Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the SBI Cards and Payment Services Limited Q2 FY 2025 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in 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 touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Abhijit Chakravorty, MD and CEO. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Sejal, and good evening, everyone. I welcome you all to the earnings call, along with my senior management team at SBI Card. Recent report on credit card market projects that the number of credit cards in India will reach 200 million by FY 2028-2029, with a CAGR of 15%, further establishing credit cards as a significant payment instrument. September 2024 data indicates that credit card transactions in India reached 0.39 billion in volume, showing a 36% year-on-year growth in transaction volume and 17.8% in spend value. The demand for credit cards remains strong as consumer spending is growing at a healthy rate. This trend indicates the expansion of the credit card market in India, driven by technology advancements, consumer behavior shifts, and supportive regulatory measures.
SBI Card continues to adapt to the changing business environment to ensure profitable growth. Let us now look at SBI Card's business overview in Q2 FY 2025. Our cards in force stand at INR 1.96 crores with 10% year-on-year growth. New account acquisition during Q2 is at over INR 9 lakhs. We continue to be selective and focused on quality of acquisition. We will continue to be in this range in the near- term. SBI Card continues to be India's second-largest credit card player, with CIF market share at 18.5%. Our overall share of new account sourcing from banca and open market channel stands at 41% and 59%, respectively, for the quarter. Retail spends witnessed strong growth and reached INR 76,398 crores, with a 24% year-on-year growth.
Total card spends stand at INR 81,893 crore, with around 3% year-on-year growth. SBI Card spends market share is at 15.7%. We have seen good growth in both POS and online spends across various discretionary and non-discretionary spends categories. Key ones include departmental stores, utilities, education, consumer durables, furnishings and hardware, apparel and jewelry, among many others. Retail spends per card have grown to INR 1.58 lakh during the quarter, against INR 1.39 lakh for Q2 FY 2024. Online spends continue to be strong and contributed to 60% of total retail spends. Corporate spends are at INR 5,495 crore. The spends have grown quarter on quarter, in line with our strategy for profitable growth in spends.
RuPay Card spends at UPI terminal continues to grow and have shown a growth of 40% over previous quarter. Department stores and grocery, utilities, fuel, consumer durable, and restaurants have been among the top five categories for UPI spends. Tier 2 plus customers are utilizing this facility more as it increases the number of acceptance outlets for RuPay Card. As a customer-centric and responsible organization, SBI Card continues to focus on varied initiatives during the quarter. We have forged strategic alliance with Singapore Airlines to launch KrisFlyer SBI Card, a one of a kind, travel-centric, co-branded credit card targeted at super premium segment. All our customers now have an option to have a product with the network of their choice. All our products, both proprietary and co-brand, are now fully compliant with the RBI guidelines.
We were among the first few to enable payment through BBPS to make instant repayment experience simple and seamless for our customers. Coming to financial performance in Q2 FY 2025, I am pleased to report that SBI Card delivered a robust performance, highlighting the resilience of our business model. The key financial highlights for the quarter are: Total revenue has grown to INR 4,556 crores, registering an 8% growth against INR 4,221 crores in Q2 FY 2024. Profit after tax stands at INR 404 crore, against INR 603 crore in Q2 FY 2024. This is due to higher credit cost and increase in spend-based expenses owing to onset of the festive season towards last few days of September, resulting in higher OpEx.
Receivables have reached INR 55,601 crore, with a strong 23% year-on-year growth. Receivables per card have grown to INR 28,387 crores, versus INR 25,220 crores in Q2 FY 2024. Interest earning assets stayed stable at 60%, with EMI receivables at 37%. Spends and related expenses were higher for the quarter, with the onset of festive season during the last few days of September. This also impacted NIM marginally, as the asset mix changed due to spends coming in the last week of September. In earlier years, too, we have seen the same trend of NIM dropping in case of festival season starting in September. NIM and asset mix will normalize over the next few months. Cost of funds is stable at 7.4%.
In our assessment at this stage, the cost of funds has peaked out and will start coming down once interest rate easing cycle begins. New interest margin during the quarter has remained stable at 10.6%. Cost to income for Q2 FY 2025 is at 53.4%. Coming to the asset quality for the company, the credit card industry has continued to witness an increase in delinquency levels, largely driven by environmental factors, which have impacted the repayment capacity of borrowers. As per recent RBI reports, these factors include increase in household debt and excess leverage through retail loans. The latest data from the credit bureau suggests that the card industry delinquency, which increased gradually during FY 2024, have increased even more sharply in first half of FY 2025. This trend is seen in our portfolio, too.
The gross NPAs have increased to 3.27% from 3.06% in Q1 FY 2025. Gross credit costs for the current quarter has increased to 9% from 8.5% in the previous quarter. The primary reason for the increase in our credit costs has been the customer's inability to repay owing to cash flow challenges and increase in leverage. We have noticed that once the customers become delinquent, their ability to repay the pending dues has reduced significantly. Due to this, our delinquency levels have remained elevated, with credit costs at 9% in Q2 FY 2025. We believe we are closer to the peak. Our flows into delinquency have improved over the last six months. This gives us some confidence about the efficiency of our actions.
As stated in our previous calls, our efforts have been directed towards tightening our underwriting standards, actively managing our portfolio, and intensifying our collection activity by leveraging digital and telecalling earlier in the customer life cycle. We are seeing a drop in early delinquency of new acquisitions. In addition, the proportion of prime and above prime customers in our new acquisition has improved by around 15% over the last one and a half years. That said, it is difficult to predict the exact timeline and quantum of improvement in credit costs, as this would also depend on the changes in the unsecured lending ecosystem and macroeconomic factors. Our liquidity position continues to be strong. Our capital adequacy ratio is at 22%. Our liquidity coverage ratio is at 108% versus statutory requirement of 85%.
Return on average assets is at 2.7%, lower by 218 basis points year-on-year. Return on average equity is 12.5%, lower by 986 basis points year-on-year. We remain optimistic about growth prospects for the credit card industry. The rising consumer spending, increasing digital adoption, and ongoing festive season ensure continued growth moment. We'll continue to focus on all key aspects, including expanding our customer base and partnerships, and enhancing our digital capabilities to meet the evolving needs of the customers. As a conscious and responsible organization, we will continue with our focus on ESG initiatives.
Today, the positive impact of our initiatives can be seen across varied facets, from saving lakhs of trees, owing to paperless communication, to relief measures for communities facing natural calamities, et c. Additionally, we remain committed to maintaining strong asset quality and prudent risk management, ensuring long-term sustainability. Thank you. And now we are open to questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question- and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Mahrukh from Nuvama Wealth Management. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, sir. So my first question is on credit cost only. So you said flows have peaked, and I know that the environment is uncertain, and now other lenders are also seeing a spike in credit cost on cards. But if your flows have peaked, does it mean at least some moderation or at least a peaking of your credit cost now? Or, how does it pan out? Because your early delinquencies on new acquisitions are also coming off.
What we stated just now is that we see ourselves closer to the peak. It will take a couple of quarters more, at least one or two quarters more, to understand the pattern. But then, yes, as I said, a combination of all the factors taken together, the flow rates into delinquency, all the actions, various actions that we have taken together, all of that indicates that we are closer to the peak. We have been very specific in our statement.
Okay, got it. And, sir, where does OpEx now... does OpEx hold here, for at least in the near- term, or does it rise even further, the cost to income, that is?
Mahrukh, we have, as you would have seen from the previous year results as well, quarter two and quarter three typically are high OpEx quarters, and that kind of normalizes in quarter four, comes down in quarter four. We have given a guidance, which is that we always ask to look at the full year OpEx number, our cost to income number, instead of looking at it quarter on quarter, which we said will be in that 55% range.
Okay, got it. And just my last question on margins, like, given that third quarter is also festivals, I did not catch your last comment on margins when you were giving the commentary. So would the margins be a little soft even in the third quarter and then come back in the fourth quarter?
That's right. Yes.
Okay. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shweta from Elara Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you, sir, for the opportunity. Couple of questions. The first one being, so our revolver share has come down, so is it that we have categorically chosen, or is it that customers are not revolving and they are just defaulting? That's question number one.
So if you see, revolver share is around 23%. The primary reason for this is that during the last week of September, the festival season started, so you have new spends coming in, which goes into the denominator, and that takes time for that customer after some billing cycles. So as stated in the speech, we see normalization of this happening in by the end of this quarter.
Okay. Okay. So second question being, so if I look at corporate spends, so they have, so your calibration has worked out, and so, shall we expect now INR 5,000+ crores will be the range and it will settle here and eventually or, slowly and gradually now retail spend traction will catch up much faster than what we are seeing currently?
You'll have to repeat the question, Shweta. We didn't get it. You were asking about the OpEx?
So yeah. So as for the strategy, our corporate spends, calibration on the lower side has worked out. So, for last two quarters, so this quarter as well as last quarter, we've seen INR 5,000+ crores kind of a number on corporate spend. Going forward, do we see this number settling here and therefore retail spend traction catching up much faster?
So on the corporate spends in Q3, we will go slightly. Because we are at INR 5,000 crores the last two quarters, it will go slightly up, but will continue to be on the retail spends, because this quarter is festival season. Going further, as we have stated, we are looking at more profitable spends coming out of the corporate spends rather than just the past year.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kiran from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my question. One of them is just an extension to Shweta's question on revolver share. Now, I'm not referring to the quarter, but in general, in the past, we've seen when we've tried to, you know, tighten our underwriting standards, the revolver share has dropped. Like, during COVID, it went from mid-thirties to mid-twenties. What steps will we take, you know, to ensure that that does not happen, given that it's a big profit contributor for us? Or are there steps we can proactively take?
We are not taking any steps to increase proactively the number of revolvers. However, what we have seen from data is that because these steps on the underwriting and other things have been continuing for the last one year now, and it has stabilized at 24%. And even in last call, we have stated that it will continue to range between 23%-25%, depending on seasonality or what is happening at the end of the month. It should continue to be in that range, at least for a foreseeable two to three quarters. What we are also seeing is that in absolute amount, the revolver balances are continue to increase.
Okay. Okay, and also just in terms of SBI, sourcing from SBI, that share has been going down over the past few quarters. Now, given that those customers are historically less delinquent, what explains that we are reducing the share of SBI sourcing?
No, so that is not an active reduction on the number of accounts from the Banca channel. Because of the new underwriting parameters, we have worked with the bank to look at a new model to be put in by the bank in for the new customer acquisition. That was put in somewhere in the middle of last quarter. We should see the mix coming back to our planned mix of around 55% from Banca and 45% from Open.
Okay, so this is just a temporary thing?
Absolutely.
Got it, got it. And just a last question for Rashmi. You know, cost of borrowing moderated this quarter. Is it simply an effect of T-bills, T-bill rates cooling off a bit.
That's right, yes.
How does?
Our short-term borrowing is linked to T-bill rate, so the expectation around interest rate and the softening of the T-bill rates has helped us in the cost of funds.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shubhranshu Mishra from PhillipCapital. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for this opportunity. So three questions. The first one is around the credit cost. What could be the proportion from SBI customers versus open-sourced customers in the 9% gross credit cost that we see? Second is that, are we going to see strong spend growth in Q3, Q4, especially the festive season, with so much being spoken about the urban consumption coming off? And festive season has been just about okay, so how are we thinking about that? And third is around the new originations. So how much are we targeting the carded there in the new originations? Which could be probably the SBI or non-SBI, but what is the proportion of people who come in with a card in the new originations? Thanks.
I'll take the first question, which is about the channel-wide makeup of the asset quality. We don't do credit cost calculations by channel because it's a fairly detailed calculation. It's not possible to attribute credit cost by channel with that level of precision. But we know that the SBI sourcing is of much better quality in terms of delinquency, and that is mentioned in our slide as well. If you see the investor deck, there are only two slides. One of the slides explains that. So the index delinquency of SBI is about 0.77 , which basically means it's 23% better than the overall average.
On the spends portion, spends, retail spends are running fairly strong. As you rightly said, urban consumption is going up, and we have seen this spend seasons thus far going quite okay, and there is no issue that we see primarily on this front. On the new acquisition front, where you stated that what is the mix? So the way that we look at it is slightly different. We, the Banca channel primarily operates when we look at the bank data. So we are able to get the customer's banking transaction data and underwrite from there. So we have more new to credit from there and less of people who already hold a credit card.
