Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q4 FY 2022 earnings conference call of AU Small Finance Bank. 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 Mr. Aseem Pant, VP, Investor Relations. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Margaret. Good day to everyone, and welcome to AU Bank's earnings call for the fourth quarter of FY 2022. We thank you all for joining the call today, and we hope you and your dear ones are safe and well. For approximately the first 20 minutes of the call, we will have brief remarks by few members of our senior management, followed by 30-45 minutes of Q&A. Firstly, we will have our MD and CEO, Mr. Sanjay Agarwal, share his thoughts on the performance and overall outlook for the bank. He will be followed by our Executive Director, Mr. Uttam Tibrewal, who will share his thoughts on business outlook for assets and liabilities. Finally, we will have Mr. Vikrant Jethi, Head of Collections, who will discuss asset quality for the bank.
Besides them, we also have few other members of our senior management to answer any other questions, you might have. For the benefit of everyone, we would humbly request that the number of questions per participant be restricted to a maximum of two, and to join back in the queue or mail us in case you have any further questions. With that, I will request our MD and CEO, Mr. Sanjay Agarwal, to share his thoughts on the bank's performance and outlook.
Thank you, Aseem. Good evening, everyone. Namaskar. Thank you for joining in. We hope that you and your dear ones are doing well and keeping safe. Quarter four FY 2022 marks the completion of our 20 quarters of our banking operations. I would also like to begin by congratulating everyone on completion of five years as a bank. We have crossed this important milestone with flying colors. In 2017, we had 403 touchpoints in 10 states, which grew to 919 touchpoints in 18 states and two UTs in 2022. From lending to 5.6 lakh customers to serving our 27.5 lakh customers now. Grew a family of 8,500 people to a winning team of 27,800.
Built a liability franchise running a deposit base of INR 52,500 crore+. Scaled the asset book from INR 10,700 crore to INR 47,800 crore with superior asset quality. Built a state-of-the-art tech ecosystem. Established world standard in governance. This happened in spite of headwinds of demonetization, GST, NBFC crisis, PMC crisis, private sector bank crisis, and battling the pandemic, have only made us more resilient and confident in our customer and product segment. The tailwinds of digital adoption gave us the strength to venture into the journey of many firsts, like AU 0101 Credit Card, QR code, Video Banking, etc. The team has shown incredible commitment, ownership, bias for action and entrepreneurship. The story remains very exciting for me personally from the last 27 years. AU is on the track of empowering India financially, digitally and socially.
Thanks to your support, we remain one of the most exciting franchise of the country. Well, hats off to the government, regulators, board, you, the customers, the team, the shareholders, for bestowing us with so much love, affection, guidance and trust. For me personally, FY 2022 was a year of rollercoaster ride. Quarter 1 was washed out due to devastating second wave, where we lost so much both in terms of lives and livelihood. In quarter 2, we faced an unnecessary misunderstanding as well as baseless rumors around certain personnel movement in our bank. On a personal note, I lost my father, the founder promoter of AU Bank. He was instrumental in shaping the person I am, and had laid the foundation of our bank. In the latter half of the year, we witnessed the third wave, although it turned out to be quite limited in its impact.
Nevertheless, growth came back in the second half of this fiscal. Hope you have seen the results, recently declared quarter four results. The last quarter remained very high in terms of numbers from deposits to assets to payments to digital. Some highlights are as under. We launched 32 new touchpoints in this quarter. We hired 2,300+ people. Our deposit grew by 46%. Our focus remained on low-cost stable funds, and we reduced our cost by 88 basis points in this year, and we maintained ample liquidity. We disbursed around INR 10,295 crore of loans in this last quarter, the highest ever in the history of AU. Our balance sheet size grew by 34% year-on-year. Net worth grew by 20% year-on-year, and our capital adequacy is at 21%+.
We also generated the highest ever operating profit in this quarter. Our ROA stood at 1.9% and ROE at 16.4%. Asset quality is getting back to pre-COVID levels. Our GNPA reduced to 1.98 from 2.6 quarter-on-quarter. Net NPA has been reduced to 0.5 from 1.3, quarter-to-quarter. As a bank, the improving operating environment and our strong operating performance and higher resolution in the stressed accounts during quarter 4 gave us some flexibility around our quarter 4 numbers. We chose to remain more measured to secure our future by putting more money into the provisions and has further strengthened our provisioning policy, committing us to higher coverage in the future as well. We have not taken any contingency provisions to P&L.
Rather, we have taken an additional floating provision of INR 44 crore or even crores. Given the secular and retail nature of our book and our historical experience, in my view, we are currently significantly over-provided with PCR of 75% plus provisions around restructuring, contingency, and floating. The main reason we have tightened our provisioning policies is further to structurally create a buffer creation mechanism as growth picks up. More from Vikrant on this. The risk from geopolitics and macro environment has led to strong inflationary pressures on our OpEx, and the costs are going up in everything, from salaries and related expenses to employees to tech and maintenance contracts. I know that OpEx is high in the current quarter, and we hope to go back to normal number in the mid to long term.
Similarly, in the rising interest rate environment, income from treasury operation is also expected to remain subdued in coming quarters. However, our cost of funds continues to decline, and we think there is still some room for repricing. Our digital initiatives are progressing well and are providing a visible uplift in our pace of customers acquisition. Notably, 40% of new customers acquired in quarter four were through our recently launched digital channels and product that is 0101 Credit Card, Video Banking, UPI QR. Our five SBUs, digital banking, Credit Cards, merchant solution group, loans, home loan, has already presented to AU Insights session in last quarter. I hope you'd have gotten to know lots more about their business strategy, the team, and outlook. In greater detail, the remaining five SBUs will also be presented in coming months.
