Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the South Indian Bank Q2 FY 2026 Earnings Conference Call hosted by ICICI Securities. 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 touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Hardik Shah from ICICI Securities. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Yes, thank you, sir. Hello everyone, good afternoon. On behalf of ICICI Securities, we welcome you all to Q2 FY 2026 Post-Earnings Conference Call of South Indian Bank. From the management side, we have with us MD and CEO Mr. P. R. Seshadri, Executive Director Mr. Dolphy Jose, Mr. Anto George T., COO, Mr. Vinod Francis, CFO, Mr. Jimmy Mathew, Company Secretary, and other senior officials from the bank. I now hand the conference over to the management for their opening remarks, post which we will have a Q&A session. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, Hardik. Good evening to all of you, and thank you for joining us for the South Indian Bank Limited Q2 FY 2026 Earnings Conference Call. I am joined by a host of my colleagues, as M r. Shah just pointed out. Let me start with the key highlights of financial performance for September quarter FY 2026. The bank declared a net profit of 351 crores for the quarter, registering a growth of 8% compared to 325 crores in Q2 FY 2025. Total deposits grew by 10% to 115,635 crores from 105,451 crores on a YOY basis. Retail term deposits grew by 11% during the same period. Savings accounts balances grew by 10%, and current account balances grew by 11% in the same period. Advances grew by 9% to 92,286 crores from 84,714 crores on a YOY basis.
One must take into account the fact that in March of this year, at the end of the last financial year, we had taken a write-off, a technical write-off of INR 900 crores. So if you were to correct for that accounting policy, our gross advances for the year grew at approximately 10%. Total business for the bank grew by 9% to INR 207,921 crores. Operating profit for the quarter came in at INR 535 crores.
Net interest margin for the quarter stood at 2.8%. The bank declared a return on assets of 1.02% and a return on equity of 13.11% for the September quarter. The capital adequacy ratio of the bank is at 17.70%, and the Tier 1 ratio stands at 16.79% as of September 30th, 2025. CASA balances, as I mentioned earlier, increased by 10% year- on- year to INR 36,841 crores versus INR 33,531 crores at the end of the prior period.
Provision coverage ratio, excluding write-off, improved by 1,005 basis points year- on- year to reach 81.29%, and provision coverage ratio, including write-off, improved to 90.25% during Q2 FY 2026. Overall, gross NPA reduced by 147 basis points from 4.40% to 2.93% on a year-on-year basis. Net NPA reduced by 75 basis points from 1.31% to 56 basis points. Let me now take you through the other financial and operational performance highlights of the bank. We continue to grow our gold loan business, which now stands at 18,845 crores, with an average ticket size of approximately 2.71 lakhs. The gold loan book grew by 13% year on year. Home loan and auto loan, another area of focus for us in the retail segment. On a YOY basis, they were able to achieve 25% growth in home loans and 25% growth in auto loans.
The home loan book, as at the end of September 2025, stood at 8,849 crores, and the auto loan book as at the end of September 2025 at 2,288 crores. As at the end of September 2025, our personal loan book had crossed ₹2,209 crores. This quarter, we've been seeing good traction in the disbursal of MSME and retail loans, including gold. On a YOY basis, our MSME business disbursement has grown by 127% when you compare the disbursals for Q2 of this year versus Q2 of the prior year. And retail loans grew by 51% against the same time last year. As a consequence, corporate advances, as a percentage of total advances, reduced from 42% in the preceding quarter to 40% now. With this, we open the floor for questions. Thank you.
Thank you very much, sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to withdraw yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. First question is from the line of Digant Haria from GreenEdge Wealth. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. So the question is that if I look at our net interest income line, we are back to where we were, say, around 10 quarters back, like 808 crores. And it just looks like the other income line item that has done the heavy lifting over these 8, 10 quarters. So I would just want to understand from you if it was just this environment which led to this particular thing in the net interest line item that our yield dropped and competition was very high, or was it something else? And then just that in the other income line item, is it recurring that 1.6% of our assets? Is it something that can continue, or there has been some windfall gains over the last 8, 10 quarters in this line item? That's my question, sir.
