IIFL Finance Limited (NSE:IIFL)
India flag India · Delayed Price · Currency is INR
461.00
-3.20 (-0.69%)
May 8, 2026, 3:29 PM IST
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Q3 25/26

Jan 22, 2026

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to IIFL Finance Limited Q3 FY 2026 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participants' lines will be in listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing Star, then Zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand over the conference to management. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Thank you very much. My hearty welcome to all who have joined the call, ladies and gentlemen. On this call today, we are joined by Mr. Nirmal Jain, our founder and MD. We also have Mr. R. Venkataraman, who's our co-founder, and also Mr. Girish Kousgi, who's the MD for our housing finance, MD and CEO for our housing finance company. We also have Venkatesh, who's the MD and CEO for Samasta Microfinance. Through this call, we're going to run you through our performance for quarter three. And before we go into the details of our financial numbers, I hand over the call to Nirmal to give you a perspective on the entire macroeconomic situation and the company's strategy going forward.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining the call. Before we get into our quarterly performance, I want to first address the income tax special audit under Section 142(2A) as this has clearly caused concern and anxiety in the market today. I understand that the term special audit can sound unsettling when taken out of context, so the direction under Section 142(2A) is a procedural step in our ongoing income tax assessment for a multi-year block period. After the search, there's always a block assessment for six years together, so this is not a finding, this is not an allegation, and not an adjudication. Such procedural audits are not uncommon for large diversified financial companies with large transaction volumes and multi-year of data and complex operating structures. This provision allows the income tax authorities to appoint an independent auditor to assist them with verification and reconciliation of data.

The audit report is an input to the assessment process. It is not a conclusion. There's no tax demand, no penalty, no determination against the company pursuant to this direction. And at this stage, there's no financial impact that can be ascertained. And we'll fully cooperate with the special auditor. But again, I reiterate that there's no impact on our operations, our capital positions, or growth plan. With this clarification, let me turn briefly to the macro backdrop. While markets have seen some near-term volatility, the underlying Indian macro environment remains supportive with stable growth, comfortable liquidity, and improving credit conditions, and particularly in our core businesses of gold and mortgages. Now, against this backdrop, let me turn to what truly defines the quarter and our underlying trajectory.

Quarter three and nine months FY 2026 reflect consistent execution of our strategy with strong growth, improving asset quality, and materially strengthened balance sheet. Loan assets grew 9.1% quarter- on- quarter, driven primarily by gold loan. Asset quality has improved across the board with significant reduction in GNPA from 2.14% to 1.6%, and also MNPA going below 1%. And you'll also notice that Stage 2 and Stage 3 are also trending down, indicating further improvement in asset quality going ahead. Our provision coverage is at 92%, well above the regulatory requirements. So over the past few quarters, we have consistently reset the portfolio, exiting high-risk segments such as digital unsecured MSME, Micro LAP under HFC, and select MFI geographies. This is now clearly visible in numbers: more resilient portfolio, lower volatility, and better risk-adjusted return. From a financial standpoint of view, we remain well placed. Our ROE is 2.1%.

ROE has been moving up and is 11.3%. Our consolidated capital equity is 27.7%, liquidity of over INR 9,400 crores, net gearing of just 3.6x . Our funding profile continues to diversify. Cost of borrowings are trending down, and our ALM is comfortable surplus across all buckets. Operationally, our AI-led risk governance and early warning system combined with a physical network of 4,800 branches servicing 4.6 million customers continues to be our core strength, and this strength is also reflected in S&P, our international rating agency, reaffirming our rating and revising the outlook to positive. With this context, we believe that the fundamentals of the business remain strong, stable, and improving. I'll now hand over to our CFO Kapish for granular details of our financial results. Thank you.

Kapish Jain
CFO, IIFL Finance

Thank you very much, Nirmal. So ladies and gentlemen, for the quarter, the consolidated profit after tax before non-controlling interest was INR 501 crore, which is up 20% quarter- on- quarter. We recorded pre-provision operating profit of INR 1,075, which is up 101% Y-O-Y and 4% quarter-on-quarter. For the quarter, the consolidated AUM grew by 38% and 9% quarter-on-quarter at INR 98,336, being at the cusp of INR 100,000 crore, largely driven by gold loan, which crossed the pre-embargo level at INR 43,432, supported by a healthy gross NPA of 0.036%. If I further dissect the AUM, the leading core products of home, gold, MSME loan, and microfinance, they collectively grew by 46% and up 11% quarter-on-quarter to INR 93,767. Gold, in particular, grew by around 26% quarter-on-quarter and around 189% on a Y-O-Y basis. The core segment now collectively comprises 95% of our total AUM.

As Nirmal mentioned, our gross NPA touches around 1.6%, and net NPA is around 0.8%, which is down 82 basis points and 26 basis points respectively from the same period last year. The company does maintain a cautious stand on the unsecured and MFI segments and clearly focusing on recovery and collection, which has been showing good resilience and been performing well every single quarter as they progress over the last few months. With the implementation of the ECL, the provision coverage ratio stands at 92%. With our strategy to partner with banks and DA our pristine assets, our assigned loan book stands at around INR 21,373, which is up 71% Y-O-Y and 15% on a quarter-on-quarter basis. Besides this, the co-lending assets stand at around INR 13,176, which is up 43% Y-O-Y and 11% quarter-on-quarter, taking the aggregate of books at around 35% of our AUM.

On a quarterly average cost of borrowing, increased by around 8 basis points from a Y-O-Y basis and decreased 14% on a quarter-on-quarter basis to 9.24%. To briefly update on our liquidity, our liquidity stands at around 7,000, sorry, we raised around INR 20,007 crore from term loan, bonds, commercial paper during the quarter, and around INR 7,774 of our assets were assigned to various banks. And our liquidity stands at around INR 9,433 crore, adequate enough to not just meet our near-term liabilities, but also adequate to support and fund our growth momentum, which stands quite positive. ALM, as Nirmal mentioned, is positive across buckets, and our net gearing stands at around 3.6%. While the nine-month ROE is what Nirmal talked about at 11.3%, analyzing the last quarter ROE, our ROE stands at around 14.3%, and ROA was at 2.5%.

Our basic earnings per share stands at around INR 10.9, and book value as of 31st of December is around INR 306.85. Capital position remains to be healthy with the off-book strategy. The capital adequacy at a consolidated basis stands at around 27.7%. For individual companies, NBFC is around 18.9%, HFC is 47.7%, and Samasa stands at 30%. We did touch upon the revision and outlook from stable to positive by S&P. We also declared an interim dividend of INR 4 per share, which was approved by the board of directors and will be paid in due course. With this, I come to the end of the session and leave the floor open for Q&A. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets 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 Nishant from Kotak Institutional Equities. Please go ahead.

Nishant Khalde
Product Manager, Kotak Institutional Equities

Hi. Am I audible?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yes, yes. Very much.