Governance always been the backbone of our growth since the start of our journey, which has been validated time and again by markets, regulators, and rating agencies. Last quarter, we were joined by Shri H.R. Khan Saab, ex-RBI deputy governor on our board as an independent director. This quarter, I take this opportunity to welcome Shri Kamlesh Vikamsey on our board as an independent director. I believe bank will eventually benefit from his rich audit experience spanning over four decades, and I personally look forward for his mentorship. With his induction, the overall board strength has now risen to ten directors and 8 being independent. I'm also thankful to the board for agreeing to reward the shareholders of the bank as we celebrate completion of five years of banking journey with an approval of issuance of bonus share in the ratio of 1/ 1.
The bank Board also has approved a dividend of 1 per share for FY 2022. Both these measures are subject to shareholder approval. I'm very happy to share that CARE Ratings upgraded our bank's long-term rating to AA stable and retained our short-term rating to A1+. This is strong validation of our banking franchise and asset quality despite the pandemic-induced challenges. In the end, I would like to say that we are watchful of inflation, interest rate cycles, geopolitical situation, and effects of receding pandemic. However, I think that what we have faced in last two years and survived was much more challenging, and we are far more hopeful about the coming times.
I'm very excited about the India story, one of the world's fastest growing economy with the largest youth population in the world, rising global competitiveness, rising economic influence, and the strong central bank policies. Although we are cautious in short term, but very optimistic in long run. We understand that being the largest Small Finance Bank of the country put us in the position of a great responsibility. We are always mindful of our duties as credible bankers. We promise you gold standard in risk management, governance, compliance, and integrity. We remain indebted to our regulators, government, stakeholders, and the board who hold our hand and to keep us on the right path. We'll continue to invest in our ten strategic business units and shall always be promising and likable franchise to be joined by people. Thank you so much.
Stay safe, you know, and I want to hand over to Uttam for his business outlook and strategy. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Sanjay. Namaskar, and good evening, everyone. I hope you are happy and healthy. I will now provide you with an update on all our businesses, including assets and liabilities. FY 2022, even though proving to be a challenging year across economic situation as well as geopolitics, it has proven to be a year of resurgence for Indian corporates post the fiscal 2021. Going into FY 2023, Indian businesses feel cautious on the impact of increasing energy pricing and uncertain trade environment. However, given our high domestic consumption, improving on-the-ground activity, and India's GDP growth outlook, we are quite positive on the business outlook for the year ahead. At AU Bank, we continue to proactively tackle the challenges, reconfigure our next steps with agility, and drive the market height of its performance to deliver across the business and financial metrics.
As Sanjay mentioned, in our journey of over 27 years of building trust, AU Bank also celebrates its fifth anniversary as a Small Finance Bank. We feel a sense of pride in having weathered tough times in our early years and risen out of it with tremendous strength and character to become India's largest small finance bank. The infinite passion and hard work of 27,800+ AU employees, growing giant love from customers, confidence of our esteemed shareholders have been the hallmark of these five years of banking for AU Bank. Importantly, our asset growth was complemented with a robust asset quality, with our gross NPA coming below 2% at 1.98% and net NPA reducing to 0.5%. This is a remarkable achievement, given our GNPA was 4.3% same last year.
Our total collection efficiency for the year stood at 106%. The normalization of our GNPA to pre-COVID levels has been in line with our narrative of deeper on-the-ground customer engagement and problem-solving approach. As we mark our way into the next financial year, we continue to focus our efforts towards building a robust tech-led retail franchise in India by building a granular CASA portfolio. Drive growth on existing asset products, strengthen the asset quality, investing in technology for AU 0101, innovate across newer products like Credit Cards and QR payments, and increase brand equity for AU Bank. Our lease business financed 85,000+ vehicles during Q4 FY 2022, amounting to a total disbursement of INR 3,667 crore, registering a growth of 25% year-on-year and 20% quarter-on-quarter.
Total AUM of lease business is now INR 17,300 crores, with an average ticket size of INR 3 lakhs. At the AUM level, 60% of the financing is for new vehicles, 38% is for used and refinance, and 2% is for two-wheelers. The demand towards light commercial vehicles and passenger vehicles have been stronger than other segments. In Agri business, demand is gradually coming back with Q4 FY 2022, delivering a thin disbursement equivalent to same quarter last year at INR 2,116 crores. Total AUM of Agri business has now reached to INR 16,524 crores across 2 lakh MSMEs, registering a growth of 15% year-on-year.
Our Housing Finance business, which recently presented their views in the AU Insights session, saw a strong demand in Q4 with a total disbursement of INR 670 crore, registering a growth of 54% year-on-year. Total AUM of Housing business is now INR 2,654 crore across 27,000 loan units, registering a growth of 19%+ year-on-year. Bulk of this portfolio is also eligible for long-term, low-cost NHB refinance, which further helps us need to deploy more. Our commercial banking businesses like business banking and agri-banking continue to do well and gain market positioning and establishing presence. Both of these businesses are granular, working capital term loan finance to MSMEs with average ticket size of sub 1 crore and lend against the balance sheet of MSMEs.
In Q4 FY 2022, commercial banking business saw disbursement of INR 2,529 crore, a 104% year-on-year growth, with most of the businesses eligible for low cost refinance. Our digital efforts have shown promising results, with almost 40%+ newer customers added to the bank in Q4, coming through AU 0101, Video Banking, Credit Cards and UPI QR codes. We are looking at our digital banking strategy to complement our physical banking strategy, and the physical model allow us to be better positioned for gaining a larger share of overall pie. Detailed individual business numbers are provided in the IR presentation. Further, at the ongoing AU Insights session, the leadership of various SBUs have been presenting their views and outlook, and I hope you had a chance to go through the same.
