Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Sanket Chheda from DAM Capital Advisors. Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Chheda.
Hello, and very good after- good evening to all of you. We have with us the entire management team of Muthoot Finance to discuss their Q4 results and the strategy ahead. So from the management side, we have Mr. George Alexander Muthoot, who is the Managing Director, Mr. Alexander George, who is Whole Time Director, Mr. George M. Alexander, who is Whole Time Director, Mr. George M. George, who is also Whole Time Director, George M. Jacob, Whole Time Director, Mr. Eapen Alexander, who is the ED, and, Mr. K.R. Bijimon, who is Executive Director, and Mr. Oommen K. Mammen, who is the CFO. Without further ado, I'll hand the call over to MD sir for their opening remarks, followed up by question and answers. So over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good evening to all of you. So we are glad to announce another year of remarkable growth and achievement for the company. Our consolidated loan assets under management crossed the milestone of INR 89,000 crore, and standalone AUM has crossed the milestone of INR 75,000 crore. The consolidated assets under management increased by 25% year-on-year, and the standalone assets under management increased by 20%. The contribution of subsidiaries on loan assets increased to 15% from 12% last year, reflecting our strategic diversification efforts. The consolidated profit after tax for the financial year 2024 increased by 22% year-on-year and stands at INR 4,468 crore. The contribution of subsidiaries in the consolidated profit after tax also increased to 10% from the earlier 6%, underlining the resilience of our diversified business model.
With a strong focus on Muthoot Finance mission to emerge as a diversified financial services group, financial year 2024 was a year of transformation for us. As part of consciously pivoting our efforts towards growing our non-gold loan book, we also focused on strengthening our digital strategies for a transformative growth across our product portfolio. Despite the various industry hiccups, we have continued to maintain our position as leader in the gold loan industry and capitalized on the strong growth opportunities in affordable housing, in microfinance, in personal loans, small business loans, and vehicle finance. Further, the robust domestic consumption growth growing the middle class segment and rising aspirations provide ample opportunities for future growth.
We embark 25, financial year 25 on a positive note and shall continue our mission to grow the share of gold loan subsidiary, non-gold loan subsidiaries to 18%-20% in the next five years. We also take immense pride in achieving a loan growth of 20% as against the guidance of 15% in this financial year. In Q4, the standalone loan assets under management, we witnessed historic highs of INR 75,837 crore, driven by the robust growth in gold loans of INR 3,657 crore in that quarter alone. The standalone profit after tax for the financial year increased by 17% year-on-year and stands at INR 4,050 crore.
This year, we also achieved the highest ever Gold Loan advance to new customers of INR 16,450 crore, reinforcing our position as a trusted partner in the Gold Loan industry. Complementing our core Gold Loan business, our non-Gold Loan business offerings continued to gain traction with our Microfinance loan, Personal Loan, and home loans playing a pivotal role in diversifying our overall loan book. The housing finance arm achieved a disbursement of INR 815 crore in the financial year, as against INR 223 crore in the previous financial. The microfinance arm also witnessed upward trend, increased loan assets under management by 62% year-on-year, reaching INR 10,023 crore, and profit after tax by 161% to INR 340 crore.
As part of our transformation journey in financial year 2024, we also focused on boosting our digital business, adapting new technology-savvy millennials and general digital customers. Our physical strategy has yielded positive results with critical infrastructure already in place. We are confident that the impact of regulatory norm of 20,000 cash disbursal limit on our business and volumes will be limited since it is an industry-wide move. In alignment with strict vigilance from regulators on the NBFC industry, we also remain committed to maintaining the highest standards of corporate governance and compliance. During the year, we raised INR 480 crore through the 33rd public issue of secured, redeemable, non-convertible debentures. We opened 225 new branches by the group in the quarter of 2024 across regions, including Bengaluru, Goa, etc.
We also received multiple industry recognition as most trusted bank, great place to work, et cetera, et cetera. So with these words, I would like to now conclude and open the floor for your questions and answers. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone 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 your 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 Digant Haria from GreenEdge Wealth Services. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, sir. So congratulations on this, you know, strong growth, especially on the gold loan side. The question is, that, you know, we are seeing two things. One is gold price, gold price is strengthening, you know, by, by the month, by the quarter. And on the other hand, this whole cash disbursement and regulatory scrutiny on the sector has slightly gone up. So, you know, in that interplay of these two things, how do you see the growth panning out in FY 25?
