Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to Bajaj Housing Finance Limited Q4 FY 2026 Earnings Conference Call hosted by IIFL Capital Services Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there'll be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this 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. Viral Shah from IIFL Capital Services. Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Shah.
Thank you, Nirav. Good evening, everyone. This is Viral Shah from IIFL Capital. Welcome to the 4 Q FY 2026 earnings conference call of Bajaj Housing Finance Limited. On behalf of IIFL Capital, I would like to thank the management of Bajaj Housing Finance for giving us this, us this opportunity to host the call. From the management team today, we have Mr. Atul Jain, Managing Director, Mr. Gaurav Kalani, Chief Financial Officer, and other senior members of the management team. We will have opening comments from the management team, post which we will open the floor for Q&A.
With that, I would like to transfer the call to Atul for his opening remarks. Over to you, Atul.
Thank you, Viral, and the IIFL team for hosting this call. A very good evening to all the participants on the call. I have with me Gaurav, our CFO, Jasminder, Vipin, and Pawan, SBU heads for prime, near prime, and commercial, along with the other senior team members. Now, I'll be referring in during my conversation on the investor deck, which we have uploaded on our website and on both the stock exchanges. I hope you had a chance to go through the same. I'll take approximately 10 minutes to quickly cover important panels on the deck with focus on key updates for the quarter, and thereafter we'll open the forum for Q&A.
Moving to first panel number three. Overall, a good quarter across AUM, asset quality, and operating efficiency, where AUM grew 23% , crossing INR 1.4 lakh crore of AUM during the quarter. PBT grew 20% while PAT was up by 14% due to one-time tax benefit of INR 34 crore in Q4 FY 2025. Excluding which normalized PAT growth also would have been 20% for Q4 FY 2026. OpEx to NTI has improved to 19.2% in the last quarter compared to 21.8% In last quarter of FY 2025. While asset quality has remained stable with GNPA at 27 bps, which is stable sequentially, while year on year there was a improvement from 29 bps to 27 bps. Net NPA remains at 11 bps and annualized credit cost at 19 bps during the quarter.
Geographical network of the company now spans across 226 branches and 128 locations. The company maintains comfortable capital adequacy position with CAR at 22.46% and PBC at 60.88% , both above regulatory thresholds. I'll move to the next panel, which are having quarterly financial indicators. I have already covered overall AUM growth. AUM addition during the quarter was INR 7,294 crore as against INR 6,370 crore in Q4 FY 2025. At a product level for home loans, AUM grew 18% , 24% in LAP, 44% in lease rental discounting, and 13% in DF. DF AUM growth was subdued as we continue to see higher cash flows from the funded projects.
Portfolio composition remained well diversified with home loan being dominant product with 54.1% Mix, LAP at 10.8% , LRD at 22.4% , and DF at 11.5% . Disbursement on a YoY basis grew 23% from INR 14,250 crores to INR 17,506 crore. On a sequential basis, disbursement growth for this quarter was 6% , which improved against 4% growth in Q3. So Q3 to Q2, the sequential growth in disbursements was 4% , while Q3 to Q4 it was 6% . Last year in the Q4, we had seen higher sequential growth versus Q3 at 13% . It was driven by two REIT and large commercial transactions. I move to the next panel.
Year- on- year, cost of funds are moderated by 60 bps to 7.3% against 7.9% In Q4 FY 2025. Sequential cost reduced by 4 bps on account of rate transmission on existing borrowing. While there was no repo cut post-November, but on account of a few rate transmissions on the existing borrowing, it partially offset the impact of incremental money mar-money market borrowing at a higher rate, thus last quarter the money market borrowing was at an elevated rate from the Q3. Borrowing mix remained well diversified with money market composition at 49% , bank borrowings at 41% , and NHB refinance at 10% . Gross spreads overall have moderated by 10 bps to 1.7% in Q4 FY 2026, comparing to 1.8% in Q3 FY 2026 on a sequential basis.
This was pertaining to portfolio yield reduction by 14 bps from lower acquisition pricing as well as portfolio attrition of a higher rate book, partially offset by 4 bps due to the benefit in cost of funds, thus resulting into spread compression of 10 bps. Net interest margin for the quarter dropped by 12 bps sequentially from 4% in Q3 FY 2026 to 3.8% in Q4 FY 2026, largely due to moderation in net interest income, as I explained above. OpEx to NTI, which we have covered in the previous panel, improved to 19.2% in Q4 FY 2026. I'll move to panel six. Asset quality continued to remain healthy with GNPA in line with Q3 FY 2026 at 27 bps and NNPA also stable sequential at 11 bps.
Annualized trade cost for the quarter was 19 bps as compared to 11 bps in Q4 FY 2025. This is only on account of on a YoY basis, we have strengthened our provisioning coverage on stage two assets. If we exclude the strengthening of provision, which you can see in the provision coverage at stage three, we have improved our coverage by 6% If you exclude that, then the overall credit cost would have been 10 bps against 11 bps of last year. By and large, stable. Profit after tax, as called out, grew 14% , from INR 587 crores to INR 669 crore. While excluding one-time impact, it grew 20% . Annualized ROE was 2.3% in Q4 FY 2026 compared to 2.4% in Q4 FY 2025. While ROE was stable at 12.2% against 12.1 % in Q4 FY 2025.
As of March, 2026, net worth of the company stood at INR 22,527 crore. I'll move to panel number seven. This is a new panel in the deck to share an update on actual performance as against the FY 2026 as we had shared in July 2025. All metrics were in line or better against, the initial assessment as the company performed well across AUM growth, OpEx, asset quality and return metrics. AUM growth was at a higher end of assessment range at 23% for the year amidst competitive intensity and also increased portfolio attrition. Company managed NIM moderation to 7 bps as against our initial assessment of 15 to 20 bps on account of higher fee income and assignment income than planned. OpEx to NTI improved to 19.7% against 20%-21% of initial assessment.
Asset quality also improved with GNPA remaining at 27 bps and NNPA at 11 bps against 35 to 40 bps and 15-20 bps, respectively, what we had estimated. ROA and ROE were also ahead of the initial assessment for the year when we published the assessment in July 2025.
I'll move to panel 19. I have talked about majority of the quarterly metric on the previous panel. In terms of other metrics, net interest income grew 15% in Q4 FY 2026, while net total income grew 20% on YoY basis, supported by higher fee and assignment income. Coming to full year performance, net interest income grew 25% to INR 3,752 crores in FY 2026, and net total increase-income increased to INR 4,391 crore, a growth of 23% over the previous year.
OpEx grew 16% to INR 867 crore. Pre-provisioning operating profit was up 25% . Overall PBT grew 20% and PAT by 18% , excluding one-time impact of tax benefit. Last year, PAT was also up 20% . OpEx to NTI improved from 20.9% to 19.7% . This is a full year against a quarter number, what I was saying. Improvement of a 120 bps on a year-on-year basis. Credit cost for the full year was 17 bps against 7 bps in FY 2025. Last year, we had an overlay release of INR 60 crores in FY 2025. If we exclude, then the credit cost for FY 2025 would have been 13 bps.
And if we exclude the strengthening of provision, what we have done in stage two, we would have been by and large stable in the credit cost for the current year versus the last year, excluding overlay release. ROA, as called out, stood at 2.3% against 2.4% and ROE at 12.1% in FY 2026 compared to 13.4% in FY 2025. FY 2025 was a partial year for the capital growth. Capital raise happened during the middle year, mid of the year. That is where the amount of capital on an average deployment was lower. Moving to panel 21. On the portfolio yield, it has contracted by 14 bps on sequential basis as called out earlier. Cost reduced by 4 bps resulting into moderation of 10 bps in the spread. Other metrics we have already covered on the previous panels.
I'll move to next panel, which is 22 panel. The company continued to have a diversified borrowing mix with focus on longer-term funding enabled by highest possible credit rating of AA A stable and relationship with 18 banks. Sequential basis, bank borrowing mix has improved by 1.4% or a 140 bps, CP by a 110 bps and NHB refinanced by a 120 bps, which was reduction of an NCD mix of a 370 bps. So 140 bps of a bank increase, CP of 110 , and NHB refinance of a 120 bps increase, offsetting reduction in NCD mix.
Moving to panel 25. Portfolio mix remains well diversified across products with sequential increment in LRD by 50 bps and LAP by 10 bps, offsetting reduction in home loans by 50 bps and construction finance by 10 bps. I'm on panel 27. Now, this new panel we had added last time to provide an update on Sambhav Housing, which covers our product constituent target metric. Dedicated front-end teams are deployed for both near prime and affordable businesses with differentiated underwriting models. We have centralized hub-based model for near prime while having a regional hubs for affordable. Sambhav loans now are acquiring range of INR 400 crore to INR 425 crore of average monthly disbursements during the quarter, the quarter gone by.
And business is well on track to achieve INR 600+ crore of a monthly disbursement over next 12 months as we called out in the last update. Business is operational across 73 locations and 72 Tier 4 locations. This business has a ATS of average ticket size of INR 28 lakhs with salaried customer segment mix at 68% and customer having CIBIL score of greater than 750 at around 65% in quarter four FY 2026.
I'll move to panel 31. Stage one assets increased by 1 bps on a sequential basis from 99.36% to 99.37% . Stage two improved by 1 bps sequential to 36 bps. GNPA in line with 27 bps and NNPA also flat at 11 bps. Provisioning coverage ratio improved slightly to close to 60% in as of Q4 FY 2026, moving around 1.2% from what it was on Q3 FY-- just at quarter before.
I'll come to the last, which I'll cover the panel with panel number 32. Healthy provisioning coverage across products, which is above 50% . In terms of sequential movement in product level GNPA, home loans increased up by 1 bps to 35 bps. LAP GNPA reduced by 6 bps to 46 bps. Nil GNPA in LRD and flat GNPA for 3 bps in construction finance. Overall, NNPA was flat at 11 bps with improvement across products. That's all from my end on key updates for the quarter. Myself and management team are happy to address questions. Over to you, Viral.
Thank you very much. We'll now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. First question is from the line of Shubhranshu Mishra from Philip Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, Atul. Hi, Gaurav. So quickly, what is the home loans are the percentage of Indian only 54% . That's because I think last quarter we were at around 50.7%. The second is, we've been growing the non-home loan part a little faster. My sense is that we still have a BT-out pressure on our book. So how do we look at the prepayments? What are the levels of prepayments? And how, of that prepayments, what would be part payments, foreclosures, and what is the actual BT out from the customers? And who is this BT out going to? Who are the major competitors where it is going to? Thanks.
Thanks, Shubhranshu. So the question, first question is on the HL. I think HL we engineered, 50.45%. 50.45% because, that's not home loan. There is a HL definition, which is a regulatory definition, where we are required to be 50% of the total assets, which includes the investments and the cash buffer what we hold. So that number is 50.45% , which is a regulatory number, which is different from the home loan composition of the balance sheet.
Your second question that home-- non-home loan had been growing faster. Yes, prepayments in HL quarter four had been the same trend as it had been on the quarter three, so it has not come down. And the BT out rate also remains in the same range of what we had, in term-- No. That is attrition is 20%. BT out will be 14% .
10% .
BT out would be in the range of 12%--
10% .
10%. BT-out range will be 10%. Out of a total attrition of 20%, BT-out will be 10%. Rest would be on account of a sell-down, sale of property by the customer or the part payment or the natural attrition because on the lower interest rates, customers have increased their EMI. The reason for non-home loan will continue. Because at an industry level as well, if you look at basis the data which we got last published on HL, growth in the industry is close to 9.5%.
At a 9.5% HL growth, if our ambition is to grow much faster that which we have put out at 21%-23%, naturally the opportunity in the non-HL will be better or higher, which we can manage through still the PBC mix by ability to assign out the non-HL portion. Which is, which has precisely the strategy what we have followed during the last 1.5 , two years.
Who are these competitors who are getting BT out?
This is largely the banks. Public sector banks are the largest company, followed by HDFC or ICICI. Largest is public sector.
Right.
Largest is public sector banks. I don't have the mix right now, but largest is way significant. I think the largest part or the lion's share is public sector banks.
Understood. Just one follow-up question on the HL part. It has been contracting despite doing the assignment on the non-HL. One, are we likely to get some kind of a regulatory observation because it's been contracting? That's just a speculatory question I'm asking. Second is that, are we, can we also do portfolio buyouts of individual home loans which props up this number as a percentage of our year? Thanks.
The question is, Shubhranshu, because see, regulation says 50 and 60. As long as you are above 50 and 60, there is no ticker from a regulator which can be there on the number what should be there. Because that's a regulation. We remain. There has not been any single month because this regulatory report has to be submitted every month, not at a quarter or a year. We have been submitting this report every month end. There is no single month till now in our history where we have not maintained the regulatory requirement.
Yes, that portfolio acquisition can be pursued. Pool lending can be pursued. We have looked at in the current year. We will look at a pool lending to add on to that. That pool lending or the pool purchase cannot address a very large part. See, our overall acquisitions are very high. Our acquisition growth in the home loan also had been very high, but normal organic, let us say, home loan acquisition versus what we can acquire through a pool lending or a pool purchase, it can add on to a certain part, but it can't substitute. It can't make a HL growth percentage very different from what it is through the organic.
We'll continue to focus on organic, where we are growing, putting our weight on the prime housing, which is the widening and the deepening of funnel, as we called out last time, and through Sambhav Home Loans, where we continue to be in a investment mode, and we are looking significantly to keep on expanding in our Sambhav loans as well as in the prime housing. We'll focus largely on organic. Inorganic, in terms of a portfolio, we are looking at it, but that won't move the needle. That's what I'm saying, Shubhranshu.
Understood. Thank you so much, Atul, and best of luck for ensuing quarters.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, you may press star and one to ask a question. Next question is from the line of Gaurav Khandelwal from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got a couple of those. First, on the margin decline by 12 basis points, a lot of this came from asset yield decline. Can we know which product segment drove this? Was it largely home loan, or are we also seeing some sort of decline in the corporate on the non-home corporate side? What was the lowest sourcing rate and home loans in the quarter? That's my first question. I've got one more after this.
Yeah. Hi, Gaurav. Two questions you have asked. Margin decline of 12 bps is largely led by lower acquisition price and also 15 bps of a pass-through what we have done in our PLR in December. The full impact of that 15 bps of a pass-through what happened on in terms of in December came in the current.
25 bps on the repo side.
Yeah. 25 bps on the repo side, which repo cut was in November because there is a INR 15,000 crore, INR 17,000 crore of a portfolio which is repo-linked. That pass-through had happened in December because the November policy cut happened 1st December. The PLR cut of 15 bps had happened in mid of December, which are pass-through on the current year, current quarter, the full impact on the margin has come. The home loan versus non-home loan rate differential in terms of yield. Yes, quarter four in home loan, the acquisition from the yields have compressed because of a competitive intensity. Q4 is normally a high competitive intensity market and the yields, the acquisition prices come down to a certain extent. It is also resulting from a change of a mix.
You look at, see the largest mix or the highest margin product in our balance sheet is construction finance or developer finance. That has grown 13% versus one of the least, versus home loan, which is lower margin or a lease rental discounted, which is a lower margin, has grown faster. The change of a mix, it is not an individual product, but a change of a mix also which plays a bit of a role in terms of a margin movement. The lowest sourcing is in line with whatever public sector bank lowest sourcing will happen. I'll not have the exact number. It is in the prime housing, we exactly compete with all the banks, including SBI, HDFC upfront. It would be absolutely in line with whatever the banks are happening.
Got it. Given what we know right now, Gaurav, is it fair to assume that at least for first quarter the yields should broadly remain stable, if not fall down?
So yields in quarter one.
There would be slight compression we'll see there also, while cost of fund side also we'll see some marginal benefit of 3 to 5 basis points. On the yield side, we may see a slightly higher impact.
See, because the current acquisition pricing in month of April, we have not seen the banks moving the needle on there. The current acquisition pricing remains in line, more or less in line with what was quarter four. A slight uptick in small compression may or may not be there. Small compression. It would be by and large sideways. That's what I can say.
Got it. Okay. My, and my other question is slightly on the medium term.
In the interest of transparency, since you asked on quarter one. Through the year, we are likely to see some compression because largely the new acquisition, as the old acquisition keeps on attriting, normally interest rate reduction cycle impact is not only in the current year but in the next year as well. The book which has get accumulated during the last year is a lower margin book and a lower priced book, and the book which is going out is a higher priced book. Through the year, we will see some contraction in the margin, which will get partially offset by OpEx efficiency and partially offset by lower loan losses because last year we have strengthened our provisioning coverage both on stage two and stage three.
Normally, otherwise, the 17 bps would have been a 10, 11 bps . Some benefit you will get from there. Some benefit we'll get from better OpEx efficiency.
Got it.
Which should, to a large extent, offset the impact on the yield compression. For the year it will happen. Quarter one can be sideways from quarter four. But for the year, as the portfolio keeps on going up, new portfolio, which is at a lower rate, keeps on going up, there will be some impact.
Got it. Thanks. This is very clear. This brings me to my next question. We ended the year at 2.3% ROA. Your medium-term guidance is 2%-2.2%. Given what you're saying, some limb compression offset by cost efficiencies, plus hopefully better credit cost. Plus leverage should also increase slightly in FY 2027. In that case, FY 2027 could be another year when you are above the medium-term ROA guidance. Is that a fair conclusion?