I'm quite happy with an exponential growth across our brand metrics, including awareness and consideration with our ongoing campaign. It's been heartening to know that people have been able to associate with the Badlaav Humse Hai campaign and acknowledge that AU Bank is trying to bring genuine Badlaav in banking practices. We will continue to focus on building brand awareness and consideration. In the past few quarters, we have emphasized on growing our CASA balances and pricing our deposits optimally to gradually reduce the overall cost of borrowings. Through targeted efforts, we delivered CA deposit growth of 57% year-on-year and 44% quarter-on-quarter, and SA deposit growth of 156% year-on-year and 9% quarter-on-quarter. This enables the bank to maintain an optimal CASA ratio of 37% compared to 23% in Q4 last year.
All this also helps to reduce the overall cost of our deposits to 5.8% in FY 2022 from 6.7% in FY 2021. 64% of the savings accounts customers acquired in the year are active on our AU 0101 app, and 77% of the current account customers acquired in the year are active on internet and mobile banking. This also reflects the increasing preference of our tech-savvy customers to become digitally native. Rishi has spoken extensively in earlier quarters about the AAEDR framework that the legacy franchise follows. AAEDR stands for Attention, Activation, Engagement, Deepening and Retention. As we mature, we prioritize engagement and deepening to function AU Bank account as a primary account of the customer. To this end, we have segregated our sales and customer service teams to pay greater attention to customer experience in branches.
This has resulted in 71% of CAR and 55% of SAR customers regularly transact with us. Furthermore, 1.9 lakh unique AU debit card holders transacted in Q4. Our debit card transaction volume has increased significantly, crossing 4 lakh transactions in March 2022, and spends have consistently been INR 100 crore plus in the last three months. To increase value share of their customers and embed them with the bank, we work on differentiated RM model, which aim to fulfill the needs of our customers and maximize lifetime value. This focus, of course, has resulted in our product per customer to grow to 1.7% for our SA customers and 1.9% for our CA customers. 62% of our current accounts and 47% of our savings account customers use two or more of our products.
The delta generated in customers' AUM via this engagement hook is anywhere between 2x-8x , depending on the hook, as compared to a customer who is not engaged. We have expressed earlier that metros and urban markets will drive our liabilities growth. We currently have 184 branches in urban areas, with 64 of them having opened in FY 2022. Sixteen of these new branches, with an average vintage of six months, have already ramped up their deposits to INR 50 crore-INR 100 crore. This reflects the encouraging response we have received in these newer urban geographies from high quality retail customers and provides us the confidence to further penetrate and focus on these markets as we look to ramp up our deposit franchise.
We continue to work with our partners to further cross-sell and engage the customers via ICICI Prudential, Future Generali for life insurance, and Aditya Birla, Care, Tata, and Chola for general and health insurance. On the investment side, our mutual fund AUM crossed INR 100 crore this quarter, and we have close to 60,000 3-in-1 trading accounts through our partnership with Motilal Oswal Financial Services. In conclusion, I would like to say that these are very exciting times for the bank as we achieve our five-year milestone, knowing fully well that five years is a small dot or a blip in the journey of Centurions. Our efforts on urban-focused branch expansion, customer engagement, people capability, and constant digital innovations ensure that we are all prepared to scale the business.
With comprehensive merchant solutions and a good foundation of current account and SBL customer base, we are working towards scaling the current account deposit book sustainably this financial year. With this now, I hand over to my colleague, Vikrant Jethi, for an update on collections and asset quality. I will meet you again during the Q&A session. Thank you so very much. Please take good care. Thank you.
Thank you, Uttam. Good evening, everyone. I'll be sharing brief perspective on asset quality. Business activities across sectors have resumed normalcy, which resulted in better customer cash flows. We saw collection efficiencies north of 100% during the entire quarter. Average collection efficiency in Q4 was 108% compared to 106% in quarter three. Our gross NPA reduced by 62 basis points from 2.6% in quarter three to 1.98% in quarter 4. In absolute value, there was net reduction of INR 133 crore from INR 1,058 crore in quarter 3 to INR 924 crore in quarter 4. Net NPA reduced from 1.3% in quarter 3 to 0.5% in quarter 4.
We saw gross reduction of INR 329 crores in quarter four from Q3 closing NPA of INR 1,058 crores, resulting in 31% resolution during the quarter. Wherein 65% resolution happened through normal collection efforts and about 28% resolution happened on account of security enforcement, wherein there was haircut of course 38%. Another 7% resolution was on account of technical write-off. Similar trends have been observed during FY 2022, as we had highlighted same in our last call as well. This clearly illustrates the secured and small ticket nature of our book, as well as resilience of our borrower base. If we further introspect current GNPA pool of INR 924 crores, we have enforced security on 8% pool and asset is in bank's possession.
As of date, we have initiated legal recourse, either Section 13 or Section 17 on remaining 88% pool. On the balance 4% pool, we will be initiating legal recourse soon. In nutshell, all the underlying loans are granular and secure, and we expect recoveries or security enforcement in due course of time. As we had communicated in our quarter three commentary, based on ground feedback, we have identified non-workable pool, wherein all collection efforts have been exhausted and bank has done technical write-off of INR 23 crore in quarter four. Here, collection efforts are being abandoned and future recovery may happen through ongoing legal proceedings. We would like to mention that we have so far done recovery of INR 1.18 crore from technical write-off of INR 62 crore done during the financial year 2022.
We shall continue to evaluate such non-workable pool in future as well and take appropriate measures. Out of total gross advances of INR 4,789 crores as of March 31st, 69% of book has originated after March 2020, and 93% of this book is current, with only 0.37% of GNPA. The resilience of this book has validated our approach of underwriting and customer segment we cater. On restructuring, as of March 31st, 2022, standard COVID restructured book stood at INR 1,180 crores, which is 2.5% of gross advances. Billing has started on 98% of the restructured book, and 10% of billed book is NPA as of March 31st. Asset quality performance in the billed pool has been well within expectations.
