Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q3 FY25 earnings conference call of IIFL Finance Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing the star, then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to the management for their opening comments.
Good afternoon, and thank you for joining the analyst call of IIFL Finance. I am R. Venkataraman, Joint Managing Director. Along with me in this call are Nirmal Jain, Managing Director, Mr. Monu Ratra, MD of IIFL Housing Finance, and Venkatesh, who is the Managing Director of IIFL Samasta Microfinance. Unfortunately, Kapish Jain could not join us. Our CFO could not join us in the call because he's recovering from some health issues. Now I'll ask Nirmal to share the big picture and the broad macroeconomic outlook.
Thank you, Venkatesh. In terms of big macroeconomic picture, I think the long-term structural growth outlook remains intact, but there's a tactical slowdown that has impacted earnings and market sentiment. Coming to the NBFC sector, I think the stress is evident in the unsecured and microfinance segment, primarily due to rising consumer leverage, whereas the income growth has not been there, so the real income has been stagnant, and a significant portion of the borrowings in the recent past of the unsecured credit has been directed towards consumption rather than productive or income-generating activity, and that has further strained the repayment capacity of the borrowers. The slowdown in IIP to 3.2% further signals the weaker economic momentum. SME growth has also moderated, reflecting broader economic seriousness.
Additionally, the liquidity remains tight for most NBFCs as banks have restricted the funding access, and most of the NBFCs are encouraged to diversify the sources of funding. That reduced availability of credit and rollover options for the borrowers has exacerbated the financial stress in the sector. The Karnataka government's regulation on MFI, although targeted at unregulated entities, is affecting the borrower sentiment and the repayment culture. However, the good news is that the regulator and the government are focusing their monetary policy and fiscal policy stance and narrative towards a more supportive and accommodative approach, and therefore cyclical slowdown is likely to be halted and reversed very soon. I think maybe Venkatesh can take you through the (I have Kapish, who's not there today) through the financial numbers, and we can take Q&A after that.
So thank you, Nirmal. Coming to the numbers, for the quarter, IIFL Finance profit after tax before non-controlling interest was INR 82 crores, down 85% year-on-year, and up 188% on a quarter-on-quarter basis. Pre-provision operating profit was INR 534 crores, which was down 29% quarter-on-quarter and down 45% on a year-on-year basis. For the quarter, our consolidated loan AUM fell by 8% year-on-year and was up 7% quarter-on-quarter, which is now INR 71,410 crores. Further dissecting this AUM, our core products loan AUM, which comprises home loan, gold loan, and MSME loan, and microfinance, this fell by 6% year-on-year and was up 7% quarter-on-quarter. This segment now constitutes 98% of our overall AUM mix, showing the retail granular nature of our portfolio.
Our gross NPA stood at 2.4%, and net NPA was at 1%, which is up 70 basis points and 14 basis points respectively when compared to the same period last year and last quarter. This is due to asset quality stress in microfinance, unsecured loans, small-ticket LAP, which reflects the overall sluggishness in the Indian economy. The assigned loan book stands at INR 12,472 crores, which is down 33% year-on-year and 11% quarter-on-quarter. We also have co-lending assets of INR 9,236 crores, which is down 20% year-on-year and up 9% quarter-on-quarter. While co-lending assets grew and has met expectations, the assigned assets declined due to reduced availability of eligible and seasoned books. This is an outcome of RBI's embargo, which constrains new loan origination and hence the pipeline of assignable and available assets. We expect assignment volumes to recover as fresh disbursements pick up over time.
Our quarterly average cost of borrowing increased 9 basis points year-on-year and 1 basis point quarter-on-quarter to hit 9.16%. During the quarter, we raised INR 9,964 crores through term loans, bonds, and commercial paper, and INR 1,477 crores was raised from assignment. Our cash and cash equivalent and committed credit lines from banks and institutions stood at INR 5,656 crores. This is adequate to meet near-term liabilities but also fund growth. We have a positive ALM in all buckets, and our net gearing is at about 3.1 times. Our annualized ROE for the quarter was 1.4%, and ROA was 0.6%. Earnings per share for the quarter was INR 1 per share. Our capital adequacy for the NBFC is at 22%, HFC at about 46.2%, and for Samasta Microfinance is 32.2%, which is well above the minimum threshold of 15%, reflecting our off-book strategy and growth model.