On the open market, because the data is required, so there are people with thick files which we look at. People. It need not be that people are already carded. They might be running some personal loans, but they have a good credit history or a record at the credit bureaus to be looked at. We are these days looking at a lot of other data apart from just credit score, to give the card to the customer.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management is able to address questions from all the participants, please limit your question to two per participant. If you have a follow-up question, I would request you to rejoin the queue. The next question is from the line of Rohan Mandora from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, in your opening remarks, you mentioned that the flow rates have improved, but if you look at this quarter, the GNPA has gone up and write-offs are also higher. So is it for a particular month that you were talking about the flow rate? If you can elaborate further here. Second, you also commented that there's a 15% improvement in prime and above prime customer. So just wanted to clarify, is it 15% or 15 percentage points? Because if it's 15%, then the mix, is there no, no meaningful improvement. So just clarity here. And third, in the recent originations that we are doing on new cards, how is the break even period with, say, two, three years ago on the new relationships that we are originating, in terms of duration? Thanks.
So, in terms of the flow rates, the statement made in the opening speech was around the early delinquency, the inflows into delinquency. That's been improving, but other flow rates are from, for example, from delinquent to write-off, that is not improving. And that is what is also witnessed in our write-off numbers, and they are clearly going up. So there are two parts to the flow rate story. In terms of the asset mix, the improvement in the portfolio quality, the percentage number is in percentage terms, so percentage of 100%.
Sure.
Absolutely. 15%.
Yeah, and somewhere I would say we need to recall our earnings previous calls, where we have stated that the issue remains with a set of cardholders who are unable to pay once they become delinquent. So the same pattern remains. While we have been able to improve the into delinquency part, a portion of the delinquent customers, once they become delinquent, they are unable to pay. So that is the difference. Having said that, what gives us some confidence into towards an improvement in future is that the inflow to delinquency is reducing. That will bring down the overall delinquent customers number, and if it stabilizes going forward, then we are looking at some better times.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Kaushik from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Hey, thank you for the opportunity. Firstly, is on the asset quality, on the commentary that, you know, maybe in one to two quarters' time, we could see the peaking of credit costs. So just wondering, you know, what's our best guess of what happens after the credit cost peaked? I.e., if I look at FY 2026, you know, how fast do you think credit costs can come down? You know, or is it likely to remain at 8, 9% level for some time? How should we think about this, sir?
We won't be able to guess those numbers or estimate those numbers as of now. As I said, we take actions at our end, but a larger part of the impact comes from the overall ecosystem. So, a lot will depend the overall ecosystem improving and contributing towards our efforts also. So giving a firm number at this stage or estimating what can be the gradient will be a bit difficult at this stage. But yes, as we stated earlier also, we expect that during the end of the year onwards, we expect it to improve further.
Got it, sir. And, on the interest on the assets, I was just trying to back calculate what's the interest on the assets growth on a sequential basis. I'm not sure I get it correctly, but it seems to be about 2%, which that number used to be, you know, somewhere about mid-single digit for the last, you know, seven, eight quarters. So how should we think about the interest on the assets growth from here? And also, you know, given the tough asset quality environment, we are kind of taking prudently in terms of these interest on the assets growth. So how should we think about it going forward?
We had, in earlier calls also stated that we should look at the spend growth at anywhere between 20%-23% on a year-on-year basis going further, and, asset growth of around close to 17%-20%, on an annualized basis. As of now, what we see is that the interest-bearing asset is growing broadly in line with overall asset growth. So even if you look at this quarter, on a year-on-year basis, overall asset has grown by 23%-24%, and the interest-bearing asset has also grown maybe a couple of percentage points lower than that, but broadly in the same line. So we see that, that the interest-bearing asset will also grow broadly between 15%-19% in the coming quarters.
Got it. That's very helpful. And last thing is on the fee and commission income growth. You know, how should we think about the growth there versus, you know, asset growth, because there's like flat year-on-year. So what's driving that divergence?
The spend growth will always have some bit of divergence with asset growth. Typically, the spend growth leads the asset growth .