ECLGS gross advances as of March 31, 2022 stood at INR 866 crores, and NPA numbers are in line with overall book. Bank is carrying provision of INR 653 crores against GNPA of INR 924 crores, and has created an additional floating provision of INR 41 crores in the current quarter, taking PCR to 75% against 51% coverage as of December 31. Additionally, there is provision of INR 192 crores against standard restructured book. Furthermore, bank continues to carry contingency provision of INR 127 crores. Against GNPA and restructured book of INR 2,100 crores, we now have 50% coverage, including floating and contingency provision versus 45% as of December 31st. This further strengthens balance sheet and makes us better prepared for any unforeseen events.
Further to note that bank has further tightened its provision, provisioning policy starting this quarter, whereby in our secured book we will make 25% provision on 91 days, 50% on 181 days, 75% on 360 days, and 100% provisioning on 453 days. The policy on unsecured book is even more stringent. This makes our provisioning policy one of the most conservative in the industry and will help us maintain higher buffers on an ongoing basis as there is absolutely no change in our expected credit loss assumptions. As we head into FY 2023, while we keep our eyes on the risks on the horizon, we continue to remain cautiously optimistic, having covered for all the stresses and some more. Thank you so much for your time, and I now want to hand over to our team.
Thank you, Vikrant. Margaret, we can move to Q&A now.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Anyone who would like to ask a question, please press star and one at this time. The first question is from the line of Aditya Jain from Citi. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good to see all the balance sheet strengthening measures. Could you talk about the thought process behind the trade-offs between allocating some provisions as floating and contingent? How do you decide the quantum of them, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of one versus the other?
Sure. Hi, Aditya. Thank you for your kind words. Aditya, you know, as per law also, we can't keep contingent provisions as an open item, right? We need to use it in somehow. What we have decided that, you know, let's strengthen our NPA provisioning policy, and we will keep the buffer out of the, you know, that contingent provisions to the normal provision. That is one thing which we have decided from this quarter. You know, we just do not want to use any of the lower in P&L, right? The balancing amount, if you see the overall provision from last quarter to this quarter, we save similar net amount, which is INR 1,043. The balancing amount we have built in the floating provisions, right?
Floating provision is again to cover any kind of future uncertainties, and floating provisions can't be used on the basis of management. It has to be pre-approved by RBI. That is why we really want to be more sure about our whole consistency there. That's it, right? We have actually reduced our overall NPA, overall risk-related assets considerably, but the provision amount remains same.
Got it. There might be certain rules based on which contingent you might choose to reverse, but floating you will retain on a longer basis and when if you choose to reverse, it'll have to be with RBI approval.
Correct. Absolutely.
Got it. Thank you. On the liability side, we've continued to see a steady reduction in cost of funds. From a spread perspective, going into next year, could you talk about the share of floating rate loans? As you know, I think a large part might be fixed rate, but just the share of floating rate loans today on the book. On the average cost of savings deposits and would you be open to increasing that savings deposit rate if needed? Just your overall outlook on margins for next year. Thank you.
You know, I already quoted in my statement that inflation and of course the interest rate cycle looks tough in this year, and we do not know how it will pan out in the whole current year. As far as we are, floating versus fixed is to be seen. It is around 25% is our floating, 75% is fixed, but tenure is very low. Generally retail assets, you know, like Wheels, SBL, are generally done on the basis of fixed because we also charge on a higher rate. These rates are 15%+ , right?
Of course, as we move forward, you know, we really want to build more and more flexible floating rate book, but you know, like, the Housing one and the commercial banking space. Once that share will go up, you will see our floating rate regime will also go up, right? That's the way we want to manage it. What was the other question around savings account? Sorry.
Yes. The savings account, the average cost of SA today. Would you think about increasing that SAR rate going forward? The CASA accretion has been really phenomenal so far.
Yeah.
Going into next year, maybe other banks start to increase the SA rate. We've seen some cuts through COVID. What are your plans to increasing the SA rate?
Difficult question as of now, but you know, CASA, we are already pricing around 7% on a higher bucket, right? So as a CEO, I don't want to get into that level of higher rate regime, but you know, if market forces us, we will see at that time.
Correct. Thank you, sir.
Aditya, our current cost of 5%-5.5%.
Correct. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ratik Gupta from Guardian Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello.
Yes, Mr. Gupta, we can hear you. Please go ahead with your question.
I just wanted to highlight toward the treasury question. We can see that the revenue is growing at 10% while the expenses have grown at a huge level in this quarter. Can you highlight on the same? Because we are trying to understand what could be the treasury operation that has led to high expenses in this quarter.
Will you answer it? Treasury. Sorry, the question.
Sir, please go ahead.
Hi, Ratik. The question is what? Treasury expenses.
Yeah. The treasury expenses and towards the profit.
Treasury expenses, this is, we are talking about a segmental result that we would have put out in the financials.
Exactly, yeah. We are seeing that profit has grown only by 2% towards this quarter and the revenue has grown by approximately 10%. Actually, I wanted to understand what could be the reason that we are seeing a very less growth and what could be the major impact towards the treasury if the rising interest rates can adjust.
Ratik, if you see the interest rates in the last quarter kind of moved very sharply, especially towards the latter half of the quarter, right? We are just coming out of a very low interest rates regime. As we move forward, there will definitely be you know, and that's what we have articulated in our presentation as well and in Sanjay's speech, that there will be some amount. We have to watch how the interest rate cycle plays out from here on, right? We don't really have a large MTM impact this quarter, but unlike some of the other banks, we'll have to see how it behaves going forward. Honestly, at this stage, difficult to comment.