With this, I come to the end, and we are open to questions that you may have, and thank you once again for joining us.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on your touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Abhijit Tibrewal from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for taking my question. Sir, I mean, two questions really. First, on your gold loan business, I think we saw some good momentum during this quarter, almost 39%-40% up Q-on-Q. Just trying to understand somewhere, I think we had also guided that by the end of this year, we will want to get closer to where we were prior to the bank. So, I mean, what progress are we making in that direction? Is the demand strong enough for us to get us there? And then in your press release, you've also spoken about some pressure on gold loan yields since you've been trying to regain customers. So just trying to understand again, what is it that we are doing there and what impact it could have on your gold loan yields going forward?
And the second question I had again was on the MFI business. Undoubtedly, the sector is going through its share of pain. We're seeing that in other MFIs as well. For us, in our assessment, what is the extent of the pain? And is there any ballpark credit cost guidance you can give out? And for us, by when do we expect things to start improving, maybe one, two, three quarters from here? Those are the two questions. Thank you so much.
Yeah, so thanks. Taking your first question, gold loan volume growth is there, but the portfolio yield is down by almost 2%. The way this industry works is that normally, basically, to get the customers onboarded in a very competitive environment, one has to offer a lower rate. Over a period of time, the rate improves. Most of the time, the customers basically opt for a product, and the conditions will basically allow them to take lower rates, like monthly interest or a lesser LTV. But over a period of time, they'll get stabilized. So for the time being, it looks like that our volume growth will be stronger, so at the time of ban, we were 10,000, then we went up to 11,000 in the 10 days after the ban in September, then 15,000, and more likely, our target was to go back to 24,000, 25,000 where we were.
We may fall a little short of it, but still we'll be closer, but it will come at some compromise, some small sacrifice on the yield, which we hope to make it up in the next financial year fully. Then coming back to MFI, I think the industry has been passing through a significant pain, and also not only MFI, but adjacent loans of the cross-selling products of MFI also, because the entire sentiment of borrower has been impacted. Maybe to some extent, this has been a bit unprecedented, so I think, and again, we are also learning and understanding. So most of the MFI customers, if their track record has been good, they are given the small macro or the individual loans. And even those unsecured or the LAP loans, performance has deteriorated significantly.
What we gather from the market and from the field is maybe Venkatesh is there. He can talk about it in terms of how does the next quarter look. Although in the last quarter, also in the beginning, we thought that things would improve, but again, they deteriorated. The borrowers, when they know that they're not going to get new loans because of the restrictions on the number of loans or the amount of loans or also many microfinance companies pulling back, then they stop repaying the earlier loan or whatever they have because they say that, "Okay, we're not going to get new loans, so I just don't want to repay and I want to keep the money for my business or whatever it is." So to that extent, Venkatesh, you are there? Yeah, yeah.
Hello.
Yeah, I'm there, Nirmal. Can you hear me?
Yeah, yeah, so maybe I think you can talk about the way things stand now and how the industry should look at the microfinance asset quality going forward.
Sure, sure. Thanks. I mean, in terms of the asset quality, if you look at what in the last six, seven months, what the industry has gone, it's a little unprecedented. Given that the industry implemented the guardrails and how the things have standoff, most of the states have shown improvement in collection. As in the initial remarks, what Nirmal had pointed out, the Karnataka's ordinance is where slightly the Karnataka historically, even during this phase, was doing well, but a slight thing. Though the ordinance clearly talks about it, it is not for regulated entities, we expect slight disturbances for a couple of months or so till people tire. I mean, even now, if you look at it on the ground, most of the stakeholders have understood that it is not for the regulated entities and things, but slight disturbances will affect the Karnataka for slightly little things.
On an average, we will be looking at a credit cost of around 8%-8.5% kind of a thing.
Got it, sir. Got it, and sir, I mean, there are other MFIs also who have started now reporting their current bucket collection efficiencies just to kind of impress upon us that maybe December, January, things have gotten better versus October and November. Is this something that we have also seen, and for us, I mean, things are still where we were in October and November?
Yeah. As I pointed out earlier, if you look at most of the states have started improvement in collections, especially on the zero-day bucket. I think the forward flow in the zero-day bucket is slowly coming down. So that was the initial thing. So yeah, I mean, the things have improved in the last three, four months. I mean, post-October, I can say November 15th onwards is where we saw the improvement happen.
