Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the AU Small Finance Bank Q4 FY23 earnings conference call. 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. Prince Tiwari, Head of FIG and IR. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Asha, good evening, everyone, and welcome to AU Small Finance Bank earnings call for the fourth quarter of FY 2023. We thank you all for joining the call today. The format for today's call will be very similar to last few quarters, where we will start with opening remarks from senior management for the first 20-25 minutes of the call, we'll follow that with a 30-35 minutes of question and answers from all the analysts and investors. To start the call, we'll have our MD and CEO, Mr. Sanjay Agarwal, share his thoughts on FY 2023 overall performance and outlook for the bank. He will be followed by our ED, Mr. Uttam Tibrewal, who will share his thoughts on operating highlights for the quarter and the financial year.
Besides them, we also have few senior members of our management team on the call today to answer any questions that you may have. For the benefit of everyone, and so that we can take everyone's question, we'll humbly request everyone to keep the number of questions per participant restricted to two and join back in the queue in case you have further questions. With that, I'll now request our MD and CEO, Mr. Sanjay Agarwal, to share his thoughts on the bank's performance and outlook.
Thanks, Prince. Hi, everyone. Good evening. Namaskar. I'm very happy to speak to you on this call today, as we recently celebrated 28 years of our existence and 6 year of banking. It has been an incredible journey and a wonderful experience to build a bank like AU. I met so many of you last year during the roadshow while raising capital, where we got tremendous support, affection, acceptance, not only of our business model, but also for me as an individual. Today, I'm happy to share that we have fulfilled all our promises made last year during the roadshow, despite many headwinds like inflation-led high interest rate cycles, liquidity issues, and unnecessary negative perception around us. We promised to grow our business around 30%, our numbers speak like this. Our deposits grew by 32%, now standing at INR 69,000 crore plus.
Our assets after securitization grew by 26%, standing at INR 59,000 crore+ with pristine asset quality. We deliver sustainable and superior ROEs and ROEs at 1.8 and 15.4 respectively, without any one-off income from treasury or PSLC and of course, despite high interest rates. Our tech outlook remains very strong. Key highlights being upgrade of our core banking system, enhancing data center capacity, and scaling our digital propositions further with launch of innovative product like credit cards and current account. We actually serve 38 lakh+ customers at 1,000+ touchpoints in 21 states and UTs by winning team of around 20,000 people. My reappointment as MD and CEO, and my colleagues, Uttam as Executive Director, for full 3 years reinforces that we are walking on the right path with strong compliances, robust governance and sustainable business model.
I'm really thankful for you for this. The past couple of years have been personally trying for me as a seasoned entrepreneur of 28 years, as we have been the subject for numerous unfounded, unfavorable rumors causing unnecessary commotions and aversion. I hope that now we can all move forward with focus on our performance. I would like to thank all my shareholders for their patience, unwavering support, and being there with us through thick and thin. Another feather in our cap is receiving of AD1 license on our foundation day. It is not only completes our product offering to the existing customers, but will also help acquire newer segment of customers.
I'm thankful to the regulators for validating and strengthening the small finance bank platform by not only giving us the AD1 license, but also to another two SFB friends, so that product offering at SFB platforms are complete and at par. Coming to India, we remain on a very different trajectory as a country of optimistic, determined, and hardworking people. We at AU are very excited to participate in India's story of 1.4 billion people, with economy expected to grow at 7% in next 10 years by providing excellent product and services to build India. With a market share of just 0.4 in both deposits and assets, the opportunities are immense and the sky's the limit. Our business model is well-settled. We will remain in identified market segments, like urban markets for garnering deposits and for lending the core and rural markets.
Our focus to build sustainable, low-cost, granular deposit franchise, where the challenge as of now is around interest rates. We will continue to manage with strong emphasis on CASA and granular deposits, especially on a current account proposition. Last year, we grew current account deposits by 43%. Bringing our CASA ratio to 38% and CASA plus retail deposit base at 69%. This helps contain our cost of money at similar level to last level, last year at 5.96%. In FY 2024, our margins may be impacted as the cost of money is higher and the peak is not over yet. Further, our loan book has been fixed-rate, which also gets impacted in a rising interest rate scenario. Although the share is coming down and now stands at 66% versus 74% a year ago.
The share of commercial banking affordable housing books are increasing, which are important franchise business, but with lower yield. These businesses have lower credit cost and lower OpEx and thus have similar ROA as per our other retail businesses. Our margins will be protected by continuous investment in strengthening current account propositions, transition banking, focus on data and its capabilities, automation of credit and process reengineering. We are investing to build capabilities, thus our cost to income level can be high. Moving ahead, we expect the advantage of scale to start kicking in and by the year-end, our investments in merchant lending, video banking, unsecured lending and cross-sell will start positively impacting the PNL. There will be more pool of revenues from video and license, wealth product, etc. Credit card business is also expected to break even in the next one year.
Further, we've bolstered our strength at the board level by inducting three independent directors last year, out of which two are women directors. We are now 10 members strong board with eight independent directors. Talk about my own focus area, I mean, very importantly, as a CEO, I'm very excited for my next tenure. My area of focus is to build brands which will eventually help us in deepening trust in the entire ecosystem, strengthen our deposit franchise, invest in innovation, data-first and digital culture with emphasis on understanding our customer, which we call UIC, and to build strong HR practices, you know. Tech and innovation remain my top focus areas. You know I'm not a techie myself, but I'm investing a lot of my time these days in tight discussion with IT team, partners and ecosystem stakeholders.
We are working across all aspects of technology, be it core technology stack, digitization, automation, data analytics and digital customer-facing propositions. This quarter, we made significant progress in strengthening our core technology stack. We upgrade our core banking system to the latest version. We're also upgrading capacity of our data centers. In VL business, which is our oldest one, we are implementing Salesforce LOS along with underwriting tool by FICO to enable straight-through processing of vehicle loans. While we started this journey from our oldest business, we entice to implement similar processes for all the loans in the bank. Another step towards operational excellence is to automate processes using robotic process automation and AI. I personally believe that in next 10 years, every Indian will have a digital footprint. That would generate large data sets.
As a bank are the golden source of data, those with capabilities to leverage data to personalize customer experience will stand as winners. At AU, we are enhancing our understanding of customer through in-house and alternative source of data with a long-term vision to have a customer data as a good and as vast as what Google has. Keeping in view all the required norms around privacy and data protection. On the digital front, we continue to deliver innovative products and upgrade existing offerings. We have recently launched a digital current account proposition, Step Up card, credit card upgrade program and industry-first offering around bill payments over video banking. Our digital insurance and wealth propositions have also started gaining traction, and this year we will further enhance and scale this and will be soon launching merchant app.
We're also enhancing our digital payment stack with more powerful propositions around UPI, DPGs, FASTag, etc. I believe I'm sounding like a techie guy, you know. We have been preparing ourselves to leverage the opportunities available through the emerging public digital infrastructure in India. We are live on the account aggregator. We are one of the first few banks to live on the OCEN platform, and we are in discussion with ONDC team to implement innovative use case around digital commerce. We're also working with an RBI innovation hub, FinTech to enable financial inclusion. We remain on a journey to build one of the best tech-led retail banking franchise for this country. To execute on our vision, we have strengthened our tech team and working with leading global tech companies, be it Amazon, Salesforce, Accenture, Adobe, Oracle, MPCI, etc.
All these tech partners have been engaging well with us. I am personally meeting their global leadership to further strengthen our relationship and to explore areas of innovation. Another area of focus for me is to build strong HR practices because I feel people are the greatest asset. I'm happy to say that our senior team is quite stable with an average vintage of 7 years, well-balanced, and is driving the business with lot of passion, purpose and pace. On the hiring front, we are seeing a great traction on people wanting to join us. Our recent HR practices are getting acknowledged. Policies like menstrual leave for women employees and AU Forever Pass is among the first in industry inspired by our philosophy of Badlaav Humse Hai.
I'm delighted to share with you that we have received the Retail Banker International Asia Trailblazer Award for our HR practices as Just a Great Place to Work third in a row and are one of the top 25 organization in the BFSI segment. Among the many awards that we received last year, the prime one is to adjust as the best small finance bank of the country by Financial Express and Business Today. We are really humbled and grateful to all of you who have been a critical part of this journey. You know, in the end, I can assure you that we are more committed to build one of the finest institution of the world. I believe that building a bank may take at least 10 years to understand all the nuances of this platform. I'm very happy to say that we have.
the way we have progressed in last six years, despite so many real and unreal challenges that we faced, navigated, and sailed over. There's a time for consolidation to build a long inning. Like the batsman gets more confident with every passing over, similarly, we are getting more confident with every passing year at this banking platform. We continue to lay foundation of building a sustainable, well-governed pan India bank with a mindset of playing a long inning. We are building ourselves to take advantage of the India opportunity over the next decade. We have figured out approach by offering the right product in the right market, deposits from urban, assets in core, offered by the right team with the right tech, walking on the right path, building practices and processes which are standardized, scalable, and sustainable.
Thank you so much for listening to me. Let me hand over to Uttam for the operational highlights. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Sanjay. Namaskar, and very good evening to you, everyone. I hope you all are in good health. FY 2023 witnessed a steady resurgence of the demand across various industries, with domestic consumption on the rise, along with increased on-ground activity and a positive outlook for India's GDP growth. Our expectations for FY 2023 remains well on track. As we conclude Q4 FY 2023, I'm pleased to report that AU Small Finance Bank has delivered a consistently strong and stable performance across all our businesses throughout the quarter and also the entire fiscal year. From build-out of our digital properties to deposit growth to CASA growth and improved granularity to consistent loan growth with ever-strengthening asset quality, we have diligently focused on excelling in every aspect of our customer-centric business.
Notably, we have managed to keep our gross NPA below INR 1,000 crore, thereby bringing down our GNPA to 1.66% and net NPA to 0.42% on the back of strong collection efforts while staying true to our philosophy of deep customer engagement and proactive problem-solving. Having recently completed our sixth year as a small finance bank and 28 years as an institution, I'm proud to say that we have built a winning team of over 38,000+ employees, dedicated to transforming our organization into an institution that commands the confidence of regulators, the love and trust of its customers, and the backing of its investors. I'm pleased to share that bank customer base has grown to over INR 38 lakh in the FY23, representing a growth of 40% over last fiscal year.
During FY23, we added 108 new touchpoints to expand our distribution to a total of 1,027 touchpoints and serving our customers physically from 711 unique locations across 21 states and 3 Union Territories. Our digital distribution has also gained strong traction with our AU 0101 app saw 90% growth in user base registration to 19 lakh customers with more than 10 lakh active users in March 2023. Our video banking channel has evolved into a comprehensive and self-sufficient digital franchise offering 400+ services and handling over 1,000 customer calls per day.
On the other hand, our acquisition of savings from customers via the video banking channel grew 100% during the year with 2.99 lakh+ customers having over INR 1,150 crores of deposits, and 15% of customers also holding an additional product from bank. I'm excited to inform you that we have started acquiring current accounts using video banking starting April 2023. We are confident to get a similar success on this journey too. For credit cards, the journey of our sourcing through video banking started in October 2022. In less than 6 months, we issued over 1 lakh credit cards via this channel. Our overall credit card population now boasts more than 5 lakh cards and the monthly issuance reached 50,000+ cards and monthly spends reaching INR 1,000 crores in March 2023.
In line with our commitment to innovation and customer centricity, we introduced SwipeUp, an industry-first instant card upgrade program featuring a digital compare and purchase journey. On the merchant side, I'm pleased to inform that we have reached the milestone of INR 10 lakh UPI QR codes, with UPI QR transactions doubling over the past year, reaching INR 40 lakh in March 2023. Not only payments, but our QR-based lending solution has also seen a good start with close to INR 200 crore disbursed in merchant lending till Q4 FY 2023.
Also in Q4 FY23, we disbursed INR 146 crore in personal loans, contributing to total disbursement of INR 804 crore till date, all through the AU 0101 digital platform. The success in digital acquisition and engagement is also attributed to the growth in brand awareness, with over 31 crore brand impressions and more than 1.6 crore website visits in Q4 FY23. Not only did the brand search volume increase by 30% in the fiscal year, but the website traffic has also grown by 2.7 times year-on-year, with 60% making organic traffic, translating to growing brand affinity towards the bank. We have also witnessed a 200% growth in number of existing customers visiting our website to explore products and enable services. Moving on to our business numbers.
Despite macro uncertainty and significant competition in the deposit market, we have shown consistently strong performance in our deposit franchise throughout the year. In Q4 FY23, the total deposits of the bank grew to INR 69,365 crores, a growth of 30% year-on-year, with the bank having 25.6 lakh deposit customers as of March 2023, compared to 19.8 lakh customers in the previous year, representing a growth of 28% year-on-year. This fiscal year, we prioritize customer engagement and looking to sanction our customers accounts with their primary accounts. Our focus on customer satisfaction, better product proposition, and continued engagement with the customers has led to an impressive 70% of current accounts and 57% of savings account customers regularly transacting with us.
On an average, our transacting customers transact 32 transactions per month in savings accounts and 69 transactions in current account. Similarly, our product per customer ratio improved to 1.61 for savings accounts customers, excluding dormant and BHIM accounts, and two products per customer for our current account customers. We have also found that engaged customers generated lifting average monthly balance by two to eight times than those who are not engaged. As I have mentioned earlier, another important area of focus for us has been our current account deposits, which have resulted in remarkable growth of 43% year-on-year, reaching INR 3,680 crore on March 2023, as compared to INR 2,570 crore in March 2022. This helped us optimize our cost of deposits for the full year.
