Got it. Secondly, on the housing finance piece, okay, if you look at the asset yield, you know, which has been increasing over the last 2, 3 quarters, again, despite of the fact that, you know, let's say the customers of more than 700 credit score are getting acquired incrementally. What is driving this high yields in home finance?
Yields, so Pankaj, yields are anyways, you know, on the portfolio is also a function of, you know, what have we been able to pass on in the last year. Last year, the repo rate increased at 2 basis points. We had, you know, we had the ability of passing those rates, you know, to the customers there. As you will note that the borrowing rates, there's always a trailing impact of how the borrowing rates increase. Now you are seeing those, you know, in Q4 and Q1, you know, specifically. The reason why, you know, we've been able to hold, you know, the NIM, one, obviously, like I mentioned, it has been a very, very sound treasury management that we have been able to do. The cost of borrowing is very top quartile among the HFCs that we have got.
Maintaining the right, you know, mix, you know, on onboarding on the affordable, informal, the CF portfolio with the prime segment, I think has been able to, you know, get us the, the requisite, you know, net interest margin and also rates.
Fair to assume that this 12% blended yield on the, actually the effective interest rate, what we are seeing in the PPT, is more or less sustainable going forward?
We had mentioned this last time as well, that while NIM, you know, looks at, we support a 5% NIM, you know, it was also there, close to 5%, you know, at the end of the year. It will be range bound, but I think you will see that range anywhere between about 4.7%-4% response as NIM, that, you know, we should be able to see in times to come, as the cost of borrowing is likely, you know, keep moving up with the term loan percentages.
Got it. Just last question on the, again, home finance. This quarter, sequentially, we have seen the cost to income as well as the OpEx to IM increasing very sharply, almost 45 to 50 basis point on the OpEx to IM side. Of course, we do understand that we're investing on the tech side, but in terms of the incremental investment towards the franchise build-up, where do we stand as on June quarter?
I think that's the right observation. I think, we had spoken about this earlier as well. I think we are making, you know, investments on, technology, digital and analytics, and the contribution of our expenditure, you know, obviously, disproportionate in these three areas. In my assessment, you know, as the book size will, you know, keep growing, the operating leverage will kick in, and you will see, you know, that, you know, showing up, you know, in times to come. I think that is where the investments are actually going. We haven't added too many branches. We are at 130 branches, but within the locations, I think we've expanded the locations and, you know, now we are present in significantly higher number of pin codes.
That, you know, gives us access to a very larger opportunity in the housing finance space, which is a standard as to the population.
It is fair to assume that this is, 3%, I mean, roughly 3%, cost to asset, is at peak level?
That's right. That's right. Those are peak levels, yes.
Okay. Thank you from my side. I'm done, sir. Thank you for coming to this.
... Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Shubhranshu Mishra from PhillipCapital. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. Two, two questions. The first one is on the personal loan and consumer loans. We onboard customers for the Paytm Postpaid. What is the run rate on a monthly basis or maybe on a quarterly basis, we can speak on that, and any kind of FLDG we have with Paytm on that particular piece? Second is generally, thanks for the update on how we onboard customers according to system, is there any specific rules around having any customer onboarded who has done more than 30 DPD across lenders at any point of time in their credit history?
The third is that we see the GS3 as well as the PCR increase and for the personal loan as well as consumer loan, and especially with the ticket sizes we operate along with various Fintech. That is a cause of concern which has been highlighted by various industry leaders and as well as credit bureaus. RBI has put out cautionary note around it. What are we doing to curtail that? These are the three questions. Thanks.
Quite a few questions, so let me just recollect. In terms of sourcing through partners, as I would have mentioned earlier also, we source small ticket loans, short tenor loans. Once we establish their performance on our portfolio, then only we go and give a personal loan. So that's what our sourcing strategy is with our partners. In terms of your question on certain partners with the FLDG, I had mentioned it earlier also. Right now, we don't have any FLDG because the December guidelines of RBI did not allow FLDG. Recently, the FLDG has come in, so we are evaluating, we are assessing, and we are in discussion with partners in terms of leveraging the FLDG.
