Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the FY 2026 earnings conference call of HDFC Life Insurance Company. 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 this 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 Ms. Vibha Padalkar, MD and CEO of HDFC Life. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
Thank you, Robin. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining our earnings conference call for the year ended March 31st, 2026. Our results, along with the investor presentation, press release, and regulatory disclosures are available on our website and with the stock exchanges. Joining me on today's call are Niraj Shah, Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer; Vineet Arora, Executive Director and Chief Business Officer; Eshwari Murugan, Appointed Actuary; and Kunal Jain, Head Investor Relations, Business Planning and Strategy. On the macroeconomic front, let me begin with the broader macroeconomic context.
The global environment has become more uncertain in recent months, with heightened geopolitical tensions and disruptions in energy markets and global supply chains creating near-term headwinds. In such an environment, while near-term demand might be impacted, we believe the life insurance sector remains relatively well-positioned given the essential role of long-term savings, protection, and guaranteed outcomes, especially during periods of uncertainty. Moving on to business performance. During FY 2026, we continued to maintain our position among the top three insurers by individual WRP. Our private sector market share stood at 15.2% for 11 months FY 2026. We outperformed the industry in two key focus areas, the first one being retail protection, which grew 43%, and the second one being our agency channel, which also grew ahead of the sector. Retail sum assured growth for 11 months was higher than the industry, reinforcing the quality of our business mix.
Credit Protect saw a healthy rebound in the second half of the year, driven by recovery in the MFI segment and robust credit growth, with the company retaining its leadership position in this segment. From a top-line perspective, FY 2026 closed below our original expectations. Let me deconstruct this and outline our confidence in the medium-term trajectory. H1 growth for us was ahead of the industry, and quarter three was broadly in line with expectations. The slowdown was largely concentrated in quarter four, driven by unabsorbed GST, temporary softness in bank assurance, and deferment of demand in March due to global uncertainty. However, our proprietary channels bucked the trend, delivering a healthy growth of 15%-16% in quarter four, as well as in FY 2026, and we thus delivered a full year individual APE growth of 7% year-on-year.
Our confidence to bounce back also stems from our customer acquisition metrics that remained healthy, with over 70% of new customers onboarded during the year being first-time buyers of HDFC Life policies, and that we insured over 46 million lives during FY 2026. Next, on product mix. Our individual APE composition for FY 2026 was Unit Linked at 44%, non-par savings at 18%, Participating Products at 25%, Term at 7%, and Annuity at 5%. As in prior periods, product mix remained an important driver of outcomes during the year. You will notice that our Term was 7% versus 5% of last year. Unit-linked demand remained resilient through most of the year, supported by customer appetite for market-linked participation. Importantly, the quality of our unit-linked business continues to improve, with higher protection multiples and better rider attachment supporting margins. The 13-month persistency over the past two years has also improved.
Both these metrics remain a deliberate strategic focus for us. At the same time, non-par demand was softer than our expectations. We have maintained pricing discipline in this segment, and while this has had a near-term impact on volumes, it positions us better from a long-term value and margin standpoint. We have undertaken selective product refinements to improve competitiveness, and with a more favorable yield curve environment, we expect non-par savings to gradually recover. Protection was a clear highlight during the year with a growth of 43%, supported by lower prices post-GST and a strengthened product portfolio. This continued even in quarter four, when protection growth was 46%. Retail protection mix expanded by nearly 200 basis points year-on-year to 7.2% in FY 2026, and including riders, protection now contributes nearly 10% of our retail business.
We also saw an improvement in ticket sizes post-GST, with customers opting for higher levels of sum assured. Retail sum assured grew by 28% year-on-year, and we also maintained our leadership position on overall sum assured, reinforcing the quality of our business mix. Annuities were another area of meaningful progress. During quarter four, we launched Aajeevan Growth, Nivesh and Income or AGNI, an industry-first variable annuity plan that combines lifelong guaranteed income with growth potential linked to the Nifty 50 index. We believe this kind of product innovation opens up new customer segments, and we are encouraged by early traction. Annuity mix increased by almost 300 basis points year-on-year to around 8% of individual APE in quarter four FY 2026. Looking ahead, we expect a gradual shift in the product mix as customers rebalance towards long-term savings and protection in an environment of greater uncertainty.
We anticipate non-par savings to gain share relative to FY 2026, with protection and annuities continuing to grow ahead of the company average. Moving on to financial and operating metrics. For FY 2026, value of new business stood at INR 4,034 crores, representing growth of 2% year-on-year. Value of new business growth, excluding the impact of GST and surrender regulations changes, would have been broadly in line with overall APE growth. New business margins for FY 2026, excluding impact of GST and SSV, would have been flat at 25.5%. Post-GST and SSV impact, they were at 24.2%, a decline of 140 basis points versus FY 2025. This margin drop was driven by three key factors. First, the impact of GST and surrender value of 130 basis points. Second, the fixed cost absorption impact of 90 basis points arising from softer than expected top-line growth, particularly in quarter four.
Third, 40 basis points on account of strengthening of the persistency assumptions in line with the experience that we had disclosed in quarter three. I'm happy to share that our experience in quarter four on persistency was better than what we had mentioned in quarter three. These three negative items were offset by a better product profile that contributed 120 basis points. On GST, the headwind on margins has been moderating in line with our guidance. The impact in quarter four was approximately 110 basis points, and we expect this to taper off further and be largely neutralized as we move into FY 2027. At a product level, underlying margins remain supported by improvements in product profile, including higher protection and annuity contribution, and better rider attachment.
The annual assumption review was undertaken in quarter four, as has been the past practice, which makes the YOY impact of 40 basis points more visible in that quarter. From a structural standpoint, the key levers for margin improvement remain intact, continued growth in protection, higher rider attachment, recovery in non-par savings, further enhancement in ULIP protection mix, lower fixed cost per policy, and operating leverage as growth normalizes. Based on these factors, we expect margins to improve. Renewal collections saw steady growth at 15% during the year, reflecting the continued stability of the in-force book. On persistency, the 13-month ratio moderated by 200 basis points during the year, broadly in line with the evolving business mix. As mentioned in quarter three, this was driven by specific cohorts and does not reflect a broad-based shift in portfolio quality.