The overall CASA deposits grew by 36% year-over-year from INR 19,608 crore to INR 26,660 crore, helping in improving our CASA ratio from 37.3% as of March 2022 to 38.4% as of March 2023. The increase in CASA ratio is a remarkable achievement in an environment where there was notable competition for deposits across the banking system. After resounding success of our first premium banking offering, AU VAAN, we are excited to announce the launch of the AU Ivy program, a one-of-a-kind product in the industry. This is an invite-only Super HNI category product, and we look forward to receive the same affection and acceptance from all. Our strategy of focusing on urban markets for liability products has been successful, and we opened 58 new branches in urban and metro markets in FY 2023.
We have already seen few branches which are less than one-year-old, ramping up their deposits to INR 50 crore-INR 100 crore, reflecting the positive response we have received from high-quality retail customers in urban markets. Our strategy of asset cross-selling to our liability customers has proven effective in engaging our customer base and deepen the relationship. Cross-sell of asset products to branch banking customers increased by 25% to INR 2,500 crore in FY 2023, compared to INR 2,000 crore in FY 2022. Credit cards, personal loans, and business banking are among the key assets for liability customers. We will keep ramping up our efforts here. Gold loan is another area where we are focusing in branch banking and currently offering this product from 60 locations. We are in the process of scaling up our gold loan business and will keep you updated as we progress.
On bancassurance, our partnerships with Ageas Federal Life Insurance, ICICI Prudential, Future Generali, IFFCO-Tokio / Tata AIG, Care and Chola MS has helped us to drive customer affinity and engage customers for life, general, and health insurance. Through these partnerships, we sold and renewed over 5.9 lakh insurance policies in FY23 for a premium upwards of INR 640 crores. Last year, we applied greater focus on wealth management and have completely digitized our wealth journey, making it paperless and signature-less, resulting in a seamless and superior customer experience. As a result, the number of customers having SIP has doubled from 22,000 to 56,900 in March 23. Consequently, our mutual fund AUM has increased by 62% from INR 3 crores in March 22 to INR 167 crores in March 23.
We have also started distributing PMS offerings to serve our HNI customers through our partnership with Motilal Oswal Financial Services Financial Services. We have acquired over 31,000 AU 0101 savings accounts, taking the total number of such accounts to more than 90,000. Let me turn to our asset business. Starting with vehicles. For Q4 FY23, the vehicle industry sold a total of 48 lakh units, registering a year-on-year growth of 7%. Coming to two-wheeler, commercial vehicle segment saw a year-on-year growth of 27%, while tractor, personal vehicles, and three-wheeler segments also exhibited good growth, registering growth of 19%, 12%, and 5% respectively.
Keeping up with industry trends, we dispersed INR 3,716 crores, a 1.34% increase from Q4 FY22, with an IRR of 14.44%, marking a year-on-year increase of 101 basis points. In addition, we achieved the highest quarterly dispersal for used vehicle financing at INR 1,750 crores in Q4. Our average ticket size and distributions was around INR 5.03 lakhs and around INR 3 lakhs at portfolio level, excluding two-wheelers. As of March 31, 2023, the total portfolio reached to INR 22,833 crores through 8.30 lakh live loans, comprising 50% new vehicles, 36% used and refinanced vehicles, 10% tractors and 2% two-wheelers. The portfolio commercial segment contributed to 46%, while the persons segment contributed 42% and tractors contributed 10%.
Our used business asset quality further improved with gross NPA 2.25%. Moving on to our secured business loans. In Q4 FY23, we saw our highest ever quarterly dispersals of INR 2,300 crores in SBL segment. Yearly dispersals stood at INR 6,717 crores with year-on-year growth of 39%, with an average ticket size of INR 1.6 lakhs and across 60,000 loans. The dispersed SBL portfolio stood at INR 19,509 crores, an annual increase of 18% with portfolio IRR of 15% and GNPA at 2.5% across 2.5 lakh live customers. With increasing number of MFIs and rapid formalization in the sector, we believe the size of the pie will keep expanding.
As AU has been serving this segment for last 15 years, we have built a sustainable business model to serve the majority of our customers in rural and semi-rural areas. We are well-equipped to penetrate existing markets and venture into new ones. Moving on to our home loan businesses. As a relatively younger book, the portfolio of housing book grew by 63% year-on-year to INR 4,283 crore across 42,400 loans, with an average ticket size of INR 1.7 lakh and an IRR of 11.8%. In Q4 FY 2023, we dispersed INR 722 crore, taking the total annual dispersal to INR 2,200 crore. Currently, home loans are available at 2,000 branches of the bank, and we are scoped to expand coverage to all our touchpoints in due course to encourage retail cluster.
Our GNPA was stable at 0.33%. It is noteworthy that much of our affordable housing book is also eligible for long-term refinance from NHB. Moving on to commercial banking. Commercial banking dispersed INR 2,848 crore in Q4 FY23, of which business banking and agri banking accounted for 63% of business. The total commercial banking portfolio grew by 56% from FY22, reaching to INR 13,006 crore and now accounts for 22% of bank gross advances. Gross NPA commercial banking has reduced from 0.84% as of March 31, 2022 to 0.38% as of March 31, 2023, which further validates our underwriting approach and customer selection.
The business banking portfolio reached to INR 4,938 crore as of March 2023, showing a year-on-year growth of 20% with dispersals of INR 1,005 crore during the quarter. The agri banking business reached a INR 3,964 crore portfolio mark, showing a year-on-year growth of 75% with dispersals of INR 800 crore during the quarter. This growth was a result of several factors, including expanding our footprint in new geographies like Uttar Pradesh, East India and southern markets, new product initiatives and increased synergies with corporate banking. Furthermore, our NBFC funding book has reached the INR 3,551 crore mark, showing a year-on-year growth of 25% with dispersals of INR 601 crore during the quarter.
Our HDB book has reached to INR 1,224 crore portfolio mark, showing a year-on-year growth of 57%, with dispersals of INR 442 crore during the quarter. To sum up, looking ahead, the strong credit demand will keep the pressure on deposit rates, and we will need to manage our cost of funds. Thus, growing our current account business will remain a key focus. Our focus in liabilities business remains on acquiring low cost, granular individuals, small business and transacting customers and building a predictable, scalable and sustainable deposit franchise. On our asset businesses, focus will be on building efficiency, productivity and automation digitization and leveraging existing customer base through cross-selling. We are grateful for the authorized dealer Category one license granted by the regulator, which completes our suite of banking products for CASA and commercial banking customers.
We will now be able to offer forex services for existing customers as well as acquire new customers for cross-border trade, remittances and guarantees. Looking back at the 28 years of our journey, I am reminded of a tree which starts with a simple seed, grows into a sapling and needs adequate nurturing and care before growing into a fully grown tree. In the past 6 years of our banking journey, we have tried to lay a strong foundation to build a forever bank. Our efforts towards offering customer-focused solutions and products have become visible. We have successfully transformed into a primary bank for a sizable part of our customer base, which is testified with growing active users on AU 0101 and increasing customer transactions.
We look forward to continuing this journey and serving our customers with even greater dedication and commitment in the years to come. I look forward to sharing more with you in the coming quarters. Thank you. I'm now handing over to Prince for taking the call forward. Please take good care. Thanks.
Thank you, Uttam. This is Sri. We can now open the call for question and answers.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone phones. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset while asking a question. This is required to ensure optimum audio quality on the call. If your line have any disturbance, you may be asked to return to the question queue. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles.
We have our first question from the line of Bhavesh Kanani from ASK Investment Managers. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking the question. I have two questions. One, you know, when we look at the ROA profile for this year and when we think about the key trends likely next year, one would expect that NIM could be under a little bit of pressure. Provisions which have been pretty low this year, can be at risk of going up. All the while, we continue to spend heavily on sending our franchise rate. Is it right to expect that the ROA for next year, could be lower than where we have ended this year? Your thoughts on this, and if you can help us understand the lower effective tax rate for this quarter.
Hi, Bhavesh. This is Prince here. Maybe I'll start and then, probably Sanjiv can add. As you rightly said, you know, for the last two years if you see, overall, our margins have actually expanded quite well. We have got the, you know, benefit of the tailwind and the cost of funds, given the lower liquidity post-pandemic. Even as today, as of today, as we have mentioned in the presentation, we have managed to maintain our overall cost of funds for the last financial year in FY23 at the same level of FY22. Right? Of course, there will be some amount of catching up, that's gonna happen with a lag. That's happening with the entire industry, and that will happen with us as well.
You're absolutely right that there will be some amount of pickup in the cost of funds in the next financial year. Right? You also mentioned, you know, and rightly so, that we have also been using this tailwind to invest in our future capabilities and businesses. Like, if you look at the entire tech investments that we have done, you know, coming out of lower cost of funds or higher margins and lower credit costs, we have used that money to upfront invest in our capability. We are now nearing somewhere near the end of that investment phase. Of course, we probably have one of next 12-18 months still to go. The pace, the returns have also started crystallizing, right?
By the end of this financial year, you will see us monetizing our, some of the, you know, key initiatives around video banking, around your entire merchant lending, UPI QR code or unsecured lending, personal loans, cross-selling that we have been piloting, or even towards some amount of distribution capability around the insurance side as we have added some new partners, right. All in all, I would say. Obviously we have AD1 coming up, and of course it'll take some time for us to implement it, but at least by the end of the year we are hoping that we'll be live, up and running, and there'll be some amount of, you know, benefits will start accruing.
Obviously we have the credit cards coming up sometime in FY 2025 when we are looking for the credit card business to break even. All in all, there are some of the investments that we have made during the last few years, which will start yielding positive results beginning end of FY 2024. Honestly, while we may have some cost inch-up, but we are not too worried around, you know, ROA trajectory. The ROA trajectory will definitely be maintained and probably we might see some positive impact by the end of FY 2025 because for all the things that I mentioned. Even on the cost of funds, if you look at, you know, currently we are in a pause mode. We obviously saw a very heavy or very strong March in terms of competitive intensity.
Of course, we are beginning FY 2024 with slightly pause. Regulators have put a pause on it. The 10-year ease, if you look at, we are at about 7.10. While there will be an intense pressure, but as we have said, we might look at as Uttam Tibrewal also said in his speech, we are looking to add current accounts. We are also trying to see how we can play with the mix. We securitized some of the portfolios last year to get advantage. Keeping all of those factors in mind, will the margins be impacted? The answer is yes. Would it be really, really large? I would not really think so. I think it will be somewhere in the range of historically where we were between pre-COVID to now. However, the ROA trajectory definitely is not gonna be compromised.
Boss, do you want to add?
Yeah. Yeah. Bhavesh, you know, my simple answer is this, that NIM will get pressurized, you know, maybe around 30 bps, 40 bps in this year. Because already we are starting our cost of money around 6.4, instead of 5.96, the cost money was last year whole, right? There will be a pressure on NIMs, you know, that is clearly there because it's not easy to also transfer the entire pressure on the borrowers, you know, because there is a lot, much competition also there. Banks are generally not meant to only build their profits from NIMs, you know. We have the other pools. Like last year, there was no pool from pool income from PSLC or from any kind of investment, right?
I hope, I mean, we should hope that there will be other pools like, you know, maybe insurance income can inch up this year. We'll have AD1. We'll start monetizing our QR business. Next year it will be credit card. Overall, you know, as Prince narrated that we would able to save our ROA, you know. You know, ROA, the golden, I think the data is around 2%, right? You know, if we earn 2% ROA in this few years of our journey, you know, it will be good enough for us. You know, maybe around 1.8%-2% range, we are hoping that we will click that kind of ROA next year, too.
Okay. Wonderful deal. Just one clarification on the effective tax rate being at 20%.
Bhavesh, Himal this side. For effective tax rate, we have received 1 refund and assessment order in our favor in this quarter, so that income has been considered here as a reversal of income tax. That's why this reduced tax rate.
Wonderful. Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
We have our next question from the line of Renish Bhuvania from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. just a 2 questions from my side. one is on the vehicle book. I mean, you know, after a long 6, 7 quarters we have seen the absolute decline in the book, despite, you know, there is a industry tailwind. just trying to get a sense what is happening there.
Before Bhaskar answers, Renish, let me just clarify. The vehicle book hasn't really declined. In fact, it has gone up. Yes, we have also securitized some business this year, or this quarter. Because of that, you are seeing in the absolute terms only on gross advances. If you look at the overall, you know, wheels book, the growth has been upwards of about 32%. You need to add the securitized book in the overall, to figure out the growth. Correct. Renish, hi, Bhaskar here. Nothing changes. All well.
It's just, as Prince rightly mentioned, it's just a matter of the securitized book, otherwise, all products in the market that we are, the things that we do, we continue to do, and we continue to do the same strategy of managing the product and the risk the way the bank needs it.
Got it. Let me put it this way. We have not lost market share in Q4 in this business?
No, no. No, we've not lost market share.
Okay. Okay.
Rather you would have gained, right, Bhaskar? In and around the same, sir, because usually we do more. Market share, when they talk about, they talk about the new vehicles moreover we, you know, we play the game of that. That's the reference point, but in and around the same market share, yeah.
Got it. Secondly, again, you know, continuation of what Bhavesh was trying to highlight is that, let's say in FY 2022, you know, given the like remaining trajectory and also this year, the credit cost was lower, you know, which should ideally normalize in FY 2024. When we, you know, will have 2 major component should drive ROA lower, you know, one would be of course NIM contraction and the credit cost normalizing. How confident we are that we'll be able to sort of sustain this 1.8% ROA in FY 2024 as well?
My take on the credit cost is little different. I strongly believe that this year also we'll have the benefit because of the top asset quality, you know, around us. You know, you are seeing how we are getting it now is, I think pre-COVID level also is better than that, right? 1.6, Net NPA is 0.4. I think every day when we are going on the ground, we are seeing a lot, much optimism around credit growth, credit compliance, repayments. I don't think that credit cost can surprise us in this year or even get to the normal level.
Again, I want to say that somehow I am able to figure out in last 6 years that sometimes some pool helps you, sometimes the other factor helps you, or sometimes there's negativity of some other things. This year it may be because of NIM getting pressure, but it can be helped out because of a good asset quality, the other income from other pools like AD1 or maybe the monetization of our QR business and all those things. It's mixed bag, you know, and we need to carefully craft our journey. That is why we are hoping that this year also to be very honest, 2022-2023, people were challenging us that, you know, we won't able to give this kind of ROA, but in the end we are able to deliver that, right?
Right.
Let's hope for best and see, how the market also plays out in next maybe 2 quarters because there is a pause on interest rate as of now, right? We are seeing it, you know, like, bonds are coming down at 7.10% today, right? I think we need to believe more in hope and belief and see, you know, we will play our inning well. That's our sense.
Got it, sir. Best of luck, sir. Thank you so much, sir.
Yeah.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Subhranshu Mishra from PhillipCapital.
Right.
Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity. Two questions. First one is on the wheels. If we can split the book into various asset classes, what comprises of how much proportion? What would be LPV, SPV, cars, tractors, so on and so forth. The second question is on the initial comment Sanjayji made about breakeven of the credit card business in FY 2025. This seems very aggressive compared to any other bank in India, since there is no bank which can claim a breakeven in credit card business in flat three years. Generally, it takes around five to seven years. The largest of the banks in India have done it in as much time.
Given the fact that you've pointed out the average credit limit and the new to bank customers and new to credit card customers, I think we are going very aggressive on those parameters to really have the breakeven faster and play to the gallery. Is that a fair comment to make on the credit card, sir? If you can explain would be fine. Thanks. Should I answer you the later one first? You know, I think, No. Okay. You know, I hope you'd have gone through our credit card presentation done maybe 3, 4 months back to really explain our strategy around it.
As you know, Subhranshu, that we are more of a still employed kind of lenders, and we know how to lend in poor markets over the years. We are not playing to the galleries, to be very honest, because credit card as a business is very lucrative. Those are all digitization across country, you know. Now it's a first product, to very honest, for the payments and the oldest one. The data which we are getting every month, you know, and we have seen it, I think you would have read on our presentation also, that our average spend is around now 20,000 per card per month. Our 84% is active. We are giving around 50% cards to our existing customer base, you know.
You know, we haven't done so much of investment, to be very honest, that its recovery happens in five to seven years. I'm saying with lot of responsibility that our credit card will become profitable in quarter 3 of FY25 based on our whole growth plan and the business plan in place. Mayank and team is doing fantastic job, and adherence to the data is superb there, right? I would like you to be, you know, we can be touched with the IR team. They can be in touch with the Mayank and team and to figure out our strategy there. I'm absolutely confident that we are very rational there, we are very confident there.
We are doing everything in the way we want to build our franchise, which is sustainable and which is to be forever. We don't have any room to make mistakes, to be very honest, right? I think there you will find us in quarter maybe 2 and 3, maybe 2 or maybe 3 in FY25, making us breakeven, right? This is the credit card commentary. You know, Bhaskar. Bhaskar, can you comment on the wheels data? Sure, sir. Hi, Subhranshu. From a split point of view, the personal card is about 40%. We do a car testing, which is about 12%. Our truck, which is the heavy commercial which you asked about, is less than 5%. Our LCV is around 4%.
We do close to a tractor of 10%. We have 4% of construction equipment. This is all we get, and we have about 2% of two-wheeler. That's the story from the 2 to 22-wheeler that we generally have as a split on the book today. Understood. Just a follow-up. One more data point here, just to comment on your playing for the galleries, you know. This book is being handled and built by, you know, our ex-CRO. His name is Mayank, right? He does not belong to a business or does not belong to a, you know, particular kind of mindset, right? He belongs to a risk mindset, he's building this business from last 2 and a half years. He's strong in his credit compliance, strong in his overall approach to do this business, right?
I hope, you know, he will make a surprise next year. Just one follow-up question on the credit card, sir. What is the sunk cost? What is the total tech investment that we have done in credit card, which is why it's breaking even so fast?
Sanjay Agarwal. Hi, this is Chirag Shah here. We have given that details on our PNL slide, right? That comes to about for the, this particular year, we come to about INR 156 crores for the last quarter of... I mean, that's a total investment, but of which 70% has been on credit cards, so that will be about INR 100 crores. There's also a corresponding income that we have shown in our other income breakup, which has also been about INR 100 crores. For the full year, I think we would have invested about INR 300 odd crores, INR 250-300.
250.
About INR 250 crore on credit cards, and we have a revenue, sorry, a fee income of about INR 100 crore against that.
Great.
Of course, there's NII. Sanjay Agarwal, I think, just to get into further details of this, maybe a good idea for us to get you a meeting with Mayank to, you know, answer further questions specifically on credit cards. FYI, we have also given on slide number 31, specifically the overall ROA impact of all our digital initiatives, including credit card.
Right. That's a plug for the credit card breakeven. I look forward to it. Thanks.
Sure.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Ratik Gupta from Carnelian Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Good evening. My question is on the book, the break up of the fixed and the floating rate book. Currently, as we have a 66% in the floating rate, and assuming that the repo rate will remain the same, do we hope that the fixed rate break up will go high? Or do we have a projection on what will be the sort of break up between the fixed and the floating rate book?
So, uh, you know, um-
Sorry. Madhu, right? No, Ratik. Ratik, hi, yeah. This is Prince here. You know, what we have given and what we generally talk about is the mix on the overall asset level. You'll see we have, like, four broad businesses on the asset side. Of course, you know, you have Wheels and SBL, which are predominantly fixed rate books. You have home loans and commercial vehicles, which are predominantly variable rate books, right? The overall composition of these books have already been given, and we broadly think that, you know, we'll probably try to maintain somewhere around this mix. Where retail assets, which is home loans, plus SBL, plus Wheels, would be anywhere around 60%-65%, and probably around the commercial banking
No, no, Ritesh. I think what I have able to understood your question is that how we will reduce our fixed rate book, right?
Yeah.
I would say that we started a bank, right, it was 100% fixed rate. Now in 6 year, we have reached at 66% as fixed rate and 36% as our variable rate. As our re-retail book, largely from home loan and commercial banking is going up, I expect my fixed rate book to touch down nearly 50% in next 3 years. You know? There is no room that my fixed rate book will go up from here, because I am able to build my business banking book, agri banking, NBFC, real estate, housing book, and all are actually growing faster than my fixed book, which is largely SBL and Wheels. You know?
From here onwards, you will see a drop in our fixed rate ratio in asset very gradually, you know. In next 3 years, we'll touch down 50%. That's our overall assessment.
Okay. Sir, second, my question, second question is on the borrowing and the deposit ratio. If you see the borrowings have reduced. Are we looking forward to we reduce the borrowings and focus on deposits for increasing our capital? Like the borrowing side, liability side.
I think around the CD ratio, if you see obviously last quarter was very good on deposit growth. To that extent, the CD ratio is currently at about 84, and which is basically, you know, what is reflecting on the overall borrowing percentage lower. Historically also, if you see our borrowings have always remained anywhere around 7%-8%, and bulk of it is, you know, refinance. That gives us a cost advantage.
Long-term, without your CRR-
CRR and SLR.
Right.
Right? It's part of our strategy of liabilities, diversifying liability business and the cost of funds. Because refinance gives me that leverage in terms of a lower cost against our priority sector assets. At the same time, we don't have to maintain CRR and SLR on that book. You see our borrowing somewhere around the ratios that we are broadly.
Okay. That's it from my end, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Kunal Shah from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for taking the question. The question is on fee income side. Lot many levers now available there in terms of the increasing contribution of credit card plus distribution and AD1 license would also help. Where do we see fee income to assets settle? What would be maybe our aspirational maybe ratio for fee income to assets, and when do we expect to achieve that? Over how many years here?
Kunal, Prince here again. If you see our entire fee, other income or fee income, ratio to assets for the current year, it has been anywhere around, you know, 1.3%. At a core other income, it has been about 1.4%, right? Obviously this was a year when we didn't have any one-off in terms of fee income. There was no treasury gains, there was no PSLC fee income, right? This is pure and pure, you know, core operating fee income at about 1.4% of assets. Now, if you move forward from here and as for some of the levers that you talked about, definitely it should go up.
Now the question is at what level and to what extent, we'll have to see honestly, but, as things materialize. In the longer term, I don't think it should be any different from where most of the commercial banks are today, you know, as we grow.
Yeah.
Yeah. Just to add on Kunal, from Prince narrative, that I strongly believe that there is a change in insurance payout also from the recent circular from IRDA, right? That will add up to the other income space. We are also growing our insurance very well. Last year we've done around INR 600 crore premium. This year we might be doing INR 800 crore. We have started building a very a wealth proposition also. It's a small start, but we've got some kind of income from there also. Our trade income, you know, which is, was without AD1 license, also we've got some decent amount and is getting traction. AD1 will start kicking from quarter three, quarter four. It's difficult to ascertain as of now.
In my opinion, it will take 2, 3 years to really get to the real level of that income. I think overall, I would say that we as a bank, you know, being an SFB, we didn't have much options also in our initial years. We are now settling down as a bank and we are getting traction from everywhere, right? Our fees income from our asset liability is getting stabilized. Insurance in them will get more onto the balance sheet now. We're expecting wealth to settle down. We are expecting AD1 to settle down, you know. In next 2, 3 years what. Of course our credit card income, you know, all those things, the monetization of QR code business. You know, we'll start now.
It's around the corner now, right? Something will start from this quarter three, quarter four and, you know, definitely from next year it will be coming up at a decent level on our balance sheet. The next 18 to 24 months it will get a different shape also. I think, I think we need to be little patient with us and now I think time has come where we'll start commenting very specifically that how much % it will be on our balance sheet side, right? That's the overall sense, you know, we are getting internally.
Sure. Secondly with respect to yield, so maybe you highlighted in terms of 30, 40 bps pressure on NIMs. If I have to look at it in terms of the cost of funds, given that now it's stabilizing there will be some catch-up. Given the pause in the rates, looking at the maturity of our advances, how much could be the improvement on the yield side which we could see, which was, I think, maybe we have not witnessed it over last three quarters. Just things standing as it is and looking at the maturity, what could be the.
Kunal-
potential on that?
Kunal, you know, the... I think if you go and see our asset build up, the mix has changed a lot, you know. Like commercial banking book and housing book is now coming up to the size. There, you know, the yield is not high, you know. Actually, you know, you need to play on NIM and of course you need to play on ROA, right? Because there is a lower OpEx, there is a lower.
Right
... credit cost, you know. I strongly believe that there is an incremental hike in our VL business. We are able to pass on some kind of hike there. We are able to pass on some hike on our even HBL business. There is some hike in our even housing, even personal loan space. Because we are also building a book like commercial banking, in overall yield on book, it doesn't reflect, right? That is why there might be a pressure on NIM because you will see that our cost of money going up, and yields are not there on the overall asset. You know, you will see the lower OpEx and lower credit cost in times to come, you know.
There is a change in our business model also and that's why I mentioned in my speech that generally bank takes 10 years to build, right? We have just done our six years without, you know, without noises, right? I think another four years, I think all these things will settle down and you will see that, you know, we are able to comment specifically on our NIMs and all those things which is so essential for you people to forecast our future, right?
Yeah. With change in mix, no repricing benefit at all from current level of 13.4 odd % in yields?
I would say I don't want to comment to be very honest, but 5, 10 basis doesn't help us, right? It won't be like.
Yeah, sure.
30, 40 basis points. Sure.
Okay.
Right.
Got that. Perfect.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Parameswaran Subramanian from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, thanks for taking my question. I was looking at the slide 35 where you're showing the deposit mix, split between individuals, corporates, et cetera. If you look at it quarter-on-quarter, you know, there is an increase 5 percentage point in, you know, from government and corporates when the individual deposits has come down. Just wanted to understand how sticky is this deposit flow that we are seeing from, more on the bulk side from government and corporates? That's my first question. I'll come back with the second. Thank you.
Rishi, you want to comment?
Sure. Hi, Rishi Agarwal here. Basically, you know, the across the year the deposits between the government and retail have actually moved more towards retail. Only in the last quarter because, you know, we continue to focus on getting more and more granular retail. The composition between, you know, the individuals and corporates sort of looks a bit, you know, slightly lower than the Q3. We managed to win a couple of good government deals. Which is where these are transacting accounts that we have.
We won mandates from the government, the departments as well as businesses where we have transacting accounts from them and that is what has helped us to sort of, you know, get that number over there. These are, these are not bulk deposits, but these are, you know, project accounts where the transactions are happening through us. We are registered on PFMS for a state government project. We are registered on the PFMS for a central government project. We have the nodal account with us. Even the government account, money which is there is actually a transacting account and it is a long-term sticky relationship we, that we have over there.
Okay. Got it. Sir, is the funding cost here higher than what we see for the, say, the individual deposits?
No, hi. I'm Yogesh. Just to add this government account, on your question, cost is absolutely less actually than my individual or corporate because this is transacting account in savings. Cost is lesser than my individual and this is what Rishi mentioned that this is model account. In normal course of business we get these accounts from central or state government. That is why, you can see that government proportion is a little bit high. In terms of corporate also, these are very small corporates. These are not big corporates. Kind of INR 5 crore-INR 10 crore kind of category, which we get small corporate. Otherwise, we are on course.
Yeah. If I can just add to that, Param, if you look what Rishi Agarwal was also articulating, if you look at a year-on-year trajectory then it is exactly same rather, right? In, in fact, it has come down on the government side and corporate is 14% itself. As Rishi Agarwal was saying, throughout the year we have focused a lot on current accounts, we have focused a lot on savings accounts, and that has helped us to even manage the cost without necessarily looking for bulk deposits. Definitely in the last quarter there was a competitive intensity, some amount of as Yogesh and Rishi Agarwal mentioned, we did get some, you know, savings balance money in some of the transacting accounts that we won and that's impacted.
Okay, fair enough. What I understand is the mix will reverse back to something that we've seen, the last few quarters, going ahead, right?
Our endeavor will be to grow, you know, individual and retail money, which is what we have always talked about. That's the ratio that we track, which is basically CASA plus retail. Right? CASA plus retail for us is around 69%. That was same as last quarter of 69%. In March 2022 that was 67%.
Got it. Thanks. one other question from me. Just, sir, if I can, you know, Sanjay, sir, if you could, you know, give some insight into how you're seeing loan growth going ahead. You closed this year at 26%-27% on the Gross Advances side that you reported. Going ahead, you know, how you are seeing the demand environment and, you know, the growth outlook for AU for the next couple of years. That's it from me. Thank you.
I think, as I narrated in my call that, there is lot much optimism in every sector, be it wheel, be it SBL, be it housing, be it commercial retail, sorry, commercial banking, you know. I think it's about us, it's not about that how much really we can grow. The answer is we are looking at this, how much we really want to grow, right? I think last year also we commented that we want to be in the range of 28-30% and that we achieved. If you add on our asset prioritization, we are near to that rate only.
We really want to build more on rationality, you know, we really want to build more on sustainability and, you know, and being in industry for so many years, I strongly believe that sometime the uncertain are built in good times, right? I want to be really cautious here and, you know, because, you know, deposits is also not available at will, right? We have to put lot, much effort there. As you are talking about that, whether we choose or we have a right to choose, you know, it's not there, right? You know, if government money is coming at a semi account, you know, whether it's INR 3,000 crore or INR 4,000 crore or INR 2,000 crore, I need to pick up, right?
We being in a small finance bank, we are early in our journey, so we don't have choices. You know, in the end if you see our overall data profile which says that our CASA is 38%, our retail is 70% and our cost of money is around 5.95%, you know. Of course we are building lot much around digital, you know. You know Holistically you see bank going very strong, you know. Of course our overall asset rationality around growth and then of course the asset quality, you know. That makes me more comfortable that, you know, we have the business model which is sustainable, which is scalable, you know, and that's where we really want to be in this business.
Okay, sir. Thank you so much and all the very best. Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Nitin Aggarwal from Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Please go ahead.
Good evening. Congrats Sanjay and Ritu ji on good results and also for the reappointments. I have one question. Yes, sir. Definitely. On the deposit side we have done very well and you indicated that as an SFB we have to take any good deposit that's coming our way. The excess liquidity on the balance sheet is looking quite high. If you can quantify that number? Now, looking at the potential margin compression and also the pro- SFB profitability showing that additional investments are not adding anything to ROA. What would be your approach on this front? Like, would we look to reduce this excess liquidity or will you continue to raise deposits at this pace?
No, no. I think, Nitin, I would say that whatever way we have done in last six years, you know, whether it's our deposit strategies, deposit build-up strategy, asset build-up strategy, the quality around it, the cost around it, the people around it, the tech around it, like, you know. I'm very happy to see that our credit card business becoming profitable next year. We are already started monetizing our QR code business. We have already started building our video banking as an option to branch banking, right? I think I don't have a choice not to invest, I have to be very honest, because we are looking to build this bank for next maybe 100 years, right? Tech is essential. Tech is essential. Whole tech innovation is essential. You know, you will be left out.
You know, you need to invest with NPCI, you need to invest with Amazon, you need to invest with Salesforce, you need to invest with Visa and FICO, right? Those are coming like, you know, from everywhere now. I don't think that for 1 year or 2 years to make my balance sheet very smarter or, you know, my ROEs and ROAs very attractive, I should not do investment, right? We will keep doing investment because that's the need of the hour and that's the way the bank should be build on. We are also earning very healthy ROE and ROA. Our ROEs are north of 15% in spite of raising so much of capital last year, right? You will see that ROE is coming back, maybe in next 2 years, whatever you expect.
I think then it will be more sustainable because it will be tech-led ROEs and ROAs, right? That's one thing. Second, you know, the other question, because the excess liquidity towards temporarily parked because the money we only got in last week or maybe last two weeks of March, and we already have deployed it. Again, it's we are not in position that we had a lot many choices to say no, right? We said no to many things. If deposit is coming in current account or deposit is coming in savings account at 4.5%, 5%, you know, then we need to accept because we are a banker on a street, which is available for customers to do banking, right?
I think there also, you know, the access is not hitting us so much, you know, because optically on March it looks very heavy, but it's around 128%. As of now, when I'm speaking to you on 25th of this month, it already got resolved, right. That's the sense, you know. It's a very, very dynamic platform, very operational platform. You know, many things we need to accept as we do our business on a regular course, you know. Very confident and very excited that, you know, our 6th year has gone without much of disturbance around us, you know, other than the perception, right.
We are deposit franchise, our asset franchise, our digital franchise, our governance, our overall aspect of banking, you know, we are ticking every box out of it, you know.
Just to add, you know, Nitin, one point that every, like, as boss said, obviously LCR has already normalized. For the last quarter as well, we had reported the average LCR was 128%, right? Again, being a small finance bank, relatively newer bank, you know, compared to some of the existing guys, we do have to keep some excess liquidity. I mean, the regulation requires us to keep 100%. There is a certain amount of board mandate as well, given the, you know, the kind of vintage that we have.
Literally, we must decide. If you see the slide number 31, even in that excess liquidity, we are not losing money. At least it's slightly in positive side. We are keeping the active liquidity for keeping our balance sheet strong and not losing any profit. That's it.
Right. Got it. Thank you so much. Wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We have our next question from the line of Aashlesh Kanani from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Hey. Hi, team. Congrats on the good numbers.
sir, can you speak louder, please? Loudly.
Yeah. I hope you can hear. I hope this is better. First question is on the SBL book. If I include the securitized book, that segment has grown about 7% QOQ, which is a healthy number. What run rate do you expect for this growth in the near future?
SBL book?
SBL book.