Thank you. Of course, as usual, we would give a guidance of 15% minimum guidance of growth in this year also. Last year, we gave a guidance of 15%, but we were able to achieve almost 20%. So this year also, anyway, our guidance would be 15%. We will try our best to better it. So-
Sir, this year, gold will help you more, sir. You have to, you know, gold will help you so much this year, the gold price.
So let's see. Let's see, sir. Let's see, sir. This is not picture aur baaki hai.
Right. Right. Sir, generally, how is the discipline in the sector, and you know, because see, 2022 and 2023, there was too much of indiscipline by, you know, a lot of new entrants and all. Do you see those things especially falling in place now?
Yeah, I think there is something which needs to be seen also. Most of the gold loan companies were based on working out of Kerala. They are working out also all over India, but they were regulated by the Kerala-based or Kerala government regulator. So there were some... There was a lot of discipline pushes, and we definitely always had good interactions with the regulator here. And we have never come across any such what should I say? Indiscipline, as you say, in any of the companies based here.
All this has come about because when the people see one industry or one sector or one or a few companies growing well, particularly in the gold loan sector, many want to enter, but they don't realize that this is a very operationally intensive business. That is the biggest challenge here. I will say, over the last many quarters, just because somebody is just having some funding, et cetera, or things like that, they cannot simply start a gold loan company. The moment they start, initially it will be good, but the moment they reach 300, 400 branches, et cetera, all these challenges come up. And that is what is happening here. And as you said, indiscipline has never been the practice in the Kerala-based NBFCs, and I'm sure continuing with that also, we will be maintaining that.
Now that you have asked about this, I think the regulation about the INR 20,000 cash limit is applicable to all, and it does, it will, it does not have any significant effect on any of these on our disbursements. And we see quite a good traction during this year, even in this quarter. So we have, we would see good growth coming in spite of all this, because all the companies will have to abide by this INR 20,000. Only customers who definitely want cash, et cetera, will go to unorganized sector. But unorganized sector, I don't know whether they will be able to adhere to all these things, but I am sure a sense of discipline will come with the NBFCs as well as with the people.
So to answer your question, we see with all these challenges, et cetera, also, good NBFCs, well, well-run NBFCs, will have a great place to, a great place in this business, and, we will continue to.
Perfect. Perfect, sir. So thanks for those details. So second question is on the non-gold business. Like in the last decade, we incubated three new businesses, the, you know, the microfinance, home loans, and this vehicle finance. Microfinance has grown to a good size. Home loans seem to be turning around. So in this decade, which will be, you know, that, you know, a large business which will grow to, say, INR 10,000 crore kind of loan book? Because microfinance has now reached that, you know, which will could probably be the next one, you know, say, over the next three, four, five years.
I think, we have also started salary, personal loan, and the SME loan sector along with this. The vehicle loan business, probably, if you ask me personally, we don't see a very big prospects there because the sector is very crowded, and we don't have much strength there. Of course, it will be there, but it will be muted. But we see good growth in the, probably, as you said, in the microfinance. In the home loan sector, I think we have a new set of team there. They will definitely grow well in the, you know, home loan sector and also in the personal loan sector also, because in the personal loan sector also, most of these new sectors, we are thinking of, maybe, giving a cross-sell to many of our gold loan customers.
Because whenever we look at our gold loan customers, we realize that they have taken a personal loan or a home loan or a business loan from elsewhere. So why not we retain that customer. We give the same loan that is the thought behind this non-gold loan business.
Well, but sir-
As I said, as we were saying, we will reach the 20% maybe between the five years' time.
Right. Right, sir. Right.
Because of non-gold loan business.
Right. Right. Right. Got it. Got it, sir. Sir, thank you so much for the details. The last question is probably for Oommen, that if you do the same thing this year, you guide 15% and you achieve 20%, you know, what happens on the liability side? Are enough, enough borrowings available at reasonable rate? Because right now there's some tightness in the borrowing market.
So, in terms of the borrowing, no, probably you are aware that, you know, we have done a U.S. dollar bond issuance. You know, we raised $660 million, so that helped in liquidity. You know, we are also raising NCDs through private placement in the domestic market. You know, I think now with the financial results getting announced, I think the bank borrowings also will happen with the new year opening. So bank funding also will come, and certainly, you know, the retail NCD issuance also is going to support in terms of the liability requirement.
Yeah.
So-
All right.
Now, of course, you know, when there is a general liquidity tightness, you know, certainly the interest rates will go up, so that we are already seeing that. But I don't think that is going to have a material impact on return on the asset, or probably we'll decide to pass on to the customers.
All right. All right, that's great. Thanks, Oommen. Thanks, everyone, and all the best.
Thanks, sir.
Thank you very much. Next question is from the line of Mahrukh Adajania from Nuvama. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good evening, and congratulations. So I have a couple of questions. Firstly, if you could explain the movement in provisions for this quarter, and the Stage 2 loans, because there was a sharp increase. So that's my first question. And sir, my second question is a bit of an extension to what Digant asked, that your AUM growth has been good and competitive intensity, especially in the last 4-5 months, has been quite low. And there are reports that other than a private company, even PSU banks have been pulled up by FM, and they've been asked to check their gold lending processes, et cetera. So the competitive intensity just now may be the lowest in the last 2-2.5 years.
And say if, I mean, if some private sector players, you know, get off their band and start re-lending, will that change in a big way, and will that impact our AUM growth? That's my second question. And my third question related to AUM growth again, is that a lot of growth has also come from gold price movement and tonnage and customer adds have contributed relatively lower compared to gold prices. So, does that change? I'm not talking about gold prices, but, you know, does the customer acquisition change in a big way or tonnage assumptions change going forward?
Okay.
Because that is the basic driver of growth, right? So.
Okay. Mahrukh, you know, on the ECL provisions, primarily the increase in provisions have come because of the increase in the loan assets.
Okay.
Regarding the competitive intensity, yes, of course. I am glad that you feel that the competitive intensity has waned in the last few months. It's not that, it is actually, as I was saying in the first talk, it's that this is a very operationally challenging business. So everybody who did what should we say? I wouldn't say reckless, but thoughtless gold loan business or thoughtless gold loan growth are now finding some skeletons in their cupboard. Also, that is what is now, I think, what the regulator is also concerned about.
So when people, when companies, probably I should say for ourselves, that, when we go in a calibrated manner with decades of experience in this, and, our growth has always been maybe in the 15%-20% range. So we, we should say, quality also not be compromised. That is what is happening there. So probably, what as you said, when regulators and, finance ministry, et cetera, ask, the, gold loan lending institutions and banks to really check their things, it's all because the, because of, lack of, what should I say, the, lack of awareness of the intensity of the operations of the system. That is what is causing trouble there.
I think now that people take a step back and look into what is all these things, probably they'll also come to realize that this is not that easy and that we need to do many, many things before they think of going forward, going forward in a big manner. Because regarding the gold price, in fact, the small thing is that all these loans are short term. So suppose somebody has a gold loan today, he takes it off, probably he bought it at the rate of maybe 3,000 INR per gram. So he would, when he closes a loan of one lakh, he would take away 33 gram. But when he comes for the next gold loan of one lakh, he need not bring 33 gram.
He will bring only, only, maybe 25 grams. So that is the reason, because this is churning. Because we cannot prevent a customer from not taking the gold, and we cannot ask a customer to do go more gold than what is necessary. So when gold price increases, the tonnage definitely will come down. It has to come down because we can't insist on more gold, et cetera.
Sir, can you hear us? Sir, can you hear us? Participants, please stay connected while we rejoin the management to the call. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience. Participants, please stay connected. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience. We have the line for the management reconnected. Sir, go ahead.
Where did we stop at the price? I don't know.
Gold price.
The gold, the gold price? Yes. Madam?
Maarukh?
Yes, yes, I can hear you, sir. I can hear you.
Where did we stop? Where did we get cut?
No, you were talking about the tonnage, sir.
Yeah.
But, yeah.
When new customers come, the prices are asking them to bring more gold. So as a, as what we have seen earlier also, when the gold price goes up, because these, these are short-term loans, the loans, earlier loans get closed, and those are higher, maybe, the, for them, the gold price was, lower at that time, so they would have brought more gold. But the new purchases take the same amount of loan, taking only low, low, low amo-, lower amount of gold. So I think that is the relevance there.
Mahrukh, also, if you see, you know, between December and March, you know, the number of loan accounts also has gone up by almost, you know, 200,000, and number of customers also has gone up by about, you know, 120,000. So that is a significant achievement, you know. No, it is not simply a function of a gold price increase. So when the price of the gold increase, we cannot say that, no, we will not give, you know, the relative increase, you know, unless there is a serious concern from a risk management point of view. So then we are not concerned about the price. You know, we have to naturally give a LTV, which market expects. And also, you know, every time everyone asks whether there is a tonnage increase.
This time, the tonnage has also increased by about 4 tons.
Got it. Got it. And just a follow-up question on the whole ECL, sorry, the stage two loans, they've grown a lot?
So, yeah. So, you know, it is about 1,350. Of course, you know, there are a couple of factors, as you should know. We in the gold loan business, there is not a serious concern in terms of overdue accounts. There will be a lot of accounts where, you know, we would have collected interest regularly. Some customers would have paid interest regularly. Just that, you know, they have not closed the loan. We are also not too much concerned, because the price of the gold, the security is adequate.
We are still in the money.
We are still in the money, so we don't mind giving some more extra time to the customer so that he gets time to repay it.
Got it. Thank you so much. Thanks a lot.
Yeah.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Jeet from Pinpoint Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Good evening. So my question is on your loan growth guidance of 15% for next year. So how much gold price increase have you baked in in this assumption? So hypothetically, I'm trying to understand the organic ability of the business to grow without any support from gold prices. So just to frame it other way, if gold prices don't move for the next year?... Then what would be your loan growth percent?
I think, okay, we will go to historic, historical data. In the last two years or maybe two years back also, gold prices had not increased as much as this, but still we were able to grow 15%. So I think that should answer this question. Even when the gold price was not moving or going up like this in previous years, we still did 15%-20% growth year-on-year. So even with gold price rise or low, we were able to grow the 15%.
But then, sir, if I look at your active customer growth or your tonnage growth over the last five years, that's not a great number, right? I mean, that is more indicative of the organic ability of the business to grow without support of gold prices, right? So if I just look at those numbers, then that doesn't extrapolate to a 15% growth without any support from gold prices.
You cannot compare this lending business with other sorts of lending business. See, this is a very short-term product, you know? A customer will come and take a loan, you know, he will close it at a later time. The same customer will come back again. So not necessary, and the ticket sales of these loans are also quite wide, no? A customer can come and take a INR 5,000 rupee loan also. He can come and take a loan of INR 200,000. He can come and take a two, no, five hundred thousand, five hundred, you know, five hundred thousand rupee loan also. So the customer addition is not really significant because the ticket price is so wide.
You know, unlike in a mortgage business, there is a, you know, the average ticket size, the deviation from the, you know, the average number will not be so wide. So the number of customers is not a real factor in this. But you know, for providing more comfort and see how the business is running, we provide this number. In fact, you know, there will be a lot of inactive customers for us who will come and take a loan at different points of time. So, just by seeing what is the outstanding number of live customers does not you know, make a meaningful assessment of the business potential.
Okay. Sure, sir. Thank you. This second question would be: What would be your plans on branch expansion for the next couple of years?
I think, we have last year we have grown about, about last quarter we have grown about 225 branches. So going forward, we will go, we will grow our branches maybe 150-200 every year. Yeah.
Okay, got it. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Gao Xuan from Schonfeld Strategic Advisors. Please go ahead.
Hey, sir, congratulations on the results. Just one question on the margins. So why did our yield go up so sharply quarter on quarter, and is that sustainable? And what's the outlook for FY 25?
Can you repeat your question? We were not clear.
Gao, sorry to interrupt you, but your voice was breaking. Can you come in a better reception again, please?
Yeah, sorry, I'm audible now?
We can hear you, but your voice is breaking. Can you check if you have a proper reception at your end?
Anyway, please try. Please try to ask.
Hello? Yeah. So, okay. So my question is on the yield. Why did our yield go up so much on a quarter-on-quarter basis? And, you know, is that sustainable going forward, or how should we think about FY 25 margins and yield?
So, in terms of the yield, so in third quarter, the yield was 17.79%, and in the fourth quarter, it is 18.27. So, you know, the differential interest is about, you know, 40 basis points. See, in gold loan business, you know, you know, as we always say, it is a smaller ticket size loan. We dispersed about 65,000 loans in a day. A similar number comes back also as a collection. And we operate it across the country and different parts, you know, we follow different schemes. And this scheme, you know, carries a higher rate. You know, we keep... There is always a fluctuation in changes in the rates.
Sometimes we regularly offer rebates to the customers when they come and remit the interest. So when there is a delay in the discounts given to the customers is lower. So when you consider all these factors, you know, you know, the 14-50 basis points variation is quite normal, no. Say, for example, in the first quarter, the yield was 18.08, you know. It came down to 17.65 in the second quarter. Third quarter, it went up by about 14 basis points to 17.79, and in the fourth quarter, it is 18.26. So these fluctuations are quite normal for this kind of a business.
I say that it's partly because of smaller discounts or lower discounts that are given to customers. Is it a quarterly phenomenon or going forward, because of gold price or because of easier competition, are we gonna give less and less discounts, or how should we think about that?
No, no, it is not that. We have different schemes. We have a 12% interest scheme. We have 14%, 15%, 18%, 20%. We have all sorts of interest schemes. So if one geography, the interest scheme of 15% is going up, so the mar- the yield will be better. So if one quarter of the for-
... and the yield will be lesser. So overall, the geography, there will always be some ups and downs, where people take higher rate loan or low rate loan, et cetera. That is why it is, because also it's short term. The average tenure is 4 months only. Not that we give a 5-year loan and 10-year loan, and we increase the interest. No, it's very short, very short period. The average tenure is only 4 months.
Got it, sir. And on the cost of fund, you know, how should we think about it? Should we expect further increase, and what's our incremental cost of fund?
You know, this quarter, the average borrowing cost is somewhere around 8.45-8.5, which is what the number we had discussed. Of course, there is some averaging impact also. I think that cost of borrowings will be somewhere around 8.65. The incremental cost of borrowing is almost around 8.8% to 9%. So I think in the coming quarters, I think the overall borrowing cost will move towards 9%. But you know, given the fact that you know, we have a wide larger return on asset, the impact on the impact because of such increase, 25-30 basis points, is not material.
We can always decide to pass on this, incremental cost to the borrowers also.
Okay, thank you so much.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Abhijit Tibrewal from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good evening, everyone. And sir, congratulations on a good quarter. So first thing is, I mean, in your standalone book, the non-gold portion of the book, I mean, I think it's on a very low base, growing very, very fast. So just wanted to understand, I mean, in addition to salaried personal loans, what other products are we doing there? And what is the yield maturity of these loans? Also, I mean, the product of personal loans that is often bundled with the gold loan, is it also sitting in the standalone book?
So, okay, the loans, probably, you know, the personal loans are 2 years, 3-year products. The home loans are definitely 5-year, 10-year, 15-year products.
Yes.
These are all standalone products. Nothing is bundled with any gold loan. We only get the data of a customer who has been dealt with. A customer who has dealt with us, we know the customer is there. So we offer him, "Yes, you have dealt with us with a gold loan. You have taken a gold loan earlier with us, et cetera. Why don't we offer?" Because all these customers take the similar loans from elsewhere.
Sir, just to clarify. So, you know, it's not that, you know, we have started this business, and we are growing aggressively. You know, personal loan, we have started almost, you know, 8 years back, or 8 or 10 years back. And, you know, we have been gradually building this book, and we have been gradually building the expertise, and we have scaled it up in a calibrated manner. So, you know, now we have a good team in place to scale up this activity. We have a proper credit assessment process. There is a, a continuous engagement, you know. I think we have engaged McKinsey also in terms of refinement of our underwriting process, and in terms of, you know, fine-tuning our operational process. So it's not that, you know, we are scaling it up overnight, you know?
It is, you know, almost like 8-10 years of hard work in, in, behind this. And there's a committed team working on this business. And also, you know, we have a business loan book, you know, of around, you know, INR 500 crore. So and, you know, we have scaling up. So, you know, it's not that, you know, we are, you know, probably you might feel that, you know, we are on a certain scale-up, but this was started. If you look at our financials in the past, there is always another loan book, which was always there. You know, it is the, you know, the initial proprietary mode preparation work, which was done in the earlier years. Now we are getting the benefits of those hard work.
Got it. Thank you, sir. So sir, but, but this almost INR 3,000 crore of non-gold book that you have in the standalone, again, that is unsecured, right? Largely unsecured.
Sir, some of it is, housing loans are secured.
Okay, you know, there is a INR 500 crore loan given to the, you know, wholly-owned subsidiary, you know, group company, wholly-owned subsidiary. Other than that, you know, it is almost unsecured.
Got it. Got it. So the second question that I had is, I mean, a lot of discussion has already happened on, on gold loan, gold prices and how it can help, gold loan growth. Rather than dwelling on that, I just wanted to understand, I mean, maybe fourth quarter or these two months that you have seen, what proportion of our disbursements are in the nature of top-up loans that are happening?
Okay, okay. So, so a customer who has taken a loan, he may close his gold loan and he can take a top, take a fresh loan, or he may ask for a top-up. So there is a, there is a top-up definitely happening because people who... Some people who are aware that he's able to get some more money, suddenly come and take it. We don't go after the top-up.
Got it. So sir, where I was coming from is, I mean, across the industry, since gold prices are up, right, very often we hear a lot of players who voluntarily reach out to customers, given that the effective LTV comes down, we are deep in the money.... So, I mean, a lot of players effectively reach out to customers suggesting that they can take top-up loans now, given that gold prices have moved up, is what I was trying to understand.
Even today also, the average LTV on the gold loans is around 63%.
Yeah.
So if customer wants, you know, certainly he can come and, you know, take a loan of up to 75%. Now, then the average LTV should have is 75%. Now, the customer is not coming I know, because he may not have a requirement. You know, probably, you know, the service level people or the branch level people might reach out to the customers and ask them whether they need a loan. So if somebody pledges a chain of, you know, 20 grams, he may not need a loan for the entire 20 grams, you know? He might take a loan for 20,000 rupees, and later when he has a requirement, he'll come and take another 20,000 rupees. So that cannot be treated as a top-up, no?
It is just that, you know, when his need increases, he will come and take a loan. And, you know, unlike other lending products, it's so convenient that, you know, he can get a loan taken in 5, 10 minutes.
The most important thing is we still have a loan-to-value is only 63%.
Yes, sir. Thank you for that, sir. And just one last question. Oommen sir, you had explained, maybe there's some averaging thing, which is why the cost of borrowings look lower. But from what you were guiding, essentially, is that over the course of time, cost of borrowings should increase towards 9%, which would suggest that going forward, can we look at some margin compression in FY 2025?
No, if the rates are going up very slightly, only a few basis points, we try to absorb. Otherwise, if it is going up, I will pass it on to the customer, because customer will take a loan from elsewhere. If the overall rates are going up, whatever loan he's taking from any bank, et cetera, the rates should have gone up. And then certainly, they will be - we'll be justified in charging higher rates also. So small, small fluctuations, we try to absorb it, correct me. Otherwise, we just pass it on to the customer.
30 basis points increase, you know, you know, our return on asset can easily absorb. If we want, we can pass on to the customers also. That is the point.
We got it, sir. I think this is useful. Again, I mean, congratulations to you on a good quarter, and thank you, and all the very best.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Raghav Garg from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. I just have one question. I think this year, the total growth in the customer base has been about 7%. You added about 3.5 lakh customers. Now, going into FY 2025, with one of the larger players leaving the market, do you anticipate that your customer base growth could be, say, in the range of 9%-10%, or higher than 7%, that would be what you delivered in FY 2024? That is my only question.
Raghav, we don't give a guidance in terms of the customer addition. We reach out to the market, you know, the amount of marketing spend we have, it's quite significant. So, you know, the objective is to, you know, reach out to as much as of new customers. There is a lot of market potential is there. There is a lot of untapped customer base is there. So we try to reach out to, you know, all the all sorts of marketing mechanism. So we don't want to give a specific number in terms of the customer addition.
But we are giving a guidance of 15%.
Sir, but if I were to see, you know, or if you were to see or look at your own numbers, say, from March onwards up till, do you anticipate that your customer base growth could be higher than last year? Sorry, I'm just asking the same question, but I just wanted to get some confidence on that.
So of course, as MD sir earlier said, because of the new RBI guidelines, there is absolutely no impact on our disbursements. In fact, our disbursements are certainly at a good level in this current quarter also. Whether there is more customer addition, we can't identify this customer, whether that customer was belonging to another player or. So that we are not spending time on that. You know, the objective is to reach out to the customer, you know, guided growth number.
Sure. Thanks, and that's all from me.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Nischint Chawathe from Kotak. Please go ahead.
You know, can you share the auction number for the quarter?
Yeah. The number is INR 162 crore. Total for the year is INR 892 crore.
Got it. Got it. And just on again, sorry, going back to the margins question, you know, do you see that with kind of competition reducing a bit, you know, there is slightly more pricing power for you?
What is it?
Whether there is a particular pricing prospects because competition is reducing?
Oh, no, it is, it is not that we charge what the customer can pay. We charge according to maybe reasonableness something. So just because competition is there or not there, we just don't increase our rates, et cetera. But then, as we said earlier, we increase our rates only if the overall rates also goes up substantially. Otherwise, we wouldn't want to. We have a decent return, we would like to continue there.
... change in regulation for the cash disbursements. Till now, I think it's, whatever, in a few weeks down the line, have you seen any impact, or would you want to say that maybe this, this kind of first quarter had some impact of this, and then we kind of normalized from July, August or so?
No, I think, there's nothing, there's no significant impact et cetera at all. Because first of all, all the players have had to do this, and they are doing it also. And the customers are also not very, are not, very much inconvenienced. So everybody has taken it in their stride, and, even customers and the NBFCs have taken their stride. And we have seen, even after this in, April, May, we have seen, a good growth in this, in these months also. Nischint, are you there?
Nischint, can you hear us?
Yes. Thank you very much, and all the best.
Thank you very much. Next question is from the line of Shubhranshu Mishra from PhillipCapital. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. So, the first question is around the INR 20,000 cash disbursement made. So given the fact that that's the regulation now, when we do any EFT or RTGS or UPI disbursement to the customer, this opens up the data to the bank. Do we fear any sort of customer attrition because of this? That's question number one. Second question is a data point. What is the accrued interest in fourth quarter versus the fourth quarter of last year? And if we can denote the AUM split of less than INR 1 lakh, INR 1 lakh to INR 3 lakh, and more than INR 3 lakh, thanks.
About this INR 20,000, it is. There's not been an impact. So when we do this loan through a bank, I think that it is just goes to the bank only.
It goes to the bank.
It's a direct credit. It's just a credit to the bank. It is a credit to the bank. The customers have taken a loan from Muthoot. It is all available in the credit report. Everybody's credit report is there, so anybody who wants to get it, they can just easily get it.
UPI-based transfer also. UPI-based internal transfer.
There are a lot of UPI-based transfers also. So we don't see any big issue there, the bank taking away a customer because we are paying through the bank. So that is the, that's the first question. Second one is about the,
No, in terms of the ticket price breakup, earlier, no, you had asked less than INR 1 lakh and above INR 1 lakh, right?
Less than INR 1 lakh, INR 1-3 lakh, and more than INR 3 lakh.
Okay. Less than INR 1 lakh, 24, 34. Less than INR 1 lakh is 32%, 1-3 lakh is 37%, and above 3 lakh is 29%.
Uh, twenty-nine?
Yeah. What was the second question? I didn't get it.
Accrued interest.
Sorry?
Accrued interest in fourth quarter of this year and accrued versus fourth quarter last year.
Shubhranshu, do you have any follow-up question?
No, that's all.
Thank you.
We'll come back, we'll come back.
The next question is from the line of Sandeep Bhansali from Tata Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hello, sir. I just wanted to check what was the-
Sami, sorry to interrupt you. Can you speak through the handset, please?
Yeah. Am I audible now?
Yes, thank you.
Yeah. I just wanted to check, before this regulation of on cash disbursement, what was the cash disbursement levels in that category of INR 20,000-INR 200,000, as a percentage?
The majority is online only.
Pardon me?
Majority is online.
Okay. Okay, thank you.
In terms of accrued interest, for March 2024, the total interest accrued is INR 2,180 crore. March 2023, interest accrued is INR 1,853 crore. Who wanted that?
I think Shubhranshu asked for that, interest accrued details.
Are you there?
Yes, sir, he's connected. You can continue.
Okay, that's all. I think that those are the two numbers we wanted. Okay. Sameep, do you have any follow-up question?
No. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Shripal Doshi from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Congrats on a good quarter. Just a couple of question. Firstly, why was the provisioning during the quarter higher?
... No, the AUM has gone up. The AUM has gone up by almost like INR 3,007 crore.
Okay. So just toward that?
Correct.
Okay. Okay. Secondly, the even the other OPEX was higher during the quarter, so was it pertaining to the IPL spending, or if you could just explain that?
IPL spending, no.
Did it-
IPL spending, no. We did not have any IPL spending this year.
But of course, I know we paid the managerial remuneration, incentives, et cetera, in the last quarter, so that is impact of INR 50 crore in the fourth quarter. That could be one reason.
Okay. Okay. Got it. This is last question. Pertaining to the personal loan product. So what is the basic eligibility criteria for the customer to be, you know, to get the personal loan?
Well, I think oftentimes we do. They have-
A set of criteria.
There are different criteria. It's not that easy to read. They are with the usual personal loan criteria. Nothing different from the market. Nothing different from the market.
Okay, but sir, he has to be a gold loan customer for us, then only he will be easily eligible for the personal loan?
No, no, no. We do from the market also. But what I said is a gold loan customer, we get a good lead from them. Because he's a gold loan customer, we have his address, KYC, so we can easily offer it to him. That's all. It's more of a lead.
There is no comfort that we derive of him having a gold loan with us other than just a track record with us?
No, no, no. Gold Loan track record is not that great because it's a bullet loan.
Got it.
All gold loans are bullet loans, so there is no big track record we can get from that.
So the what personal loan which we discussed, you know, earlier, was with respect to the pure unsecured personal loan, you know, which we have been trying it for the last 8-10 years. So that is based on proper credit assessment mechanism, including credits, you know, CIBIL's credit score.
All loans are CIBIL, and the customer is verified for all the other parameters. There are some 10 parameters to be verified.
Yeah.
I mean, everything is verified.
Okay, sir. Got it. Got it. Thank you so much for answering my questions.
Thank you very much. Participants, you may press star and one to ask the question. Next question is from the line of Bunty Chawla from IDBI Bank Limited. Please go ahead.
Thank you, sir. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. Sorry if I'm repetitive, because I have joined late. Sir, can you share the gold loan growth during the quarter has been strong. How much portion could be due to one of the entity has been banned by the RBI to disburse the gold loan?
The growth in gold loan is INR 3,659 crore in Q4.
No, no, my... I understand that number, but my question... Okay, okay, okay. And sir, is it right, the guidance for the next year has been still 15%?
It has always been 15% for the last 5 years.
Okay. But we believe that we could be having a still same number next year as well?
Yeah, that's why I said, picture aur baaki hai.
Thank you. Thank you very much, sir, for that.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Rajiv Mehta from YES Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good evening. Congrats on good number. Can we have the break-up of ECL provision of INR 935 crore across Stage 1, 2, and 3?
Just give me a second. You have any more questions? Maybe, where did we get stuck? Do you have any other questions?
No, that is one question. I just wanted to understand that if we were to resolve the Stage 3 loan assets by auction in the future, what kind of reversal of provision we can have?
That question I'll answer. Whatever, we have a provision of about INR 1,000 crore. The real actual provision which we require is zero, this is the rule, because we have never had a need to have 100% provision for any of our loans. So it is only because we are statutorily bound to create the provision, we are doing. Otherwise, the gold is with us, it is fully secured, we are in the money. We actually don't need to keep the provisions. We have never had to use the provision. So the INR 1,000 crore plus which we have provisions is actually our reserve only.
Mm.
It is our net worth, actually.
Yeah. And we had a good jump in the employee expenses, about 10% jump in the employee expenses in the gold loan business. So did we run any contest scheme and we had some payouts related to it, or is it, you know, the usual increase?
That's at least 10% increment would have been there. The business has also gone up also. Incentives are always there. We give incentives for staff. So if business goes up, there's growth, et cetera, they want little better incentives. So but I don't, I didn't look at that number. If you say it's only 10%, I don't... I think it's very reasonable.
And just lastly, have we, have we kind of revised our pricing or rates under any schemes of late in the last two, three months?
Revised? Revised the lending rates?
Yeah, lending rates, pricing. I mean, as you say that, your pricing is typically-
... scheme specific, market specific, has there been any upward revision in the last 2, 3 months in any of the schemes?
No, we keep, you know, changing the rates geographical-wise, scheme-wise, you know?
Okay.
So there is a usual fluctuation of, you know, 25-50 basis points in terms of the yields, just because of that, and as well as because of the discounts, when the customer pays interest prior to the due date.
Hmm.
So that is quite normal in our business. You're asking on the-
No, he was asking whether we have changed our interest rates in the last three months.
So in that point, no.
Yes.
So we would have changed interest rates, you know, frequently, no?
Or maybe 0.5%, 2%, 0.5%, 1%, etc.
the ECL, some small ticking in some sections. Some ECL provision on Stage 1, the ECL provision is INR 620 crore. Stage 2, it is INR 28 crore, and Stage 3, it is INR 288 crore.
Okay, got that. Thank you so much, understood, sir .
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take that as the last question. I will now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Yeah, I think, thank you all. Thank you all for appreciating the company and, maybe our business and, our results this time. We will, we from our part will continue to, add value to all our stakeholders, and we always will continue to be in the growth path with, all sorts of, what should be the best practices. So with that, I think you can rest assured that we will put more efforts. We will spare no efforts to see that our company always is the best in the sector and, probably, live up to the standards of the va... and the values of Muthoot. So thank you for your attention hearing, and, we will continue to work, towards growing the company in all aspects.
Thank you once again from the management.
Thank you very much. On behalf of DAM Capital Advisors, that conclude this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.