Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to SBI Cards and Payment Services Limited Q4 and 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 then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Salila Pande, MD and CEO, SBI Cards. Thank you and over to you, ma'am.
Thank you, Danish. A very good afternoon to everyone. On behalf of the board and management of SBI Cards, I would like to welcome and thank you for joining us today. I would like to extend our gratitude to all the stakeholders for their continued support and trust in the company. At SBI Cards, we remain focused on supporting India's rapidly evolving digital payment landscape while further reinforcing our position as India's largest pure-play credit card player. The Indian economy continues to demonstrate resilience despite ongoing geopolitical uncertainties, with real GDP projected to grow at around 6.9% for the financial year 2026-2027. As per IMF, Indian economy is likely to remain a bright spot in an increasingly uncertain global environment, with growth running at more than twice the global average, supported by strong underlying fundamentals.
At the same time, some moderation may be seen due to elevated energy prices and external headwinds. As per the recently released government data, India's retail inflation inched up to 3.4% year-on-year in March from 3.21% in February. Over the past few years, India's digital payments ecosystem has witnessed rapid transformation. Digital transactions are becoming an integral part of everyday payments, supported by growing digital infrastructure, supportive regulatory initiatives, and a thriving fintech ecosystem. The shift has reshaped customer behavior, with payments becoming more frequent, smaller in terms of ticket size, and increasingly integrated with credit channels. Digital transactions have grown almost 11 times between 2021 to 2025, with UPI accounting for almost 80% of overall digital transactions.
Within this evolving payment landscape, credit cards continue to play a significant role, facilitating a rewarding, simple, safe and seamless payments experience. According to RBI March 2026 data, credit card spends during the year grew roughly 12% year-over-year to INR 23.62 trillion. The number of cards in force has crossed 118.6 million during this period, reflecting continued adoption across India's expanding base of aspirational customers. As an agile organization, we at SBI Cards recognize these opportunities and are committed to capitalizing on them to fuel growth. We continue to strengthen our position as India's largest pure-play credit card player and second largest credit card issuer. As a customer-centric organization, we are focused on delivering seamless customer journeys, differentiated product offerings, and personalized experiences. Hyper-personalization continues to be a key strategic lever for us.
During the year, we enhanced data-driven customer engagement capabilities, helping enhance customer lifetime value through the SBI Card Mobile App and digital channels. Digital acquisition has gained momentum. With SBI Card SPRINT, a growing share of new account acquisitions is now initiated digitally, improving the speed and experience of customer onboarding journey. During the year, we enhanced our product portfolio to meet evolving needs of aspirational and tech-savvy customers. For instance, during the year we launched several co-branded credit cards such as Tata Neu SBI Card, Flipkart SBI Card, IndiGo SBI Card, and PhonePe SBI Card SELECT. Hundreds of national and regional offers were rolled out across all key spend categories in partnership with reputed brands to increase spends and engagement. One of the key priorities during the year was to control and reduce credit cost. Our focus remained on maintaining portfolio resilience while supporting sustainable growth.
We augmented our risk management framework, enhanced policies, procedures, models, and analytical capabilities across areas including underwriting, portfolio management, collections, fraud risk management, and provisioning while ensuring alignment with evolving regulatory expectations and industry best practices. We further strengthened our collections infrastructure, both digital and physical. The focus was on encouraging customers to make timely repayments. In case of a difficulty, we supported the customers with financial hardship tools. Technology investments in artificial intelligence and machine learning are playing a key role in transforming our product development and service delivery. From optimizing internal processes, attaining insights into customer behavior and preferences, upskilling employee to risk management framework, among others, we are poised to harness full potential of these advancements in financial year 2027. Our ESG approach is based on four cornerstones of our commitment to a sustainable future, social prosperity, building trust, impactful integrity, and climate action.
This financial year, we also declared an interim dividend of INR 2.50 per equity share, enhancing shareholder value. As regards the business performance in Q4 and for the whole year, the results trajectory is well in line with what we had expected and conveyed during the year. Let me share some key metrics. As per RBI March 2026 data, we continue to be the second-largest credit card issuer in the country, with cards in force market share of 18.6%. During the quarter, we added 917,000 new accounts while maintaining a strong focus on quality-led acquisition. Our digital onboarding platform, SBI Card SPRINT, continues to deliver encouraging results by enabling faster and seamless customer acquisition. In terms of the new sourcing mix, our share from open market and banker channels in FY 2026 stands at 54% and 46% respectively.