SBL book should grow in the range of 20%-22% year-on-year, right? Plus minus 1%-2% here and there because we have got a scale now. It's north of 20,000 crores. I think it will grow around 20%-22% range every year.
Okay. Secondly, you mentioned that you have taken some hikes already on interest rates on the new originations in both SBL and Wheels. Can you quantify roughly a weighted average number or something? The hike which you have taken on new originations over-.
Incremental. In the incremental, possibly you have a data. Incrementally in one-year term, how much incrementally you have passed on to the borrowers?
Yeah. We have already, if you look at the entire year, we have gone up by 80 bps over what it was, last year. Q on Q for the last, the last quarter of last year versus the, this quarter, it's up by 1%. Incrementally on a sequentially on a YOY. If you look at during the year, we have passed on upwards of 80 basis so, in Wheels.
Yeah. SBL, we have largely remained the same course.
Okay. Understood, sir. Sir, any idea what would be the sequential increase during fourth quarter in the Wheels segment?
The rate?
Yeah.
One.
From quarter to quarter four?
Yeah.
It's around 10 bps. 10 bps, yeah. 10-12 bps, yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Thank you. Those are all the questions I had.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Uttam Agarwal from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you. Sir, what's the reason behind doing more securitizing this quarter?
Sorry. What's the question?
It's about optimizing your cost. I think we have raised securitization at 100%.
100 basis.
100 basis lower than the cost of overall incremental money.
In March.
In March.
Okay. At what rate the securitization deals are happening right now?
Sorry?
What rate?
Sorry, Pandit. Pandit, as we said, during the Q4, you know, we securitized INR 3,000 crores, as we have disclosed, and the average rate there would be about 100 basis lower than where we would normally raise term deposits. Obviously, you know, it gives you a longer term funding which is matched, so helps us to optimize our mix on the liability side and also helps us on the overall liability. You know, how much growth that we can do and, you know, focus on retail business rather than, you know, chasing deposits.
Re-reason I'm asking is that any bank who is buying this portfolio might be at least demanding 7%, 7.5%, right? You are saying that your incremental TV rates are more around 8%, 8.5%?
No, no. This is more priority sector loans. You know, typically, you know that larger banks are short on priority sectors. You know, while there is a PSLC market, they always prefer buying the portfolio because it goes directly into their, you know, investment book and stays with them for next three years. To that extent, they are willing to pay a bit of, you know, subsidized cost or a premium on that.
Okay. Okay. Okay, got it. Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Nitesh Jain from Investec. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. Firstly, how should we think about cost to income ratio in FY 2024 and beyond? It will remain at the same level.
How are you? Nitish, how are you doing?
Good, sir. Good evening, sir. Good evening. How are you, sir?
You got the answer? You are worried.
Yeah.
Okay. Now the worry is around cost to income, right?
Yes, yes. How should we think about cost to income in FY 2024 versus FY 2023?
Nitish, you know, maybe I'll start and, you know, Sanjay, you can add. On the cost to income side, as you have seen that, you know, Q1 obviously we went up to 65%, but, you know, we have done well to manage the cost overall for the full year at about 63%, where we had initially talked about 60%-63%. As we have been saying earlier in the call, you know that there are many more profit pools which we have just around the corner. You know, we have been investing and that's part of the reason why our cost to income has been higher. As we move forward maybe end of 2024...
This year obviously the cost of income should broadly be in the range that where we are. But as we move into FY 25, and as I said, some of the investments start tapering off and some of the revenue pools start kicking in, including AD1 and credit cards and other things, hopefully we'll start seeing a gradual decline in cost to income for us.
Nitish, my take on subject is that we are focusing more and more on this, you know. As you know, we are investing lot in our tech and our distribution and to build this bank in a very sustainable and, you know, with a kind of forever mindset, right? At the best case, you know, for your own Excel would be that it would, can be a best case would be 60%, you know, but it won't go above 64%, right? You know, I think that's the range. Ideally, we should be around 60%-62%. You know, that's the, that's the way I'm thinking. You know, it's too long a call. It's a full 1 year, right? You're just in April, so anything can happen.
For your own calculation, it can be done like this.
Sure. Thank you, sir. Secondly, do we plan to scale up, consumer loans, personal loans or any other lending product over the next 2 years? We are quite well on affordable housing. Any plans to
Not really, Nitish. I think we have done enough on our product side, you know. We are running around 15, 16 type of loans, you know, starting from loans, then SVL and all those things. We want to focus on our unsecured book, but it has to come through credit card or we want to really see how our QR code business can build up that and also our, how our data analytics helps us to give a cross-sell option to our existing customers. Both, all three are shaping up well. As I think Uttam told you that we have done INR 800 crore of disbursement in our cross-sell VL book. We have done around INR 200 crore on our QR code business. We have done around INR 1,000 crore around credit card.
All are shaping well, and I think we want to be really like that only for next couple of years, and then we'll see how we want to progress there.
Thank you, sir. Thank you. That's it from my side.
Yeah.
Thank you. We'll take a last question from the line of Sameer B. Desai from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for the opportunity and congrats on a good quarter as well as the appointment. As we mature in our investments over the next 12, 18 months, and with the kind of credit quality that we have demonstrated over a large part of our history, what would you see as a steady state ROA as the business matures in the next Three to five years or will we be happy with the current range of 1.8%-2%? Just from a construct perspective, given that we have a large granular asset book, a liability franchise which is improving on the right side, and probably the curve of high investments will be over. Just wanted to get Sanjay's thoughts on that. Thank you so much.
No, no. I think it's a good question, you know, and thank you for understanding us because we are doing lot many investment to really build future, right? If you ask me about my three to five time horizon, you know, and if the interest rates, you know, doesn't go off the rack, right, you know, and it remains in one range. I strongly believe that this kind of interest rates are not sustainable, right? For any kind of country, you know. I think it will come down. Because, you know, ROA depends on mains and other incomes and credit costs and all those things and ROA.
I think I strongly believe in next 3 to 5 years, the way we are building ourselves and now as of now we'll be just complete in terms of our product offering once AD1 starts coming in. I think anything north of 2% ROA, you know, will be sustainable because we do retail, right? We do in high yields assets. Our cost of money can be managed, you know, and you know that our collection and our ability to collect and manage our asset quality is always there. By bringing lot many tech-led innovations, you know, we'll manage our OpEx also. It all will start kicking in, you know, from next year itself, right?
For next 2, 3 years, you know, if things remain strong, you know, we can surprise many people in terms of our performance, you know. That's my sense. Anything above 2% is quite achievable, you know, given what we have done in last 6 years.
Great, sir. This is helpful. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments. Over to you.
Thank you, Sagar, and thank you everyone for joining the call and for your questions and for all your support. Look forward to interacting more. In case you have any further questions, kindly reach out to the IR team. This is Trent signing off from AU management side. Thank you so much.
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.