Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to RBL Bank Limited's Q4 FY 2025 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 the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. R. Subramaniak umar, Managing Director and CEO of RBL Bank. Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Kumar.
Thank you, ma'am. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us for a discussion on our bank's financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of financial year 2025. We have uploaded the results along with the presentation on our website, and I hope you have had a chance to go through it in detail ahead of this call. I am, as always, joined on this call by Mr. Rajiv Ahuja and other members of our management team to address any questions that you may have. Before we get into the details of the results for the quarter, I want to briefly touch upon the progress of the bank in FY 2025. We began the fiscal year on a strong footing, supported by encouraging yearly momentum. However, as the year progressed, distinct developments in our JLG and card businesses impacted the overall performance.
In the card segment, we managed a critical transition in the portfolio collections associated with our co-brand partner, BFL. At the same time, we witnessed an uptick in delinquencies driven by a mix of challenging macroeconomic conditions and the signs of over-leverage within certain pockets of the consumer base. In the JLG segment, we, like the broader industry, encountered headwinds stemming from the borrower over-leverage, which notably impacted the collection efficiencies after mid-last year. However, I am pleased to share that the portfolio has since shown meaningful stabilization and is steadily trending towards normalization. Encouragingly, both the JLG and card portfolios are now on a much firmer ground. We have also maintained a prudent and forward-looking provisioning strategy, ensuring the portfolio is comprehensively safeguarded as we enter fiscal 2026, positioned with clarity, confidence, and a clean slate. I will walk you through a few key data points on this shortly.
We commenced FY 2025 with a clear resolve to scale our secured retail businesses, and I am pleased to report that we have made meaningful strides both qualitatively and quantitatively. On the qualitative front, we have sharpened our focus on the quality of origination, the targeted mix of advances, and the acquisition channels we prioritize, each of which I will elaborate on shortly. Quantitatively, we accelerated the growth in segments where we had already built momentum: mortgages, including home loans, working capital, and tractors, while stabilizing scale-up in the newer lines such as gold loans. Our wholesale banking franchise continued to deliver quality growth, and within that, the commercial banking segment has been scaling as per our plan. Together, these efforts have enabled us to navigate the challenging second half of FY 2025 without any adverse impact on our capital position. Let us now delve into the specifics.
At the beginning of the year, we laid out a clear strategy to drive the granularity of our balance sheet. I am pleased to share the progress we have made on this front: the granular retail deposit as a percentage of the total deposit as of FY 2025 are at 50%. The term deposit less than three crore plus CASA was at 65%. The secured retail advances are at 32% versus 25% in March 2024. Our mortgage portfolio, comprising home loans and loan against property, grew by 34% year-over-year. The commercial banking advances registered a growth of 29% year-over-year. The deposit quality has continued showing healthy trends. Our granular deposit growth has continued to see good growth in FY 2025 despite headwinds of higher competitive intensity and tighter liquidity conditions for most of the year. Retail deposits grew 16%, while the overall deposits grew 7%.
Similarly, our average CASA balance grew 12% year-over-year. The retail secured segment was identified as a focused growth area, and the bank has begun achieving meaningful scale while maintaining disciplined underwriting and enhancing portfolio quality. In FY 2025, we saw growth in secured retail of 43% year-over-year. We remain confident that this portfolio will continue to perform well and is on track to achieve full profitability by FY 2026. Now, coming to the unsecured segment, we have been cautious in this segment. We have seen a slower growth in both JLG loans and credit cards in FY 2025. The JLG segment registered a decline both year-on-year and sequentially. As many of you may recall, we proactively implemented enhanced credit guardrails, including MFIN Guardrails II, as early as November, that is, well ahead of most of the players in the industry.
In the credit cards, including personal loans, growth was lower at 3% year-over-year as well as sequentially. We are happy to say that the asset quality trends in both these segments are trending to normalized levels. Our strategy in the credit card business is to build a strong franchise by acquiring good-quality customers, those with the potential for deeper multi-product engagement with the bank. Even here, we are firmly prioritizing quality over quantity. As for the MFI portfolio, we have consciously reduced our exposure, shrinking the book by 23% year-over-year FY 2024. The portfolio now stands at INR 5,752 crore, down from INR 7,511 crore in FY 2024. With stronger underwriting frameworks in place and the signs of macro-level normalization, we expect a continued improvement in book quality. Moreover, the broader adoption of the guardrails across the industry should meaningfully mitigate over-leveraging risk going forward.
We have started increasing the share of the book under CGFMU coverage, which will hold us in good stead during times of crisis, if any, in the future. Over the past three years, including FY 2025, the bank has significantly improved its performance under priority sector lending, enabling us to meet the regulatory targets and avoid incremental RIDF allocations. Our erstwhile RIDF investments made for historical PSL shortfall continue to come off the balance sheet, freeing up the funding that can now be deployed towards regular lending activities, naturally at better yields. Let us also briefly touch upon the asset quality in these segments.
I am pleased to report that in credit cards, the net slippage in Q4 was INR 444 crore as compared to INR 533 crore last quarter. In JLG, as was informed earlier, the Q4 slippage was elevated but sequentially getting better with an improving trend on collection efficiency.
The net slippages were at INR 439 crore in Q4, as against INR 521 crore last quarter. This was expected given high SMA I and SMA II balances that we had seen as of December 31, 2024. Our collection efficiency and recoveries have been better in Q4 over Q3. We saw a good improvement in the early bucket collection efficiency and entered March month at 99%, including Karnataka, up from 98.4% as of December 24. We expect the slippages to decline meaningfully in Q1, with a return to pre-stress levels anticipated from Q2 FY 2026 onwards. Additionally, resolution rates from the delinquent buckets are expected to improve, and we foresee recovery momentum from NPAs sustaining through FY 2026. Disbursements in JLG have also started seeing improvements in Q4, with approximately INR 350 crore of disbursements for the month of March.
As I said earlier, this is with the new guardrails, which we implemented in Q3 itself. As a risk mitigation for the JLG loans, we continue to increase the coverage of CGFMU for incremental disbursements in this segment. This quarter, we have applied for the coverage of 90% of the disbursements in Q4, and we expect this trend to continue in FY 2026. Let me also spend a few minutes on the provisioning that we have taken in this quarter. As you are aware, in credit cards, we already have a fairly aggressive provisioning policy, wherein we take 70% provisioning at NPA stage and 100% provisioning on 120 days past due. This ensures that we really don't carry the baggage in the portfolio.
In the JLG business, we normally take 25% provisioning each quarter on NPAs, but we have now taken 100% provisioning on the NPA as of March 31, 2025.
This means we have a net NPA in the JLG business as of 31 March 2025. We have also taken 75% provision amounting to ₹283 crore on SMA II, as of March 31, 2025, of ₹378 crore. To enable this, we have reversed the contingent provisions that we were carrying on December 24, which was built to meet these episodic situations. This provisioning really allows us to focus on profitable growth in our chosen segments with clarity. As I mentioned earlier, we remain comfortable with the asset quality at the bank level, particularly in our secured retail and wholesale banking portfolios, where the credit performance continues to be strong. Now, how does this translate into our growth outlook for FY 2026? We are entering the year with a clear focus on building a resilient balance sheet, one that supports sustainable growth while maintaining discipline in risk selection and capital efficiency.
On the lending side, we expect the secured retail businesses to grow at a healthy 25%-30%, driven by the continued improvement in execution, stronger sourcing, and better cross-sell outcomes. What's particularly encouraging is that the traction isn't just in the loans. We are seeing meaningful gains in liabilities and other products as well, especially in the mortgages and DBG, where our branches have started playing a much more active role. The offers opportunity for the branches is becoming real, supported by the pre-approved offers and the sharper customer targeting. In the wholesale, we expect a steady and improved growth from the present 6% level in FY 2025 to 10%-12% going forward. Given our size and the market opportunity, we believe there is still a significant headroom, and our teams are well-positioned to capture it.
We will continue to be conscious of the risk-reward in this segment to ensure profitable growth with cross-sell. On the unsecured side, credit cards will remain a key lever, not just for book growth but for acquiring franchise customers, deepening engagement, and improving profitability with greater predictability in the credit outcomes. In JLG, we are taking a cautious approach. While we have seen improving collection efficiencies, certain states like Karnataka continue to be below average, though the trend is moving in the right direction. Our normalized disbursement run rate of INR 600-INR 800 crore per month is currently closer to INR 350 crore, and we expect this to improve progressively, targeting a return to INR 600 crore by the second half of the year. Accordingly, the JLG will grow slower than the bank average, and we aim to keep its share in the 6%-7.5% zone.
It stands at 6.2% as of FY 2025, down from 9% as of FY 2024. On the deposits front, we saw encouraging momentum in Q4, and we expect this to sustain through FY 2026 as system liquidity improves. Our strategy here is very deliberate. We are not just chasing headline CASA numbers. Instead, we are focused on increasing granularity, expanding our customer base, and deepening the transaction intensity, both in retail and wholesale. The idea is to build stickier, more stable deposits and manage cost of funds efficiently relative to the market benchmarks. You would have noticed that we have taken deposit rate actions already. We have reduced the savings account and term deposit rates.
Of course, while floating-rate loans will reprice downwards relatively quickly, the cost-benefit from lower deposit rates will come with a lag. This timing mismatch will create some pressure on the margins in the first half of the year.
However, we have already taken steps like lowering savings account rates to mitigate this impact, and our relatively larger fixed-rate loan book will help cushion the effect. Our effective savings rate will come down from approximately 6.4% in March to approximately 5.6% in May when the rate cuts become effective. Lastly, we are conscious that our shift away from the certain high-yielding segments, while deliberate and prudent, will reflect in the margin profile for FY 2026. But we believe this is the right approach. It strengthens the core and sets us up for long-term quality-led growth on capital. We entered the year with a total capital adequacy of 15.54% and CET1 of 14.06%. Based on the expected growth of 16%-18%, we expect to remain above 13% on CET1 capital for FY 2026. In summary, we expect the slippage trend in unsecured segments to keep improving.
Notably, we have already taken substantial provisions in the JLG SMA book, positioning ourselves prudently. Our secured retail and wholesale portfolios continue to perform exceptionally well, with eight consecutive quarters of near-zero credit cost. What is encouraging is that the growth in these segments is also picking up steadily. Our cross-sell proposition is beginning to deliver. Branches are contributing meaningfully, and we are reshaping our frontline approach to be a customer-first, not the product-first. This shift is gradual but real and gaining momentum. At the same time, we remain grounded on our assessment of the macro environment. With the global uncertainty and elevated household leverage, we have been cautious in unsecured segments. Consumption may remain muted, and we are aligning our growth strategy accordingly. The evolving monetary environment, with improving liquidity and easing rates, will offer some offset to the growth challenges, and we intend to use that space wisely.
On the cost side, we remain sharply focused on optimizing spends, consolidating teams where we see synergies, and enhancing service delivery across customer touchpoints. Business-wise, our priority remains scale in secured segments, deepening customer engagement via branches, and delivering break-even in retail assets during FY 2026, unlocking operating leverage. During the quarter, we also took steps to strengthen our leadership, with Mr. Narendra Agrawal joining us as President to lead the branch banking and the retail liability franchise, and Mr. Paridhasan coming in as Chief Operations Officer. These appointments reflect our commitment to building strong execution depth as we prepare to step into the next phase of growth. This year, we made significant strides in technology, including migration to a new state-of-the-art data center to bolster scalability, security, and resilience. This was further complemented by scaling our core systems to support future growth.
In Q4, after rigorous testing, we also launched our all-new integrated mobile banking app with best-in-class features, designed to deliver a seamless and intuitive experience to our customers. Let me close this with what I have said even before: the growth matters, but only when it is profitable and comes from areas where the risk is acceptable and opportunities visible. We are staying disciplined and focused on the four Cs that will drive sustained lift: that is, cost of deposit, cost of operations, cross-sell, and cost of credit. I will request Mr. Jaideep to take you through the financial parameters in further details.
Thank you, Mr. Kumar, and good afternoon, everyone. I'll briefly touch upon some of the specific aspects of our financial performance. On advances, we grew net advances by 10% year-on-year and 2% sequentially to ₹92,618 crore, and retail advances grew 13% year-on-year to ₹55,703 crore.
The retail wholesale mix now stands at 60/40. Business loans and housing grew at 34% year-on-year and 9% sequentially. These are areas of focus of growth for us. Total retail grew at 13% year-on-year, largely driven by a degrowth in unsecured segments of 8% year-on-year. Wholesale advances grew 6% in FY 2025 and 5% sequentially in Q4 FY 2025. Commercial banking within that grew at 29% year-on-year and 9% sequentially, again an area of focus within wholesale banking. Our total deposits grew 7% year-on-year and 4% sequentially to INR 110,944 crore. CASA ratio stands at 34.1%. While the total deposits grew at 7% year-on-year, the granular deposits, which is where the focus is, grew at 16% year-on-year and 3% sequentially, and now stands at INR 55,213 crore, which is roughly 50% of our total deposits.
Our branch banking-led deposits is around 62% of total deposits, and we are trying to continuously improve the product holding ratio with our customers in the portfolio. The credit-to-deposit ratio was 83.5%, and our LCR for the quarter, on a daily average basis, stood at 133%. Our NII was down 2% year-on-year and 1% sequentially to INR 1,563 crore. NII growth was impacted on two counts: lower disbursals in the JLG portfolio as well as higher slippages causing interest rate reversals. Our cost of deposits was 4% down sequentially to 6.53%, and cost of funds was also lower four basis points to 6.59% for the quarter. NIM was roughly flat sequentially at 4.9% for the quarter. Our total other income was INR 1,000 crore for the quarter, 14% higher year-on-year. Happy to report that the core fee income grew 17% year-on-year and 11% sequentially to INR 968 crore.
Our total net income was up 4% year-on-year to INR 2,563 crore. Despite pressure on margins, we've been able to offset some impact through better fee income performance. Total income for the year, as a result, grew at 13% for the year to INR 10,270 crore. Our OpEx, given cost-conscious controls that we have been exercising, has grown at about 7% year-on-year and 2% sequentially to INR 1,702 crore. Our cost-to-income stood at 66.4% this quarter, as against 62.5% last quarter and 64.2% same time last year. Cost-to-income ratio for the full year was 64.7%, as against 66.6% for the full year in FY 2024. Full-year OPEX growth was at 10%.
We have consistently brought down our OPEX growth, and this effort will continue. As a result, our pre-provisioning operating profit was INR 861 crore for the quarter, and for the full year, it was INR 3,617 crore, up at 19% year-on-year.
Our total business, for the first time, crossed INR 2,000,000 crore, which is loans plus deposits, and is now at INR 2,003,562 crore. On a consolidated basis, our PAT for the quarter was at INR 87 crore, and full-year PAT was at INR 717 crore. On cards, we have forged a few new co-brand partnerships, which is expected to diversify our offerings and strengthen the client profile. We remain focused on deepening customer relationships and increasing wallet share through meaningful engagement on this portfolio. On asset quality, we touched on the trend of slippages earlier. In terms of NPA, gross NPA was at 2.6%, and net NPA was at 0.29%.
Net NPA sequentially lowered from 0.53% in December, primarily because we have taken significantly accelerated provisioning on the JLG book. The JLG book, the net NPA is actually nil as at March 25. Consequently, the PCR also improved to 89% versus 82% last quarter.
The restructured book stood at 0.29% as we continue to see paydowns by our customers. Just a little bit flavor on provisioning, we had a total provisioning of INR 815 crore for the quarter, of which cards accounted for INR 375 crore. But this was offset by the INR 206 crore of contingent provisioning, which was lying on the cards portfolio, which we have reversed. And we have largely used that to take provisioning on our SMA book of microfinance. So we are now carrying 75% provisioning on our SMA01 and 02 book on our JLG portfolio. Our net profit for the quarter was INR 69 crore. Lastly, on capital, our total capital was at 15.54%, as Mr. Kumar mentioned, and CET1 was 14.06%, as against 15.37% and 13.68%.
This increase was largely driven by the lower risk weight on microfinance portfolio. With this, we'll now open the session for Q&A.
Thank you very much, sir. We will now begin with a question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask questions may press star and one on the touch-tone phone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Jai Mundhra from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Good evening, sir. And thanks for the elaborate opening commentary. I have first a few just to get the doubts clear. I just wanted to check. When you mentioned that we have utilized the contingent provisions that we were carrying against earlier in card as well as JLG book, that is right, right? I mean, so now we are left with the... Yeah, sure.
And secondly, you said that the savings rate cut, effective first May, that would bring down your savings rate, blended saving rate from around 6.4% to 5.6%. That's correct. Sure. Now, sir, coming to the questions, on this, so now we have, I mean, we have taken a call to consume the contingent provision. Does this signify that we are now looking at near normalized stress level formation in both JLG and credit card portfolio?
Yeah, we just issued the commentary last quarter also. We are expecting the normalization to come for the card and this in Q1 and Q2. And from what we have provided for the Q1 in JLG, we are tending towards normalization from Q2 onwards in JLG as well as for the cards. That's what our initial observations and our belief and assessment is also.
Anything else you want to add?
Yeah.
No, Jay, I think I'll caveat that by saying that we are still in a fairly complex macro environment, and yes, while we are seeing clearly trending slippages down, but I think the larger reason for the contingency provisioning utilization also was that we've noticed that in cards, while it's a relatively high credit cost business as compared to, let's say, secured loans, the volatility on credit costs is not as high as in microfinance, so during good times, cards maybe operate at about 5% credit cost, and bad times, it goes to about 10%-11%. and we have a fairly aggressive normal NPA provisioning in cards, and plus, we've also seen that despite high credit costs in cards, we don't consume capital. So the business does not make a loss because there is enough income wherewithal. Whereas in microfinance, the volatility has clearly been higher.
We've seen 1-2% during good times in terms of credit costs and going as high as 14%-15% during COVID. And even in the last few quarters, we've been pretty high. So the thinking is that we should, going forward, of course, one will try and build contingent provisioning again on microfinance. But cards, we are quite comfortable in terms of being able to absorb the volatility within the P&L. That's the broad rationale. Jay, one of the additional reasons for believing that the JLG is that we have already entered into CGFMU. If you just say that from the last quarter onwards, we have started covering our entire fresh incremental disbursement under CGFMU, even for this quarter of Q4, we already made an application for 90%.
That, along with the future plan of having the contingency provision, which we have been building for the last two years, will stand steadfast in that particular portfolio.
Sure, sure, sir. And did I hear it right that you mentioned that the loan book and loan growth could be around 16%-17% at the blended level, and hence the CET1 will still be above 13%? Was that the commentary, right, that I understood?
Yes, that's correct, sir.
Okay, sure. And lastly, sir, lastly, we have seen this quarter, there is a very strong growth in the payment fee. Payment fee, I mean, within fee, payment fee has grown reasonably well. While there is a bit of a slowdown in the credit card portfolio as well as acquisition. So was there any one-off, or this is seasonality, or even on YoY basis, the number looks very strong?
If there is any explanation there, or this is something else?
Jay, in certain categories, the network actually increased the interchange income, and there was a little bit of a couple of months of catch-up that happened. So about INR 15-INR 20 crore overstated in that sense. But a step-up on certain categories of interchange has gone up. So that's the reason. Some of it will continue to be staying during the rest of the coming going forward as well.
Right. And lastly, sir, how do you look at the OpEx growth for next FY 2026? We have managed it very well. And of course, a lot of you would have concluded some of the investments also. Now, how should one look at the overall OpEx for FY 2026?
Thank you. See, if you look at that OpEx, we have been in the high range of around 27%-30%.
At that time, we said that that is a focus area. We'll come down around 10% range, which we have already achieved right now. So our continued effort will be to maintain in that range only.
Okay. Great. Thank you, sir, and all the best.
Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Piran Engineer from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Team, congrats on the quarter in this environment. Sorry, just following up on the previous question, what is our expectation on growth in unsecured PL and credit cards? So microfinance, you've said that disbursement normalization will happen in the third quarter. But what about the other unsecured businesses?
