Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the SBFC Finance Limited Q1 FY26 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participants' 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, since we are on your touch-tone telephone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Renish from ICICI Securities. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Shruti. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to ICICI Securities SBFC Finance Q1 FY26 earnings call. On behalf of ICICI Securities, I would like to thank SBFC Management Team for giving us the opportunity to host this call. Today, we have with us the entire top management team of SBFC, represented by Mr. Aseem Dhru, Managing Director and CEO, Mr. Mahesh Dayani, Executive Director, Mr. Narayan Barasia, CFO, Mr. Sanket Agrawal, Chief Strategy Officer, and Mr. Rajeev Thakkar, Chief Risk Officer. I will now hand over the call to Mr. Aseem Dhru for his opening remarks, and then we'll open the floor for Q&A. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, Renish. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for taking the time out to be on our earnings call. For those listening to this call, it's just a number: INR 101 crores of profit after tax this quarter. But for all of us on this side of the call, it is the validation of a dream coming true, a number that sat on our Excel sheets as we submitted our projections to investors, banks. As you know, every number is achievable on Excel. But to see it actually on a quarterly P&L, our heart is filled with gratitude. It is the culmination of human effort, the trust of our investors and lenders, and divine grace. I still remember how it felt to see INR 100 crores of profit in a year, then in half a year, and now in a quarter.
On a long journey to infinity, it's reassuring to see milestones go by. At least you know you are well on your path and headed in the right direction. If you look at the economy right now, it tells us that there are four good things that have been enablers to what tailwinds we are seeing. One is that there have been extremely good monsoons. So this is, I mean, if you see the last almost two to three years, it's been a continuous good cycle of both Rabi and Kharif, and even this time, the Kharif sowing has been very good. It's been a slightly early onset of monsoons, so we have had good monsoons, no income tax on income up to 12 lakhs, reduction in borrowing rates, and falling inflation. These are enablers which are increasing disposable income.
On the other side, there are headwinds of stagnating income, job creation falling. Both are leading to weak urban consumption. Banks, IT services, the large employers are in a cost-cutting mode. Educated unemployment is a concerning trend. It is not just that this is a trend only in India. Across the world, educated unemployment is a huge trend. Reasons are different. Somewhere it is because of AI. Somewhere it is because of a slowing economy. Somewhere it is because of uncertainty on tariffs. Reasons are different, but everywhere this is a trend that one sees. We have a situation that while rural consumption is showing growth, the urban ones are decelerating. I would venture to say that India is growing outside of its metros.
In the last quarter, I was on the road through states of Karnataka, Andhra, Telangana, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar, and can validate that semi-urban and rural does seem to be doing better than urban. That's where the government focus was, and it should come as no surprise. But due to low purchasing power of these customers compared to the urban ones, the growth in sales of all discretionary consumption companies has been anemic. So now if you look at it, weak consumption plus poor private investment plus maxed-out government investment and spends plus rising imports plus uncertainty on exports with the current drama on tariff is a drag on our GDP growth.
If you look at the current GDP growth number that's at 7.4%, you know, the last print that we saw, there's been a slowdown in private consumption by 2% over last quarter, and private consumption is about 60% of our GDP. So there is a slowdown of about 2% over last quarter. Exports are down by 4%, but investments are sharply up 9%. So government seems to have done a lot of spending in the last quarter. Global growth and shifting winds, thanks to AI, is casting a long shadow on our services export, especially in tech. The monetary policy that was tightened by RBI by 250 basis points increase plus liquidity was kept tight. The objective of such a policy is to slow down growth. I mean, that is exactly what this policy is aimed to do.
Because, I mean, to slow down inflation, you want to slow down growth, and both have been achieved. Now we are in an easing cycle. Sales, I mean, if you look at the economy on a narrow basis, sales on online e-commerce websites plus B2C websites, quick commerce, food and medicine delivery apps, organized retail stores from groceries, electronics, clothes, spectacles, medicine, jewelry are taking business away from the neighborhood Solanki Chemist, Shri Ram General Provision Store, Kanthabai Vegetable Vendor, Shantaram Fruit Vendors, some Kohli Fish stall, an A1 Chicken Center, street fast food retail shops, Mahalakshmi Jewelers, and their ilk. So Wall Street and Dalal Street are eating real streets' lunch in urban markets. We could see this coming.