Nishant Khalde
Product Manager, Kotak Institutional Equities

Yeah. Sorry. No, so just before the questions on the business, this tax audit, this will be for which financial year or how many years? And any sense in terms of how long this continues?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

This, I mean, if you are aware, you must be aware that last February, we had an income tax search under Section 132. After the search, there's always a block assessment of six years. This tax audit, it's not a tax audit, it's a special audit based on their findings during the search, which will cover the block period of six years. This is supposed to get over in 60 days' time.

Nishant Khalde
Product Manager, Kotak Institutional Equities

This is for, I mean, one financial year or what?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

No, this is on the certain areas. What they want to verify is for six financial years for the block period.

This is when the income tax scrutiny has happened. This is an ongoing process. This is the ongoing income tax assessment. This is always for a block period. Wherever scrutinies have happened, the assessment happens for six years together. And it's for the block period that we have filed our income tax revised return, in which we h ave paid another INR 1.29 crore of tax or something.

Nishant Khalde
Product Manager, Kotak Institutional Equities

And any specific items that you wanted to call out because of which the tax liability went up?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

This is INR 1.29 crore, you are saying?

Nishant Khalde
Product Manager, Kotak Institutional Equities

No.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

It's a very insignificant amount. I mean, it's just a recomputation based on whatever the history and etc. for six years.

Nishant Khalde
Product Manager, Kotak Institutional Equities

Oh, okay. Okay. Got it. Just on the business front, I was looking at your secured loans, the standalone business, which has a ticket size of somewhere closer to INR 2 crores and earns almost like a 14% IRR. So any texture on who these customers are? Because as we understand, typically there is a linkage between risk profile, ticket size, and IRRs. And for such a large ticket, the IRR looks a little bit on the higher side. So just curious, who are these customers and what are these properties? Some texture of the business would be helpful.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

These are SMEs, and these are private sector lendings, and these are from smaller towns. In fact, this is a new one so if you really remember, our historical portfolio had 18%-19% yield. We recalibrated our entire business portfolio. I think the ticket size is not INR 2 crores, is it? Okay. This must be including the historical data also. Okay. These are typically between INR 50 lakh to INR 1 crore rupees, or maybe it can go up to INR 2 crores also. Because they are from smaller towns and segments that we cater to through our branches, average yield is around 13.6%-14%. That's what we are getting on an ongoing basis. Till now, in this portfolio, we don't have any delinquency as such.

Nishant Khalde
Product Manager, Kotak Institutional Equities

Got it. And the secured MSME that's done from the housing company, what is the ticket size over there? Because I think that's sort of missing in the presentation.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

That secured MSME ticket size is INR 14.1 lakh. That's on slide, which is slide number? Slide 23.

Nishant Khalde
Product Manager, Kotak Institutional Equities

I know. It's just missing. Anyway, I got it. And just final two questions. Any status update on the SRs? Any timeline that you're looking at for cash receipts?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Last quarter, if you see slide number 17, then they have gone from 3,500 to 3,000. In next year, 2026 calendar year, I think we'll see a significant drop. Maybe most of these SRs will get redeemed.

Nishant Khalde
Product Manager, Kotak Institutional Equities

Got it. And finally, any plans on capital issuance at this stage?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

No. At this stage, I mean, we haven't announced any capital raising plan. We are monitoring the situation very carefully. But whenever appropriate, we'll raise capital.

Nishant Khalde
Product Manager, Kotak Institutional Equities

But there is any particular leverage level in mind? Any particular capital issuance? I mean, if one has to sort of model it, at what point of time on this?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Our situation is such that we are very comfortable on the subsidiary companies because if you look at our capital equity, Home Loan is almost 46%-47%. And even Microfinance is 27-30%. 30% is our capital equity. Now, as far as the standalone company is concerned, where Gold Loan has grown very rapidly. Typically, if you see, our strategy has been more of a bank partnership where we do Co-Lending and Direct Assignment. Co-Lending was on a bit of a hold for the last few months because RBI's new guidelines of CLM 1 have come into force from January. People are doing the integration. Once that gathers momentum, then we'll be very comfortable again on our capital equity. But we are monitoring it very carefully.

We are open, but at this point in time, I don't have any timeline that I can, I mean, there's nothing the board has decided on what I can tell you at this point in time.

Nishant Khalde
Product Manager, Kotak Institutional Equities

Got it. But I mean, I'm just curious if I have to model growth going forward at any particular ratio that you would kind of urge us to see, saying that beyond this, we'll probably have to look at capital?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

It's fair. Our leverage will keep it around 4-4.5, and capital equity, we would like it to be closer to 20. Right now, it's slightly lower, so we are monitoring it.

Nishant Khalde
Product Manager, Kotak Institutional Equities

Got it. Got it. This is very helpful. Thank you very much and all the best.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

You too. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Thank you. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. The next question is from the line of Digant from GreenEdge Wealth. Please go ahead.

Digant Haria
Founder, Green edge Wealth

Yeah. Hi. Thank you for taking my question. So first question is on gold loans. In the tonnage, have we reached the past peak tonnage? Have we crossed that tonnage? AUM, I understand we have comfortably crossed and moved beyond.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Okay. Yeah, because yeah, so I'll address this question. So I think our tonnage has been growing up very quickly, very rapidly, much faster than the industry. But we are around 60 tons. We are still a little short of what our tonnage was at the time of embargo. March end was around 57.39. It was 57.39. We have crossed that, and now we are at 59.4.

Digant Haria
Founder, Green edge Wealth

Okay. So good to know.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

We have crossed our peak tonnage before the embargo. Okay. Okay. Okay. That's good to know. And NC, my second question is this: now that the tonnage, we have got all the low-hanging fruits, those clients who had gone away from us. We would have got them back. We would have given them LTVs in relation to the new gold prices. But going forward now, in terms of new branches, new customers, what's our strategy like? Because it's just that markets are getting a little competitive on the gold loan side.

I think markets are very strong because loan-to-value has gone up. The addressable market's capacity to borrow has gone up significantly because of gold prices, one. Two, there has been a clampdown on the unsecured MSME and personal loan, and many of these customers are also basically moving towards gold. The awareness has increased, so what I see at the ground is a strong momentum. I mean, the underlying factors, what I tell you are what I would think they are, but I think if you talk to the industry, then there's a very, very strong environment momentum in the business. The environment looks positive, so when we talk about competition, there's a, I mean, there are a number of players that come in, but the market is very large, and we have a network of, I mean, more than 3,000 branches catering to gold alone.

So in our distribution catchment, I think we see significant potential to scale up. If you look at it this way, then our average loan per branch is around INR 12.5 crores, which is maybe half of the market leader.

Digant Haria
Founder, Green edge Wealth

Right. No. Perfect. Thank you for that. And then last question is just on numbers that I see that non-Samastha or non-microfinance provisions are steady at around INR 300 crores. They used to be around INR 100 crores in the past. But now they are close to INR 250-INR 300 crores a quarter. So when does this particular part stop bleeding? I think it's because of the unsecured MSME that this portion is slightly elevated.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yeah. So see, our discontinued businesses portfolio in one quarter only has come down from roughly 4,000 to 3,000. And that is a short-term three-year loan that we had given for in some digital partnership and personal loan. Now, I mean, there's some flow from that, and that has caused the provisions or the losses other than microfinance. But if you see, we are in line with our guidance because this quarter's loan losses provision annualized are around close to, I think, 2.5%. And the last quarter, if you remember, we had given guidance for full year at 2.8%-3%. Next year will be less than 2%. So I think we are on track for that.

Digant Haria
Founder, Green edge Wealth

Right. Right. No, no. Perfect. I was just wondering.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yeah. We are on the guided path, and then next year, we'll see a significant improvement as this book really runs down to a much lower number.

Digant Haria
Founder, Green edge Wealth

Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Then just this quarter, the OPEX seems a little higher. Is it because we pay incentives on the gold loan originated at the start? Or because the whole AUM has grown wonderfully, but it's not translated into the pre-provision operating profit in an equally strong way? I just wanted your thoughts on that. That's the last one I have.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

The point is valid, but this is a one-time charge that we have taken for the new labor code. So I think INR 23 crore rupees additional cost has come for that revision in measurement of gratuity and leave. I think that all companies are basically getting this, which is the new labor code has come in force, and the employee liability, particularly for gratuity and etc., has gone up. We have put that in the summary slide note also, actually, that there's INR 22.5 crore rupees extra.

Digant Haria
Founder, Green edge Wealth

Yeah. Correct. That number I saw, sir. We just wanted to know that. But even apart from that INR 23 crore, the OpEx was a little higher. So that's.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

I think we adjusted that. It's pretty much in line with the so OPEX has gone up by INR 50 crores, and that is maybe half of that is because of that, and then there's a normal inflationary growth.

Digant Haria
Founder, Green edge Wealth

Right. Right. Right. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Thank you so much for that. Sorry?

Digant Haria
Founder, Green edge Wealth

Yeah. No, no, no. Thank you. Thank you so much, Nirmalji, for the detailed answers. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhijit from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.

Abhijit Tibrewal
SVP, Motilal Oswal

Yeah. Good evening, sir. And thank you for taking my question. Again, just kind of going back to that IT special audit which has been commissioned. So sir, thank you for the clarification. But just trying to understand, this does not have any business and regulatory risk, if I understand this right, right? Because if at all, after 60 days, whatever special audit happens, there could be a certain tax implication in which you can naturally contest. But beyond that, I don't think there is any other business or regulatory risk, right?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

No, there's no special audit.

The income tax department will have limited resources that they need. So this is just an input to them. I mean, this has absolutely zero impact on our business or operations, or there's zero risk to that.

Abhijit Tibrewal
SVP, Motilal Oswal

Got it, and then sir, I mean, the second thing I was trying to understand is on the housing business, you also put out one point in the notes to the accounts where you have said that, as advised by NHB, you have restated your March 25 NPAs and GNPAs, which is more in line with show the collections only after you realize. So just trying to understand, until that point, right, which is March 2025, when NHB said that, "Hey, both disbursements as well as collections should be done based on a realization basis," until then, the entire housing industry was working on the cash received basis, is it?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

So I don't know about the entire industry. But what happens, supposing the checks which come in the last one or two days or last few days, they don't realize till the end of the quarter or the month. And basically, so this is like, okay, maybe I don't know about the existing thing, but this could have been the practice of the industry, which NHB has advised us that this is not correct. We have restated. We have done that. But the important thing is that if you look at our December results, that they are in line with the check on the realized money and not based on the check receipt but not realized. So we are now following NHB's guided practice. And in fact, with that, only we have seen significantly better.

Abhijit Tibrewal
SVP, Motilal Oswal

Got it, sir. This is useful. And then on the housing bit again, I mean, we are still seeing that book is largely flat or a minor decline. I mean, and Micro LAP, anyways, we have discontinued and put it in, I think, the discontinued AUM. Now, when is it that we think that, I mean, the cleanup is done and we can start accelerating even in our housing business?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

I think this quarter cleanup is done. So from next quarter, we should see acceleration in the housing or the growth in the housing portfolio as well, with a very clear strategy on focusing on certain segments that we are comfortable with and from a long-term point of view.

Abhijit Tibrewal
SVP, Motilal Oswal

Got it. And sir, have we done any PLR changes in our housing book? Basically, have we passed on any PLR?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

No, no. We are not discussing that.

Abhijit Tibrewal
SVP, Motilal Oswal

No changes. Okay. So, sir, that's all from my side. Thank you so much for taking my questions.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nishitha from Sapphire Capital. Please go ahead.

Nishita Shanklesha
Investment Analyst, Sapphire Capital

Yes. Hello. So I just had one question. Today, only your Chief Information Security Officer, Samir Gadve, resigned. Any reason for the sudden resignation, and what will be the impact of that?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

No, there's no sudden resignation. I mean, it's a normal sort of turn that happens. People find better opportunities. Some people go abroad. So there's nothing. And then we have a very competent second line and a very competent set of people that take over. So it's a very normal business.

Nishita Shanklesha
Investment Analyst, Sapphire Capital

Okay. Got it. Thank you.

Nishant Khalde
Product Manager, Kotak Institutional Equities

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vedant from Nirmal Bang Securities. Please go ahead.

Vedant Sarda
Investment Analyst, Nirmal Bang Securities

Thank you for the opportunity. Am I audible?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yes, you are, Vedant. Go ahead.

Operator

Yeah, audible.

Vedant Sarda
Investment Analyst, Nirmal Bang Securities

So congratulations on a great set of numbers, sir. We have seen a tremendous growth in our gold loan portfolio. So going forward, at the current gold prices, how we are seeing the growth in gold loan portfolio?

I think the prices remain at current level. Even if they don't go up from here but they consolidate, then we'll see very strong growth in the gold loan portfolio.

25, 26% growth on Q1 to Q2 basis?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yeah. I think that should be a very comfortable target.

Vedant Sarda
Investment Analyst, Nirmal Bang Securities

Thank you, sir.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Bhaskar from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Good evening. Just one question regarding the ARC transaction during the quarter in the housing finance business. Could you give some texture on how much of that was Micro LAP and how much was pertaining to the affordable housing book, that INR 900 crore kind of ARC deal which you did this quarter?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

So, Girish is here with me. Maybe he's our new CEO. Maybe I'll just give a little bit of backdrop to this and then hand it over. I mean, maybe Girish can add if he has something. So, I think with the new CEO and the board, based on the experience and whatever we have done in the past, we reviewed our entire portfolio of housing loan LAP. And obviously, there are certain segments that we had indicated last time also, which is like BLC or which are that beneficiary-led construction, beneficiary-led construction, that is BLC, and then Micro LAP that we exited completely.

So all these segments, profiles of customers, or geographies or areas that we have discontinued, Girish took a view which board has agreed with him that we should basically dispose of that portfolio once to ARC, and there the collection can be joint effort, and then we can focus on our continuing businesses in a strategic way. So almost about INR 900 crore or something, maybe INR 875 crore of total portfolio deal has happened. And I think that cleans the entire thing. And that's why if you see, our GNPA in housing has fallen from 1.4% to 2.5%. That is the level that we know we would like it to be. Maybe Girish, you want to add something?

