Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the SBI Cards and Payment Services Limited Q2 FY 2026 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero on your touchtone phone. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Salila Pande, MD and CEO, SBI Cards. Thank you, and over to you, Ms. Salila Pande.
Thank you, Sagar. A very good evening to everyone present on the call today. Along with the Board members and management of SBI Cards, I extend a warm welcome and sincere thanks for joining us. India continues to be one of the world's most resilient and fastest-growing economies, even as the global landscape remains marked by uneven recovery and geopolitical uncertainty. According to RBI's Monetary Policy Committee meeting held in October 2025, the real GDP growth forecast for financial year 2026 has been revised upwards to 6.8%, underscoring the economy's strong momentum. The recent GST reforms, coupled with optimistic festive demands, have stimulated consumption across both discretionary and non-discretionary categories, reinforcing the strength of domestic demand and rising consumer aspirations.
India's digital payment landscape is undergoing a rapid transformation, propelled by key factors such as the expansion of digital infrastructure, progressive reforms, a robust fintech ecosystem, and growing smartphones and internet penetration. Digital payment transaction volumes are projected to nearly triple by FY 2030, rising from 206 billion in FY 2025 to 617 billion, while the value of transactions is expected to expand from INR 299 trillion to INR 907 trillion. As per the reports in the next five years, the volume and value of credit card transactions in India are expected to grow at approximately 21.8% and 20.8%, respectively, reaching around 13 billion transactions, totaling INR 54 trillion by the financial year 2030. India currently has around 112 million credit cards in circulation, a number projected to double to about 200 million by FY 2030, supported by product innovation and wider acceptance.
As a customer-centric organization, SBI Cards continues to pursue growth by focusing on offering seamless experiences, personalized rewards, and best-in-class credit card products to millions of customers across the country. With digital platforms becoming the preferred medium for today's tech-savvy Indian customers, we continue to strategically deepen our presence by forging partnerships with leading brands. We launched three marquee co-branded credit cards during the quarter. Flipkart SBI Card is carefully designed to offer curated cashback benefits, making everyday shopping more rewarding. The PhonePe SBI Card is yet another addition crafted to meet evolving customer needs by combining convenience, digital agility, and everyday value. We also launched the IndiGo SBI Card, catering to the aspirations of frequent travelers. We also launched an integrated nationwide festive campaign called Khushiyan Unlimited, bringing over 1,250 offers with leading brands across 2,900 cities.
We have witnessed an encouraging response from customers across all key categories, including consumer durables, electronics, jewelry, departmental stores, and e-commerce. In addition, SBI Cards have been bestowed with several prestigious awards for various initiatives. Notable among these is the prestigious CII National AI Award at the AI Summit 2025 for our revamped SBI Cards mobile app. This award reflects our commitment to digital innovation and operational excellence. Coming to the business performance and key metrics during the quarter, Cards in Force have grown to around 2 crore 15 lakh, with 10% growth year over year. We added 936,000 new accounts while continuing to focus on quality acquisition. Sourcing from banker and open market channels was 50/50 each. SBI Cards continues to be India's second largest credit card issuer, with Cards in Force market share at 19%.
As for the spend, as per RBI August 2025 data, our spend market share has further grown to 16.8% in FY 2026. Total spend during the quarter reached the highest ever level of INR 17,063 crore, with a strong growth of around 31% year over year. Retail spend reached INR 8,961.1 crore, witnessing a 17% year-over- year growth. We have seen good growth across most online and POS spend categories. Online spend witnessed strong growth across all non-discretionary and discretionary categories. Key categories include departmental stores, health, utilities, education, consumer durables, furnishing and hardware, apparel, restaurants, and jewelry, among others. Online spend contributed 62.5% of the total retail spend in H1 of FY 2026. Corporate spend has also witnessed strong growth and reached INR 1,745.2 crore during the quarter, with our continuous focus on diversification of use cases.
UPI on credit card usage continued to grow 16% quarter-over- quarter, majorly in department stores, groceries, utilities, fuel, apparel, and restaurants, driven by RuPay and QR acceptance expansion. Coming to the financial performance, total revenue for the quarter was INR 5,136 crore, registering a growth of 13% year -over- year. Revenue has been higher, mainly due to higher spend-based income. Profit after tax was INR 445 crore, with an increase of 10% year-over- year. Operating costs during the quarter were higher, driven by higher cost-effective campaigns and offers and higher corporate payback on corporate spend. As a result, the cost-to-income ratio was at 56.8%. Receivables during the quarter reached INR 59,845 crore, with 8% year-over-year growth. However, the interest earning assets were at 56%, with revolver rate at 22%.
This is due to the higher transactor volume in the festive spend, as has been the case in the previous years as well. The higher transactor volume also impacted the yield for the quarter, being 16.5% versus 17% in the previous quarter. Cost of funds on our borrowings for the second quarter was lower at 6.4% versus 7.1% in the first quarter. The cost of funds for Q2 was lower by 51 basis points on a daily weighted average basis. The benefit from repo cuts on our floating book has been mostly absorbed now. The cost of funds is expected to remain stable at current levels until we see another policy rate action. With portfolio yield at 16.5% and lower cost of funds, the net interest margin for the quarter was at 11.2%.
Talking about the asset quality, as we mentioned in our previous quarter calls, owing to steps taken over the last few quarters to strengthen our new acquisition underwriting and portfolio management framework, we have seen improvement in the key asset quality metrics. Gross NPA for the quarter improved to 2.85% versus 3.07% in the previous quarter. In absolute terms, stage three stock has reduced to INR 1,705 crore in Q2 of FY 2026 from INR 1,735 crore in Q1 of FY 2026. Stage two stock, which is portfolio at significant increase in credit risk, has reduced to INR 2,485 crore in Q2 from INR 2,673 crore in Q1. The ECL rate has reduced by 17 basis points quarter over quarter to 3.3%. The gross credit cost has seen a reduction of 58 basis points in this quarter at 9% from 9.6% in the previous quarter.
In absolute terms, there's a reduction of INR 59 crore in gross credit cost during this quarter from INR 1,352 crore in Q1 to INR 1,293 crore in Q2 of FY 2026. Gross write-off for the quarter was INR 1,281 crore. Looking at stage two and stage three stocks and the flow rates, we expect the credit cost to show an improving trend in the next two quarters of FY 2026. Our liquidity position continues to be strong. Our capital adequacy ratio was at a strong level of 22.5%. ROA for the quarter was 2.6%, lower by 4 basis points year over year. ROE for the quarter was 12.1%, lower by 37 basis points year over year. Summing up, we remain optimistic about the strong growth prospects for the credit card industry.
With a clear focus on value creation and sustainability, we are committed to build and grow our business for the long term. We remain steadfast in maintaining robust asset quality and prudent risk management, ensuring long-term stability and resilience. Now, we are open to take questions. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question-and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and then one on their touchtone phone. 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. Again, to register for a question, please press star and one. Our first question comes from the line of Mahrukh Adhajania from Nuvama. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hello, good evening. My question is on credit costs. If you see, the provisions, while it's a very low number, it's a small number, there's huge volatility across quarters, right? Last quarter it was INR 72 crore, and this quarter it's INR 12 crore. How do you think about it going ahead? How do we model it? Because it's so volatile. Write-offs remain elevated. When do you see those coming down? You said that the trajectory of credit costs will be down in the next two quarters. Could you guide to a range? Will it be substantially below 9%? Any range? Last time you had said that you would like to wait for some time before giving guidance on what credit costs, where credit costs would normalize at, right?
Over the next one and a half, two years, do they go down to the old levels of a little higher than 6%, or do they remain in the range of 7%? Those were my questions.
Thank you, Mahrukh. First of all, your question about the gross credit costs, I think the first was on the ECL, right? The first question was on.
Yes, it was a provision. There's write-off and provision, yeah.
The thing here is, see, as we have been mentioning, we are following a model which basically calculates the provision bill or the ECL numbers for us. If, as I mentioned during my speech, if you look at the stocks, they have declined substantially, specifically in the stage two category. Almost INR 188 crore of decline has happened over there. As we had mentioned, two things will continue to happen. One is that as we have been dropping the stocks or the loss rates, which were better in terms of the earlier eight quarters, eight-year numbers, we are seeing increase in the ECL rates. However, as the stocks are going down, we are also seeing the opposite effect of that, and hence the ECL numbers and the provision numbers are coming down.
Going forward, what I can say right now is that we are anticipating decline in the write-off numbers, looking at the stocks, looking at the flow rates, and also, we will see a reduction in the gross credit costs. One or two things also which I want to point out since this question may come up again, and Mahrukh, you've already mentioned this, I don't know whether you have the investor presentation with you, but even in terms of the slippage ratio, we are at 2.07% this time. We are also seeing some abatement over there in terms of the slippages. Stocks are going down, the slippages are down. We are hopeful that we will see better asset quality in the coming quarters.
Would you like to give any range?
I can say it will be below 9%.
Okay.
Right.
Okay, thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Abhishek M. from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hello. Am I audible?
Yes, Abhijit, you are audible.
Hi. My first question is on OpEx. How much would have been the festive spend this quarter? Also, if you can give the corporate spend-related OpEx that you would have booked this quarter, just to get a sense of the underlying retail OpEx, how that has trended.
Abhishek, we don't disclose the numbers with respect to the amount of expenses with respect to our festive offers, and neither do we disclose the expense on account of our corporate spends as well. However, we can definitely say that the corporate spend this quarter was way higher than the previous quarter, and that obviously would impact the OpEx number for this quarter, in addition to the fact that quarter two has always been, the OpEx for quarter two has always been higher given the festive offers that we have in this quarter. We don't give out the breakup between the two.
If I want to get a sense of the underlying OpEx and the one-offs that have happened in this quarter, how do I make that out from your number? Should I anchor to the last, let's say, two, three quarters average OpEx because that's clean and that doesn't have festive season spend?
I would just.
Would that affect the underlying?
Abhishek, I think if you go back a previous few years, you'll be able to see the seasonality between and the difference in the OpEx or the cost-to-income ratio between quarter one and quarter two. Don't look at FY 2025, though, because in FY 2025, we anyway had spend given the changes in the regulation. Therefore, the quarter one FY 2025 and quarter two FY 2025 may not be a representation. If you go back a few years, you should be able to see the kind of increase that we normally have between quarter one and quarter two in the OpEx number.
You have to also look at whether the festival season should have begun in quarter two.
In quarter two as well.
Because sometimes in some years, the festival season is purely in quarter three.
Yeah.
I guess FY 2024 would probably be a better year because there was some volatility in OpEx between Q3 and Q4. Okay. All right. Is that a fair year to look at?
There will be no exact like to like.
Exact like-to-like, Abhishek.
Okay. Sure.
Last year and this year had some similarities.
Yeah.
A couple of years back versus this is slightly different.
Okay. I just want to add that, see, in terms of the cost-to-income, the guidance that we had given initially was that it will be somewhere around 57%. This is the season.
Okay.
We spend time also, because ultimately, we also have to see in terms of engagement with the customers and giving them the right value prop. I think this was as per the expected length.
For the full year this year, we should average at 57. Is that something we should anchor to?
for the full year, in the last quarter.
FY 2026.
FY 2026, I'd mentioned it should be in the 54 - 56. However, given the, you know, we are seeing higher corporate spend, so we'll be on the higher side of the range now. Corporate spend is increasing.
Okay. All right. The second question, ma'am, is that if I look at the absolute balances of revolver and EMI, for almost three quarters, it's more or less stable. This quarter, obviously, you know, there are transactors. Some of it will flow into EMI or, you know, revolver. How, I mean, what kind of trends do you expect on the absolute balances in EMI and revolver? Do they look like they are going to grow at par with your overall AUM, or is that ratio going to keep coming down in the next few quarters?
Yeah. A couple of things, as we have been mentioning earlier also, that revolver, we are seeing a downward bias. This quarter, definitely, because of the denominator impact, there's much more decline in the revolver percentage. EMI, yes, it's more or less stable. Again, because of the denominator impact, this quarter we are seeing a bigger decline. Overall, I would say it continues to be stable. We have also been taking a lot of steps to work with our customers to increase the EMI portfolio. EMI is more or less stable. As Girish Budhiraja had mentioned in the last call also, revolver, we see a downward bias.
Okay. Would we be able to hold our NIM at the current level? You also said that your cost of funds should be stable and all the impact of repo card pass-through, etc., has been absorbed. Should we see NIMs holding on to this level, or should we expect some pressure on it?
We will hold on to the NIMs.
Got it. All right, ma'am. Thank you. I'll come back in the queue for more questions. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Piran Engineer from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my question. I firstly have clarification that.
Sorry to interrupt, Piran, Sir. Your line is breaking up. If you can just check your connection.
Is it better now?
This is slightly better.
Okay. I was saying I just have two clarificatory questions and then two proper questions. Firstly, on the clarification, this INR 30 crore stamp duty expense has come in other OpEx?
It's a provision. Other OpEx you mentioned?
No, which provision line item is the question?
It would go in the operating cost line item.
OpEx, right? The other OpEx, basically.
Other OpEx. Oh, you're looking at the, yes, yes, other expenses. Yeah, correct.
Other expenses. Okay. Fair enough. The second.
The line item that we have in the P&L is operating and other expenses. It goes in there.
Exactly. That's what I meant. Fair enough. The second thing, slide 11, when you calculate yield on loans, is this on a daily average loan basis or a period-end sort of basis?
It's a four-point average. Both the cost of funds on this particular slide 11 is on a four-point average.
Sorry, you said 4 point?
Four point, yeah.
Each month. Okay.
Each month.
You'll have a second point and then the.
Yeah, correct. Absolutely. Yeah. This particular slide has a four-point average, whereas if you see the cost of funds, we separately give out as a daily average on slide 16.
Got it. Okay. That explains it. The real questions are, firstly, fee income as a percentage of spends is down quite meaningfully QoQ. This is despite higher corporate spend.
I'm sorry, Piran, we couldn't get the question. What has gone significantly, sir?
Your free income as a proportion of spends, yeah, ideally should go up when corporate spends are going up and when discretionary, retail spends are going up. It's the other way around. It's gone down. I'm a bit confused here.
You want to address that?
Another way to put it is spends are up 15% and fee income is up some 3%, 4%. Piran, on the interchange rate which we are getting on the spends, that is consistent. There is no change there, one bit here or there, which is a kind of a monthly variation. The fee from certain categories of spends, for example, on the rental as a category, we were charging fees to a certain set of customers, and rental spends have been coming down. Those fee levels have started to come down.
Piran, also, I think this is a clarification we've given in a call about a few quarters back. You cannot take up the entire fee income and divide it by spend because my fee income is on two accounts. One, it comes on account of my accounts, and the second line item comes on account of the spends. You can't mix the two and look at the total fee line item and say, what is it and divide it by the overall spend because that number will not make any sense. The way our accounts have grown is different from the way our spends have grown.
No, which is true. I agree with you, Rashmi, but it's overwhelmingly, it's more to do with spend than to do with accounts, right? I get there is a contribution.
It isn't like that. It has to do with both the fee line item on account of the accounts as well as on the spends as well.
Got it. Okay. Lastly, on this credit cost, I understand we're expecting an improvement from current levels. Ballpark, how do we think about next year? Are we back to normal next year given that it's a short-term product, or is normalization, and by normalization, I mean 6.5%- 7% credit cost? Is that still a while away?
I would refrain to give a number for the next year right now, but I can definitely assure that we'll see improvement and decline in the credit cost going forward in the next two quarters.
Okay. Fair enough. Yeah, that's it from my end. Thank you and wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Shweta from Avalara. Please go ahead.
Thank you, ma'am, for the opportunity. I have two questions. The first one being, what are the key strategic measures that we have taken as far as sourcing strategy is concerned? Are we looking to change our guidance or cards run rate of 0.9 million- 1 million which you put up in Q1? Second is, considering the fact that there has been a material drop in interest earning assets, where do you see, or are there internal targets now for ROAs? We saw in this quarter that higher spend traction was quite negated by slow movement, top line led by slower Cards in Force growth. How do you see, or what are the internal levers that you have put up in place for ROA improvement ahead? Those are my two questions.
Okay. On the key strategies, I would say that, as you are aware, we normally have two channels on which we basically work on acquisition. As I mentioned in my opening call, we have been tying up with some significantly large co-brand partners in the e-com space and the digital payment space, and we are seeing good numbers coming as well from there. That is going to be our strategy on one side. We will continue to work with the banker channel as well, in terms of having profitable, good customers from there. We continue as of now with the similar guidance that we had given, around 0.9 million- 1 million in terms of the accounts. IBNE, yes, I would say that we had given guidance initially, which we reduced to 10% - 12% in the last call.
We will continue because now we are seeing good spend happening after the festive season. We are hopeful, and we will continue to stick to that guidance. We have a couple of strategies to improve the IBNE there, which will have its bearing on ROA as well. We will continue to definitely work on that.
Sure. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Pranav Gundlapalle from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my question. Just one question again on the revolvers and EMI. If I look at the absolute value, it's almost been flat on a year-on-year basis. Is this because of certain actions that you've taken in terms of the cardholders or any of the operating metrics? Is this simply a reflection of the industry trends and the quality of the different customers that you have now started sourcing? Just trying to understand if this is a new normal or if there is a one-off that you have done, and therefore you should expect a reversal like this. Thank you.
It's a mix of both. In absolute terms, there is a growth in the revolver asset. However, the growth is fairly muted. We believe because in the last eight quarters or so, we have been focusing on very selective customer acquisition, which has, as we have previously also indicated, put the revolver at a lower bias. As things stabilize and as the credit cost starts to come down over a period of time, we will be able to look at accelerating some of those things. As of now, for the next at least two to three quarters, our focus is essentially to get the credit cost down to a reasonable number before we start looking at the growth parameters.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Anand Dama from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Ma'am, thank you for the opportunity. When we look at the overall growth spends in the POS segment, we have seen that even the departmental stores, the travel-related spends actually have come down. Is there any specific reason for these spends to come down on the POS? Obviously, online spends are doing well, but why on the POS front? We thought that particularly post the GST cut at least the POS spend also should see an improvement. Any explanation on that front?
I think that is more of a customer behavior also. In terms of the co-brand partnerships, as I mentioned, that we have done, there will be more of a propensity to do online spends through those kind of tie-ups. Overall, also, the customer behavior, we find that people like to shop more online now as compared to via POS. Anything you want to add there?
Just a couple of things. If you look at the POS, yes, POS is down in category one and category three. Category three is essentially, it's only in the restaurant category where the POS spends are going to be higher. In category one, it is the departmental stores which is critical. If you actually look at it from October onwards, there is a movement which is positive because festival season, part of Navrathra, is essentially online just overtakes the spending because it's huge. The more of POS spending starts in the middle of the season from Dashera to Diwali. As we declare the look at the QT numbers, we would look at it slightly differently.
In that case, the OpEx also in the third quarter should be higher because a lot of retail spends actually would come in the third quarter. I think the rewards and incentives related to that should be on a higher side.
The festival season has straddled from September to October. Our festival season-related spending will be in these two months. Corporate card spending, as Rashmi was mentioning, is a constant thing that will continue.
Corporate spend would keep going up, and in that case, the overall cost also should be on a higher side, primarily because of the corporate spend. Is it possible for you to tell us, like, you know, what's the overall ROA metrics of the corporate card business?
We don't declare the ROA on the corporate side. However, in the corporate card side, the asset is hardly anything. So actually, ROA is very, very high. However, in this, the income, as we have earlier also indicated, the revenue is essentially the interchange, and part of that interchange goes back to the customer as fast back. Hence, it just skews the OpEx to CV ratios.
Is there any change in the incentive program, particularly on the corporate spend that you have done recently?
Yeah, we have reduced it.
Okay, we have reduced it. Sure, that's helpful. Thanks. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Punit B ahlani from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my question. Just one question on the yield front. Your book mix has not changed. In fact, you also indicated that revolver and exchange only because of the denominator effect. Why have the yields declined so drastically? Is it because, you know, something like spending towards the end of the quarter or something like that? In that case, we should expect from 3Q it should bounce back, right? Yeah.
Yes, you are correct.
Okay, yeah. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of MB Mahesh from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Okay. Hi. Just this question on this rental side, which RBI had kind of made an announcement saying that you can't accept from the rental transaction. If you could just broadly give us an outline as to how does it impact your numbers in the next couple of questions.
The rental spend has almost stopped. Comparatively, although that is something we had started seeing from last year itself because when we had imposed a fee over there, we had started seeing reduction in spends. Overall, rental spends are going to impact our overall spends by 3% - 5%.
Sorry. When you say 3%- 5%, this would be, let's say, off the current quarter's numbers, it would be lower than 3 %- 5% next quarter or so? Is that the way to say it?
3%- 5%, over the previous quarter, whatever were the numbers for the previous quarter, we have, depending upon the seasonality, we will start seeing, somewhere between these numbers.
Okay. Just to clarify, has RBI put a full block on the rental transaction, or are there any specific categories of rental which is now currently blocked?
Basically, they have said you have to do a KYC there. RBI has said that for the merchants, the payment aggregators have to do the KYC. The payment aggregators, wherever they are unable to do the KYC, are not doing those transactions. That is impacting this kind of rental payments.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Kamal from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hello. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. I would like to ask that given October was also a festive month, how has the demand environment shaped during October? Also, how do we see the mix of revolvers and transactors shaping as a result, in Q3 and going forward?
I think, yes, as you mentioned, it's a continuation. We have seen Diwali was in October, so the spends have continued to be better than the last two, three months. Yeah, better spends. Yes, after Diwali, we are seeing a little bit of a slowdown in terms of the spends.
The mix of revolver and transactors going forward, like how should we expect it in the coming quarters?
For this quarter, it's too early to say. As I mentioned earlier, more of the uptake that we saw was because of the transactor volume coming at the end of the quarter. As we will start seeing payoffs over there, for the current cycle, the revolver percentage will increase from 22%.
Okay. Got it. Thank you. That was the only question.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Sucrit D. Patil from Eyesight Fintrade Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Good evening to the team. I think you have pretty much answered about the margins and on the books. I have a forward-looking question. As credit increasingly integrates with the digital platforms and journeys, how does SBI Cards plan to evolve its brand identity to remain emotionally relevant, particularly for younger digitally native consumers? Yes, thank you.
I think there are a couple of things. Credit cards and digital payments are different. Credit card is more of an aspirational product, and we are seeing a lot of interest from the younger lot as well. It's not that we don't get applications and we don't get interest from the younger lot. They continue to engage with us, and we continue to engage with them. A lot of marketing efforts go into working with those customers in terms of their customer lifecycle, engagements, and value props. I don't see a challenge over there. In fact, we see a lot of promise going forward as more and more people want to, as I mentioned, I see that there's a lot of aspiration to have a credit card, spend it, the kind of value prop people are seeing in that. As of now, we don't see any challenges over there.
The digital payment space is growing. It is helping us. We are also doing pretty well through UPI. When we are connecting our credit cards to UPI, there also we are seeing a lot of traction. It's a win-win situation.
My final and closing question. As the business continues to scale, what kind of partnerships or ecosystem players do you see as important for expanding reach or improving cost efficiency over the next few years or the next Q3?
No, nothing. See, I think we have a pretty well-diversified suite with the products and partnerships. We have covered more or less most of the segments. Having said that, we understand who are the significant partners, who are the big players. We keep on talking to them. We keep on coming up with new partnerships with them as we see their dominance in a particular market segment. As I mentioned earlier, also in the previous quarter itself, we have tied up with a very significant e-com player, Flipkart. We have tied up with a very big player in the digital payment space, PhonePe. We have also tied up with the largest market player in terms of the airlines, which is IndiGo. We keep on looking, assessing, looking at what is the value for us, what is the value proposition for the customer, and of course, our partners.
We will continue to work on that.
I think that is good enough guidance. I wish the entire team and you best of luck for Q3.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Shubhranshu Misha from PhillipC apital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening, Rashmi. Good evening, Girish, Preston, QAP. Three questions. The first one is, how do we model in the corporate spend growth going forward in the next six quarters? Second is, has Encash or the TR loan on cards, has it stopped because of some regulatory intervention? The third part is the new launches of the co-brands. IndiGo also has a co-brand with Kotak. Flipkart has a co-brand with Axis. Axis has tried the co-brand with Google Pay on its pre-labeled pay card. What are our internal estimates about these particular co-brands? What will this contribute to the new accounts? A lot of these high-spending customers would already have a credit card, one or two. These are my three questions.
We will go step by step. Your first question was on the corporate spend on an overall basis. Before the actioning in February of 2024, we were touching close to 20%- 22% of the overall spend with corporate spends. Even now, we are not there. We will move in that direction. However, as I stated earlier, we want to do it with better margins. That's the area that we want to look at. It will continue to grow, but we will grow where we find good margin spending from the customers. That is on the corporate card. I didn't get the second.
The second question was about Encash . Encash continues to be part of our portfolio.
Has there been any regulatory intervention to stop it?
Regulatory intervention to stop it?
The Encash book continues.
Continues, yeah.
Encash book is continuing at this point of time.
Which is part of our portfolio of the IBNE assets that we report.
Yeah.
The third question on the co-brand part, which you asked about the Axis, yes, Flipkart has Axis as a co-brand, which is there. We have also, as we have recently participated with them, there is a demand for SBI Card. Otherwise, Flipkart would not be looking at a second partner. Secondly, Flipkart also is expanding tier two, tier three, tier four cities, and they want to go deeper into the country. We are very strong there. The SBI brand stands for trust. We have seen a lot of customers wanting to apply, and we are getting very good volumes and very strong interest from the Flipkart customers for this card.
IndiGo also has Kotak, and the other question on Axis and Google Pay, which didn't really take off.
Google Pay and Axis, you would have to ask either of those people as to why, what more needs to be done. On IndiGo, airline, there are only two airlines now. One is IndiGo, and the second is Air India. At this point of time, IndiGo co-brand, we are very proud of partnering with them. I think the primary channel there will be digital because a lot of people are applying on our own website and through our mobile app to come and wanting to apply. We are seeing very good interest at our retail outlets or stalls at various airports. Those are the primary channels through which we would want to acquire IndiGo co-brand card.
Understood. Thank you so much, Girish. Thanks, Rashmi.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Abhishek M. from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking the follow-up. If I look at your retail spend, can you give a sense of how much would be from rentals now versus, let's say, a year back?
As ma'am was saying, retail rental was 3%- 5% depending on the month. It is very low. It used to be early teens, almost around 18 months back if I go back. We had put a fee. We ourselves were very careful to be able to look at these kind of spends. While, as we put the fee, we saw the numbers come down, which we are okay with. Now that this kind of KYC thing has come out, which is right, which is completely correct because merchant KYC has to be done by the payment aggregators, and they should have done that before. Now that it has stopped, the impact on us would be fairly minimal. You have seen that we had a very strong growth in the last quarter on the retail spends of close to 14%+ .
Half the month, more than half the month, these spends have not happened. These are now absorbed into the overall scheme of needs.
Right. Fair to say that X of this rental, the rest of the retail spend growth is actually quite robust, even if we take out seasonality or festive bloating.
Yes.
Yes.
We are seeing good spend.
I mean, maybe could it be upwards of 20% on a YoY basis?
On the retail side?
X of rental.
No, on the retail side, if you look at the YoY, it was 17%. The retail spends have grown 17% YoY.
You think X of rental would be more than, yeah.
Yes.
Yes, it would be more than that.
20%. Okay.
It would be more than that. The primary reason for that growth, as we have also been mentioning, has been the very strong pickup on UPI. That is why we put a slide onto it and show the numbers there. We are getting very good customer engagement, both in transactions as well as the value spend on the UPI, rupee credit cards.
Understood. Got it. Thank you so much. Just wanted to check on that.
Thank you. If there are no further questions from the participants, I now hand the conference over to Ms. Salila Pande for closing comments.
Thank you, Agar. I would like to thank our shareholders, customers, partners, employees, and everyone present on today's call for their unwavering support and continued trust. Before I close, I thank all of you once again. Have a good evening.
Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of SBI Cards and Payment Services Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.