Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Home First Finance Company India Limited Q1 FY2026 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the meeting only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Deepak Khetan, Head of Investor Relations of Home First Finance Company India Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Rayo. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Home First Finance Company India Limited's earnings conference call to discuss the financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2025. We hope you have had the chance to review our investor presentation and press release, both of which are available on our website and the stock exchange. As per our guesses, we have also uploaded an Excel sheet containing historical data on our website for your easy reference. From the management, we have with us today Mr. Manoj Viswanathan, Managing Director & CEO, and Ms. Nutan Gaba Patwari, Chief Financial Officer. With that, I now invite Manoj to share his insights on overall performance. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, Deepak. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Quarter one FY2026 was marked by two important events in our history. First, we raised INR 1,250 crore through our first QIP, which has significantly increased our net worth and further strengthened our capital base. Also, our long-term current rating was upgraded to AA stable by ICRA, India Ratings, and Care Ratings. Both these events further enhanced our ability to build a strong and large housing finance franchise. Now, let me walk you through quarter one FY2026 highlights. AUM growth remains strong, growing at 28.6% year-on-year and 6% quarter-on-quarter to reach INR 13,479 crore. Disbursements for the quarter stood at INR 1,243 crore, which was the second highest in our history. The previous highest was in quarter four FY2025, which is seasonally a strong quarter. Disbursements in April were slower than expected.
However, from May onwards, we are moving on expected lines. The stock call of about INR 50 crore will be covered in H2 of the year. Our disbursement guidance for FY2026 remains in the range of INR 5,600 - 5,800 crore. We have grown strongly in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Gujarat. Growth in Tamil Nadu and Telangana, which are two other large markets, was muted in quarter one. However, we are confident of a rebound in these regions in the rest of the year. Home First's branch expansion strategy is based on a continuous expansion into large and high-density affordable housing finance markets. During the quarter, we added three new physical branches, taking the total to 158 branches as of 30th June 2025. We added 75 employees during the quarter, taking the total employee strength to 1,709 as of June 2025.
We intend to add six new branches in quarter two. Our origination market share in the INR 5-25 lakh ticket price in the locations we are present in, based on Bureau data, has gone up from 1.5% in FY2022 to 2.3% in FY2025. We continue to retain a strong origination yield of 13.4% despite an 84% share of individual housing loans. This is a significant growth lever at our disposal in a falling interest rate environment. Asset quality saw a seasonal uptick in 1+ EPG and 30+ EPG. However, we expect the numbers to normalize over the next two quarters. 1+ EPG is at 5.4%, up by 90 basis points on a quarter-on-quarter basis. 30+ EPG is at 3.5%, up by 50 basis points on a quarter-on-quarter basis. Gross stage 3 is at 1.8%, up by 10 basis points on a quarter-on-quarter basis.
The above seasonal uptick was more pronounced in two regions, Surat and Coimbatore-Tirupur. We have already seen a turnaround in Surat in July. We are expecting Coimbatore also to be resolved in the next few months. Our credit cost is at 40 basis points. We continue to maintain a credit cost guidance of 30 basis points- 40 basis points, ensuring disciplined risk management even at this scale. Technology remains central to our execution and continues to give us a competitive edge. Home First embarked on a journey of exploring AI/ML technologies more than five years ago. In Quarter One, we launched Pulse, which is an AI-driven omnichannel conversational platform, which enables integrated customer conversations across various channels like voice, WhatsApp, SMS, email, etc. It is functional in seven Indian languages and uses AI to facilitate business process flows and provides actionable insights through advanced transcription and analytics.
Pulse use cases span across lead generation, customer verification, underwriting, collections, and customer service. During the quarter, we also went live with our internally developed enterprise-grade document management system and treasury management system. The core benefit of developing these applications in-house is that these are tailor-made to suit our business flows, and more importantly, we remain agile to adapt to changing business requirements. Digital adoption continues to be strong and a key area of our focus as we grow. 78% of our approvals in Quarter One were facilitated by the account aggregator framework. More than 80% of our loans are digitally fulfilled via agreements and e-NACH mandates. 96% of our customers are registered on our mobile app, with 88% of service requests now registered. During Quarter One, we got 70 additional Green Home certified, taking the total to 190.
Our efforts and dedication towards responsible and sustainable financing are evident from our ESG scores. During the quarter, from Morningstar Sustainalytics, we have earned our lowest ESG rating. SCS ESG Research has assigned a score of 80.8 in 2025 versus 78.9 in 2024. CRISIL has assigned a score of 64, up from 63, implying strong ratings. I would like to share a quick update on the PMAY2 scheme. I'm happy to share that seven customers have already received the first grant of subsidy with another seven approved in a waiting fund. We expect this scheme to pick up traction with an increase in customer awareness and streamlining of the process. With recent cuts in policy rates and the government's continued focus on CTEC growth, increasing disposable income and housing for all, we remain confident of a strong demand for housing and housing finance.
Given our strong and unique business model, we are well positioned to harness this multi-decade growth opportunity. With that, I'll now hand it over to Nutan to take you through the financials in more detail. Over to you, Nutan.
Thank you, Manoj. Good afternoon, everyone. Let us start with the key financial metrics. Total income for the quarter stood at INR 455 crore, up by 33.4% year-on-year and 9.4% quarter-on-quarter. For Q1, our spread excluding co-lending was 5.1%. Cost of borrowing excluding co-lending maintained at 8.4%. Disbursement yields were at 13.4%, in line with 13.3% in Q4 FY2025. Net interest margin for Q1 was 5.2%, up from 5.1% the previous quarter. Cost-to-income at, apologies, 34.2% in Q1, decreased 150 basis points on a quarter-on-quarter basis. Operating expenses to assets were 2.7% for the quarter, in line with our expectations. Expense to assets quoted remained range-bound within 2.6% to 2.7% as we focus on growth and expansion. Our profit after tax increased to INR 119 crore, up by 35.5% year-on-year and 13.6% quarter-on-quarter, with return on assets of 3.7% and return on equity of 14.9%.
Proforma pre-money ROE, adjusted for QIP for Q1, was at 16.6%. Moving to provisions and asset quality, credit costs for Q1 stood at 40 basis points. We continue to maintain our annual credit cost guidance of 30 basis points- 40 basis points. We continue to adopt a conservative approach to provisioning, maintaining a provision overlay over and above ECL requirements. As of June 2025, our total provision coverage is 43.1%. Moving to balance sheet and portfolio positioning, our borrowing profile continues to be well-diversified and cost-effective, reflecting our prudent financial management. 60% of borrowings come from private and public banks, 16% from NBFCs, 19% from assignment and co-lending, and balance from NCDs, ECBs, and NHB refinance. During Q1, we executed direct assignment transactions worth INR 184 crore.
Our disbursement on the co-lending increased by 87.5% year-on-year and 43.3% quarter-on-quarter to INR 78 crore for Q1, taking the co-lending book to INR 434 crore or 3.2% of the total AUM. Co-lending will continue to be an important part of our strategy to strengthen our ability to cater to higher ticket-size segments. We aim to take co-lending contributions to 10% of disbursements as we scale. Our Q1 reported cost of borrowing is competitive at 8.4% excluding co-lending, enabling us to maintain healthy spreads. With the recent rate cuts and our improved long-term rating, we expect the cost of borrowing to improve in Q2. Our June and July marginal cost of borrowing is sub 8%, giving us significant confidence that we can deliver benefits in cost of borrowing in the next two quarters.