Thank you very much. I think that's a very, very good question. So I'll try and answer the first question first. The net interest income, the yield compression that you saw was on account of the reduction of the external benchmark rate. So when RBI announced the 100 basis point cut during the first half of this year, that is what is going through now. In our case, we ensured full transmission as quickly as possible so that we got to the bottom of the rate cycle. So what you see now at 2.8% is, to the best of our knowledge, the lowest ever in terms of interest rates from a NIM perspective. We expect NIMs to recover going forward.
And the reason why we are a little bit more impacted than other banks is that we had a large corporate book, and within that corporate book, we had a large preponderance of very short-duration assets. And you can see that in the quantum of disbursals. So every quarter, we tell you how much we disburse, and we put out numbers like 50,000 crores of disbursals. A large component of that is actually disbursals to corporate accounts for 15 days, 30 days, and so on and so forth. So when the repo rates came down and there was significant infusion of liquidity into the system, the short end of the assets actually yields dropped significantly more than in the longer end. So since we were overexposed to that, we got impacted than some of the other institutions who have actually come out with their results so far.
During this quarter, there have been some secular changes in the construct of our balance sheet. If you have our investor deck, you can see that the quantum of loans that we are doing both on retail and MSME has risen very dramatically. The total proportion of loans to corporate after a very, very long time has actually started moving in the direction in which we wanted it to move, i.e., to reduce. Our view is that this 2.8% that you see right now is perhaps the trough that we've hit. Going forward, you would see NIMs expanding. That's our view. With respect to other income, I will turn this question over to our CFO to answer as to how predictable and repeatable this is.
Our own view is that if you were to look at our over the last eight to 10 quarters, we've been in the same ballpark number for a longish period of time, and at a preliminary level, we don't see very significant issues with that, so over to Vinod, our CFO, to give you more detailed answers.
Yeah, good evening. So a question on other income. We had been almost on the same line for the three quarters. And the extra income that has one of item that has come in these line items is hardly INR 500 million. So except that, everything else is continuing in nature, which we can expect in the coming quarters also to flow.
Okay. Okay. So you mean it's more transaction. It's more recurring in nature, and it's linked to the balance sheet growth or the services that we provide. And then we don't go back to what we were two years back, say, just 1.2% of the assets. We don't go back to those numbers again, right? Is that a right assumption?
Yeah. We don't expect to go back to that level because hereafter, the incomes, what we see is the rapidity of nature, and we expect that to come in the coming quarters also.
Right. So thank you. That's a very detailed explanation. Sir, and last one small question I had is on the gold loans. We have almost reached INR 18,800 crores. But sir, if you just see the gold loan market in general, it's exploding. Most of the NBFCs are doing something like 7%-8% growth QOQ, not YOY, quarter on quarter. So I just wanted to know that do we still do it more like an agri loan product, or we are genuinely putting our energies in it as a retail/SME product where we can probably charge more also? But we have to be a little faster in giving and disbursing the loans and stuff.
So I think we are as good as the best of them in terms of having a process that is simple, quick, and easy when it comes to customers. We also have an income generation product, which is allowed by the new RBI regulation. So we've got every product that the street actually needs. I think we have some leeway on the pricing side, which we have yet to sort of explore.
So from our point of view, there are limits to how much the gold can actually grow. As a bank, we will start hitting prudential caps at some point. At this point in time, we are about 20.4% of our balance sheet is gold. So it's not possible for us to expand this indefinitely. So I think we've had approximately INR 1,800 crores or so of very significant growth. We think that that will continue in the near term. At some point in time, we'll have to pull back and see what is appropriate for a balance sheet of this size. We think that there's an upside on the yield, which we hope to capture during this quarter.
All right. Thank you so much and all the best. Thank you very much for the detailed answers.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Aditya Mundra from Myt emple Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hello. Are you able to hear me?
Yes. Go ahead.
Y es. Thank you for the opportunity. Just a couple of questions. Sir, typically, our yield on funds, not advances, the fund is about 7.13%. So just to clarify, what do you take in the denominator on the fund side exactly?
Yes. We don't promise our CFO to answer that in detail.
Yeah. In the case of cost of funds, we have the denominator with the treasury operations also. So that also comes as a denominator compared to the cost of funds and yield on advances.
Sorry, sir, if you could just come again. I missed it.
Yeah. With regard to the yield funds, the current number is 7.13, where the denominator includes treasury operations also. The funds raised and lent by the treasury. So that yield generated by the treasury also flows into that yield on funds.
Okay. Along with your other liabilities, which is deposits and Tier 2, it is the treasury liabilities. I mean, treasury funds raised also, which is included in that.
Yes. Yes.
Okay, and both on the cost of funds side and yield on funds side.
Correct. Correct.
Okay. Okay, sir. And sir, like you mentioned, the NIM will bottom out most likely with 2.8%. But RBI recently was a bit more dovish in the sense that we can expect some more cuts. So in spite of that, do we expect the NIM to stabilize here and then maybe improve?
Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah. Go ahead.
And just for the credit cost, that is also because I think it's probably the lowest credit cost that we saw, so what is the annual credit cost stabilized number that we should take? So these two were the last questions.
So with respect to NIM, you know, it's hard for us too. If the reference rates were to drop again, there will be an impact on our NIMs. We are not insulated from that, and the way we've been sort of passing on these expeditiously. I suspect we are one of the banks where the entire transmission has already taken place, so from our point of view, it is better for us to have visibility on the underlying rates as opposed to trying to stagger them over a period of time, so therefore, as long as there is no incremental change to the reference rate, we are reasonably confident that our NIMs will only recover from here. However, if there is a change to the reference rate, the impact will be reasonably quick on our P&L, so there is this possibility.
If RBI's tone is dovish, there could be an impact. We have a few levers, which we will try to mitigate that best we can. But having said that, those impacts will flow through. With respect to cost of NPA or cost of credit, our slippage ratio was at 21 basis points. Last quarter, it was at 20 basis points. Our portfolio continues to be in good shape. Our SMA 2 is at about 30 basis points. SMA 1 plus 2 is well shy of 100 basis points. So we are reasonably confident that the cost of credit in the near term will be very, very contained and at levels that you're seeing at this point in time. I don't think there is much challenge on that. Let me just turn this over to our CFO for a more detailed answer.
Okay. Nothing to add more on what our MD has mentioned. We expect that in the coming quarters, the yields to pick up and the NIM to get improved in the coming quarters.
Okay. Thank you. Next question is from the line of M. B. Mahesh from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good evening, sir. Two questions. One is on the retail guidelines. If you could just kind of give us some numbers around what is the current stock of SMA 0, 1 and 2, and how are you looking at the guidelines from a P&L impact?
So thanks, Mahesh. Our SMA 1 and 2 is about 80 basis points. 0 is in the neighborhood of about 200 basis points. I don't have the exact number with me. It's in ballpark in that level. So we are moving from about 40 basis points to 500 basis points. The stage two asset is defined as the 30 plus and above, right? Not SMA 0, 30% above. 30 plus and above. So basically, I have to keep 460 basis points incremental provisions over less than 100 basis points of assets. So we don't think that that's going to be a very big challenge, Mahesh.
Just going to, sorry. We have to go through some numbers. I think it's a bit fast for me. What is 500 basis points and 460 basis points?
So basically, the emerging, I mean, ECL norms that RBI has just said basically says that in stage two assets, where we were keeping 40 basis points of reserves, that has to move to 500 basis points. So there's a 460 basis point delta there. Yeah. So that delta will get applied to a portfolio which is involved in a little less than 100 basis points. I mean, ballpark is SMA 1 and 2 for us. So if you apply this 460 basis points on 80 basis points, it's not a very material number in terms of impacting future credit costs at this point in time. And we are holding on an incurred loss basis. We are holding fairly conservative levels of provisions because our provision coverage ratio, including write-off, is north of 90%, and excluding write-off is north of 80%.
So we don't see very significant impact, frankly, at this point in time because the portfolio is very tightly controlled.
Okay. And this is your second question. On the cost of funds, how do you see cost of funds kind of moving or cost of deposits moving in the next two quarters, at least, if you have visibility of that?
See, we are seeing some tightening of liquidity. I mean, I think there is so but as of this moment, we are not seeing any movement by anybody to increase cost of deposits. We have been trying to manage our cost of money as tightly as possible. We don't, I think, as of this moment, our going-in hypothesis is that it's going to be benign, and there will not be very significant change going forward. As of this moment, our peak rate at which we borrow is the same as some of the large PSUs in this country. So we are priced lower than some of our larger private sector peers in terms of peak fixed deposit rate offerings. So if the rates were to drop and our competitors were to drop a little bit, we'll also follow and drop our rates even more.
But right now, we think that status quo will be preserved. If anything, there may be a bias towards unless there is a very significant infusion of liquidity, there may be a situation where it gets a little tighter. But right now, our operating principle is that it won't change, and this is the status quo that we'll preserve.
Okay. And last question. In terms of near-term visibility, any worry on stress on any of the portfolios, or it looks absolutely clean?
As of this moment, we have no indication of stress anywhere. I mean, of course, we have a large corporate book, and with corporate books, you have event risk. So those will come from left field. But we are not seeing anything material at this point in time.
Okay. Okay, sir. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Rohan Mandora from Equirus S ecurities. Please go ahead.
Hello. I'm good. I'm good. Am I audible?
Yes, please proceed.
So, sir, during the quarter, we can see there is a sharp increase in both borrowings and investments. So is it a call that we are taking on the interest rate, or is there something else we should read into that?
See, we've grown our HTM book a little bit because we do believe that we are hoping that interest rates are headed in our favor in the future, which at some level is a call on the interest rate. We've also grown our AFS book, so if there is a change in the interest rate regime, it will give us a trading opportunity subsequently, and we use some of this excess SLR to actually borrow and do some treasury-related lending activities so that we can make a little bit of arbitrage on the treasury side, so, I mean, if you were to try and summarize it in one line, perhaps there is a view that interest rates would soften going forward.
Sure. Okay. So that's one. Second is, sir, on Tier 1 Capital, oh, sir, what is the AFS reserve movement for the quarter? How much did it decline?
As of 30th September, AFS reserve is in debit balance of INR 10 crores.
Debt of INR 10 crores. Okay. And sir, the Tier 1 capital in absolute terms has declined to 12. So is it largely due to AFS reserve?
It's not because of AFS reserve. Yeah. It's not because of AFS reserve. That's the point only comes around, say, 25 basis points. But the thing is that we have increased our investment book over there. So from almost INR 7,000 crores, we have increased. And in the case of the bond repayment, we have repaid the Tier 2 bonds also. So both have contributed for the entire capital adequacy ratio to come down a few basis points.
No, but what has moved? Investment Fluctuation Reserve will move from Tier 1 into.
Yes. We have created the Investment Fluctuation Reserve. So that has moved the Tier 1 Capital by a few basis points, maybe, say, three basis points.
Got it. And lastly, on the slippage guidance for the full year 202 6?
So, slippage, as of this moment, has been. Our total slippage for the first two quarters is about INR 380 crores or so. We think that the full year, if all goes well, we will be double where we are at this point in time. So, we don't see any material degradation from the levels that we are currently at.
Got it. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Utkarsh Kedia from BFS. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Sir, thank you so much for the opportunity. Actually, most of my questions are already answered. I just want to ask about the auto loans. So as the government are reducing the GST rates, so I actually want to know can the GST rate cuts and easing of regulatory can increase the demand for auto loans?
I mean, that is our going-in hypothesis that it will increase sales of automobiles, and it will have a very positive impact on the lower end of the auto market, which was struggling in terms of the ticket sizes, the smaller cars. Unfortunately, in the month of September, for which we have full data, which is all completely disclosed, for the early part of September, the market was frozen because people were waiting for the GST cuts to take effect, and therefore we had only 10 days within which transactions happened. Our view is that the momentum continues to remain really strong, and we have visibility to only what we can see through our flows, and we are seeing very, very strong flows on the auto loan side.
If that is an indicator of how strong the market is outside, I would think that the auto sales will be very buoyant as we go into Diwali and post-Diwali and so on and so forth.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Rakesh Kumar from Valentis Advisors. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you, sir. So firstly, sir, pertaining to slide number 13, so there has been improvement across the states of the geographies that branch value added that we see. But if we try to see the corresponding numbers in the P&L, either margin or the core fee number as a percentage to asset or maybe the PPOP as a percentage to asset, so what could be the corresponding number of this branch value addition?
It's very hard to actually put a corresponding number to this. The way this thing works is it is the expected net present value of future cash flows that the branch is generating. And the branch is only selling retail and MSME loans along with depository products. So the way to find a correlation between slide 13 and what is really happening on the ground is to see the volumes that are being generated. That is the closest correspondence. So you will see that MSME business volumes have increased by 127% year on year. You will see retail has grown by 50-plus% year on year. But because the sales value added is based on expected future revenue, and it is represented by the expected NPV of future cash flow streams, it will not have a 1:1 correlation with the P&L that you can see.
So I trust that answers your question.
Yeah. Yeah. Got it. Okay, so the second question I have is pertaining to the corporate book, which is close to 40% of our book, and the same was the scenario in March 2024 also, so the credit mix was kind of the same, at least pertaining to the corporate book. Now, looking at the maturity, average maturity cycle, and the disbursement run rate, the corporate book is virtually on EBLR, and the rates are obviously have declined and might decline more as we also have the same view based on the investment book structure that we have made, but there is no corresponding change that we have seen on the liability side from March 2024 to now.
Basically, the asset side is taking the effect of declining interest rate, but on the liability side, we don't have such characteristics, and because of which the margin is looking lower, so there are two things. So either we fund our corporate book, that kind of liability, or we reduce the corporate book itself so that we don't take that much hit. So your opinion, sir?
No, I think it's a very good question that you asked. With respect to, let me, before I get to answer that question, with respect to that sales value added, if you want to really understand what we do, you can reach out to our team, and we can have our decision science folks walk you through it so that you at least it's a little hard to give a two-minute exposition on what we are trying to do. With respect to your second question, I think it's a very, very good question. Structurally, it may not be bad for us to actually not chase balance sheet growth and chase reassignment of assets from one side to another. So, because it may actually give you outcomes which are a little bit better than doing what we are currently doing. I mean, it is possible. It's technically feasible.
But having said that, we are operating in a competitive market. Size has its advantages. And consequently, were we to do something, it will have a long-term impact on us. As an institution, we've been a growth-challenged institution for a long period of time. And only now we are participating in the marketplace in a manner which is similar to that of other institutions. So strategically, from our point of view, we wouldn't like to do that. Now, to address some of your questions, we have grown our current account, savings account balances quite nicely, and our average balances have also grown. We have historically kept our peak interest rates in our book at the shorter end. So while people are offering high rates in the longer end, we've offered them always at the shorter end. So our highest rate that we offer today is a year.
Six months ago, it used to be a year and seven days. I'm sorry, so our repricing cycle will hopefully happen faster than some of our competitors, so right now, as you see our interest rates move downwards, you are not seeing the full benefit that we are likely to get, and we are hopeful that as the year matures, you will see a faster rundown in our cost of money as compared to some of our competitors, and one of the things that we are very, very conscious of is where we price our deposits. To the best of my knowledge, the highest rate at which we borrow money today is the same as that at which the State Bank of India is borrowing money, and there is very little that you can do other than to manage your liability book in that manner.
So we've kept the duration low. We've kept the rates low. The repricing cycle has to work its way through. And there isn't a very large market on the retail side for shorter duration money. So from a retail customer, I cannot take 90-day money or 75-day money. It's not on offer. From bulk depositors, I can take 30-day money, 45-day money, and so on and so forth. So we've tried to stay away from the bulks, and we've tried to build a franchise. And the cost of building a franchise is this.
Dolphy, you want to say something?
Yeah.
Got it. No, no. This is quite well explained.
So Rakesh, Dolphy here. On the advances book and on the balance sheet mix, that is the effort from our end to get the right mix. So cycling out the low-yielding, high-quality corporate and replacing it with retail and MSME. So you can see in this quarter's results, we have actually grown the balance sheet, but it is not really lopsided. The growth is across. So we have the MSME and the retail, both the vertical firing. We had a muted growth for almost three quarters earlier. And we started picking up from the last two quarters, typically. And we are kind of on course with the guidance where we want to grow this MSME specifically in the 15%-18% kind of a growth trajectory. If you see, there has been a 11% growth YOY on corporate. But if you see, YTD growth is only 3%.
So it's a conscious effort. We are sustaining corporate growth, but really, really significantly trying to grow the retail and MSME. So eventually, as Andy mentioned, that yes, we were a growth challenge bank, so we needed to grow. And from here on, the mix is going to change.
Understood, sir. Thank you. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Jai Mundhra from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Good evening, sir. Sir, on MSME, right, so this quarter, we have now finally seen the book growing versus it was consolidating. So this is up 6%. POQ and adjusted for write-off would be up 8%. How should we see this momentum as we end FY 2026 and maybe for FY 2027? What would be the growth aspiration for MSME loan books?
Jai, why don't I ask Dolphy to answer that question? I mean, our ambition is to grow this as quickly as possible. We have to, over the next 18 months or so, we'd like to bring the corporate book down to about a third of our total book, and that slack has to be taken by retail and MSME. So for that to happen, MSME bookings have to grow from here. So let me request Dolphy to give you an answer for this.
Yeah. Hi, Jai. I mentioned earlier, so the challenge of a 40% share of our overall advance book coming from corporate and to cycle it out is going to take a while. So what we thought is that corporate, as a vertical itself, has to cycle out a good portion of the corporate book and get to a stable book with a higher or a better-yielding book.
We have lately started to have actually identified this as a mid-corporate group, which we intend to start opening up quickly. That should probably give us some balance in the corporate book itself. As far as MSME retail is concerned, specifically MSME, we have two bifurcations in the MSME book. We have the MBG, which is up to 2 crores, and ECG, which is about 2 crores to 35 crores. This we have got to the green label after a good 10 quarters earlier. Now we are positively growing in the green label. We are, as of now, around 9% growth in either of the segments, which we are sure that we'll end the year for 17%-18%.
Jai, our aim is to grow this at 20-plus% a year, boss. It's not more. That is the ambition.
And keep the corporate book stable with a better-yielding book. That's the way we go forward from it.
Sure, sir. Sure. And sir, MSME, sir, what would be the blended yield, roughly? I mean, maybe the range or maybe the blended yield for MSME book?
So the MSME folk, which is originated by our branches, where we have large, almost everything is originated by our own folks, there we yield as of 10%. The yield on the bigger ticket stuff, which is, it's a little lower, it will be north of 9. So there's 100 basis points difference between the two of them. So that's where the two are.
Sure, sir. And last question, sir, on OpEx, right? So far, we have been calibrated headcounts and maybe the branches also. How should one look at OpEx, and when do you start seeing any addition, if any, on headcount and branches? And what would be the result on the OpEx? Thank you.
Thanks, Jai. So far, eight-quarter or nine-quarter period, we've kept our basically expenses relatively flat. And that has been achieved by taking headcount down. Our strategy was that we will continue to do this till we start seeing productivity in our branches. Till we fix our system, still we fix our process, get reasonable products out on the street, we will continue to manage this in a very defensive manner. Now we are seeing green shoots. At this point in time, we will be looking at some hiring on the sales side and also some hiring to build some other capabilities. For instance, we do not currently have a wealth management proposition. Hiring to set all of those up. But we'll do that in a calibrated and moderated basis. This first half year, we have positive operating leverage.
We don't have it for this quarter, but on a consolidated basis for the half year, we do have it. Our aim is to try and keep delivering positive operating leverage year on year on year. Last year, we did have it. This year, we hope to deliver that. So the message, Jai, is that there will be more hiring. I think the reduction in our staffing levels have reached the bottom. Targeted hiring of sales staff, maybe some amount of hiring to set up new products, all of that will take place, but in a very, very calibrated manner. So I don't want to give you a number of how much we will hire, etc. But safe to tell you that probably our headcount will not continue to drop the way it has dropped now.
There will be some increase in expenses, which means that we must, at the same time, build mechanisms to deliver revenue growth as well, which is something that we are working on.
Sure. Thank you, sir. All the very best.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Sandeep Joshi from Unifi Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Some of my questions have been answered. I had a couple of questions, firstly on the retail segment. So the retail segment has grown at a healthy rate of about 22% to about 26,000 crores now. My question is, is the growth over the last year, is it entirely organic in nature, or do we have some sort of portfolio buyouts?
It's largely organic. We do have portfolio buyouts there. But the total quantum of portfolio buyout, I don't have it readily at hand with me. We can give you the numbers perhaps subsequently. Let me see if we can get the numbers now. So if you have another question, perhaps you can ask that while we try and get to the total number of portfolio buyout.
Yeah. I'm just trying to understand. Is the intent over here to grow 20% on an organic basis for the retail segment as well? Because in the MSME segment, the intent is to grow by around 20%. Is the intent similar in the retail segment organically?
So on a year-on-year basis, the growth in the portfolio buyout is approximately INR 670 crores. So that's the year-on-year basis. It's across all products. So that's.
Yeah. Okay. Got it. So secondly, we wanted to.
Yeah. Go ahead.
No, keep going.
No, I was saying that the intent in both retail and MSME is to grow 20+% . Those are aggressive goals that we are setting ourselves. We are hoping that we can achieve them. And it does require a fair amount of work, both in our process and systems and technology, etc., etc., which we are really working on. So we will be growing this balance sheet aggressively, both retail and MSME.
Okay. Got it. My second question is, we wanted to build some digital assets through maybe a partnership model, for example, co-lending also, where the involvement of branch or where there will be no involvement of branch employees. So where are we in that journey?
That is progressing really well. We do have a series of such co-lending arrangements. Approximately INR 1,500 crores of assets we have at this point in time. We have co-lending arrangements. Our first one was the Amazon Checkout Finance is housed with us. We have a housing loan with Godrej Housing Finance. We have gold loans with Fedfina and IIFL and Rupeek. And then we have personal loans with Moneyview and Muthoot Fincorp, who in turn are riding on others. These are all live, and there are a whole bunch of them that are in the process of going live. We also have loan against mutual funds and so on and so forth. In our investor deck page 27, we have listed it. The total balance sheet is north of INR 1,500 crores.
We hope to end the year at about INR 3,000 crores or so if all goes well, so that becomes another engine of growth for us, and you were talking about digital assets. These are not the only digital assets we are building. We are also building digital assets with which we can actually engage customers, so we have an asset called FinCredibles, which is our short video blog asset, and then we have it both in Malayalam and in English. In English, we have more than 100,000 subscribers or approximately 100,000 subscribers to that asset, so what we're trying to do is most banks have a website and an app, but we want to create something which enables us to originate customers in the future, so those digital assets are also continuing to progress reasonably well.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you for the detailed answer. Just a data-keeping question. Is it possible to share the recovery and the upgrade number within the movement of NPA for this quarter and the last quarter?
Just give us a minute. We'll try and pull that out and give it to you. We'll pull that out.
Recoveries for the quarter were INR 352 crores, out of which GNPA reversals were INR 234 crores, and the interest reversal to income, approximately INR 60 crores, right? And write-off to the extent of some INR 66 crores. So for recovery from write-off of INR 66 crores. So I mean, we can give you the exact numbers subsequently in a manner that is consistent with all the policies that are applicable.
So basically.
Please go ahead.
Yeah. Go ahead.
No, sir. Please go ahead. Yeah.
Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah.
I just want to cross-check. The INR 350 crores is within the movement of NPA, which is recovery and upgrade. That's only INR 352 crores for the quarter.
Correct. That is true.
Is it possible to share what was the number for the last quarter?
Last quarter was in the neighborhood of about 250 crores. Yeah. So the total cumulative number is present in our investor deck at 650 crores on page 17. 254 crores was the number for the prior quarter.
Okay. Okay. Got it, sir. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Vidhi Shah from CNK. Please go ahead.
Hello, sir. Can I know the current book value and also a guidance on NIM and the total deposit?
Madam, could you, what is the first question? Current book value is on?
Yes.
Current book value is INR 40.8, if I'm not mistaken. INR 40.8. It's there in the investor debt plan. We can take a look at it. And what are the other? INR 40.6. Sorry. INR 40.6. NIM guidance.
NIM guidance. Ma'am, I hate to give you a number, but our belief is that we are at the bottom of the interest rate cycle. So we are at the drop, and we will rise from here. So we do have some levers which we are employing, but our aim is to get past 3% the fastest we can. If the government, if interest rates were to drop and RBI in its next policy or something comes to that, that may pose a little bit of a challenge. But absent that, we think that we are at the bottom of the rate cycle, and from here, earnings would be strengthening.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take this as the last question for the day. I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for the closing comments.
Before we close, we'd like to wish all of you the very best for Deepavali and thank you very much once again for attending this call. We greatly appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Thank you, sir. On behalf of ICICI Securities, that concludes this conference. Thank you all for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line.