Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the City Union Bank Limited, Q2 FY 25 conference call, hosted by Ambit Capital Private Limited. As a reminder, all participants' lines need to 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 touch tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Prabal Gandhi from Ambit Capital. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Neera. I once again welcome everyone for City Union Bank second quarter earnings call. We have with us Mr. N. Kamakodi, MD and CEO, Mr. R. Vijay Anandh, Executive Director, and Mr. J. Sadagopan , CFO. Without further ado, I'll hand over the call to Dr. Kamakodi for his opening remarks and first question from the floor, over to you. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Good evening, everyone. Hearty welcome to all of you for this conference call to discuss the unaudited financial results of City Union Bank for the second quarter half year ended September 2024 . The board approved the results today, and I hope you all have received the copies of the results and the presentation. At the outset, our bank is completing 120th year of operation this year. I take this opportunity to salute all our predecessors who had laid the foundation for our growth and also thank our staff, our customers, and investor community at large, who had shown great faith in our bank. The date of incorporation was 20th, 31st October, 1904 .
In our Q4 financial year 2024 and the Q1 financial year 2023 con calls, we had shared with you all our expectations for our current financial year as below. All the new digital initiatives are supported by strong branding of senior level management. We could see visibility on growth front going forward. We are also looking for other avenues for growth and putting our best effort to reach the industry level growth as soon as possible in credit. Of course, the MSME digital lending model will be expanded to secure retail lending, such as housing, LAP, micro LAP. In our last con call, we had also stated that we are building capacity as well as human resources in order to support our retail credit. On asset quality front, we will continue with the trend of reduced slippages, coupled with the improved recovery for the current year.
Our ROA back at our long-term average of 1.5, and it should continue. Since we are taking the cost upfront, our cost income ratio will be slightly higher in the current year, and once the benefits of digital lending and other initiatives transfer into growth, the CIR will start coming down. The reduced slippages and improved recoveries will help to maintain our NPA growth. These are all the points I shared with you all during Q4 financial year 2024 and Q1 financial year 2025 con calls, as the expectations for the financial year 2024, 2025. For the current quarter and the current half year ended on 30th September , 2024, we are almost on track on our expectations which we shared with you all.
We had registered a 12% advance growth for Q2 financial year 2025, year- on- year, and our advance increased to INR 48,122 crore, from INR 43,688 crore in Q2 financial year 2024. You may observe, we restarted our growth at the beginning of 2022, post-COVID, and reached the 14% growth for the December 2022, compared to the previous year, 31st December 2021. The calendar year 2023 was not good for us, as we had to unwind our Agri gold portfolio, among other things, and growth for December 2023 slipped to 2% compared to December 2022. We restarted in January 2024 and reached double digit growth for June 2024.
Also, on a sequential basis, that is compared to 30th June 2024 , our advances had increased by more than INR 2,100 crore, a 6% growth in Q2, and we had achieved the double-digit growth consecutively in the last two quarters. We have seen considerable improvement in our efficiency levels of credit sourcing, along with the digital transformation as a result of reasonable credit growth. Our plans in pipeline, like retail vertical and other avenues in advances, will support us in terms of our credit growth once they are all getting ahead. Actually, if you speak, the current credit growth is achieved only with our traditional business lines like MSME, gold loan, etc. Actual incremental gold credit growth from the retail and all are yet to start.
Whatever growth we have achieved so far, this 12%, is basically from our core business, which we had done in the past. Our deposits had grown by 9% and stood at INR 52,369 crore for Q2 2023, as compared to INR 52,113 crore for Q2 financial year 2024. In Q2 financial year 2025, our deposits has increased by INR 2,512 crore or 5% growth in the current quarter. The average CD ratio for Q2 financial year 2025 stood at 84%. Cost of deposits stood at 5.13% for H1 financial year 2025, which is almost similar to the last quarter, is Q1 financial year 2025.
On asset quality front, as we said earlier, the trend of recoveries over and above the slippages is continuing. For Q2 financial year 2025, the total slippages is INR 176 crores, while the total recoveries is INR 263 crores, consisting of INR 201 crore from live NPA account and INR 64 crore from technically written off accounts, resulting in the, like, say, the slippages falling below the recoveries. For the half year ended financial year 2025, our total slippages was INR 354 crore as against INR 607 crore in the first half last financial year.
On the other hand, our total recoveries in H1 financial year 2025 is INR 201 crore, consisting of INR 393 crore from live NPA accounts and INR 108 crore from technically written off account. As a result, our gross NPA percentage has sequentially decreased from 4.66%, on, like, say, last year, 30th September, 4.47% in Q3, like I said, December 2023, 3.99% for the 31st March 2024, and 3.88% in, let's say, 30th June 2024, and now further reduced to 3.54% for the current quarter, 30th September 2024.
Similarly, our net NPA number had reduced to INR 175 crore at a net NPA to 1.62% in Q2 financial year 25, from 1.34% in the same period Q2 financial year 24. Sequentially also, it has decreased from 1.87% on 30th June 2024 to 1.62%, that is fifty basis point reduction in the net NPA percentage for the third quarter currently. We conveyed that expected slippage in the financial year 25 would be about INR 800 crore during Q4 financial year 24 con call. We are on track.
As per the trend, we should be reaching between 1- 1.25% net NPA for the year end. We understand that we are outliers in the provision coverage ratio. We will explore the possibilities of increasing the provision coverage ratio also this year. Our interest income had grown by 10% in Q2 financial year 2025, and increased to INR 1,434 crore from INR 1,304 crore in Q2 financial year 2024. Our yield on advances stood at 9.81% for Q2 financial year 2025, against 9.71% for the same period last year.
Our net interest margin for Q2 financial year 2025 had improved to 3.61%, as compared to 3.54% in Q1 financial year 2025. For H1 financial year 2025, it stood at 3.60%. Looks like the interest rate reduction cycle is some time away. As discussed in the earlier call, the margin should be at 3.6%, plus or minus ten basis points, as we discussed during multiple times in the past.
Our cost to income ratio for Q2 financial year 25 had reduced to 47%- 47.06%, as compared to 49.34% in the Q1 financial year 2025, and 51% in the Q4 2024 , showing a sequential decrease. During the earlier calls, we had said that we will see reduction in the operating profit, but we will manage the PAT with the help of like a reduced credit cost. After six quarters or so, we have started seeing operating profit also showing a like a growth as business has started showing like a growth which is also being converted into like a improved operating profit cycle.
Coming to the cost-to-income ratio, once again, the cost-to-income ratio reduced in the current quarter due to reasons like-
Ladies and gentlemen, we have lost the management line connection. Please stay connected while we reconnect them. Thank you. ... Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for patiently holding. We have the management line back on call.
Yeah. Sorry, there was a call there. Once again, like, you could see the coming back to the cost income ratio once again. We saw the cost income ratio for the Q2 coming down to 47.06% from 49.34% in the Q1 financial year 2025. It was 51.26% in the Q4 financial year 2024. Basically, like, we said the let's say the cost income ratio will start coming down from the 50% and we are seeing some action.
This time the impact was more because we could see the loan processing charges significantly improving from INR 23 crore in the first quarter to INR 38 crore in the second half, which also contributed for the reduction in the cost income ratio. Similarly, compared to last year, let's say interest received from the income tax return. Last year first half was about INR 9 crore, which increased about let's say INR 40 crore in the first half. So as suggested in the earlier con call, we should start seeing the cost income ratio moderating between 40- 50% going forward, and then showing a continuous decline.
Our ROA for the first half is at 1.55%, compared to 1.54% in the corresponding period last year corresponding period. As stated in the earlier con call, the ROA is stable for the first qua- let's say for the few quarters. And we should be able to let's say like things are stabilizing and probably inching up going forward. Overall SMA-2 to the advances currently stands at 2.03%. As we have been discussing in the past let's say we are seeing the number like coming down.
So we had achieved a broad growth of 8% in the current compared to the H1 stands at INR 550 crore against the INR 708 crore for this year H1. There is some like a base effect, because year before last, we had a very high like a profit in the second half. So which is getting maintained. But overall, you could see a significant increase, let's say from Q1 to Q4 also, and we are able to see things stabilizing going forward. As per the latest LCR guideline, our LCR is calculated as 121% for the 30th September 2024.
We had taken steps both on liability and asset front, like going for some non-callable deposits, converting some foreign currency deposits on maturity into like liquid securities and things like that. So to sum up, our efforts so far had helped us to push our advances growth rate towards the industry growth rate. We will and as I told you earlier, the growth so far has come purely from our traditional MSME and gold agricultural and all, the new retail vertical and all, we are in the process of doing that. And once they come into the picture, they should be helping us to get some more incremental advances growth.
We are confident to restore our credit growth on par with the industry level sooner and go beyond. Our growth has started showing visibility on achieving our particularly, like, a better NII growth and operating profit growth also, so both NII and operating profit, let's say growth was muted, or even we saw few quarters of subdued NII and operating profit in the last few quarters, so we have started seeing visibility in terms of seeing both NII and operating profit to grow, so that this will be helping us to, let's say, have a, let's say, a stable profitability as we move forward. We will reach between 1% to 1.25% net NPA by the year-end is our current visibility.
And we are exploring the possibilities of improving the coverage ratio as we will be in a position to get a clarity as we move into the second half fully. We expect our margins, cost to income ratio, NPA slippages to stay stable around the numbers communicated to you in the earlier con calls. And finally, we are seeing better visibility on growth numbers from our conventional areas, and new avenues will definitely help us to add extra growth numbers, which will be available going forward in the future. So basically, this is what I wanted to communicate. With this, I will probably take a break, and I open to you for questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on your touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line, Mona Khetan from Dolat Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Good evening, and congratulations on a September. So my first question is around the, you know, new retail products. So have many of these products already been introduced? And, I mean, from a full year perspective, which is the high growth that is very interesting.
See, as told in the earlier call, like, say, the things are being now put. Like, say, the systems have taken in a shape, writing the policies, training the people, having the people in place, all these things are now taking a shape. As explained in the last quarter, some amount of contribution to the business will start coming from the fourth quarter onwards. The significant contribution you will start seeing in the next financial year. As of now, like, as we told, we have started taking expenditure on that front, but the business and the income is like, say, yet to start. So, the preparatory works are underway.
Sure. And for the full year, the entire group, what sort of growth do you expect by the 35?
Yeah. This question was asked again and again in the last two con call also. I refrained from giving a number. So, you have started now. When I gave that number and all, like, say, I did not have anything to support, and now you have started seeing the improved credit growth, both in the first half and second half, the numbers are framing up. And, we are taking all our steps to ensure that we touch the not less than industrial growth rate and probably, like, say, a small growth over and above that, before the year end is what we are planning to achieve.
Okay. My second question is on this NBFC, which you have, and if you look at the last quarter, two quarters, the growth in this book, the book had grown by over 15% sequentially, where you lent to NBFC. Now, I understand this is a very competitive segment, so what is helping this growth, if you could throw some light on it?
See, basically, like, we have the current level of NBFC, like, as you see, between the 30th June and, like, say. so our incremental NBFC book for the 30th September is about INR 315 crore. year-on-year growth on that front is about, like, say, INR 500 crore, and you have some repayments also happening in that portfolio. And we have not compromised with that yield on that, like, say, it is closer to the average nine to nine point, the average yield of the portfolio is just under the average yield of nine point seven is the average yield, and the portfolio yield is also closer to that.
Sure, sir. Okay. Thank you. I'll come back to this.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, you may press star and one to ask a question. A reminder to all the participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of M.B. Mahesh from Kotak Securities Limited. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, sir.
Yeah, good afternoon, Mahesh. Yeah, go ahead.
Just this yield on advances which improved this quarter, if you can just kind of highlight what happened there?
Basically, we looked into the yield of Gold Loan portfolio, which we increased in the last three, four months, which was about 20% of our portfolio. And also, like, as we had been discussing, like, we could last year, when the rate of interest increasing cycle was happening, we could not transmit a portion of that. So, keeping that in the mind, we are closely looking into the books which is coming for the renewal. But, and, we are able to, let's say, see some amount of, like, say, transmission in that also. So, that has helped us to see some amount of, like, say, a few basis points in improvement in the yield.
This will continue for the rest of the year, given that everything would have repriced?
Yeah. Till probably the interest decreasing interest rate cycle starts, we will be in a position to go for this, let's say, review of the rates and take a call in tune with our expectation of overall strategic imprint, particularly on the net interest margin.
Sure. Second question on this recovery from written-off, about INR 95 crores has come in the current quarter. Sustainability at these levels?
See, by and large, the total recovery numbers will be, like, say, plus or minus INR 20-25 crore. We don't... When we take effort, we don't differentiate between which is live and, which is typically written off and all. So what happened, I mean, the efforts for both the clearly written off accounts and the live accounts are the same. So, if we recover live account, it will reduce in the, what you call, provision. If the recovery happens in the technically written off account, it will be the other income. So how, the balance, it is very difficult to exactly predict how it will happen.
No, in the sense, the environment for recovery still looks to be fairly healthy. No?
Absolutely.
Last question, sir. You had indicated that NPA will come down to about 1.2% by the end of the year, is it?
Yeah, for the financial year.
If you do not reach that number, you will have to take, you intend to make the higher provisions. Should we look at that?
See, with the visibility, whatever we are getting in terms of the slippages and recovery, we are giving this. Like, say, you cannot make a clear-cut thing, whether, like, how it will happen and all such things. We have to wait and see how it happens. So similarly, like, the, like, increasing the provision coverage ratio or having the net NPA and all are finally, like, say, one, like, if you reduce the, let's say, increase the provision, the net NPA will decrease and final profit will be there. If the, I mean, this trade-off, we have to take a call on an ongoing basis.
That is, based on the current level of policies, whatever we have been looking into, based upon the trend in recoveries and the visibility in slippages, this is what we are expecting at this moment of time. Any change in the expectation, we will communicate in the subsequent conference calls.
Perfect, sir. Done. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhijeet from Axis Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. Sir, first question is on deposit growth. How do you see liability situation for City Union Bank and cost of deposits?
See, like, it's stable as we could match the credit growth with the deposit growth. Like, say, like, some 33 days with about 1.5% rate of interest and all, we had to introduce the scheme and all. So, we could see the-
Ladies and gentlemen, we have lost the management line connection. Please stay connected while we reconnect them. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for patiently holding. We have the management line back on the call. Yes, sir.
So basically, yeah, to continue with your answer on deposits, we don't see any, like, say, tension over there. We were able to match the deposit growth in tune with the credit growth, and we see we should be, the current cost, whatever that has been observed should continue for the second half of the year also, by and large.
Sure, sir. So what is the LCR as of September end?
121 or something, we gave during the call.
Sure, sure. Sir, just one observation. In the sectoral deployment of loans, the loans make up, you know, the loans to the trade, retail trade and wholesale trade, that continues to reduce every quarter. What is the issue here?
See, the trader segment, if they get the MSME certification, it gets repriced, I mean, the calibrated as the MSME thing. It depends upon the Udyam registration. The explanation is given in the slide number 31 at the bottom. So if you, let's say, add both by and large, some of the traders, because of that Udyam certification, they get reclassified.
Got it, sir. Got it. Yeah. Thank you. Those are my questions.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jai Mundhra from ICICI Securities Limited. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, a few questions. First is on gold loan, sir. So, you know, this quarter and in the last two quarters, we have seen a very strong growth in the gold loan book. Earlier, we had, you know, this commentary that, we would like to keep it little bit, calibrated because we want to grow more of MSME and others. Has anything changed in terms of competition? There were few players which were, you know, going under a tough period. Is that what has helped you? And you also mentioned that you have increased the yield on the gold book. So, you know, if you can share something there.
Yeah. See, basically, like, it is one segment, I mean, as I have been saying, in the two, three con call earlier, you started seeing sudden spurt in the unsecured retail consumption loan, particularly for the last four to six quarters. As you all know, like, we had not, I mean, we are not very gung-ho about the unsecured consumption part per se. So we, this is one segment, there is a requirement in the market, and, which we are not, we can't stay away from that. This is point number one.
Point number two, when we get into the reducing interest rate cycle, you need a portion of your loan book, which is in the what you call your fixed interest rate on the short term. This exactly fit into that thing. So we like say did some fine-tuning on that front, like say converting the floating rate for Gold Loan into fixed rate, and also fine-tuning the rate depending upon the requirement. And it is now turning out to be that like it is helping us to not to go to the riskier segment of unsecured retail at this point of time. At the same time going towards achieving the targeted growth rate, which we missed last year.
At the same time, it is giving the stability in the yield, and also, like, say, in all these metrics, it is favorable. And so on, since the demand is also there, we are continuing with this segment.
Right. Okay. Secondly, sir, if you can share this, loan mix by benchmark, how much is MCLR, how much is fixed rate, and how much is repo?
50 is the MCLR. About 30 is the 30-35 is your MCLR. Remaining is your...
Even, sir, Gold Loan is also not the entire percentage of the Gold Loan is fixed, right?
No, incrementally, when they get renewed and the fresh are getting converted. So whatever you entered before taking this call, they will come for review whenever only when they complete the one year or the due date for renewal.
Then as of now, they are fixing, right?
Yeah. Since now about 25%-30% of them, of the gold loan has now got converted. So hopefully, since the rate reduction cycle is also getting postponed, we may be in a position to see maybe half of portfolio or even 50%-60% of the portfolio getting converted from the floating rate to the fixed rate, which will give stability to yield when the decreasing interest rate cycle actually starts.
Okay. Then, could you tell on the launch of, on the new, you know, retail products that we were, I think that we plan to ramp up? In the last six months, there has been a lot of change in the macro environment, right? Especially in unsecured and maybe lower ticket size loans. Is there any rethinking in terms of priority, in terms of ramp up of those products, especially LAP and unsecured business loan and unsecured PL maybe?
Yeah, right from the beginning when we started, we were very clear about the two things. One, we are not entering into the unsecured in a big way. Our entire focus in the what you call retail is going to be on the secured retail lending portfolio per se. And, like, say, four to five years down the line, it will be about 4%-5% of the portfolio. The focus will be mainly on the secured lending space. So we are continuing with that. So to start that business, first you need the, let's say, technology part and all, that is ready. You need the senior management team that is by and large ready. The preparation of the policies, writing down the operating manual and all are under progress.
Field level staff recruitment are underway. So by the, like, beginning of the fourth quarter, we should be having, like, say, the executive team for that, field team for that, policies, and also the grassroots level people. Everything will be ready by the, like, say, beginning of the fourth quarter. So some amount of minor initial progress will be seen in the fourth quarter, but actual, like, say, lineup of growth, you will be seeing in the next year.
Because commercial launch is now in fourth quarter, right? Then the ramp up-
Yeah, it's a soft launch. It's like, say, in your sense, the commercial launch will see, and even the commercial launch will be a slow and steady launch only. We will be seeing some amount of minor progress in the fourth quarter.
Right. Assuming that is not a very, you know, meaningful proportion of incremental growth, you are still confident that the traditional, you know, portfolio will drive growth similar to system level, at least, right? That is the-
Yeah, that's what I told you. Whatever growth we have achieved at the 12% is from the conventional business, means whatever we have been doing. So to achieve up to the industry level, closer to that, I don't think we will be facing any challenges. And the secured retail, whatever we are discussing, it will be taking our growth rate beyond the industry level growth rate, is what we expect.
Right. And sir, on cost to income, or maybe in other words, incrementally now onwards, because we had a very low base in terms of cost to income or, you know, operating profit. As you said, well, three, four, five, six quarters, we were continuously running a negative operating profit growth. So at least for the next two quarters, the base is low. So do you think that incrementally, the revenue growth, NII plus other income, should outpace the operating expenses, or that is more of a base effect, right? Because the operating profit was not growing, actually.
See, the first and the foremost thing is the net interest income. So, and as you have rightly observed, we are just entering into that segment where we see the growth rate in NII and growth rate in operating profit is positive, where you get income more than the incremental expenditure.
Right.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Bunty Chawla from IDBI Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you, sir, for giving the opportunity, and congratulations on this set of numbers. Sir, as you have previously said, because of this digitization and all, we have improved, we are focusing on the improvement of the tech on the traditional portfolio, like MSME. So if you can share, what is the status now, and how much improvement is still behind us, in next two quarters?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah. See, basically, at least 75%-80% of the MSME lending, less than, say, INR 7.5 crores, we are able to make between three to four days, which is a very big improvement in our, let's say, compared to whatever we had been doing in the past. So as I told you, from, like, three weeks, let's say, to three days, which is a very big improvement, which we have already seen. Some amount of, let's say, productivity gains we expect from that is that, like, we have to continuously monitor the performance of the portfolio.
We have always in any sort of digital lending, you will be having the cases which are approved by the system, green cases, rejected by the system, amber, red cases, and amber, where some amount of manual intervention is needed. We feel over the we have currently about not less than about 50-60% of the cases are coming for the manual decision-making with the input from the system level team. We will be increasingly in a position to increase the automated output, which will increase the productivity in the processing front. This will also help us, like, say, now only it is now getting set in the branches.
The inflows have, like, say, the people have started making use of it, particularly from the branches and the, like, MSME vertical per se, in identifying the customers, putting them in the entering this data into the system and seeing the, let's say, the results or output of the system. So the one, as I told you, the improvement in the tech is very much visible. Number two, some more improvement in the automation of the decision-making can happen in the next six months or so, where we have to closely monitor the, let's say, performance of the portfolio, maybe fine-tune your scorecard depending upon the performance, and improve the, like, say, more of green and red and less of amber.
It will take maybe not less than, let's say, six months or so. And like, the acceptability of the system is improving, but yet lot of opening up the productivity at the branch level is still pending. So the, like, say, the future quarters, slowly, the productivity from the branches should improve, which should improve the, let's say, disbursement also is what we expect. That is the, let's say, confidence which make me say that, with this existing business lines, we should be getting back to the systemic level growth rate, without looking for the new opportunities.
Thank you, sir. Secondly, on the PCR part, in your opening remarks, you said we are an outlier, so we are focusing on improvement in the PCR. So any specific number we are targeting to achieve by end of FY 2025 or FY 2026 in terms of PCR?
We have absolutely, like, say, fine PCR when you include the technically written-off portion also. But we get
Ladies and gentlemen, we have lost the management line connection. Please stay connected while we reconnect them. Thank you. ... Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for patiently holding. We have the management line back on call.
Yeah, looks like it is every 15 minutes, I mean, precisely. Yeah, did we complete the question or?
Yes.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. On PCR, we are completely on track when you include the technically written off portion. So we are getting repeatedly asked, your PCR coverage ratio is low, like, we when we take it purely on the like live coverage. If we just leave probably, like, automatically, as you have seen significant reduction in the like NPA percentages, that will automatically improve the coverage ratio also to some extent. So the I don't have any, I mean, as I clearly told you, that I want to have between one and 1.25% on the net NPA ratio. I don't have any number or anything with me. We will take a call as we, let's say, get into the second half.
Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rakesh Kumar from B&K Securities Limited. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thank you, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, one question was related to the restructured book. So the number has come down from INR 9.9 crore to INR 8 crore in the September quarter. So do we have some write back of provision because of that? Because we were holding around 50% provision for this. So would we have a write back of provision on this?
See, about how much. See, when we finalize the annual accounts in the last quarter, we will take a call on the surplus provisions, like, post the, what you call, completion of that two-year tenure on restructuring or whatever it is. If it's that, how much write back will be there, how much of that will be provided for the NPA itself. So depending upon the regulations and the recovery happens in the restricted portfolio, that decision will be taken.
Got it. Got it, sir. And sir, ROA targets, like, this quarter, we have done one point six. So what will be the full year target, sir, for this year?
As we have, like, we have stabilized to 1.5% plus. We, like, we, we don't have any specific target on that number.
Got it. Got it. Sure, sure. Thanks, sir. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Aviral Jain from Siguler Guff & Company. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Sir, if you could just elaborate more on the plans that you have been mentioning. First is on other retail products which are secured in nature, such as housing, LAP, vehicles. Then there was one more line of business that is co-lending and lending to NBFC. So if you could just elaborate in the next two to three years plan as to how do you envisage that business? I remember you mentioned that this all put together, the overall loan book at that time, in three years' time. So how is the progress on each of these initiatives?
No, no. I don't think we talked about 15% number and all. It was very much less than 10 only. If I correct, distinctly correct, maybe 7-8% of the half. Basically, like, for co-lending and, the onward lending, I mean, direct lending to NBFC is continuing. Maybe like, once we are able to see good growth in our conventional thing, we may have to slowly, fine-tune that depending upon the requirement. So the, the technology, whatever that is needed for the co-lending and all, are already with us now. So those things like, going forward, like how the, other, factor like both, secured, retail and, co-lending and all, now, Vijay Anandh will give you some feedback.
We will move into secured as planned for Q4 beginning. There is no change on LAP, home loans, and affordable and micro LAP. The technology is ready, and we just need regulatory steer, which should ideally be there in Q3. With respect to co-lending, we have technology. We will use it based what is the numbers which we are building in our model, then we will take a call accordingly.
This would be the own source book would be through cross-selling the existing customers or within retail you would go out and look for sourcing customers outside the existing customer base of bank?
We will have new bank customers for retail also. We will also have new to bank customers ... predominantly, we will use our employee sourcing in South, our branch sourcing in South, and this is our presence. For North and West, we will use third party.
This would mean DSA?
Yeah.
Okay. And on co-lending, what sort of products would those be? I'm assuming this would be something that the bank is not choosing to do in-house.
If at all we do co-lending, it will be only secured.
Okay, but this would be consumer finance or-
Yeah.
Okay, primarily.
Against properties. Some sort of HL is required.
Sure. And at a steady state, say, if you would start back to February five, next year, this is the cost base that has been built in for such initiatives. What sort of loan book would you be targeting, so as to make it, in terms of profitability neutral for the bank?
Yeah, it should be about two to three% in the financial year 2025-2026. So we gave you that, we should be having about seven to eight% in the next three to four-year time frame. It could be around, like, say, 2%, two odd% for these sort of other initiatives to support us.
And-
I don't know, yeah, I don't know whether you remember another data which we came in the earlier con call. Like, out of our INR 42-52 crores of whatever loan book we have, our customers have taken about 7,000-odd crore worth of these products from the other financial institutions. So the deepening will be the, let's say, first action in making our existing customers to probably, let's say, get that converted from other institution acquired.
Sure. And for a while I understand that a large portion could be new to the existing customers, but cost base to service again would be high, given lower ticket sizes. So I'm assuming this would be at a higher interest rate than what the current core business is at, from a spread perspective over your cost of funds.
So we will be on par with the market. So that's the reason why I mentioned this. In South, I will not use my third-party sourcing, and North and West is going to be third-party sourcing. So my branch distribution in South should take care of my retail business, which comes with zero cost or very negligible cost. In North and West, we use a third party, which should give me the blended average. So I, we, from the cost perspective, we ensure that we manage it rightly from the retail, for the retail products.
Sure.
Today, we have 550-odd branches in South, which should give me a good retail business for the bank sourcing and refinance sourcing. I don't need to use the third party majorly in South.
What's the fixed cost base addition that has been made for this initiative?
I think the, in fact, I explained, in the last conf call, let's say, how much we made to BCG and how much elbow room it is giving, that amount of investment for us, is what I gave you in a couple of quarters back. So you will be having around about INR 30-35 crores will be the, by and large, the incremental business expenditure, which is already observed in the overall scheme of things. I even clearly explained that, you will have a loss in the 1st year. You will break even in the 2nd year, and the profitability and the accretion of the ROA will come start coming only from the 3rd year. By and large, we are on track in that direction.
Got it. Thank you so much, sir. This really was helpful.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, you may press star and one to ask a question. A reminder to all the participants, you may press star and one to ask a question. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Thank you all for taking this con call. As we explained, we are able to get into the cycle where we have started seeing both operating profit and the NII starting making a positive revenue. Growth has also firmed up with, let's say, more than, let's say, double digits in the last couple of, let's say, quarters. And this growth has come basically from our conventional, let's say, businesses and without adding any, let's say, business from the retail whatever we explained, as we explained. And the overall ROA of 1.8% and all metrics have, let's say, properly settled.
So overall, we said that we should be having about INR 800 crore because we had about INR 1,200 crore NPA addition two years back, which got down to INR 1,000 crore for the financial year 2024. And this year, we said we will be having about less than around INR 800 crore or less than INR 800 crore or sort of. So on all these things, whatever we said, we are on track, and there is a good amount of improvement in the overall scheme of things. The net NPA has also decreased by about 25 basis points in this quarter. And the 3% growth in deposits and the 3% growth in the credit has also happened in the second quarter.
So all these things are giving enough confidence that, let's say, the things are on track, and we should be able to have, let's say, second half. With this, let's say, I request all of you to probably, if you have any more questions, you can get in touch with us at the contacts given in the report, investor presentation. Once again, thank you all for participating, and, let's say, I request your continued support going forward. Thank you all.
Thank you. On behalf of Ambit Capital Private Limited, this concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.