This conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Sunil Mehta, Chairman along with the management of IndusInd Bank. Thank you. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, dear all. Very good evening to all of you. I, Sunil Mehta, Chairman of the Board of IndusInd Bank Limited, welcome you for this quarterly results call. I am joined by our Committee of Executives, Soumitra Sen and Anil Rao, along with the rest of our management team. We will follow a structure similar to the last quarterly call for today's call as well. I will begin by highlighting some of the key developments at the bank, after which Soumitra and Anil will provide more detailed updates on our business performance and financial results. At the outset, we had two main objectives in this quarter. First, restoring trust in the institution as our prime and immediate responsibility, and secondly, ensuring continued execution of all core businesses of this bank. The Board and the Management remain committed towards these objectives.
The bank has implemented higher standards of transparency and compliance, as also reflected through actions taken by the entire team at the bank. I will give further update on some of the key developments for the last quarter. Number one, the decisive action taken on all legacy issues. During quarter one, the Board and the Management have spent considerable time and effort towards resolving the concerns relating to legacy, treasury, and microfinance issues as identified in the previous quarter. In treasury, we have stopped internal deals. Further, we have begun a process of upgrading the Treasury Calypso system to the latest version with enhanced functionality of trade management controls and monitoring. The governance framework for the microfinance subsidiary has been significantly improved, bringing in greater transparency. We continue to delve deeper to further enhance board and management oversight and operational control over this subsidiary.
The bank has set up a dedicated Project Management Office tasked with the benchmarking of the bank's internal control processes and policies with the best practices and bridging gaps, if any, that exist. The rigorous exercise which had been conducted in Q4 helped the bank, Q4 of 2024-2025 financial year, which helped the bank to absorb these irregularities in the Q4 results of financial year 2024-2025 itself. As you would have seen and in line with our assessment, we have delivered Q1 results for financial year 2025-2026 without any carryover of the prior period irregularities. The financial impact of the legacy issue is thus now behind us. Number two, the leadership transition in the bank is now well on track. The bank has made significant progress on the CEO appointment. The recommendations were submitted within the prescribed timelines and are currently under regulatory approval process.
I take this opportunity to make a clarification. There has been no change by the bank in its CEO recommendations as were submitted within the prescribed timelines to the regulator from what we had initially submitted. In addition, the bank is also actively identifying both internally as well as externally, top- quality talent for the wider senior management and we will update you at the appropriate time on the developments. Meanwhile, the Committee of Executives, which is known as the CoE, operating under the guidance of the Board's Oversight Committee, has done an excellent job ensuring seamless business continuity during this challenging phase. Under their leadership, the bank is effectively pursuing near- term priorities as well as laying and building on the foundation for a sustainable growth.
From here. We are confident of building a strong management team which will unlock the true potential of this franchise underpinned by robust governance framework. Number three, the key focus themes identified for the near term. Apart from ongoing initiatives, even as we await the new CEO, the Board along with the management have aligned on five key focus areas to be actively worked upon. These themes include Profitability First Approach. We have taken measures such as reduction in savings account rates, deemphasizing growth in lower return businesses through effective fund transfer, pricing, etc. to restore the profitability of the organization towards its underlying potential. Stringent Cost Management. A robust cost management plan has been identified and is being implemented by all business units even as future- focused investments continue apace.
The bank had over 20% OpEx CAGR in last three years and we are now working towards containing OpEx to a single- digit year-on-year growth in the foreseeable future. Heightened focus on Recoveries. We are scaling up our collection efforts to recover bank's dues from the accumulated slippages. We are targeting the upgrades and recovery run rate for the year to be comfortably better than the last couple of years. Building the one IndusInd Bank Franchise. There are immense synergies between our diverse businesses. Management is working actively to ensure that the collective power and service of our whole bank is made available to our esteemed customers. We aim to leverage our existing customers, leading to a better risk-adjusted growth as well as improved self-funding proportion across the business units.
Effective engagement with stakeholders, the bank has also continued a proactive engagement with all its stakeholders including regulators, employees, customers, rating agencies, and media. The bank has transparently shared all developments, addressing their concerns and rebuilding the trust in the organization. We are deeply encouraged and deeply appreciate their support. I take this opportunity to express my special gratitude to the Reserve Bank of India as well as our 45,000 employees for their unstinted support during this difficult journey that we had over the last three to four months. The aforesaid themes represent the opportunities where we believe meaningful progress can be made, leveraging our existing investments and capabilities. In addition, a detailed strategic roadmap will be identified and implemented by the new CEO once in place. I will now spend some time on delivering on our business-as-usual agenda.
Despite the overhang of legacy cleanup, we have collectively ensured that there is continuity in the rest of the bank's businesses. On the asset side, our vehicle and consumer businesses maintain disbursement as per their usual trends. We were cautious on the microfinance business, as is seen from the developments in this business in the industry. As regards the corporate banking business, we had calibrated dispersals, and they are now picking up. On liabilities, the retail momentum continues apace with share of retail deposits as per LCR improving quarter-on-quarter. We have let go of bulk and certificates of deposits, which has helped us in the generalization of our deposit base. We have carried excess liquidity during the quarter ending June 30th, which we have started deploying now in accretive purposes.
