Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to IndusInd Bank Limited Q4 FY 2026 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Rajiv Anand, Managing Director and CEO of IndusInd Bank. Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Anand.
Thank you. Good evening, and thank you for joining us today. I'll start with a quick view on the macro environment and then go into bank-specific developments. High-frequency indicators suggest that economic momentum remained healthy through February. That said, heightened uncertainty arising from the ongoing conflict in West Asia has tempered the near-term outlook. Overall, India's macroeconomic fundamentals are considerably stronger than during the previous crisis episodes and compare favorably with global peers, providing greater resilience against external shocks. Against this external backdrop, our focus this quarter was firmly on balance sheet resilience and asset quality repair. We will now move to the key highlights for Q4 FY 2026 and then cover business-specific progress and financial performance. During the quarter, we remained focused on growing our core retail segments while continuing to optimize the bulk portfolio.
Retail deposit mobilization, which remains a key priority, saw healthy traction with net addition of INR 6,800 crore during the quarter. All incremental deposits during the quarter were retail in nature. As a result, the share of average retail deposits, as per NCR, improved to 47.9% from 47.5% QoQ. On the asset side, we maintain a selective approach with sequential growth in vehicle finance, SME, and other retail segments. We are also gradually scaling up our microloan disbursements. As we consciously prioritize risk-adjusted returns for the wholesale bank, the average loan book declined 2% QoQ. We saw sequential improvement in slippage as well as recoveries across our retail segments. As a result, net slippages were down 37% QoQ, resulting in lower provisioning during the quarter. Annualized slippages were 1.71% versus 2.65% QoQ. The overall stress book continues to moderate with QoQ declines in net NPA, net security receipts, and restructured book.
These trends give us confidence that credit costs are past their peak, subject to macro stability and seasonality. Financial outcome for Q4. Our pre-provision operating profit at INR 2,295 crores remains steady QoQ. Provisions at INR 1,482 crores were down 29% QoQ, driven by lower net slippages. As a result, profit after tax for the quarter was INR 595 crore versus INR 128 crore QoQ. Capital adequacy remains healthy with CET1 ratio at 16.2%, CRAR at 17.48%, providing adequate headroom to support growth. Leadership team. Since the last earnings call, we have onboarded our head of retail banking, head of global markets, Chief Risk Officer, and Chief Information Officer. Our leadership's transition is now largely completed, and the strengthened leadership team brings diverse experience and a strong execution mindset. The board today has also approved the appointment of Jagdeep Mallareddy and Ganesh Sankaran as full-time Executive Directors-Designate.
The board has also approved the appointment of Nilesh Vikamsey and Ravindra Garikipati as I ndependent Directors as well. All these appointments are subject to regulatory and shareholder approval. This leadership team reinforces my confidence to execute our strategic priorities and build a resilient and future-ready institution. With this leadership in place, our focus now shifts fully from transition to execution. I will now take you through the highlights of individual businesses. Our vehicle finance business maintained a healthy growth momentum from the previous quarter, along with showing meaningful improvement in asset quality metrics. Vehicle finance loan book stood at INR 99,876 crore, growing 2% QoQ, with disbursements for the quarter at INR 12,600 crore. We saw sequential loan growth across most vehicle categories.
With our sustained focus on collections and recoveries, annualized gross and net slippages for the quarter were 1.94% and 1% respectively and have been the lowest in the last several quarters. The full-year net slippage were also down at 1.84% versus 2.33% YoY. Asset quality improvement was seen across all vehicle categories on a QoQ basis as well as on a YoY basis. Overall, vehicle finance, one of the key pillars of the bank, has delivered another year of robust performance. While we are confident of the medium-term growth and profitability outlook for this segment, we remain watchful in the near term given the uncertainties around the implications of the West Asia conflict. We remain focused on our strategic objective of strengthening our leadership position across vehicle categories and driving market share gains in the coming years. I will now cover micro loans and other rural-focused products.
In micro loans, asset quality saw significant improvement in terms of collections from standard customers, fresh slippages, and standard overdue books. This validates our belief in the reinforced underwriting models introduced last year. Micro loans gross slippage reduced to INR 504 crores versus INR 1,022 crores QoQ. The 31-90 days past due book declined to 0.9% versus 2.4% QoQ. With the confidence on the asset quality, we are now gradually scaling our disbursements. Disbursements for the quarter were at INR 5,400 crore, up 52% QoQ. As a result, the pace of contraction of the loan book moderated, with sequential decline reduced to 5% QoQ from elevated double-digit levels over the past few quarters. The decline was largely driven by write-offs during the current quarter.
The overall micro loan book now stands at INR 16,782 crore, with around 57% of the portfolio covered under the CGFMU credit guarantee, including Q4 disbursements, which are currently under process of being covered. Overall, we remain focused on scaling the micro loan portfolio in a calibrated manner, balancing risk discipline with our priority sector lending requirements. In parallel, we continue to build a diversified rural portfolio across other product segments. With asset quality stabilizing, FY 2027 will be a year of calibrated growth rather than book contraction in micro loans. Our merchant loan book now stands at INR 8,042 crore, growing 11% YoY, spread across 570,000 merchant borrowers. Our affordable housing book at INR 2,839 crore grew 24% YoY, while KCC and other rural loans at INR 4,385 crore grew 3% QoQ. Together, these initiatives position our rural and priority sector portfolio for a more stable, diversified and sustainable growth.
We're scaling our consumer banking assets with focus on overall loan book diversification and a gradual rebalancing towards traditional secured retail products. Our home loan book maintained robust momentum with an outstanding of INR 6,510 crore, growing 45% YoY and 6% QoQ. We have started investing in multiple subscale secured products and they are showing encouraging trends. Monthly gold loan disbursements have grown 3x in the last six months, and the loan book has now crossed INR 1,000 crore. We should see more momentum continuing as over 500 branches are now enabled for offering gold loans. In contrast, we remain deliberately cautious on the unsecured segments. Personal loan book at INR 10,358 crore, de-grew 2% QoQ, and the credit card loan book at INR 9,751 crore, de-grew 5% QoQ. Credit card spends for the quarter, however, were at INR 15,259 crore.
Consumer spends have grown 4% YoY, despite the drop in cards in force due to conservative underwriting. Overall, consumer banking assets at INR 31,075 crores grew 8% YoY. Asset quality in this segment has shown improvement, with annualized net slippages improved to 4.22% versus 5.42% QoQ. Our efforts of increasing share of internal source customers should support improvement in asset quality metrics over a period of time. SME banking. We are focused on strengthening our position in the SME segment, which represents a large, structurally attractive opportunity. Under the new leadership, we are upgrading processes, risk frameworks, and operating structures to more effectively capture the growth opportunity, particularly from a relatively smaller base. The loan book now stands at INR 44,347 crore, growing 1% QoQ. We have also undertaken a detailed assessment of the potential impact of the ongoing West Asia conflict on our SME and relevant wholesale portfolios.
At this stage, we do not see any material impact on asset quality. However, we continue to closely monitor developments and maintain active engagement with customers to manage risk. Wholesale banking. The quarter saw further refinement of the wholesale banking loan book, with the portfolio now reflecting a more granular, balanced and risk-calibrated franchise. On an average, the mid-market segment saw a marginal sequential uptick, while the continued rationalization of the large corporate portfolio led to 6% QoQ decline in the overall average wholesale banking loan book. The proportion of A and above-rated customers and the weighted average rating of the wholesale banking portfolio were at 83% and 2.53%, respectively. On the fee side, our focus remains on efficient sources of income, with transaction banking fees contributing 66% of the overall wholesale and SME fee incomes. Asset quality in the wholesale portfolio remains healthy.
For FY 2026, gross and net slippages were at 0.29% and 0.24%, respectively, remaining stable YoY. Liabilities. I will now turn to our liability franchise. To begin with, I'd like to welcome Jagdeep Mallareddy, who will be taking over as the head of retail banking. Jagdeep brings over three decades of experience across retail banking, lending, credit, operations, and risk management. During the quarter, we saw sequential recovery in both average and end-of-period deposits, reversing the declining trend seen over the past three quarters. These efforts translated into a revival of retail deposit growth with net addition of INR 6,800 crore. Retail deposit accretion was supported by robust new to bank CASA acquisition, leading to improvement in the overall retail CASA mix. The share of average retail deposits as per LCR improved to 47.9% versus 46.6% YoY and 47.5% QoQ.
Cost of deposits for the quarter were at 6.07%, improving marginally by 2 basis points QoQ. The share of CDs in total deposits and borrowings in total liabilities remained steady at 6.2% and 7.9%, respectively. We maintained a healthy liquidity position during the quarter, with average LCR at 118%. We have initiated a revamp of operating processes, especially in client-facing journeys. These steps have started yielding results. The average TAT of account activation for assisted digital account opening journeys were reduced by 80% for savings accounts in the last six months. The average TAT for account activation of assisted digital account opening journeys, on the current account side, were reduced by 63% in the last six months. The resultant impact is enhanced customer experience with improved NPS on assisted digital account opening journeys. We progress on our ambition of unifying our distribution channels to leverage synergy.