We have taken necessary actions, as I'd mentioned, and we are pleased to share that trends have stabilized in quarter four. The 61st-month persistency remained robust at 64%, improving by 100 basis point year-on-year, reflecting the continued strength of the long-duration savings book. Embedded values stood at INR 62,139 crores. Operating return on embedded value for the period was 15%, and this would have been 15.4% on a normalized basis. Profit after tax for the period stood at INR 1,910 crores. PAT, excluding GST and labor code impact, would have shown a growth of 16%. The board has recommended a final dividend of INR 2.10 per share, in line with our payout policy, aggregating to a payout of INR 456 crores. Our solvency ratio stood at 177%.
While we await clarity on the transition timeline to the risk-based solvency framework, we have taken board approvals to raise up to INR 1,000 crore by way of a preferential issue to our parent HDFC Bank. This will add 900 basis points to our current solvency. Over the medium term, the move towards a risk-based solvency regime should ensure better alignment of capital with underlying risks and is likely to be beneficial for diversified franchises such as ours. Moving on to distribution highlights. The ongoing buildup of our agency channel was a strong story for the year. Agency grew ahead of the company by 500 basis points, maintaining a strong protection mix. The channel is now beginning to deliver the returns on the multi-year investments we have made in branch expansion, talent acquisition, and investment in bespoke products and training, and this has helped improve our relative positioning within the industry.
We have added more than 250 branches over the last 30 months, with business from these contributing to approximately 13% of the agency channel's top line. Our focus is now firmly shifting from expansion to productivity, activation, and the branch-level profitability. This should support a more sustainable and higher quality contribution from the channel going forward. On the other hand, partnership channels experienced elevated volatility during the year, primarily driven by heightened competitive intensity. In response, we exercised fiscal discipline by stepping away from unviable business. Overall, while near-term growth has been influenced by the factors discussed, we believe our focus on continued investments in distribution, product competitiveness, partner engagement, and pricing discipline positions us well to deliver more sustainable and profitable growth as the environment normalizes. Moving on to regulatory and industry developments.
The industry continues to evolve in a direction that supports greater transparency, stronger conduct, and more sustainable long-term growth. We view the transition towards Ind AS-based reporting as a positive structural development. Over time, this should enhance comparability, improve market discipline, and further align business models with long-term value creation. With respect to Ind AS, we have approval from our board to seek forbearance for FY 2027. We will be applying to the regulator and are working towards full adoption from FY 2028. We believe this approach allows for a more calibrated transition, both operationally and from a reporting standpoint. Overall, the direction of regulatory evolution remains constructive, and we believe well-diversified and disciplined players are well-positioned to operate effectively within this framework. Moving on to our subsidiaries.
Our wholly-owned subsidiary, HDFC Pension Management Company, continued to strengthen its leadership position with a market share of 43% and assets under management exceeding INR 1.5 lakh crore. Our other subsidiary, HDFC International Re, continues to deliver steady reinsurance performance while scaling its GIFT City presence. To conclude, we enter FY 2027 with the GSE transition that is largely complete, the yield curve, which is supportive for non-par. Our agency channel is stronger today than it was a year ago in terms of reach, productivity and quality of business. Protection portfolio is structurally larger and more meaningful than any other prior point in our journey. As a result, our embedded value continues to reflect the compounding strength of a high-quality in-force book. Our aspiration to outpace industry new business and VNB growth remains unchanged. For a more detailed discussion of our performance and outlook, please refer to the investor presentation.
We will now be happy to take your 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 their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to please use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Our first question comes from the line of Avinash Singh from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity. A few questions. The first one on growth. Yes, as we acknowledge, there were multiple factors, some external and some internal. In this context, particularly the factors which are affecting growth in HDFC Bank channel, be it the competitive intensity or maybe [ASSL] pricing. How has particularly your wallet share within HDFC Bank channel behaved in this Q4 vis-à-vis what it has been for the nine months? How has that changed? Now what sort of steps you are taking or what you are seeing competitor withdrawing or competitive intensity changing that gives you hope that, okay, the things will normalize or go back maybe to, say, the past levels in FY 2027. This is the question more around HDFC Bank channel and what sort of things giving you confidence there in terms of your growth outlook.
The second one would be more, again, it's a bit of a small kind of a clarification. There is a very small piece of business that is the participating group and pension. Now, again, I'm saying that your GAAP filing, there is a kind of a sizable, the business size is very small, but the negative surplus or deficit in that par segment is pretty big. What exactly is the nature of this and why is such a big deficit there in this segment of business? Lastly, again, related to this, yes, the back book surplus is growing kind of in an impressive way even this year, it's kind of 14%.
When I look at the new business strain, given, yes, there is a strong growth in individual protection, but at the same time, non-par savings are giving way to par, where typically the new business expense would be lower. The overall new business strain at the company level is growing very, very strongly. Is it something to do with the cost structure still remains a bit unfavorable? What sort of explains that? These are my three questions. Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, Avinash. I'll take the HDFC Bank question and then pass it on to Eshwari on par drop. On HDFC Bank, see, I would be more worried if there were some very different product innovation or some massive digital great technology. Really on a price point, we don't believe that is sustainable on a long-term basis, whether it's aggression on pricing and/or on underwriting. Clearly it is visible in terms of on ground. What will change? I think IFRS is a good segue into what I'm saying because onerous contracts are becoming very apparent. Also capital, I think overall as a sector, capital is given that RBC possibly is now taken a back seat to IFRS. What all of us thought that RBC would get rolled out first, if that's going to happen, all of this aggression does consume capital as well.
There's only that far that some of this can be bankrolled. Plus, we haven't stayed quiet. We have introduced, like I said, products such as our AGNI product. Some of the tweaks that we have done on even on non-par, you will see what is being rolled out as we speak. Some of that will again go back in terms of our ability to capture the minds of customers, especially against this fairly elevated levels of volatility, and some weaning away from the unit-linked playbook. That's what gives us the kind of confidence. Also, we are very, very granular in terms of discussions with our parent, in terms of which are the branches wherein our share is lower than what might be at an acceptable level. Why is that happening? Is it because there's a flooding of additional people and our manpower share?
I mean, the correlation is fairly strong that where our manpower share is lower than 50%, our counter share goes down. Is there an optimal level of manpower share given all AI and other digital assets? Is there a place to reduce manpower share overall for all three players? Can we look at having more digital offerings or part of the journey being digital? There, once that happens, I do believe that counter share, just given brand synergies, being a market leader, especially on products, I think all of that. I can't share everything that we're doing, but that's what gives us the confidence. Vineet, you want to add?
Yes. Vibha covered most of it. Just the fact that we knew exactly where we let go of business, and we know that what price point and what this thing works for us. We do feel that aggression now that the GST burden on the margin and on the cost is also more or less absorbed. It will be easier for us to also even come back and have better price points. We feel that we will also be more competitive, and we should be able to garner more share from these branches that we might have let go of earlier.
Yes, that's an important point. We are very, very cognizant of the opportunities that we let go, because if ab initio it doesn't make commercial sense as to why are we selling this kind of product, then we'll just take a back seat, exactly like what happened in protection. We did that, and that's paid us very good dividends in terms of the pricing power. We had to bide our time. We did many things. Some are behind the scenes, which I don't want to call out. Many things on protection that today makes us get hold of the kind of profiles that we want to get hold of, rather than just market dynamics saying, whatever protection, whatever quality business, let me get that in.
Moving away from that to controlling the narrative, to step back, to say what kind of lives and what kind of business do I really want, and to recalibrate, do many things to get there. That's really where we're in the process of doing similar kinds of interventions on non-par and par, like we did with protection. If I can move on to the par, Eshwari over to you on the impact on par FFA, I think what Avinash was talking about.
On the participating front, there are three, four things that have happened during the year. One is the impact of GST, which again is split into two parts. One is the existing business and the second is the new business. On the existing business, because there'll be no ITC on the renewal commission and the expenses incurred for the maintenance of the policies, that impact has been taken into the reserves, and that is having a negative impact in both life and pension. On the new business as well, because there's no ITC on the GST, that has been absorbed, given that we are still looking at the design and the pricing of the par products in the context of the new GST law. This has been an impact as we will take some time to transition to the new products.
The third is, given the changes to the surrender value regulations from October 2024 onwards, for all the participating policies, regardless of whether they are going to surrender or not, we hold a surrender value reserve, which is also increasing the prudence. Some of this will get released into the FFA going forward, but it has been a one-time impact all coming together in the same period. That's why we feel deficit in the participating funds.
We have plans to start contributing back to par FFA to grow that over the next couple of years.
We'll be looking at all the structures to see what is the optimal structure to maintain the fund at an optimal level, creating growth as well as the existing business. On the back book surplus, the EB surplus is down by lower amount. Again, due to same reason. We have allowed for the loss of input tax credit on renewal commission and maintenance expenses on all lines of business. That has resulted in a lower EB surplus growth. On the new business, yes, the new business strain should have been lower given that we've done lower non-par. If you look at the growth in protection business and the credit product business, that has resulted to a higher strain. Also on the unit link, we are writing with higher multiples and also higher rider attachments.
That has got a higher reserving requirement, and all of these have resulted in the new business strain growth being higher than the earlier years.
Okay, got it.
GST impact is there in both the new business and EB. That is also one of the reasons for the new business strain being higher.
Just to summarize GST impact and a good problem to have in terms of protection.
Yes. Vibha, counter share in HDFC Bank, in Q4 versus nine months.
Yes, go ahead. I don't have it.
Counter share in HDFC Bank in Q4 was lower than what it was in nine months. Clearly, for the reasons we have articulated already, we know what the reasons were. We're completely in control of what we can do going forward.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in order that the management is able to address questions from all participants in the queue, you are requested to please restrict yourselves to two questions only. You may rejoin the queue if you have further questions. Our next question comes from the line of Suresh Ganapathy from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Yes. Vibha, again, somewhat indirectly related to the first question itself. In FY 2023, if you had to make a business projection of your VNB growth, you would have said 15%+ CAGR, right? For the next three years. I'm looking at FY 2026 number, your CAGR has been just 3% over FY 2026 or FY 2023. It's actually not grown at all in three years' time. I'm sure you were not expecting this kind of an outcome. I know there have been a lot of changes, but unfortunately, the regulator is still talking about some commission cap. Many things are happening. Are you confident that with the GST cut, whether it is protection, the next three years will not be a single-digit VNB CAGR?
Yeah. Let me just walk you through. First, I'll give you the CAGR, but FY 2025 to FY 2026, Suresh. FY 2025, we were at 25.6%. Right? If I were to back out GST and SSV, the surrender value impact, then my starting point would have been 24.3%. Again, 24.3%, I was flat at similar kind of a number, 24.2%. Now, to your more philosophical question that because of three very large ticket things that have happened, which is starting from INR 5 lakh and above being taxed, followed by surrender charges, followed by GST. Business model changes have happened, unfortunately, with alarming regularity and fairly material. I have a high level of confidence in the medium term. However, here and now, in one year or so, a little bit more difficult to say, just as any business plan.
However, the growth over the four-year period of 1.8x-2x, I think that is still something that we will be gunning for. I think in terms of conversations, I think the only large ticket conversation in the media has been will something happen on distribution architecture. If that happens, I'm very confident that, yes, medium-term, immediate, like all the other disruptions I've talked about, will we come out of it? Absolutely. I have no doubt in my mind that it will come. To summarize on a normalized three-year VNB CAGR would be around 9%-10%, and there I'm adjusting about INR 1,000 crore between this FY 2023 and the GST impact in FY 2026. That's the kind that is.
Yeah, Vibha, even if I were to adjust for that is still way below your industry standard, right? If I look at FY 2010 to 2022, 2021, you were the bellwether and the industry benchmark. All said and done, even normalizing for that, your growth has been weak, your VNB growth has been weak, and competition is not going away. People are going to be aggressive. There is no compulsory listing. We are in a tough industry in a way, right? Both from a competition angle as well as from a regulatory angle.
On competition, again, I feel like I mentioned with Avinash, the earlier caller, that with IFRS, Suresh, it's going to dramatically change the way and bring discipline into way. It's a proxy for listing in a way. Because listing or disclosures, unfortunately, if I was a bank, then most of my competition is listed and there's that much aggression that will be contained. While exactly like you mentioned, that's not the case now. IFRS, regardless of whether you're going to be listed or not, there are going to be segment level and even further more nuanced disclosures that will very clearly show ab initio what are the loss-making or onerous contracts, what did one price for and what actually you're trending for. This is going to be a huge, I would say, tectonic change in how companies look at their business.
Now, a promoter might decide to ignore that. That's their prerogative. Given that these promoters have invested for many number of years, I'm sure they're wanting to see returns at the end of that patient capital. I feel very enthused. It might not happen in FY 2027 because of most companies asking for forbearance, but certainly a year down the line, it should happen and if disclosure is going to happen in FY 2028, then I'm sure companies will start thinking as to at least internally looking at what their numbers are going to see. We're also seeing positive trends in protection. We went through the same story on protection and irrational competition and so on.
Happy to share that kind of irrational competition has started seeing some tempering, and that's why you can see our growth being right on the top as far as the industry is concerned on protection. Expecting the similar kind of some level of restraint happening on other parts of savings as well. Niraj, you want to add anything?
Suresh Ganapathy, just maybe step back a little bit. You spoke about a period from 2023 - 2026. Unfortunately, both the opening as well as the closing year had a lot of distortions as Vibha Padalkar spoke about. If you were to just dial back one period from, say, FY 2020 to FY 2024, the number is fairly healthy at 15-odd%. You go one period before that, it is in a similar kind of a zone. The thing is, if you're looking at a long-term business, building it from a three to five year perspective, the results could be nonlinear in a shorter span of time.
Just from a business cycle perspective and everything that is coming in the next three to five years, we absolutely have no doubt as to why the sector and us within the sector not be able to get back to that compounding story that we are used to delivering. No real structural issues that we see, whether it's in terms of the relevance of the products, customer demand, as well as just the overall operating environment, Suresh.
Yeah. Just one last question on Vibha, your tenure and the IRDAI rule, a bit confusing. Can you just clarify when it ends? Is it a 15-year rule applicable to you? What is the thing? Can you just clarify on that?
Yeah. Suresh, like I'd mentioned earlier also, when these regulations came in in 2023, we had written to the regulator and we had received clarification then that the 15 years starts from when I became the MD and CEO. This current tenure ends in September of this year. The board will take a suitable call closer to that date.
You have five years, right, into the six years into the CEO tenure, right?
No, I will be completing a term of three plus five , so eight years by the time I finish in September.
Okay. Logically speaking, another seven years left, as per the IRDAI. Obviously, the board will take a call, right? Is that the interpretation?
Yeah, the interpretation is that it's 15 years from when you get into the saddle as MD and CEO. That is what we had received, clarification when we wrote to them in 2023.
Okay. This is not cast in stone. I mean, can the regulator change their mind is what my question is?
I think that will be a question for the regulator, Suresh.
Okay. Sorry. Thanks so much, Vibha. Yeah.
Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Madhukar Ladha from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Madhukar Ladha, your line has been unmuted. You may proceed with your question.
Yeah. Hi. Sorry. Thank you for taking my question. First, if I just compare the IRRs on the non-par product in sort of the principal HDFC Bank channel offered by your competitor, the difference is quite substantial. Now, what I wanted to understand is if you were to sort of reduce or if you were to offer higher IRRs, what would be the impact on your margins? I mean, why can't we sort of offer a more competitive product and capture that counter share? That's my sort of primary question. Can you quantify the operating variance and assumption change between the various elements like persistency, mortality, expenses? If you could give that split. Yeah.
Yeah. On the question on IRR, basically, there are two things here. One is that, like you rightly mentioned, in certain categories and variants of products, the difference is fairly substantial. Since we introduced this category to the market six or seven years back with multiple product innovations, the easiest thing to do is to offer a rate. If we could offer a rate which is the highest in the market at the economics that are making sense to us, we would have done that, like you rightly said. If we are not doing that, it basically tells you that the dilution on the economics is not acceptable at the prevalent rates that some of the peers are choosing to offer.
The equally important thing is that given our position in the market, if we end up doing something which is, let's say, very aggressive or irrational, it unfortunately vitiates the entire environment, and it forces peers to do the same. You get into a downward spiral from which the industry will never recover. There's no point playing that game beyond a point. As we articulated earlier on the call, we are looking at things more granularly, customer segments, ticket sizes, product variants, where we may choose to be more competitive in the coming year. That will be again at levels that will make sense to us. We've said that we want to grow faster than the industry and deliver VNB growth in line with that. If we have to make sensible trade-offs between profitability and growth, we'll definitely do that.
Provided it's within a certain boundary conditions, which really makes sense from a medium to long-term perspective. That's really our approach. We don't see this to be a challenge from a medium to long-term perspective for all the reasons that we spoke about, the regulatory environment, movement to IFRS, risk-based capital. It's not an endless road of the capital being made available without any questions asked. That's not going to happen. Given that situation, I think things will stabilize. We gave the example of protection. The same kind of story panned out a few years back. We've kind of bided our time, and we are where we are in terms of leadership, in terms of sum assured on individual protection, and overall as well.
I want to come in here, and I'm not making any specific reference to any company, but more broader for the sector. See, again, I'm hopping back to IFRS. I could give 70 basis points higher on non-par, for example, like Madhukar, you mentioned. But no one really knows if this lapse-supported product, which means that you're hoping that customers don't pay their premiums down the line. Some of these things will start becoming a lot more apparent under IFRS. Because then you get to see the full story. Because if persistency stays good, and which it should be because they've bought a product that is giving them 70 basis points or higher. But your assumption that you make money is only if X% of customers renew this. So these nuances are really where the devil is in those details.
We can easily match this if we want to match it. There's no way we're going to have a lapse-supported product. We are in the business to sell policies, and we are hoping that the customer stays vested in the policy till the very end. This is only one example, but there are many such nuances. What will be the lump sum at the end? If they choose to surrender, what is the surrender value that they or the nominee will get? And so on. There are many nuances to this because the corners will have to be cut somewhere else, which are not very apparent. The headline item will be that the IRR is so much more. It can't come out of thin air. It can either be bankrolled by the shareholder or wherein something else is, there's the corners cut somewhere else.
These are only two possibilities. Because if I look at expense ratios, persistency is not very different, if at all worse than where we are today. That's the limited point. This will normalize.
Got it. Maybe I can just squeeze in one more question. On margins, see, on a QOQ basis, we were expecting about 100 basis points improvement in margins because every quarter, we were trying to lower the GST impact. That has not played out this quarter. Also, I'm guessing partly because of the full year assumption change, that also would have impacted. In this context where there is a negative expense drag also on the margins, negative sort of assumption change as well, how should one see margin shaping up in FY 2027 and beyond? I believe it's probably going to be difficult to maintain the earlier sort of guidance of 25.6%. Any comments around that would be helpful.
Yeah. I think, if we were to just go back to what we said three months back, in terms of what the GST impact is likely to be, we started with 300 basis points, brought it down to 190 basis point, and now we are standing at 110 basis points. As such, that is moving exactly in line with what we had spoken about and are working towards internally as well. By the time we finish the first half of next year, we should be done with the GST impact and completely absorb it in our business model. Now, coming to whether we can get back to the levels that we spoke about at the beginning of the year, about 25.5%, we can get to it. Are we in a tearing rush to get to that at the cost of growth? We are not.
Our objective will be to get to fast industry growth and maintain VNB in line with that. Along the way as the environment stabilizes, and we have the opportunity to expand margins, we will certainly do so. The first goalpost really is to ensure that the VNB delivery is in line with APE growth next year. Any sort of expansion on top of that, aided by product mix, scale, all of that is something that is definitely on the table. The Q4 impact is something which we called out as something which is, like Vibha spoke about, while in H1 we were faster, Q3 we were largely in line. Q4 was certainly slower than where we want to be. That's the impact that we need to absorb and we will, as the growth normalizes.
We're not too concerned about the additional impact that we saw in quarter four on VNB growth and consequently on the full year margins. We should be able to recover as the growth normalizes next year. That's not something that we worry about as a drag getting into FY 2027 and beyond. If you're talking about a three-year perspective, clearly there is room for margin expansion. Again, it's going to be measured as some of our investments now start becoming more and more bearing fruit in terms of branch productivity as well as our expenses on the technology front. All of these are expected to increase productivity, efficiency, and better risk management. With that, margins is that we should absolutely gun for with protection becoming larger and larger part of our business as we go forward.
Yeah, just to summarize, if you see Slide 13 of our investor presentation, it's exactly what Niraj mentioned, that if I ignore the one-time GST and surrender charge impact, we were very close to the same 25.6% of last year. The drop is only because of these items. It was almost like margins were being held, and the starting point is anyway 25.5%.
Sure. Got it. The assumption change and variance breakup, if you could give that.
The assumption change is mainly on the persistency. The 13-month persistency had dropped during the year, and this has been reflected in the assumptions, both in embedded value and the new business. It's mainly coming from persistency, and that is 13-month persistency. All other cohorts, we don't have any material impact either in the assumption change or in the variance.
Got it. Okay. Thanks, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Dipanjan Ghosh from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. Few questions from my side. First, in terms of the banker channel and more specifically on the non-HDFC banker channels. Just wanted to get some sense of what's the direction or strategy when you think of these channels. Is it more growth-focused or do you think the focus will be on more VNB counter share at these channels? And from the next two-year perspective, if you can give some color on that. That's the first question. The second question is on the product pipeline, and this is more in line with also the AGNI product that you have launched. Wanted to get some color. You mentioned that there has been strong traction initially. If you can kind of quantify or give some color around that.
Also in terms of the refinements on the non-par product set you have done, if you could elaborate on that, and the product pipeline alongside on the non-par and annuity side, if you can kind of sum it up.
Yeah, I'll take the question on the non-HDFC Bank bancassurance channels. The focus for all channels for us is very clear that it is to go for growth, subject to a certain VNB. Below a certain VNB, we choose at times not to participate on a certain, let's say, segment or let's say particular channel also. The focus remains same across channels, and that's the reason why you would see that certain parts in quarter four, we did slow down in certain channels. That I think remains consistent across channels. Same is the reason why you see a higher focus on our agency and the proprietary business where we have seen faster growth coming in.
On products, Dipanjan, a couple of things. One is AGNI was basically the first variable annuity product that was introduced, and that's absolutely contributed to our share of annuity mix increasing meaningfully in this period. It was launched in the last quarter, so we expect that to become a full stream product going into FY 2027 and beyond. As we understand more of the product category, we would want more potential for innovation in this category as the regulator allows us to use more instruments that will enable a better customer proposition while we manage our risks appropriately. It's a win-win from a customer perspective for anyone who is reasonably affluent. We've launched this product at a ticket size of INR 25 lakhs and above to ensure that the customer clearly understands what they're buying, and it's not a completely guaranteed product.
It's guaranteed up to a point after which the customer participates in the upside because of the asset allocation that we're able to do in the product. That is something that we believe is here to stay from a customer who is reasonably affluent and savvy and is not dependent on the entire annuity stream to maintain monthly expenses. That was really the thought process behind it, and there'll be a lot more to come in this space. As far as the non-par savings is concerned, I think a few things that we are basically looking to add to our flagship Click 2 Achieve series, and a large part of it is to do with giving more flexibility to customers, looking at customer segments a little more granularly to see what we can do in terms of affording more options to customers as well as getting more competitive.
Over a period of time, as the asset side of the market develops, there'll be more options that will come through in each of these categories. I guess a lot of things will be happening behind the scenes, which is just ready to take advantage of a more favorable interest rate environment as we step into 2027. The volatility on the equity side so far has not really dampened unit-linked demand. We'll wait and see how that kind of goes on as we go forward. Asset allocation is currently unfortunately out of fashion, but that's something that we expect to normalize in the next 12 months - 24 months. When that happens, with the suite of products that we have and more in the pipeline, we expect the category to do extremely well.
Thanks. Vineet, just one small follow-up this variable annuity product propositions. How are the margins in these products, I mean, compared to in this company level margins?
They'll be higher than company level margins.
Got it. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you, Dipanjan.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Shreya Shivani from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. My first question is a couple of questions on the EV walk, EV and VNB walk basically. Shouldn't the GST and labor code impact be an assumption change because it's a permanent change rather than a variance? Also, comparing to one of your peers, there is no impact of the yield curve movement on your VNB walk. What is the thought process behind this, if you can explain that? Has the persistency assumption changes caused a sharp movement in your persistency sensitivity from your sensitivity analysis table? These are on my EV walk. Just one question on the growth outlook on the competitive landscape, et cetera, to Vibha. I mean, one way of dealing with the competitive landscape is obviously what you're doing, going granular and trying to find a different kind of pricing for your products, et cetera.
However, expanding beyond our obvious markets, expanding into deeper pockets or markets where only few players operate, isn't that something which we would be focused on from a longer term period? Not for FY 2027, but if I ask you about next five years, shouldn't that be one of your strategies, knowing that the competitive landscape can be quite volatile in the urban tier one markets? Yeah, sorry. Those are my questions.
Yes.
On the EV work, the GST impact is the impact on the existing business because there is no input tax rate on the renewal commission and the maintenance expenses. That is a one-time impact and it is external environmental impact. That's why it's shown as an other operating change or variance. The loss of input tax credit on the new business, which is part of, as you said, the business model, is captured in the VNB, which is within the embedded value operating profit or within the embedded value walk before the one-off. The one-off is actually only one-off. It's only one time impact on the existing book. The thought process is that whatever is not within the internal environment of the business model of the company, that should be captured as a one-off operating variance.
I'll just add to that. Sorry, Eshwari, before you move ahead. Next year, all of this will sit in the VNB for next year, so it'll become part of the business model entirely. This year, since it happened mid-year, the back book had to do what it had to.
Yeah. The closing EV will be the opening EV for next year. Next year, the entire impact, as Niraj mentioned, if at all there's any impact that's not absorbed, will be in the VNB. In the NBM or the VNB walk, the net impact of changes in interest rate, changes in product pricing, product features, other assumptions, et cetera, is captured in the product profile. The reason we don't call out economic assumption change separately is that it's not that during the entire year we will not do anything if the interest rates are going upward. There'll be a lot of dynamic changes in the pricing. It'll be very difficult to capture the impact of assumption change, assuming that everything stayed the same.
The net impact, if the spreads have gone up and you've not repriced it to that extent, it will be an increase in NBM that will be captured in the product profile. Similarly, if the interest rates go down and you still not reprice it for whatever reason, that will be a negative and that will be again captured in the product profile. This is the thought process we have been following for many years now. There is no change in the way we have been showing this impact.
Sure.
Yeah. On the persistency sensitivity, there are two things which is resulting in a higher sensitivity. One is the proportion of UL has gone up compared to last year, hence higher sensitivity. Also because of this changes in surrender value regulations, even the non-linked products, the persistency will have an impact on the EV or the margin because unlike earlier, where there was some lapsed profits or surrender profits and the policyholder didn't stay for the scheduled policy term, here there is going to be an impact on the margin. That's why there is a higher sensitivity.
Sure.
Hope that's clear.
Yeah. That's very clear. Thank you.
Yeah. To take your question on getting deeper into interior India, that's exactly what we're doing. To remind you that one of the reasons for us to have acquired Exide Life was just that. Because we felt that that was not expressly our core competency. It was happening more because some of our distributors were there. We formulated an entire go-to-market strategy in tier two and three, and I'm happy to share that more than 72% of our customers acquired in this financial year, FY 2026, they were new to HDFC Life. If I were to look at tier two and three grew faster than Tier 1. Also, if I were to look at, say, our agency channels, every metric, so our FC base, the financial consultant base, if you look at it, so the growth there was 33% growth.
Tier three, there was a 42% growth. Our agent additions were in line with similar kind of numbers. Our marketing collaterals using AI so that every local language and dialect is possible, right from training to servicing. Even our ads, if you see, for the first time this year, we have used, like say in West Bengal, we have used local leading personalities as against nationals. What you're saying is we're already well on that path. Having said that, it's never all easy because the profiles don't have as much data. There will be two steps forward, one step back. I think we are now in a position of reasonable amount of confidence that within Tier 2 and 3, what are the profiles that we are comfortable underwriting, and that will only increase as we get more and more data.
Another data point is that as you know, we've been opening branches, over 200+ branches over the past 24 months-36 months. Happy to share that in our agency channel, for example, 13% of the business now comes from the branches that we opened in that time frame. We have a holistic strategy of exactly like you're saying, that to be among the top three movers into that space rather than only operating in a more crowded metro salaried set of space.
Maybe just one thing I'll add to what Vibha mentioned is that we are aware as we step into smaller markets, that the time for the branches to get as productive as in the larger markets is a lot higher, maybe one and a half times more, but we've not shied away from making all these investments. It's just that the time frame from which we get these returns is a little longer than we would get from a larger branch. Both of these happen in parallel, and the trade-offs and basically the payoff periods from both of these can vary.
Like you rightly mentioned, I think as you go deeper into India, there is I guess more sanity as far as the competitive intensity is concerned, given the obvious costs involved in going deeper as well as the brand recognition. We do understand that is an advantage that we have, and we plan to build on that as we go forward.
Yeah, that's very clear and it makes a lot of sense. Thank you so much for it, and all the best.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, you are requested to please limit yourselves to one question only. Our next question comes from the line of Nischint Chawathe from Kotak Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. You mentioned that the counter share at HDFC Bank in the fourth quarter was lower than nine months, but if you could give any color as to what it was for the entire financial year, and how does that sort of compare with the broad guidance of two-thirds counter share at HDFC Bank over the medium term?
Yeah. We were in mid-60s% the year before, and this year we would have closed at early 60s%.
How does the conversation go? Is it something that it kind of rewards over time, or is it something that there could be some kind of downward revision to this? How does it work?
Conversations are not only around share, because the share is an open architecture platform and it's on the ground in every branch and every segment is where we are competing like a normal insurance player. Basis that is what we were earlier on during this call also with the various questions we were answering, that we know actually at a granular level, which are the places, which are the cohorts that we would have let go of, which led to this loss of share and if we need to compete back, we also know what it takes to compete back. I think from that angle, it's not about a conversation, it's more about what business we want to and what business we let go.
I recollect at the beginning of last year, you budgeted for around, I think, 14% odd AP growth. Somehow destiny had other plans. When you start this year, given the uncertainties that are around, how do you budget for FY 2027 growth? What would be your starting point?
Exactly like you said, Nischint, 14%, actually, we had said 12%-13%, but okay, I think low double digits growth is what we had said. Now with all this uncertainty, exactly, and we've been here before in terms of when COVID-19 was there and so on. I think we'll just take it a month at a time in terms of planning. It's really volatile. What we will attempt to do is grow slightly faster than the sector. While doing that, focus on some of the tailwinds that we have on protection. We talked about some of the products like AGNI. We will really focus on maximizing that Tier 2 and 3 as well, the traction, because it's not as crowded as some of the other markets.
I think that's what we will focus on rather than trying to put a number, because a number means that you're investing resources and so on upfront. I think it's a little bit too volatile a situation.
Fair enough. Just last one. Do you think that this is the right environment for non-par to pick up over ULIPs, given the way the bond yields have moved and you can probably lever up that in terms of offering higher IRRs?
I think so. Niraj, do you want to add?
Yeah, absolutely. We've been waiting, Nischint, but it's not happened given the flows continue on the equity side, which is, again, we have no problem with that. We'll take all the growth that comes in Unit Linked as well, given that we now have an operating model that works. Yeah, it's a bit puzzling to us as well that, given the environment and given the uncertainty and the returns on the equity side in the short term, customers are still ignoring asset allocation. That's something which I guess, like we discussed earlier, we are all ready with multiple product options for customers, and we absolutely believe this year, I think the non-par take up should be higher than what it was last year. It's a bit puzzling why it hasn't happened already.
Do you think the demand is elastic to IRRs?
No, we do not believe so. To some extent, yes, where in an extreme situation where someone's putting 100 basis points more than me, of course, they're going to buy that product. The thing is, if within a band of like in protection 15%-20% up and down, it is not elastic. It is driven by multiple things, including brand preference and as long as we have the zone, we are okay. In IRR, I'll give you an example of annuities. Annuities, all the major players, three of us who are 90-odd% of the market are pretty much fairly close to each other because that is the pricing that makes sense. The customers choose based on their preference and the distribution outreach of each of the players.
Similarly on non-par, I think maybe barring one or two players, you find everyone from a mix perspective being anywhere between 15%-20% of their product mix is in non-par. That tells you that up to a particular point, pricing would matter. Once you're in a range, then multiple other things take over. It's not completely elastic. To some extent, when there is an outlier pricing, definitely there'll be some demand that gravitates towards.
Got it. Thank you very much, and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Supratim Datta from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. My one question is on the rider attachment. Could you let us know what is the current rider attachment rate that you have and how much further can this be increased?
If the ULIP demand comes off and that's replaced by non-par, could you do the same thing as in increasing the sum assured with non-par products as well? Would the similar strategy work there as well? What proportion of the ULIP policies currently has this higher sum assured? If you could give us some color around these three things, that would be very helpful. Thank you.
Yeah. As far as the last question, we have it highlighted in investor presentation as well. About 1/4 of the unit link business that we sell comes with higher sum assured. We started our rider journey about maybe three years back with a lot of education internally and putting our systems and processes in place to ensure a seamless experience for customers. Even as far back as one year ago, 1.5 years back, the rider APE was less than 1% of unit link premiums. Today, it's at least 5x- 6x that, and it's only increasing with the number of riders that we're able to bring to the table with customers opting for a combination of high riders as well as higher levels of sum assured.
I think as of now we have all the options from a customer perspective, whether they want to take a higher level of protection in the base sum assured itself, or they want to have the option of taking a rider. That's something that I guess we'll continue as we go forward as well. On the savings, as in non-par products, we've not seen a very significant take-up of riders yet because the thought process there is a little more different compared to when someone is looking to buy a unit linked product. We're trying to see how we can improve our attachment ratios on other than unit linked products as well, but that's still a work in progress. On standalone protection, like Vibha mentioned earlier on the call, there is a fairly significant off-take of pure non-return of premium products this year, given the GST change.
Return of premium is also doing reasonably well. It's just that the full impact of the GST price has shown itself in higher demand for pure non-ROP products. I think having a suite of each of these at that scale definitely helps, depending on whatever choice the customer may want to make.
Got it. At the overall APE level, what would be the proportion of riders?
Again, we've, I think, spoken earlier and on the call, 7% is our pure protection by itself and individual business. Adding riders, it comes to 10%. I think we can attribute about 3% of our APE to that.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Sanketh Godha from Avendus Spark. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. Vibha, Niraj, the question is that you told that in fourth quarter you lost market share compared to nine months in bancassurance. Is it fair to say that the competitive intensity actually increased, and that's the reason we lost the market share? If given as far as forbearance is accepted, are you confident that the growth might come back to mid-teens kind of a level next year? What are the pains that have to be taken with respect to non-par, unviable business? It has already been there in the current year and on a lower base that should look a little better going ahead, and therefore the mid-teen growth can come. Any color on those lines will be very useful to understand the growth trajectory going ahead.
Sanket, given the environment, difficult to put a number in terms of what growth comes ahead. As far as the specific question in terms of within HDFC Bank competitive intensity increase in quarter four, yes. Do we expect that to continue into FY 2027 and beyond? We do not believe so for all the reasons we mentioned, because sustainable growth, profitable growth, which is capital efficient, has to be done in a manner which kind of makes sense, even if you have a lower profitability threshold. Like we mentioned, we don't have to be present in all the segments at all points in time. There will be opportunities available to do a lot more granular work to get our market share where we would like it to be. That's something that we're already working on. We discussed geographies, we discussed kind of branches, we discussed customer segments.
Whatever applies at an overall level will apply to HDFC Bank also in terms of our approach to get our compressor back up to where we would like to see it. We're not going to be sucked into unreasonable things that are happening on the ground. We will push ourselves, definitely. We'll do our trade-offs between growth and profitability and keep challenging ourselves in terms of are we missing something which makes sense. We've done that in the past. We'll do that again. Anything that absolutely looks unmanageable from our perspective, we will not step into even now. That's our thought process.
Okay. Given maybe the capital will come in and maybe subject rates, will it give a bit of little more comfort or gunpowder to be little more competitive compared to what you were in the current year? Maybe there was a borderline business you chose not to do it, but with the capital, that thought process might change at the fringe level.
I think we will certainly see we have enough gunpowder to be competitive, but for different reasons, not necessarily because capital is coming. Capital is coming for growth in the normal scheme of things because RBC is probably, like I said
Likely to come after IFRS rollout has happened. It's more tied to that. There are quite a few things, exactly like we did in the case of protection, which was really being nuanced on driving the narrative rather than being forced into doing things that we are not comfortable doing or don't see the end game in doing all those things. You'll have to just wait and watch, because again, not everything can be disclosed on a call like this. Yes, we're not just sitting and waiting until the whole thing blows over. Yes, there are three or four things up our sleeve to maneuver the narrative in a direction that we want to.
Just in terms of giving a little bit of color is that we are looking very, very granular with our data to see which customers we can take a, not aggressive, but a calculated call and which ones we absolutely want to avoid. It's not one-size-fits-all.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Prayesh Jain from Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. The question is on, again, probably the HDFC Bank channel, and I think that's been something which been discussed quite a bit. Just one more angle to it, whether commission that the competitors are paying to HDFC Bank, does that also come into equation where the share has come down for us? That's one. Second, when you say that the capital raise will give you additional solvency of 900 basis points, do you also build in the additional debt that you can raise via the bonds to build that in capital? Lastly, on commission regulations, if any, that comes through, how would the kind of things play out with your primary partner, which is HDFC Bank?
On commissions, everything is identical over here. Yes, product mix, as you know, we do calibrate product mix, so we will choose the segments in which we want to be materially present. To give you an example, if Unit Linked at a low sum assured multiple is the name of the game or lower premium payment term, then we might take a back seat like we have done. Like two premium payment term at full commercials and so on is something that, don't see the end game in that. It's not that the headlines commercials are different. No, they're not. They're identical. However, it's some of the nuances of products that could vary. That's point number one. As regards the outlook in terms of commission regulations and so on, I think we'll have to wait and watch.
Since you're asking specifically about our primary partner, it's not that we haven't been having conversations on what if scenarios, and they're fully aware and they also sit at the board, so they're fully aware of many different possible scenarios and what might be viable, what might require tweaks to business model and so on. Like I said, in the medium term, whatever it is, see, the demand for insurance is not a figment of our imagination. Exactly like the way demand really took off with the GST cut as well as protection. That demand is certainly there. How one taps it through what kind of products in a new environment, if there is one, is something that we will quickly look at and collaborate with our partners for it to be a win-win.
Prayesh, if you'll just quickly repeat your question on that solvency you asked about whether there is capacity to raise sub-debt. Answer is yes. We could raise on the back of INR 1,000 crore of equity, we could raise INR 500 crore sub-debt, which will give us an additional 4% as and when we believe it would be required or we want to just exercise that option. Was there any other question?
Prayesh, does that answer your question?
Yeah. Together these two could be 1,300 basis, right?
That's correct. 13-14. Yeah. That's right.
Yeah. That's it. Thank you so much.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Vinod Rajamani from Nirmal Bang. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for taking my question. I have one question on retail protection. What proportion of buyers would you say on retail protection are first time buyers? Is there any sense that you're getting that the addressable new to insurance kind of pool, that pool is kind of getting, is that thinning or is that getting a little saturated? How should we think of that? What is the kind of sustainable quarterly kind of protection growth rate into FY 2027? That's the question I had on protection.
Yeah. It's very encouraging to see that post GST, about 80% of the protection business is new to HDFC Life customers that we saw. As Vibha mentioned in her opening comments, we're basically seeing a fair bit of demand across different customer segments and also in terms of the choices that they're making in terms of taking full advantage of the GST cut to either buy more sum assured. Basically even after the changing price, we've been able to maintain our average ticket size, which basically tells you people are buying a lot more cover with the same amount of money. They could have chosen to buy similar cover with lower premiums, but most customers have not chosen to do that. That's a very good sign.
With all of this as well, in spite of all of this, we are still fairly under-insured as a country and the customer segments that we believe require more insurance. We're far from saturated. Customers are making different choices to buy protection. Some who are comfortable using the savings vehicle have these options that we've discussed earlier in terms of riders or higher embedded sum assured. A lot of young customers are taking pure protection products, and the GST change has been a fairly big catalyst there.
Yeah. Thank you for that. The other question I had was, there was a specific question on the HDFC Bank channel. Is the bank trying to prioritize, say, deprioritizing non-part sales? I mean, it's a trend which is visible in terms of the fact that ULIP share has been increasing. Do they see it as competing with deposit holders and so on? Is that something which is being felt?
No, we haven't seen this kind of a, let's say, a completely deliberated move towards one particular product mix. The ULIP mix is mostly coming in from, I think, the demand from the customers and more of an easier sale. Especially, certain segments like we spoke about when you're able to configure the shorter pay, et cetera, in ULIPs by certain insurance companies. I think that's the reason why you're seeing maybe a larger skew happening in the ULIP side in HDFC Bank. I have not really seen the reason that this might be competing with a deposit or that kind of nature. We have always focused on guarantees long-term products, which do not really fall into the bank's competing for it. I mean, they work on a medium-term kind of assured returns, and our products have always focused on much longer-term guarantees.
Right. Yeah. Thank you. Those were the questions I had. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Tejas Tikuna, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. I have two questions. What was the percentage contribution from HDFC Bank bancassurance channel in terms of the individual overall new business premium? The second one, you mentioned that the MFI sector growing and catching up in Q4. What was the growth that was registered in credit life new business premium business?
I'll first take the MFI business. MFI, I think we saw the growth coming back in quarter four. Quarter four MFI growth, because there was also a subdued base last year, was in excess of 40%. While on an overall year basis, I think we saw business growth of about 13 odd %, which is slightly slower than our CP growth, but that's the full year number on the MFI base. On HDFC Bank, our NBP contribution on received premium is, I think, approximately about 40 odd %.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Manjeet Buaria from Saamya Advisors LLP . Please go ahead.
Thank you. Vibha, I had one question. Why did we not revisit our dividend policy and skip about INR 450 crore of dividend payout when we are simultaneously looking to raise INR 1,000 crore in a primary issue?
See, we do have a lot of retail investors, close to 9 lakhs-10 lakhs of retail investors. There are pension funds. It's not only for when you look at banks, let's take that example. Banks come to the market to raise capital all the time, and they pay dividends. It's no different. It's just that in life insurance, the back book so far has largely funded normal growth. Now, protection here has been a lot higher than in the past 17 years-18 years that I've been associated with this sector. That's a good problem to have. However, it requires capital. This is growth capital. If there was an issue in terms of some hole that is caused because of some inefficiencies or something like that, then maybe what you're saying could be considered.
This is growth capital, no different from any other sector, and this is business as usual as far as existing shareholders are concerned, especially the retail shareholders. I think that's how we had to triangle it. Hence, we've kept it flat. We've tried to balance the two objectives.
I understand that, Vibha, but actually, it's also indicative. The board would not want to raise primary unless we are at a fair price. Given the way our valuations have tracked over the last few years, you're indirectly indicating that we are already at a fair price. I mean, ideally, you don't want to do that, right? I mean, typically, banks who have raised a lot of capital have done it much higher valuation multiples than their fair valuation multiples. Anyway, I was just curious about that. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nidhesh Jain from Investec. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. My question is on margin. This year we had a negative impact of 110 basis points because of GST and 20 basis points of surrenders. That should not recur next year. Should our starting margin be higher than almost 130 basis points, what we have shown in FY 2026?
Nidhesh, yeah, the GST impact is something that we will neutralize in the first half of next year. Post that, it is completely baked into the business model, and after that, whatever delivery happens should be on that basis. Before GST, or rather, I think end of Q3, we did mention that we'd like to get back to the levels of FY 2025 and the 25%+ range. Can we get to that? We possibly can. Like I mentioned earlier on the call, that's not something that we're going to prioritize. What we're going to prioritize is to get the growth back to the handle that we are comfortable with and deliver VNB growth at least in line with that. If there is any potential and scope to expand margins beyond that, absolutely, we will try and do that.
The priority will be to get growth back to where we would like it to be.
Sure. Thanks, Nidhesh. That's it from my side.
Thanks, Nidhesh.
Thank you. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to Ms. Vibha Padalkar for closing comments. Over to you, ma'am.
Thank you for joining us today. Should you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to reach out to our investor relations team. Have a good evening.
Thank you. On behalf of HDFC Life Insurance Company, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.