Sorry, sir, I mean the fee growth, fee income. Because fee income is like, you know, I think a bit negative fee income here, right? So I'm just wondering, you know, spends growth is strong, but then why are we seeing the divergence with the fee income growth?
So fee income, there are two elements to fee income. One is the interchange part, which is growing fairly strongly and in line with the spends. But on some of the other fee lines, for example, the late fee and over limit fee, either because of external actions or because of the tightness and selectiveness that we are showing with our portfolio and actions we are taking, some of those fee lines are not showing the kind of growth that we would have expected. And it is good if late fee does not go to that level at this point of time because of the growth path that we are running at.
We believe that that should give us some benefits at a later date. One other fee, which is t he rental fee that we were charging, the rental fee also now is, is de-growing in a way, compared to what it happened in so early years, and it was a large part of the overall fee. So there are those elements on the fee part. We are, however, taking certain actions, and we will be looking at revision of certain fees in certain lines to get the fee income to continue to grow.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Anand from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Sir, thank you for the opportunity. So my question is related to the flow rate that you talked about. So that reduction in the flow rate into, you know, the early buckets, is it more to do with some improvement at the customer level? Or is it that you have put more efforts and because of which you're able to collect faster, and whether similar kind of trends can be expected at the industry level?
The efforts are on both sides, the portfolio management underwriting side as well, and also on the collection side. Both of them are contributing to the improvement into the flows into delinquency.
So, to expand that, we have started giving the nudges or calls to the customer early in the life cycle. So somewhere, it has given some results, and we are going to build up further on that.
Earlier on, basically, you talked about your specific cohorts, the early vintage cohorts, where basically you have seen some strength. So whether we can say that those cohorts are largely done with, and now, you know, whatever the near vintage cohorts are, are performing well, that is also could be a reason?
I don't think we spoke about new vintage cohort or any cohorts in last at least five calls. I've been in the last four, five calls myself. We have never spoken about any cohorts, and then we have been very clear that we see the trends across entire table. We have never said that it's due to early cohorts. I don't think we've ever said that.
But earlier on, I think from 2018, 2019 cohort is where I think we were, we had seen high delinquency, what we had talked about.
I think that we spoke almost one and a half years back, and then that we also are on record saying that that FY 20 19, FY 20 20 got cleaned up. That was brought under control, and that is, I think we are talking about from March or June 2023 story. We have come a long way up since then.
Sure. And so one more key item, which is basically business development incentive, which is actually coming down. Any specific reason for that?
B y business development, do you mean cards in force?
No. So basically, there is a line item by, you know, business development incentive, I think, which where you get some fees from the network provider, I think, right? So there, the fees have been on a quarter- on- quarter basis, has seen some reduction. So anything to read into that?
There is a marginal reduction this quarter, but it is going to come back from next quarter.
Okay. So that's more seasonal, right?
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Pranav from Bernstein Research. Please go ahead.
Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. Just two questions. One, on your earlier comment that, you're seeing a significant drop or write-off once customer becomes delinquent. Is that simply a function of lenders across the board tightening their disbursements and therefore resulting in defaults? So is that the driver? The second question is on your shift in the quality of customers. If you're going more towards prime, what's the difference in profitability between a prime versus the average customer? W ould that lead to a significantly lower profitability in the medium term if you shift to a greater share of prime customers? Thank you.
The first part, we can't comment what other lenders are doing. We can only state what actions we have taken and what results we are able to see. Regarding the prime customers, well, these are recent acquisitions, and the trends are moving as we have stated. Typically, customer matures, the card matures over a period of 12-18 months, and the contribution from the profitability part varies between a prime or a non-prime, near-prime customer also. A lso depends on the card variant that the, typically the customer holds. It's a combination of various factors taken together that the profitability of a customer comes out. Why we have stated about the prime part is because that is an indicator of the overall client health composition, and that gives some confidence and strength to overall portfolio.
Understood. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next follow-up question is from the line of Rohan Mandora from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead.
Sir, just if you could help in quantification of how the flow rates have improved in the early delinquencies?
That will be difficult to give that level of detail at the moment.
Okay. Sir, second is that, in the historical calls, we have been talking about the reason for delinquency being that once we underwrite, customers take, loans from other lenders, and then they overleverage and default. Now, if you look at the RBI actions in the last, three, four quarters, there's been a lot of clampdown that has happened on, small ticket personal loans and fintech lending. So, on the current bureau scrubs, if you can just talk about how is the trend that you are seeing on those portfolios and, what would be the incremental reasons, for the delinquency that will come up? Because typically, small ticket personal loans, would get paid off in six to 12 months. So those over-leveraged customers should have typically repaid. So incrementally, whatever stress we are seeing, what could we be attributable to?
Yeah. So, so far as the CIBIL score and the data is concerned, we find the trend still prevailing. To the extent, like, we have done some portfolio specific segmentations at our end, we stated earlier also, and we monitor and we take actions on them. Even on those segments, we find their ability to raise new trade lines. So, we don't see a significant change in the ability of the cardholders, our own customers, to raise new trade lines.
Sure, sir. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of M B Mahesh from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
I have just one question. The outstanding recoveries that you have reported this quarter, which is about INR 133 crores, any color on one, what is the outstanding stock of written-off loans that is there in your portfolio? And two, when do you see those contributions starting to rise over a period of time?
Mahesh, your question is about the recovery numbers, INR 133 crores in recovery this quarter?
Yeah.
So your question is, when do you expect it to rise?
In a sense that it's still flat or low, right, despite, you know, we kind of writing off nearly about INR 1,200 crore-INR 1,500 crore every year. Just trying to understand how should we look at this number as we progress over time.
So, let us look at it from the customer profile. Merely getting written off doesn't change the profile of the customer. The customer was not able to pay a month back, is not able to pay even after three months later, after getting written off. It's once the customer is able to generate cash flows, has ability to pay, then only the repayment starts. So being written off doesn't mean that suddenly there is a repayment capacity coming up out of the customer.
So what happens is, it's a matter of time. Like today also, when we are on a collection drive, the most of the customers have two responses. One, "Yes, I will pay." Second, "I don't have money. I can't pay right now. I will pay you the day I have it." So, while the writing off the account is on a certain date, when the customer will have money and when they will pay off is a matter of, again, time, and we keep on following, we can keep on chasing, we keep on making our collection efforts. That's how the entire scenario prevails.
I will add just one data point, which is that in our recoveries these days or always, we see vintages as high as 10 years, so people do pay up even after 10 years. And the part of the flattening of the recovery pool or recovery numbers in the last few quarters is also driven by the stress that is felt in the overall ecosystem and the other delinquency buckets. So the same kind of reasons apply to the written-off pool as well.
In terms of order of priority, do you see any change at the customer side, in the sense that you stand in front of other lenders or you stand behind other lenders?
Very difficult to find out. We can only see what is happening in overall bureau performance, because one is that it's only the trade lines we see, and we see the trade lines prevailing or growing up.
Okay. Done. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kane Ang from Pinpoint Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Good. Thanks for taking my question. Can I ask with regards to credit costs. W here do you think credit costs will be for the next two quarters, and would it go above 10%? Thank you.
We have stated that it's, we expect it to remain elevated around these levels. But then, as we have simultaneously, we have also stated that there are other indicators that help us in estimating that there will be some downward gradient in times to come.
Okay. Any indication in terms of the magnitude? Just in the near- term?
I didn't get you.
Indication in the near- term.
Sorry, just in terms of, yeah, in the near- term, any color on the magnitude?
We have given the indication, sir, already.
Fine. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Bhavik from Nippon Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Sir, am I audible?
Yes, please.
Yeah. Hi. So just a quick question on the, like, last time you mentioned we had reduced limits for around INR 5 larkh odd cards. How would that number be trending now? How is that working in the sense, how many limits, how many cards have we maybe reduced limits? How are we working around that?
Yeah, Nandini?
In this half of the financial year, we've actually reduced limits for around ten lakh customers, and this is of course going down.
And when you mentioned that, the flow rates have eased out, but again, like if we, because this is a short-term product, right? In that sense, why would the credit cost be elevated or around this level for two more quarters, considering if the rates have started to fall now, consequently, the credit cost also should start dropping, right? And when it drops, like again, it's a hypothetical question: What is the new steady state credit cost that you will be happy with the new type of business that we are doing today with more prime customers? How would you like the credit cost to be? Because our interest earning deposits have also been in the 60%-62% range. What would be the comfortable credit cost that you would like to work with? If you could, like, explain that, that would be helpful. Thank you.
So what we have stated is, we are seeing the flow rates improving in the near- term and into delinquencies. But then what happens to the stock we are sitting upon, the GNPA stock we are sitting upon? It's not that people are going to pay up from that. So, as I've already stated earlier in the call, we have a GNPA stock. We have a stage two stock also. Once the delinquency sets in, a set of people will not pay. So unless the entire flow comes under control progressively, that will not improve. So somewhere we are already having a certain stock, that out of that, we expect the write-offs to continue a bit. But what happens is, how do we predict?
See, there are, every time there is a promise to pay, and there is a deferral of payment. So the promise to pay, based on the promise to pay, we make an estimate, and based on the payment history in the near- term, that also we make an estimate. And then there are people who don't pay at all. All taken together is how we arrive at what can be our near-term collection. But then, some of them, some of them, if they are not able to keep up the promise and they defer the payment, then our calculations can go a bit awry, and which is a very, you know, which is happening. The stock we are holding at GNPA stage or in the late stage, two stages, they will be critical in defining what ultimately write-offs will take place. But as we said, if the inflows are getting restricted, ultimately over a period of time, the overall stock gets reduced.
Sure. And in terms of steady state credit cost, with the kind of business that we are underwriting today, from a long, like from a FY 2026, 2027 perspective, just a best estimate on what credit cost will you be comfortable with to run this business?
See, I mean, it's when we speak to how we look at it, this is an unsecured business. There will always be a credit cost. So anything lower from where we stand today and going lower down further, we will be comfortable with that.
Sure. Because why I ask this is because we used to be at 5%-6% credit cost, which was maybe a good number to work with. Then we, like, we went to 7%, 7.5%, and now we're at closer to 9%, right? And just trying to understand if little lower is like 8%, 7%, and our business mix has shifted, and a lot of fee items that have got impacted. So what will be, like, the profitability that you'll be comfortable with is what I wanted to understand on a steady state basis, not from a two quarter.
It's not, it's not being what we are comfortable about. It's what we have. We are seeing in our portfolio and getting influenced by the ecosystem around us. Once the overall things improve, it starts coming down, and we expect that, and we should be comfortable in due course with what was prevailing, say, one or two years back. But then, we would wait for that to happen.
Sure. And last question, sir. We've seen some increase in your active card rates in terms of card, like 50%. It was, like, broadly around 50%, it's now going to 52%. Is it a function of the UPI or the RuPay cards that we giving out, and they have a higher activation rates? Or anything, what's leading to this increase in activity, active rates from in cards?
Two factors. First is the festival onset happened in last week of September, and the UPI transactions on RuPay cards, which can be made. So both of them are adding to the overall activity level on the portfolio.
Thank you. The next follow-up question is from the line of Shubhranshu Mishra from PhillipCapital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the follow-up. Two questions, please. First one is, w e would be doing a bureau scrub almost every month, so what proportion of our customers have more than two cards? What proportion of our customers have more than three cards? And the second question is that, I understand that the customers are delinquent and have over, are over-leveraged, but in case they are not paying us, who are they paying? Or are they delinquent everywhere?
Nandini, would you like to supplement?
Basically, yes, we do monthly bureau scrub, and we basically keep on monitoring the number of customers who have shown an increase in credit facilities, and we take action accordingly. We cannot reveal what are the percentage of customers who have more than three cards or five cards, but we take action as per our defined early warning framework. Yes, we have observed that if they are delinquent with us, they are delinquent on unsecured credit lines outside as well.
They are delinquent with everyone?
Yes, they are. They are delinquent on the unsecured side, yes.
Okay, sure. Thanks.
And that's bureau data available for anyone to see and check.
Thank you. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Abhijit Chakravorty for closing comments.
I thank everyone present for our earnings call today and to each of our stakeholders for their unwavering support and trust. Before I close, here is wishing you all and all your loved ones a very happy Diwali. Thank you.