And sir, it has sustained in Jan as well?
Yeah, Jan also sustained. Yeah.
Got it. This is also my side. Thank you for patiently answering all our questions. Thank you, sir.
The next question is from the line of Yash from RSPN Ventures. Please go ahead.
Hello, Anuj, are you good?
Yes, I am.
Thank you for the opportunity. So first question is with regards to the home loan segment. I think the IIFL Housing Finance has reported a 20% decline in profits. So if you could just provide some color on the same.
Yeah. Nirmal, may I?
Yeah, go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Yash. So, you are looking at, I believe you're talking about quarter on quarter, right?
I think on a year-on-year basis.
Sorry?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. So if you look on the quarter-on-quarter basis, Yash, in the last quarter, we had a very significant interest strip income, which was there. And if you see our numbers, which are net of the interest strip income, which in this quarter was actually negative, which was there. And one, the YTD adjustment of FPC, which RBI had implemented regarding the Fair Practices Code, we put together. So there's actually quarter-on-quarter increase of 2% in our profit. So on the actual cash basis, we are still positive by 2%, Yash.
Actually, sir, I meant it on the year-on-year basis.
Yes. Okay. So if we talking about the year-on-year basis, the decline which we are seeing is primarily for two reasons. One is, again, slightly increased our cost of funds, which was there, marginal. And the other is the credit cost. So ever since we have had a pretty, I would say, a very conservative write-off policy, which we have, which are majorly technical write-offs, which are actually not write-offs, and we've seen some stress in the micro LAP portfolio. So if we see that, the slight increase in the credit cost is the major reason for it. But we're pretty confident of these technical write-offs to give us decent recovery in the coming quarters. But as it is, ever since COVID times, we have been pretty conservative on our write-off policy and the SICR policy.
So it's more from that standpoint, Yash, but we are very confident of all these loans being coming in the next two quarters.
Okay, sir, thank you. Got it. Secondly, with regards to the construction and real estate finance, I think the AUM has gone down by 58%. Are we planning to regrow the AUM, or are we going to cut it down more?
Sure. I think you would be seeing this at two levels. If you see it as a housing finance level, actually, there's been a slight flattish. But overall, at a group level, I'm sure Nirmal can answer better on this. We have been averse to the real estate business. But as far as HFC is concerned, standalone, it's pretty flat. And we do see some headroom for growth in the HFC on the construction finance business, which is a pure construction finance for affordable units.
So the construction finance that you're doing now is primarily, so the earlier one used to do it on a quarter of land also and unapproved project, but now it's done for projects which have got all the approvals. And the funding part is only for the construction and not for the land or any other cost of sort of bringing the land to the upper stage. So to that extent, there are two advantages. One is the risk is much lesser because the borrower equity is much more. And two, this also dovetails into our home loan product because most of the cases that we fund, we can be one of the priority lenders for the customers. But obviously, the ticket size is smaller and the portfolio performance is significantly different and better.
Got it, sir. And just a couple of more questions. With regards to gold book, when do we see the gold book getting to the normalized levels? And secondly, yeah.
This year is so next financial year, maybe from first quarter itself, we'll see that the yields coming back to the normal levels. The whole year will be normal. The first quarter so supposing we are lower on a, I say, 2 percentage point, I mean, I expect at least 1% to be recovered in the first quarter of the new fiscal year itself. But it's very difficult to be precise on the forecast. But at least whatever sentiment we pick up, I think this is what I would expect.
Also for the AUM size, we are at 15,000 odd right now. When do we expect it to reach to around 25,000 levels?
25,000, you are saying?
Yeah.
I think the year we should end at around 22-23. And it takes maybe some more time to get to 25.
The last question would be with regards to the MFI loans. Are we bottoming out on the provisions, or do we expect the provisions to increase furthermore, the GNPA ratio that I'm talking about? Are we expecting to bottom it out, or how is it?
See, at this point in time, we expect again, because the industry has been so fluid and passing through all kinds of problems and new problems. But I think that we should be bottoming out now.
Okay, sir. Thank you. Got it. Yeah.
The next question is from the line of Aagam Shah from Flute Aura Enterprise. Please go ahead.
Hi, am I audible?
Yes.
Sorry, I just had one question, and I think Yash had already asked it, but I just want to clarify. The gold loan AUM will be back by next financial year, right?
Gold loan AUM will be back by mostly maybe in a very close vicinity of wherever we were by this financial year -end, which we are talking about, March 2025. The yield will be back to normal in the next financial year.
Okay. That was it. Thank you.
Does that answer your question, Mr. Agham?
Yeah, yeah. That was it. That was it. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Anusha Raheja from Dalal & Broacha. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for taking my question. Good evening. So I just wanted to understand, why is there a reduction in the assigned assets on Q-on-Q basis?
So as per RBI regulations, you can assign the assets and require minimum seasoning or minimum period on your book of three months if the asset duration is less than two years and six months if the asset duration is more than two years. So you can assign book only of the assets which have been on your books for minimum three to six months. But practically, because after that three months, you give it to the rating agencies and you give it to the potential buyer of the assets, so it takes another one to two months. So normally, the four to five months lead time for, say, gold loan and seven to eight months for the other products before it's ready to assign. So the seasoning requirement is RBI regulation that you can assign assets only after they stayed on your book for a certain minimum time period.
Okay. And the incrementally co-lend assigned assets and on the co-lending side, which are the assets that other assets have been assigned? Is it MFI or?
We assign all the assets, the gold loan, the home loan, and even the SME for that matter, so all the products that we do are all assignable assets.
Okay. And when does the?
When there's a disruption in the first half, then it will take us four, five months, six months for the assignment book to be ready in a significant manner per size.
Okay. And from the asset quality side, there was an increase in the secured business loan as well in this quarter. So how do you assess overall MSME loan, secured plus unsecured asset quality from asset quality standpoint going forward? So how do you see that shaping up? And what could be the concern credit cost number that we can expect for Q4 or, say, for that matter, FY 20 26?
So the entire segment of high-risk credit which is unsecured as well as micro, small ticket secured, they have been very badly impacted. Many times, these borrowers are also MSME, and they need it for working capital of business. Then overall system credit reduces, they are not going to roll over. And also, the whole sentiment, everything also gets impacted. So the businesses slow down, their income slows down, their repayment defaults happen. And so when we say if you slide the 12, we have now given a breakup of MSME secured, which is LAP, and unsecured, which are sourced by three different entities. And what has happened is the Samasta, which is a microfinance entity, their source assets have suffered the most because they're the same set of borrowers who are also microfinance customers. Typically, in the microfinance industry, 25% of the book can be non-microfinance.
It was actually supposed to be a diversification and a better so what happens, the microfinance is given to a group of women, typically five. When they have a good track record, say, for two years, three years, then individually microfinance companies will lend them, sometimes unsecured, and sometimes again some property. Now, the property is also in the rural areas where they live, and the property can be a decent, but their repayment will happen with the cash flow. When their income and cash flow is impacted, then you see that unsecured as well as the small ticket secured both get impacted similarly. But NPA might be a similar trend. In case of property, our experience is that ultimate default should be lower because you have an ability to take the property or that trend basically makes the borrower get financing somewhere but not lose the property.
So the ultimate losses might be lower in the LAP segment, but GNPA is impacted by cash flow, which is similar impact on that actually depends on the profile of the borrower.
Okay, but I just missed the credit cost guidance for the MFI segment. What was mentioned?
I think Venkatesh spoke about it, said 8.5% was his guidance. Venkatesh, am I right? That's the number you said?
Yeah, that's 8%-8.5% would be around the credit card.
Thanks.
Okay. And so on the Construction Finance, I think sequential growth has been quite on our higher side. So if we just give some color as to how do we see this segment growth shaping up over the next three to six months' time? Because this forms one of the non-core segment, right? And what explains such a sharp rise? And what is the strategy of growth in this segment? And incremental APIs?
Construction Finance, you see the sharp rise there this summer? Actually, the decline there, significant decline.
Construction finance book?
So it has gone down. Anusha , look at slide 11, actually.
Okay.
Probably you'll see a sharper rise in capital market, but there's no slowdown. But otherwise, the construction finance book has fallen 39% quarter over quarter and 69% YoY.
Okay. Okay, sir.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Murthy Nagarajan from Tata Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
This question is directed to Nirmal. Can you give us some idea about what is happening recently in this company right now? This is something.
Bandhan Bank?
Yeah. So, which you are reading in the news. So, if you can throw some light on that.
I'm sorry. Bandhan Bank, how would I be expected to throw some light? Bandhan Bank, you're saying, right?
Yeah. So what has been happening recently in the company? If you can shed some light or can you give us some idea about what is happening?
So you're saying in our IIFL or where? IIFL, you're saying, right?
No, I.
Murthy, I can't get your question. Can you repeat it?
Actually, I'm.
Hello, Mr. Murthy. Can you hear us?
Hello.
Hello. As there's no response, we'll move on to the next participant. It's from the line of Varinder Bansal from Omkara Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello, everyone. Thanks for this opportunity. I hope I'm audible. I think maybe Mr. Murthy also wanted to have some light on the news which was going around the income tax, okay? RBI and the IIFL. Any light on that?
Hello, Mr. Venkatesh?
Yeah, I'm there. I'm there. Nirmal is there online?
Yes, sir. He's there on the line. Okay, sir. I'll just disconnect and reconnect, Nirmal sir, okay?
Okay. Okay. I will.
Hello. Can you hear me?
Yes, sir. We can hear you.
Yeah. So I was responding to the question about income tax by Varinder and Murthy earlier, I think. So income tax had a search and office premises of all our group companies as well as the residential premises of some of the key employees, including mine. And the search, they have right under Section 132, where basically they take documents, take data, take statements of various people. Obviously, they have some suspicion that there could be some undisclosed income or underreported profit. But as a company, we follow the highest standards of governance and compliance of tax as well. So we gave all the statements, documents as required. And the search started on 28th of January, and it concluded on 2nd of February, or maybe 3rd February morning. So five to six days, it was there in various devices, so.
So, any results, sir, of the income tax raid? We have to.
Okay. The way the process is, Varinder, that there's nothing which was there for us to declare or do anything or for them to do anything at this point in time. But once they collect all the data and documents, then the process that I'm told is that they will make something called a prelim report, which can take about three months, which goes to the assessing officer, which then if he believes or she believes that the income was not reported fully, then they give a notice to the companies, assessing us, that we file a revised return within 30 days, and if we do not file a revised return, it's similar to what it was.
And then the assessing officer sees that still there's a cause for doing an assessment differently so they can do it, and for which they can go and appeal against it in case they're not satisfied. But at least at this point in time, we don't have anything to argue with.
Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much. My second question, sir, in the press release, you have mentioned that we believe the worst is behind us. So just hypothetically thinking that we have taken all the pain of the technical provisions in the last two, three quarters. So next quarter, we will not be having more technical provisions coming in, and hopefully, the quarter four will be better than quarter three and progressively.
Yeah. So if you look at the average loan book of gold, probably that was the lowest in the last quarter because it has been declining since September and has restarted. We resumed the yield, and the gold loan has been impacted very badly. In terms of provisions, yes, I believe that we have taken. And in case of MSME, our insurance cover starts from the loans, I think, from September or October. In microfinance, I think some pain is still there, but it's never as bad as the third quarter, which was the worst ever quarter. So all put together, I think that worst is behind us, and things should improve.
Also, if you notice that even the RBI narrative and the government has also been pro-growth and pro-supportive stance rather than the sort of a tightening or more the regulatory exercise which has been very stringent in the last few months. So all these put together, there are very good reasons to believe that things should start improving from here, and this will improve significantly as we go forward.
Okay. So my last question, if permitted. We also hear that ADIA has been pushing for demerger of the Home Finance business. Any update on that?
No, there's nothing. RBI has no view on this. I don't think RBI is.
ADIA, sir. ADIA.
For this.
No, ADIA, I said.
ADIA. Oh. No, ADIA is a long-term investor. So I think there is some understanding, and they are invested for at least seven years in terms of their own investment horizon. So it will be done strategically whenever it's appropriate times. I don't think there's any push or pull from either anywhere for demerger or otherwise.
Okay, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for taking my questions.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Desmond Lee from Wellington Management. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi. Hi, management team. Thanks for the call. Just maybe two items here. Can I ask you about the capital levels for the standalone entity? I noticed it's declined Q-on-Q by quite a bit. I think about 22% now from 26%. Just wondering, can you provide some forward guidance as you regrow your loan book? Will your earnings be able to follow that loan book growth and maintain a capital level? Just want to get a sense whether this number will recover or will fall.
26.3%- 22% Q-on-Q.
Just wondering any forward guidance on where you want to bring capital?
Yeah. So the margins have been down because the loan book has grown recently. And as I said, the assignments have been much lower because they require ceding. So the way our long-term strategy on the capital increasing has been if the loan book grows, then that consumes your capital. But if you are able to sell those loans along with the risk, then that reduces the capital. So last quarter, our assignments have been much lower because the book has been ceded. But the loan book has grown pretty smartly in case of gold. And therefore, what we declined, that we have to jump to over. We'll be taking to gold. And also, the subordinated debt of the Tier II capital. Just give me one minute.
Yeah, the Tier II capital going forward is when the bond maturity reduces to less than five years, then we can't consider them as Tier II. But we can always, in this quarter, raise more subordinated bonds. And when we assign the assets, the capital requirement will be restored to the normal level. So we are looking at it very carefully, but it's just sort of a phase that just deepened a bit. And we are just pushing, actually, because we are far above the regulatory level.
Okay, so just to clarify, so as you start to pick up on the assignment again, you expect capital levels should get better from here or?
Yeah. So basically, the capital is just a function of the risk assets in the entity and what your own capital is, your own funds are. So your own fund basically will increase by profit, which also has been much lower in the last quarter for reasons that we discussed. And your risk assets have gone up because you're not assigning. So when you assign the assets to banks, along with the risk, your risk assets go down, which is the denominator, and the capital adequacy goes up. So to summarize, you're right that as assignment picks up and as we raise subordinated bond, both these things will contribute to our capital adequacy. At the same time, when the loan growth happens, then the capital adequacy goes down.
Got it. So maybe just one final question from my side here. Maybe just on the liquidity side, it seems like the liquidity buffer has weakened compared to pre-ban levels. Just wondering, are you taking steps to improve that free cash plus undrawn lines buffer going forward? I noticed you've issued a dollar bond since then, since the quarter end. So maybe just some thoughts on your liquidity position, where you want to maintain that going forward?
So these numbers are as of December 31st. That's when the liquidity buffer is close to a little less than INR 6,000 crores. The dollar bond issue, money came on 14th, sorry, 24th of January in this quarter. So the liquidity, as we speak, is back to the normal level, but you don't see them in these results. You see them in the next quarter. The dollar bond issue happened in January. These numbers are of December.
Got it. So can you give us an updated level, just thinking coverage of your next three months' debt and interest payments? Would it be higher than the next three months' payments?
No, but we are very well covered for next six months of interest and principal payment.
Next six months. Okay. Thank you.
For the contractual, we have covered. Yeah, our six months' total maturity is, I mean, I'm talking in Indian rupees, INR 5,297 crores. Our liquidity as of 31st December was INR 5,656. Now in the month of January, we have further added. We are well above our requirements for the next six months.
Got it. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question to the management, you may press star and one at this time. The next question is from the line of Gokul Raj from Bavaria Industries Group. Please go ahead.
Hi [Venkat]. Could you speak a little bit about the availability of funds for growth? And also, is co-lending and assignment partners, is it similar to what you will see pre-bond in terms of pricing and availability of funds, or has there been any structural decrease in the additional risk premium that they are still looking for?
Thanks, Gokul. So availability of the fund is not an issue, but the cost is an issue. And the Dollar Bond that we raised in the month of January, with full hedging, the cost is significantly higher. It's almost ten double digits, and that will impact the weighted average cost of funds going forward. But the availability of fund is not an issue. We are able to raise from banks, mutual funds, and the external commercial lenders or investors as well.
So when do you expect you said roughly you'll catch up on the yield side, let's say in a year or so? So let's say from a spreads point of view, when do you think it will get normalized?
Your voice is echoing, so I couldn't hear it properly, can you please repeat?
Mr. Gokul, can you please use your handset?
Is it better now?
Yeah, please go ahead.
No, I was just saying, asking on the yield side, you had mentioned that within a year, you expect the yields to normalize on the gold loan side. So from a spreads point of view, when should we expect the economics to return to the pre-ban level?
I think next financial year as a whole, and of course, the trend will be evident from the first quarter itself.
Okay, and then from a growth point of view, I know growth probably may not be the first answer at this point, but from a growth point of view, any broad view on how you are thinking about growth next year?
I think whatever we are seeing now in terms of, as I said, even the cyclical slowdown seems to be reversing, and I think we should look forward to strong growth next year, and we don't give any forward-looking guidance, but I think this year has been a year of consolidation challenges as well as certain unexpected things that happened. Next year should be a very strong growth on a base. From a trendline point of view, this year is more or less stagnant compared to last year in terms of size, so next year should be a very, I'm very optimistic on the next year's growth.
Okay. Sorry, on assignment and co-lending, you said the yields have increased. Sorry, the cost has increased. But as all the partners on board and the quantum of lines that they give to you for these co-lending or assignment, do you think that's pretty much similar to the pre-ban stuff?
So the cost across the industry for NBFC in particular had gone up. Now, this is not a story to be repeated now. What we have seen now is that the NBFCs have consented to reduce the rate, and it looks like that RBI seems to be committed to make sure that the liquidity issues do not arise. So I think that the cost of funds also seem to have peaked out. But the impact of what will happen is that, as I said, we raised high-cost money in the month of January. So your March quarter impact will be there of the cost of funds. But beyond that, I think the incrementally we'll see cost of funds moderating.
Okay. And last question would be on gold loans. Has there been any change in the type of product? Is it getting more EMI-based, or is there any change from how we were doing the business pre-ban to now? And so once you get back to the old beat, should we expect normal growth, or is there something different that we should think about?
So as of now, we'll have a faster growth as we are recruiting our customers and business. But next financial year, we should see normal growth.
On the product mix change, is there any higher EMI-based gold loans that's happening, or is it just a normal mix similar to?
So I'll focus more on retail, smaller ticket loans, but I think mix should be more or less similar to what we saw. We have cut down on the larger ticket loans, strategically, we want to focus on the smaller ticket customers more as compared to the larger customers.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Murthy Nagarajan from Tata Mutual Funds. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Am I audible now?
Yes, Murthy. Go ahead.
Yeah. So I want to know one thing. How is the next two years, three years, how do you see the composition of your balance sheet changing? So how much will be your gold loan? How much will be your unsecured? If you give us some break-up on this.
Yeah.
Or you got some idea about how you would like to go?
Yeah. I'll tell you, Murthy. So one is that the microfinance industry has undergone a fundamental change in terms of because the new guidelines, which restrict the gold loan amount, broadly say INR 2 lakh instead of INR 3 lakh rupees, number of lenders from unlimited to INR 4 lakh or maybe INR 3 lakh going forward. So microfinance growth, which was a significant driver of growth in the last three years, will not be much growth. And as of now, they've seen decline. So what we'll see is that the microfinance, which is, let's say, around 15% of mix or 14% right now, will go down to 10% or even maybe slightly more than 10% over the next two, three years. Gold loans will continue to be strong in home loans as well. But within MSME, we'll see that the secured fees will grow faster.
The other things, like personal loans we have discontinued, which we had earlier with Zest and Nira partnership we had done in 2022, 2023. The structured real estate has already declined. It's not declined now, but will be a relatively slower growth. So in terms of mix, you'll see that if you see the current mix, then home loan is 42%, gold loan is 21%. But this is because gold loans are impacted in the first half. So both these will be around, say, one-third, one-third of our total portfolio. And microfinance may be around 8%-10%. And then the other 20%, 25% will be MSME loan, 25% or so, which will have two-thirds or 70% will be secured and the remaining will be unsecured.
Okay.
Broadly speaking, our unsecured target is to bring it to 15% or lower of the total portfolio.
Okay. Thank you. But this will also affect your margins, right, going forward?
That's a good question. But gold loan margins are good. And secondly, in the home loan also, because we are able to sell down the asset, the margins are, I mean, are pretty okay. So there will be some advantage of cost income issue also because when the book shrinks for whatever reason, cost income goes up. So your yield will be a little lower, but cost income will also come down. So on the ROE level, there will not be much impact.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. As there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to the management for their closing comments.
Thank you so much for joining us on this call, and if you have any other further questions, please feel free to reach out to our.