The financial outcomes for quarter one: the bank has returned to profitability, and I'm pleased to advise that the bank has returned to profitability on a quarterly basis with a profit after tax of INR 604 crore. As mentioned earlier, the profits for the quarter are without any one-offs from the prior period. We have reported stable operating profitability metrics versus normalized Q4 metrics. The CET1 capital improved to 15.48% versus 15.1% quarter-on-quarter with efficient capital utilization. This provides us enough fuel in the tank for growth in the foreseeable future. Overall, the bank has demonstrated strong resilience in getting past the unfortunate events we witnessed in quarter four of financial year 2024-2025. We believe the financial return metrics are still below their potential due to the developments that we witness since the quarter ending June 30th, 2025.
We have seen a steady recovery in our core businesses and our aim will be to show consistent and predictable improvement every quarter on our financial metrics from here onwards. I will now hand over to Soumitra Sen to take you through highlights on the individual businesses. Thank you, Soumitra.
Thank you, Chairman.
I will now start off with.
The vehicle finance business, which is our mainstay. Our vehicle loan stands at INR 96,357 crore, growing 7% YoY and 1% quarter- on- quarter. The disbursements for quarter one were at INR 11,298 crore, remaining steady on a YoY basis. Quarter one, as you always know, is a seasonally weak quarter for the year, and the second half of the year contributes a large share of both disbursements and recoveries. We expect this trend to continue. We witnessed YoY loan growth across most product categories, with passenger cars, construction equipment, and light commercial vehicles registering double-digit growth, while tractor loans saw a decline in YoY disbursements, but it's now picking up both sequentially and on a quarter-on-quarter basis. Following last year's consolidation and strengthening of the credit underwriting process on asset quality, the net slippages for quarter one improved to 0.58% versus 0.62% YoY.
We expect slippages to remain range- bound as the year progresses, supported by seasonality and benefits and improving economic activity. Over the past six months, we have not sold any NPAs to ARCs, choosing to instead focus on internal collections. This, however, led to the increase in period-end GNPA ratios for the interim period. The restructured book in the vehicle finance has now come down to immaterial levels of INR 85 crore from INR 417 crore a year back, with the majority of this reduction being a result of upgrades and recoveries. Looking ahead, overall vehicle demand for the year is expected to be muted. However, we do see support coming through rural uptick with strong monsoons, government infrastructure spending, as well as interest rate cuts. We remain watchful of region-specific weather disruptions, supply chain constraints, and geopolitical uncertainties, which may pose operational challenges.
Diversification across geographies and vehicle categories should also help in sustaining a steady momentum and mitigating any risks. Now, let me come into micro lending and microfinance. The total book loan under the microfinance and merchant business now stands at INR 35,712 crore, down 6% quarter-on-quarter and 16% YoY. Now, if I just talk about the microfinance, we took a cautious stance on microfinance, monitoring industry trends while working on several initiatives aimed at strengthening internal processes through enhanced quality checks such as revalidating all KYCs, improving underwriting standards, and conducting loan utilization checks for all loans. While these measures temporarily impacted disbursement growth, they also provided critical validation and process enhancements and reinstalled the confidence in our ability to achieve sustainable growth in this segment going forward.
As a result, the microfinance disbursements were down 36% quarter-on-quarter and the loan book by 8% quarter-on-quarter. Disbursements followed MFIN compliance and focused on high vintage customers with strong bureau and repayment records and high internal behavioral scores. Slippages, though elevated from normalized levels, have declined meaningfully quarter-on-quarter. We expect slippages to stabilize by quarter three, may extend to quarter four, but the legacy stress subsides, and new disbursements continue to perform steadily. The 31 90 days past due book was steady at 2.2% in June 2025 versus 2.3% in March 2025. Now let's come to Bharat Superstore, the merchant- acquiring business of IndusInd Bank. We have now around 649,000 merchant borrowers under this program. Our merchant book stands as of today at INR 7,304 crore, grew by 38% YoY.
The share of non-MFI book now stands at 20% versus 13% YoY. so, one-fifth of the book is now merchant acquiring. Total liabilities sourced through BFL now stand at INR 2,160 crore. Overall, we are seeing improvements in terms of microfinance stress and slippages from elevated levels of last year. We continue to remain cautious on growth as well as asset quality trends. Our diversification efforts continue apace and steady scale up in the merchant business. We remain confident that the long-term rural opportunity and the belief that we have on deep distribution network and calibrated distribution strategy will help us to achieve a sustainable growth in this line of business. Now, let's come to the corporate bank. We continued our tactical approach of efficient balance sheet management for most of the quarter. This resulted in moderate corporate disbursements during the quarter.
However, with the liquidity concerns now behind us, we have resumed disbursement growth from July. As a result, our corporate loan book has come down by 8% quarter-on-quarter and 16% YoY. The proportion of A and above rated customers are at 77% and has been steady quarter-on-quarter. The weighted average rating was 2.6 versus 2.57 quarter-on-quarter. The Gems and Jewelry portfolio continues to reflect strong asset quality with no accounts in SMA1 and SMA2. However, growth continues to remain muted amidst the industry- level slowdown. The gross slippages in the corporate book stood at 17 bps or INR 245 crore, mainly contributed by one manufacturing account of INR 118 crore, which we have already provided 50% for, and a few other granular slippages. Looking ahead, corporate slippages are expected to improve, supported by a healthier early delinquency profile.
Our combined SMA1 and SMA2 book has declined to 14 bps from 24 bps. A quarterback corporate researcher book has reduced to INR 132 crore versus INR 569 crore a year back. Overall, while we have temporarily moderated the corporate book, our long-term strategy of scaling up the granular and mid and small corporate portfolio, along with selective exposure to the large corporates continues to be actively pursued. The same should reflect in the coming quarters. Now, let me cover the other retail assets. Our other retail assets grew by 18% YoY and 2% quarter-on-quarter. The MSME book under the Business Banking group is at INR 17,973 crore, growing by 8% YoY. The scale of home loan book continues with outstanding as of now of INR 4,996 crore, growing by 113% and 11% quarter-on-quarter.
The LAP book maintained steady traction with 12% YoY and 1% quarter-on-quarter growth. Credit card spends at INR 26,900 crore grew 15% YoY while moderating on a quarter-on-quarter basis. Our market share in credit card spends was at 4.78% based on the latest available data. The asset quality trends have been range- bound in all the segments. We don't have large exposure under the unsecured category of loans. The credit card stress remains elevated but stable. The secured side asset quality trends have been comfortable. Overall, we continue to scale our other retail assets segment with a clear focus on diversifying the loan book and increasing the share of retail secured assets, particularly through home loans and MSME lending. Now coming to liabilities, our deposit franchise has demonstrated resilience after being put to test in early March.
The deposit accretion improved during the quarter after the dip in March, albeit it has not yet reached similar levels. Prior to the March disclosure, the retail deposits as per LCR at INR 1,84,634 crore grew by 6% YoY while remaining steady quarter-on-quarter. The share of retail deposits now stands at 46.5% versus 43.7% YoY and 45.1% quarter-on-quarter. During the quarter, we continuously exited certain non-accretive wholesale deposits leveraging our comfortable liquidity position. As a result, total deposits at INR 397,144 crore declined 3% quarter-on-quarter. During the quarter, we consciously exited certain non-accretive wholesale deposits. With comfort on the stability of the deposit book, the bank undertook significant rate actions up to 200 bps on savings account and up to 100 bps on term deposit and second caps. We have also combined the affluent and non-resident businesses considering the overlapping profile of the customers.
The combined deposit stands at INR 74,300 crore, growing 5% YoY, and NRI of INR 121,200 crore, growing 16% YoY. We let go of some CDs, the certificate of deposits raised in the month of March, and thus the CD reduced by around 12% quarter-on-quarter. Borrowings at INR 52,200 crore were down 3% quarter-on-quarter with share at 9.7% of the total liability book. We maintained a conservative liquidity stance, carrying excess liquidity with an average LCR of 141% and average surplus liquidity of INR 52,700 crore in the quarter. In summary, our retail deposit franchise continues to show resilience, and we are pivoting towards growth as we now start quarter two. We are not hesitating in cutting rates, and we do believe that there is further scope to cut both savings account as well as term deposit rates.
Improving the granularity of deposits along with reduction in cost of deposits continues to be our immediate priority. The liquidity ratios, the liquidity measures announced by the Reserve Bank of India, are positive and our journey towards building a more granular and a robust retail deposit franchise continues. Now let's come to the digital traction. Our digital business continues to scale meaningfully across multiple lines of business as highlighted in our investor presentation. Our flagship mobile banking app INDIE has shown strong traction this quarter driven by customer adoption of the upgraded experience. The key performance metrics include monthly active users up 2.6 x quarter-on-quarter. Across business lines, we saw robust growth from direct to client campaigns and migration from the legacy app. The FD bookings from INDIE app were up 220% quarter-on-quarter. New savings account via INDIE app was up 2.9 x quarter-on-quarter.
Mutual fund bookings through the INDIE app up 600% quarter-on-quarter, loans disbursed via app up 37% quarter-on-quarter. Our MSME focused digital platform INDIE for Business also delivered strong results. The app now has over 1 lakh MSME registered, with monthly active users growing 129% quarter-on-quarter, and tax payments and bill payments via app growing at 600% and 57% quarter-on-quarter, respectively. Now over to my colleague Anil to take through the financial highlights.
Thank you Soumitra and Chairman Sir, good evening to all the listeners on this call and thanks for your participation. Coming to the financial performance, despite a challenging operating environment, we are pleased to report the bank has returned to profitability this quarter. We are pleased that we are profitable this quarter. Our net interest income at INR 4,640 crore and net interest margin at 3.46% remained steady compared to normalized numbers for Q4 of last year. Net interest margin was supported by improving cost of deposits on the back of rate cuts, particularly savings accounts for this quarter, and higher overall retail loan mix. This helped offset the impact of excess liquidity which the bank was carrying and lower share of MFI loans.
The reported NIMs were higher by 11 basis points due to one past NPA recovery and a one-off interest on income tax refund, which was received by the bank in the quarter. Q1 is typically a seasonally soft quarter for core fee income. This quarter, core fee income was further impacted by subdued corporate activity and lower MFI disbursements. We, however, had healthy treasury and recovery income during the quarter. As a result, non-interest income was at INR 2,157 crore. Operating expenses were stable quarter-on-quarter, and year-on-year growth was contained at 9%. This is one of the objectives which the Chairman Sir had also mentioned and how we are managing and trying to control costs. The cost- to- income is elevated due to subdued revenues as we carried excess liquidity as well as seasonally- weaker quarter.
As we resume asset growth and with tighter cost control, we aim to reduce cost- to -ncome consistently throughout the year. Operating profit for the quarter was at INR 2,568 crore. In terms of asset quality, the gross and net slippages improved quarter-on-quarter to 0.74% and 0.61% respectively. The asset quality trends in vehicle, retail and corporate banking were stable. Microfinance showed improvement quarter-on-quarter. However, slippages are still higher than the normalized run rates. The gross slippages by key segments were vehicle finance INR 743 crore, corporate INR 245 crore, other retail INR 692 crore, and microfinance at INR 888 crore. Our SMA1 and SMA2 book improved to 14 basis points versus 24 basis points quarter-on-quarter. N et security receipts declined to 22 basis points versus 27 basis points.
uarter-on-quarter, restructured advances declined to 10 basis points versus 12 basis points quarter-on-quarter. Overall, the bank returned to profitability on a quarterly basis with profit after tax of INR 604 crore. Our balance sheet remains strong with a capital adequacy ratio of 16.63% excluding Q1 profits. Provision coverage has been kept at 70%. Average LCR of 141% with excess liquidity of INR 52,700 crore. I will now hand over to the Chairman for concluding closing remarks.
Thank you, Anil. While we close the opening remarks, I do want to bring into focus some key messages. Number one, we have delivered without any prior period adjustments as committed in the last quarterly call. We take this opportunity to again assure the stakeholders on the thorough review done while finalization of the last quarter's results. We are progressing on building a sustainable bank in areas of our expertise. We are growing in vehicle, retail, mid and small corporates, granular liabilities, etc. We remain cautious on unsecured segments. Number three, the CEO succession process is well on track, and we are confident of a highly capable and a competent leader soon at the helm of this bank.
The Committee of Executives has done an excellent job as I had mentioned earlier, navigating through these turbulent times under the close guidance and engagement of the Oversight Committee of the Board, and of course through the support of all the 45,000 employees. While the financials have returned to profitability, we all admit there is certainly significant improvement, scope for improvement from here on. There are some near term opportunities which we are actively working towards while also laying and building on the foundation to achieve our medium and long- term aspirations. Lastly, the compliance and governance culture along with rebuilding the talent desirous of delivery remains the bank's primary area of focus. All our actions and communications are underpinned toward this objective.
We are on.
We have embarked on an exciting journey of rebuilding this bank towards a more sustainable and predictable growth. In conclusion, I express my gratitude to the regulator and all stakeholders for their continued guidance and support. I now open the forum for question-and-answers. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask the 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 participants. You may press star and one to ask a question. The first question is from the line of Rikin Shah from IIFL Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, am I audible? [cosstalk]
Rikin Shah, yeah, go ahead.
Yeah.
Thank you for the opportunity.
I have quite a few questions, but I'll try to restrict it to three.
Four, and we'll come back.
Firstly, in the opening remarks there was a statement that there was interest on IT refund and interest recovery in one account. Would you be able to quantify the same and X of both these factors? What would be the code name in this quarter? That's the first one.
We explained, Rikin, that those two account for around 11 basis points on the margins. You can calculate the quantum.
Got it. Okay. Secondly, it's on cost of fund. Twelve % of the CDs were run down. Is it fair to say that a bulk, a large proportion of the CDs that we raised in March are still being carried by the bank? If you could also help us with the cost of savings deposit currently, just trying to understand how the cost of fund trajectory evolves from the current quarter.
The CDs are still there. You are right because some of those CDs were for six months. They will come up for renewal in this quarter. We have not been actively issuing CDs given the rates that are there and the liquidity in the market that we are getting. Over the period of time you will see CDs coming down. We have always kept CD at 3% - 4% of the overall deposit base. Today it's slightly limited and we will tone down as we progress. That's where we are on the CDs. On the savings account side, we don't give the savings account interest rate as you know, it has come off versus last quarter. Our current run rate is lower. There is still some benefit of last quarter savings account rate cut that is yet to be fully reflected into the cost of deposit.