As for RBI's 2026 data, our spends market share has further grown to 18.1% in FY 2026. Overall spends in Q4 FY 2026 exceeded INR 1.15 trillion with a strong 31% growth YoY. During FY 2026, overall spends were INR 4.3 trillion, setting a new benchmark. Retail spends witnessed steady growth, driven by rising adoption of digital payments and ongoing expansion of payment ecosystem. In Q4 of FY 2026, retail spends reached INR 89,786 crores with 13% growth YoY. During FY 2026, retail spends reached the highest ever level of over INR 3.54 trillion with a 15% growth YoY. 30-day retail spend active rate continues to be healthy at over 52% in Q4 of FY 2026. During the quarter, we have seen growth momentum across both POS and online channels.
Key spend categories that particularly performed well include consumer durables, furnishing and hardware, apparel and jewelry, travel and entertainment, among others. Online spends contributed 62.5% of the total retail spends of FY 2026. UPI on credit card usage continued to gain momentum, witnessing 10% growth in Q4 of FY 2026 compared to Q3. Department stores and grocery, utilities, fuel, apparel and restaurants continue to be among the top five categories for UPI spends. Additionally, the ability to use RuPay credit cards through QR-based UPI acceptance terminals is gaining traction, particularly in Tier Two plus markets that have the highest UPI active cards in force and UPI spends, adding to the growth momentum. As regards the financial performance of the company during Q4 and FY 2026, total revenue during Q4 was INR 5,187 crore with 7% growth YoY.
Total revenue for FY 2026 was INR 20,708 crore, registering 11% growth YoY. Increased spends this year resulted in higher spend-based income contributing to healthy revenue growth. With lower credit cost this quarter over the previous quarter, we delivered a profit after tax of INR 609 crore in Q4 with 14% growth YoY. For the financial year 2026, SBI Cards achieved a profit after tax of INR 2,167 crore with a 13% growth YoY. During Q4 FY 2026, our receivables were at INR 56,926 crore, around 2% growth YoY. The interest earning assets were 54% with revolver balance at 22%.
Revolving rates have been in the range of 22%-24% over the last two years, and we expect this to have a slight downward bias in FY 2027. We will continue to focus on building our EMI book. The cost of funds during Q4 was 6.4%, lower by 82 basis points YoY. For FY 2026, it was 6.7%, lower by 71 basis points. The net interest margin for the quarter has improved to 11.1% versus 11% in Q3. For FY 2026, it has improved to 11.2%, higher by 31 basis points YoY. We expect NIM to remain stable, though at risk from any significant increase in cost of funds as a result of uncertain macroeconomic conditions. In Q4 FY 2026, the OpEx has been lower compared to the previous quarter, owing to lower spend-based cost.
However, for FY 2026, the OpEx was 22% higher YoY on account of higher corporate spends. The cost to income ratio for Q4 was 57.2% and 55.3% for FY 2026. The cost to income ratio was impacted by higher operating expense on account of higher corporate spends. In terms of the asset quality, our gross credit cost has improved by 55 basis points quarter-over-quarter to 7.7%, continuing with the reducing trend as witnessed in the last two quarters as well. GNPA for the quarter was reduced by 46 basis points quarter-over-quarter to 2.41%. The NPA stock has reduced by INR 268 crore quarter-over-quarter and INR 348 crore YoY to INR 1,370 crore.
Stage two balance, which is portfolio at significant increase in credit risk, have reduced by INR 149 crore quarter-over-quarter and INR 711 crore YoY to INR 2,090 crore. SBI Cards delinquencies have continued to reduce in this quarter too, as witnessed in the previous six quarters. Keeping in view the annual ECL model refresh and uncertainty due to geopolitical turmoil, we are retaining an overlay of INR 220 crore for ECL provision. Owing to strengthened underwriting standards, portfolio management and collections, asset quality continues to improve with better portfolio mix, reducing NPAs and portfolio delinquencies. We expect the credit cost to moderate further in FY 2027. However, the rate of moderation in credit cost and asset quality will depend on the evolving geopolitical landscape and its impact on the macroeconomic factors and the unsecured lending ecosystem.
We are vigilant and monitoring our portfolio for any likely impact of dynamic macroeconomic variables. At the same time, with adequate capital and provision buffer, we do not foresee any significant impact in the coming quarter. Our capital adequacy ratio for Q4 was strong at a comfortable level of 25.5%. The ROA for Q4 was 3.6%, 29 basis points higher YoY, while for FY 2026, ROA was 3.2%, 11 basis points higher YoY. ROE was 15.6%, eight basis points higher YoY, and 14.6% for FY 2026, lower by five basis points YoY. As we close FY 2026, we remain optimistic about the long-term trajectory of India's consumer credit and digital payments ecosystem. Looking ahead to FY 2027, we are ready and well-prepared with adequate buffers to pursue profitable growth in a disciplined manner.
It is important to reiterate that we remain vigilant regarding the geopolitical and economic landscape and will adapt our strategy if warranted. With that, we are now happy to take questions. Thank you.
Thank you, ma'am. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin with 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'll wait for a moment while the question queue assemble.
Yeah, question.
Mr. Ajmera, you may please proceed with your question.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Am I audible?
Yes, you are.
Yes.
Please go ahead.
Yeah. My first question is regarding new account addition. Our new account addition has been significantly lower than, let's say, previous year. How do you see and attribute it going forward?
As Mr. Ajmera, we had mentioned during our previous earnings call that we will target acquisition of 9 lakh to 1 million for the quarter, and we have ended this quarter with around 9.17 lakhs. We are on track, and we had said that the growth will be calibrated. We look at the next quarter's acquisition to be somewhere in the similar range, and continue with adding high value, good quality customers, which ultimately add value to the overall financials of the company.
Okay. My second question is regarding cost-to-income ratio. This year is around, let's say, 57.2%, which is, let's say, almost 6% higher than previous year. How do you see this going forward?
You want to respond? We expect the cost to income to be in the range of 55%-58% for the next year as well.
Okay. Previously, it used to be around 51%-52%. What has changed in the company for this-
The change has largely been on account of the corporate spends, because the corporate spends this year have been way higher than what they were last year. As you can see from the deck, there's a substantial increase in the corporate spends this year compared to the last year. They basically add a few percentage points on the cost to income. Next year, since we thought the growth will be a very BAU kind of a growth, we don't expect therefore a very significant increase in the cost to income because of the corporate spends. It'll largely be the BAU revenue and the cost line which will determine the cost to income ratio.
The magnitude of change is majorly due to employee cost addition or there is some other element attached to it?
No. It's not employee cost. There's normally a passback involved in the corporate spends, on account of which the cost goes higher and that is the reason. Overall the business is profitable, but the margins are comparatively thinner, which basically boost both on the cost and the income side. That is why the cost to income is higher. It's not because of the employee growth.
Okay. Any take on the card closure?
Card closure, you mean attrition?
Yeah.
No, I think we are doing. In fact, we are at par or in fact doing better than the industry. I would also like to add that if you look at the way we have been working very extensively on customer engagement, which has also benefited us in terms of ensuring that the customers are retained, and that is also witnessed by the improvement that we are seeing in our market share in terms of the transaction numbers as well. Nothing significant there. I would say that we are, if anything, at par or maybe better than the industry overall.
Okay. Thank you for that.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management will be able to address all the questions from the participant, we request you to kindly limit your question to two questions per participant. If you have a follow-up question, please rejoin the queue. Our next question come from the line of Piran Engineer from CLSA. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi team. Congratulations on the strong improvement in asset quality. I have a couple of questions to ask, probably more industry-related, but also applies to you. Now, just firstly, in terms of growth, how should we think about, you know, cards in force growth now slipping to mid-single digits from double digits over the last couple of years? It's true for you all and the industry. Is it simply put, just underwriting tightening and, as those filters are loosened, growth picks back up? Or is it just that, applications itself are slowing down at the other end?
Applications are definitely not slowing down. Your first point was correct. Overall, I think the issuers are, had seen in the last couple of years back some asset quality issues, so there's more tightening which has happened on the underwriting side. That, overall, it is also being seen that to a very large extent, very few new customers are being brought into the fold. It's normally the existing customers, credit-tested customers who are getting new cards issued by another new issuer. Yes, there is a little bit of a caution which has, resulted in a comparatively muted growth in the industry.
It's fair to say that out of this 9-10 lakh customers we acquire every quarter, bulk of them are existing to credit card. Like, very few would be new to credit card as such.
Not in our case, because, see, we also have a strong banker channel where we have visibility over customers who may be new to credit or new to credit card, and we also have separate underwriting models for them on which we work, and we bring them onboard as well.
Okay. Ma'am, what would the split be then? Just a ballpark split between new to credit card and existing to credit card.
Piran, we usually don't give that, but open market numbers are primarily credit-tested customers. It is only in banker where we have view to the customer statements and debits and credits that we look at NTC and NTCC. As of now, primarily we are looking at NTCC there also. Okay? You can fairly estimate that anywhere between 20%-30% customers which we get from banker as of now are from NTC or NTCC.
Understood. Okay, that's clear. Good. My second question is just on revolvers. Now, you all have been highlighting this for the past couple of quarters, that revolver is on a downward bias, and I understand it's hard to predict what an exact number would be, let's say four quarters later. Let's say 22 becomes 19 or 20, hypothetically. What's the game plan here really? Do we start massively cutting our reward points, et cetera, for everyone? Do we hike the revolver fee further from 3.75 -4 ? My question is how do we just protect profitability in a hypothetical scenario where revolver, say, falls to 20 or below?
Piran, we have not indicated a specific number as to where it's going to go. Okay? There will be a downward bias. We are looking at our portfolios very carefully. Last two years acquisition, as we have been saying, we have been selective, so they are showing a lower revolving behavior. Our first attempt that we will do is to compensate it through the installment lending portfolios rather than cutting a rewards program or doing something else. You already have mentioned two ideas, but there are multiple such things that can be done. Whenever we do that, one has to keep an eye that an engaged spending customer should not get negatively impacted. There are multiple ways and means to balance these and we will look at that.
As I stated, the installment lending would be our first chosen preference, and we would like to invest heavily there to get the asset build up there.
Got it. Just one last squeeze in one last question for Rashmi. How do we think about cost of funds year on? It's actually quite good that cost of funds declined in an environment where G-Sec yield was rising.
Getting into FY 2027, what's the outlook?
Piran, I don't think it'll be a little too early for me to give you any guidance on the cost of funds given that we are still not sure as to the RBI stance, given the geopolitical tensions and the uncertainties in the environment. Obviously needless to say, we will continue to manage our portfolio well, keep looking at opportunities to reduce costs in all possible manners. I think it's too early for me to give you any kind of an indication.
I know.
for the full year.
Okay. Fair. That's okay. Yeah, that's it from my end. Thanks and wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Sujal Ghorai from Schonfeld. Please go ahead.
Hey, am I audible?
Yes.
Yeah. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I just follow up on the cost of fund question from Piran. How about next one to two quarters? Is there still kind of a downward repricing room left on our cost of funds? Can it still decline?
Sorry, can you repeat the question? Not very clear.
Yeah. On the cost of fund, just for next one to two quarters, do we still have room to reprice our borrowings, so that the cost of fund can still decline?
So you s- Yeah. We, as we've stated earlier as well that our borrowings do reprice anywhere in a 60- to 90-day bucket. Yes, there will be some repricing that will happen over the next quarter also. Yes.
Okay.
Is your question that will the repricing help us in a declining cost of funds? Is that your question?
Yes. Yes.
See, I don't know about that right now. That's what I said earlier in the answer to the earlier question as well. It all depends upon where we see the rates, given the macro environment.
I see. Just a technical one. Just can you help me understand what's the denominator for your reported margin of 11.1%? I.e., is it a daily average basis or it's a period end average basis? Because, you know, it's a bit confusing given the loan book is flat quarter-on-quarter. NI is down 5% and your margin is up five basis points.
The NIM and the cost of funds that you see in the table is on a 13-point average. Though separately, we do give out a daily average cost of funds, but the NIM that we publish is on a 13-point average.
Got it. Last one is on the other income. These two quarters the other income leverage is INR 200-odd crore, which used to be INR 100-odd crore. I'm just wondering, is there any one-off components or it's sustainable from here?
Your voice is not clear. Johan, if you can-
Are you saying that it's. I didn't get the question.
Other income is INR 200+.
Yeah. Your other income is up 60% year-on-year, right? It used to be INR 100-odd crores.
Up 60% year-over-year.
Yeah, I know.
Okay.
Yeah. What's behind this?
This year in the other income there have been some one-offs as well which we have disclosed in the exchange filing. On account of certain provision release and another provision around a tax matter where that number has been added to the other income for FY 2026. Therefore when you look at year-on-year, that number is higher for this quarter year-on-year.
Got it. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Our next question come from the line of Gaurav from MLP. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening and thanks for the opportunity. Three questions from my side. Firstly, if I recollect, about 70% of your borrowings were linked to T-bills. Is that still the case?
That's right. Yeah. T-bills or repo rates.
Got it.
About 70%-75%.
Okay.
of our borrowing is floating.
Understood. Assuming that the rate stays here, there's no further movement from here, what do you expect? Let's say from next two quarter perspective, where do your cost of fund,
Should stay stable in that case.
Rate stay stable?
Should stay stable.
Got it. Understood. Sure. Second question. Just to stretch this a bit on margins, while you maintain that NIMs would remain stable, if I look at one percentage point of revolver mix, while we don't know what is the mix change that will happen in FY 2027. Assuming even if there is a one percentage point drop, and that gets converted into EMI, there is still a 25-27 basis point sort of hit on the interest income line or on margin. How do you plan to offset this? If cost of funds remains stable, then what is the other offset that you're looking at when we say the margin remains stable?
You are right because revolvers are at a much higher rate and 1% decline in revolver has to be compensated obviously with a much larger mix on the
Understood.
Installment lending side. You're absolutely right.
Right.
Maybe we'll not be able to take care of it fully, but try to compensate it in some other matters or manner. There are ways and means, as was being discussed two questions back, to be able to.
Yes.
Whether we look at some other fee income sources or some other scenarios. This kept aside, as of now, we see a downward trend in the revolvers. As the things start improving, we have seen that our credit cost is on a downward trajectory. As the things starts improving, we will look at certain pilots or certain experiments with the segments which are marginal in nature to be able to see where we can build the asset.
Understood. Got it. That's helpful. My second question is with respect to cost to income. Now that you've clarified that the other income has a couple of one-offs, which I could read from notes to accounts. The adjusted cost to income for this quarter is surprisingly at 60%. Typically in fourth quarter we see a lot of improvement versus Q3 because Q3 has a festive base. In this quarter we saw the cost to income move up to 60%. For the next year, while we are guiding 55%-58%, how confident are we to be at the lower end of this guidance versus the higher end of this guidance?
Yeah, you're right that this particular quarter had a one-off, which obviously added to the denominator and therefore if adjusted for that, the cost to income would go up. But given the, I mean, as of now, as we look internally at FY 2027, there are various initiatives on to ensure that the expense lines are contained. As Girish and ma'am mentioned earlier, there are initiatives on to ensure that we actually book higher revenue line items both on the interest income and the fee income. Given all of that, we do think that this number should stay between 55%-58%.
Okay. Got it. Given that corporate spends would be in the base largely, why would it still remain elevated? Because in this quarter or this year, we saw that corporate spends were high and hence probably the cost to income went up. Next year I would have assumed that since that is in the base, there would be some improvement in cost to income.
The fact that already in the base would mean that the variation in the cost to income between this year and next year will not be very high, but because they are part of our business and therefore contributing both on the numerator and the denominator, will keep the actual metric high.
Got it.
You won't see a big jump the way you saw it between last year and this year, but.
Actually, if you go two years back, you saw this used to be broadly in slightly higher than actually present number. It has
Right.
It saw a very big decline, a drop when the corporate spend went off.
Right. Okay, this is just the normalization with costs with corporate spends at 25%. Is that the way to look at it?
In a way, yes, that's right. Yeah, yeah.
Perfect. Got it.
Our spend is about 30%-35%.
Just my last question is.
Yeah.
I'm sorry, but you may.
Got it. Sorry.
You can rejoin the queue for more questions, sir.
Just one last question. Sure. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mahrukh Adajania from Tara Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. I have a couple of questions. Probably this was discussed earlier on the call also. Our receivables growth is now 2% year-on-year. Given the war situation and given that even other banks and their commentary were not sounding very optimistic on credit cards growth, or to put it in other words, they were more bullish on other segments than cards. How do you view your near-term growth? Because of uncertainties and also because of lack of festive season, growth is likely to remain subdued in the near term, right? One to two quarters, then we look forward to the festive pick up. Is that the correct assessment?
Mahrukh, right now we are not giving any guidance on asset growth. If you recall in the last earnings call, we had said that the asset growth will follow card acquisition growth. We are building on card acquisition, and we expect that the asset growth will follow the card acquisition growth. Apart from that, as far as the war situation is concerned, I would say we are keeping a very close eye, but as such, we have been cautious, so there's nothing additional in terms of, you know, putting the brakes or reducing the growth that we are working on. Having said that, we will continue to monitor the position and take action, corrective action if need be. As of now, we are not giving any guidance on the asset growth side.
Got it. Regarding the provisioning reversal, we had INR 47 crore of credit cost reversal, right? We've seen that in the past few quarters as well. You have write-offs, which are possibly coming down and then you are seeing a reversal on provisions. Is that likely to continue? Because it's very difficult to forecast that number, right? It's either zero or negative. It's been zero or negative for quite some time.
Mahrukh, these numbers are actually we wrote back INR 47 crore, but as we mentioned, INR 220 crore of management overlay is being retained. To a very large extent, the overall ECL number is a function of our stocks in stage two, stage three, and the provision rates. As we have shown in our financial results also, stage two, stage three stocks have gone down substantially. On account of which we have taken a small write back of INR 47 crore. We are still holding buffers because to be ready and resilient for any, I would say stress which may come in the environment because of the geopolitical risk. Ultimately it's the model which informs how we are retaining the ECL provision.
Okay. Thanks a lot. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Reminder to all the participants to limit the questions to two questions per participant. If you have a follow-up question, please rejoin the queue. Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Rohan M. from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thanks for the opportunity. Just on this, INR 220 crore of additional provisions that we are carrying, the INR 100 crore increase that happened during the quarter, is it on account of the ECL refresh or have we made any incremental provisions there?
See, whatever provisions we are making, it is not because of the asset quality at all. You can see our stage two, stage three is going down. We are selective in our underwriting. There is no additional provision for that asset quality. However, because the ECL model is still under refresh. You can, ma'am has already mentioned in the last question that the geopolitical environment is also uncertain. Whatever ECL model provisions are giving, we have kept around INR 100 crore for that future also to take anything which is uncertain as on date.
What I was trying to understand was this additional INR 100 crore increase that has happened in this quarter on the management overlay, that has been routed-
Yeah.
Through the P&L?
Yeah, exactly.
Is it a release of the provision from the ECL refresh?
No. Every provision is from the P&L.
Okay. The core, if you had not increased the management overlay, then the reported provisions would have been lower by INR 100 crores. Okay. Second is that-
Yeah. Correct.
Profit would have been higher.
Yeah, profit would be higher by 100.
The profit would have been higher, therefore, yes.
Sure. Got it. Sir, secondly on the fresh slippages number, if you can quantify what was it for 4Q versus 3Q?
See, we don't declare any slippages number. You can see from the Stage three, his stock has reduced by INR 268 crore. That means slippages are also going in a improved trajectory quarter-on-quarter.
Sure, sir. Just on the one-offs that happened this quarter, how have they been accounted for in the P&L? Which line item are they impacting? If you can just help me refresh-
I will help you.
PIDF, what was that fund and what it means?
Yeah. No, the PIDF is. Sorry, which one-off are you talking about?
The PIDF and GST.
Okay.
Yeah, that's it.
The PIDF was reduced from the expenses because it was a provision that we were carrying along with the expenses and since the expense didn't happen or the payment didn't happen, it has been reduced from the expenses. The GST is a part of the other income line.
Okay, got it. What was this PIDF? I'm not able to-
Sorry to interrupt you, sir, but please.
Sure.
You may reach in the queue for follow-up question.
Okay, got it.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Our next question come from the line of Shubhanshu Mishra from PhillipCapital. Please go ahead.
Hi Girish, hi Rashmi. A couple of questions. The first one is on the open market book. In terms of SAFE as well as new sourcing, we are much above 50% now, so this would also reflect on our OpEx and while we talk about banca, the open market is weighing on our SAFEs as well as new sourcing. If you can speak about that. Second is that out of the EMI pool, how many guys or what is the percentage of PL on CC? That is my second question. Third is that we have barely grown in terms of our bottom line by around 13%, and yet we are giving out a dividend. Was that necessary?
We could have possibly not given a dividend and retained it and deployed it back into the business. Thanks.
I'll give you the answer for the first and second part before I give it to MD ma'am for the third.
Sure.
Rashmi, okay. On the banca and open market, the strategy has been consistently that we would try and do 50%-50% from both the channels. And if possible 55% from banca and 45% from open market. That's the range that we will look at. In the last one year, we have been broadly in the same range. However, our tie-ups with some of the digital partners like PhonePe, Flipkart, Tata Neu, IndiGo, some of these partners' numbers are working in a very good direction and they give a fillip to the overall open market numbers. That's why you see some amount of shift in favor of open market.
On a consistent long-term basis, our strategy is to remain 50%-55% banca and 45%-50% open market. That is the first part. Secondly, on the installment lending portfolio, we have never given the breakup of PL on CC. However, there are three kind of installment lending in the book. One is, as you said, PL on CC. The second is what we call installment at the point of sale itself, when people convert at the point of sale while purchasing electronic good or others. The third part is before the payment due date, a whole lot of people convert their outstandings into installments. So that is, these three constitute the overall book on the installments. On the dividend part, I'll
Shubhanshu, giving dividend, I think, shareholders and investors are very critical and important stakeholders for the company, and they need to be rewarded for their capital and the belief and the trust that they have put in the company. If we don't have any asset quality issues, we don't have any capital adequacy issues. We are under-leveraged, actually, if you look at that. I would say that INR 2.50 per share is a pretty decent dividend on a return, which is due to the stakeholders, and accordingly, that has been, the view has been taken by the board to provide it to the stakeholders. Thank you.
Great. Sure. Thanks. The new UI of the E-Store is really great on the app. That's just a comment. It's not a question. Thanks.
The new UI on the app, he's commenting on that.
The E-Store.
Thank you.
That's revamped. It's really great. The E-Store has been revamped.
Yes.
You should check our website also. Fewer people are coming there, but we've revamped that also completely. I'm done with my questions. Thanks.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star then one. Okay, our next question comes from the line of Rushabh Doshi from Nirmiti Investment Advisors. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. I just wanted to understand how rent as a spend spending category is doing and how much impact does it have on the total spend?
Rent as a category used to be very large till two years back. We started levying a fee on it. For us, rent, rental spends is hardly, it's a very low spending category as of now. Okay? There is no impact on us of any kind. In fact, when guidelines that come in that the third-party websites or apps should do the KYC for the landlord and without that they should not allow the rental payment, by that time we had our rental payments were already fairly low. All the growth that you see is actually despite rental degrowing to a large degree.
Okay. Thanks. That's all from my side.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Anuj Singla from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon. Thanks for the opportunity. First question is on the receivable growth. Obviously, we have seen a deceleration there to 2%. If I recall, we have been flagging that we will see an increase in the new card acquisition and receivable growth will follow. Should we see that, FY 2027, a new card acquisition and the receivable growth acceleration only in FY 2028? Is that the scenario we should be looking at?
Anuj, right now, as I mentioned earlier also, I would not give any guidance on the asset growth. We continue to stick with what we had said earlier, that we are working on the card acquisition. The guidance is around 9 lakh to 1 million in a quarter. As you mentioned, that will lead to asset growth in the coming days. Right now, not giving any guidance on the numbers.
Fair enough. Secondly, on the asset mix, while revolver has been trending down for the past many quarters, one offset was supposed to be EMI. I think Girish has talked about in the past that there have been various initiatives to incentivize conversion to EMI. When I look at this quarter, even EMI has been pretty weak. Can you talk about the trends there? Should we? Is that one of the offset we should be looking for, towards offsetting the lower revolver in FY 2027 or 2028? Thank you.
Anuj, you're right. What happens is, during the festival season, a whole lot of installment lending at the point of sale happens. In the month of September or in October, a large quantity of spends which happen during the festival period gets converted into installment. Most of these installments, because the average tenure is around seven and a half, eight months. Either it, people pick up six-month, nine-month or 12-month tenures. What happens is, by the end of February, March, the first lot of six-month tenure cases come up for full completion. That is why you see a decline on the installment asset. This is typically a trend over years, and it gets built up.
Yes, it is a continuous treadmill, and we have to continue to get new asset buildup here, but that is the nature of the business. As I stated earlier, some amount of revolving we would be able to offset with installment lending. Not fully. We'll have to seek other mechanisms to be able to balance and look at income sources.
Girish, follow up on that. When I look at the YoY trends, which will take care of the seasonality which you spoke about, there also it's declined from 35% to 32%, right? I'm assuming that if you include the festive seasonality in both the years, still we should have seen a stable or improving performance even, you know, that's not the case. Just trying to understand if there's something beyond our initiatives.
No. When we looked at the data, this was one part. Second part was there was a year-over-year impact of, we were doing Apple offer last year. This year, for the last quarter it was not there. There was some amount of impact of some of those things. Okay. These are, I would say, transient and can be taken care of within next three to six months.
Okay. Got it. Thank you. Thanks, Girish.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Pranav Shah from 3P Investment Managers. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Just a couple of them, bookkeeping ones. Your recoveries have shown pretty good traction now nearing almost INR 190 crores. Could you give a sense of how large your perhaps written off book is, where you expect still sizable, maybe 10%-15% recoveries to happen?
We don't disclose the written-off portfolio that we have. Yeah, we have intensified efforts on recovery in terms of the written-off pool, and that is reaping benefits for us.
You expect this number to keep inching up from this INR 190 crore level?
It will be somewhere in a similar range because now we are seeing a downward trajectory in terms of the write-offs as well. The efforts will continue to recover the most.
All right. Understood. Generally in your presentations you used to disclose the salaried self-employed breakup, if you could, for this quarter.
What was it?
Salaried self-employed.
In new sourcing.
Do you have the breakup? Yeah, around 70%. During the quarter, 70%.
70% was salary?
Yeah.
Actually, like, if I look at the last two quarters, I think even last quarter 72%, this quarter was 70%. Like, you used to this is on the salaried side. I think a self-employed used to be in that 40%-50% range. Do you intend to increase sourcing in the self-employed segment, or it's a conscious choice to slow down that right now?
See, as from the beginning of the call we are mentioning that we were quite selective in our selection of the customer due to our asset quality or other, portfolio management. We are mindful while selecting the customer and onboarding for the card. In the last quarter it was shown that more application from the salaried customer and good customer are from the salaried one. That's why we onboarded them. It is not as that we are declining self-employed customer, but whatever good customer card came in, we are onboarding them.
All right. Understood. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll take the last question from the line of Atul Kumar from Salvation Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. The question was on the side of credit costs. I mean, what kind of moderation can be expected, I mean, given that credit costs have been higher for some time. Related to that in terms of ROAs, at one point of time we used to have like a 5% from there a moderation to 3%-3.5%. On that side I'd like to know. Thanks.
Atul, although we are not giving any guidance in terms of the credit cost numbers right now, but we will continue to see moderation in terms of the credit cost, which is very evident if you look at the stocks also. We are seeing continuous reduction in our Stage three and Stage two stocks. Accordingly, the credit cost will continue to trend downwards. On the ROA, again, we have said in the prior earnings calls as well that we are aiming towards 4%-4.5% ROA in the medium term, and that is achievable and we are working towards it.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I will now like to hand the conference over to Miss Salila Pande for closing comments. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
Thank you, Danish. I would like to sincerely thank shareholders, customers, partners and employees for instilling their trust, support and confidence in the company. Thank you once again and wishing all a successful financial year 2027.
Thank you, ma'am. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of SBI Cards and Payment Services Limited, this concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines.