Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Q3 FY 2026 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 and then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Vishakha Mulye, MD and CEO, Aditya Birla Capital Limited. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
Thank you. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the earnings call of Aditya Birla Capital for Q3 of 2026. Joining me today are the senior members of my team, Bala, Rakesh, Pankaj, Kamlesh, Mayank, Pinky, Vijay, Ramesh, and Deep. I will cover our strategy, financial and business performance, followed by a discussion on performance of our key businesses by our business CEOs. The Indian economy has maintained a strong growth momentum despite of a challenges and challenging external environment. Rural consumption has benefited from a good monsoon and improved agricultural output, while urban spending surged during the festive season, which has further facilitated the rationalization of GST rates. Inflation remains well contained. The government, in its union budget, has announced investments for electronic textiles and many other industries to boost the manufacturing, tourism, youth skilling, and medical tourism to further improve the economic growth.
At Aditya Birla Capital, we continue to focus on driving quality and profitable growth by leveraging data, digital, and technology. Now let me talk about our financial and business performance. Consolidated profit after tax, excluding the exceptional and one-off items, increased by 41% year-on-year and 15% sequentially to INR 983 crore. The total consolidated revenue grew by 30% year-on-year and 14% sequentially to INR 14,181 crore. On a standalone basis, the profit after tax, excluding exceptional and one-off items, grew by 24% year-on-year to INR 749 crore. We saw a strong momentum in our lending businesses. NBFC portfolio grew by 24% year-on-year to INR 148,000 crore, and HFC portfolio grew by 58% year-on-year to INR 42,204 crore.
We continue to see strong asset quality trends in both our lending businesses with an improvement in GS2 and GS3 ratios. In our AMC business, we continue to see an improvement in the fund performance along with a healthy growth in AUM. In insurance businesses, remains among the fastest growing companies. The individual first year premium for the life insurance business grew by 19%, and the gross written premium of the health insurance business grew by 39% year-on-year. Despite the changes in the GST, we saw an improvement in the profitability of our insurance businesses. In life insurance businesses, our VNB margin expanded by 380 basis points year-on-year to 14.2%. In the health insurance business, we saw an improvement in our combined ratio from 111% to 114% for the nine months.
I'm happy to share that the board of directors of ABCL and Aditya Birla Housing Finance, at their meeting today, approved a proposal for primary capital infusion of INR 2,750 crore in ABHFL from one of the entities of Advent International, subject to the requisite approval. The transaction announced today values ABHFL at INR 19,250 crore on a post-money basis. Upon completion of the transaction, the ABCL will hold 85.7%, and Advent International will hold 14.3% stake in ABHFL. As we had mentioned in our earlier call, we had identified housing finance as one of the major drivers for growth for ABCL, given the opportunities in the sector. Over the past three years at ABHFL, we have created a full stack franchise focusing on prime and affordable segment and construction finance.
We have made significant investment in technology, digital properties, people, and distribution. We have built a strong finance, strong distribution, fully equipped for a deeper penetration. Today, we are one of the fastest growing HFCs in India and among the three players in terms of incremental loan growth book. Our monthly disbursement has grown by more than 6 times since June 2022 to more than INR 2,250 crore in December 2025. Our portfolio has grown by at a CAGR of 48% over the last three years to INR 42,204 crore as on 31 December . Our asset quality remains best in class, with a gross stage three ratio at 0.54% and net stage three ratio at 0.23%.
We had indicated in our earlier calls that we would be seeing the benefits of operating leverage this year and a gradual expansion in ROA on the back of strong growth in AUM. I'm delighted to share that the OPEX to loan book has improved by 51 basis points year-on-year to 2.37% in Q3 of FY 2026. The ROA has increased by 54 basis points year-on-year and 14 basis points sequentially to 1.96%. We believe we are now fully geared up for the next phase of our growth... Going forward, we believe our strength and balance sheet will enable us to sustain the current growth momentum, gain market share, and improve our profitability while maintaining the best-in-class asset quality. Now, I request Rakesh to talk about the performance of the NBFC business. Over to you, Rakesh.
24% year-on-year, taking the AUM to INR 148,182 crore in quarter three. Profit delivery for the quarter was healthy, registering a growth of 8% sequentially and 29% year-on-year. Our strong business momentum continued in quarter three, with quarterly disbursement of INR 21,417 crore, up 41% year-on-year. Of the total disbursement, secured and unsecured business loans to SME was 46%, personal and consumer segment was 23%, and corporate and mid-corporate was at 31%. We continue to see the momentum in our personal and consumer loans business post-strategic calibration. For quarter two, the disbursement in this segment was INR 4,900 crore, which was largely driven by improvements in branch business and scale-up of direct digital business through proprietary journey.
The AUM grew by 9% sequentially and 28% year-on-year to INR 19,918 crore. As one of the leading lenders to the MSMEs, we continue to strengthen our position in the NBFC space and consistently outpace the industry growth in this segment. Our expansion in this segment is driven by offering carefully chosen business expansion and working capital solutions for different profiles of MSMEs. The recent measures announced in the Union Budget to enhance liquidity support for MSMEs through the TReDS platform position us well to capture large and growing opportunity in this segment through our holistic suite of supply chain finance solutions, comprising of invoice discounting, channel financing, merchant cash advance, et cetera, spreading across the MSME value chain.
Supported by a robust underwriting framework, powered by a new age scorecard and rule engines, we have enabled faster credit decisioning and reduced disbursement timelines, while maintaining one of the best-in-class asset quality in the industry. About 56% of our portfolio comprises of business loans to MSMEs, which has grown 7% sequentially and 26% year-on-year to INR 82,809 crore. Out of this, 82% is secured by collateral and 18% is unsecured. The unsecured business loan portfolio grew 12% quarter-on-quarter and 36% year-on-year, and comprises about 10.3% of the overall NBFC portfolio. The disbursements for secured business loans to SMEs grew 6% sequentially, resulting in AUM growth of 6% quarter-on-quarter and 24% year-on-year. The growth has been largely driven by scaling direct sourcing efforts through our branch network.
Talking about portfolio quality in personal and consumer loan segment, we continue to see a sustained improvement in asset quality parameter. The Gross Stage two and three reduced by 60 basis points sequentially and 220 basis points year-on-year. The GS3 for this segment stands at 1.7% as of December 2025. The GS2 and GS3 of the unsecured business loan portfolio improved by 20 basis points sequentially and 300 basis points year-on-year. Gross Stage three of this portfolio stands at 1.9%, of which 40% of the GS3 book is covered under the government guarantee scheme. The asset quality of the secured loan business segment continues to be healthy and best-in-class on the back of strong cash flows and collaterals. GS3 for this portfolio stands at 1.2%, down by 50 basis points year-on-year.
Asset quality in our wholesale business also continued to improve, where GS2 and GS3 reduced by 100 basis points year-on-year. As a result of improving portfolio quality trends in each one of our segments, overall GS2 and GS3 book declined by 20 basis points quarter-on-quarter and 150 basis points year-on-year to 2.8%. About 73% of our book is secured, and our overall stage three book is well provided with a PCR of 44.3%. Our credit costs have reduced by 13 basis points year-on-year to 1.23% for the quarter, which is well within the guided range of 1.2%-1.3%. Going forward, we remain confident to maintain the credit costs in the same range at the company level.
Moving to profitability, our net interest income has increased by 23% year-over-year and 7% sequentially to INR 2,127 crore. Net interest margin, including fee, was at 6.12% in the current quarter, up by 6 basis points sequentially and 13 basis points year-over-year. Our OpEx to AUM ratio reduced 8 basis points sequentially, despite the impact of the new labor code. In quarter three, we delivered profit after tax of INR 772 crore, registering a growth of 8% quarter-over-quarter and 29% year-over-year. The ROA for the quarter increased by 15 basis points year-over-year to 2.25%.
Moving forward, we expect the mix of retail and MSME segments to improve, and we will continue to leverage our proprietary digital platforms, which is ABCD app and Udyog Plus, to invest in, and also invest in branches to improve share of direct sourcing. As we scale up, strengthen our capabilities, and invest in technology, our primary commitment remains to deliver sustainable returns in the coming quarters. With that, I will now hand it over to Pankaj, MD and CEO of the Housing Finance Business.
Thank you, Rakesh, and good evening to everyone on the call. Q3 FY26 has been a landmark quarter for ABHFL and a defining step forward in our long-term strategic journey. During the quarter, we have successfully signed one of the largest capital infusion deals in the Indian housing finance sector, and are pleased to welcome Advent International as a new shareholder. Advent's investment reflects their strong conviction in ABHFL's business model, governance framework, and execution capabilities, as well as the structural growth opportunity in the Indian housing finance market. Their global experience, institutional depth, and strategic orientation will significantly strengthen our ability to scale responsibly and accelerate the next phase of our growth and innovation agenda.
On the performance front, Q3 FY 2026 has been yet another strong quarter, marked by healthy disbursements, robust book growth, and continued improvement in asset quality, reflecting consistency of execution across all key business levers. In line with our guidance of consistent growth leadership with best-in-class portfolio quality, let me take you through the key highlights for the quarter. We recorded highest ever disbursements at INR 6,165 crore, registering a growth of 30% YOY and 7% QOQ. ABG ecosystem contribution is now at 17.6% of retail disbursement. AUM crossed the 40,000 crore milestone to reach INR 42,204 crore, registering a 58% YOY and 10% QOQ growth. Stage two and three reduced to 0.95%, improving by 82 basis points YOY and 15 basis points QOQ.
PBT of INR 229 crore, increasing 109% YOY and 18% QOQ. ROA at 1.96%, and ROE for the quarter at 14.92%. For more detailed financials, please refer to slide 31. Let me now provide a brief update across our key strategic pillars. Digital data and analytics. Digital and AI continues to be a core pillar of our strategy. We are witnessing encouraging traction from our AI-enabled copilots across sales, underwriting, customer service, and audit. Additionally, the ABCD usage is now at 62% from 39% in FY 2025. These initiatives have clearly resulted in a 1.3x increase in sales manager productivity YOY. I would also like to highlight that during the quarter, we migrated to the ABCD Seller platform, which is a next-generation channel onboarding and engagement platform.
This is further expected to enhance turnaround time, scalability, and partner experience. On asset quality, we have successfully implemented multiple analytical models across the customer journey, from demand generation and underwriting to collection. Our application scorecard and collection scorecard are already delivering tangible outcomes reflected in improving portfolio quality. FinCollect, our end-to-end digital collections management platform, is driving an effective collection strategy, resulting in a reduced stage two stage three from 1.77% in December 2024 to 0.95% in December 2025, which is a reduction of 82 basis points. The liability franchise. On the liability side, we continue to strengthen and diversify our funding profile. The share of NCDs in the borrowing mix increased to 48% in Q3 from 39% in Q3 of FY 2025.
Our cost of borrowing further improved by 11 basis points QOQ and stands at 7.41% for the quarter. To conclude, we have delivered consistent performance across growth, asset quality, and profitability. Thank you for your attention. With that, I will now hand over the call to Bala, MD and CEO of our asset management company.
Thank you, Pankaj. Just to highlight the quick performance update on ABSL AMC for the quarter ending December 2025. ABSL AMC, our overall average asset and management, including alternate assets, stands about INR 481,000 crore, growing by 20% year-on-year. Our mutual fund quarterly average AUM has reached INR 442,000 crore, representing 15% year-on-year growth. Within this, our equity mutual fund quarterly average AUM stood at approximately INR 200,000 crore, growing by 11% year-on-year. As an AMC, we continue to stay focused on SIPs, building SIP book. In fact, we have about INR 1,080 crore SIP book, coming from 40 lakh SIP accounts.
Our total number of investors' folios stood at about INR 1.08 crore, witnessing 3% year-on-year growth, driving our growth momentum, building scale through increased market traction, as well as adding new customer base. Improved fund performance has strengthened market perceptions and driven higher inflows into our core products. Building on this momentum, our priority remains to scale our equity offerings through consistent SIP flows, a broad-based distribution and participation, and sustain performance and deeper market engagement. Turning to alternatives business, the PMS and AIF equity segment have demonstrated robust momentum, supported by a steadily expanding suite of credit offerings. We continue to enhance, refine, and define our solution to address the evolving needs of the HNIs and family office investment needs. Our PMS, AIF advisory assets under management stood at about INR 3,800 crore.
From INR 3,800 crores, there's more to INR 30,600 crores, which includes ESIC mandate that we won last quarter. During the quarter, we also received our EPFO allocation letter for fixed income mandate, appointing as one of the portfolio manager. We are now in the process of completing the regulatory formality and expect the assets to be on board sometime next quarter. On the fixed income credit side, we completed the final close of ABSL India Special Opportunities Fund, and we received a commitment of about INR 500 crores. And fundraising, of course, is underway in our second series of fund launch, which is Structured Opportunity Fund number two. Our real estate fund continues to build momentum, supported by strong investor interest and healthy deal pipeline. The real estate portfolio is about INR 700 crores, representing approximately 40% year-on-year growth.
During the quarter, after the set up of our wholly-owned subsidiary in GIFT City Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC International (IFSC) Limited, as we expand our GIFT City operation under the process of securing regulatory approvals during the quarter. However, in the current existing fund flow that we have for inward remit and outward remittance, we continue to see uploads coming in, both for inward remittance as well as outward remittance. Our passive business continues to gain strong momentum. With quarterly average assets INR 32,600 crore, up 28% year-on-year, and growing customer base, about 14.1 lakh folios. Our ETF quarterly average grew by about 40% year-on-year, significant outpace in the industry growth of 24%. Our focus remains on delivering superior long-term outcomes through tighter tracking differences and lower tracking error.
Additionally, sustained investor interest in precious metals, such as the gold and silver, has reinforced the diversification value of our passive offering in this segment. As is, for the financial performance, the Q3 FY 2026 total revenue stood at INR 562 crore, up 16% year-on-year. Q3 FY 2026 profit before tax was INR 3.58 crore, up 19% year-on-year. And Q3 FY 2023 profit after tax, total INR 270 crore, up by 20% year-on-year. With this, I'll hand it over to Kamlesh Rao, Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance, MD&CEO.
Thank you, Bala. The overall life insurance industry registered a growth of 10% in the first nine months of this year, with the private life insurance industry growing at 13%. During the same period, ABSLI clocked a premium growth of 19%, with proprietary business growing at 8% and the partnership business growing at 26%. In our proprietary business, we are growing in line with the market. The product mix is favorable, and we are now planning to scale this business even further. During the first nine months of this year, we have added 24 branches, continuing our focus on expanding the proprietary business. With this, we are now at +445 branches across the entire country.
The partnership growth of 26% came across all our existing partners, as well as the new partnerships with Bank of Maharashtra, IDFC Bank, and Axis Bank, wherein we now have reasonable mindshare. In the existing bank partnerships, we have gained reasonable mindshare consistently through the nine months of this year. At Axis, until now, we were present in selective zones, which contributed to 20% of their total business. We now have access to three new zones, and with this, we will be present in 50% of their business going forward. The partnership business has a balanced product mix, with margins going up through the year. We now have 12 banca tie-ups, and like I mentioned, we will expand our presence at Axis Bank going forward.
In the product mix of the individual business, traditional business, including protection, increased to 70%, and ULIP came down to 30%, helping expand margins for the nine months of this year. We will continue calibrating our product mix in line with customer demand, as well as the need to optimize margins at the firm. In the group life insurance segment, the private industry grew by 17% and overall industry grew by 15%. Like we mentioned in previous quarter, we have had a calibrated approach to interest rate-sensitive business. We are happy to state that we have moved from a degrowth for the first half of the year to an 8% growth for nine months, 2024 to December, enabling us to reclaim the rank four, and a large part of this growth has come from the market-facing ULIP business.
We continue to be at rank two in the ULIP AUM in the industry, with an AUM size of + INR 15,000 crore. Credit Life business registered a growth of 37%, with attachment ratios going up in our large counters, and even more significantly in our own NBFC, as well as housing finance business. On group term life insurance business, we continue to remain focused on expanding the margins. Group AUM contributes to 26% of the overall AUM and stands at INR 28,218 crore. Our total premium for the first nine months stands at INR 15,471 crore, growing by 14%, with a 13-month persistency at 84.4%. Renewal premium grew by 18%, with growth across individual and group segment. Our digital collections now account for 83% of our renewal premium.
We continue to work on customer lifetime value, which is reflected in our upsell ratio of 32%. On quality parameters, our overall customer NPS now stands at 62, as compared to 57 last year. While the 13 and 61 cohorts have seen a marginal dip, all other cohorts are growing compared to the same time last year. Our OPEX to premium ratio stands at 22.9%, and adjusted for lower group business, GST impact, and the labor laws impact, the retail OPEX to premium ratio is progressing well in line with plan. ABSLI crossed AUM of INR 100,000 crore in April 2025, and now stands at INR 110,048 crore, with a YOY growth of 13%. 25% of this AUM is in equity and 75% in debt.
On YTD basis, 100% of our funds continue to outperform as compared to the respective benchmarks. Our digital adoption across the various areas is demonstrated in the deck in slide 47. 100% of the new business customers are onboarded digitally. 83% of all our services are now available digitally. 67% services are STP, and our customer self-service ratio now stands at 93%. Our solvency continues to remain healthy at 210%. Our net margins are now at 14.6%, 380 basis points higher than last year same time at 10.8. We observed margin expansion due to a controlled ULIP mix, increase in protection, value-additive growth in partnership business, along with rider attachment strategy. The expansion in net VNB margins is despite the GST impact in the second half.
As we speak, we have resolved 40% of the GST impact through our commercial arrangements with the distributors, and the balance going forward will be managed through both product strategy and relevant management action. We will continue to focus on increasing productivity across all cohorts in our proprietary business. For partnership business, we will continue to invest in our bank partners to increase both our mind share and drive better productivity across all the partners that we have. Our guidance continues to grow individual FYP at a CAGR of 20%+ for the next three years. While achieving this growth, we intend expanding our current VNB margins of +18%, and in absolute numbers, double the value of our net VNB in three years' time. With this, I hand over to Mayank, MD and CEO of our health insurance.
Thank you, Kamlesh, and let me now present the performance of our health insurance business. With a strong quarter three, we continue to build on the first half FY 2026 growth momentum, maintaining our track record of consistently growing faster than the market, while also continuing to improve profitability metrics as well. For the first nine months of the year, as per old accounting regulation, we achieved a gross premium of INR 4,956 crore, representing a strong forty-one percent YOY growth. On a one by N basis, our gross premiums stood at INR 4,651 crore, reflecting a healthy thirty-nine percent growth, vis-a-vis the market growth of twenty-one percent. Our market share in CI has increased from 12.1% to 14.2 %, a YOY increase of 210 basis points. We registered strong growth momentum across both retail and group businesses.
Retail franchise experienced a 42% YOY growth, and it continues to be diversified across retail distribution channels. The proprietary channel, with an agent base of over 1.56 lakh agents, registered a 35% growth. All our major bank and digital alliance partnerships also experienced this impressive growth. Our corporate business delivered a strong 41% growth in the nine months of FY 2026, driven by our focus and disciplined strategy to build a sustainable franchise in the segment. We have now also taken our differentiated Health First insurance model to corporate, and this will only further improve our competitive strength here. On the profitability front, our net loss for the nine months stood at INR 178 crore as per the new accounting regulation. The loss includes an impact of the implementation of the new labor code.
As per old accounting regulation, the net loss stood at INR 146 crore compared to a loss of INR 195 crore last year. Our combined ratio for nine months under the old accounting regulation stood at 108%, and under the new accounting framework at 111% versus 114% on a comparable basis. These improvements underscore our continued focus on unit economics and thus overall profitability ahead of market. We believe our overall growth and superior unit economics are driven by our digitally enabled and differentiated Health First model, which gives us a selection advantage with a larger share of more health-conscious consumers. And then, based on a hyper-personalized health engagement model, access to a deeper understanding of the health profile of our informed players.
Our Health First model is resonating with our consumers, with 40% of our customers engaging with us for their health. 9.9% of our eligible customers are on good health incentives, in the first nine months, up from 8.4% last year, reflecting a deep engagement with our wellness ecosystem. These customers then contribute to 8% lower loss ratio and 11% better persistency in absolute terms. This is shown in slides 57 and 58. Similarly, our investment in managing customers with high health risk, with for more than 210,000 lives, have led to an improvement in the loss ratio by more than 9%. Overall, these have helped us keep our retail loss ratio well under control and ahead of market.
Our promise of insurance is centered on providing industry-leading experience, and we have made continued investments in state-of-the-art AI-enabled claim fraud authentication engine, which further enhance our customer satisfaction, but more importantly, also reduce claim costs. We continue to adopt a digital-first approach across revenue, engagement, and claims, driving higher renewals, stronger customer engagement, and greater self-service through our Active Health app. Given our data focus, large data focus, we are investing consistently in data and analytics capabilities to create efficiencies across the entire business life cycle, and we will continue to embed GenAI capabilities across key processes, such as sales, governance, claims, underwriting, customer engagement, and we've explained that in our review deck.
Looking ahead, we remain very optimistic about the long-term growth prospects of the health insurance sector with our differentiated Health First model and sharp execution focus, and we believe ABHI is well positioned to grow ahead of the market. Thank you, and I'll now hand it back to for closing remarks.
Thank you, Mayank. This concludes our remarks on Q3 FY 2026 performance, and we'll be happy to take any questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and then one on their touchtone phone. 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. Again, to register for a question, please press star and then one. Our first question comes from the line of Chintan Shah from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. So thank you for the opportunity and congratulations on the quarter and on the deal, HFC deal. So just on the HFC deal, one thing, so now, the, what are the timelines mean? When can we expect the, money, flowing? Firstly, on that, and secondly, so now, HFC seems to be now well capitalized, at least for the, next few quarters. But in terms of NBFC, are we also looking to, infuse any capital in the NBFC? And, yeah, that's the first question.
Thank you, Chintan. Vijay here. So first on the timelines for the deal completion. Today, both the boards and the shareholders of Aditya Birla Housing Finance, which is 100% owned currently by ABCL, have approved the transaction. It will be subject to CCI approval for the investors. That application will be filed subsequently in the next few days. We believe that CCI will take about 45 days or so to grant the approval, and the approval should come by end of March. Once the CCI approval comes, the transaction will be closed. That from the timelines. At the same time, I mean, whether it comes end of March or comes in the week of April, we are sufficiently capitalized for the time being in the housing finance company.
To the second question about, yes, you're right, the INR 2,750 crore in the housing finance will take care of our growth capital requirements for the next two to two and half years. For rest of the businesses, on a standalone basis, our total CapEx right now is at 17.34%. Our AMC business continues to pay dividends, it does not need any capital. In the insurance business, as we have said earlier, we have a JV partner who's equally committed to supporting the growth needs. We will keep evaluating our capital requirements and take suitable action in due course, keeping in mind the interests of all the stakeholders.
Okay. Sure. Thank you. And. Hello?
Yes, sir. Please go ahead with your question.
Yeah, yeah. On the margin space, so for the NBFC business, I think there the overall margins have inched up, including the fee income. Also, could you, like, margins are up almost six weeks, but any ballpark number on what could be the yields? What could be the fee income component in the overall average yield? So excluding that, have you seen an uptick? Because it looks like, despite growth in unsecured, it is not translating into meaningful uptick in the end. So, yeah, I just wanted to understand on that, please.
Chintan, it's the product mix which will drive the yields, and the margins. Till quarter one, we were calibrating our personal and consumer and the unsecured business. Post that, if you see the growth has come back quite strongly. It will take couple of more quarters for the yield to improve at a company level and the portfolio level, and that should result in the improvement in margin as well. So it will take couple of quarters before you will start seeing it, because in a large portfolio of almost INR 150,000 crore, I think it will take some time to reflect.
Understood. And just one last thing on the credit cost. So we have seen a benign credit cost for us as well, and the environment also, I think, remains favorable for us. But given that, in the context of the global uncertainty or the macros, are we looking to make any provision buffers? Or I think probably. Or there could be any reset in our ECL model, or it looks adequate as of now? Yeah.
So, Chintan, again, if you look at, in our, in our growing, book, if you look at our both stage two and stage three have come down significantly. If you look at stage, stage two has come down from almost INR 2,229 crore to INR 1,819 crore, a drop of INR 510 crore, and in stage three from INR 2,674 crore to INR 2,140 crore. And, I think the business has scaled up quite well in the same period year on year, and our stage two and stage three have come down significantly. So I think the credit profile and the credit, performance looks quite, stable and good.
We don't think we need at this point in time, and also, as you know, 73% of our exposures are secured by collaterals, and majority of our SME loans are backed by collateral. I, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, 82% of our exposure to MSMEs are secured by collateral. So we don't think we need any enhancement and provision at this point in time.
So, that is very much clear. I have more questions, but I'll join back in with you. Thank you, and all the very best. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Gaurav from MLP. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Good evening, team. Thanks for taking my question, and congratulations on the housing finance deal and the quarter. I have three questions and just taking forward Chintan's question earlier regarding margins. If I look at the yield profile, the yields have remained broadly flat in the last two quarters, despite the mix change being favorable. If I look at the mix of unsecured business loan and personal loan have moved up every quarter in the last couple of quarters. So when do we start seeing the impact on yields? The entire NIM expansion that we've seen in the last couple of quarters are largely driven by the cost of funds benefit that gave them. So when do we start seeing the yield kind of moving up?
Is it next quarter? Because, the 200 basis point of improvement in the mix have already happened.
Yeah. So as I mentioned, a couple of quarters it will take. See, within the personal and consumer, within unsecured business also, we have been cutting down high risk, and wherever the portfolio has not been stacking up. As you know, we have been recalibrating our unsecured portfolio over the last 18 months or so. So high risk segment across our personal and consumer and unsecured business, we are cutting off. So as I mentioned, and the credit quality and the, if you look at the stage one, stage two is stacking up quite well. The bounce rates and everything else is stacking up quite well at this point in time, and that's the reason why we are growing these segments. But it will take a couple of quarters at least to see improvement in yields, and improvement in margins.
Sure, sure. So, and on the other side, the cost of funds in the fourth quarter, where do we see the cost of funds moving in the next couple of quarters? Have we kind of repriced our borrowings completely or there's still some juice left?