Kapish Jain
CFO, IIFL Finance

Yeah. So basically, what we've done is we've reviewed the entire portfolio, and we also have a vision for next three years as to which all segments we need to operate given the opportunity and in terms of what is the kind of risk that we can take given the needs. So we have identified certain pools which we think are not fitting into our line of strategy when we think of building the book for next three to four years' time. So we thought we should do one-time cleanup exercise so that we can focus on energies towards segments where we can try and build the book. And that is where we have done this ARC. Our focus, I think, going forward is going to be in terms of segments broadly on emerging and affordable. Affordable largely will be the priority for us, which can give us ease.

And emerging to a certain extent, which can help us in terms of growth, which will be in line or maybe slightly better than the industry growth rate. So this is one. And number two, in terms of products, I think predominantly we'll be focusing on HL and LAP. So this is our focus. So we found that certain products, as Nirmal mentioned, and also in certain geographies, the product picks, for example, in certain locations where we need to focus on HL predominantly and less of LAP and stuff like that. I think that is what we had identified. So we thought we will just clean up so that the path will be clear for us to grow in the next three to four years' time. That was the exercise what we did.

Got it. So just to clarify that BLC portfolio, I think which was about INR 400-INR 500 crores, I think that has entirely moved out now.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yeah. BLC, Micro LAP, that portfolio entirely moved out.

Okay. And so now, the discontinued asset, which is there, primarily refers to unsecured Micro LAP, was the other area where you were kind of discontinuing. And I think whatever is there.

LAP also has more or less gone to the ARC in this HFC's portfolio. So Micro LAP was part of HFC portfolio.

Right. So the discontinued now refers to mostly the unsecured business.

Unsecured business loan and personal loan portfolio, which is part of the current company. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Thanks a lot. That's all for now, sir.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Adarsh from Enam Holdings. Please go ahead.

Adarsh Parasrampuria
Fund Manager, ENAM Holdings

Hello. Yes, sir. Sir, a follow-up question was on your this IT thing. Just wanted to clarify again that the block years that you mentioned, is it routine that after every rate you would tend to have a block, or it's specific to us that we've got a block of six, seven years of?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

No, no. It's a part of income tax law that after the search, there's always a block. Okay. It's very, very well defined that the search can pertain to up to six years. The search is typically never for the current year, and then once that's done, then the assessment is block assessment always without exception.

Adarsh Parasrampuria
Fund Manager, ENAM Holdings

Understood. And just to clarify here, this would pertain to, in their view, tax evasion and nothing to do with the authenticity of the accounts. How would you answer that?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

When the search happens under 129, which happened February last year, that happened with a suspicion that there's a tax evasion. But it's a suspicion. It's not a conclusion or not an adjudication. With that suspicion, they come in a surprised way, collect a lot of documents, evidence, statements of the people and everything. Now, the way the income tax process is, the search department is supposed to collect facts and evidences, but they're not supposed to analyze or come to any conclusion on that. Then that goes basically to the assessment department. They are supposed to analyze and ask the company that, "Okay, these are our based on our findings, what do you want to do?" We give you an opportunity to file a revised return, and that has to be for a block period. That is what we did.

When the data collected from search or whatever evidence, data document they have, it's something where they need some external help for reconciling, verifying. That is when they appoint special auditor.

Adarsh Parasrampuria
Fund Manager, ENAM Holdings

Which means what I'm trying to understand is this is not audit-specific or checking the authenticity of the accounts. It's more to do on tax evasion.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

No, no, no. Not at all. I mean, the word special audit to that extent may be a misnomer. It is not anything to do with accounts. It's more to do with what they found in their search needs to be verified or reconciled. See, many times in the search, they can take certain documents. They may not get okay. Even if they get access to all the data and all the accounts, they can't analyze in their five, six days that they are there.

Adarsh Parasrampuria
Fund Manager, ENAM Holdings

Understood. Thank you, sir. That's it from my side.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Thank you, Adarsh.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ranjit from SIB. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Good evening. And congratulations for your better results this time. One thing which I wanted to ask is, what is any scope is stipulated for the special audit? And the second thing is, any preliminary assessment has been done by the company with regard to the maximum possible impact on account of these tax issues?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

No. Sorry. First part of the question, can you repeat, please?

Yeah. Can you just brief about the scope of the audit? Any scope of this audit is being given by the tax department?

No. I think the scope of audit will be restricted to the search findings. So the report also is not fully shared with us. When the income tax search happens, they collect certain documents and statements. We would know what I mean, from our point of view, whatever they taken, they're given. But then the scope is always limited to that.

Okay. One more thing with regard to that. Whether the special auditor has been already appointed or is it under the process of appointment?

It has been appointed.

The second point with regard to the preliminary assessment about the maximum possible impact on account of these tax issues. Anything the company has ascertained?

No. There's no way to ascertain. But what we ascertain is based on that we file our revised return. So that we already done.

Okay. Thanks for the clarification. Have a great quarter.

Based on whatever findings and everything, we are supposed to file our revised return. That we have done for six years block assessment together. But there's nothing much in terms of that revised return that we find. So that is the company's preliminary assessment. And now they have to verify it.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Gao from Schonfeld. Please go ahead.

Gao Zhixuan
Equity Analyst, Schonfeld

Hey. Thanks for the opportunity. Now, are we good?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yes, yes, Gao. Go ahead.

Gao Zhixuan
Equity Analyst, Schonfeld

Yeah. Thanks. My question is on the credit costs. For this quarter, our credit costs have come down to 160 basis points odd. How should we think about the fourth quarter and also next year?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

The voice is.

Gao Zhixuan
Equity Analyst, Schonfeld

How much of?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Sorry, Gao. I think your voice is not clear. Maybe can you pick up the receiver and speak?

Gao Zhixuan
Equity Analyst, Schonfeld

Can I? Yeah. Am I audible now?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yeah. Yes. Go ahead. Audible but there's some disturbance. But yes, I can hear you.

Gao Zhixuan
Equity Analyst, Schonfeld

Cool. Just on the credit costs, we have come down to 260 basis points this quarter. How should we think about fourth quarter credit costs and also next year credit costs?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

I think credit cost has come down and we continue to be doing low. It's around 2.5%. For the full year, we had said that we'll end at anywhere from 2.8%-3% because first half credit cost was higher. This last one and a half months, our credit cost has been unusually higher because of the turbulence in microfinance industry as well as in the Micro LAP. Going forward, next year, we expect our credit cost to be even lower, maybe further 50-60 basis points decline. It should be less than 2% on a steady-state basis.

Gao Zhixuan
Equity Analyst, Schonfeld

Sorry. Next year Credit Cost we're expecting less than 2%?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

So another 50-60 basis points decline in the next financial year from the current 50. From this quarter level, yes. So if this quarter annualizes around 250, we should go below 200.