So cards should grow in mid-single digits as we continue to kind of increase the bar on quality and look at customer franchise. So that's where we would look at.
The broad sense is do more with the existing portfolio. That is one of the major focus which we have been doing it in the card. With the 5 million customers, what more we can do, which will also provide us an enormous opportunity for expanding the depth with the relationship.
Got it. Got it. And also, when you mentioned in unsecured PL and credit cards, we are trending towards normalized level. And after that, I think you mentioned something normalization in 1Q, 2Q. Did I hear that correctly?
So we would look at cards normalizing from Q2 onwards. Q2 and normalization also, I mean, I think this is we are continuing to be in a reasonable uncertain macro environment still with all that's going on. So we would be cautious on this. And therefore, we are also continuing to improve filters on acquisition and portfolio actions.
But yes, we would expect normalization from Q2 onwards.
You will appreciate MFI, right?
That's right. Same for MFI.
That's correct. So while the early data makes us to believe that we'll get normalized, but there are some external macro factors on which you can't make an assessment. That is why this cautious approach is being said about.
Okay. Fair. And then secondly, in terms of you highlighted how much you've cut the savings deposit rate, but what about term deposits, especially on the retail side?
Yeah, we've cut term deposits as well. We have cut 25 basis points on TD, term deposits as well.
Yes. 25 basis points across all tenures?
No, I'm talking about the peak retail rate. So the peak retail rate is down by 25 basis points.
The bulk rates in the markets are already down by about 50 basis points.
Okay, but the non-peak retail TD rates would be flat, or have you all cut it across other markets also?
There has been rationalization across, but the vast majority of retail deposits come at the peak rate.
Okay, so majority of them would get repriced 25 basis points incrementally. I mean, for the fresh flows.
That's right.
Yes. Got it. Got it. Okay. That was it from my end. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Anand Swaminathan from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Thank you. I just want to understand the CGFMU mix you mentioned.
If you can give some idea about how the ROA economics will work under the CGFMU, just basically what will be your net margins and net credit costs and the overall ROA compared to what the book makes in a normalized environment?
So for Anand, CGFMU, we pay 1% of the portfolio that is under coverage as insurance cost, so to say. And in terms of post-NPA, we kind of apply for credit refund, etc., from the CGFMU, and it takes about anywhere between 18 months to two years for us to get the compensation for those NPAs.
It starts. The first application we can do after 24 months. It started in the October month, October last year. So we get our first claim on 27.
Yes. So two years later, if the first application. Yeah, all the document is signed, then we will get the claim back.
We keep applying as and when there is an MPA, we keep applying those MPAs, and they will accept those MPAs. Once they accept it, we can also reverse our provisions. There is a provision available for that. With that, I think the bank will benefit. With the 1% cost, I think last two quarters, we've been covering 50% of our disbursement, which we have increased to 90% in the current quarter, which we applied. It will get covered.
Anand, on the ROA tree, I think I would rather say that we will have to see how this pans out. Upfront, we are taking 1% cost. Hopefully, credit cost gets materially covered. It will come with a significant lag.
I think we can cut that way out of sorry.
I think the maximum claim which we can do on a portfolio is up to 15%. That's a very large. Any stress which comes out, we would be covered to a large extent.
So 15% of what?
15% of the securitised portfolio for every year. Portfolio level?
Yeah, at portfolio level.
Thank you very much, sir.
So if we have a INR 100 crore portfolio fully covered, we can claim up to INR 15 crores on that portfolio.
So let's say, for example, so this cycle, the microfinance loss rate was 78%, let's say. If a similar cycle plays out, let's say, three, four years down the line, what will be your net loss after you have that CGFMU cover triggered?
Yeah. It will be say, if it is a 8% average on a portfolio which we have secured, what we get is 15%.
Suppose, let's assume INR 100 crore, what Jayvi told, 8% is the NPA. I can claim up to entire 8% can come because only the first 3% of the 8 crore, that is INR 24 lakhs. That is the minus. Remaining 7 points, provided all the claims get accepted. Even if I take some claim rejections, still we can get bare minimum INR 7 crore kind of cover. It will be covered.
Yeah, that will be covered. So practically, if you understand, if you see, I can go after the claim of 15% of the 100. That is one. If suppose we move to 80, entire amount can be claimed. The settlement will not be less than 90% is what is being told about from the past settlement which has happened elsewhere.
Okay. Then what should be the through cycle?
I understand the delay in timing, but what should be the through cycle credit cost if, let's say, 100% of your book is under CGFMU going forward?
That will take some time for us to go because right now, out of INR 6,000 or INR 5,000 crore, but theoretical answer to that is it will close to nil.
Yeah. So then your ROA improves significantly. You just take 1% cost, and your through cycle credit cost was like, let's say, 4%. And you see a significant improvement in profitability. Or I'm missing something here?
You are not missing. You have measured correctly. Theoretically, it is fully, fully covered. But the point what Jaideep made is that, see, we want these things to pan out because it is a new experience for us also. So that is the reason he said that. But theoretically, what he said is right.
Yes, it is fully taken care, and there will be a ROA accretive. It is very high.
Okay. So then why not just go and grow it aggressively? Why are you saying we want to keep it under a thing? It seems a very good deal. Why not go back to previous growth levels?
See, the point is we have already see. I told you that we are going to capture the appetite to the extent of the 7.5. It is a balanced, steady growth of the entire balance sheet. See, I'm not an MFA book alone. No, we have multiple things to be grown. We wanted to balance it out where we get over the risk-reward, which is taken care. Here, the risk was high. We are trying to protect it through the multiple ways. And as far as the reward is concerned, there are multiple products.
We are a universal bank. We need to offer all these products to all my liability customers also. See, imagine one of the best ways to protect the liability franchise is to have an asset, which is a retail asset. In the absence of asset-led liability, the one which is one of the strategies which we have just adapted for the purpose of growth of the liability because nobody is going to come and put the deposit only for the case of deposit unless it is a rate-driven. When you wanted to make that rate-driven concept to go to the service-driven concept, you need to have all these products on your shelf.
One clarification, Anand. For example, our NPAs are INR 8 crores. The claim that we will maximum get is about 72.8% of that amount.
Maximum benefit for us on INR 8 crores will be about INR 5.8 crores as the maximum outlay that we can get back as insurance on CGFMU. The idea wouldn't be to go out and build a
book which is prone to stress that way, but that is how the insurance structure will work.
Okay. Makes sense. So then basically, your loss rate comes down by 30%. That's what it is actually.
Actually, imagine if I run a loss rate of 8%, the first 2% will be borne by us, and we are paying 1% premium for the bank.
Yeah. Okay. Then it makes a lot of sense. Thank you. And similar question on the credit card book, sir. We have gone through two cycles in the last four, five years. Let's say I got your answer that you'll grow 5-6% in this year.
But on a normalized basis, where do you see this book growing? What is the right approach? Let's say kind of two, three years down the line. Will we go back to high teens, or it will still grow in line with the overall book?
No, I think again, I think it's difficult to foresee these things so far ahead, Anand. But we like the franchise. We like the business. We have a fairly large position in that business. We are somewhere in the fifth- to sixth-largest player in that segment. And we are, at least for the last few months or few quarters and the next few quarters, the focus is to make this portfolio a lot more into franchise customers for multiple products. And the more we see success there, the more confident we will be to grow this book even more.
I don't think we are saying that we are perpetually going to grow this at 3%-5%. No. But having achieved the kind of critical size we have, do we go back to 25% growth we have seen? Answer to that is also no.
Sure. Thanks. Thanks, Jaideep.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from the line of Kunal Shah from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. So firstly, just wanted to understand on the provisioning part. So this INR 850-odd crores, that is after the 1% contingency provisioning release of, I would believe, INR 250-odd crores. So would that be right? That's correct. INR 273 crores as of December end. INR 273 crores, exactly. Yeah. So when we look at it all put together, you mentioned INR 375 crores was the cards. Okay.
Then we have created another INR 248 crores of the additional provisioning to make 100% provisioning on the GNPAs. And obviously, INR 283 crores, out of which INR 273 crores was the contingency. So when I have to look at it in INR 815 crores, there was INR 375 crores of card, then almost INR 248 crores of additional provisioning, INR 10 crores towards the SMA provisioning net of the utilization, and balance would have been towards the MFI and the other secured portfolio.
So the other secured portfolio on nil, I think we've also taken INR 180 crores in MFI to move from 85% to 100%. There are two parts to that, Kunal. One is in cards. We had a contingency provision included in that 270.
Anand, sir, I'm sorry to interrupt your volume. I mean, your voice is too low, sir. Can you come closer to the mic and speak, please?
Is this better?
Yes, sir. Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah. It's better. Kunal, look, the point is when you say cards is INR 375 crores, if you remember, we created provision on contingency both for cards and MFI. We reversed the 1% on cards is about INR 200 crores. So cards actual without contingency is about INR 575 crores of credit cost. That INR 200 crores which we reversed, we took on the SMA book.
Yeah. That I agree. So if I have to look at it, INR 815 crores, okay, plus almost INR 273 crores, which is the total contingency which has got utilized. Okay. So when we look at it, so all put together would have been almost INR 1,100 crores.
Okay. That's correct.
And so now maybe just running through the math of this INR 1,100 crores, credit card would be INR 375 crores. I agree there was release, but otherwise, credit card in this gross number should have been INR 375 crores. Okay.
Then there was additional provisioning of INR 248 crores, which was done to make maybe the provisioning 100% on JLG book. Okay. And then INR 283 odd crores was the SMA book. And then balance would be, I would say, the other normalized JLG and retail. Retail, you said it's almost zero. So then balance would have been towards the regular JLG provisioning. You explain the.
No. Okay. Let me just try. Do you want to break up our breakdown?
So I would say broadly, maybe INR 200-INR 250 odd crores would have been the regular JLG provisioning. Give a minute. No, no.
How will you define regular JLG provisioning, Kunal? We've told you the slippages. We are simply saying that we took 85%-100% all the way, okay, on the entire book, the old book as well as the new slippages. Okay.
That is approximately INR 180 crores, okay, which is, let's say, for the crores.
Okay.
Then we look at SMA 0,1,2, where we have taken INR 283 crores on the JLG portfolio on an outstanding of about INR 375 crores. Right?
Okay. Yeah.
And we have our cards full provisioning for the quarter without the noise on contingent would be. INR 375 you mentioned. Yeah. INR 375 crores. And then there is a total contingency provisioning release of INR 273 crores, which was standing as of December 31st.
Got it. Got it. And now going forward, if we have to look at it, credit cost, how should it settle? Because now on SMA, we have largely provided 75% GNPA, 100% is provided. So then would there be any number which we would be looking as maybe a normalized provisioning on the MFI portfolio? And credit card also, it's coming off.
So now, how should we look at maybe the credit cost in JLG in credit card and the other part of the portfolio?
So Kunal, I think we are in a fairly generally uncertain environment. I would caveat my answer by saying that, yes, we have been proactive on JLG and taken a substantial part of the provisioning on the book that will probably slip in Q1, post which we will expect the slippages, ceteris paribus, to keep coming down Q2, Q3 onwards and we will have to revert back to 25% per quarter provisioning that is our standard policy on the JLG book. Similarly, on cards, we have seen slippages come down quite reasonably well between Q3 over Q2 and Q4 over Q3. However, the environment is still a little uncertain.
I don't think the slippages will take some more time to come back to, let's say, if our normalized range is, let's say, give or take INR 425 crore-INR 430 crore, I think we are a couple of quarters away before we get there. In cards, the simple thing is to take 90%-95% of the slippage of that quarter as credit costs, gross credit cost, and then we recover. Simplistically, I would say credit costs clearly going down given the fact that we've had a very high credit cost year. I think we will hesitate to give guidance, but there should be a sharp reduction in credit costs on this portfolio. On the non-JLG, non-cards book, retail plus wholesale, we again expect extremely benign outcomes for next year.
Yeah. That's what.
So maybe non-JLG, non-cards, not much JLG, largely provided on incremental 25% and credit card incremental net slippage, almost 95% provision. So that's the fair assumption of the credit cost.
That's correct.
Okay. Got it. Perfect. And when we look at it, so what was the gross slippage in credit card and MFI this quarter?
Gross slippage in cards was INR 479 crores as compared to INR 569 crores last quarter. And microfinance was INR 472 crores as compared to INR 536 crores last quarter in terms of gross slippage.
Okay. Yeah. And one last question in terms of the growth. So JLG, you mentioned, would still be in the range of 6%-7% of the advances. Did I hear that correctly?
That's correct. Yeah.
So when we look at it currently being at 6.2%, so now fair to say that JLG will also be growing in line with the overall loan growth, which we have indicated of 16%-17% odd or even higher than that, just to be within that range?
Yeah. I think, again, this will evolve. See, if I look at the JLG book, there is an argument that the industry will still continue to degrow potentially. Guardrails have just been put in place for everyone in April. We will have to see how ticket sizes change, what happens when there are three lenders. So again, we are coming out of an environment which has been in a fair amount of flux. There are players who are possibly vacating space. We don't know.
What we are seeing currently is that this book has a fairly high amount of repayment that happens every month. And our ability to reach a disbursement rate, which is more than repayment, is probably two, three months away or three to four months away. So that's where we are right now. Simple answer is, yes, this book should grow a little bit, but I don't think this book is growing materially because the first three, four, five months has to be still watched in terms of how the industry behaves and what kind of impact all the guardrails have on this business.
Any initial comments on the guardrail implementation? What are you seeing on the ground? Is there any impact delays, deferments which are happening because of this shift moving from three lenders, maybe more lenders to less than three lenders?
So we implemented guardrails in November itself.
The industry, I mean, many players did implement guardrails over varying periods of time before March. But the diktat, if I can use that word, is really effective April 1st for everyone to follow. We are quite hopeful that everyone will follow the guardrails, which therefore is good for the industry. The leverage will not go up because there is a 2 lakh cap on leverage. And with three-lender cap, it becomes a lot more sensible.
Now I was asking maybe any deterioration in collection efficiency which we are seeing because of this guardrail implementation in the initial month, maybe since it's implemented from 1st of April. So in these three weeks, any kind of deterioration we had seen?
No, no. No impact on guardrails on collection at all.
Kunal, this guardrail has to be seen from a different angle.
The guardrail is going to change the behavior of my loan officers from what they have been doing it earlier to what they propose to do. So naturally, that is the only impact the guardrail is going to cause because previously, the ease of getting a loan sanction would have been. Definitely could be tightened from today because that requires a behavioral change for them to understand what sort of borrowers you have to identify and then reach them out. That is the only transition delay. That's why you saw that I just made a statement that we are doing somewhere around INR 300 crores is what we saw it. It was much below a couple of months before, and we feel that we may reach back to the INR 650 crores.
If you ask me, will you do that INR 858 crore and INR 900 crore what we have been doing earlier, that may not happen. It will be slightly lesser than that. In H2, we anticipate that we may go back to the near normal position.
Okay. Thanks. Thanks. And all the best.
Yeah.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rohan Mandora from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead.
Good evening, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. So this is on cards. As per the slides, the revolve rate has gone up around 25% versus 20%-23% in the earlier quarter. So just want to check if there's any trend change here or just a one-off thing. [Bikram? Bikram?] Yes.
Yeah. See, usually in this quarter, the last quarter, because of tax filing and all, we see at times about 100-300 basis points of change in that.
There is no permanent trend change. This is just range-bound fluctuation which we see seasonally.
Sure, sir. Second one, sir, on the home loan and vehicle finance disbursements in post-Q3, compared to 3Q, they were lower. And even if you look at the quarterly average for the nine months, it's lower. Is it due to some specific strategy, or is it competitive behavior, or lack of demand? How should I be doing to it? Because I think vehicle finance disbursements for other lenders have been pretty good.
Tractor financing, we do. Yeah. Tractor financing, we do see seasonality. And typically, the Q2, Q3 numbers are always higher than Q4 because that's the season for tractors. On housing, we have basically tightened our inflow from an interest rate standpoint. Two things we are putting as some kind of a constraint.
One is on [helps], and second is on the fact that we need more business from branches. So we are trying to see how the mix is favorable from a risk-to-reward standpoint and a cost standpoint.
Sure. Thanks. And further on the business loans, we have seen a healthy growth in that during the year. So one is how is the origination mix in that right now? Is it primarily branch-driven? And also, if you can touch on 30 days, 90 days levels in that portfolio right now.
So on business loans, branches are continuously doing more and more. And we are now around somewhere in the 33%-35% zone of origination from branches. And we are continuously working on how this materially improves. And we are quite hopeful by the time we exit the next fiscal, we should be closer to 50%, if not more.
That's on the origination front. Sorry, you had. SMA. SMA book on this. Honestly, I'm saying that we don't expect any material credit cost at all. So even if there is no buildup of any SMA 1, 2 above normal at all. And as I said in the earlier question, we don't expect any material credit costs in the mortgage business in the foreseeable future.
Sure. And so lastly, on your OpEx earnings of 10% year-on-year growth for 2026, the currently still if we look at in many businesses, co-branding or maybe non-branch-led sourcing would still be a meaningful part. So with business growth, these costs will grow. So where are we trying to curtail costs incrementally to be able to contain OpEx growth at 10%?
So we are. I mean, there are many levers here. I think on, let's say, secured businesses, we have yet to reach optimal productivity.
With similar sales and credit teams, we should be doing much more business. That is one. There are efficiencies in operations, efficiencies in technology that we still have to fully implement. It is not that when we are saying there is a 10% cost growth, we are saying that the business is going to grow at that rate. We are talking about efficiencies coming, which is why we are saying we should hope to control cost growth in that range, cost growth in that range. The combination of productivity increase and then efficiency improvement, plus moving away towards more sourcing from branches, which is going to be the driver for this.
Sure. Sure. Sure. Thanks, sir. This was all from my side.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shailesh Kanani from Centrum Broking. Please go ahead.
Good evening, and thanks for the opportunity.
A couple of data-keeping questions. On the wholesale book front, if you can give the rating breakup, A and better, BBB, and BB and below?
Shailesh, you're not carrying that handy. I'll give it to you offline. But 80%-odd would be A and above. Yeah. About 80% is A and above. There is no material change in this.
No material. Okay. Second question on the continuation with respect to OpEx, we earlier have been alluding that business acquisition cost would kind of come down as we kind of increase the productivity on the branch front. I understand that also includes the collection in the line item disclosure. But have we seen any material change in business acquisition cost? Any decline we have seen in the recent times?
So Shailesh, we are continuously working on improving this. And we see a lot more scope, even including collections, actually.
Thanks for bringing that out. In terms of cost of collections coming down for largely the cards business because the rest of the businesses, that's not a material number.
Thanks for bringing up the collection point. I'll tell you, when you are across NPA, the retail segment is going to keep on reducing it. By design, the recovery cost is also going to come down in that particular sector. That is also an additional factor which will help us out. Just to continue on that, but we would have some return of pool where we would continue to do our efforts for collection, right? Because we have been aggressively writing off. So how would that work then in that case?
That will add up to our profit.
Suppose you see, in MFI, if you take a very simple aspect, when your efficiency in the collection goes up, the people are just freed up for doing the collection from the technical rate of the NPA. So it is a question of only diverting the manpower from collection to that of the recovery. When the problem will come and the cost will go up only if suppose your collection efficiency is down. The indications are a little past.
And Shailesh, given what has happened in Q3, Q4, we've already deployed collection manpower increase. And that's already there in the numbers in Q4. So I don't think from here on that is going up.
No question in respect.
Okay. And last question from my side.
In the opening remarks, you had said that we are PSL compliant, but we have not bought any PSL certificates, right? So it is organic compliance, right?
No, no, no, no. Shailesh, we have bought PSLC, but the cost associated with that purchase is not material. It's about INR 20-INR 30 crore.
That is also not so much. We have actually we buy generally micro and general, which is very minimal, nominal cost.
Okay. That's all from my side. Thanks a lot and best of luck.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Param Subramanian from Investec. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Firstly, on the draft LCR guidelines that have come through, have we done any initial assessment on that, the impact for us? Yeah. We have done it. We have a positive impact. How much would that be?
Param, we should be positive by about 3%-4%.
Okay. Got that. Also, on capital, so you made that initial comment that even by the end of FY 2026, we should be north of 13% CET1. But structurally, how are we looking about, say, capital for the company where we are comfortable operating? Yeah.
So we should be quite comfortab le with a threshold of 12.8%-13% on CET1. So we will not, therefore, need capital for at least the current financial year.
Okay. Fair. Just one last question. So in the P&L going into next year, there are a lot of moving parts with the rate cut. You said there is a EBLR repricing pressure. There are the SAR rate cuts. There is some operating leverage.
So sum and substance, I just want to understand how one should be thinking about operating profit, right, going into next year and maybe beyond, since credit cost has been discussed in detail. But maybe on operating profit.
Yeah. So Param, we also had some one-offs in operating profits in the current fiscal. In Q3, we had some investments which unlocked some value. We had some tax benefits which resulted in some interest income from tax authorities. So broadly, if I kind of exclude that, we should be flat to improving on operating profit.
The reason why I'm being conservative here is that we will have, if I just take the full year of fiscal 2026 versus the full year of fiscal 2025, a reasonable reduction of the contribution from cards and microfinance from a book standpoint, which, of course, therefore puts some amount of pressure on net interest income. Some of that we claw back through efficiency on costs. Of course, provisioning has been discussed. That should be definitely lower as compared to current year. In a nutshell, we'll be happy with a flattish PPOP on the fiscal 2025 outcome.
Okay. You're talking about the absolute number, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thanks. That's helpful. Thank you for this. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from the line of Krishnan ASV from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. This is [Anupat]. Hi. Thanks. So I have two questions. One on the JLG portfolio with the new guardrails. Could you just talk us through your.
Sorry, sir. I'm sorry to interrupt you. Your audio is not clear, sir. May I request you to use your handset, please?
Is this better?
Yes. So much better. Please continue.
Okay. Thank you. So my first question was about these new guardrails and just the bank's approach to these new guardrails. How does your customer selection change on the ground now when you faced with borrowers who have more than three lenders? Could you just talk us through that a little bit? Number one. Number two, from the cards portfolio, right, on the cards portfolio, there is a certain potential profitability that you would assess for the cards business as we stand today, right?
That would be the potential and where we are, you are aware of at the end of FY 2025. How long would you think it would take us to get to potential profitability on the cards business?
Yeah. I will ask Krishnan to talk about the microfinance, then cards will come back. Yeah. As far as the new guardrails are concerned, your first question, the first thing that happens is that the approval rate slightly takes a dip because of the guardrails. Till now, in the last financial year, before the guardrails were implemented, you could go beyond three lenders as well. Today, it will get restricted to three lenders and a cap of INR 2 lakhs. Both of these parameters were not there previously. And hence, we take a dip on the approval rate. As Mr.
Kumar had previously also mentioned in the same call that what happens is that the selection process or the ease of doing business slightly goes down, and hence, identifying a customer who would possibly be meeting both the criteria is the new norm for the way forward. So other than taking a little bit of a dip on the approval rate, materially, nothing much has really changed on the ground, so the effort to get a customer whose approval would come through has gone up a little bit. Yeah.
What I mean is if you now encounter a customer who is proposing with four lenders, right, how do you decide whether you need to withdraw from this customer? I mean, what are you looking at that borrower level?
So, Krishnan, I think existing set of borrowers, I can't do anything. When I'm acquiring a new borrower, we will check.
We will check if the existing set of lenders is already three. We cannot lend. It's as simple as that.
What?
Ongoing monitoring is what he's asking.
Yeah. Are you talking about ongoing monitoring?
Yeah. I mean, you either become a lender who then withdraws from that borrower so that the borrower goes back to three lenders, or you remain one of the three and somebody else has to withdraw. So I'm saying, how do you take that decision? That's all that I'm trying to.
Let me make one thing clear. He has already borrowed from me. And subsequently, before this guardrail implemented by all the players in the market, he has just borrowed from somebody else. That's the real situation, right?
We will continue to make an effort to recover from him and put all the efforts which we have been taking until now, the same efforts that we put in there. Going forward, any new person whom we are onboarding on ours, be it renewal, be it our same customer comes with the renewal, possibly my system will not approve it, and he will be rejected. If a new customer comes with all these guardrails for not fulfilling, he will be rejected. If existing customers he's paying correctly, then it is good. We'll continue to collect it. If existing customer is not collecting it, we'll do all the recovery measures which we are doing it in respect of any default. So Krishnan. Hope it's clear.
Yeah. Krishnan, we didn't understand your withdrawal because once you've given a loan, you have to collect the MIs. There is no real other option.
This is the situation. As I explained, four different scenarios. If I had to withdraw, it becomes an NPA. Then I have to do the recovery. It is like a recall at once. And then the moment I recall it, as well as the guidelines, it becomes an NPA. So non-standard accounts, whatever we do, it's the same there. I don't think that any borrower has a very large heart to say that I'm exceeding elsewhere. You come and collect it. I mean, if it happens, it would have been a good one. It's a nice one. Hope you would have understood that.
Understood. I think probably I didn't explain my question too well. But that's okay. We can take this offline.
Thank you. Yeah. The other one on cards business, how far are we from potential peak profitability?
So Krishnan, I think the cards business overall has undergone a lot of change over the last few years. Regulatory changes have happened. One can therefore say that what was an optimal profitability three years back is now no more the optimal profitability. It's probably a notch lower. We would want to go back to some kind of normalization by the time we exit the current financial year. But more importantly, instead of looking at, again, focusing on what's the card profitability, I think we are trying very hard to kind of change the mindset to look at that as a customer franchise and see what we can do with that customer. So the way we approach the portfolio as well as new customer acquisition is changing. And I think that is what is making us more excited than just looking at improvement in profitability of that business.
Okay.
So, just related to this, if you don't mind, Jaideep, I mean, I understand this. Obviously, you're trying to now make sure that you are able to sweat this customer through other segments as well, through other products as well. So just on that journey, could you just talk us through where we are in terms of what percentage of our customers are relatively more mature in that journey in terms of more products per customer on the asset side?
It's very, very early days. Less than 2%-3% of the customers have been sweated in that sense. So we have a long way to go.
Understood. This is very helpful. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks.
Thank you. Thanks.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from the line of Anand Dama from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Hey. Hi. Thank you, Jaideep. And thank you, sir, for the opportunity.
No good results compared to what I think was the expectation after the third quarter. So number one is that you've been saying that microfinance is where there would be a contraction or basically the pickup will take some time. Cards is where I think you are expecting a normalization to happen. But if we fast forward ourselves into next two to three years, what will be the share of microfinance and cards as a percentage of our overall portfolio?
Honestly, Anand, this is probably not the best time for us to start crystal ball gazing over the next two to three years. I think we will take one year at a time. The focus is really over the next year to consolidate these businesses and extract more at least out of the cards business and consolidate on the JLG business.
As I mentioned earlier, again, that industry is materially changing. There are new guardrails. It's going to shrink. The industry has shrank materially March over, let's say, June last year. So I don't think this is the best time to talk about two to three-year time frame. But broadly speaking, I would clearly say that I don't think we are going back to the 35%-37% mix that we had in these two businesses. It should be materially settling down materially lower.
Yeah. Exactly. I expect that to be lower. But what could be that? Could it be around 10%-odd or 10%-15% in next two to three years? That's a fair assumption.
Again, I think, Anand, I would, as I said, we are wanting to take this one step at a time.
Anand, the direction of travel is very clear.
We have enough confidence in our other businesses to be able to take this call. And I think the macro environment is very important. So it'll continue trending down. I don't think we can give you even a range which is today in our mind, three years out, one year. I think we've already said it'll be 6%-7% of our total business or microfinance. And I think that's where we'll live. Let's see what happens in the next three, six months, and then we'll be able to revise it.
Any guidance in terms of margins, how it will shape up over next first half and then second half, and so will be the ROAs? You may not give the hard numbers, but it is direction.
So Anand, margins, there are too many factors at play. I think we should.
We will probably see flattish to lower before it starts moving up.
Trending up.
On margins. I don't think we are. I mean, I think we would, I mean, directionally, we are seeing PPOP flattish, again, dip, and then going up, as a consequence of margins. Provisioning should be lower. I'm uncomfortable giving specifics on this, but yes, we should obviously start improving by definition given where we are.
Okay. So directionally, for next year, I mean, FY 2026, we should be better off versus FY 2025, right? Because you've done the heavy lifting in terms of.
Yeah. By far. Right. Quality. We will be better. That's definite.
Yes. Okay. Okay. Thanks. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from the line of Aditi Naval from RSPN Ventures. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Am I audible?
Yes, ma'am. Ma'am, it's not clearly audible.
I would request you to use your handset if possible.
Yeah. Hello. Please continue. Yeah. So most of my questions are answered. I just had one question on the Karnataka exposure. So first, just can you just give a number on what is our share in Karnataka? And also, how do we plan to what is the status right now, and how do we plan to what is the strategy going forward, especially in the Karnataka area?
So Karnataka, our portfolio percentage is slightly lower than 10%. And currently, in the last two months, we have seen improvement in the Karnataka portfolio. And month on month, we are improving by almost about 2%-3% per month. So if you really ask us, Karnataka to come back to its normal collection efficiency, which would be crossing 99%, I think we should see that by the end of this quarter.
As a strategy, we have kept our disbursals muted in Karnataka. We have been not doing any disbursals in the last two months. This month, we have started doing a little bit of a disbursal as far as our existing borrowers are concerned, so whoever is taking a second cycle loan. And we've been very cautious about the rule engine as well. So I think quarter two onwards, we should see Karnataka coming back to its normal shape.
Got it. Got it. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Maitri Shah from Sapphire Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello.
Yes, ma'am. Please proceed.
Yeah. I just had two questions. Previously, in the opening comment, you stated that our secured retail book will grow by 25%-30%. Is that correct?
Yeah. Secured retail we are talking about. Yes. Yes, ma'am.
The wholesale book will grow from 10%-12%, right?
Fine. That's right.
Our lending loan book will have a 16%-17% growth. Correct. So how do we see our ROAs after all these initiatives and provisioning and with the flattish PPOP? How do we see our ROA shaping up for FY 2026?
See, as I said earlier, ROA will be trending upward. We don't wish to give any specific numbers there. But it is going to trend upward. If you ask a very simple question in comparison to 2025, it will be way ahead. I mean, far better.
Advances growth? How do you see the advances growing?
Advances, we just now told.
You just reiterate the number with our renewed focus on retail secured, which will be in the range of around 20%-25%, which you said, and in respect of wholesale, we said around 12%. And overall, it will be in 16%-17% range.
And the NIM, is there a guidance on the NIM that you give?
I think it was also told earlier that the NIM case will be the flattish, and it'll start trending up as we move forward in the rest of the year.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Hiten Jain from Maximal Capital. Please go ahead.
Good evening, sir. All the questions have been answered. Just on the NIM part, are we guiding for a flattish NIM in the coming quarters, or is it expected to come down because our secured book is rapidly increasing?
Yeah.
I mean, honestly, Hiten, I said there are many moving parts on margins. It is very difficult to guide in the short term. I would expect margins to be coming down a bit before climbing back up. And we hope to be in the current range by the time we exit the current year, coming year. But there are just too many factors on margins. We don't know how many repo cuts will happen with what frequency. I can just say that the repo cut does result in a faster asset repricing, and the deposit repricing follows. We do have levers on savings account rates, which we will exercise judiciously. But again, there will be leads and lags on margins, which will be very difficult to predict given that this is the first rapid down cycle on rates that we will see where the bank's books are externally benchmarked.
So what is your breakup of external benchmark and MCLR and fixed rate book?
About 45%-47% is floating between largely externally benchmarked and about small percentage to MCLR.
Fixed rate is around 45%, no?
Yeah. Fixed rate is about 45%-47%.
And on MFI, per your, I understand your commentary is that in this particular month, in April, guardrail has been implemented. The way I see the commentary is basically you are seeing some dip in terms of how you would be able to disburse and find the credit-worthy borrowers. So there can be a dip in disbursement and growth from an otherwise normalized perspective. But on the credit cost per se, you are not finding any sort of difference.
The trend which was happening from February to March of increasing collection efficiency and lowering of even the forward flows, etc., so that is continuing in April for you as well as for industry as well. Is that the sort of the right understanding, sir?
As far as we are concerned, we have implemented the MFIN guardrail from November onwards. That's number one. We expect the industry to fall in line from April. That is an expectation because we do not know how it is going to fan out. That is beyond our realm of assessment. As far as with the revised MFIN, we said that yes, we saw some disbursement down, which we are very cautious in Q3 and Q4 also.
And that is likely to ramp up and then catch up to three-fourths of what we normally peaked it before the MFIN guardrail was done from H2 onwards. And collection, of course, yes. Collection, of course, we saw some positive trend in this month, and the indications and the belief as far as that will continue to be in that same range.
Understood, sir. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we now conclude the Q&A session. If you have any further questions, please contact RBL Bank Limited via email at ir@rblbank.com. I repeat, ir@rblbank.com. On behalf of RBL Bank Limited, we thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you. Thank you, Michelle. Thank you.