We now have over 300 vehicle branches co-located or merged with branch banking and aim to take this towards 600 over the next six to nine months. These efforts are reflecting in increasing throughput of retail assets and liabilities, along with cost synergies. Deposit source from vehicle customers has grown 35% during the year. We believe AI, and particularly GenAI, represents a structural shift for banking comparable in scale, if not greater, than core banking transformations of the 2000s and the internet and mobile banking wave in 2010. At IndusInd, AI is a core strategic priority. We see meaningful potential across customer experience, employee productivity and engagement, credit risk management, and financial crime prevention. To institutionalize this focus, we are investing in a dedicated AI center of excellence to drive GenAI adoption at scale. We have identified 10 high-impact use cases across sales, productivity, conversational banking, credit underwriting, and collections.
Some of these use cases are already live and delivering encouraging outcomes. For instance, our internal knowledge management application, Indus Compass, now has over 3,000 daily users, processing more than 15,000 employee queries each day across policies and products. In parallel, our enterprise AI chat platform has seen strong traction with close to 3,000 daily active users and 70 interactions per user per day. Equally important, we are investing in building an AI-ready organization. Over 9,000 employees have already completed at least one AI training program, and we expect to scale this significantly during the current financial year as part of our long-term capability building agenda. I will now hand over to Viral to take you through the financial performance.
Thanks, Rajiv, and good evening, everyone. Similar to the last few quarters, my commentary will focus primarily on sequential trends. I will begin with the balance sheet first and then talk about the profit and loss account. Average advances dropped 2% sequentially from Q3, driven mainly by decline in wholesale banking advances and the micro loan book. Average deposits inched up 1%, supported by healthy retail deposit mobilization. Average CD ratio was at 82% versus 84.4% quarter-on-quarter. Share of average borrowings in total liabilities, that remained steady around 8%. Moving on to the P&L. Net interest income for Q4 stood at INR 4,371 crore. Net interest margin was at 3.39% compared to the normalized NIM of 3.35% quarter-on-quarter. The improvement was driven by a reduction in the cost of funds, reflecting lower borrowing and deposit costs.
Non-interest income at INR 1,714 crore remained broadly stable quarter-on-quarter. Our operating expenses of INR 3,790 crore was stable quarter-on-quarter, adjusted for the one-off impact of INR 230 crore in previous quarter relating to the change in labor code. As a result, the operating profit at INR 2,295 crore remained steady quarter-on-quarter, despite the lower loan books. PPOP to average loans ratio was at 2.93% versus 2.84% quarter-on-quarter. The provisions and contingencies figure for the quarter was at INR 1,482 crore, down 29% quarter-on-quarter, driven by a reduction in net slippages. We had write-off on loans amounting to INR 1,868 crore during the quarter. In terms of asset quality, GNPA and NNPA were at 3.43% and 1%, respectively, and the PCR maintained around 71%. Slippages have improved across segments. Segment-wide NPA movement details are available on slide 24 of our presentation.
The SMA-1 and SMA-2 book at 17 basis points was stable quarter-on-quarter. Net security receipts that declined to eight basis points versus nine basis points quarter-on-quarter. Restructured advances declined to 6 basis points versus seven basis points quarter-on-quarter. The profit after tax for the quarter was at INR 594 crore versus INR 128 crore, quarter-on-quarter. On capital adequacy, we continue to have a healthy capital adequacy and liquidity position. CET1 at 16.2% and CRAR at 17.48% and LCR at 118%. With that, let me now hand over back to Rajiv for his closing comments.
Thank you, Viral. To summarize, our performance this quarter reflects the progress we have made in strengthening the granularity of balance sheet, improving asset quality, and driving a more stable retail-led growth. With strong leadership, comfortable liquidity, and capital adequacy, we believe the bank is well-positioned to deliver sustainable value over the medium to long term. While near-term growth remains calibrated, the trends on asset quality, retail deposits, and operating leverage gives us confidence in progressively improving returns over the medium term. With this, we are now open for Q&A. Thank you and over to all of you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin with 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. Everyone is requested to kindly limit their questions to a maximum of two per person. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Rikin Shah from IIFL Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening, and thanks for the opportunity. I had three questions. The first one is, there was a reduction in the banking outlet footprint by about 230 sequentially. What's happening there? While, Rajiv, you did mention that we should now think about growth picking up versus contraction in the past few quarters, but overall for FY 2027, what kind of loan growth should one expect? That is the first one. The second question is, if you could share the absolute quantum of AFS reserves as of March 2026, and also clarify if there was any impact from RBI's FX NOP rule, and if the impact was there, was it reflected in the Q4 results already? The final question is on asset quality. Of course, the slippages have come down, but we clearly had more room to bring down the net NPA ratio further.
Instead, we have seen the provision coverage marginally going down sequentially. When do you expect to reach your earlier guidance of 50 basis points of net NPA ratio? Is it going to be a lot more gradual or we can take some accelerated write-offs and reach there, which you were earlier guiding to? Thanks.
Let me see if I can remember the questions. First is on business correspondent, those 200-odd outlets, it's just a function of optimizing, rationalizing some of these centers. As a result of this, we have basically reduced 200 of those locations because they had become unviable as per the work that we have done. The second question?
Credit growth.
Yeah. Credit growth. The second question was around growth. What I have been talking about over the last couple of quarters is that 2026, 2027 should see us grow broadly in line with market. That's really what we are working towards. I think the foundations now are in place for us to be able to do that. The other couple of questions, I would like to request Viral to.
Yeah. I can cover the other two. The AFS reserve was negative INR 50 crore. I just want to highlight that our AFS book is not that large. It's quite small in the context of the overall investments portfolio. It's a small number, -INR 50 crore on AFS reserve. The second question you had was on the net NPA. Now, just want to highlight, of the entire quantum, first of all, you're seeing a sequential decline. It's gone down from INR 3,300 crore to INR 3,169 crore. Important to highlight, more than 50% of that is from the vehicles business. Less than 25% is now from the microfinance business. In terms of residual risk, the VFD, the vehicles portfolio, you will not see that much of credit loss resulting from that net NPA.
I think it's important to understand the constituents of that net NPA, as we think about the residual risk sitting there. Yes, it would be a gradual reduction. You're not going to see an immediate write-off there. We want to be consistent. We've been sharing that over the last few quarters that we would want to be consistent on our policies on write-offs.
The Neu Plus .
Neu Plus , that's really not impacted us too much. The only thing we've seen is the effect.
Volatility impacting our other assets actually.
The impact of the RBI requirements were not material. It was in tens of crores.
Thank you very much. We can request you to come back for a follow-up question. Next question is from the line of Kunal Shah from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for taking the question. Post this guidance of almost system average credit growth. In terms of ROA, how should we look at the step up getting into FY 2027 and FY 2028? Looking at where do we see margins settling down, we saw some improvement on the core NIMs. When we look at it in terms of fee income, so fee income, particularly on the retail side, was slightly weaker. I understand it's because of the cards, looking at the breakup of the proportion. 1.2% fee, how should we see it scaling it up and maybe towards 1.5%, 1%, how much time it would take? Particularly on the ROA, whether it would be more led by NIMs and fee or it would be more like a cyclical credit cost, which can aid the ROA improvement.
Let me answer that. Let's take the current ROAs base, we are at 45 basis. Our journey to one, we are looking at that coming in equal contribution both from the credit losses and from operating profit. That's the first split of how we get there. Within operating profits, some improvement on NIM, much more on fees and much more on expense. That's how I would bridge it because the expense base, we are looking at controlling that, and as the asset side starts growing, that's where we will see some optimization. Broadly, that's really how we are looking at the concept to get back to the 1% ROA.
Okay, more it will be fee income. What will actually drive that? Because this quarter it's been better growth in terms of disbursements across the products, but still not reflecting in terms of the overall fee. Is it like once we resolve the card, it gets to that level or there will be more contribution? If you look at the breakup on retail and wholesale also, it appears to be pretty sticky out there, yeah.
Your comment on fees is fair, but I think that really is the opportunity for us to go after multiple lines of fee businesses. Your point on cards is fair, but also, there's been a lot of work that's happening in terms of optimizing some of the fees that we are charging our customers, in some cases, somewhat lower than industry levels, some increase, decrease in locker fees, for example. From a productivity perspective, we can do more on sale of insurance and mutual funds, and other such investment products. There is work that is happening on the transaction banking side, to be able to now start adding new lines of business like the capital markets piece. Finally, we have a new head of sales in treasury as well, to be able to significantly increase franchise fees on the FX side as well.