We should be towards the upper end of the medium-term guidance, may not beat that. Leverage doesn't have an impact on the ROA. In fact, it compresses ROA.
Yeah. Got it. Yeah.
ROA, it will improve to a certain extent. We should be in the medium-term range with a bias towards the hitting the upper end of the medium-term range in the ROA. This is our computation. Of course, I must follow the current times are very volatile. We last year also gave our full year assessment in the, with the, along with the quarter one call. This year also we'll give a full assessment for the year in, along with the quarter one call. I'm answering broadly because I thought in interest of transparency since you asked for Q1, and I said the Q1 is largely going to be stable.
I did not want it to lead to impression saying that we are saying go forward also stable because we estimate in full year it will have some impact. That's where I just elaborated on the question.
Fair. So, so effectively then some decline on margin is what will take us to closer to the 2.2% ROA mark from the 2.3% ROA mark.
Yeah. So 10 bps of a kind of a differential in ROA is likely to happen in case of a-- But the-- See, there are many, uh, ifs and buts. That's why I said that quarter one we'll do. If there is a policy rate change from the regulator, we generally will not have an impact because then the ability to pass on will be there. We are assuming a scenario where the money market rates are higher, but the policy rates are not moved up, so our ability to pass through is not there. Now, if the ability to pass through is there, which is in case of a policy rate change scenario, uh, then that scenario will not apply. That's where I said, Gaurav, we'll wait for quarter one because there are too many balls in the air as of now.
So we'll wait for quarter one.
Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely, I understand. Sorry. The final housekeeping question, what is the duration of your money market borrowing?
We generally borrow between three years to five years. Generally, we borrow three to five years with some part of 10 years. But last year, I think generally it was three year and a five year. We generally borrow three and a five year.
This is just the money market there.
This is NCDs.
Yeah. No, exactly. I wanted to know the money market duration. How short is it?
No, no. CP is hardly 2%, 3% of the. CP is how much of the book on 31st? 5% of the book. That's three month to one year. That on an average would be around five, six months.
Okay, got it. Okay. Thanks for that.
Thank you. Participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. Next question is from the line of Raghav from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. good evening and thanks for the opportunity. I have a few questions. one, can you give me the segment-wise, on-book yields for the full year FY 2026? If you can divide this, you know, between home loans, LAP, developer finance and LRD, that will be very helpful.
You will have some.
Yeah. Broadly at a portfolio level, Raghav, home loans will around 8.50%-8.60% corridor. LAP would be around 150 basis points above that. LRD around 7.98% corridor. Developer finance would be 11.5%-11.75% corridor.
Understood. Can you help me understand at what rate are you borrowing from the NCD market? I think the last issue that you would have done in January was priced at 7.1% . What would be the incremental rate on NCDs if you were to borrow today?
So incremental rate, Raghav, works in two ways. Like, let us say in December, November, January, we would have been borrowing only fixed and not covering it through our OIS. Now in last month, whatever we have borrowed at three-year NCD at the coupon rate is 7.5- -
7.6%.
7.6%. You match it with OIS because now then you convert fixed to floater, so the rate is much finer because there's always opportunity. In the current scenario, where the fixed pricing is higher because of volatility in the market, we largely take a fixed money and then convert through the OIS to a floater, which is completely competitive. Completely competitive with the bank rate floater.
Understood. Does that effectively result in a lower overall cost of fund when you?
Much lower. Much lower on. The book is converted to floating, so it's not a fixed money, but you get it converted to a floating near to repo.
Sure.
It is sub 7%. It gets converted to in a floater sub 7%.
Understood. And then I think for this quarter, your cost of funds is somewhere around 6.99% or 7% I think. That's what I saw. I think you mentioned that you expected to go down further. Now, how would that happen that your cost of funds will decline further?
It will be marginally sideways. Like we're seeing sideways, 2, 3 bps of a reduction should come because there is some reset of the borrowings. Like, there is a NHB re-borrowing and also the maturity of a older, higher cost NCDs in the first quarter. Which even in the new rates when it gets substituted, there is some release which comes. Partially it will get offset from a higher cost of new borrowing in the quarter one, which we are seeing in the current market there. Still at a overall level, we should see a minor reduction. Sideways, but a minor reduction towards the minor reduction in the cost of fund in the quarter one from quarter four.
Understood. Just last question, the incremental yield on the home loan book is how much for you right now? On book I think is 8.5%, 8.6%. Incrementally how much?
Incremental average would be +8%.
8.10%.
8.10%, 8.15%. Because we are seeing average, because this is inclusive of near-prime, affordable prime, everything put together. Incremental will be 8.05%, 8.10%.
Understood. That's why you're saying that there will be spread compression in FY 2027 also from 1.7%.
Yeah. Spread compression, but, result-- not resulting equally to ROE compression because partial offsetting through the loan loss and partial there, but still ROE compression of around 10 bps. That will depend, like I called out in earlier call also, depend upon how does the policy rate environment happens. We are assuming no policy throughput, which that means that we don't have an ability to pass on the impact of cost of fund to the market. If we have an ability to pass through, then the impact can be positive.
Understood. Say for example, there is a repo rate hike. Do you think that considering the competitive intensity out there, and the moderation in real estate sales, the industry will generally be in a position to hike the home loan rates? Or do you think that the competition is so high that even though there may be a repo rate hike, the industry will still not want to pass on the hike?
Something will get passed. In case of a policy rate hike, one, in any case, we are assuming that we what we normally see from month of May onward in the year, generally the rate, the yields tend to harden up from what it are there in the February, March quarter. That's a normal pattern in the industry. Leave that aside as well. If there is a policy rate hike, it has never happened that there is no pass-through has happened. The pass-through may not be full. Pass-through may be 10, 15 bps instead of a 25 bps, but it is not a scenario where banks or anyone will not pass through when there's a policy rate hike.
There's a transmission of a hike in the cost which gets reflected in the portfolio, not exactly apple to apple, not 25 to 25 bps, but let us say 15, 20 bps, which will be there.
Portfolio will completely get repriced. A large portion on the repo side of the repo book, repo rates increase, then it will.
in case there is a repo hike, the spreads would not compress. Would that be the right understanding?
Yes. Because the ability to pass through the cost of fund, because today we are assuming whatever the incremental cost of fund in the money markets is there in absence of a repo rate hike, we will not have an ability to pass it through. That means we are factoring the scenario that we are absorbing that impact. In case of a policy rate hike, then that ability to pass on is there. There will not be a compression.
Understood. That's all from my side, and thank you for all the answers.
Thanks, Raghav.
Thank you. Participants you may press star and one to ask a question. Next question is from Viral Shah from IIFL Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Atul. I have three questions. One is, first of all, if we assume, let's say there is no repo rate hike, do you first of all see any need and requirement for, say, reducing the PLR rates further given what is currently there in the market competition, diluted G-Sec yields, et cetera?
Viral, if there is no repo rate hike, I don't think the, I think the scenario of a cut off prio- rate is over. Because if we are looking at to cost of funds to marginally inch up, the marginal cost of fund is already up in quarter four, and it is given the after loss, it's looking up. And on the-- even on the portfolio repricing, what we are looking at is not sideways what we called out. And from a quarter two, it will start to inch up in case there is no money market remains as it is. So the there is no pass-through further is what can be envisaged in the current scenario. In case of, Until unless the market because in these days, I don't know whether you should be predicting markets or not.
If the market completely turn on their head and there are, we don't know. On the normal scenario, there is no, in case of a-- I don't think there is any cut scenario further in the PLR, which is envisaged as of today.
Got it. On the OIS piece that you mentioned, the one that you're using to, say, convert the fixed into floating, how will this behave in, say, a rate hike scenario? Secondly, basically, what is the share of currently, say, on a behavioralized basis, the floating rate loans or rather the borrowings, I mean?
Floating rate borrowings are today 63% . That is including the OIS portion. So 63% is the floating rate borrowings, Viral, which includes the OIS portion. Now, this gets converted to fixed to floating means then it remains if you are holding till maturity, it behaves like a floating rate book. So whatever is in the policy rate movements is there, that will move on from there on.
Got it. Atul, my second question is with regards to the stage two PCR increase that we did. Was that purely just a strengthening measure, or are you seeing any trends in terms of, say, early delinquencies, et cetera? Because the some bureau data analysis was showing early bounce rates. Not now. This is still a three, four-month-old scenario and thing that I'm referring to. Do you see any of those things in your portfolio? Secondly, about the stage two PCR increase.
No. So, Viral, in our portfolio in all the metrics, whether it's a first bounce or first 12-month bounce, early bounce, whether it is prime, non-prime, affordable, LRD, in any case we don't have lab. All the bounce metrics also are showing a downward trend. We map our portfolio bureau spread, bureau, at a portfolio level on a quarterly we do a scrub to see where portfolio stands. It is showing improvement quarter on quarter, every quarter, including on March 2026, it is showing improvement. So there is no micro-level stress we are seeing. Given a overall macro scenario, we just thought that, instead of creating any other overlay then which creates another problems, we just thought that it is better that internal stage two assets because stage two assets in any case we know are in, they are not stage one.
They have moved to a certain kind of a difficulty level. We just thought that we will increase our stage two coverage. Purely from a prudence point of view from the current macro environment. No micro input has gone in this.
Got it. For April month also you are seeing similar trends, in terms of bounce rates, et cetera?
Absolutely same. Across portfolios.
Got it. Got it. My last question, Atul, just more of a data keeping question. What's the size of the Sambhav book now? Last quarter, we mentioned around close to INR 5,000+ crore , and the mix of it between affordable and near prime.
Close to INR 9,000 crore is the Sambhav AUM now. INR 9,000 crore is the Sambhav AUM, roughly. You asked for the mix of near prime and affordable. I had to do the mix. I have to do the mix. I'll come back to you with that. Ravi will inform you later on.
Sure. Yeah. Thank you so much.
Generally, we look at it as a Sambhav put together. Roughly you should take 70, 30, 60-- 70-30. Right? Between affordable and near-prime.
Right.
We'll come back to you with that. I don't want to give you a wrong number.
Got it. Got it. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from line of Omkar from Ascendancy Capital. Please go ahead.
No, no, thank you. I think all my questions were answered. Thank you.
Thank you, Omkar. Thank you. Next question is from the line of Abhijit Tibrewal from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good evening, sir. Thank you for taking my question. Actually there's one question I had. We've heard from leaders like you that whenever interest rates or policy rates stabilize, the propensity for BT-out comes down. Probably that's more a function of degradation from these PSU banks coming down. What I'm trying to understand is why you mentioned that you guided for a 10 basis points decline in ROA, where the margin or margin decline could be offset by OpEx efficiencies credit costs.
Just trying to understand, is the competitive intensity today at a point where even without policy rates moving up, the large HFCs who are catering to the prime customers can take a rate hike?
Abhijit, we in the prime market, the market which we operate, it is the banks which set the rate. It is SBI and HDFC who are the rate setters. We are not the rate setters.
Right.
We have to follow the market pricing, what they are there. Your observation of whenever the policy rates are stable over a period of time, BT-out rates go down. That is what we are estimating. We estimate the quarter four was an exception because normally as per normal process, it should have gone stabilized by February, March. February it should have because November was our last cut. Three months after the rate cut, last cut should have stabilized. Quarter four, February, March, we saw significant high intensity competitive activity in the market on the pricing side from both public sector banks as well as the private sector banks, which is showing us that in the Q4 our BT-out rates have not declined from what they were in Q3.
But our estimate would be that April is largely a spillover from March because a lot of sanction letters, a lot of checks gets cut in the March from the bank's point of view, which get deposited in the April. But my sense would be that now we should see start the-- starting down of a BT-out rate from May onward. To a certain extent is and I think my knowledge of financial systems says that it should go down. Of course, but in now, as far as the prime housing is concerned, we consider irrational competitive activity as a feature, not as a novelty. We prepare for that scenario. That's the scenario which we called out. We said when we said that we did not guide it for that.
I'll just put a nuanced view. I said that, as of today, we estimate that is because, but we said that we'll guide for in the quarter one, as we come with the quarter one result, because we'll have a far better clarity on the macro issue, on the global scenario, and also what is the stance of the regulator or the super in terms of policy rates or where it is headed to. If the policy rate hikes are there, like we called out, we may not have a margin compression. We are today estimating the policy rate hikes are not there, but the money market remains elevated.
We'll come with the full guidance in the quarter one, along with the quarter one results.
Sure, sir. That is fair. The only other question I had is, while you mentioned that March, the money market rates, particularly in cities, the rates were elevated. I mean, that same thing continues in April as well, or?
Yeah.
In April you've seen the rate pull off.
Money market continues to be at a significantly elevated portion even today as well. Because it is linked to the rupee, as a rupee , it largely rupee and expectations of, you know, if you look at our OIS today, it prices in 75 bps kind of a rate hike scenario, which I am not fully certain. I will not say that is my estimate of a 75 bps hike. OIS market, which is a money market does. That's why money market looks ahead. It is pricing in a significant uptick in the policy rate, if I have to say so, because OIS rates and the money market rates are implying a significant uptick in the policy rates as it moves forward. We have to wait.
I think if the scenario settles down, my own assessment, if the scenario settles down in matter of weeks, we should have the-- we should see normalization of market fast, but we have to wait for the market to shape up.
What about banks? Are they also lending at maybe 5, 10 basis points higher than the rate at which they were lending, say, in January or February?
By and large, the same price.
The same. They have not increased their pricing.
Yeah.
It is only the money markets that.
No, the difference is because the banks normally lend at a floating. Till the rates don't move up, they'll not move there. Money market works ahead, looks ahead because it is at a fixed. That's the differential. Money market and the banks normally behave in a different manner because the underlying is different. One is floating, one is fixed.
Okay. Sir, just to conclude this then, that means on the liability side, if I look at the cost of borrowings, they have largely bottomed out. From here in the subsequent quarters, there's a good probability that the cost of borrowings now inch up.
It will depend upon whether the money market prices remains elevated, let us say, after this quarter one as well. Because quarter one , we are likely to see the similar. Even if the money market price remains elevated, the offset which we get from the higher cost maturities, will mean that we will be either at the same price or a marginal tone down of the cost upfront for the quarter one . Quarter two onward depends upon how do the money market either. See, one thing has to move, either the policy rate will move or the money market rates will come down. That's what, Abhijit , I'll say after there is a stability in the macro factors.
Either there is a policy hike, rates hike or the money, the entire rates move up or the money market starts becoming normalized. We'll have to wait for the quarter two pass, Abhijit. The geopolitical market to get stabilized for us to have a firm view saying that which side the market is behaving. We are by and large our portfolio is floating, so our ability to pass through the cost impact is there to that extent.
Got it, sir. This is very, very useful. Thank you for patiently answering all my questions. I wish you and your team the very best.
Thanks, Abhijit. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from Nischint Chawathe from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi. You know, just looking at the trends in fee and assignment income, I mean, both the line items. For last two years, we have been sort of consistently ahead of the overall loan growth. How should one think about it? Kind of, you know, continue to sort of see acceleration in these two line items.
Loan growth, Nischint, we would want to be significantly ahead, the way we always want to grow 2x of industry. That is what we always stated, and we want to grow, and we want to continue. There is no change in the growth chance of the company. We remain very comfortable with wherever the portfolios are there. That of course, I'm a general caveat I'm giving that we'll wait for how the overall macro and overall economic situations goes. But as of today, this is the current scenario. We remain significantly upbeat and significantly in the growth mode.
We want to grow much faster than what is there and which is either in line with what we have been growing or even we want to grow a bit faster than what we have grown during the last year as well, as far as the current year is concerned. Assignment income is a function of the growth mix, home loan growth mix versus a non-home loan growth mix. If we have a higher home loan because we have a leverage levels available for us to be able to leverage our balance sheet more.
That was the reason for the assessment when last year we gave out an assessment of that our assignment income is going to be lower because we said that if our home loan portfolio growth is able to sustain our overall growth without our assigning, we will not like to assign. Because we have the, right now, the width available to go for more leverage and in the process earn more ROE. However, if it comes to that situation where home loan BT-out rates are not climbing down and the home loan growth versus a non-home loan growth remains a bit subdued, then to balance that, assignment income will assignment will play a balancing factor, Nischint , always to continue to grow all portfolios, whatever we can grow, minus the HL growth, what we can organically grow in the home loan.
Have I answered your question?
Sure. Just on fee income, actually. You know, some has sort of shown acceleration versus loan growth.
Fee income INR 100 crore and this year it was INR 297 crore broadly driven by insurance income and some part of foreclosure income.
Broadly expected to grow in line with the overall loan growth.
Yes, with the growth in the business. Yes.
Okay. Perfect. That answers my question. Thank you very much. All the best.
Thanks, Nischint .
Thank you. As there are no further questions, I'll now hand the conference over to Mr. Viral Shah for closing comments.
Thank you, Nirav . Thank you Atul, Gaurav, and Bajaj Housing team. Atul, do you want to make any closing comments?
No, no. Thanks, Viral, and thanks, everyone on the call for patient, listening and giving us the opportunity to tell, our quarterly results. Thank you all very much.
Thank you very much. On behalf of IIFL Capital Services Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.