Okay. My second question is how will the interest rate impact on the NIM over the coming quarters in the upcoming like three quarters?
We're starting our cost of money around 5.6%, and last year we had a cost of funds overall basis of 5.9%. Still we have some room available with us to manage even a cost cycle up by maybe 50 or maybe 75 basis points. That's point number one. Second, you know, we have the ability to transfer this, you know, price to the end customer because my end customer is not rate sensitive, right? We have also reduced over the years. The kind of customer we deal in is a core market, right? If the interest segment goes up, the entire NBFC, entire debt segment will also go up.
I strongly believe that we can protect our NIMs as we move forward in the range-bound interest rate cycle or further.
Okay. That's it from my side. Thank you.
Sure.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Murali from HSBC. Please go ahead. Murali, your line has been unmuted. Please go ahead with your question.
Yeah. Good evening, [Ganapal]. Actually, someone asked my question previously, so I don't want any questions.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Akshay Jain from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Hello. Yes, this is Akshay from JM. I have two questions. One is on the car growth. CA has seen a sharp increase on a QoQ basis. Any color on that? Like, you know, is this a sticky CA or, and what are the levels we are seeing in April? Is the CA run down or how is it? The first question to that.
Rishi, can you answer this?
I'll take this. One second. See, you know, the car book is, you know, the March quarter is always a high for the CA book. If I were to give you a flavor, you know, about 27,000 of our customers contributed to the growth of balances in the CA book in the month of March, right? Many of these are almost 19,000 of these customers are small businesses and proprietorships. Typically what we have seen is that, you know, the average customer balances actually in the CA go up every year end. Like for example last year also the CA AMB was INR 1,164 crores and the end was INR 1,632 crores.
The same thing holds true for this year also where we have grown, you know, subsequently to INR 1,600 crore AMB types. There is, you know, no hot money sort of, if that was the question, that we sort of have in the business. A good amount of money actually came from the contractor segments. Around INR 140 crore came from contractors.
Who are typically NHAI contractors, and the government releases money to them at year-end. Money comes from them, and that is how this continues. I do expect that our Q1 overall car balances we should be able to you know be close to the Q4 numbers you know by the time we end Q1 of this year. Because we've substantially ramped up our overall you know car acquisition like what Uttam had highlighted. We acquire something like 6,500-7,000 customers every month. Along with our SBL business, we are very strongly positioned to you know address the merchant segment in the industry and build upon that. That is the way we are looking at overall growth.
We believe that we will be able to grow it significantly in the years to come.
What percentage of the car customers will have asset relationship with you?
Currently it is about 15% of the customers have an asset relationship. But that is something that we are ramping up significantly, right? I think what Uttam also mentioned, we have a large QR base, right? So 62% of our QR are active. 90% of those QR customers actually have, you know, a current account with us and, you know, that money comes into our bank account. So that actually helps us in a big way to build our CASA balances. So the strategy going forward is that we're very clearly looking at the manufacturing segment customers, manufacturing and services customers separately from the merchant segment customers. As merchant segment customers are the one where AU has a very strong franchise and capability.
Which is where, you know, we are building our digital lending capabilities as well as, you know, the QR and cost related payment solutions. Which is where, I think our volumes will go up significantly. Even today, more than 80% of our car book is actually sole props and small businesses.
Understood. Lastly, on the AUM side, so there's an item, others, with an AUM of around INR 3,000 crore. What will be the components of this others?
Arif, sorry, Akshay, that is mentioned in the footnote on slide number 37, sorry, 36. This is predominantly, you know, FD and securities and, you know, treasury lending. Those things are included to manage the regular liquidity.
Understood. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nidhesh Jain from Investec. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. Firstly on the growth, how should we think about growth in FY 2023-2024? In the last two quarters, despite our cautious commentary, we have grown quite well at 14% QoQ. How should we think about growth in next two years?
Next two years is difficult to comment as of now. I think this year, you know, the challenge remains to, you know, reduce the interest rate cycles and of course we have the inflation. As we already commented that, you know, what we faced in last two years, you know, is what more we could face now. I strongly believe that our deposit should grow in the range of maybe 30%-35% and asset in the range of 25%-30%, you know. And it's covering up, you know, a lot of big challenges, you know. If the challenges never exist in coming time, then the growth can be more, right? The kind of demand we are seeing in our Wheels, SBL, Housing and across spectrum, right?
Credit Card, you know, or the commercial banking. We are quite hopeful that this year the growth can be as pre-COVID levels.
Sure. Secondly, how is the experience that we have outside of Rajasthan in terms of asset quality and growth? Just a question in extension of that is that, assuming that we have same product that we are operating over the next four to five years and same geographies we are operating, how large loan book we can scale up over the next five years on the same geographies?
I think this is now an old question that whether AU has the ability to grow beyond Rajasthan. We already demonstrated that in liabilities, you know, Rajasthan is not leading the pack, right? It's rather Maharashtra and then led by Delhi and of course Rajasthan, right? The new book also like the Credit Cards, the merchant banking solution, it's very well diversified across states. And even in our Wheels business as we are which remains the oldest business, we are seeing a lot more growth coming from the other states. And that is the advantage of a bank, right? Because banks generally don't you know get challenged because of geographies and all those things because generally people come and join, and customers have a lot of respect for the bank as a franchise, right?
I mean, I think we are not now very much worried about that we are Rajasthan born kind of institution. In coming time, you will see us in Pan India operating for liability, for digital, for lot many things, right? I think the whole data metric shows that we are on right course.
Sure, sir.
Any other question, Mr. Jain?
No. That's it from my side. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sonal Gandhi from Nirmal Bang Institutional Research. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity, sir. Most of the questions have been asked.
Sorry, Mr. Gandhi. I'm sorry, Ms. Gandhi, you're not very clear. May I request you to come on the handset mode?
Is it better now?
Not very clear, ma'am. If you are on speaker, please come on the handset mode and I'll-
No, no. I'm on the handset.
Thank you. This is better now. Thank you.
Okay, so sir, just one question I had. You know, if I heard you correct, you know, I mean 69% of our book is, you know, kind of, annual is coming, post March 2020, and the GNPA in that book is just 0.3%. I wanted to understand what kind of credit cost should we expect in FY 2023, FY 2024 since, you know, the incremental GNPA, I mean, GNPA on the incremental book is very, very low.
Difficult to comment, honestly. I would only assume that the pre-COVID level, our whole GNPA was around less than 2%, maybe around 1.5%- 1.3%, you know, kind of staying and net NPA was around 0.5%. I think now the whole provisioning policy has been changed, difficult to comment as of now because it's very early days.
Sure. Sure, sir. That's it from my side.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Renish Bhuva from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir, and congrats on a great set of numbers. Sir, just a couple of questions on the restructured book and the ECLGS pool. Okay, we did highlight that, you know, the overall the book performance is in line with the overall book. If you can provide some more color, let's say in terms of, is there any geographical concentration which is not behaving as per the mark or, let's say the collection efficiency in some of the pockets is still lower than the pan India average, would be helpful, sir.
[audio distortion]? Yeah. So, you know, probably again this question was asked earlier as well. We have not seen any trends which are, I mean, particular to any state. I guess GNPA number is around 3%, ±0.2 points, pretty much credit risk plus minus here and there. I guess, I mean, this is.
Sorry. Sorry, sir.
Same line.
I'm not able to hear you properly, sir.
Is it any better now?
Yes, sir.
Probably, I mean, the earlier question was also in terms of are you seeing any, I mean, you know, state specific trends. There are no state specific trends which are emerging. I guess 25-30 basis points here and there, plus/ minus. I guess most of the states are in similar range. On the restructuring book also, I guess we are seeing trends which are similar across all the states.
Okay. There is no geographical bias towards that?
Yeah.
Okay. Thank you. Last question from my side to Sanjay Agarwal, sir. You know, with this you know the two million+ or in fact 2.5 million+ customer base, what sort of data analytics you know we run since we have 30+ products now? What is the current product per customer and what is let's say our plan to take it to maybe 2.5 million- 3 million? What we are doing on that front, sir, on the customer leverage side?
[audio distortion], I think, will answer this. On data analytics platform, we have now that let's say minimum quantity of data to analyze on when we have built some models for that matter. All our new businesses like Credit Card is largely working on scorecard model in terms of origination. Similarly, on our QR book, the way we are getting transactions, we have started lending to the customers using their transaction data. Those things are getting built from a scorecarding model. Second aspect which you asked about, product per customer. This number at this point in time is somewhere in the range of 1.3-1.4.
With digital channels coming in and some of the digital-only products getting adopted within our customer segment, in the last eight months of operations, we see significant uptake coming in the current financial year or the upcoming financial year. Having said that, we are investing in our data analytics practice in terms of building data lake and corresponding analytical models for this, and we'll continue to update in due course of further indications.
Sir, any target we have in mind, let's say, to take this 1.8, 1.4 to 2 or 2.5 within two-three years or whatever?
I mean, that would be too early to comment considering all those investments are currently being made.
Okay.
We should be able to give some guidance in probably three- six months time.
Okay. Thank you, sir. That's it from my side, sir.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Pranav Mehta from ValueQuest. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you, sir, for taking my question. Congratulations on very good set of numbers. First question is on our cost to income trajectory. This year we have seen almost five digits increase in the cost to income ratio. I know the reason for it, that, you know, we are investing in digital and other initiatives. I just wanted to get a sense from that how will this ratio now trend going forward over the next one or two, three-year period. That is one. Secondly, if you can just give some sense on the timelines for this application of universal banking license, and how are you thinking about, you know, going forward? These are the two questions.
Yeah. Thank you so much, Pranav. Yeah. I think we are also facing challenge in our OpEx, you know, because everything has gone to a next level because of this inflation, right? Whether it's salary, staff-related expenses, traveling, conveyance, phone. You know, so we generally are seeing, you know, a lot more cost around our OpEx now. But we believe that it is more of a supply issue and, you know, it will get adjusted as we grow this scale. You will also agree that we really worked only for 10 months this year, right? We had expense of 10 months. We have expense of 12 months, but working of 10 months. That has also impacted our OpEx.
For us, comfortable level is around 50%-52% on an ongoing basis, and +5%-6% on our investment side, which we have shown in your presentation also. This time it's overshot by 4%-5% and it's got 60%. It is above our comfortable level. We will do many things this year to really be back on our comfortable level, which is around 55%-57% put together. Both put together. This remains a challenging work for us because we being a retail franchise, you know, we need to do lots, much things on the ground. Sometimes it's in your hands, sometimes it's not.
I'm not too worried honestly, on a relatively high level because we have a better yield on our assets and our cost of fund is also in manageable level. We have to live with this and I hope that we manage OpEx in our stated number for this year. You know, your other question, you know, which is regarding the universal license. We are happy what we are doing as of now. We became largest SFB. Our job as a executive is to really play whatever is given to us. Presently we are playing on SFB platform, and it's completely up to regulator to decide that, you know, whether they really want to make us universal or not.
Of course, we have become eligible because the five-year has gone on April 19th. We hope that, you know, we perform like that, you know, regulators allow us to become universal. We are very happy the way we are doing as of now, you know, and in year two it happens, it will be bonanza for us.
Sure. Thanks. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Bhavik Dave from Nippon India Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Hi, sir. Am I audible?
You're not very clear, Mr. Dave.
Is it better now?
Yes, it is. Thank you.
Okay. Yeah. Congratulations, sir, for a good year. Couple of questions, sir. One again, similar to the previous participant on the cost. Just want to understand how, and I understand 40%-50% of our cost is variable and the remaining is fixed. How do we control the cost when, if growth slows down a little, like you mentioned, how do we focus our attention to controlling that cost? Because around 10% of our cost is towards newer investments, which I think we will want to continue. But how do we control cost on the BAU, when growth is a bit challenging on the ground, if at all?
Bhavik, you know, it's a bit hypothetical question because we already faced that year, last year, right?
Right.
Of 12 months, you know, our execution on business happened only for 10 months, right? We have booked expenses for 12 months, right?
Right.
The way the whole scenario is being built, you know, especially in our market, which is product, which is around Wheels, HBL, Housing, Commercial, Credit Card, you know, everything is firing so well. There might be a slowdown, but I think our size is also not that much that it should affect us, you know, in near term.
Sure.
Of course there is a variable cost along with the fixed cost, you know, that can be manageable, right? We have shown in last, maybe in 2021 too, in the year one pandemic and last year too, that we can manage our cost. This time it is because of inflation, right, which has really
Right.
Created something something extraordinary on the balance sheet. Which I personally feel that as maybe next one-two years it will settle down, right? Or it will get some kind of transformation in overall yield.
Right.
We have to wait for that. Otherwise, you know, I strongly believe that AU is in good position in terms of managing any upward of interest rate cycle. Of course with elevated cost of operation for next one-two years.
Sure. Sir, is it fair to assume that like the 57% for the year cost to income and this quarter was a little elevated, do you think that the guidance that we have of like some 55%, is that possible in FY 2023 or will it be like 57% will come to 56% and then maybe slow down or like come down? Is that a fair way to go?
I believe so.
Okay, understood. The second question is a little long-term-ish in the sense. Which are the products that you're most excited about, like next two years where we have, like, incrementally our cost of funds are coming down, and should be somewhere around this range or marginally higher if interest rate cycle is turning. Which are the products that you think can scale up and you're excited about, and any specific geographies where you're thinking that we are, like, generating or creating a right to win, like we have done for like two, three geographies where we were historically present, including Rajasthan? Any other geographies which you're excited about more in the next couple of years and the product that you're excited about?
I'm actually, you know, Bhavik. I can honestly one is we have that Wheels makes me most exciting event because the overall pent-up demand and of course the overall change in fuel, you know, the how the Indian story is being built around the manufacturing and all those things.
Mm-hmm.
Our size is very, very amazingly small. You know, we are just around 17,000 total of asset, right?
Right.
I strongly believe that book can grow in north of 25% for next five years. You know, that's my own take.
Sure.
Other than that, I think I'm also bullish about Housing. You know, very small base. We have started that two years back. In spite of pandemic, in spite of so much of lockdowns, that business is also doing well. That is-
Right.
I think the most important thing that can surprise us is our overall commercial banking, which is around SMEs and MSMEs. I think that scale can help those businesses much more. And, of course, the Credit Card, you know, all those businesses. Bhavik, honestly, I believe that we have a lot more on our plate, right?
Right.
Hard to pick one or two, but whatever I've said is our top four, five, right?
Right.
Generally I believe that all our asset, the size, the market, the way we operate, and the whole originality around it, you know, is helping us to grow much better than the other competitors, right? In terms of geographies, I would say we are well settled in around now 18 states.
Right.
If you ask me one state for next five, 10 years, I would pick UP.
UP. Okay. Interesting.
Yeah.
Correct. Sir, last question is on the asset quality. Is there, like, generally RBI does a yearly review? Is that done, any outcomes, anything to anything worth noting or it was business as usual?
Sorry, I'm not able to understand your question.
Sorry. What happens is like in banks, I mean, there's an asset quality review that happens yearly, which RBI generally takes, like undertakes. Just wanted to understand is that done for the bank? Because you've not mentioned anything, that means that there is nothing to report, right? Like there is no divergence or anything major that RBI has come out with when it comes to asset quality. Is that a fair assumption?
Bhavik, yes. Yeah, I understand. Our inspection has been done up to March 2020.
Okay.
No, nothing got reported till now, till that time. Now.
Yes.
We are on the automated process.
Correct.
Our 99.9% of assets get classified on a real-time basis through an automated application, right?
Sure.
That has been certified by current account by the auditors, the external auditors, and that has also been verified by regulators.
Okay. Perfect. All right. That's helpful, sir. Thank you so much. All the best. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks, Bhavik.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jai Mundhra from B&K Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good evening. Thanks for the opportunity. Congratulations on your fifth anniversary, sir, of the bank. I have two questions. One is if you can tell us the gross slippages, without inter-quarter netting off for fourth quarter and maybe for FY 2022.
Sorry. INR 222 crore and INR 1,440 crore.
For the quarter.
For the quarter, that number is INR 292 crore.
Sure. If you have the numbers, sir, for a financial year?
I think that would be around INR 1,440 crore, which we'll report that. That will also be there in our regulatory disclosures, but I think that number is around INR 1,440 crore.
Sure. Okay. Secondly, sir, on your Wheels topic.
[audio distortion] .
Sure. Noted, sir. Secondly, on your Wheels segment, if you can bifurcate into maybe top four or top five kind of a product, if possible, that would be very helpful. I have a follow-up question on that. Top-
Sorry, your voice is a little patchy. Can you just repeat that question?
Sure. Yeah, sir, I was saying if you-
We seem to have lost his lines. We'll move to the next question in the meanwhile. The next question is from the line of Heet Khimawat from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Just one question relating to the tax expenses in the quarter. The tax rate, if I calculate for the quarter, is around 11%, which has been around 23%, 20%-25% in the previous quarters. What could be the reason for the low tax expenses in the quarter?