Gao Zhixuan
Equity Analyst, Schonfeld

Got it. Thanks. Sorry. Just a follow-up on the tax audit. Is this a normal standard SOP whenever there's a rate? We double-check it or probably assessment. So I'm sorry to interrupt.

Operator

I'm sorry to interrupt. Sorry to interrupt. Mr. Gao, we are not able to hear you properly.

Gao Zhixuan
Equity Analyst, Schonfeld

Am I audible now?

Operator

Not.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Now your voice is cracking a bit. Can you? Yeah. Just.

Operator

There's a lot of disturbance, sir.

Gao Zhixuan
Equity Analyst, Schonfeld

How about now?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yeah. Please repeat it.

Gao Zhixuan
Equity Analyst, Schonfeld

Yeah. I just want to understand on the special audit. Is it a normal standard operating procedure after a kind of series and search? Is it part of the normal SOP for the tax department, or this is not typically done?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

So when income tax search is done and the subject of the search is fairly large, complex, because our operations are really vast. We are almost more than four million customers. And if you look at six years, normally we've been larger. Then in such cases, that's a normal thing. But income tax search itself is not something that happens exceptionally. It's not that it happens on a regular on every company. But when that happens and the operations are large and complex, then this is normal.

Gao Zhixuan
Equity Analyst, Schonfeld

I see. So for large complex search, a special audit is typically a normal procedure.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yeah. Again, if the searches or the documents and the accounts that they have are relatively simpler to understand, then they may not need a special audit. So this is not something which is automatic process. This is done only when needed. So to that extent, it's by exception. It's not something which is automatic.

Gao Zhixuan
Equity Analyst, Schonfeld

I see. Got it. Thank you so much.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Anuj from Capital One Partners. Please go ahead.

Hello. Am I audible, sir?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yes, you are, sir.

Yes, sir. So my first question is regarding the net gain on derecognition of financial instruments. So as we've seen since FY 2026, since the start of FY 2026, there has been some movement in that line item. So going ahead, how should we model that and what could be the strategy for this?

So this is something which is dependent on what assets we are able to sell to banks by way of direct assignment. And the way it happens is that you basically have certain yield on the assets, certain cost of funds or certain price at which you are sold to the bank. The difference basically you can take NPV and reduce it by operating cost or service cost and the probable early repayment. That is how it is. So maybe the simpler way to look at it is that it may vary from quarter to quarter a little bit, but maybe it will link to the portfolio of off-book assets that you're assuming you have modelled.

Okay. And so the assumption is that it is calculated on an upfront basis. Had we amortized this value going ahead, what would be the?

It automatically gets amortized because every quarter, the assets which have been repaid to that extent get amortized because the net amount which comes to the profit and loss account.

I'm sorry, sir. It was a bit unclear. Can you just repeat it, sir?

No, it keeps getting amortized as the loans are repaid. So what you see is the new assignment minus amortization. That is what you'll see in the profit and loss account.

So this can be the steady-state number, right, going ahead?

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So my next question would be regarding the Home Finance GNPA. It has reduced considerably in this quarter. So can you give us some color on that?

No. It's primarily because certain NPAs, actually, as Girish also spoke about it. That certain categories of assets where we have significantly higher NPAs and delinquency are higher, that we have sold to ARC. So that has gone off our books in HFC.

Okay. And so regarding gold loans, sir, our AUM has grown considerably, has grown very strongly. But keeping in mind, the borrowings have not grown so strongly. So when I try to model it on an average AUM basis, when I try to get total income on an average AUM basis, I mean, I'm trying to understand as to how should we model this going ahead. If this growth continues and there is no movement in the borrowings, is there any other way of looking at it?

That's a good question. So whatever growth, we can fund either by borrowings or by selling assets to banks. In both cases, our income or our NIM will be similar, 6%-7%, or whatever. We should come either by net interest income or we'll come below, as off-book income or income from assets which are off-book, DA, co-lending. So what will happen? Whatever you assume, we assume 60-40, 70-30. So that percentage of income will go above the net interest income line, and the remaining will come below the net interest line, probably in a similar range.

Okay. And these gold loans, sir, at what average gold price we would have booked them?

No. So our gold prices at all gold prices, but gold price gain or loss is not to our account. The customer will take the gold back, only pay as interest.

No. I understand that, sir. But I understand that. But this movement we've been seeing in gold since the past year now, which we're just trying to understand as to this quarter, what price you would have booked that loan at?

So right now, our LTV is just about 61%. So obviously, part of it is contributed by gold prices also going up, which reduces LTV. And so every day, the price varies. And generally, we keep it sometimes below the 75% price, just to be conservative. So there's a weighted average of everything. So maybe you can look at LTV, which is 61%, maybe a good indication of what prices they've been booked on average.

Okay. So I think, sir, we can take this offline. I think there is a bit some unclarity. There's some unclarity on this. So I guess we can take this offline.

What's the GNPA?

On the gold price, sir, there's some unclarity here.

Okay. Maybe I'll try to explain once again, Anuj. So every day, we have a gold disbursement, and there are certain repayments. Every day, gold price comes based RBI has already indicated where do you take gold prices from. So then your maximum loan amount is 75% that we can give to the customer. Typically, we may end up giving a little lesser, say 70 or whatever. And then on this gold, as the gold prices go up, our LTV will go down. So at quarter, LTV was only 61%. But because there are millions of transactions, so it's very difficult to say that if there's any particular loan booked at what price. Because they are booked at different point in time, partly repaid, repaid, renewed. So there's a continuous process.

Okay. Understood, sir. Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Bhavin, an individual investor. Please go ahead.

Good evening to the management team of IIFL Finance. Post-merger by each past quarter, I think the operating performance of the company has only been improving. My only request to the management is, if it is feasible, the management can issue a clarificatory note and file it with the exchange on this income tax because the special auditor word has spooked the nerves of many participants in the market. And that is the reason we have seen large correction in the stock price. So while I do not have any question, but I have a request to the management. If a clarificatory note on this can be issued and filed with the exchanges. Thanks.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Sure. We'll do that, Bhavin. But also, this analyst call transcript will also be put up on the website. So in the beginning, it's not explained, but yes, I think your point is taken. We'll do that.

Yeah. It's my earnest request, sir, if separate filing can also be done because not many people go through the transcripts and all. But anybody would go through one page or two pages related to this clarification. So there is no downside to this, but it may protect the interest of many investors.

Sure. Thank you.

Sure.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shreya from Nomura. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. My question is on the MFI, IIFL Samasta business. So it's to do with the liability book. One can see that the bank, the term loans or probably the bank borrowings was declining till last quarter. Now that mix has sort of inched up. Though the cost of fund movement between the quarters has been volatile in a way, it was 9.something%, 9.7% last quarter. It's inched up this quarter. There were certain media articles which mentioned that the NBFC MFI's equation with banks have not been at the best terms. And probably whatever new money that they are able to raise from banks are coming at an adverse cost of fund.

So I just want to understand, while it may not specifically be for that article, may not be for IIFL Samasta, but I just want to understand what's the ground reality for us and how are we viewing our liability mix on this book. Thank you.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

So if there's a slight decline in the total borrowings and the refinance, basically, the earlier loans get repaid, so they also get repaid. So if you really look at it, it looks like 44%-46%. But if you go back six months, it was 52% of our total portfolio. So I would say it's more similar level. There's no significant change in that. And our cost of fund, if you see the slight steady one again, has gone down for microfinance also by 10 basis points. So I would say there's not any significant change there. I mean, they're similar. But given for term loans satisfactory for banks and also the parent guarantee, we have been getting new loans from banks also. The entire fear is more about standalone small microfinance companies which may or may not be able to survive the turmoil that happened last year.

But otherwise, we find equity comfortable.

Right. So for us, the lines and the limits continue to be available from these banking partners, right? I mean, there are no new challenges or okay. Fair. That's fair enough. If I can squeeze in one more question again on the NBFC MFI performance. So in your two biggest states, I mean, second and third largest state, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, can you help us understand if probably the 30-plus book or 30 to 90-day book, how is that performance versus pre-crisis, maybe versus June of 2024? Has the trends reversed back or things have normalized? Or how has been your experience in these two states?

Please. When it comes to this, you will tell us, CEO of microfinance. In the month of November and December, the strongest comebacks, I can say, was in these two states. Though the portfolio of Tamil Nadu overall for the industry also has dipped a little, but the collection efficiencies have considerably increased. And in both the states, considering that Karnataka came out of the ordinance, what was their last MFI act of last year, it's much better than the thing. So we have back in both these states at around 99.5% plus.

Right, and the trend pretty much continues in January. Would that be a fair assumption?

Yeah. The trend continues in January too.

All right, sir. Okay. Those were my questions. Thank you so much and all the best.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhishek from HSBC. Please go ahead.

Gaurav Abhishek
Analyst, HSBC

Yeah. Thank you and good. And congrats. Well, so one question on this gold loan growth. And now, if I correlate that with a Tier 1 of 12.8, how much can this growth continue with this kind of a Tier 1? Or does it need to necessarily now slow down, or you can find something else which allows you to grow fast in gold loans?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Abhishek, see, now I think it more depends on our ability to do co-lending and DA. So that is what probably will sustain growth. And if not, then we have to raise equity. So I think that's a very simplistic answer to your question.

Gaurav Abhishek
Analyst, HSBC

Is it urgent now to get equity, or can still go, say, two quarters or three quarters without raising anything?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

No. It depends. If I go to do Co-Lending and DA, then we can continue. We'll be on the edge, but we'll continue. And we have a strong capital investment in our subsidiary company. But for the time being, I think the Co-Lending engine has to start quickly and strongly.

Gaurav Abhishek
Analyst, HSBC

Okay, and incremental.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

And appropriate equity, which is, we can do at any point in time. But alternative strategy is to work with the co-lending and DA.

Gaurav Abhishek
Analyst, HSBC

Understood. I have one question for Venkatesh. So what is the disbursement last quarter? I mean, especially if you can break it down into October, November, December.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

In October, we would have done around 500-odd growth. In November, we would have done around 700 and 600-odd. And in microfinance alone, we would have done 700-odd growth. Overall, we would have done 800-odd growth in December for all products put together.

Gaurav Abhishek
Analyst, HSBC

Okay. Okay. Got it. That is helpful. And then I have another question for Girish. So you used the words affordable and emerging when you earlier made a comment. How do you define it here? Is it different from your previous form, or what do you classify as affordable? What is emerging for you here?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

I think if you look at the market, basically, there are four segments. One is super prime, second is prime, third is emerging, and fourth is affordable. When you talk about affordable, typically, this is the business where we would be focusing on starting from tier two, tier three, tier four kind of cities and towns. This is where we have an opportunity for affordable. This segmentation is quite standardized across the industry. These segments are pretty much standard. When we talk about affordable, these are basically on the salary side, income level of, let's say, INR 20,000-INR 35,000. And on the self-employed, it will be on similar lines. The ticket size will be about INR 14-INR 15 lakhs. And this also covers under PMAY interest subsidy scheme, where the loan is up to INR 25 lakhs and the property cost INR 35 lakhs.

This is typically the affordable segment. If you talk about the segment within this, basically, this would be focusing on.

Gaurav Abhishek
Analyst, HSBC

So yield would be what? The yield would be what in this affordable?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

If I talk about most of the companies would be focusing on yield of 12.8%-13%. So this is the affordable business. When we talk about emerging, this is a level up where the yield should be in the range of 11%-11.5%, both focusing on salaried and self-employed, both formal and informal. So this is the differentiation between these two segments.

Gaurav Abhishek
Analyst, HSBC

Ticket size should be?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Ticket size should be about INR 20-INR 21 lakhs. Affordable is INR 14-INR 15. Emerging is INR 20-INR 21. And the next is about prime, INR 26-INR 27 lakhs. And then we have super prime, which is INR 50 lakhs and above. So in terms of geography, I would say top 10 probably could be super prime and prime. And the next 30 cities would be emerging market. And the next 200 would be affordable.

Gaurav Abhishek
Analyst, HSBC

Okay. So when I look at the yields and the average ticket size for the home loans part that you told, that's actually the blended that are around 10.5%-10.6%. Whereas the incremental target that you have is anything 11.5% and say 13%, 11%-13%, let's say. So should we expect that going forward, the portfolio yield or at least the disbursement yield should be higher? And then that should translate into portfolio yields going higher over a period of time.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yes, you are right. I think the plan is to ensure that in the next few quarters, the onboarding yield is going to go up because predominantly, our focus is going to be on affordable and emerging, which I spoke about in terms of customer segmentation, property type, and the expected yield. So this would aid in the overall portfolio yield going up. But this will take some time, maybe another two to three quarters because we have started this already. Our focus would predominantly be on affordable and then emerging.

Gaurav Abhishek
Analyst, HSBC

The INR 32,000-odd crore AUM that you have in affordable home loan, as you reported in HFL, that is actually affordable and prime rather than or rather emerging and prime rather than emerging affordable, as you described.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

So basically, if you look at these segments, one city would give you an opportunity of doing or being in two or three segments. It is those pockets in a given city which are giving the opportunity. So the exceptions are when you go to tier three and tier four, predominantly 90% of business what you do is going to be from affordable. So every city would give you a mix, let's say top 50-60 cities would have an opportunity of doing two or three segments within the given city. So our new strategy going forward would be in terms of trying to increase yield and therefore the overall yield on the portfolio growth. So our focus is going to be on different segments, different type of collateral, different kind of profile within the given city. We are today presenting about we have about 315 branches.

Our focus in this would be on emerging and affordable.

Gaurav Abhishek
Analyst, HSBC

I finally understood the question. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

For example, to make it very simple, suppose if you take, let's say, Chennai. Now, Chennai is the largest city we all know. So in Chennai, there are three segments available, which is prime, emerging, and affordable. So there are affordable companies in Chennai doing only affordable business, which is basically catering to outskirts areas where the property ticket size would be about, let's say, INR 30 lakhs-INR35 lakhs, and the loan could be about 18-20 lakhs. Similarly, slightly away from city center would have an opportunity of emerging. And the core city center would have an opportunity of either prime or super prime. So some of the largest cities would give you opportunity. The minute you go to small towns and all, I think predominantly it is affordable. This comes at a higher rate.

Gaurav Abhishek
Analyst, HSBC

Sure. So what I was trying to understand, thank you for the explanation, is that from current portfolio which is about 32,000, average ticket is more or less in that affordable segment you described, but the yield is lower. So was it just that underwriting was still aggressive focus on that? Or what is the difference between the why is the yield lower than typical affordable, which would be 12% and 13%?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

So today, if you look at where we are present, we are present in top cities, which includes affordable, emerging, and also a little bit of prime. So it is basically focused on certain segments and certain profiles. So there has been a new strategy which is now laid out. So I think your question is that we have a book where the yields are quite low, even though we're into affordable and emerging. I think that's the question. Now, what we have done now in the revised strategy is that going forward in these locations, we're going to focus on the segments which we want to focus on. For example, predominantly, it's going to be affordable and then followed by emerging. So there is a change in strategy to a certain extent.

This does not require our focus in terms of geography because we're already present in many locations which can cater to these two segments. And within those geographies, within those cities, our segment focus will be a little different, which will get us a higher yield.

Gaurav Abhishek
Analyst, HSBC

Got it. Got it. Got it. Thank you so much and all the best. Thank you.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhijit from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.

Abhijit Tibrewal
SVP, Motilal Oswal

Yeah. Thank you for taking the follow-up. While we are at housing, Girish sir, I mean, what is the housing growth that we are looking for from next year onwards?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Housing?

Abhijit Tibrewal
SVP, Motilal Oswal

Growth.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Growth.

Abhijit Tibrewal
SVP, Motilal Oswal

Housing book growth. Yeah.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yeah. So on the book, we plan to grow by about 15%-16%. And on disbursement, it will be 24%-25%.

Abhijit Tibrewal
SVP, Motilal Oswal

Okay, so disbursement is 24%-25%.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yeah.

Abhijit Tibrewal
SVP, Motilal Oswal

Got it. Then a few other clarifications that I had. Nirmal sir, just trying to understand, given that we received that special audit letter yesterday, and like you mentioned earlier, they have 60 days to complete the audit. So suffice to say, right, that in the next 60 days, this audit will be done?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yeah. They submit it to the Income Tax Department only.

Abhijit Tibrewal
SVP, Motilal Oswal

All right.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

The report goes to the Assessment Department.

Abhijit Tibrewal
SVP, Motilal Oswal

And then this audit is only with respect to certain points where the IT department might have a different opinion, right, versus what we would have filed earlier in our returns?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

So this audit is only related to the findings of the search. So search also was in certain specific areas where they had suspicion. So they collected data, documents, and whatever information and statement that they wanted. And they compiled. And it is restricted to that.

Abhijit Tibrewal
SVP, Motilal Oswal

Okay.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

See, this audit has nothing to do with audit of accounts or whatever. I mean, auditor name is Dandy and can capture lots of things. But here, their purpose is to verify the things which are found in search or related to search findings.

Abhijit Tibrewal
SVP, Motilal Oswal

Got it. Okay. And then this amount of INR 1.47 crore, right, that we have paid, right, based on our own assessment, I mean, the only thing is after this special audit is complete, maybe the IT department comes back with the final amount, right?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yeah. And they can raise a demand and dispute and appeal kind of thing.

Abhijit Tibrewal
SVP, Motilal Oswal

Got it. And then lastly, sir, we said earlier that maybe from next year onwards, there could be a 50-60 basis points decline from current level of credit cost of about 2.5%. But suffice to say, given that, I mean, like you mentioned earlier, the cleanup in the housing business is complete. The gold loan business is doing well. And then MFI also, what we are hearing from others, there's no further deterioration at the margin, the collection trends, the precautionary trends are looking better. So even next quarter, directionally, right, you should see credit costs coming down, right, to get to that less than 2% for next year that you guided for?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yes. So I think the drive path has already started. So you will see further improvement quarter after quarter.

Abhijit Tibrewal
SVP, Motilal Oswal

Got it. This is useful. Thank you so much for patiently answering questions. And I wish you and N. Venkatesh the very best.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Thank you so much.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Anusha from Dalal & Broacha. Please go ahead.

Anusha Raheja
Research Analyst, Dalal & Broacha

Yeah. Thanks for taking my question. And congratulations, sir, on a very good set of numbers.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Thank you.

Anusha Raheja
Research Analyst, Dalal & Broacha

So on the gold loans, we have seen a very strong growth of around 26% on Q1 Q-o-Q basis. What has been tonnage-wise increase there in this quarter?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yes. Yeah. There's about 7% increase tonnage-wise also.

Anusha Raheja
Research Analyst, Dalal & Broacha

Okay. And also on this special audit, was it the case that the special audit was supposed to follow after the RBI embargo, which was there a few quarters back?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yes. So there was special audit done by RBI also, very thorough and detailed special audit. And that was only related to gold loan and for three years. Now, although this name is similar, but this is very different. This is for certain areas of search documents where they want to do. And it's for a block period of six years.

Anusha Raheja
Research Analyst, Dalal & Broacha

Okay. Okay. And sir, if you can just give us some color on the overall AUM growth. Like you said that for home loans, we are anticipating a growth of 15%-16% in FY 27. So some color on how gold loans we are anticipating growth there in FY 27, even on the MFI side and on the business loans. So how do we expect overall AUM to grow over the next two years' time? And also on the MFI side, I mean, I believe that asset quality, isn't that should have been much more better relatively? Because if I just compare the GNPA numbers, the relative improvement for the peers have been much more sharper. So what are thoughts on that?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

In the last two or three quarters, we have been shrinking our portfolio. We're very cautious trying to completely realign our strategy. Our denominator has not grown, has actually shrunk. That has exaggerated the impact of asset quality, and that also reduces our profitability. We'll be cautious, but now portfolio, as the industry environment has become more sanguine, we'll see our portfolio also growing and things getting better.

Anusha Raheja
Research Analyst, Dalal & Broacha

Okay. But otherwise, on ground, you're seeing improvement on the asset quality behavior on the MFI side?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yeah. On ground, there's significant improvement in asset quality, credit culture, and even the leverage of customer has fallen, and the risk is much lesser. And if you see our slide on microfinance, which is slide 32, you'll see that the primary, the zero bucket, which is noted today, how much you collect out of that. And that indicates the recovery stance, and that is at all-time peak. It's much better now at 99.56%.

Anusha Raheja
Research Analyst, Dalal & Broacha

Okay. And how do we see overall AUM growth, say, for FY 2027 across the segments?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

I would rather talk about because, see, we have a little bit of diversified business model, not very widely diversified. And we have seen that sometimes some segments do much better than expected. Some segments do a little lower than expected. On the whole, I think you should see about 20%-25% AUM growth next year.

Anusha Raheja
Research Analyst, Dalal & Broacha

Okay. And on any internal targets for ROA, ROE in the near term?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Our ROE was in the range of 18%-20% in normal times. We would endeavor to reach towards that. That is our internal target in the next two to three years.

Anusha Raheja
Research Analyst, Dalal & Broacha

Okay. Okay. Fine, sir. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Gaurav from HSBC. Please go ahead. Mr. Gaurav, we would request to please go ahead.

Gaurav Abhishek
Analyst, HSBC

Hello. Am I audible?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yes, you're audible. Go ahead.

Gaurav Abhishek
Analyst, HSBC

Sir, a couple of questions. First is on the gold loan Stage 3 provision. I have seen that we have declined our provision Q-o-Q from 42% to 19% in 3Q. So I just wanted to know the reason for the same and going forward should we maintain at this level only? And second, in response to one of the questions, you mentioned that you're comfortable with growing gold loan book at 24%-25% TOQ. So was that guidance for 4Q, FY 2026, or beyond that? Also, we can maintain the same turn rates. These are my two questions, sir.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

So basically, our pace has been significantly higher. I mean, of course, quarter over quarter, probably the pace has slowed down over a period of time. Now, I can't say that what will happen this quarter, but longer- term, okay, in the recent past, we have seen that there are two factors that are working for us. One is gold prices have been moving up. And two, in our branches, we are getting back our old customers and getting our productivity level back. Whatever impact was caused by embargo, we are just trying to undo it. But it's very difficult to give any guidance on that going forward. You said that the provision we have reduced. That's what you say? What did you say? Stage 3. So okay. Stage three losses are always, again, dependent on gold prices as well as your historical.

So the way ECL is computed is based on empirical data. And what we have seen is that our losses have been negligible. And that is why this number probably was much higher than what it ought to be. This number could have gone up during the embargo period when the even NPAs appeared higher because many customers could not roll over. And in three months, interest backlog, it becomes NPA. But on a steady-state basis, gold loan business typically will not have any losses. And also, the percentage that is there in stage three is also very low. So it doesn't make any much impact, actually.

Gaurav Abhishek
Analyst, HSBC

Got it, sir. Okay, sir. These are only my two questions. Thank you so much.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

All right. Thank you, Gaurav.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Pranay from Carnelian Asset Management & Advisors. Please go ahead.

Pranay Mishra
Equity Research Analyst, Carnelian Asset Management & Advisors

Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, just a clarification on the previous participant's question where he was talking about the de-recognition, net gain de-recognition. So firstly, what is the purpose we have started doing in FY 2026 as opposed to FY 2025? And second, is it that a better way of raising your borrowing books as compared to a borrowing which we have a 9% cost of fund? So is it a better way of, let's say, less cost-effective way of doing this?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yeah. So this is a better way because it reduces your capital. And secondly, I think we have always been doing this. I mean, obviously, with the volume, it has gone up. And in the COVID crisis and after that, after IL&FS crisis, after COVID, and after this, when the liquidity became very tight, there was a time we started doing it more aggressively. And then we realized that maybe long-term strategy also makes a lot of sense because it can allow you to grow faster without really having to raise equity and dilute very frequently because you can get assets off the balance sheet along with the risk.

Pranay Mishra
Equity Research Analyst, Carnelian Asset Management & Advisors

Got it. So what is the delta, sir? If you can say on a ballpark, what is the delta between our cost of borrowing versus this we are selling the book on the one-time cost? What is the delta we get on this?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Typically, I mean, again, it varies from transaction to transaction. But it may be about 100 basis points more cost, but that's to our risk and capital and everything else. But again, it varies. It's very difficult to because again, there's a demand for PSL. There's a demand for retail assets by the banks. It's like a market where the prices fluctuate.

Pranay Mishra
Equity Research Analyst, Carnelian Asset Management & Advisors

Understood. So sir, this should be purely on which segment? This should be purely on the gold loan book?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Gold loan, both. Even microfinance for that matter.

Pranay Mishra
Equity Research Analyst, Carnelian Asset Management & Advisors

Okay. And so once you are saying it reduces our capital, so basically, it is so you had mentioned it is amortized, but once you are saying it is reducing the capital, so it is not on amortized. This is on one-shot basis, right?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Yeah. So once you have sold the asset, they're off your book. So basically, you'll keep getting income on the difference of interest, whatever we agreed. Then you take NPV, provide for some cushion, and then take it as an upfront. Then what happens when the actual loans are redeemed? There's a time then you get the actual interest income, and then you amortize this against that. So actually, it will not be cash flow negative whenever over a period of amortization. So supposing you have sold gold loan for two years, and there's a, say, 5% extra interest cost, so 10% is what you're taking upfront. Every quarter, it amortizes, so you are getting interest income, and you are reducing this that way.

Pranay Mishra
Equity Research Analyst, Carnelian Asset Management & Advisors

Right. Understood. So what percentage, just so we assume that in the current quarter, what percentage of that amortization would be there of the Q1, which is part of the Q3?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

So there are a number of assignments. And so everything keeps getting assigned. So I mean, I won't be able to give you one data for that because over the last five years, two years, three years, tens of such transactions would have happened. And everything amortizes at a different pace. So every transaction actually is monitored by the bank as well as by us.

Pranay Mishra
Equity Research Analyst, Carnelian Asset Management & Advisors

Understood, understood.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Every customer's data.

Pranay Mishra
Equity Research Analyst, Carnelian Asset Management & Advisors

Correct, correct. So the interesting thing to see on the home finance where we have significantly improvement in our asset quality, basically on the gross NPAs and NPAs. And so you recently mentioned that the future plan of growing the AUM book over there. So at what level of NPAs do we expect we'll be comfortable in this book?

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

You're saying in home loan?

Pranay Mishra
Equity Research Analyst, Carnelian Asset Management & Advisors

Yeah, in the home finance segment.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

I think the current level what we achieved in this quarter will be the comfortable levels.

Pranay Mishra
Equity Research Analyst, Carnelian Asset Management & Advisors

All right. Even in the growth, which we will be expecting a 15% AUM growth and 25 basis points growth on that basis.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

I think home loan, again, it's 15%-20% is what we are, 15%-18%. So home loan is slightly slower, but these are long-term assets, so.

Pranay Mishra
Equity Research Analyst, Carnelian Asset Management & Advisors

Yeah. Okay. Okay. That's it, sir. Thank you.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. And I now hand over the conference to management for closing comments. Thank you.

Nirmal Jain
Founder and Managing Director, IIFL Finance

Thank you so much. And if you have any more queries, you can always get back to me.

Yeah, yeah. Thanks very much for joining this call and for your patient hearing. For any further queries, you can reach out to our investor relations desk, and we'll be more than happy to clarify any further questions that you might have. Have a wonderful evening. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. On behalf of IIFL Finance Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line.

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