Coming to capital adequacy and liquidity, our capital adequacy ratio as of June 2025 stands at 49.6%, with Q1 at 49.2%. Our net worth stands at INR 3,855 crore, up by 76.2% year-on-year and 52.9% quarter-on-quarter. Book value per share as of June 2025 is INR 373. Our strong balance sheet with high capital base underlines our readiness to take on the growth ambitions of the company. With that, we conclude our opening remarks and are now happy to take your questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question -and -answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask questions may press star and one on the touchstone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, press star and two. Participants are requested to use hands as well as asking questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. First question is from Suraj Das from Sundaram Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Am I audible?
Yes.
Yeah, hi sir. Thanks for the opportunity, sir. The question is on disbursement. This quarter disbursement has been really, you called out a couple of places where probably there was seasonal impact. If I look at your guidance and what effectively you were saying is that over the next nine months, the disbursement growth will be something like 24%-25% on a worldwide basis. If I look at your disbursement this year, this quarter it has been only 7%. Even if I just add for the co-lending business, it's hardly 4%-5%. Sir, the question is in terms of disbursement, what are the challenges? In a couple of geographies also, not only the ones that you have called out for, but also in UP and Uttarakhand, I think the AUM growth is slowing down and all that thing.
If you can give us more color in terms of disbursement and what has been the pain point probably for this quarter and how you are planning, if you can give us a bit more color on that.
As we mentioned, disbursement only in April was lower than the expected number. I think generally Q1 has a much lower number in the industry compared to Q4. Till now we have always been slightly above, except for last year where we were about 5% higher than Q4. If you see previous years, that is 2024 over 2023, 2023 over 2022, etc., you will see that we are just 1% or 2% higher than Q4 in Q1. Generally, it is a seasonally low quarter. Frankly speaking, yes, April was slightly slower than expected. That's why I said there's a INR 400- INR 500 million kind of a difference than what we expected. Otherwise, from May onwards, we are moving on expected lines only, in line with what we have planned for the year, which is about INR 56 -INR 58 billion of disbursement.
If you see our history also in the past, if you see FY2023, for example, Q1 was low, but then in Q2, Q3, there was a jump, or rather Q3, Q4, there was a jump. You'll have to look at it through the year. Actually, there is nothing additional to add. As I mentioned, in Tamil Nadu and Telangana, which are two large markets again, Q1 was a little muted, which is why we came in lower than expected. This trend is likely to get corrected and we should be moving on expected lines in the future. There is nothing structurally which is a difficulty in disbursement or anything which we are seeing on the ground.
Okay, sure. Sorry, can I ask what was the historical disbursement this year versus historical bandwidth? I mean, if the history was slower, is it meaningfully slower?
Yeah, I mean, it was lower than what we expected. We, first quarter, had some payers looking at maintaining about a close to INR 430 crore, between INR 430 -INR 450 crore kind of a range. The April loan came a bit lower. I think it was around INR 380 crore. That's about INR 40 -INR 50 crore of difference that came in April itself. We caught up in May. May and June we caught up, and even July, you know the trends are good. I think it was just a blip in April.
Okay, sure. One last question from my side, in terms of asset quality, again, I mean, partly seasonal, I can understand. This quarter, if I see the growth increase in stage two, stage three plus write-offs, that number has been quite elevated. Is it the new branches that you have opened over the last one or two years that is getting matured and hence you are seeing the trend now, or what it is? Do you think it is only seasonal?
There is a, seasonally there is a 30basis points -40 basis point impact in general. That's why I've also called out that, you know, other than the seasonal, we had a couple of markets where we had a more than the seasonal impact, essentially, that we've seen in Quarter One, which was Surat and Coimbatore-Tirupur. I mean, these are markets which employ a large number of people. I think a little bit of the sluggishness in the economy and, you know, the credit squeeze in the economy has led to a little higher than normal uptick in delinquency. By the same token, I mean, these are basically people who get employed in factories, etc., though they end up, you know, catching up in a couple of months. They were not able to pay in June, for example, but in July, for example, we ensure that we are seeing a turnaround.
A lot of them, many of the people who did not pay in June are now paying two-toe installments in July, for example. It's just something that we feel is under control.
Okay, sure. Sir, on a full year credit cost basis, what kind of credit costs were you expecting this quarter this year for the full year?
30 basis points- 40 basis points is what we have always mentioned because there are always ups and downs in this business. 30 basis points- 40 basis points, we should be in that range. Not expecting higher than that.
Sure, thanks. Yeah, that's all from my side. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from Ramesh from ICRA. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Sir, just two or three things from my side. Obviously, sorry to coming back to the disbursement plan. When we look at in absolute terms, it is hovering around INR 1,150 crore -INR 1,250 crore, despite we adding 25 new branches, adding more than 400 people in the past one year. Obviously, the scale-up is sort of below the expectation. What gives you that confidence that we'll catch up with the lower disbursement in April, like late in July? Because two things. Coimbatore-Tirupur, you said, will take some time for a full recovery. Also, I don't know what your view on Telangana are, but what are the feedbacks you are getting from the ground which gives you this confidence that we'll be able to have a profitable disbursement in April?
Two things. One is that, as I mentioned, May and June were normal in terms of what we expected. We bounced back in May and June, and even in July, till whatever numbers we have. That gives us the confidence that April was a temporary blip. If we had, for example, in April, let's say we had clocked the same number as May, then I think we would not be having this conversation probably. It was much shorter. I mean, like I said, it was only INR 380 crore. That was the only, so that is what gives us the confidence that three months in a row we have been able to move in a different, I mean, more as expected. There is no structural issue or anything like that. That is one.
Secondly, if we look at the overall industry, we also compared ourselves, our quarter one with the rest of the industry. In fact, in full year FY2025, as well as quarter one versus quarter four, if you compare ourselves with some of our peers or other larger industries, the drop has been much more substantial. In our case, it was a 2% drop compared to quarter four, which we accept is not something that we expected. We were expecting a 2%-3% increase on quarter four. If you look at overall industry, the industry drop is even more, it's just much more substantial than us. That gives us the confidence that we are much better off and we have already corrected that trend in May, June, and July. That is what gives us the confidence that we should be able to meet our overall year numbers.
Got it. Sir, would you like to share your July disbursement number?
July disbursement number is, I mean, we are still five days away from month end. It will be difficult to share that somehow.
Okay. Secondly, on this small ticket price piece, you know, we are hearing multiple players highlighting strength in this portfolio. Of late, we have been scaling up this book aggressively in the recent past. What's your sense on this lab book, and would you want to continue this growth path in this product, given the current scenario?
In loans against property, we are not, we have always been very picky about what we are picking up in loans against property, you know, the world, what we are onboarding in loans against property. We never had a pressure to grow that book, and it is really not a large contributor to our overall growth. We are not feeling worried about the loans against property portfolio as such because it is actually not giving us any additional strength in spite of all the noise in the market.
Okay.
I think, yeah, because the contribution to disbursement is only about 17% or 17%. 80% + is still coming from individual housing loans. This is why we are not worried about the loans against property portfolio.
Okay. Have you analyzed your stock in lab? I mean, in terms of, let's say, number of customers having more than three loans or any data you would like to share which can give us some comfort on the health of the portfolio currently?
Yeah, we have done that. This is a few months ago, and I think at the time the discussion was more around MFI business and, you know, how it impacts, etc. We did a mapping of whether our customers are MFI customers. We only found about 1% odd overlap of our customers with the MFI segment. As far as, you know, other loans are concerned, there has always been an overlap. I mean, if you see the Bureau penetration of our portfolio, it is 85%. Right?
Right.
It means 85% of the customers are already coming to us with some kind of a Bureau score, which they must have obtained because they already have some kind of small ticket loan, which they have borrowed. That has always been there and that number is only increasing every day.
Got it.
That 85%, I mean, because that's almost, almost the entire portfolio. It's difficult to say what is impacting, not impacting. Like I said, in some of these markets like Surat, Tirupur, etc., where you are dealing with lower, lower income category people, like people like factory workers, etc., there has been probably some impact of that. It is very little that, you know, difficult for us to attribute everything to that.
Got it. Got it. Just a last didactic question, maybe for Nutan. What do you realize yield, under co-lending, and also yields for loan in more than INR 2.5 million ticket size, which is 14% of AUM?
Realized yield on co-lending would be just around 10%. That is what we pay to the borrower. What we end up earning is much more, if you go through the unit economics principle. In general, what we charge to the borrower is about 10%. What was your second question?
Are yields for loans in more than 25 entities ticket size, which is 14% of AUM?
About 50 basis points- 75 basis points lower, around 12%.
Okay. Okay. Thank you and best of luck.
Thank you.
Next question is from Abhijit Tibrewal from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good evening, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. First thing, I just want to understand this increase in 1 plus TPD, as we saw, about 90 basis points Q2. For us as well, was the slippage much more pronounced in the month of April? In the months of May and June, things kept getting better? Or was that the case for us as well?
The slippage was high in April, yes. In May, we kind of pulled back. Then there was some slippage in June as well.
Got it. July, again, the same thing? I mean, trending along similar lines as June? Is there a recovery?
July is obvious. July is much better than June. I mean, it's much better than May also.
July is much better. Got it. Got it. I know why you already spelled that out. What I'm trying to understand is what the industry saw in the month of April was a little unusual, of course. To be honest, there's not too much of an explanation of why that happened in April. I'm talking at the industry level. As for us, in your view, is it just a macro weakness, tightness in customer cash flows which is resulting into this? Is it something else?
There would have been some collection. I mean, some we're seeing at the customer level. At least internally, I think it was the collection efficiency reduction as well, just our inability to collect on these customers in April for various reasons. You know, customers being on leave, employees being on leave, a bit of collection. I mean, it's basically a collection efficiency issue. I don't think there was any, I mean, there would have been marginal difficulty that customers faced because if the entire industry has faced something, then probably there was a marginal difficulty that customers faced. That was, I think, more of unavailability of customers, fewer employees on the job, and so on.
Got it. Nutan, the second question I had was around Karnataka. I mean, it's just trying to understand. We all know because of the Kata issues, things have been weak. The momentum has been weak in Karnataka. Just trying to understand, Karnataka is not among our top five markets. Despite that, I see the growth that we have seen in Karnataka for the last three, four quarters, right? That has been weaker than our top five markets.
Correct.
If you could just help us understand what's happening in Karnataka on the ground and when are we expecting things to recover in Karnataka?
In Karnataka, there are multiple issues. One is, of course, that we are concentrated more in Bangalore. Almost our entire business comes from Bangalore, right? Bangalore and surrounding areas. We don't have an extensive distribution across Karnataka. Secondly, there's the Kata issues there, which has impacted our volumes over the last, I think, three quarters now. It's not still resolved. That process is slow. The employee dynamics in Bangalore are also very, very different compared to the rest of India. I think all of these factors are there, which is why it is not one of our key markets. We will probably get better bang for the buck in many of the other markets. We have to solve these things one by one. It will take some time for these things to get resolved.
Of course, if the Kata issue gets resolved, the numbers will come back because we have a strong presence in Bangalore. In terms of distribution across the state, those are things that we need to, it's more long-term and that we need to solve for that.
Got it. One last question for you, why you said long-term, that reminds me, if you could just speak a little bit about what's our market share like today over the next maybe three to four years, what's our aspiration like in terms of market share? If you could just also briefly speak about geographies that we'll be focusing on. I understand for the last two years, we've been talking about some newer geographies that we've been focusing on in the last couple of years. If you could just briefly speak about some of our market share aspirations and within that, last part of it, where did they come from?
Yes. Market share, as I mentioned on the call, our market share, if you see over the last three-year period, disbursement market share, origination market share, it went up from 1.5% in FY2022 to 2.3% now in FY2025. There is a market share gain, and our ambition is to take this number closer to 5% in the next four to five years. In terms of markets, last year, if you remember, we spoke about focusing on newer markets like MP, Rajasthan, UP, Uttarakhand. Out of those four markets, we have had reasonable success in Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, and MP. We had very good success in these three markets. As far as UP is concerned, we did not go as aggressively as the other three because UP is a large market, still a little more rural than the other markets. We have been cautiously expanding distribution in UP.
We will continue to do that. Probably we will see more action in UP over the next maybe two to three years rather than immediately. In MP and Rajasthan, you can see that our share, AUM share of those states, has gone up, and they have become fairly significant markets for us now. As far as other markets are concerned, we again did a good turnaround in Maharashtra. Maharashtra, if you've seen a couple of years ago, the AUM share of Maharashtra was reducing, but now it's again started turning around and the AUM share is increasing. It is a very large market, and it is becoming significant for us now. Tamil Nadu and Telangana, we had some issues over the last two quarters in terms of leadership, in terms of people, leadership team, and so on, which we have now rectified.
This year we should definitely see an uptick in those markets. These are the largest markets: Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Andhra and Telangana put together, and MP. These are our largest markets, followed by Rajasthan. Then, of course, we have such as Gujarat. We have UP, Uttarakhand, which is smaller for us, and Karnataka.
Got it, Manoj. Thank you so much. One last question for Nutan. I mean, this infinite borrowing is great. We are increasing our borrowings from public banks now, versus the private banks. If you could just help us understand and iterate about, are we getting lower cost borrowings from public banks, and which is where that inclination to borrow from public banks, or how should we think about this?
Yeah. So essentially, it's a function of where the drawdown is happening on that particular quarter. We did the large drawdown from SBI in Q1. That is why, if you see, the public banks have gone up from 34% to 36%. As a strategy, we are kind of not very choosy between a public sector bank or a private sector bank. If I were to lay down top one, two, three, the first thing that we focus on is tenure. Second is diversification. Third is pricing. Second or third, probably, you know, depending on the market situation, can be either way. Tenure is sacrosanct for us. We don't do short-term borrowing, below five years. We don't do that. When you consider that, depending on where we are getting all these three right, we will borrow.
Drawdown essentially depends on what time period we get to draw down depending on the capital charge and so on. This particular quarter, we have gone down from SBI and last quarter also to the HDFC. Now we've completed that large line. Now you will see some expansion on the private bank line. It will keep interchanging, really speaking.
Got it. The pricing is broadly the same?
Oh, yes.
With private or public?
Yes, the benchmark pricing could be different, but the landed cost is broadly the same.
Okay. Thank you so much. I wish you and your team the best.
Thank you, everybody.
Thank you.
Next question is from Chandrasekar from Fidelity. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Good afternoon. I have a few questions. Manoj, I think over the period of time, the productivity metrics for employee basis have actually come down a little bit. I mean, maybe spend some time on where you're deploying people. Are you thinking of more of the backend, or is there a reason why the productivity is coming down or just because you've added a lot of branches? That's question one. Second is, on spreads, given that we've had the rating upgrade. I mean, in the previous cycle when rates went down, we did see a brief period of spread expansion because we said the customers weren't particularly sensitive. I noticed you've done, I think, a 35 basis points cut from August, starting August. How should we just think of spreads more near term in that context and, you know, more over the longer term?
In Maharashtra, I mean, what happened? Because it is pretty much a sharp jump, which has happened in any market there. Lastly, just from earlier delivery, obviously this has been inching up. From the commentary, you said you think that that's topped out and then coming off over the course of this year. Thanks.
Yeah, thanks, Ramesh. On the productivity side, it has been fairly constant. If you're just referring to probably quarter one, the dip in quarter one is because of the dip in numbers. I think.
Yeah, so over a period of time, not specifically this time. I understand quarter one is a little seasonal, but we used to have disbursements for employees for the quarter of, you know, INR 7.5 million, INR 8 million. It's down to INR 7 million to INR 7.5 million. I mean, that's not moved up to disbursement of ticket sizes over a period of time coming. I thought, yeah, we're just having a INR 7.5 million down to INR 7.2 million. It's just some.
You're talking about the AUM per employee, I think, because I'm not sure I can.
The cases, yeah, outstanding cases per employee are a little lower now. Disbursements per employee are a little lower now. That's been a sort of trend over a period of time, not specifically one quarter related.
For disbursement per employee, we see largely, we benchmark about INR 3 -INR 3.5 crore a year, which is broadly we are in the same ballpark. It's just that one or two quarters, you know, when the employees join, like quarter four and quarter one is when a large number of employees join and the employee count goes up. At that time, the volume is also correspondingly lower. At that time, there is a slight reduction. I think it should broadly be in that range of about INR 3 crore,INR 3.5 crore per employee per year. We are not seeing that going down. We will continue to maintain it at those levels. As far as spread is concerned, again, as I mentioned on the call, we have actually tried to maintain the yield at about 13.4% in spite of the overall, you know, reducing trend in interest rates.
That is one lever that we have with us, and we can kind of use that to build up disbursements as we go forward. As we start seeing the transmission and as we start seeing the cost of borrowing coming down, we can actually use that to build up volume. We have not actually reduced the tenure we are repricing as of now. I think I heard you mentioned 35 basis points.
Yeah, this is office, not say. Sorry, that's my mistake. Sorry.
Yeah, so we have not done that. We still have those levers with us. We can use, especially on the origination side. If you see last quarter also, we maintained our origination level of about 13.4%. That is a strong lever that we have with us, which we can use to build up volume going forward. On Maharashtra, yes, there has been definitely a turnaround. Last year, last two years, we were working on building the team, rebuilding the team, getting our positioning in the market, etc. Those things have worked well. We are now again at 20 %- 30% kind of, I think a 30% AUM growth in Maharashtra, which used to be much lower earlier, since a couple of years ago. Last year, we managed to get into that 30%+ of AUM growth in Maharashtra.
Similarly, this is why we have, I mean, and Maharashtra is one of the tough markets. Bombay and Pune are really very, very formal markets with large players, etc. Here, if we had managed to turn this around and get to a 30% + kind of an AUM growth, that gives us a lot of confidence that we can kind of do the same kind of business and same kind of turnaround in some of the other markets where there's some slowdown. On the delinquency side, I think, which was your fourth point, yes, quarter one always is, the delinquency goes a little higher, except in one or two markets where we saw more than the seasonal uptake. The good news is that in July, for example, in Surat, we are seeing a good pullback.
Like I said, a lot of customers are making good the payment estimation as soon also. We don't feel worried at all about that. I think we should be able to pull back on that.
Thank you.
Thanks, Chandra.
Thank you. Next question is from Amit Ganatra from Invesco. Please go ahead.
Yeah, question is for Nutan. Your cost of borrowing is, quarter on quarter, almost the same. Yes, from where should you start getting some benefit of your rating upgrade as well as, you know, the general interest rate cuts?
Right. So unless if you see, it's a flat quarter on quarter. June and July our marginal cost of borrowing is below 8%, and I'm expecting quarter two reported cost of borrowing to be 20 basis points lower. We should start seeing that benefit. Hopefully, by Q4, this 8.4% should be more like 8%.
Okay, is this largely on account of general interest rate cut, or is there any extra benefit that you are now getting on account of rating upgrade?
See, the spreads have reduced. When we are negotiating with the banks, the spread that used to get added has started to come down by 15 basis points- 20 basis points. Of course, the overall rate cycle has also come down, so it does get mixed up to some extent. Having a proper bifurcation, which is, let's say, auditable, will be very difficult.
The only thing is that shouldn't your cost of borrowing improve more than just general, you know, interest rate cuts? Is it that your anger is so high in the sense that you are still going for sure? You mentioned that it's a tenure, and then you mentioned one more thing, and then pricing is the last thing that you guys look at.
Right. Right. Amit, the thing is that I don't, the issue is not the size of borrowing that we are looking to do either this year or next year. We are small in the relative scheme of things. What happens is that we benchmark each of the lines that we draw down, for example, ranges between repo, T-bill, two or three-month NPL, or a bit of a 12-month NPL. Let's say if you're, you know, working with a large public sector bank, they will stick to an NPL-based pricing only. The lowest NPL is a one-month. Versus a private sector bank, depending on which bank you may be referring to, you can focus on a repo-based pricing also. Ultimately, what it boils down to is today's landed cost.
What gets reported is if I have done a transaction, let's say six months out, and the NPL has not moved down, though the overall policy rate has moved down and reset has moved down, it takes time. The only bank that has taken down NPL meaningfully today is SBI. Nobody else has done that. Transition takes time. What we are trying to ensure is that our marginal cost of borrowing is low.
Okay. Have you done any corresponding actions on the sale side?
Not yet. What we have discussed to date is that we will first want to see the cost of borrowing line go down and then take the call. We have far-fetched decisions for either middle of Q3 or early Q4. Q2, we are not looking to make any changes.
Okay. Lastly, your disbursement, to some extent, is slowing down over there. It's not only this quarter. It has been there for more than one quarter now. Just one question there: is it on account of rising competitive intensity, or is it on account of, you mentioned, a couple of markets? If so, or is it only very, very geography-based, or is it on account of higher rejections at your end? Because asset quality basically is also important. What would be the reasons that one can attribute?
Amit, I think other than April, frankly, we don't see it as a disbursement slowdown. Last year, I think this discussion came up again because in Q1, we had grown quite aggressively. Then, you know, Q2 and Q3, we kind of just consolidated. There were questions around why the disbursal is kind of flat to Q3, but that was more intentional in some ways. In Q4, again, we saw a decent jump of 10% on Q3. April was the only disappointing month, if you ask us internally. Otherwise, May, June, July, we are going as we have planned. We don't see it as a step on disbursement or a difficulty in disbursement.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from Anand Bhavnani from WO. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. Two questions. One is if you can tell us approximately what % of our disbursement in the last one year would be to under construction, apartments under the CLP construction link plan framework.
Under construction only AUM is generally around 12% to 14% is under the, is generally under construction. As you can see from the charts, this shows the pre-EMI versus EMI. Let me tell you the exact number. Yes, reporting page number 14. This shows this under construction risk in this page 14. So 13% is the under construction, which is since the EMI mode, where customers are still not fully, I mean, the loan is not fully disbursed. And 87% of the AUM is fully disbursed.
When I look at the payment rates, it seems our payment rates have come down in a sense that maybe the BT out has come down in this particular quarter. Anything that you can share with us which makes this trend?
It's a Q1 phenomenon, Manoj.
Q1, yeah, Q1 to some extent, you know, the overall industry is not as aggressive as Q4. The BTO rate comes down a little bit.
Got it. Thank you. All the best.
Thank you, Anand.
Thank you. Next question is from Nidhesh Jain from Investec. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. First question, again, is on growth. If I do numbers, to deliver 20% disbursement growth for the full year, we have to do INR 500 crore disbursement per month from here onwards. My sense is that we did around INR 430, INR 440 crore disbursement in May and June. How do you plan to increase the disbursement run rate to INR 500 crore per month?
Yeah. Basically, that requires us to have two quarters where we have maybe a 7% - 10% kind of a growth rate on previous quarter, which we have done in the past. Now the organization is much larger, with much wider distribution. Getting that additional INR 40 crore, INR 50 crore, we don't see it as a big challenge, especially in a volume interest rate environment. I think broadly what we are saying is that this quarter we do about INR 1,350 crore, kind of a number. Next quarter we do about like INR 1,450 crore, and then a INR 1,550 crore kind of a number. We should get there, ballpark.
Okay. Since our RM looks after collection as well as disbursement, when DPD increases, the load on the RM for follow-up, etc., will also increase. In that context, how do you plan the bandwidth for the RM and how many cases does the RM handle on collections? To make sure that our sourcing engine remains intact, how do we plan the bandwidth for the RM?
Bandwidth for the RM, so RM is expected to deliver about five loans in a month, which translates into about INR 5 million - INR 6 million of disbursal. That's on the disbursal side. On the collection side, they generally handle about 15 - 20 overdue customers. That number has been kind of static over time. We don't see the, I mean, we don't see, we don't actually see a bandwidth problem for the employees. Plus, a lot of tools have been made available over a period of time, like there's e-signature process, the electronic payments through UPI. Actual effort has actually diminished, which is why the bandwidth is available for them to do the activity. When I say 20 customers who are overdue, it's allocated to a Relationship Manager.
Typically, if I call those customers on the phone, out of 20, about 10 would make a payment without any specific reason. I just need to send them a link and they will make the payment through UPI, etc. Effectively, I'm left with only 10 customers whom I have to visit to convince them to pay. Bandwidth has never been an issue.
Sure. Third question is on 1 + DPD. Is it a regional problem? You mentioned Surat a couple of times. Is it more confined to Surat where we have seen this 1 DPD rise, or are we seeing it across geographies?
I mentioned the two regions where there was a more significant increase. Out of the total, let's say 16 or 17 regions that we have carved out the country into, there were about five to six regions where there was a more than normal uptake in April and June. Out of these five to six regions, there were two regions which were more pronounced, which are Surat and Coimbatore-Tirupur. The remaining seven regions, frankly, the numbers were very benign. I mean, there was no uptake at all.
Okay. We are now seeing an improvement in the month of July, isn't it?
That's right. That's right. In July, there's a substantial improvement in Surat.
In other geographies as well, right? Coimbatore-Tirupur?
Coimbatore-Tirupur, not as much as Surat, but it could improve over the next two, three months.
Sure, what is the count of active connectors for the quarter?
3,600.
That number has also tapered off. I think this number was more than 3,600 in Q3 of last year.
Q4.
This number is also.
Q4 number was a little higher. Yeah. Which is also kind of, I mean, it again flows from the fact that the disbursal was lower than last quarter. Because this is the number, I mean, this is directly correlated to the disbursal. The way we calculate this number is basically, connectors who have contributed to a disbursal in that quarter. Since the disbursal was 2% lower, this number is also slightly lower than last quarter.
Are the hardest connectors linked to the company or are they linked to the RMs? Basically, is our business model still dependent on employees and RMs, or even irrespective of the RM, these connectors will keep giving us business?
Irrespective of the RM, the connectors will keep giving business because they are linked to us. I mean, there's a contract signed with the company. If an RM exists, then we know that a particular connector is, you know, he needs to be reallocated to a new RM. That information is available to us. We end up reallocating the connector, and then some other RM will look after that relationship.
Got it. Thank you. That's it from my side.
Thank you very much. Before we take the next question, a request to participants to please limit your questions to two per participant. The next question is from Boon Han Ong from Lion Global Investors. Please go ahead.
Hi. I'm new to the company, but I have two questions. The first question is regarding the fee income. The fee income has been going very strong. I just want to know if this growth is sustainable. This is the first question. The second one would be in terms of your cost-to-income ratio. We have seen good improvements in the recent quarter. Do we have a target in terms of our cost-to-income ratio in the near term? Yeah, thanks.
Thank you for your question. The fee income has gone up because we have seen some mixed improvement in our insurance commissions, partners. Yes, it is sustainable. We had guided a few quarters back that the insurance commission will range between INR 15 -INR 20 crore a quarter. We were holding to that number. INR 15 to 20 crore is what you'd expect every quarter on that particular line. Cost income has gone down. What we are anchoring the conversation to is operating cost to total assets, which is at 2.7%. What we are guiding is 2.6 %- 2.7% for the full year, considering that we are still investing for growth. We are also adding branches and people. So 2.6%- 2.7% is where we are broadly focusing for the rest of the year.
Right. What about in the near term? I mean, in the near term, medium term, what do you expect the cost-to-income ratio?
If you take a three-year view, a medium-term view, we should definitely go more towards 2.5%.
Okay. I see. This fee income itself, the growth itself, how is it linked to the loan growth, or how should I look, how should I do an estimation in terms of this fee income?
It is the disbursal growth. It is linked to the disbursal growth. About 90% of our customers take an insurance policy, and we earn commission on that. Broadly speaking, 90% of our disbursals and a similar percentage of insurance commission we can do. What I will do is I'll do a separate call with you and just take you through the model. Deepak Khetan will reach out to you, and we will set up a call with you.
Thank you. Next question is from Rajeev Mehta from YES Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Good evening. Manoj, can you comment on the trends in employee retention at the branches? How is your share in your connectors' business volume moving? Are we gaining share within existing active connectors? How are the dynamics there?
Sorry, I missed the first part. It was a bit jumbled.
I'm just talking to employee retention at branches. As your share in the connectors' business volume, how is that moving?
Employee retention has been steady, around 30% across the last, I think, several quarters. For seven, eight quarters, it's been in that range, only 30% range, which we think is kind of a healthy range for us. As far as the contribution or, sorry, the share of the connectors, it's in turn, see, by design, we are trying to keep it very granular. We don't want any connector to get a large proportion of business from one connector. Our sales teams are incentivized to diversify their origination across connectors because connectors, I mean, if you see, there are different segments the connectors are dealing with. We want to make sure that the connector is obviously getting a higher segment loan or a prime loan, then they go to a different company.
If it is a loan that is suitable for us, it's in the affordable segment, they send it to us. To that extent, the share will be bifurcated across various companies depending on the segment that they are operating in. By design, we are trying to keep it very granular.
Correct. Correct. Okay. Angel, one thing, just observation is on the UP and Uttarakhand market. I mean, in the past two quarters, the AUM growth has significantly slowed down. I mean, anything to it here, or if you can comment why the slowdown in the last two quarters?
Yeah. UP, we, since the last two years, we were saying that, yes, we want to expand in UP. We put in four branches in key markets in the eastern part of UP, which is Lucknow, Allahabad, Varanasi, and Gorakhpur. That is eastern UP. Part of the UP business also comes from workers getting booked in Ghaziabad because technically that falls in UP. I think two quarters ago, we articulated that in some markets, we had tightened some of the credit screens, especially on the property side. Yes, this holds true for the Ghaziabad business as well. Ghaziabad and eastern UP, those screens were tightened. As a result of it, there has been a slight reduction in the business in those markets.
We know it's a very large market, but we know we want to approach it very cautiously, which is why you're seeing that little bit of a slowdown there.
Have we done some tightening of underwriting or selection anywhere else?
We did do that last Q2 over Q3, Q2 and Q3, especially of last year. We did put in certain screens in place, which are continuing. Higher ticket cases pass through more screens, and as you can see there, the rate of the pace of increase of the higher ticket cases has slowed down from Q2 of last year. If you see the INR 2.25 million or INR 2.5 lakh ticket size segment, it was rising sharply if you see the previous year, but from Q2 of last year, that increase has slowed down a little bit. We have, because we wanted to kind of focus on the affordable segment, smaller tickets, etc., did some tweaks to control the increase in the INR 2.5 lakh ticket size plus. Those screens are in place and they continue.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, a reminder to participants to please limit your questions to two per participant. The next question is from Pranav Gundlapalle from Bernstein . Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my questions. It's a natural increase in ticket size over time. Some of the peers have seen their ticket size stay stable, I guess, by going down a segment or two lower. The question is, is it more a risk filter that's preventing us from going down on the ticket size, or is it a limitation of the model, either because of geographic threat and sourcing model or whatever else? The second question is on attrition. You did mention the overall rate is stable at around 30% - 10%. Could you give some color around either tenure-wise or seniority-wise or, you know, the position-wise attrition? Just trying to get a sense of, you know, if someone sticks around for a year, year and a half, or two years, how does that number change?
Third, if you can give even one last one, what percent of customers during a quarter would get a lower rate offered, right? Either because they express willingness to or intended to move out or any other reason. What would that rough number be? Thank you very much.
All right. On the ticket size, it's multiple factors. Obviously, there are risk filters there, but there's also a viability angle. Very small ticket sizes, if you actually wanted to make it viable, then we need to offer very high rates, which we are uncomfortable with. For example, if you have to actually offer a INR 200,000 or INR 300,000 ticket size loan, we will have to do it at very high rates, maybe 15%- 17% to make it viable and to make it equivalent to a INR 1,000,000 loan at 13%. We are uncomfortable doing those small ticket loans at very high rates, which is why, when we talk about our segment, we start at INR 500,000. We don't even talk about less than INR 500,000. INR 500,000 to INR 2,500,000 is how we define our segment.
To some extent, we are not as low as some of the other peers as far as ticket size is concerned. There is risk as well as viability. Both filters are there in ticket size. On the second question on attrition, RM level attrition in the first one year is generally higher than 30%. So 30%- 35% it tends to be. It slows down in the second year. Between 12 months- 24 months, it's a little lesser. Then again, it picks up a little bit in the 24-month period. From 24 months- 36 months, it comes back to around 30%, 30%. In head office and post three years, the attrition is much lower. It generally tends to be in the 10% - 20% range post three years and in head office. This is the breakup of the attrition across the various segments. As far as the gift card question is concerned.
Percentage of customers who,
Yeah, the number of customers who are getting a re-pricing offer, it would be around 50 odd customers per month, so maybe about 600 customers- 1,000 customers in the entire year.
That's a year's cost. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from Nishin Chawade from Kotak. Please go ahead. We seem to have lost the line for Nishin. We move to the next question. Next question is from Kunal Shah from Citi Group. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking the question. Firstly, just wanted to gauge in terms of what led to this problem in Surat and Coimbatore-Tirupur because I think you said you'll be able to roll back. Was it more of an internal issue or were these external circumstances in terms of slowdown in the economic activity? It doesn't seem like maybe the economic activity levels would have changed, which is making us confident with respect to the rollback. Particularly, that question is in the context of provisioning coverage because that's also down to 24%. I think that's confident that we'll be able to roll it back and get back to 25%. If it doesn't come through, then seasonality might impact the credit cost as we will need to get towards 25% kind of a coverage, yeah.
I think in April, it's generally, you know, Q1, April, May, June is a little more difficult in terms of collections, which is why you see the numbers going up every year in this quarter. It's because, you know, customers are, you know, part of the time they are on vacation, plus there are some stress of school fees and things like that. There is additional load on the customer's wallet during that quarter, which also requires a higher collection intensity during that quarter. I think in April of this year, I think on both fronts, we had a problem. One is obviously the collection, so the customer was under stress and plus, collection intensity could not be met, the level of intensity that is required to collect because again, you know, our employees are also on leave during that quarter and so on.
I think it's a combination of both factors, a bit of collection intensity efficiency issue, plus some stress at a customer level, and the insurer.
The only question was on quantum. You see, generally, it rises, but maybe if you look at the last three or four years, the increase which has been there, that could be, say, even 1 + TPD, it would have been closer to, like, say, 30 odd basis points or so. This time seems to be relatively on the higher side at 90 odd basis points on 1 +.
Yeah, I think in Surat in any case, there are fluctuations in the incomes of the customers because they are all dependent on this whole diamond and textile industry. Depending upon demand in the market, global markets, etc., they get overtime. They may not get overtime. There is some fluctuation in income. Normally what happens is in April, there is an uptake, and then we kind of claw back in May and June. This time, we had a regular May. I mean, we had a clawback in May, but then surprisingly in June, for some reason, there was again some slippage. That was the only difference if you see past years. Normally, whatever is the slippage in April is the pullback in May and June. This time in June also, there was some slippage, which is why there was a more than normal slippage.
We don't see any fundamental issue as such in these markets except that these are more lower-income customers. They're all factory workers and people of that profile. Other than that, we don't see anything which indicates a pattern. As I said, the good news is in July, it's appearing to flood back. We're not reading too much into it beyond that.
Okay. July itself, we are seeing a significant drawback from this. It doesn't seem to be more like an economic activity issue. Yeah.
Yeah, some fluctuation maybe in economic activity, possibly. Other than that, we are not seeing anything more significant than that.
Okay. On the coverage side, maybe getting down to 22% now, we are at a relatively lower level compared to our recent past as well. Obviously, it depends in terms of the ECL model, but would we need a higher provisioning out there?
Kunal will be watchful on the overall number. If the number goes back, then the coverage comes back to 25%, so he will unlikely reverse the provisions that we have taken. In that extreme scenario, if it does not, then we will bend the provisions.
Thank you. Next question is from Nischint Chawathe from Kotak. Please go ahead.
Hey, sorry, I got dropped off. My question was essentially on competition in the affordable and prime segments. I think as the BTL trend for you and your peers seems to suggest that competitive intensity seems to have actually gone down, while in the prime segment has gone up. How long do you think, what could be the reason for it, and how long do you think it could be sustainable?
the first quarter, one thing is the competitive intensity is a little, there is a lull in the competitive intensity, especially in BTLs. In quarter four, you know, many companies use BTLs as a channel to push up their overall yearly numbers. In Q1, there is a slight drop in that. Otherwise, overall, I think the competitive intensity, as we have always spoken about it, there are ups and downs across the year. We don't see anything which is fundamentally different. Probably one quarter, it just, it was a little less good, especially on the BT side.
After putting it differently, you know, there are some of the high-rated NBFCs who are now entering into the affordable space. Do you see them, and their cost of funding comes down, I think, much faster than you and some of the other peers? Do you see them getting more aggressive on rates?
Yeah. See, I think most of the companies, what they have realized is that they need to maintain at least a INR 4,500 - INR 5,000 spread in this business to be able to make a decent ROE or, at least, I mean, if you're talking about the highly rated, higher rated companies and, you know, the companies which have a higher proportion of prime lending and they're, you know, the Affordable is more of an add-on. If the Affordable, like, Affordable business needs to be ROE-effective, then they need to also maintain a similar spread, you know, a INR 5,000 spread because the expense is not going anywhere. The expenses will be similar, whether it is a large company or a small company, the expenses are going to be similar. The operating expenses and plus the credit losses, etc.
I think broadly the industry has come to the conclusion that this is a business that runs at a INR 5,000 spread. We don't see rental companies dropping rates too much. Of course, there are different strategies in the market. Some companies are cutting rates to a certain segment of customers and then, you know, subsidizing it by offering a much higher rate to certain other categories. Those are all more temporary in nature. I don't think it will work on a long-term basis. On a long-term basis, in the core Affordable individual housing segment, you have to maintain a INR 5,000 spread. Otherwise, your ROE will be much, much lower than what we have delivered.
One point is, if you look at the larger NBFCs, the cost of borrowing difference for us in general is less than INR 60 - INR 80 a month. Essentially, if you're doing a 13% product, they will have to do that 12%, 12.20% on a blended average, which is not very different. It is not the reason why the customer will move. If they do substantially lower, then to Manoj's point, they don't deliver the product at a loss and it will get called out at some stage. It is unsustainable to that extent. They'll have to end up coming close to the similar number where we are. The 60 or 80 is the only difference that can be there, not more than that.
Okay, thank you very much and all the best.
Thank you, Rameshan.
Thank you. Next question is from Subhanshu Mishra from Philip Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, Manoj. Hi, Nutan. A few questions. The first one is, to maintain the first and front, what is the number of loans that they do on a quarterly basis and what are their variations in each quarter? That you would have a ballpark budget in that mind, for the number of loans, given the fact that the ATTS runs at a rate similar. Again, when we have to look at the OnePlus, what is the current of this OnePlus till fifteen BPD? From fifteen to thirty BPD, what is its range? What was this, year ago? Third is if we can have the compensation of the person. So there was the compensation of, AUM. Concentration of disbursements of the top ten becomes eleven to the twenty-first branch and twenty-first till the fiftieth branch.
Very large question. I did not get it.
Size of branch by super size.
Correct. Concentration of disbursements, for the top ten branches, eleven to twenty-first branch, twenty-first to fiftieth branch.
Yeah. No. Broadly, if you're looking at the top, let me go reverse and reverse the questions to Nutan. If your question is what is the size of disbursal or quantum of disbursal across the top ten versus the top twenty and top thirty branches, broadly, is that your question? Top ten branches would be delivering on an average about INR 5 crore a month in terms of disbursals per branch. That number that you said, ten versus twenty versus thirty, will broadly be in the range of INR 4 crore -INR 6 crore. INR 4 crore per month to about INR 6 crore per month would be the variation between the top ten versus the top thirty branches. I think you were talking about OnePlus, how that gets cured in the next two buckets.
Basically, about 70% - 80% of the customers eventually get cured and about 20% then close forward. That is the needs of these buckets. Bucket, the zero to twenty-nine bucket, about 80%, it's because an 80%- 85% resolution, so about 15% moves forward. In the next bucket, that is thirty to fifty-nine, the resolution is about 50% - 70%, so about 30% moves forward. Is that the question?
Manoj, just one second. I get that. I am really focusing only, zero to 30 chairs. The idea was to understand what flows from fifteen to the sixteen to thirty BPD because till fifteen, we can call them or we can send SMSs or WhatsApp. The cost would be much lower versus sixteen to thirty. That is the idea to understand.
Zero to 15 days. Okay. 15 days. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, so out of the, the boundary is around 15%, right? By 15, we collect about 50% of that. If you think the number by 15, that is about 7% of the, 6% to 7% would be left, as of 15.
Right. When I say from 20% - 25%, which needs to be cured, it's flowing to the next bucket, 30 +.
No, no, no.
The only cost.
No, no. Let me clarify this. Let me clarify this.
Okay.
Fourth of the month is the bounty match mandate, which is when we collect.
Right.
Fifteen percent of all customers bounce. On the fifteenth of that month, we've collected another 7%. On fifteen days past due, we have 7%. One BPD plus, which is thirty day end of the month, is 5%. Are you with me?
Right. Right.
Those are the numbers.
Okay. Right. In order to get all the hundred customers who are entirely in, zero, you know, bucket zero or, you know, clear, I mean, in a particular month, you know, let's say a hundred of them bounce the payment. Typically, by the fifteenth, we collect 50% of that. Fifty customers we would collect by the fifteenth of the month, and then about fifty customers would be left between fifteen to twenty-eighth. If you look at that number by, let's say, twenty-eighth, we'll be left about twenty customers. Twenty, 20% of the customers who bounce in the beginning of the month will be left by twenty-eighth, twenty-eighth of the month.
Right. If fifteen to twenty-nine BPD, what are the costs per file? Do we have that number or a bucket? The collection you're talking about? Yeah, per file, on a per file basis, just fifteen to twenty-nine.
The cost of collection is, I mean, because we don't have a separate collection team which is only focusing on this particular bucket. You have the same relationship manager who's also doing various other activities, who's collecting, you know, from these customers. It will be part of the relationship manager's overall compensation. Like I mentioned at the beginning of the call, the relationship manager's broad responsibilities are to disburse a certain number of cases, say about five to six transactions a month, and plus collect about 20 overdue payments. That is how the RM cost is bifurcated.
Thank you. Next question is from Raghav from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Hey, I've been reading and thanks for the opportunity. I have two, three questions. One is, you partially answered that, but what is the length of period or years of experience you consider when you build your ECL model?
From the origination of the company, fifteen years.
Sorry. From the origination of the fifteen years. Yeah. That's what I thought I'd be asked. Okay. Understood. Also, my second question is, when I look at the total stock outstanding, of phase II and III after. On an aggregate basis, the growth in that number is somewhere around 50%, 54%, whatever, and that growth rate has been decreasing for the last two, three quarters.
Mm-hmm.
That suggests some deterioration in underlying asset quality. I know coming back to asset quality, but what is the reason for that? What are your thoughts? Because it's not just in this quarter that we've seen that, but even in some of the previous quarters, the growth rate in stage two and three has been higher than the underlying AUM growth. Any comments that you would have on this?
No, Raghav. There's no structural, you can say, problem with the portfolio as such. These are, I mean, because the number itself is, our phase II is one of the lowest in the industry. On that, the small number, there's some slight movement. We don't see it as a, I mean, we are not internally alarmed about that number. If you compare, our phase two is the lowest across all our peers. That number might have gone up by a few basis points. We are not alarmed.
I'm looking to phase II and III , primarily assembly, but I think that estimation holds there as well.
No.
Raghav, I was just looking at the numbers, Q4, for example. Q4, our growth in stage two was only 3%. We were the, our AUM growth of 6%. I think when you look at it, you would have to look at it differently because A, they're in different buckets provided differently, and the impact on finances is also different.
Understood. Nutan, I was referring to, say, the YOI numbers, because this was just for the seasonality that a particular quarter has, and hence where we're buying. That's where I was coming from. The other question that I have is, see, in one HFY 2025, you added that substantial number of employees, right? That number versus FY 2024 was at 30%, but since then, I think the addition has not been a lot. Fifty is fifty going to some 1,700 employees. You also said that attrition has been fairly stable. Yet your value productivity per employee has not improved. It was by driving package sizes, and given that a typical employee becomes more productive with every passing month, why is it that the AUM for employees is versus for employees not increasing?
Disbursal per employee is that in, is there, is this, you know, certain range in which it, you know, like I said, INR 30 million - INR 35 million or INR 3 crores- INR 3.5 crores is the disbursal per employee per year. Unless there's something very structurally we change, that number will not go up substantially. Like, you know, a few years ago, we introduced, you know, a lot of some level of automation. We were able to kind of move up that number. Unless we do something which is structural like that, then that number is going to be ranged more.
Thank you. Next question is from Dixit Shah from Ascendancy Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello, am I audible?
Yes.
Yes, a few questions. After INR 864 crore for Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, what is the AUM for Uttar Pradesh?
The total is about INR 450 crore.
INR 450 crores.
Four hundred.
Sorry, what? Four hundred is?
INR 450 crores is the total in Uttar Pradesh, which has the conclaves being Ghaziabad, which is called technically in Uttar Pradesh, but actually it's part of NCR, plus Eastern UP, which is about INR 100 crores.
Okay. Got it. During the quarter, I think we might have not drawn any from any sanctions from NFC, I think, because it's slightly QOQ. Do we draw down any?
Not from NFC.
One more statistical question. Of the total AUM, what is the pure individual housing loan, housing loans in the AUM?
34% is the housing loan.
Individual housing loan.
Yeah, yeah. We only do individual.
Understood. Now, coming back to a few questions on statewide growth. Madhya Pradesh, we are seeing massive amounts of growth. It has gained YOI more than 200 basis in our composition. Is there, are we seeing a higher ticket size growth there or the Madhya Pradesh market in itself has seen a very massive growth spurt and we are capitalizing on it? One question on that.
All of it, actually. Madhya Pradesh is growing well. Ticket size is growing and number of units is also growing.
We don't see any respects to asset quality issues because some of the players were having a little bit of an issue. Particularly the southern part, and I was going to come on that. One of the players which we compete with in the southern areas was saying in the less than INR 2 million, they're not seeing as much demand. A few of the other players were saying that, hey, there is good demand. In the state of Madhya Pradesh and also in South, where we are present, how are you looking at the demand scenario and are we seeing a lot of competition with respect to the affordable segment and a sense on the overall view on the housing credit rate market?
Madhya Pradesh has been developing well. I mean, because industrialization and urbanization is picking up there and it's been developing well. It is a growth market, in an overall sense. Plus we have also capitalized on it. We have a great team there and we have very good asset quality there. We have capitalized on that growth. Other markets, South, etc., are also growing. AP, Telangana, Tamil Nadu are also growing well. We had some issues in Telangana and Tamil Nadu in terms of team, etc., which we have sorted out. Growth should come back there.
Thank you. Next question is from Prithviraj Patil from Investec. Please go ahead.
Yeah, my question was largely answered. I just wanted the guidance for the ROI, given that right now the CRA is quite high and there's a lot of liquidity on the balance sheet.
Right. We had mentioned this in the last call. Currently, our ROE for Q2 will be lower as we, you know, take on board the full leverage benefit. We aim to deliver 15% ROE in the next five to six quarters. Based on this, as far as ROA is concerned, we look to go closer to 4%, again coming purely from the leverage benefit.
Okay. Thank you. That's it for my side.
Thank you. Next question is from Subhanshu Mishra of Philip Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. One question remains unanswered. What is the number of loans that we disburse on a monthly run rate basis? I understand there will be quarterly variations, but will it be a quarterly or a monthly number that we'll have in terms of our budget.
About 4,000 loans a month is what we originally disburse.
Right. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Dixit Shah from Ascendancy Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the follow-up. The question, the second question that I had was on cost of borrowing. Overall, we have seen 100 basis points decline in the report, and we have a credit rating upgrade. Overall, for the whole year, what would be the impact in the cost of borrowing that we could see by end of FY 2026?
Right. I think first, very important to understand what is the composition of our cost of borrowing. The depo linked cost of borrowing is about 20%. About 60% comes from MCLR linked borrowing, and MCLR of banks have not come down. While we may see a 100 basis points decline in depo, the MCLR reflection has not yet happened. The deposit rates have started to come down, and it is expected that MCLR will come down. This transition takes time. Currently, we are at 8.4. By December, I'm expecting this to go down towards 8, 8.1. By March, we should definitely be at around 8 or maybe slightly lower than 8. That is the expectation. Unless, of course, the banks' MCLR goes down much faster, then the full transition will also play out in our cost of borrowing. Broadly, we would expect 50 basis points- 60 basis points transition by end of March.
Understood. What will be the impact on our yields then correspondingly? How much would we park on?
We have to disburse it in the Algo. We have not done that yet because we first have to reflect the benefits in the cost of borrowing. Only Q3 or Q4 will be, start passing it on. We expect the spread to be maintained in a 5 %- 5.25% broad range.
Okay. Five to 5.25% is the spread that you'd want to maintain. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you very much. That was the last question in queue. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Manoj Viswanathan for closing comments.
Thank you everyone for participating and engaging in the call. We hope you have been able to answer the questions we have had in person. In case you want to reach out for further questions, you can always reach out to Deepak Khetan or write to us on innovate.relations@homefirstindia.com. Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
On behalf of Home First Finance Company India Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now disconnect your lines.