There are multiple levers, all are work in progress. Slowly but steadily, we should see better fee incomes as we go forward.
Thank you very much. Kunal, I will request you to come back. I request to all the participants, kindly limit yourself to two questions per participant. Next question is from line of Abhishek from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Rajiv and team. Congratulations for the quarter, and we can see the course correction happening. I think, just in terms of your comment on loan growth, you said broadly in line with market and foundations are in place to achieve this. What is your internal assessment of market growth? Within this, how do you see the mix of wholesale, retail, SME moving? Because you're rationalizing one part, not really growing some parts, and then really growing some parts. How do we see the overall mix changing? That's question number one. Question number two is in terms of your ROA target. I guess we are still sticking to the 1% exit in FY 2027, but I think the visibility of that is much, much better now. How about a medium term aspirational target, right? Where do you wish to eventually reach?
If you can talk about that. A third one, I'll just slip in on asset quality. Just in terms of MFI, how much more normalization is there to go in terms of slippage? Because on an absolute basis also it's a relatively high number. Disbursements-wise, we are still lower than Q1 2026, and we are definitely capacitated to do much higher disbursements. How do we see the trend going forward? Those are the three questions. Thank you.
Abhishek, thank you for your kind words. Question one was, where do we see industry growth? I think industry growth for this year should be everything one needs to caveat with subject to how the West Asian crisis plays out. I think notwithstanding that caveat, I think we should see 13%-14% growth. I think broadly speaking, we are give or take 60/40 on retail to wholesale. One of the things I've mentioned is that within wholesale, we are dialing up on the more granular businesses, mid-corporate, SME, et cetera, and taking some money out of the very large corporates. Therefore, while the overall numbers may remain more or less the same, but I think the proportionality internally within that will change.
I also mentioned the fact that on the retail side, we have already started to see growth on the more traditional retail asset businesses, home loans, gold loans, et cetera, and I think that is something that we will continue to build on as we go forward. If you remember the conversation that we had, the conversation I had with all of you, really was to be able to convert IndusInd Bank into a much more universal bank with a predictable profit franchise. That's really what we are really working on at this point in time. Like you rightly said, I think some of that work is slowly but steadily beginning to show up in the numbers as well.
Medium.
Where could it settle at? Or the 14%-15% SME, where could it get to? Just some broad contours would help.
Sorry, on the SME side itself? Is that what you're saying?
Yeah, just a mix. Let's say retail is at 50%, SME 15%, and wholesale 35%. That's the broad mix. Wholesale remains where it is on an absolute basis is what, I guess, you would try to indicate. What kind of growth do you expect to be?
No. I actually added, you know some part of , I mean, SME is a bit complicated.
Okay.
Because some of it is sitting in retail, some of it is sitting in wholesale. Broadly speaking, that we will take money away from the very large corporates, and put that into the mid-market and the SME franchise, is the point that I was making. Therefore, while the overall numbers of SME plus wholesale will remain around 50, but the composition within that will change somewhat.
Okay. Got it.
Thank you. Next question is from [Nanop Chintan] from Autonomous. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. Can I just get a little bit of detail around how much can large corporate shrink further? A couple of detail questions on your average CASA balances growth in the quarter. How much was that? You gave the average deposit growth as 1%. I'm also after the average CASA growth, if you can give that. Also any one-offs to flag in the NII line this quarter, or can we take this as a very clean NII line? My final question is on provisions. You said that, say, half of the journey from 45 basis points to 1% ROA comes from provisions. That kind of suggests that provisions will be something like 90 basis points of assets. Is that a fair proxy for you? Thank you. Hello?
Yeah. Sorry, we were on mute.
Let me first answer the point on average CASA growth. Quarter-on-quarter, we've not really grown CASA. It was 30.2% in Q3, 29.8% in Q4. Again, important to understand the constituents, right? The retail book naturally has been growing. We've seen some de-growth on the wholesale book. The mix is important to highlight. On provisions, the other important thing to understand is also the growth in the loan book, right? So far this year, the denominator has been fairly static. In fact, it's been coming down. Slippages have improved, and therefore the numerator is going to be fairly controlled over the next three to four quarters. The denominator is really going to start going up, and therefore, we will see that showing up in the effective credit cost on loans and assets going down. That's really the math on that, on corporate loans.
Can I ask Ganesh to take the question on large corporate de-growth?
I think your question was how much we are anticipating large corporate further de-growth. I think I don't want to put a number on.
Yes, that's right.
H ow much we're expecting. I think the way to think about it is we'll be dialing up our mid-market, our commercial bank, large corporate. In the very top end of the large corporate, which is particularly the conglomerates, we may see some de-growth. I think that is how we would like to look at it. I think it's early days, but I think directionally we are guiding that we will look at better growth or higher growth or more than proportionate growth in the middle market.
To answer your question, we expect the overall book to grow.
Okay.
That's what large corporates have done, minus 25% year-over-year. Is there another 10% to go, 20% to go or.
No.
Smaller numbers?
No, we are more or less done there.
That helps your mix on your margin.
No, we are more or less done there. As far as the degrowth, the point that you're making, that we are more or less done.
Understood. Okay. NIM was clean, right? That was my final one. NIM was clean in the quarter, correct?
NIM was clean. No one-time was in this quarter.
Excellent. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Piran Engineer from CLSA India. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, team. Congratulations on the quarter. Just going back to the credit cost question. Apart from MFI, what would be the driver of credit cost improvement from current levels? MFI also probably should just be maybe INR 200-INR 300 crore more, right?
Again, if you look at the slippages data for this quarter, the reduction is happening across our portfolios. It's not only the microfinance which has dropped. We've seen a drop both in consumer as well as vehicle financing, and therefore the improvement will be across sectors, not just microfinance. You are right about your point that the absolutes on microfinance is a much smaller number, but the improvement really will come across the three large segments that I talked about, microfinance, consumer and vehicle finance.
Viral, in vehicles, your net slippage ratio is like 1%, if I heard you correctly in the opening comments.
That's right.
I mean, historically, what's this number been like for IndusInd Bank? I would expect 1% to be a pretty good number and a lot of improvement seems unlikely, just speaking as an analyst.
Yeah. Again, the denominator, right? Important to understand that. The asset book continues growing, the slippages are dropping, and that's how you then have to translate that into credit cost, right? That's the point I'm trying to make.
At the moment, the asset book's growth is relatively muted. Therefore, to some degree, all these percentages are.
Okay
A re a bit skewed. I think two things are happening, is the point that Viral is making. One is anyway, slippages have reduced. Add to that, as growth begins to come, these numbers will start to look better.
Understood. Okay. Second was on just your deposit and funding cost sort of movement. Now your cost of deposits has fallen only 2% QoQ, and cost of funds has fallen 12 basis points QoQ.
Yeah. That's again an effect of the balance sheet, right? You look at total balance sheet, that's grown and therefore that cost of funds average has dropped more than what you see on the cost of deposits line.
Okay. You're taking equity also in this, in the denominator?
That's correct.
Got it. Just on the deposit cost thing, 2 basis points QoQ when our CASA was largely stable, does this mean that our TD repricing is almost over now?
Yes.
Last quarter we reported a much better decline in.
I think that's fair to say that the repricing, that journey is pretty much done now.
It's pretty much over. Okay. Got it. Okay, fine. Yeah. That's it from my end. I'll take any follow-ups later. Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Jai Mundhra from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Good evening. Sir, one question on your growth. Now we are aspiring for system-level growth, and we see that large corporate may remain in consolidation mode. That would mean that effectively retail plus SME may have to be more than like 17%, 18%+ . At the same time, you see macro, which may have some implication on SME growth and maybe vehicle growth. Along with that, so far deposits, while they have been stable retail deposit, but there's no material growth there. Would you be comfortable in growing, considering these constraints on SME/vehicle, along with dialing up deposit to achieve towards the systemic level growth? That is the question. Thank you.
See, across the system, we have a little under 2% market share. Therefore, we do believe that this franchise is certainly worth more than the 1.7-odd% market share that we have. Therefore, given the team that we have, given the process, systems, controls that we are now putting in place, I do believe that we will be able to at least start to grow in the vicinity of where the market is. To the point that you are making that if the macroeconomic environment as you envisaged begins to play out, please remember that market level growth will also come down. Therefore, to that extent, if that begins to play out, we will also calibrate growth as appropriate.
Right. Your liability side reset has already happened, right? Whatever you bulk deposit is more or less steady. There is no liability reset that is still pending, right? I mean, that liability side reset is already over.
From a pricing perspective, yes. I think from, obviously proportionalities are something that you need to consider as well, meaning that we have some way to go to catch up with peers in terms of the ratios of the current account relative, the overall ratio of retail plus SBC as compared to peers, et cetera. While there may not be necessarily a great deal from a repricing perspective, we do hope that as proportionalities improve towards more retail, we may be able to get some benefits on overall cost of deposits as we go forward.
Sure. Thanks, Rajiv. All the very best.
Thank you. Next question is from Param Subramanian from Investec India. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening. Thanks for taking my question, and congratulations on the improvement in profitability in the quarter. Again, I just wanted to check on the 60 basis point guidance for net NPA. When do we plan to achieve that again?
I think we mentioned that in the previous quarter as well. That's our target. We don't have a due date kind of thing. Okay, we will get there by this date. That's a journey we want to get to. Yes.
Okay.
It's a journey. It's not going to happen like immediate next few quarters.
Okay. Fair enough. Okay. Secondly, on deposit growth, right? This year we have not grown deposits because we've not been growing the balance sheet. Retail deposits is also -2% and since we didn't have to grow, we took the opportunity to cut our rates. Going into next year, do you think you'll have to, say, raise rates again to garner our retail deposits? If you plan to grow mid-teens, retail deposits are still growing at, say, -2% YoY. Yeah.
We'll see. I think, if you look at our deposit rates compared to our larger peers, we are already paying a somewhat premium to the big three or four banks. We'll see how this plays out.
Rajiv, I wanted to understand what exactly changes for retail deposit growth to pick up?
There are multiple things, somewhat, some internal, some external. Meaning that we've made some organizational changes, structural changes in incentive plans, changes in goal sheets, et cetera, for our branch banking folk. We have integrated the CFD piece as I spoke about in my opening commentary. There's a clear mandate from them to be able to grow their deposits. There is a mandate even in our microfinance businesses to be able to get more than what we are getting today. As we grow our retail asset businesses as well, I do believe that will trigger a virtual cycle of more cross-sell, more engaged customers, and therefore better balances. We are also working on improving our digital capabilities, which is, I think it is fair to say that, we have a little bit of way to go as compared to peers.
I do believe that in an environment where flow of funds is so quick and so efficient and so frictionless, having strong digital capabilities is an absolute imperative. Therefore, we are improving our digital capabilities as well, as we go forward. I mean, I also spoke about the fact that at the very basic level, current account opening, current and savings account opening itself, we have made a transformational shift, in terms of customer experience. We are also working on repositioning the brand, which we will hopefully do sometime in July or August of next year. There's a whole bunch of things that are happening, which gives me a great deal of confidence that both from an input and output perspective, we should be able to do much better going forward.
Got it. Thanks a lot. Just one last question. There is a YoY sharp increase on other assets in the balance sheet. Is that RIDF?
No.
If so, if you could. Yeah.
It's a combination. You're right, partially, yes, INR 3,000 crore was RIDF. The remaining is really grossing up of the balance sheet with the FX volatility. Revaluation of FX contracts where we are hedged from a risk perspective. You have two contracts which gross up the balance sheet. That's really explaining the YoY movement.
Okay. Got it. If you could broadly talk about your PSL, say how you are positioned because the MFI book is sharply down as of the end of the year. Yeah.
We have met all our PSL requirements, including subcategories, for the year 2025-2026.
Thank you.
If that answers your question.
Sorry. Yeah. It's not that you will have higher RIDF installments next, is what I wanted to say.
This year's PSL we met, so we're not going to have more RIDF. Having said so, the RIDF target for shortfall of the past year, that's not fully done yet. We still have another INR 2,000 crore left in terms of t he demand. It's not come through yet, but that's it. As far as PSL goes for this financial year, having met the targets, we will not have incremental targets on RIDF coming in next year.
Got it. Thanks a lot. Thanks for answering all my questions. All the best. Thank you.
Thank you. I request to all the participants, kindly limit yourself to two questions per participant. Next question is from the line of Jayant Kharote from Axis Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, first question is on the LCR. If you can help us, sir, what would be the release under the new norms for LCR for you? A follow-up to that would be what is your internal comfort level on LCR, or is there a board-approved floor of LCR which you would like to maintain?
Sir, LCR, I think at 118%, that's a stable level. I don't think we're going to see much delta there, very marginal there. The range we would operate 115%-120%. That's pretty much the range we'll be working within. I mean, that's really our internal tracking.
Any release from the new norms?
No, nothing significant coming in.
Okay. Sir, second question is on the merchant loan book. We do see a very healthy uptick over there, almost 10% QoQ after almost four quarters. Is this strategic, and would we see something similar over the next four quarters in this book?
This is a book that we are very passionate about. I think it's a business that can be scaled quite significantly from here. We are investing in both people, technology within this space. I think in this franchise, we can do a lot more. I don't want to comment on whether the rate of growth will be the same, but it is a business that we certainly want to grow, not just over the next three to four quarters, but over the medium term.
Is it becoming a sizable part of the loan book over the next two to three years?
Let me answer that question slightly differently. I think today, if you look at our microfinance business, it's broadly speaking, 75, 25 microfinance to BSS, which is our Bharat Super Store business. The plan really is to convert this into a more rural business where microfinance then effectively becomes 50. Not because it's going to degrow, but because we are going to add new products within that franchise to be able to grow that franchise, and to be able to serve the community there through multiple Micro LAP, for example, is an example of another product that we will add there. But fundamentally, the rural business is something that we want to grow, not just on the microfinance or BSS side, but with more products.
Thank you, sir. If I could just pose one last question regarding the LCR. If we are, let's say, not able to match the loan growth with the retail deposit number, are we open to tapping into CD and higher cost, or is growth the primary aim over here?
I think given the fact that we have not grown for a year, I think it becomes very clear to me and to my board that we need to start getting back into growth mode. Now, if the industry grows at 12% or 13% and we grow 11% or 12%, I will not be deeply disappointed, but I think fundamentally, we need to get back into growth mode.
That's very clear. Thank you, and all the best.
Thank you. Next question is from line of Pritesh Bumb from DAM Capital Advisors. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening. The risk-weighted assets were sharply down by about 300 basis points. Anything to read into that? With 16.2% CET1, are we still looking to raise any capital?
On the RWA question, two factors playing there. One is the drop in the loan book. That directly translates on credit RWAs. Secondly, we've also run optimization on the book, so things like quantum of rating portfolio, the market risk calculation, et cetera. We've seen some uptick from that as well. That's really helping us maintain and lower the absolute RWA.
To the second question, boss, we have accreted capital in this quarter. Therefore our capital position has become stronger than where it was the previous quarter. This level of capital is more than enough for us to be able to support growth at least over the next one year. Yes, there is no plan to raise capital anytime soon.
Lastly, Rajiv, you mentioned about the macro environment, the West Asia crisis. Our portfolio generally very aligned to the macro environment, right? Any early assessment on from a book perspective where we are linked to this maybe oil and gas value chain and asset quality related to vehicle finance and SME? Any assessment there?
We have, as you can see, this whole theater is evolving literally on a day-to-day basis, we've already done two iterations where we looked at the entire portfolio across all our businesses. At this point in time, we are not seeing any significant hotspots across the entire portfolio. I do believe that if this crisis continues and the physical ability to move oil and gas is constrained as it is today for a longer period of time, it is, I think, inevitable that maybe, I don't know, two quarters from now, we will see some impact on portfolios. Like I said, it's a wait and watch mode at the moment.
Sure. Thank you. Thanks for answering those questions. All the best.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Ankit Biyani from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to ask, so the employee cost has declined sequentially, even if I exclude the new labor code impact, if you could highlight something on that. The other question was on the deposit growth front, how do you see a system deposit growth panning out from here on? Could that be a constraint on loan growth going ahead? Because as of March end, we are running at a 16% YoY loan growth. Where do you see it settling in FY 2027? Yeah. Thank you.
I think CASA, it's a factor of some of the churning that we've seen through the course of the year. I don't think it's been a substantial movement quarter-on-quarter. It's actually flattish. Yes, it's been flat to lower, yes. You're right, the one-off was the labor law impact last quarter.
Simple answer to your question is, will deposit growth be a constraint to credit growth? Absolutely. I think that in a sense is a basic tenet of banking that we will be able to grow only to the extent that we are able to raise deposits, given all the various constraints around LCR, LDR, et cetera, is concerned. Having said that, I think it does look like we will see slightly lower levels of credit growth in the current year, especially given the macroeconomic environment that is currently playing out. Like I said, it's a wait and watch mode. Things are changing literally on a day-to-day basis.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take that as the last question. I'll now hand the conference over to Mr. Rajiv Anand for closing comments.
Thank you for your interest in IndusInd Bank. I appreciate the time that you have spent with us. Thank you once again.
Thank you very much. On behalf of IndusInd Bank Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line. Thank you.