When we are setting up SBFC, we could see the trend coming, and we decided from the start to focus on small businesses in small towns and stay away from metros because this was the concern. It is playing out what we had envisaged. The taps of credit were turned in a risk-on mode, fueling the bottom of the pyramid growth until RBI rightly saw a bubble forming and pricked unsecured and microfinance lending. As lenders recoiled in a cautious mode, readjusting their risk models, the velocity of money dropped, and this always has unintended consequences impinging on other borrowers who are getting their money from these. We saw political risk play out in Karnataka, where the ordinance which had nothing to do with us brought our collection numbers down sharply in the last quarter of the last fiscal.
And while damage takes a quarter, its repair takes away the other four. NBFCs have moved from a go-go demand and restrained supply of money with rising rates till FY24 to the supply taps opening up and cost dropping, but a more restrained demand. The need for finance has gone up, but the demand, defined as need plus ability to pay the EMI, has reduced. A mixture of tightening credit that we did in February 2024 and a stretched borrower on the ground has increased our rejection rates by 10%. We are building an institution, and any financial institution needs three things: governance and profitability at scale. Storms and earthquakes will come. It is our job to build the firm anti-fragile. We had signaled last April, and if you see all my calls since last April, we were seeing incipient stress due to over-leverage of individual balance sheets.
Lending near the bottom of the pyramid has always had this pattern that for a long time, things hold, and then an event like the one we saw in Karnataka in quarter four of last fiscal kind of shakes the tree. These customers, once they move forward, it takes four quarters to repair the damage of one quarter. We are cognizant that rewards of a high yield do not come without attendant risks, and to that extent, we must fortify our balance sheet over profit and loss account, so we are at all points of time, and that has been our strategy from day one, that the balance sheet has to be protected. Profit and loss account can wait.
If you recollect the first quarter since our listing two years ago, we have stopped accruing interest on NPAs, and we have been raising our PCR to the double of regulatory minimum. As recently as last quarter, we increased our PCR to the higher end of the mid-40s. We also sit in an almost 2x more liquidity than the regulatory minimum. These are prices we will happily pay for a good night's sleep. Considering the current environment, we will be increasing provisioning, which will increase our credit costs going forward. There are four tailwinds and one headwind where we stand.
Cost of credit is a headwind we will battle, but the tailwinds we have are: one, the regulatory risks have moderated, two, liquidity flow is ample, three, the cost of incremental funding is dropping much faster, while the transmission through MCLR usually takes its time to find its way down to us, but the incremental funding is certainly dropping, and four, cost of operations will likely continue its downward trajectory around our guided path. This will enable us to be on a continued path of profitability and on track to deliver the ROE we had built SBFC for. Right now, at a debt equity of just 1.87 times and a cost-to-income ratio of 39%, we have delivered an ROE of 13.5. We are targeting business-as-usual growth of our AUM by a 5%-7% quarter-on-quarter growth.
We are on track for a 50 basis point reduction in cost of operations down the year. Our cost of credit may inch up by about 15-20 basis points from here. On growth, profitability, and ROE, we are on our guided path. We thank each one of you for the faith that you reposed in us. We are very happy now how far we have come, but as Dhirubhai Ambani once said, our dreams have to be bigger, our ambitions higher, our commitment deeper, and our efforts greater. With that, I hand over the call to Narayan to take us through a little bit more about the company numbers.
Thank you, Aseem. Good evening, investors. So our AUM as of June 25 is INR 9,351 crore with a growth of 30% on a YOY basis, 7% on a QOQ basis, and with our books secured by properties in gold.
During the quarter, we added 10 branches with a total branches at 215 as of June 25. In terms of yield spreads and OpEx, the yields and spreads both saw a marginal rise during the quarter. The yields improved by 11 basis points over the quarter. The cost of borrowing came down by 3 basis points over the quarter, thereby increasing the spread by 14 basis points during the quarter. The yield as of now for the quarter is 17.99% with a spread of 8.67% for the quarter. Our borrowing cost also reduced by 3 basis points during the quarter, which is at 9.32% for the quarter. Our OpEx also reduced by 3 basis points during the quarter in spite of increments, etc., and is at 4.59% for the quarter. OpEx improvement is 25 basis points from Q1 of the previous financial year due to operating leverage.
This is in spite of our consistent increase in branch network, which we are doing over the period of time. In terms of asset quality, our GNPA is range-bound during the quarter to 2.78% with PCR at 44.4%. Our credit cost is 1.11% for the quarter, which is in line with our guidance. In terms of capital and return ratios, our capital adequacy remains strong at 34.3% with a tangible net worth of 3,039 crore as of June 25. Our return on average AUM for the quarter is 4.5% with a return on average tangible equity improving to 13.53%. The PAT for the quarter reported is 101 crore with a YOY growth of 28% and QOQ growth of 7%. With this, we open the floor for further questions and answers.
Yes, we open the floor for questions and answers, please. Thank you very much.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Raghav from Ambit Capital. Please proceed.
Raghav, in case you are speaking, we can't hear you. Mr. Raghav?
Sorry, my bad. Can you hear me now?
Yes, we can hear you. Please go ahead.
Okay. Thank you. Good evening and thanks for giving me the opportunity. I have a few questions. One is when I look at the business per branch or per employee, that's been increasing consistently for the last three or four quarters.
Yet when I look at the OpEx to asset side, that's down only 6 basis points YOY, and I think that's mainly because of the other OpEx line item which is going up. So what is driving that? Where will this other OpEx line item settle, and when should you start seeing meaningful scale economy? Yeah, so that's my first question. Should I ask my other questions also, or should we take one at a time?
No, I think we'll answer your questions. So I think you've rightly pointed out that yes, the productivity at a branch or at an employee level is gradually inching up. But what's also happening is that we've been consistently adding these branches. So if you look at our entire distribution network, you'll always find close to around 15% to 20% odd of our branches which are less than 12 months.
What we'd like to do is that we'd like to front-load a lot of these new branches in the first half of the year. So what we've been guiding is that you might see probably an elevated cost upfronting in the initial quarter, but on an annualized basis, we feel that the overall cost reduction is going to be 50 basis points for the full year. This is what we had guided last year, and that's what we had achieved, and our guidance remains unchanged for the current year as well.
Understood. And one more question, please. You give your volume number, right, for the MSME book? And then when I look at that, when I divide that by employees, I'm able to get a file productivity number.
That's inching close to where you were before you called out stress, I think, in April 2024, and then you said your this year underwriting rejection rates are 10% higher. So what I want to understand is, despite the rejection rates still being 10% higher, you are getting back to older levels of productivity levels. Is that the right way to understand this?
That's one right way to understand. The other point that I'd just like to add is that the volume number that you see is largely related to the MSME business. It does not include gold, whereas you are taking the total employees, which are mentioned probably in the second or the third executive summary slide. So if you were to add both, probably you'll have a much favorable outcome than what you're currently getting.
Understood.
Third question is, what has led to this higher yield on a quarter-on-quarter basis? Why has that happened?
So I think our gold business, as we are beginning to add new branches, most of these branches are having gold, and the increase in yields is largely on account of gold. The MSME business has largely remained stable, so most of the increases that you see in the yields are on account of gold.
But see, when I look at Q1Q AUM accretion, right, it's pretty similar in both in the sense that the MSME business is around 7%, and then even the gold business is up 7% quarter on quarter. Correct. So let me put it the other way.
So you have gold, which is contributing close to around 13-14% on your total portfolio, and if the yield variance is close to around, say, 3-4% between ME and gold, that's where the majority of the variance comes.
Understood. Sure, sure. Oh, fair enough. Understood. Do I have time for one more question?
Yes, go on, please. Sure.
So see, you partly alluded to this thing that the ability to repay EMIs has reduced a bit, I think, if I heard it correctly. When I look at your 1+ DPDs, they've been inching up. Collection efficiency has dropped. One of the larger NBFCs also recently indicated some pain in MSMEs. What are your thoughts on this bit? You said you'll increase the credit cost by 15-20 basis points this year, but just very qualitatively, what are the challenges that you are seeing?
Why are these MSMEs not able to repay? Just some granular color qualitatively on that will really help.
So, see, I did try to cover that in the opening statement if you had caught that. There is a political risk that has emerged this year, which is not a normal thing that happens for the industry. I mean, microfinance has faced political risks before, but for the rest of the industry, it is a new normal that we saw this time, and there are phases. Money is linked. Money is not. You cannot segment money into products, so ultimately, if the velocity of money drops, if lenders pull their hands away from unsecured lending, from microfinance lending, ultimately, somebody's expense is somebody's income, so if somebody is cutting down something, ultimately, that same fellow will go to a small grocery shop and buy something.
And if his income has gone down or his ability to get cash has gone down, then that consumption also is going to get affected, and that consumption is somebody's income. So it is linked. We have seen an increase in 1+ DPD and that flow, and that has built a pressure. These are cycles that come that one has to navigate. And it's very clear that it is linked to ticket sizes more than anything else. So it is not about geography so much. It is not about a particular kind of borrower. It is more about ticket sizes that what it is telling you is that the prime credit Indians are doing extremely well. They are pulling it away. But as we go down the ticket sizes, there is a stagnation of income and a pressure on ability to pay. So that is broadly what's happening.
That's very helpful.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nitesh Jain from Investec. Please proceed.
Thanks for the opportunity. So one question is that in the current environment where we are seeing stress, overleverage, 1+ DPD inching up, so what is giving us confidence to grow and to disburse showing 30% plus disbursement growth? And what are the changes in the underwriting filters that we have done which is giving us confidence to grow?
So as Aseem pointed out, what we are beginning to see is that there is some bit of stress in some pockets of the country. The stress is more towards the smaller ticket sizes, and we have seen a deterioration in their bureau scores. So that leads us to tighten our credit filters further for a particular category of borrowers till the time we see the environment stabilizing or even our buckets stabilizing.
You would probably see us see the ticket sizes marginally moving up because we would get a little cautious on some of the ticket sizes in some of the geographies. But having said that, our distribution is so large, and we've got 250-odd branches. Even if we were to, say, contribute out of that 80% of the branches, and there are some small tickets that we move that away, that's not going to actually take the wind away from the disbursers. Just to put numbers in perspective, we did close to around INR 800 crores this quarter. Even if we were to assume that we maintain the current momentum, that takes us to INR 3,200-odd crores against INR 2,600 crores last year, and that's roughly around a 20% growth in disbursement, translating to 25% in terms of the AUM growth.
This is after we introduced fresh filters on underwriting, going slow on the smaller ticket sizes, and really focusing on the sectors and the customers who are demonstrating proper track in terms of repayments or where we feel confident with respect to the credit outcomes.
Sure. And secondly, can you share what percentage of customers will have, let's say, more than three loans, etc.? Because what we understand is that is one big driver of the stress. The customers who are having a higher number of loans, those customers, the stress levels are much higher versus customers who are unique or have only one or two loans.
So the MSME customers would not have significant loans outside SBFC. So there are hardly one or two unsecured personal loans that we see from the bureau watch. The gold customer will have more unsecured borrowing outside SBFC.
And we track the customer base of the bureau score wherein our bulk of the customers, which is 87-odd%, is above a cutoff of 700.
Sure. And last question is on credit cost guidance. So this quarter, we have done around 1.1% credit cost, and in the opening comment, you mentioned credit cost will be 10-15 basis points higher. So should we build the 1.25%-1.3% credit cost for the full year, or 1.1% is the right number?
No. So see, you can't see the full 18-odd golf course you played all at a time. So at the moment, what we are seeing going forward, it appears that 15-20 basis points is what should be penciled in. That's what we are penciling in.
Well, of course, try to do a better job than this, but that is what it appears looking at the numbers right now. Because even if you look at the civil data, what it tells you is very clear that if you look at MSME loans across the industry between March 2024 and March 2025, you will see that above 50 lakhs, from 50 lakhs to 50 crore, all buckets have seen an improvement, a reduction in NBS, all buckets. From 10 lakhs to 50 lakhs, there is a slight 10 basis point deterioration in NPAs. But in less than 10 lakhs, the deterioration has been 70 basis points. So from 5.1%, the industry has gone to 5.8%. So there is a linkage of what is happening at the bottom of the pyramid, and we will be fine-tuning our business in light of this data.
Sure.
S o the base credit cost is Q1 credit cost. On that, we should expect higher credit cost for the full year.
That's right. That's right. Okay. Thank you.
That's it from my side. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shubhanshu Mishra from PhillipCapital. Please proceed.
Right. Hi. Good afternoon. So do we do any industry analysis of our MSME exposure? If so, what would be these industries which have these specific issues of stress? And what is the curing rate for 0-30 DPD today versus, say, a year ago? And in terms of understanding the hand loans of the MSME customers, the CIBIL bureau score would possibly give the credit lines which they have from other lenders. But during our PDs, do we get an understanding of the hand loans that these customers have?
Are they honest enough to speak about it, or is our process acute enough to understand what are the hand loans that these customers might have? The second question is around gold loans. How are we looking at gold loan growth? How do we select a branch? Do we have specialized branches for gold loans, or do we have branches which are merged with the MSME branches? And what is our outlook on gold loan branch expansion? Are we going to do it standalone, or it will be for cost benefits? We'll have both products together in locations.
Thanks. I guess there were just too many questions under the wrap of one, but probably we'll try and answer one by one. Answering your gold question on gold, so out of 250-odd branches, 175 branches do gold.
Whenever you select a location, you have data available with respect to what is the market size available in that particular market. The intent is, obviously, if there is an opportunity for both the businesses to do in that particular location, so the first preference and the first choice is to have both the businesses together because, obviously, economies of scale and the cost come in. Our plan for gold, clearly, it's a high OpEx business, so we're a little watchful, so if you look at our overall gold in terms of the AUM per branch, and the moment your AUM per branch is more than 7.5-8-odd crores, it is a highly profitable product for us to pursue.
So you will see an increase in our branches on a consistent basis, and the increase in gold branches will continue to do because they obviously are a yield enhancer for us on an overall portfolio. And obviously, the credit cost related to that product is also to the bare minimum.
On the hand loans which we're asking to see during the PD, the credit, so one is that we do 100% personal discussions for all the transactions. And whenever the credit manager visits the customer, he or she tries to understand that whatever assets he has created, whatever working capital he has invested in the business, what is the source, what is the end use of the loans which he has borrowed. So based on the PD, he's able to gauge whether there are any hand loans or not because these are intricacies wherein you meet the customer and understand.
If there are any hand loans, through the personal discussion, it's something which the credit manager understands.
Answering your question with respect to the industry analysis, so average ticket size of 10 lakhs, these are your mom-and-pop stores in your neighborhood. Typically, your industry analysis is more on cluster-driven businesses which have slightly higher ticket sizes, so where you can probably derive the trend as to how the trends are moving, how the receivables are aging, or how the inventory is aging. These are largely cash-denominated businesses which you deal in. What you can actually build is the kind of businesses that you have, if it's a grocery store or a salon, or what size and what scale of those businesses at what pin codes, and what is the range of ticket sizes which typically are borrowed by these businesses.
That's a relative range that comes in, but obviously, you triangulate that further with your personal discussion with the customer and the other financial covenants that come along with it.
Right. So can we split this into, say, trading and manufacturing, if that makes sense?
Yes. So the entire book largely is on the services side, so you have very little manufacturing where the ticket sizes are sub 40, 50-odd lakhs, except largely the converters. But you won't have really pure manufacturers in this particular category or segment because clearly, the investment in plant machinery is going to be significantly higher for them to fall into our category.
Right. And what percentage of our MSME customers have a hand loan? Do we have data on that?
So we would not know how many hand loans they would have, but what happens is, generally, when our collection team goes to collect some bit of loan, we get that they also had a separate loan which was not there in the record. So we would not get the entire hand loans at a portfolio level how many customers would have.
So it's fair to say that that's possibly a gray area for the entire industry if I have to pan out on the entire industry, the hand loan part of it.
Yeah. So. Absolutely.
Right. Right. Sure. Thank you. This is very helpful.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nischint Chawathe from Kotak Securities. Please proceed.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Just curious, where do we see ourselves or probably the sector in the cycle?
Once the DPD has gone up and kind of gone up quite meaningfully, I would guess a part of it may be ceased. But again, you have kind of raised the credit guidance as well. So is it something that you would probably see the share of delinquencies or flowouts increasing further, or is it something that whatever has flown up is something that probably you need to provide for?
So see, obviously, when you see a flow, there are two things that happens. One is that you provide for the worst outcome, but you back for the best. So obviously, you would want that these flows be pushed back, and that is the attempt that we would be making. But when you are giving a guidance, obviously, you want to ensure that because at this moment, it is just loans.
So I mean, we also don't have a full answer to what's happening. See, we want to realize that while you may think that the operator who is doing the business is fully in control and is always aware of everything, the reality of a business is that you are also responding to an economy that is at play. Our customers are across geography. They're across ticket sizes. They're across businesses, etc. And you see a certain thing happen, and it is very typical for a small ticket business to behave this way, that for a long time, things are steady, and then one quarter, something shakes it. So this time, it was Karnataka. Something shakes it. And then when it shakes it, our customers do not have an ability to pay multiple EMIs. So when a customer moves forward to bring the customer, stabilization is a little easier.
Rollback is where the challenge comes. So that's the challenge that we are braced for. We will pull it. But since you want to model in your cost, we're just helping you with an outcome.
The reason why I'm asking this is because you're probably one of the first or maybe the first BFSI to kind of tighten screens around 15 months back, if I recollect rightly. And I think you've done it twice or thrice in the 15 months. But we have seen this increase. So is it something that kind of has happened suddenly, and it was like there are some trends that we could not read, or is it something that has still been a gradual flow despite the tightening?
So I think, Nischint, obviously, when we were tightening the screens, we were tightening the screens across for certain pin codes, certain states.
Some developments which probably happened in the last quarter were obviously outside the radar, and that obviously had some multiplier effect, and that's reflected in most of the results as well. So you wouldn't want to pencil in, but then what you can do is you can probably stay away from certain pin codes and bring down the exposure till the time the tide settles. What we're only trying to say is that while the flows have happened and these flows will stabilize, it will take us a quarter or so to stabilize before we nurse it back. But we aren't really too alarmed with the situation because certain pockets where the flows have happened, we have a limited exposure in some of these areas. So clearly, there's nothing to be too worried or we need to pencil in any more costs than what we've already stated.
But you don't seem to be calling it transitory either. You would say that you're probably just trying to trade it a little more cautiously, or do you think it's transitory?
Nischint, you have been in the industry long enough. The second half will be better and transitory, I hope. We do not deal in hope. We deal with reality as we face it. So as I said, we are prepared for the worst and batting for the best. So that's all we can do. But who knows? I mean, what is happening on the economy on the ground across the country? Who is in a position to command and say for sure that this is transitory, this will pass? In the long run, everything is transitory. So if you take a very long view, everything is transitory.
But the reality is that you have to bat for the ball you are getting. And right now, the ball that's coming onto the pitch, he's bouncing uneven. Sure. Just one, maybe two tiny questions. One was on the co-originated AUM, which kind of has probably grown very marginally this quarter. Is there anything to read in it, or is it just that these things probably even out over quarters?
No, no. So these even out in a quarter. So even last year, in this quarter, the numbers were lower in the co-origination. Second quarter probably going to be significantly better, but that's been the trend, and that's been the cycle. Sure. And just one final one, if you could give some sense or schedule or guidance in terms of how do you see credit cost coming off maybe over next two, three quarters?
Sorry. I'm sorry.
How do you see the cost of borrowing coming off over the next two, three quarters?
My bad. Yes. So Nischint, so the two very positive things which are happening, one is the repo has already slid by 100 basis points, and also there's ample liquidity in the system. So both are positive. Our cost of borrowing has also started inching down. And so obviously, over the quarter-on-quarter, the cost of borrowing numbers will look obviously much better. It is very hard to put a number to it, but what happens is the transmission from repo to MCLR takes a little bit of time. And so as the transmission happens, obviously, we'll get the benefit of the transmission.
So see, if you want to see it differently, look at what I said in my opening comments that there is going to be a 15-20 basis point increase in credit cost, but our entire earnings remain the same. So you will be able to work backwards to see what we are saying. Because see, also, we don't want to pencil in all the good news. Let it come. So I mean, there is good news on the cost of borrowing side. So let it come. At the moment, we are penciling in a flat cost of borrowing as our worst-case scenario. Let the good news come because I mean, we are quick to take in good news into Excel, but the bad news always comes from where you can't see it .
Okay. That's very conservative. Thank you very much and all the best.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Mayank Mistry from JM Financial. Please proceed.
Yeah. Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, my question is mainly on the mix. As you have already guided that 15%, you will try to manage around 15% in gold loans. But given the current scenario where the stress is piling up in a loan book and also considering that even RBI is giving us a little relaxation in terms of LTV in gold loans, so isn't this the right time to maybe shift our mix slightly more towards gold loans? I mean, given the current scenario, and probably get it back once the situation calms down. My second question is on the PCR. Given that in this quarter, we had 1.1% of credit cost, despite this, also our PCR has also declined.
So I mean, even if we do 15-20 basis points more of credit cost, how do we see the PCR? I mean, at what levels do you plan to keep the PCR ratio also on the overall cover on our book? Those are my two questions.
On the PCR front, 1 plus is usually not always going to 90 plus. It's sitting in the bucket one and two as well. So PCR is calculated on the NPA books. That has marginally come down. It is in that range of 44%-45%. So nothing too deep to look into it. So on the PCR, also note that if you look at June 2024 and you look at June 2025, you'll see an increase in PCR, isn't it?
Quarter-on-quarter, some movements may happen here and there, but if you see gradually, we have taken the PCR up over a period of time.
Okay, sir. And on the mix?
Yeah. So I think on the mix side, probably if you look at our entire last 12 months and even on a quarter-on-quarter basis, you'll see our gold moving up by almost 40-odd%. This quarter is also closer to 8-odd%. Year-on-year, it should be close to around 37-38-odd%. We've been conscious enough, and we've been investing in these branches in states where we are comfortable. I think gold, there is no underwriting or there's no credit risk. I think the largest risk is the operating risk. So it's not that you open 100 branches and 200 branches and you feel that the gold price is favorable and you can actually derive those particular results.
I think the way we approach it is slightly different. If we are comfortable about a particular state or a geography where our returns and the operating matrix is in line with our expectations, that we wouldn't mind going ahead and expanding. So to answer your question, we will remain invested in incremental branches coming through, and most of the branches are going to have gold with it. And coming to the MSME business, I guess all of us at SBFC have spent probably more than two decades in this particular business. We've seen enough cycles going up, going down. And I think the entire approach is that how do you address those particular cycles? There's a particular method to the madness in which you address them. You would want to probably go a little slow in terms of disbursals.
In some pockets, you might want to accelerate your momentum in some category and some pockets, but you will have to balance. You just can't vacate a particular geography or you can't completely vacate a particular segment because of an event which has happened in a month or in a particular quarter if you are there for a long haul. What we are looking at is probably a temporary space for which we've taken proactive actions in the last quarter. You will see some mix and color changing from this quarter onwards as we speak. But this is largely for the long haul, and that's what we keep committed to the fact, saying that irrespective of the seasons and the color changing, our guidance for 5%-7% in terms of growth momentum is going to remain unchanged.
Sure, sir. And also the mix, right?
Because I think that with branch expansion going faster in gold as compared to MSME, automatically your gold mix will start moving up. That's actually my question, mainly.
Yeah. Mix is largely going to remain the same.
Okay. Sir, and just can you shed some light on the ROA trends? Maybe if you can give us segmentally, I mean, what is your ROA differential in both the businesses?
So see, we are a very profit and ROE-focused organization. The difference in the two businesses is fundamentally very different because the gold comes with a higher OpEx . The secured MSME comes with a low yield and low OpEx , right? So in a way, the ROEs are the similar numbers, and we strive to look at a 15% ROE over the period of time. So ROE today is about 13.5%.
If you look at the ROE, every quarter it has been moving up. Last quarter Q1 of 2024, we were at 12.3%, and now it is at 13.5%. So over the period of time, I think we will see volatility. Sometimes the delinquency is high. Sometimes the gold business takes a knock. But I think both the businesses, we are steering towards a 15% ROE .
Okay. Thank you. Thank you and all the best, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shubhanshu Mishra from PhillipCapital. Please proceed.
Hi. There was one question which was unanswered. What is the 0 to 30 curing this quarter versus say a year ago?
So we don't call out on that particular number. And largely, all I can tell you is that the trend is not going to be very different.
Although we've seen the 1+ DPD moving up, but that's again for this particular quarter. But in terms of curing, staging, and stabilizing, the percentages, we've not seen that very, very different.
So largely, it's similar.
Yes. Yes.
And that is largely to do with our collection efforts. The curing remains similar on a YoY basis?
Because what you alluded to is that the customer segment and certain ticket sizes are coming off. So it's more to do with our collection efforts in that case? It's not to do with the collection effort. So in terms of our collection infrastructure, I think what we've done is we've invested in the collection infrastructure. We've got more than 550-odd people across our 250-odd branches. I think the distribution is reasonably set. Answering your question in respect to curing, now curing has two parts. One, you either stabilize or you roll back.
So my answer was that as long as you are able to stabilize first, and then you can cure for it in terms of rollback. So as far as the stabilization are concerned, the percentages are largely similar.
S ure. And if you can give out the number of loans that we do in MSME on a quarterly basis or a monthly run rate?
So we do close to around 27 to 28 hundred-odd loans on a monthly basis. Right. This run rate remains similar in the upcoming quarters as well. Yeah.
Right. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rahil Shah from Crown Capital. Please proceed.
Hi, sir. Good evening. Just one question. Any outlook or guidance on the return on assets?
So we have been stable ROAs since last couple of years.
I think even when the leverage has gone up, we have managed to have our ROAs in the range of 4.5%-4.6%. As we lever up, there might be slight compression, and we may, over a period of next two years, go down to 4.2%-4.25%, at which time your leverage from 3 will go up to 4. So this ROA, along with the leverage, will end up giving you the desired ROE of around 15%.
Okay. So ROAs will see some pressure over time?
Yes. Yes.
So by when do you feel they can go back to current levels and more?
So Rahil, so see, the way it works is as the leverage improves, the ROAs tend to go down, right? It's only a function of leverage, isn't it? We are at a low leverage today, and the leverage should improve from here.
The good thing is, and the most important thing is to see ROE, whether the ROEs are improving or not. So whatever happens to ROA basis leverage, we should see the ROEs improving. So if you see the ROEs have been constantly improving quarter by quarter, it has been at 12.3 quarter one of last financial year. It is at 13.5 now. The question is whether the ROEs will move to 15% as we go on, and that's what we are aiming at. With increasing leverage, ROAs generally tend to slightly come off over the period of time. But what we are looking for is obviously a good spread as we go along, as we guided the OpEx should, as the percentage of coming down. The only thing is the leverage, which will improve, which is good from our ROE point of view .
Okay. Okay. Thank you, sir.
All the best to you. Thank you. Thank you. Participants who wish to ask a question, may press star at this star and one . Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one at this time. As there are no further questions, I now like to hand the conference over to the management for the closing comments.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining the call. Since we have done the call on the same day of the results, if there are any further questions, please do reach out to me. Thank you so much.
Thank you. On behalf of ICICI Securities, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect.