I'm Pawan Kumar, General Manager, Performance Planning and Review Department of the Bank. On behalf of State Bank of India, I'm delighted to welcome the analysts, investors, colleagues, and everyone present here today on the occasion of the declaration of the financial year 2025 results of the bank. I also extend a very warm welcome to all the people who are assisting the event through our live webcast.
We have with us on the stage our Chairman, Sir, Shri Challa Sreenivasulu Setty at the center, our Managing Director, Corporate Banking and Subsidiaries, Shri Ashwini Kumar Tewari, our Managing Director, Retail Business and Operations, Shri Vinay M. Tonse, our Managing Director, Risk Compliance and S ARG, Shri Rana Ashutosh Kumar Singh, our Managing Director, International Banking, Global Markets and Technology, Shri Rama Mohan Rao Amara, our Deputy Managing Director, Smt. Saloni Narayan, our Deputy Managing Directors heading various verticals, and Managing Directors of our subsidiaries are seated in the front rows of this hall. We are also joined by Chief General Managers of different verticals and business groups. To carry forward the proceedings, I request our Chairman, Sir, to give a brief summary of the bank's financial year 2025 performance and the strategic initiatives undertaken. We shall thereafter straight away go to questions and answer session.
However, before I hand over to the Chairman, Sir, I would like to read out the Safe Harbor Statement. Certain statements in today's presentation may be forward-looking statements. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. Actual outcomes may differ materially from those included in these statements due to a variety of factors. Thank you. Now, I would request Chairman, Sir, to make his opening remarks. Chairman, Sir, please.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We thank you all for taking some time out to join this analyst meet post-announcement of FY 2025 results of the bank. The financial results for FY 2025 highlight continuity, consistency, profitability, and SBI's significant long-term strengths. At the outset, I would like to thank all of our stakeholders for their support and helping us in creating sustainable value, not only for the bank, but also for the economy as a whole. Over the years, SBI has remained focused on strengthening the key components that contribute to this sustainable value. We have prioritized our liability franchise, refined our processes, continued to improve our underwriting standards, and aimed to deliver value to all stakeholders while positioning ourselves as a reliable financial services brand. I will first start with a brief description of the present global and domestic economic scenario and then discuss the bank's performance.
Escalation of trade and tariff tensions and the resultant financial market volatility have raised concerns regarding the weakening of global growth in the near term. As per IMF, the estimated global growth is projected to drop to 2.8% in 2025 and 3% in 2026, much below the historical, that is, 2000 to 2019 average of 3.7%. As per the WTO, world merchandise trade volumes could expand marginally by around 1.7% in 2025. The dampening global economic outlook could impact India's economic growth through weaker external demand, even though the domestic growth engines, consumption, and investment are relatively less susceptible to external headwinds. Prospects for the farm sector have been boosted by the forecast of an above-normal southwest monsoon for 2025, which could augment farm incomes and keep food prices under check.
Given the excessive uncertainties due to recent trade tariffs, RBI has reduced its real GDP growth projection for FY 2026 by 20 basis points to 6.3% in the April policy. Separately, India's CPI headline inflation has now significantly moderated, and we believe the average CPI headline forecast for FI 2026 could stay below 4% now. During FY 2025, All SCBs' credit growth declined to 11%, which was 20% last year, and deposits to 10.3%, which was 13.5% last year. Term deposit growth continued to outpace growth in savings deposits. Consequently, the share of term deposits in total deposits rose to about 62%. CASA declined to below 40%. Asset quality of SCBs improved further, with their GNPA ratios declining to a 14-year low of 2.4% in December 2024. CRAR stood at 16.4% in December, which was much higher than the regulatory minimum ratio.
RBI has deployed a strategic mix of interventions, including open market operations, daily variable rate repo options, and dollar/rupee buy-sell swap options. These proactive measures have helped stabilize market liquidity conditions, ensuring financial resilience in an unpredictable global environment. Coming to State Bank of India, once again, the results for FY 2025 demonstrate the bank's ability to operate profitably at scale due to our substantial long-term strengths. These advantages stem from our institutionalized framework, which is guided by structured processes and a commitment to fairness for all stakeholders. The net profit for the year was INR 70,901 crore, up 16.08% year-on-year. At the end of the year, our whole bank credit growth was 12% year-on-year, with domestic credit growth at 11.56%. Deposit growth was 9.48% year-on-year, while the CD ratio domestic was 69.71%. We maintained stellar asset quality with a slippage ratio of 0.55%.
Retail personal slippage ratio was at 0.48% and credit costs at 0.38%. PCR was at 74.42%. Some details about these numbers: the total deposits have grown by 9.48% to INR 53.82 trillion. As I mentioned, term deposits have witnessed robust growth. They have grown by 11.48% year-on-year. Our current account deposits have grown by 27% year-on-year, and CASA deposits have grown overall by 6.34%. CASA ratio was close to 40%. Importantly, the current account growth has continued to remain strong for the bank during the year, despite a competitive market environment. The credit growth continues to be good across all segments. Our domestic advances have grown by 11.56% year-on-year, driven by 16.86% growth in SME, 14.29% in agriculture, 9% in corporate, and 11.4% in retail personal segments. Our foreign offices' advances have grown by 14.84% year-on-year.
The domestic credit deposit ratio is 69.71%, indicating sufficient headroom to address future growth requirements of the economy. The bank continues to demonstrate industry-leading asset quality at this scale. The slippage ratio for FI 2025, as I mentioned earlier, was 0.55%, while the credit cost stood at 0.38%. Net NPA improved by 10 basis points. We have a well-provided net and NPA book with PCR at 74%. The asset quality of the bank has continued to remain strong over the last five years, which demonstrates the quality of our loan portfolio, the robustness of our underwriting processes, effective collection efficiency, and the leadership of the bank across business lines. Our capital adequacy ratio is at 14.25%, and the CET1 ratio is at 10.81%, and are well above the regulatory requirements.
Based on the current profitability and growth profile of the bank, we believe we have sufficient headroom to take care of business growth requirements. I'm glad to share the progress we have made in digital banking, which is an ongoing journey. More than 8.77 crore customers have been registered on the YONO, with 64% of regular savings bank accounts opened through YONO technology in financial year 2025. Our subsidiaries are consistently performing well and continue to create significant value for all the stakeholders. We will continue to nurture these subsidiaries and maintain leadership positions in the respective businesses. We are glad to advise that the bank continues to report ROA and ROE greater than 1% and 19% respectively at the end of financial year 2025. A key point regarding these metrics is our operation at a substantial scale.
We reported total assets worth INR 66.7 lakh crore, total advances at INR 42.2 lakh crore, and total deposits amounting to INR 53 lakh crore. When we mention scale, it indicates the bank's extensive investment in workforce, training, procedures, and compliance to maintain this level. Sustaining our growth rates implies that our bank's infrastructure and personnel are equipped to support continued growth at this magnitude. State Bank of India continues to be the leader in all the risk-adjusted profitable lending and liability pools in India, lending and liability pools in India. Consequently, State Bank of India's ROA above 1% is derived from the scalable fundamentals of banking: a stable name, controlled operating expenses, and maintaining credit quality. While we are happy about the outcomes in FI 2025, we are also mindful of areas for further improvement and also challenges emerging from various developments taking place across the globe, which may impact the Indian economy.
On the liabilities side, we continue to focus on increasing our share in current account while maintaining our leadership position in savings deposits by further strengthening our customer service and branch network. Although the bank's cost base is substantial, it highlights our commitment to compliance and efficient operations. We intend to reduce our cost-to-income ratio by concentrating on increasing income. The bank's ROE profile is currently higher than its credit growth, implying that CET1 accrual in the future. From this strong position, our goal is to consistently achieve an ROE of over 15% through the business cycles. The board has granted approval to raise equity capital up to INR 25,000 crore, with the authorization being valid for a period of 12 months. This is an enabling provision resolution. Although we are open to capital raising, such plans will be contingent upon the business needs and market conditions.
Wrapping up my initial comments, I express my gratitude for your ongoing support to the bank. As the bank advances its objectives, it also plays a role in driving the progress and economic development of the surrounding ecosystem. We are dedicated to upholding your confidence in us by delivering superior, sustainable returns over the long run. My team and I are now open to taking your questions. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Chairman, Sir. We now invite questions from the audience. For the benefit of all, we request you to kindly mention your name and company before asking the questions. To accommodate all the questions, we request you to restrict your questions to a maximum of two at a time. Also, kindly restrict your questions to the financial results only and no questions be asked about specific accounts, please. In case you have additional questions, the same can be asked at the end. We now proceed with the question and answer session, please.
Yeah, I'm Ashwani Kajmera. Sir, compliments to you, Sir. In one of the meeting, recent meeting, I said that our operating profit, we are capable of crossing INR 1 lakh crore, INR 1 lakh 10,000 now, exactly that same figure I said, and you have achieved it. Compliments for that. Phenomenal numbers, good growth in spite of a little difficult time in both the deposit side and as well as credit side. Having said that, Sir, I got a couple of questions, some observations, and some data points. One is that, Sir, on the credit growth, like we have been maintaining last year that our target was 15-16%, and I think a quarter back, I had only raised this point that we have achieved only 8%, I think till December, 8.2 or something. How are we going to achieve it?
Our confidence was that, yes, we have got a strong pipeline, and definitely we will try and achieve the given targets. Finally, it came down to 12 point something. On that, I mean, what has gone wrong just in two, three months that as against our targeted numbers, which were very good, encouraging, and good pipeline, in spite of that, also we could not achieve that number. That is one. My second question is, Sir, that all the TV channels are streaming that net profit of State Bank of India is down by 10%. Now they are just looking at Q4 2024 of INR 20,698 crore and now INR 18,643 crore. If you look at it, the operating profit has gone up by almost 9%.
Because of the higher provisioning in this quarter, this net profit, and they got the chance to say that SBI profit has gone down, could we not have used some of that buffer provision, which we have got more than INR 30,300 or 500 crore, something out of that? What was the need of almost about the INR 6,000 crore of provision in this quarter itself, which has given the opportunity for others to say that the profits are down, though it is not actually in fact? This is the second of my some observation and your response on that. Thirdly, Sir, if you look at the segment-wise results, there is a very deep variation. There is a strong variation in that in segment numbers.
The treasury numbers are haywire from INR 891 crore to a few thousand crore, and wholesale banking, retail banking, the numbers have gone down by a few thousand crore. Is there any change in because segment also gives some impression proper this thing that how is the bank is moving in which direction and under which segment? If you look at it, there are quite large variations in that. On that also, if you can throw some light on that, is there a change in the method of calculation? Lastly, having you only have said that now another 50 basis points reduction may come. Some people are saying even 75 basis points, and we have got a strong investment book.
Do we expect huge bumper profits on the treasury account this year in FY 2026, which may take up our bottom line also to a great extent? What do you say? I mean, what color you would give to our treasury operations, both in the trading profit as well as the profit because of the mark to market, part of which comes to the profit, but AFS goes to the reserve. Still, what we expect into FY 2026 because of the rate cuts?
Thank you, Ajmera Sahib, for the compliments and also the critical questions which you have raised. Yes, we did give a guidance last year, not guidance. I think we have expected credit growth to be 14-16%. In the Q2 guidance, I have said this, and in Q3, I moderated that to the lower end of 14-16%. Obviously, we expected the year to close at 14%. If you see most of the segments you can see on the screen, we have done actually, you are not able to see. I think the presentation, it is shown slide 16, which shows that in many segments we have done well except in the corporate. Corporate is a bulky and chunky credit, and we have had an unusual prepayments in that segment.
While we have had a good pipeline, which I mentioned earlier also, even now we have around INR 3.4 lakh crore pipeline in the corporate side, the unanticipated prepayments definitely had impacted us. It is nothing to do with any of the segments not doing well. Many of the large central PSUs have utilized their equity funding to deleverage, and that we could not cover in the short tenure of one quarter. That is the major reason. Otherwise, we still have the visibility on the corporate side, and that is the reason while we are not saying that it would be 14-16%, 12-13% is quite possible while the industry is growing less than 12%. This is on the credit growth side. On the net profit, I think, I mean, the numbers have to be understood by everyone.
Our idea is our focus is always to strengthen our balance sheet and also create a consistency in our performance. It's not about one quarter, we try to ensure, but our preference is that if any costs are visualized, let us take them upfront. If you have seen, it is not only this time. Last year, INR 7,000 crore of pension provision we have taken in one go. We could have taken it in four quarters. I think that was permitted. Front loading the costs has always been our strategy. You are right. I think the ideal way of looking at it is the 12 months performance on an aggregate basis. In many parameters, we have done extremely well, either in asset quality in terms of ROE, ROE guidance, we still stuck to it.
The PAT has been, I think, has not been our—we did not want to show that we can make the similar profit that we have made when we know for sure these costs are likely to happen. Some front loading of provisions has happened definitely. That has resulted in this. Yield moderation in treasury yields definitely would help the markets to perform better, and I think our treasury will do. While we are not willing to give any guidance on this, Ajmera Sahib, we believe that with the rate cut cycle kicking in, the yields will definitely moderate, providing an opportunity for us both on the MTM side as well as on the trading profit. We will be a little more objective in terms of any guidance on the treasury side. Thank you. You asked something about segment-wise.
Yeah, because you see in treasury operations income from INR 843 crore to INR 8,891 crore, corporate okay, 74,284, but retail banking from INR 17,311 crore to INR 9,325 crore. Either we remove this, giving it segment-wise numbers only if it is, if they are not relevant. Yeah.
Just Sam.
We do some working which is consistent.
We will ensure that.
Hello.
May not be in the slide. You're talking about from the balance sheet side?
Yeah, segment results.
The results.
Talking about segment results, just have a look at it.
No, it's okay. I mean, if it is.
Good evening, sir. Yeah, good evening.
We'll have a look, Ajmera Sahib.
Yeah, please go ahead.
All right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, sir.
Sir, I have a couple of questions. Firstly, on the provisioning, if you see the breakup, breakdown of provisions, then there's an other provision of INR 16 billion or so. What is that about? Because it looks too big for that line item. Maybe there's some one-off there. That's my first question. On asset quality, when I go through your movement of NPLs, there are some banks that have seen recovery from a very big account, right? It's visible in their recovery line. Maybe it was written off for you, I don't know, but we don't see any recovery from the movement of NPLs of a large account. That large account, the lenders are public, so you're one of the largest lenders there. It was not a recovery, it was transferred to NARCL.
I'm talking about that account, where would that have been booked? Because other banks have disclosed where it's booked and roughly how much has been booked from there and where. That's my second question.
You can answer on the second question. The first question.
My third question is in employee expenses. This time round, I'm not talking about the pension provisions. I'm not talking about the provisioning or benefit part. In employee expenses, the actual wage cost also looks higher sequentially this time. How do we budget or how do we forecast wage costs for next year? Year on year, of course, for the full year, it's 6% growth, but just in the fourth quarter, the wage cost. Those are my questions.
Let me first answer the wage costs. I think Q4, we take a lot of provisions, the PLI and many things which are added to the staff expenses, which are not in the earlier quarters. It will appear only in the fourth quarter.
Got it. 6% growth is next year also.
Yes, that's all. On the account, which you mentioned, though we don't talk about specific account, I think the accounting can be mentioned by.
Yes.
Without naming the account, the account you mentioned, I think everybody knows this. Roughly INR 3,300 crore was the component we got and INR 500 crore plus roughly went to the NPA reduction. You can see it will come in the recovery piece. Remaining 85% essentially is the treasury income as per RBI circular, which came on 29. Somewhere in the treasury side.
Sorry, sorry?
Provision.
So.
INR 500 crore roughly, the 15% will come into NP reduction. Recovery, you can see that number is in the NP reduction.
Okay.
Remaining will be on the SR revaluation, which circular came in the last week of March. That will go in the treasury side.
On the other income side.
Yes.
Has anything been booked into the NII? No, from this net interest income, no.
500 crore will go into not NII. It will go into the NP reduction.
Provision. Got it. Got it.
Because it was a fully provided account.
Yes.
It will impact the provisions and the SRs we used to hold at one rupee. Subsequently, on 29th March, RBI has given a clarification that if you have SRs which are guaranteed by the government guarantee, I mean, backed by the government guarantee, we can revalue the SR. You see in our global market, I mean, our treasury profit, the revaluation profit also is shown there. Some of the recovery related to what your account you are talking about also is appearing there.
Got it. How much would that be, Bholkar?
We will give you that.
Okay.
The topic second, which of the countries where the foreign branches growth is higher than domestic growth because we have a widest network of foreign branches operation, if you can highlight that, and also the outlook in the year ahead because there's a transformation in the economy, foreign economy particularly. Second is our valuations. We have often talked about valuation, and of course, we are among the very, very undervalued bank. Compared to the run-up in the bank, Bank Nifty has the highest, and others are going much higher. We deserve maybe a valuation of INR 1,200, if not INR 1,000 immediately. Based on operating profit and the numbers. Now, on clarification, most of the analysts and databases, they look at valuation basically not in terms of P/E ratio, but in terms of price to book, right? Bank.
Now, when we look at our slide here, slide number 10, the valuation to book value per share and the book value per share in Moneycontrol, which claims to be among the top 10 capital market websites in the world in terms of unit visitors and viewers, there's a big discrepancy, and we feel Moneycontrol's number is correct. They talk about price to book of 1.57. Here, slide number 10, for after a long time, we saw the slide book value per share. It shows historic book value based on last year's. Today, we are 2. Of course, if we update it with the current one, I would like to know how you calculate because when people compare all the banks, they go for Moneycontrol book value per share.
We can just see from mobile on the way itself, I was reading it and seeing it just for chance, how can the book value be below INR 400 for FY 2024? I would like you to clarify here and now because bank analysts will just prepare the reports today evening and shoot it off or maybe tomorrow morning, and I wonder how different ones will calculate, and they may not take from this slide. It's very, very important. Next is we mentioned about this resolution for INR 30,000 crore. It is wonder it is enabling or all the banks now are raising money. Huge money is coming, private banks and public sector banks. Almost all public sector banks are raising money. Even the private ones, they are going for accelerated raising of QIPs and all. What is the thought process on it?
Are we going to raise money in equity seriously because we don't require as far as capital education? Often, this has an impact on valuations also, and it should be at a right price. Your thought process, it's only enabling or we are looking at it seriously? Of course, the bank, what steps the bank will take to ensure it's at a right valuation? With this, all the best. I hope particularly at some point was discussed this year, what is coming now comes up in, we say, once in 10 years, treasury income. There will be a lot of opportunities for a treasury team, and I hope they are agile as usual. To see that we will break records in terms of net profit also, I wonder if we'll cross one lakh crore net profits or exceptionally for contribution by the treasury team.
Thanks, and wish you all the best for the coming year. Look forward to the detailed reply to the question, which you always do as usual. Thanks. Thank you very much, and my name is Manoj Alimchandani . Yeah, yeah, of course. Thank you. Four questions, three questions, and one observation to say, generally again, we hope that generally continues to perform well. On the product banking, I request Mr. Rama Mohan to respond on your question. I'll supplement after his response. Similarly, price to book value, I request our team who is sitting in the audience to clarify their position. I'll start with my response to this resolution related to it's not INR 20,000 crore, it's INR 25,000 crore. We have been resolution for ECB raising.
This resolution, of course, as you noted, that every year we take days and over the 40 days, to balance our growth requirement and also the need for augmenting this CET1 capital. You're right. Today, we don't need growth capital. We mentioned that we've put in point to this and the capital adequacy. We have enough firepower to cover INR 8 lakh crore credit growth. We don't need immediately in terms of the CRAR requirement for credit growth. We still feel that if there is an opportunity to raise equity capital, we will definitely.
Goodly. We will look for an opportune moment. Always in the beginning of the year, we take an enabling resolution so that we have ample time to plan our equity raising if needed. On the foreign officers, Ram, you can respond.
On the IBG side, I think your observation is correct. We grew at a faster cliff. Traditionally, we have that ability to play a complementary role to domestic. Whenever we feel like domestic growth is slightly lower, we can always ramp up the IBG growth or the international banking growth because we use the three levers evenly. We have exposures to trade finance. We have exposure to the local corporates, whether in the US or U.K., etc. Well-rated corporates, most of them are listed entities, and their debt is also available in the market. We can always pick up. Of course, we also cater to the larger Indian companies which want to raise ECBs. In fact, if you see, traditionally, all the three components are equally balanced, 33%, 34%.
We had a slight uptick in India-linked loans, where second half of last year, we have seen a higher demand from the Indian corporates for raising ECBs because of the cost arbitrage. Even on a fully rated basis, their cost was slight better rated companies, they had a cost advantage as compared to the Rupee lending. This is very, I mean, we are always looking at the opportunity. Whenever there is a need, we can ramp up, or whenever we do not need, we can ramp down. That is the ability of the IBG portfolio.
Yeah, yeah. In terms of the local credit, what you see here, it is predominantly coming from the markets in the US. A little bit on Bahrain. Bahrain, of course, is not local credit, but across the UAE and other jurisdictions. Local credit is the India-related, is essentially ECB, external commercial borrowings. We park those assets in the branches where the advantage of cost of funds is there. We are also extensively using the GIFT City now because of the tax benefits, as well as GIFT City's ability to raise resources also has improved. Predominantly, the local loans are in the US, and the ECBs are in the GIFT City, Hong Kong, and DIFC, Dubai. These are the jurisdictions where we park the ECBs. Anything else we left out? Book value is most important.
Price to book value. Yes.
The correction.
How we have calculated is the net, first of all, it is for standalone banking business. The net worth divided by number of shares, that's how we calculate. The net worth is INR 389,071 million, and the number of shares is 892.46 million. That is how we have arrived at INR 435.95. Also, this is also adjusted for the revaluation reserves. That is the methodology that we have got.
Can we mention standalone and console, and also see how Moneycontrol does it? Because the customer or the viewer, stakeholder looks at this database like Moneycontrol. There are many others which we are not mentioning.
This result is for SBI.
True, I know.
Moneycontrol is only on the last page.
Yes.
The rest is all about SBI.
Yes. That book value is not there. I calculated it myself, which was much higher.
Yeah, of course. Even the Moneycontrol needs to be updated. When we take a comparative one, we can do that.
We'll engage with them. Yeah. Thank you.
Yeah, he has even seen.
Hi, sir.
This is Raj Khota.
Hi, sir. This is.
Can you pass on the mic to him?
This is Nitin Aggarwal here from Motilal.
Yeah, Nithin.
I have a few questions. One is again on the OpEx part. If you look at the overheads also this quarter, we talked about the staff costs. Even the overheads, if you look at the miscellaneous number, that has more than doubled year over year. Anything specific that has caused this increase? Related to this, now that the bond yields have come off, do you think that there is a risk on the pension provisioning that we may need to make to beef up the plan assets?
On the overheads, there are three performance-linked payouts which we make to the staff. The primary performance-linked initiative is the incentive, which is the industry agreed-upon incentive. That is 15 days pay once we reach certain levels of operating profit. That is generally shown in the staff expenses. There are two other PLIs. One is where 1% of our profit we allocate to the performance-linked incentive based on the grid-related, in the sense AAA, AAA, and all these things. That also is shown in the staff expenses. The third element which has come now from this year would be a PLI scheme introduced from the scale four and above, chief manager and above, which is not 15 days pays as agreed on industry basis. It is specific to the chief manager and above grade. That PLI is payable on approval of the government. That expenditure we have shown under the overheads. It could have been shown on the staff provisions, but since it is not to be booked, and we have shown, I think, please correct me if I'm yeah. That is also appearing in the overheads, which is showing the jump in the overheads.
Otherwise, this element of PLI we could have taken in the first quarter also. Since we know broadly that what could be the expenditure, and our assessment shows that the bank is qualifying for the PLI, even as per the Government of India scheme. That is how the overheads have got elevated.
Right. Okay. Second question, sir, is on the Bhushan Power and Steel. Now, in light of the Supreme Court judgment, how are we looking at the impact on the banks and what is the impact on SBI from that? Any color around that will be helpful, sir.
Nithin, you know our stance, we don't comment on the individual accounts. I restrain in terms of the impact. I can tell you that we are studying the order. Obviously, the counsels for the lenders and counsels for the company, counsels for the RP, we all will sit together and see the impact of this order and what could be the potential options available to us. Beyond that, we will not be able to comment on this. Thank you.
Okay. Sure, sir. Third question, sir, is on the NARCL sale because now that the RBI has allowed the SR provisioning right back, and we have availed some of that in this quarter. Are we looking at a higher number of sale this year, and what could be the potential right back that we may see in FY 2026?
Our transfer to NARCL was never guided by what is happening on the provisions. I think RBI clarification is more in terms of the differentiated approach towards the SRs guaranteed by the Government of India. Otherwise, any SRs which we get where asset is fully provided, we normally carry that SRs at the Rupee, one Rupee value. Here, the situation was different because SRs are guaranteed by Government of India, and RBI has taken a decision that if it is backed by government guarantee, you can have a differentiated approach. If you are showing at one Rupee value, please, you have an option of revaluing those SRs. That is how the revaluation has happened, and you can see that gains also in the treasury side. I do not think either it will depress or it will increase the movement to the NARCL.
The transfer to the NARCL so far has been significant. It is more than one point how much? 1.06 lakh?
150,000 crore worth loans have been transferred to NARCL already. This means that this enabling provision was not there, despite that the transfers have happened. It will be purely based on what is the right strategy for resolving an account. If we think that aggregating the bad debt into NARCL for a better resolution, I think the asset will move there.
Right, sir. Sir, lastly, on the ROA, wherein you have in the earlier quarters mentioned that the State Bank of India will look to maintain 1% plus ROA. Now that the RBI is cutting rates, and there is a possibility of more repo rate cuts, which may impact margins, how confident do we feel to maintain 1% plus ROA? Any risk do you see emerging on that front?
I think we still will be able to maintain 1% ROA. How quickly the further rate cuts will happen will determine on the net interest margins. There would be some realignment of the rates on the deposits because without that, the effective monetary transmission will not happen, particularly because significant loans which are linked to the MCLR. Correct? MCLR readjustment will happen only when the incremental cost of deposits will come down. We will ensure that the readjustment of interest rates and the deposits are aligned, at least broadly, with the repo rate cuts so that the margin protection is there. I'm unable to tell you when will it happen, how deep will be the rate cuts. Broadly, on an annual basis, we may have some quarters where there will be much more pressure on the NIMs and impact on the ROA. Broadly, we are sticking to our guidance on 1%.
Sure, sir. Thank you so much. I wish you all the best.
Oh, hi, sir. This is Bhavik from I nCred Capital . Sir, three questions. First, on savings rate, deposit rate. We saw large private banks cut 25 basis points. What would be our stance in the immediate near term? If RBI were to cut repo rates by 100 basis points, would we still maintain the 25 basis point delta versus large private banks in our SAR rate cuts? Second question, sir, we saw very good recovery from write-off income this year. It was INR 80 billion last year, was INR 70 billion odd. How confident are we that it will sustain for the next year and onwards? How many lumpy accounts are left in our recovery from TWO pool? Third question, sir, staff cost was on a YOR basis was very good this year, partly because we had taken stepped up provision last year on wage cycle, so on and so forth. Next year, AS15 provision will also come. Can we expect mid-teens growth in staff cost next year, or that will be too far to reach? I'll stop there, sir.
On the savings bank interest rate, there's no plan to cut any further on the savings bank rate cut. I think we'll maintain at this rate. While the ALCO will take a call on that, broadly, I think we believe that the rate is stabilized at this level. The other banks have had higher rates, so they had the room to cut that savings bank. As I mentioned, there will be some readjustment on the fixed deposit going forward. Recovery and return of accounts, we don't have any chunky accounts where the recoveries are coming from. It is broadly coming from the smaller accounts. We have strengthened our recovery processes. In fact, we brought back our stressed assets management regional offices. We used to have Samros to monitor the low-value recoveries.
When the large-scale NPAs had to be resolved, we have slightly reduced the focus on the regional offices. We have actually removed the regional offices. In the last two years, we brought back the regional offices. There is a renewed focus in terms of the small-value recoveries. That is what you are seeing. Much of this INR 2,000 million run rate per quarter is essentially coming from the retail loans and small-value loans, both in the stressed asset group as well as in the retail banking group. Hopefully, I think that run rate is expected to continue. Staff costs, any input from staff costs?
The staff expense has gone down from INR 71,237 million to INR 64,352 million. Basically, the provisions for employees have come down by 36.86%, which is because of the provisions that we made last year for the bilateral wage settlement. Coming to salaries, on a YOY basis, the salary has increased just by 5%. That too, the PLI has been taken into consideration. Despite that, the increase is just 5.79%. Provision for pension also came down because of the MTM gains we made on account of the yield movement. Gratuity has gone up by 40%, but the amount is very minuscule. Other than that, I think no other numbers to call out. From INR 25,860 million this year, it has come to INR 16,301 million as regards salaries concerned.
Thank you, ma'am. Last two questions. First, we are still paying higher in the lower, shorter duration of buckets in the term deposits. When would we kind of realign with the other banks? Now the system liquidity is good. Why are we still paying higher in the shorter tenure buckets? Second, sir, our CET1 ratio, 10.8%. Out of that, how much would be AFS reserve? In the revised investment guidelines, MTM gains on AFS is part of CET1. That is it, sir. Thank you so much, sir, for giving the opportunity.
The interest rate will be relooked in the coming ALCO this month. We will definitely look at all the tenures. You're right. I think most of the short tenure higher rates are generally given in the last quarter just to ensure that the liquidity is available. We will, and also, when the interest rates are coming down, none of us want to lock in at a long tenure interest rates. We will review all of them in the ALCO. What is the other one you?
AFS reserve, sir. Can I respond? It is INR 6,600 crore.
Yeah. Hi, sir. This is Jai Mundhra from ICICI Securities. Sir, question on your Xpress Credit growth, right? The YOY growth has come down to almost less than 1%. The GNPA number that you show in that book is actually it has come down from 1.11% to 1.07%. How would you look at the growth in this book? I think one or two quarters back, we had said that we are looking for maybe early double-digit kind of a growth there. How do you look at that book growth?
We are definitely seeing some uptick on the Xpress Credit . In fact, Q4, we had a net growth of INR 5,000 crore, INR 5,600 crore. This growth rate on the year-on-year looks smaller because the earlier quarters have been not so good on the Xpress Credit . There are two reasons. One is that we, as I mentioned in the last quarter also, we completely revamped the whole process of extending the Xpress Credit . We also looked at some of the lower segments of customers, though they're salaried class, the leverage is going up there. We are confident that the growth will come back for two reasons. One is the EMI profile of many of these lower-end customers in the salaried class would definitely improve with the revised tax structure. Hopefully, their credit profile will improve.
Some of them whom we are either not lending or they are not borrowing will come back to the Xpress Credit . On the asset quality front, asset quality in the Xpress Credit has never been an issue. I think it's just a movement of a few basis points. Otherwise, it is holding up very well. It is something what we are now have another potential area is that among the corporate salary package customers, the new customer acquisition in the last financial year was 650,000 customers we have acquired under the corporate salary package. As you know, most of the express credit is extended to corporate salary package customers who have salary accounts with us. This 650,000 new customer addition to the CSP also gives some amount of pipeline for the express credit.
Right. Sir, lastly on domestic NIMs, right? If I look at full, I mean, this quarter, the NIMs have been stable. While I can see that the cost of deposit is still going up, at least that is what is being shown in the presentation. On a full year basis, sir, I mean, if I look at the beginning of the rate cycle, financial year 2022, from there, we have lost around 13-14 basis points margin on the domestic book. Right? Now the rate cuts, I think the first rate cut was February, in early February, and only, let's say, half of the quarter impact would have been there in fourth quarter. Now going ahead, I mean, remaining half will come, and then the second rate cut that was announced, that will come. How do you look at the overall NIM trajectory, sir?
No, first of all, I think there definitely will be pressure on the NIM. There is no denial of the fact. How much pressure will be there? The pressure will be relatively less on us because, as we mentioned, that our repo-linked loans are only 29%. Our book either is predominantly MCLR-linked or fixed-rate loans. Almost 70% of that is MCLR plus fixed-rate loans, 50%. Which means that the impact of any further rate cuts would take some time for us. As I mentioned, there will be an imperative need to readjust the rates on the deposits. Obviously, the monetary transmission and MCLR impact will not be visible unless we readjust that. The effort would be to protect the NIM at 3% level. There would be some quarters where we will have some pressure on the NIM.
I'm not able to quantify immediately because we don't know how the rate cycle, while broadly we believe that there will be another 50 basis point rate cut, how quickly and how much is unknown at this point of time. The fact that the NIMs will be under pressure is something which we recognize and will see what kind of effort can be made in terms of adjusting the rates both on the deposits and the loans.
Sir, just lastly, I mean, if the NIMs are under pressure, credit costs remain very excellent, right? From 38 basis points full year, they are as good as standard assets provisioning only, right? So what will sort of a cushion ROA at around 1%?
Treasury gains. As many as have said that Treasury should perform well. No, I'm not looking at the Treasury as too heavy lift. I think our focus is always on the core activities, how efficiently we run the core activities. Treasury is also a core activity for us because we run the largest Treasury in the country. Obviously, we have the potentials as well as the downside risk on the Treasury, and we will have to play on that.
Sure. Thank you, sir.
Yeah. Due to paucity of time, we will now take up a few questions coming in through the online webcast, which will be addressed by the Chairman, sir.
Yeah, for other questions, we are available offline. You can always reach out. The online question, Abhishek Kumar Jain, what would impact of repo rate cut in NIM? I think I have broadly explained in detail, so I'm not going to repeat on this. Mayur from W ealth Managers, what is the outlook on cost to income? When will we start seeing benefits of operating leverage plus digitization year after year? Cost to income continued to raise. I think for a change, we have shown better number on the cost to income ratio. Yes, I do agree that we have obviously have to take the leverage of digitalization, which has happened. Just for data point, our alternate channels are performing extremely well today. 98% of the transactions are conducted through the alternate channels. Some channels are expensive, like ATM and customer service points, but digital channels are cheaper.
We are trying to see how the digital adoption will progress and bring the cost efficiencies. Our focus would be mainly on how do we increase the income, while the cost rigidity, particularly on the employee side, will remain. Staff expenses also moderated, as we mentioned here, and pension provisions are also decreased. These are some of the costs which from time to time will get elevated. Our focus would be on increasing the operating income. The guidance broadly is to keep it below 50-51% level. Puneet Shukla, what is the current status of bank customers as on date, where we stand in customer base? We have more than 52.33 crore customers as on March 25. Bunty Chawla from IDBI Capital, Xpress Credit segment has seen decline in credit growth. Outlook on the same.
I mentioned, I think we have acquired a good number of CSP customers, providing visibility on the Xpress Credit . Also, we have seen good growth in the Q4. We hope to continue that. Kunal Shah, when do we expect to conclude equity fund raise? What would be the preferred route? Other provision reversal of INR 1,600 crore, does this include any specific chunky corporate account provisioning? INR 3,900 crore and government guaranteed SR reflected in profit on revaluation of investments. Forex income appears very volatile and has almost doubled. What is the normalized level? I think I answered the first thing. What is the normalized level of this income is very difficult to predict because the forex markets also play on the volatility. Forex income obviously was helped by the volatility in the market.
Government guaranteed SR reflected in the profit, yes, INR 3,900 crore, but at the PAT level, it is about INR 2,800 crore. Fund raise, INR 25,000 crore, I told you that is an enabling provision what we have taken. We will see what is the appropriate time to access the market. Abhinav Gundluru, given the rapid evolution of AI technologies globally, can you share SBI's strategic roadmap for AI adoption, particularly in areas like credit risk assessment, fraud detection, etc., and whether SBI envision AI playing an operational role in operational efficiency and growth? We strongly believe that if SBI has a growth rate of 10-11% on the balance sheet basis, which means that SBI gets doubled. I think this is my favorite story. I keep telling everyone that SBI gets doubled every six to seven years. This cannot be handled.
We have doubled from 2018 to 2024 in our size. We were INR 3 trillion in 2018. We became INR 6 trillion in 2024. We have not doubled our branches. We have not doubled our headcount. We brought the efficiencies to the digitalization. We strongly believe that the new age technologies like AI, we were the early adopters in the banking sector in the predictive AI modeling. Our Pre-Approved Personal L oan, PAPL, was a big hit, which was based on the predictive AI. We are also using the GenAI and the new emerging technologies. Broadly, initially, we have used GenAI-based chatbot for deceased claim settlement. This was one of the most irritating problems for the customers. When somebody dies in the family, how do you settle that account? We have used the AI tools to expedite and simplify this process.
We also have GenAI-powered Ask SBI. This we thought that is a good use case to give the tool. This is a repository of all the information, circulars, SOPs, policies in one go, which is available to the employees. The GenAI tools are deployed. We call it now Spark, where the employee not only searches for information, he is able to get standard operating step-by-step procedures to handle a query. We are further fine-tuning this. I think the knowledge-based activities and fraud risk management, FRM tools are also being fine-tuned using the AI. I think a lot of use cases we are experimenting with hopefully will result in the productivity gains. Akshay Jain, can you explain the large sequential movement in miscellaneous non-interest income and miscellaneous expenses? Q on Q basis, miscellaneous income has increased by 80%, mainly due to increase in dividend income of INR 1,645 crore.
Expenses has increased by 110%. Major item is, as I mentioned, grade PLI provision of INR 13 billion for scale four and above. This is as per the Government of India PLI scheme. Rohan Mandora, your cumulative yield and advance for domestic business has increased in Q4. As per slide 23, we wanted to understand where we have taken yield hikes, given that there was repo cut. In Q4, on quarter basis, four basis point increase in the yield advances is mainly an average advances level going up. There has been some uptick of benefit of the previous MCLR increases, which took some time to gain that, and that has resulted in the four basis increase on the yield and advances. Provision for NPAs have been higher in Q4, as we mentioned, I think is broadly because of the aging provision. First leakages provision is very modest.
Kahul Koshi, what was the reason for large provisioning this quarter? I've already explained. Where is the government-backed SR provision reversal reflecting in P&L? The gross amount is getting reflected in the operating profit, INR 3,875 crore, and net profit increases INR 2,900 crore after adjustment of tax of INR 975 crore. Raktim, our net interest income margin is squeezing because of raising deposit costs. How bank is thinking? I think I've spent considerable time in explaining how the NIMs will be protected. I hope you are able to follow that. Thank you very much for all of these.
Thank you, Chairman, sir. I trust all the questions. Yeah. Please.
Yeah, Nitin Gandhi here. Within the diversified loan portfolio, if I see other industry classification, which is almost INR 5.4 trillion, that has the highest growth of 22% as compared to any other industry. Something is unusual. Some color can you share on this other industry?
22%?
22% growth in other industries.
Other industries. Okay.
It's INR 5.4 trillion of the portfolio.
A lot of things which are not classified here, they all get into that other industries. It is mainly coming from industries like data centers and all could not be put in anywhere. It does not fit in the real estate or so some of those items move in there. It is a very diversified one. Maybe five, six major industries, Saloni, you can give later to him, which constitutes another industry. I'll take it offline.
The second question is, can you share some thoughts on the sanctioned loan book? How is it behaving post-March current?
Sorry, come again?
Sanctioned corporate loan book. You said that towards March, central PSUs and everybody reduced. Now how are they behaving? What is your expected disbursement coming over the next two, three quarters? If you can share some thoughts on that.
We have good visibility on the corporate side, INR 1.7 lakh crore, which is sanctioned but not disbursed. Much of that growth will come from that segment. There is a visibility. We only hope that nobody again decides to deleverage and prepay the loans. Broadly, we are sticking to our 12% growth rate on the corporate side also.
Thank you.
You want to say anything?
I think one thing which Chairman explained in the last quarter, many of the central PSUs got a lot of money from government and with clear instructions to pay all the lenders, which happened in our case, very, very large accounts were prepaid. That brought down the corporate book. Otherwise, till quarter three, the growth rate was pretty good. We are not seeing this happen now because now the disbursements and the overall pipeline, as Chairman has already said, INR 3.4 trillion, out of which half of it is sanctioned already. We should see consistent growth in this corporate book, including the project finance. We are not seeing any other behavior which was seen in the quarter four last year at this point of time. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
I trust all the questions have been addressed. We will be happy to respond to other questions in offline mode. Let me end the evening with thanking Chairman Sir, MD Sir, DMD Madam, top management team, and all these investors, ladies and gentlemen. We thank you all for taking time out of your schedule and joining us for this event. To round off this evening, we request you all present here to join us for high tea, which is arranged just outside this hall. Thank you. Thank you so much.