Okay. Tax rate.
Hi. We got around INR 45 crore refund, which was adjusted in this quarter. This was mainly against interest cost, which we consider while filing the return only. It's related to previous year.
The tax rate for the full year?
For the full year, tax rate is around 22%. For this quarter, this is different because of this refund only.
Okay. Okay. Got it, sir. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Dipen Sheth from Buoyant Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for the opportunity. I hope you can hear me.
You're not very clear, Dipen. If you can come on the handset mode and closer to the phone.
Okay. I hope you can hear me now.
Yes, this is better. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Right. I just wanted to reconcile a couple of numbers if you come to slide 35. If I try to reconcile that with slide six. Okay. It's on the liability side, obviously. If you look at the lower left part of slide six, it says that 66% of our total deposits are retail deposits, right? If we check slide 35, it says that 49% is the retail in the TD mix, not in the total deposits. Am I reading this correctly?
That's right. When you look at the TD mix, it's 49% retail in the TDs.
Right. The TDs are INR 31,470 at the year-end. Correct? And this 49%-51% is the break-up of that INR 31,470.
Yeah. Dipen, it's a data-keeping question. Can you please email to us, and we'll get back to you?
Yeah, sure. The reason I'm asking this is that, again, on slide 35 on the upper left side, the total deposits is INR 52,585. The remaining bit there is certificates of deposit, correct?
No, no. The first table on your and it's slide 34, actually, you're referring at 35.
Okay.
The first table is the total deposit.
Yeah, 34.
The second table is the branch banking deposit, so it excludes.
The government bank.
The CD, which is INR 1,500 odd crores. We have given it earlier. The last chart on that is the average monthly balance. The first is end of period balance, the middle chart, and the last chart is average period balance for the month.
Okay, I'm hearing you. All right. Within the entire deposit mix, if I may ask, is the you used to call or I don't know what the term you use it, non-callable?
Non-callable. Yeah. Non-callable is on term deposits.
Yeah. Yeah.
While I don't have the exact number for March, but on average it is about 60%.
Don't you have data for it?
On average it is 60%. I won't have it handy right now.
That's okay. I'll follow this up with you then. No problem, sir. Thanks. Okay.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Manish Shukla from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Good evening, and thank you for the opportunity. Firstly, on floating provision, just wanted to get your thoughts on under what circumstances will you continue making it, and when and how do you intend to dip into these provisions if at all?
What circumstances will we use?
Floating provision, under what circumstances can you use?
I mean, you know, it's very clearly written, you know, in the RBI regulation that, you know, in the event of something which is very uncertain and, you know, which is there to really manage the balances at that point of time, you know, because it's not in our hand now. It is in the hand of regulator to decide us that when can we use that. Of course, the situation like pandemic, you know, or the situation like, which is one of its own kind, we want to use that, but it's actually subject to regulators.
I mean, under what situations would you want to create more of floating provisions, if at all?
I think every quarter we will take the call that, you know, how the whole scenario is being built around the businesses. We really want to make our balances more and more stronger. We have the contingency provisions of INR 157 crore as of now. We have a coverage of 75% in terms of PCR. I think we need to see the whole calculation and of course the whole risk asset around us. Based on that, every quarter we'll take the call according with the help of board, right? But yes, of course, the endeavor is to really build more and more there.
The next question is on spreads.
On the overall provision on the balance sheet.
Sure. Understood. The next question is on spreads. The incremental spreads have come down quite meaningfully for the quarter, and there's a large gap of almost 90 basis points between outstanding spreads and incremental spreads. Do you think the incremental spreads have narrowed or bottomed out, and it can improve from here on, or we see spreads staying where they are right now? I'm talking about incremental spreads now.
Manish, obviously, you know, as the situation has improved in the on-ground, the demand is also picking up. The initial demand definitely has been coming from the commercial banking sector, which obviously is where we directly compete with the larger private sector banks and hence it's a price-sensitive segment. As we move forward, definitely as well, you know, more and more demand comes up, and the interest rate cycle starts going up. We have the ability to pass on that to our customers, so we'll start doing that going forward. What we also have to understand is the entire commercial banking book, or at least most part of it, is also eligible for some low-cost refinance, which kind of helps us to maintain our margins.
Okay. Last question. What part of your book is floating rate in nature on the asset side?
I think Sanjay answered that as the first question. The book is about 25% on the floating side and predominantly consists of the commercial banking and housing loan book.
Got it. Thank you. Those were my questions. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take one last question, which is from the line of Jai Mundhra from B&K Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks again. Sir, if you can bifurcate the top five product in the Wheels INR 17,000 crore Wheels portfolio.
Maybe, hi, Bhaskar here. Yeah, you're wanting to know from a manufacturer point of view or you're talking about where it is in the line of Maruti or Mahindra?
No, no. Not from manufacturing, but from functional view. Maybe taxi, UV or, if you have any data.
We have close to 45% of our application is in personal segment. That is cars, essentially cars. We have about 10% of tractor. We have 4% of backhoe loader. Between small commercial vehicle, light commercial vehicle, we have that spread out between them in terms of close to about 27%. It goes in that order. I mean, it's really less than 50%.
Okay.
Commercial passenger also consists of cars. That's about close to 10%-14%.
Right.
This data is already there, Jai, in the public domain in our AU Insights section. It's available on our website.
Sure. Sorry, I missed that. Yeah. That's it, sir. Thank you.
Yeah. All right, sir.
Thank you. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to Mr. Aseem Pant, VP Investor Relations, for closing comments.
Thanks. Thanks, Margaret, and thanks everyone for joining us and your support. Please reach out to the IR team for any further questions. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of AU Small Finance Bank, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.