So again, cost of borrowing, we look at, we are one of the most efficient borrowers in the market, and we look at all the opportunity in terms of bringing our cost of funds down. Again, looking at the liquidity-
Right.
In the market and everything else, we will see how it goes forward. So, can't comment at this point in time, the way the liquidity is there, in terms of how much and by when, the cost of funds will come down. But as you know, we are, I think almost 70% of our loans is floating. So even if the cost of funds comes down, I think, we need to pass on that to our customers. So I think we will, as you have seen in the last two, three quarters, the cost of funds have been coming down. It will continue to. We will continue to leverage the opportunity in terms of bringing the cost of funds down.
Got it. Can you highlight the delta between the stock cost of fund and the stock cost of fund and the incremental cost of fund? What's the delta here?
In cost of borrowing?
Cost of borrowing.
Cost of borrowing, on the stock and the incremental. Can I come back to you on that?
Sure, sure.
Sure.
My next question is on the stage one, stage two and stage three ECL. Now, I understand you've given the stage three TCR, but can you give me what's the total ECL breakdown into stage one, stage two, and stage three, maybe for this quarter and the previous quarter? This is just to understand, you know, the overall movement in ECL and perhaps back calculate the write-offs.
So, so far we have not shared this, and we will see at what point of time in terms of this information can be shared. But, I think you can clearly see it, that staging has improved in terms of, and we refresh. This is all based on the portfolio performance, so based on the ECL model. So I-
Right.
Think that's what sets our TCR.
Understood. So, because one of your competitors have taken a ECL reset, and I think Chintan alluded to that question earlier. In terms of the ECL, how should we look at incrementally? Are there any sort of changes on PD or LGD assumptions that you are undertaking?
No. So again, if you look at our portfolio quality is very, very stable. If especially the MSME segment where the issue has been raised, 82% of our exposure is secured. This is secured by cash flows and the collaterals. So we don't expect anything at this point in time. We don't see...
Understood. Just last question, if I may squeeze in. Any growth guidance for FY 27? Given that this year you are already on a strong footing, the asset quality you mentioned is looking good. So, fingers crossed, what kind of growth can we expect?
The NBFC you are asking? Yeah.
Yes, yes, sir.
NBFC, if you look at, we have grown, 24% year-on-year. Our guidance is in the similar range of 24%-25%. And we have all, we have committed or we have guided that we will double our loan book in three years, so that means 25% growth is what we are looking at.
Great. Great. All, all the very best, sir. Thank you for taking my question.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Abhijit Tibrewal from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Yeah, yeah, good evening, and thank you for taking my questions. Again, congratulations on a good quarter. So just trying to understand, I mean, you would have seen, right, the previous two participants were kind of asking you about the provision cover, and particularly in the unsecured businesses, your unsecured business loans, as well as your personal and consumer segment. Just trying to understand, we have today earlier seen a sudden increase in provision cover from one of the peers who reported earlier today. So just trying to understand this better that at least from the regulator, there has been no nudge, right, to kind of increase the provision cover, especially on, on your unsecured business and including your personal incomes.
If you look at our personal and consumer segment, we have a provision cover of almost 70%, 68.1%. Our unsecured business is almost 45%, and here we have almost 40% of this portfolio is backed by the trade guarantee. So taking this into account, both the unsecured portfolios are well provided and well...
Got it. Got it. And this unsecured business that you spoke about, this 45% cover, that is a little lower than peers predominantly because what you mentioned and what you also share in the PPT, that 40% of the state trade book is actually covered in the different government schemes.
Yes. That's the credit guarantee which we have on this unsecured business.
Got it. Got it. And then, just kind of observation on the disbursements. If you look at your disbursements in NBFCs across different products this quarter, sequentially, seeing a moderation in your unsecured business, personal loans slightly flattish sequentially. So just trying to understand, is this some kind of a internal recalibration or some seasonality that you see in this quarter, or how should we interpret?
So, Abhijit, if you look at our disbursement has grown 41% year-on-year, so very strong momentum on disbursement. To your question-
Mm-hmm.
on unsecured business sequentially, I think, if you look at. Also we should look at the AUM growth in the same segment. The AUM growth in this segment is 12% quarter-over-quarter and 36% year-over-year.
Yes.
The reason why sequentially it's looking slightly down is because we don't take the line of credit products or supply chain where there's a high churn. So that is not included here. If we include that, I think our disbursement will be much higher sequentially as well. But you should look at the AUM growth.
Got it. Got it. And the, and, on, on the housing business, just I want to confirm two things. One is in the... I'm sorry?
Sorry to interrupt. Abhijit, sir, your voice was breaking. We could not understand the question. If you can please repeat the question.
Is this better now?
Yes, sir. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Yes, so just last question on the housing business. What is the LTV that you are doing in the housing business today? Basically your portfolio LTV in the home loan book, and what are the incremental LTVs that you do? And lastly, out of total home loans that you source, what proportion of that actually comes from the construction finance business, basically where you have given a construction finance loan?
As you will know, LTVs in the housing business are regulated, you know, for the housing purpose, and the clear guidelines is around LTV. But overall, to answer your question, we are at the average LTV of between 50%-52% on the portfolio, that's essential put together. On construction finance, as you will see, you know, we have also given this breakup in the slide that we have presented. 15.8%, you know, of our portfolio is the construction finance portfolio in the overall INR 42,200 crore of AUM.
Right. No, so my question was a little different. What I was trying to understand is, out of the total, home loans that you source across both prime and affordable, what proportion comes from those projects where you have given construction loans?
So that currently that proportion is low. In fact, that's a, you know, potential area for us, and we have more than 400 new developer relationships, and we are present in almost similar amount of projects. I think we've started this journey where we are trying to leverage the developers also for internal penetration. So that's the focus area for us. Currently, those numbers are in the sub, you know, they are very, very not so many.
Got it. That's very... Thank you so much for answering my questions.
Thank you. Participants, in order to ensure that the management is able to address questions from all the parties in the conference, please limit yourselves to two questions each per participant. You may rejoin the queue for any further follow-up questions. Our next question comes from the line of Nitesh Jain from Investec. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. My first question is on sourcing, mix in the NBFC book. If I look at personal consumer loan, there's a sharp increase in digital sourcing. So what is driving that? And how are we looking to increase the share of source, direct sourcing? Because that still remains a bit low in both personal and consumer and unsecured business loan. That is first question. And second question is, ROIs, in housing finance, we have seen pretty good ROIs of 2%. We have guided a range of 2%-2.2%. We have already reached that number. How do you see ROA, in the housing finance business going forward, and similarly, ROE guidance for the NBFC business?
So, your question on Nitesh, your question on personal and consumer, higher on digital. Personal and consumer business is getting completely digitized in terms of the way it's being driven, the scorecard and the analytics and the campaigns which we run. So clearly, that's what is showing here, that we have InstaPlus journeys which we have built for our business. So that's driving the digital sourcing here. In terms of the unsecured business, you mentioned our direct. Here, a lot of customers depend on their chartered accountants and to really help them source the funding. And that's the reason why you see the sourcing of DSAs slightly higher. Direct is lower because it's the chartered accountant and the DSA who really helps the customers fund.
Yeah. The second question-
Yeah.
Just a follow-up on the, the sourcing thing that in the digital sourcing, it is all fintech partners, right? The 66% digital sourcing that we are showing in personal and consumer, it's fintech partners.
Have our own own journeys, so we source a lot through our customers. Wherever we have fintech partners also, which is selective, I think the scorecard is ours, sourcing is ours, the process is ours, collection is ours. So completely, it's just the sourcing which is there, and not... But, this is not a reflection of sourcing through the digital partners. We do a lot of business through ABCD app, which is our in-house app. We have the campaigns which we run on our existing ABCD customer base, all of that. So InstaPlus journey, which we have built, is not a reflection of only the partnerships of business.
Sure. Sure. Sure.
On the question that you asked on housing, I think observation is right. In March 2025, we guide, you know, we had all guided towards reaching our targeted ROA between 2.1 and 2.2 in, six to eight quarters. But I think, given the progress that we've made, you know, both on scale and profitability, and you would have seen the numbers, the ROA has grown consistently. 1.46 was the ROA for FY 2025, and right throughout the three quarters, we have been consistently moving this up, and now we've reached 1.96, you know, % on Q3. But on overall, you know, for the year basis, we are at 1.8%.
But like I said earlier, I think given the progress that we've made on both scale and profitability, I think we believe we could achieve this slightly earlier than the guided time frame.
ROA for the NBFC business, I think if we look at excluding the one-off of the labor code impact, it's almost 2.28. We are looking at expanding it closer to 2.5 in the next four to five quarters.
Sure. Thank you. That's all. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraint, that was the last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to Ms. Vishakha Mulye for closing comments.
Thank you, everybody, for joining us so late. If you have any questions, all of us are available. Kindly reach to Vijay, Pramod, Ashish or me. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Aditya Birla Capital Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.