Another question. What is the run rate with Paytm?
We don't discuss individual, specific partner run rates. As, I mean, Rakshit mentioned that it's a part of the overall strategy, and we onboard customers through this channel, and then once the credit history is established with us, we look at expanding this relationship.
I've got 2 more questions. One is, the second one, one on if we onboard the customers who have done 30 DPD across lenders at all?
No. So sorry. Yeah, sorry, I missed that. We never onboard any customer who has DPD. If they have and their DPDs are seen in the credit bureau, we never, or in their bank statement, if we see any anything, we don't onboard any one of these customers.
Right. My third question is still unanswered. What are we doing to curtail the disbursements in these kind of ticket sizes that we operate in and personal loan and consumer loans?
Completely, if you look at, and I think, I will just refer to a slide, slide 12. If you look at our, our portfolio, which is there in personal and consumer, 77% of the customers are in personal and 23% of the customers is in consumer. I think in the consumer segment is a small ticket and short tenor loan. We onboard customers through that. We establish their credit behavior, and then only on slightly larger ticket and longer tenor. It's a quite well calibrated in terms of after looking at the performance of these customers is what we are. As I mentioned earlier also, we review these customers through the door in terms of their any bounces. It starts with onboarding through the door analysis, then the bounce trends, what is causing that?
If we find any, any cohort or any, any product or any, any partner where it's beyond the threshold, we take immediate corrective action. We will - and that's the reason we mentioned that we want to grow in a risk-calibrated manner, even though currently our growth is much, much higher, but we are giving a, in terms of direction, that in the next three years we will double our growth. I think all the growth will come on the back of risk-calibrated growth.
Understood. Thanks.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraints, we'll take the last question from Sanket Chheda from DAM Capital.
Yeah, hi, sir. Just to wanted to know the sourcing mix again, on on the personal and consumer and unsecured, if it's just needed?
Sanket, I will again give this. At a company level, 45% of our sourcing is direct, 23% is through the DHAs, and 32% is through the digital, digital channel. In terms within that, the, the personal and consumer, 10% is through DHAs, 11% is direct, and 79% is through digital journey. Unsecured business, 60% is DHAs, 6% is direct, and 25% digital. As we build and enhance and strengthen our Udyog Plus, this 6% direct on MSME business will go up. That will be our direct acquisition for our MSME customers. Secured business, 46% comes through DSAs and 54% comes directly.
Sure, sir, that is, that was helpful. Just one question, on, on the, FLDG thing that, you alluded to, that, as, as of December 22, based on the earlier results, we didn't used to have FLDG. Is it right to assume that, the, in terms of the pricing we offer, there will be, a, a markup baked in, to take care of, the, the declining currency rate? To put it the other way, if somebody offers FLDG, the pricing would be lower, compared to what you were getting earlier?
Sanket, the pricing is determined by the customer profile, credit history, cash flow, everything. We have credit scorecards on the basis of which we price our customers. Basis the product, in terms of whether it's secured, unsecured, what is the credit profile of the customer, the pricing is a range bound, so that's how we price the customer.
No, it is more towards, say, pricing, for the sourcing done through ecosystems or the digital partners.
Again, basis the projected, the credit risk of that customer, profile, that customer cohort, we price, we price the customer.
Sure, sir. Yeah, those were the only two questions, sir. Thanks, sir.
Thank you. I would now like to hand the conference over to Ms. Vishakha Mulye for closing comments. Over to you.
Thank you so much, all of you. If there are any pending questions, then, you know, Vijay and Pramod and Ashwij are available. Of course, I'm also available. Please feel free to contact us. Thank you so much.
On behalf of Aditya-
Thank you.
Thank you, sir. On behalf of Aditya Birla Capital, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.