You will have to wait for another quarter till you see it. We don't give Saree.
Maybe qualitatively a way of thinking about how much cost of fund benefit kind of flows through in the next couple of quarters, given that there are multiple moving parts in addition to the steady state business?
Precisely because there are multiple parts, we won't be able to say how much cost of fund is yet to come. If I have to give you a ballpark, how much, let's say, currents are unread versus where we closed last quarter, there is another 40- 50 basis points. Reduction in cost of SA is possible. Rest of the cost of fund deposits, there are multiple moving parts. How much of that will reflect into cost of fund reduction, that we will have to see how the quarter progresses.
Fair enough. The third one is on the fee income. You know, understandably due to the business degrowth, the fee income has been weak, but the growth has collapsed across the line items. Adjusting for any volume or business uptake that we see from here, should this be considered a new normal base?
For the fee income?
Last quarter's fee was not in a way comparable you had seen. There were a lot of one offs we had adjusted for. Please don't compare that. There were a lot of transfers from NII to fee, etc. This quarter's base is something which you have to start your benchmarking from. You're absolutely right. Whatever is what this quarter's report, that is the base from where we will start. Some of those fees are impacted because of the lower disbursements in vehicle, microfinance, etc. corporate, if the book degrows by 10%, the consequent fees also go away. All those things are there, but there is no one off in that, I can say that.
Got it.
The second last question is on.
The quarter one is obviously a soft quarter, and you would see from quarter two onwards it will scale up.
Got it. The second last question is on the asset quality. The fresh flows in MFI have actually again inched up in this last three months, and even in other segments, even on absolute and percentage basis, the NPAs have gone up. Do we still expect elevated slippages in the coming quarters? This 200+ basis point of credit cost, is there any scope for meaningful improvement from the current levels?
See, microfinance, we had said that it will take at least six months for things to normalize. We have come down from INR 1,600 crore of last quarter's slippage towards around INR 900 crore this quarter. There is a meaningful reduction, but it is still, I mean, it's elevated versus the normalized run rate and it will take maybe three-six months more before we can say that. Sequential uptick is always there from quarter four to quarter one. Plus, there were some additional changes in terms of microfinance guidelines getting implemented. Some of the state-level issues were there and you would have seen other microfinance results. It is a common phenomenon across the industry where overdue book has increased in June versus March and we are no different. We continue to have that same belief.
It will take another three-six months for microfinance before we can say that, you know, stress is behind us. Coming to other segments, as we said, there is a minor 2- 3 basis points here or there increase in slippage, which is par for the course. I wouldn't read too much into it. Bank as a whole, excluding microfinance, slippages are stable. Only thing is the GNPA number that you see is higher sequentially as well as year-on-year because we have not been selling to ARCs or writing it off. Given the limited operating profits that we have, the capacity to write off is also limited. Bulk of the write-offs are assigned towards microfinance, etc. At some appropriate time you will see the write-offs also coming in. GNPA, as you know, is not the right indicator in the bank side slippages.
The gross and net is what you should look at. Most of the businesses have shown stable gross and net.
Fair enough.
The last question is the notification of the fundraise. Was it just an enabling resolution, and what is the status of regulatory approval on increase in the promoter shareholding? Those are all my questions.
Every AGM, as you know, we take enabling resolution from the shareholders to raise both equity as well as debt capital. It doesn't mean we will raise at appropriate time. The Board, management will evaluate what is the right time and quantum that we have to raise capital. As you would have seen, our CET1 is now in excess of 15.5% and that too without counting profits of quarter one. We have enough capital available. Growth is, as you know, it's in single digits or almost flat for this year. We will have to see how the year goes. Capital wise, I think we are now very well placed. We don't need capital, but Board and the incoming CEO as well as the management will evaluate when we want to raise capital. The shareholder resolution is just an enabling resolution which we take every year. It's nothing out of ordinary.
The regulatory approval on increase in promoter shareholding.
[Crosstalk] No, we have not yet heard anything from the RBI . There might be discussions between the promoter and the regulator directly. The bank is not aware of any till expect elevated slippages in the coming quarters? This 200+ [business point of credit cost] new development that we are required to disclose.
Got it.
Perfect.
Thank you so much for answering all the questions.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Piran Engineer from CLSA India. Please go ahead.
Hi team, thanks for taking my question. Just firstly on the NIM front.
Rather, yield front, how much of the repo pass through?
Done.
Different businesses are at different benchmarks. We have vehicle, which is largely fixed, microfinance, which is largely.
No, no, in the EBLR.
Sorry, let me just.
Difficult to give you at a bank level, how much EBLR is passed on. The large part of the external benchmarking happens in corporate side, and on the corporate side the yields are down around 20 basis points this quarter versus last quarter. There is the bulk of EBLR repricing that you can see playing through in this quarter.
No, sorry, the June, let's say the repo rate cut happened in early June. When does that really get passed on? Does it happen evenly over the quarter?
No, no. Whenever it comes for renewal, the different terms are different, loans have different terminology. On the corporate side, they have got various, you know, renewal processes. It gets passed on over a period of time. In the end, there could be some lead lag, but over three-six months, everything gets passed on.
Okay, fair enough. Secondly, on the fees bit, I understand there were a lot of restatements last quarter and all, but even if I look at your card fees, card and distribution, and I understand the seasonality in 4Q, but even on a YoY basis it's like down 50%- 60% whereas your book is kind of still growing on a YoY basis. How do I reconcile this?
On the insurance business, I think it's a seasonal business. Quarter four was the highest, and though there were events in quarter four last financial year, we didn't suffer that. We did our distribution fees that way.
On the card side, some part of.
The business, which is on the commercial side we are letting go because it's not too efficient a business. Hence, you will see that once we normalize this from quarter one, you will see the growth coming back from quarter two onwards, but your profitability doesn't get affected because of this.
Okay.
Okay.
You all mentioned you all are combining affluent and, what was it, NR deposits, you mentioned something like that.
I.
Okay, I'll take that. Basically, see the clientele is practically similar, you know, NR client is also a HNI client. We thought that the affluent and the NR, the client segment, is the same. One is Indian, one is the NR. I think we, because the product program can be actually offered better, have combined that for better client offerings.
Okay, that's it from my end. Thank you, and wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from Kunal Shah from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for taking the question. Again, coming back on the fee income side, if you look at fee to assets, that is now actually down to closer to 1.1% on an average. Last quarter you indicated like, say, INR 2,400 crore to be the normalized number. Now you are saying that we need to reset to this level and then let's see in terms of the growth. Very eventually, will fee to asset settle? Because I think that's going to be the key driver to ROAs, and this time again it has reset at a much lower level.
No Kunal, if you recall we did not say that is the base last quarter. I still recall that the number reported was normalized, and we always said that number will go up and down depending on the business mix. This quarter, quarter one as you know is a seasonally weak quarter compared to quarter four across the businesses, be it vehicle, microfinance, plus added impact of corporate, the retail side distribution fees are lower, some of the credit card fees, etc. We have led to being selective. We are cognizant of how fees are important from the in the end ROE perspective, and the businesses are not letting go the fee ambitions, and we will start rebuilding our growth journey keeping in mind both name as well as fees. Difficult to give you a guidance or target where we would like to.
How far can we optimize? Yeah, because it's at 1.1. Can we even optimize till 1.5- 1.7?
How would that be?
Okay, we would not be in a position to give you any guidance on the specific numbers.
Okay, sure. Secondly, on maybe the cost side, you mentioned like I think a part of it is because of the credit card. Maybe it's not coming in the fee as well as it's not there in the OpEx. If we add that, maybe the loss in the card fee income and maybe the overall overhead cost, then it seems to be like almost a flattish number, while employee cost has gone up quite significantly. What would have been the reason for this kind of a jump in the employee cost in particular?
There is no increase in the OpEx as such. There were certain expenditure pertaining to employee that we have regrouped for the year, and we have restated that. That would be basically permanent from now onward.
Kunal, it's just a change, which we did. I think you know the accounting, the line-wise, we have put it into now the employee cost line. That's it. If you see,
and then quantum.
would be
for this quarter, it was INR 114 crore. That has been done, and this will be going forward every quarter.
A reclassification so overall OpEx doesn't go up. I think we have put in the right line, which is under the human resources group. From now onwards, you will see that the human, so the growth or rather because the reclassification, you're seeing a jump, INR 114 crore you mentioned.
Yeah.
Roughly one,
one four.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thanks Kunal.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Ankit Bihani from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Yeah.
Hi.
Thank you for the opportunity.
I wanted to ask, are we seeing.
Any signs of stress in the CV segment, especially the retail CV?
Are there any signs of stress there?
Let me just ask my colleague Sriram to also be there.
Good evening.
I don't see any stress in the CV segment. Like our slippages have been lower than before and we continue to believe like.
It will be better, better than last year.
Okay.
In terms of loan growth, should.
We expect positive loan growth on a.
QoQ basis from 2Q onwards in CV?
CV like it's
not CB overall for the overall book.
Overall, it will be positive.
I think he is asking for the bank as a whole. We will wait and watch. We will not give you any quarter- specific or year- specific guidance. As our Chairman Sir said in his initial opening remarks, our ambition is to show you improvement quarter-on-quarter on every metric. We will not be in a position to give you any specific guidance. As he said, we are focused on secured businesses like vehicle retail, mid and small corporates. We are cautious on microfinance. All that philosophy continues. We will not be able to give you any quarter- specific or year- specific guidances.
Okay, thank you. Those are my questions. Thank you [crosstalk].
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Jai Mundhra from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah.
Hi, good evening and thanks for the opportunity. The first question on I see that.
The standalone PAT and the console PAT, there is a difference of some INR 80 crore something. What would explain that?
That's the loss of the subsidiary. The BFIL, which is a 100% owned subsidiary, has reported a loss, so consolidated it's been adjusted in the numbers.
Okay, that is like 100% subsidiary, right?
That will not come in the.
Standalone numbers also.
No, that's why when we have talked about the opening remarks, you would see the INR 604 crore is what we have talked about as a consolidated profit. Standalone profit is higher. If you net off the subsidiary loss, then we come down to INR 604 crore as the consolidated profit.
That I.
I thought that we can see.
Every business is now. I mean while it is 100% subsidiary, the entire business, and you know it works the way that you know it's like a department of the bank. I thought maybe the financials are there in the standalone bank also.
The losses
And this is J, we can take you through maybe offline. There are certain expenses which we have to reimburse there. It's not directly that every line item gets reimbursed for, so there are some regulatory guidelines which are there. Even though it's 100% subsidiary, there has to be a proper arm's length and reimbursement guidelines. Given the way the book has declined as well and expenses that they already have, and compared to the what reimbursement that we can provide for, the subsidiary has reported a loss. That's where it is. I can take you through in detail how the operating mechanism works separately.
Sure. Thank you.
If you can quantify the.
Disbursement for MFI in this quarter Q1 and maybe the last quarter and when do you orY
Yeah we have done.
Around INR 6,000 crore of disbursements this quarter in BFIL. Last quarter, if I am not wrong, we disbursed around INR 7,000 crore disbursement run rate. It will be difficult to give you a quantum. As I said, we don't give guidances on any specific numbers. We are watchful about how the situation is. First half is always seasonally weak, plus there are certain states going into election, and industry has shown some uptick in sequential overdue book. Let's wait and watch how things go. I would rather be more cautious on saying that the book has maybe little bit chance of declining rather than growing. Let's wait and watch how things go, and then we will again come back in quarter two call. Sure.
Lastly, if you have this number for how much of your loan book is fixed, EBLR, MCLR, etc., and on corporate, I think you mentioned that it happens with the respective reset date. I don't think we have too much of retail routing late loan book, but still, what is the EBLR mechanism for retail loans?
What used to be around 50% fixed has now gone up to maybe around 55-58% given that the corporate book has shrunk in the last six months. Vehicle, microfinance loans, they are all on the fixed rate. Some parts of retail are also fixed rate. The 40% corporate book is on a floating rate basis. Of that, 2/3 is on external benchmark and 1/3 is on the MCLR.
Thank you so much.
All the very best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Harsh Modi from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi.
I had two questions.
First is if you had, let's say, enough operating profits, what is the stock of NPLs that you would have written off if it was possible, and have a follow- up.
Again, way higher than my pay grade, but if I can just take a call.
See.
Bank has historically operated at around 50- 60 bps of net NPA. Today our net NPAs are running at around 110 bps. That extra 50 - 60 bps of net NPA is something which is the accumulated net NPA over the last six months- 12 months. If we have enough profit pools, ideally we should write it off. Obviously you should have actually 0 net NPA. Given the way things are, I think 50- 60 bps of net NPA is where I think a bank like us should operate. Also, comparing where rest of the market is, I think that's where we should have 50 -60 bps net NPA while maintaining 70 - 75% net provision coverage ratio.
Thanks.
One more. Are you targeting a particular PAT or PBT profit before tax number?
In a.
To what is adequate PPOP, and when they say if I do write off 50-60 odd basis points, is there a particular profit number or particular return number that you're targeting? I just want to understand how should I think about the timing of the 50/50 basis point write-off for the next few quarters?
Thank you.
There is no profit number in our mind. We want to be profitable, and there are certain other stakeholders, which are also looking at the profit in terms of depositors and things like that. We need to balance aspirations of all the stakeholders. You guys are more savvy than maybe a retail depositor on the ground who can net off all those things from my network and say what is my adjusted book value? From other stakeholders' perspective, we need to have some decent profitability. There is no particular profit number in our mind, no particular ROA in our mind. We are cognizant of cleaning up whatever accumulated stress in the balance sheet is. If you noticed, outside of net NPA, all other forms of stress, be it in terms of SRS or SMA1, SMA2, restructured book, all those are now coming down to almost negligible levels.
The only now residual point is net NPA. That also will come down over a period of time. At this point in time, I think it will be premature to say what is our expectation of this year's profits and how, when, and how we will write it off the net NPLs.
Great, thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from Jayanand from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity.
My first question is on microfinance book.
This is probably given that you run a large book, and we're hearing across the board 1Q numbers have been elevated for the industry. What is your read through for the second quarter or maybe for the rest of the year? Is there any grip if this problem has peaked out or not? That is the first question.
No, again we are coming to the same question. I think let's wait for another three-six months. Things are a little bit in flux. Whatever we say today may not hold a month later. Let's wait and watch. We are cautious on disbursement. You have seen our book coming down from INR 40,000 crore at the peak in last March towards almost now INR 28,000 crore. We have been running down. A large part of the book is now built in the last six-nine months, however, that too is showing stress. Let us see, wait and watch for another six months and then we take a call. At this point in time, calling out whether things are peaked, not peaked and all is too difficult for anybody, I think, in the industry.
Again, you said the new book that has built up in the last six-nine months also has some stress showing up, not just for us but for the industry.
Yes, yes, correct.
Second question is on the deposits. If you can talk about the customer behavior on deposit after the large cuts that you have taken, what are the retention rates like? Just to follow up on that, given that your net headline loan growth number is probably going to be muted for a while, does that give you some more ammunition to shed higher cost deposits over the next one- two quarters?
Let me start by putting the ball is that we are very, very, as of today, liquidity excess. We are holding more than INR 45,000- INR 48,000. What we are doing is that the unprofitable accounts on the liability side, which is high- cost fin, those kind of things, we are letting go. The segment which we are looking at is the retail, where you have seen that though our book has degrown, our retail book is steady. You know, you will see from quarter two the accretion will start off because whatever had to happen has happened. The focus definitely is on individual deposits, and we will grow that. Obviously, till the time we have liquidity, we'll try to prune and right- size the balance sheet so that it becomes more stable and sustainable.
Does that mean margins can move up?
Again, from here in Q2?
As I have been saying, we will not be able to give you guidance on margins. All we can give you is the drivers. On the positive side, savings accounts are yet to fully reflect into the cost of deposits. The growth being slower on the corporate side results in positive margins. The liquidity getting deployed is positive for the margins. On the negative side, reported actions are getting translated into yields as well as low growth in microfinance, credit cards, etc.
Etc. Is negative.
All we can give is you provide drivers of margins, but where they will end we will not be able to guide you on.
Thank you, sir.
Best of luck.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Anand Dama from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Oh yeah.
Thank you for the opportunity and greater of results. My first question is on your opening remarks where you said that OpEx growth here on will be almost about single- digit. What is that basically going to drive the OpEx growth into single digit? I think what to invest into tech we also invest into compliances. Liability franchise as well seems to be relatively weaker on the retail front. Why are you saying that OpEx growth would be single- digit? Basically this is going to change once the new MD and CEO take the position.
I'm sorry, I didn't get your question. You are saying the OpEx growth is higher or lower than what you are.
Saying [crosstalk] that OpEx growth will be single- digit going ahead. Why is that so?
No, it is not about cutting. It is given that environment is slow growth. A lot of our variable costs come down. Vehicle and MFI, if they are not growing, then the disbursement- related expenses come down. Secondly, a lot of investments in technology have already happened in the last two- three years. You have seen the growth rates that we have done. Those are not recurring. Whatever the maintenance costs are, bills are coming in. We have grown at around 25% compounded. All those investments that have happened in the past, we are just waiting it out a little bit more. Operating leverage is coming from that. We have been more cautious about all the spends. Some of maybe a bit of forward- looking investments we will have to push out for a little bit. We have to also get revenues first before we can start investing.
It is just a bit of a tighter control over OpEx rather than anything else?
Okay.
Recently our HR Head has resigned and we have seen senior management moving out. Any plans, like if the MDN Co is not in, how do you plan to hire the senior management? Secondly, I think there were earlier calls that we might be also hiring Xero directors. Any update over there?
Let me respond to this. This is Sunil Mehta. I'll respond to this. As far as the CEO hire, that is progressing as per schedule as we had committed to the regulator. The submissions have been made to the regulator as of June 30th, and we await regulatory approvals. As far as the senior management is concerned, since we did lose the former CEO, the Deputy CEO, and the CFO, it's quite natural for us to revisit our current management leadership team. There were some that were also superannuating as part of the natural progress in the bank. Wherever there were any open gaps, we are looking at both internal and external candidates and sort of filling that up.
I think all the building blocks from a management leadership team are being looked at very, very closely, and we are hopeful that a lot of these positions will get filled up in due course.
If you can provide some clarity on [crosstalk] the director position.
Yeah, we lost the last CEO and of course the Whole Time Director, which was the Deputy CEO. As we sort of move towards building the leadership team after we have the MD and CEO in place, we will also look at creating two Whole Time Directors in due course.
That's very helpful.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. We will take that as the last question, and I'll hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Thank you. I just want to thank all the analysts and everybody who participated in this analyst call. Greatly appreciate and thank you for all the questions that were asked. It puts us on our toes and certainly, we are mindful of whatever has been stated. I just want to conclude by saying that we did go through, as I said earlier, a difficult period in the prior quarter. It has been very challenging. When you are in a crisis situation, it's the team that gets together and works as a very close, cohesive team. I feel that whatever we have witnessed over the last three to four months it should have never happened. Since it did happen, we've learned a lot of lessons from the same.
We are making good progress in addressing all those issues of the past and certainly looking forward in building the bank of the future. The entire team is working towards this one common objective and rebuilding the trust and integrity and the highest governance standards for this bank as we move forward. I can assure you that the efforts that have been put in have been extraordinary by the entire team, the leadership team, and all the employees of the bank. I'll stop here and thank all of you for participating in this session.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thank you. On behalf of IndusInd Bank Limited t hat concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.