Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Raju Barnawal from Antique Stock Broking Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Good afternoon, everyone. On behalf of Antique Stock Broking Limited, I welcome you all to the South Indian Bank Earnings Conference Call to discuss Q1 FY 2024 results. I thank the management for providing us the possibility to host the call. South Indian Bank management is represented by Mr. Murali Ramakrishnan, MD & CEO, Mr. Thomas Joseph, EVP and Chief Business Officer, Mr. Anto George, CGM, HR and Operations, Mr. Sanchay Sinha, SGM and Country Head, Ms. Chitra, Chief Financial Officer. With this, I hand over the call to the MD, sir, for his opening remarks, post which we will have a Q&A session. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Good afternoon to all of you, and thank you for joining us for the South Indian Bank Limited Q1 FY 2024 earnings conference call. I am joined by my colleagues, Mr. Thomas Joseph, EVP and Chief Business Officer, Mr. Anto George, CGM and HR and Operations, Mr. Sanjay Sinha, SGM and Country Head, Ms. Chitra, SGM and CFO, Mr. Sony, SGM and CIO, Ms. Biji, SGM and Group Business Head, Mr. Senthil Kumar, SGM, Collection and Recovery, Ms. Minu Moonjely, SGM, Head, Credit Underwriting, Mr. Vinod, GM, Treasury, and Mr. Nehru Singh, GM, Credit Policy and Monitoring. Let me start with the key highlights of financial performance for the quarter ended June 2023. Highest ever business of INR 169,601 crore in the history of the bank.
Total deposits grew by 8% to INR 95,499 crore, from INR 88,196 crore on a year-on-year basis. Gross advances grew by 15% to INR 74,102 crore, from INR 64,704 crore on a year-on-year basis. Operating profit for the quarter is increased by 55% from INR 316 crore in Q1 FY 2023 to INR 490 crore in Q1 FY 2024. Net profit for the quarter grew by 76% year-on-year from INR 115 crore to INR 202 crore. CASA amount increased by 3% year-on-year to INR 31,166 crore as against 30,335 crore. Net interest margin improved by 60 basis points year-on-year to 3.34 in Q1 FY 2024, as against 2.74 in Q1 FY 2023.
Provision coverage ratio, including write-off, improved by 643 basis points year-on-year to reach 76.54% in Q1 FY 2024, against 70.11% during Q1 FY 2023. Provision coverage ratio, excluding write-off, improved by 1,255 basis points year-on-year to reach 65.15% in Q1 FY 2024, against 52.6% during Q1 FY 2023. Overall, gross NPA reduced by 74 basis points from 5.87% to 5.13% on a year-on-year basis. Net NPA reduced by 102 basis points from 2.87% to 1.88% on a year-on-year basis. Improvement in ROA at 0.73% against 0.46% year-on-year. ROE improved to 11.8% against 7.68% year-on-year.
Recovery and upgrades in NPA accounts increased from INR 296 crores in Q1 FY 2023 to INR 362 crores in Q1 FY 2024. Continuing our focus on collections, our SMA-2 portfolio has come down by 19% on year-on-year basis from INR 1,102 crores to INR 888 crores. We have a new book of INR 45,268 crores from October 2020, with better underwriting reflecting GNPA close to 0.16%, the SMA-2 book at 0.23%. With regard to the status of sale of assets ARC, we carry a balance of SR INR 1,378 crores and provision of INR 1,223 crores, with this the net value of SR outstanding is INR 153 crores.
CRAR improved on a year-on-year basis to 16.49, and the Tier one ratio stands at 14.04 as of June 30, 2023. Let me now take you through the other operational and financial performance of the bank. Total business for the bank increased by 11% and stands at INR 169,600 crore as of June 30, 2023. Advances grew by 15% year-on-year to INR 74,102 crore, backed by total disbursements of INR 22,108 crore during the quarter ended June 2023.
The details of disbursement for the quarter were as follows: Corporate, INR 17,200 crore, predominantly to A and above rated corporate, Gold, INR 2,883 crore, Business segment, INR 997 crore, and other retail, INR 1,028 crore, which includes housing loan of INR 185 crore, PL of INR 286 crore, and other retail of INR 557 crore. The share of A and above rated large corporates has improved from 91% as of June 30, 2022, to 96% at June 30, 2023. We continue to grow our gold loan business. Our disbursement year-on-year from 17-22 to 36-23, was INR 11,256 crore, with an average LTV of 83.94% and a ticket size of INR 1.6 lakh. Gold loan book grew by 21% year-on-year to reach INR 14,478 crore.
Personal loan is another segment where we see good traction since the launch of pre-approved PL in December 2021. As of June 2023, our PL book had crossed INR 1,035 crore. Credit card is another growth area which we launched during FY 2022. As of June 2023, we had issued 251,099 cards, with monthly average spends of INR 21,273. The total book as of June 2023 stood at INR 955 crore. As far as SME is concerned, we are seeing good uptick in disbursement month-on-month over past few quarters. We are cautiously growing this segment. The average monthly disbursement for this quarter is INR 332 crore. Coming to liability portfolio, our core deposits grew by 6% year-on-year to INR 93,043 crore.
NRI deposits continue to be our strength and now stands at INR 28,382 crore, which contributes to 30% of our total deposits. Low-cost NRI deposits stands at INR 9,116 crore. The bank saw growth of 8% year-on-year in our NRI remittance business. Our investment book was at INR 27,281 crore, split into HTM of INR 20,882 crore, and AFS and HFT of INR 6,399 crore. Yield duration of the investment book is at 2.79 as of June 30, 2023. The fresh slippage is kept at INR 468 crore as of Q1 FY 2024, which is within the overall guidance.
The overall restructured book stands at INR 1,297 crore as at 30th June 2023, against INR 2,198 crores June 2022, during June 2022, of which business segment is INR 748 crore, personal segment is INR 225 crore, corporate is INR 297 crore, and agri is INR 27 crore. The bank holds standard asset provision, including standard restructured and FITL of INR 493 crore. Net interest income for the quarter increased by 34% year-on-year, INR 808 crore. Our core fee income increased by 17% year-on-year to INR 150 crore. Treasury profit for the quarter was at INR 55 crore, excluding provision on investments.
Overall, provisions increased by 43% year-on-year to INR 199 crore in Q1 FY 2024, mainly due to the higher provision to hold the PCR at 76.54 and the 100% provision made in the credit card without considering the FLDG. We'll continue to maintain the momentum and disbursement collection in the coming quarters to achieve the desired targets. With this, I open the floor for questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Our first question is from the line of Darshan Deora from Indvest Group. Please go ahead.
Hi, my question was, regarding slide 14 of the presentation, where you've shown the net interest income. You know, on that slide, we're showing that the yield on advances has come down from 9.3%-9.17% in Q4 FY2023. Can you just explain that? Why has the yield on advances come down?
Yeah, see, yield is a, as you know, yield is a mix of, I mean, a combination of the assets growth, which we show during the quarter. So when we are continuously driving to attract good quality assets, obviously, you need to be taking care of the rate at which you want to offer such facilities. Therefore, this decrease is not anything which is specific. It's basically a combination of the assets which you grew during the quarter. One thing which we should be mindful is that, due to liquidity situation, when we are repricing our liabilities, it's very important to reprice our assets also.
But as you know, if you can fully pass on the increase in, increase in liability cost to the customers, sometimes you might end up losing the deal because of good counterparties will be expecting fine rates. Therefore, we need to be maneuvering this very carefully, in order to ensure that we don't lose good deals for want of a slightly higher interest rates. So this is something which we'll continue to be mindful of, and, especially this last two quarters, when we have seen our cost of deposits going up, we should be mindful of the rate at which we pass on the end rate to the customer.
So this is, I would say that this is pretty much in tune with what we thought we need to do in order to build a strategy of having good quality portfolio continue to be accruing to us.
So, you know, I think on the previous call, you had mentioned that the NIM on the incremental business was about 3.6%. Does that still hold true?
See, NIM on the 3.6%, let me just take a couple of minutes to explain. See, what we do as a bank when we are actually declaring a particular asset as NPA, you know that we stop accruing interest in our books, and we also do reversal of income.
But when we do reversal of income, post that, obviously, in the customer's account, we'll continue to accrue interest, because at the time of settlement, which can happen either one year from then or two years from now, so many years from then, we need to ensure that whatever recovery we do, as per the practice which we follow, we first set it off against the sacrifice which we do towards interest when we actually declare that as NPA. And post adjusting the sacrifice of interest which we did, we go and adjust against the GNPA reduction.
So this, what does this mean is that in a particular quarter, if you have got a very big account recovered, like what happened in Q4, for example, when we recovered Sintex, which is a very, very Sintex and many other cases where we recovered a substantial amount. There has been a adjustment towards the interest sacrifice which we did, and this interest is actually shown under NII. To that extent, in any quarter where there is a bumper recovery happening, you will find that also contributing to the NII. So I would say that the 3.67% for the quarter was due to the extraordinary recovery which happened during Q4.
However, this quarter, therefore, if you look at the NIM for the bank as a whole, for the full year, we ended the year with 3.3% NIM, which we have increased to 3.34% for Q1 of this year. You’ll also see in this year also, as we go forward, whenever a big recovery happens, you will find for that particular quarter, NIM actually jumping. NIM is contributed by, you know, life as usual increase in NIM and this one-off, which contributes to the interest reversal of sacrifice, which we do, which can probably help us in showing the higher NIM. Our, on NIM is that we will reach 3.5% for the bank by March 2024, which we continue to hold.
So in a quarter, we might exceed 3.5%. Doesn't mean that we'll be able to hold it for the bank for the full year. That's where we are now saying that for the full year, we ended with 3.3% for last year, which we want to end this year with 3.5%.
Got it. That's very helpful. So essentially, Q4 was more of an anomaly than really this quarter. And, my second question was,
Yeah, we wanted that to be happening often. Positive anomaly.
Yeah, it was positive anomaly. My second question was, you know, regarding the ROA guidance, are we still on track to achieve the 1% ROA that we are guided for, for FY 2024?
Yes, yes, we endeavor to reach ROA of 1% by March 2024. Of course, it's, it definitely, it depends, as you know, it depends on the situation of liquidity and the repricing and, the ability to pass on increase in cost and the portfolio mix. So we are still continuing to want to reach that level of ROA.
Okay. And my last question was regarding the, you know, the classification of the new book versus the old book. So there are definitely loans in the old book, you know, which you sort of, you know, allow to lapse, and there are certain loans that you would like to renew because, you know, they're good quality customers. The loans that you renew in the old book, do they then move to the new book in your classification, or do they continue to stay in the old book?
Wherever we give enhancement, we show it as a new book because then we do a fresh appraisal. But as you know, renewal is something which we cannot not afford to do. When even when a customer who is actually showing signs of stress, we need to renew, but then we will take action in terms of either decreasing our exposure or exiting that exposure. But however, the wherever we are giving enhancement, we definitely do a reappraisal, and that's how we classify them as new book.
So in the case of an enhancement, will you just put the enhancement bit in the new book, or you'll put the entire loan into the new book?
No, let me ask. I think, Vinod, who is our finance head, he will answer that. Yeah.
Sir, new book, what we are doing is that from October 20, whatever the new book, whatever the disbursement happened to the new customers will be classified as new book.
No, the specific question is, when a pre-existing customer who is coming for renewal, when we are doing enhancement, are we showing the full exposure as a new book or only the enhanced portion?
Only the enhancement portion.
Only the enhancement portion, we show it as a new book.
Okay, thank you.
When that account, when that account turns into NPA, for example, in future, obviously, the slippages will be counted as a slippage happening from the new book.
Yes, yes. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management is able to address questions from all participants in the conference, please limit your questions to 1-2 per participant. Should you have a follow-up question, we would request you to rejoin the queue. Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Umang Shah from Kotak Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for taking my question. Sir, a couple of them. One, just continuing on the margins side. Just want to understand that, let's say in the previous quarter, the recovery that we had factored in, had it not been there, then what would have our margins been in the fourth quarter? That's the first one. And just wanted a clarification. You said by March 2024, we want to reach a 3.5% margin. Are you referring to the exit margin or the full year margin of 3.5, which compares with 3.3 full year margin of last year?
Yeah, to answer your second question, we want to reach a full year margin of 3.5 for the bank, as against 3.3 for the last year. To answer your first question, in terms of NII, I can probably answer it in a different way. If you look at the NII, which we did for the for Q4, this in reversal of interest on NPA, which happened due to recovery for Q4, was INR 101 crores. So, so where in the in Q4, for example, our total net interest income was eight fifty-seven crores, of which INR 101 crores were contributed by this reversal. So if you net it off, it's INR 756 crores for Q4.
If you do the same thing for Q1, INR 808 crore is your NII, and the benefit due to reversal of interest on NPA due to recovery is INR 47 crore. If you net it off, the net number is INR 761. So INR 761 for Q1 of FY 2024, in relation to INR 756 for Q4 of FY 2023, which has shown a growth of 1%.
Understood. Understood. That, that's really helpful. Thank you. Sir, the second question which I have is on our OpEx. The employee cost line has seen a substantial jump this quarter. Just wanted to understand, is there any one-off in this INR 400 crore employee cost number?
Yeah, I have Mr. Anto, who is the head of our group HR head for us. He will answer this question. Yeah.
Yeah. So the employee cost increase has been with two, three factors. One is that normally, April, May, we have additional employees coming in and now normal increase and the DA increase, normal DA increase that is there. That amounts to around INR 12 crore. And then there is a provision for the retirement benefits. So normally what we do is we take an actuarial valuation from the beginning of the year, and accordingly, we start providing. So last year also, we had done the provision, but then year-end when we find the actual we had written back around INR 45 crore in the Q4 of last financial year.
So that is where the difference is coming. It is, even this year also, we have taken the actuarial valuation, or based on that, we have provided INR 72 crore on that. But then year-end, we will take a stock of that, and we will see, what is the position actual, what is the, where, where does the actual stand, and if required, we will, you know, write back. So that's why that, and, there's an additional INR 45 crore we have written back since we had provided more last year, the mark, that is one area.
Then wage revision, some additional provision has been also been made.
I will just supplement what Anto said. In terms of employee, he said the number of employees have gone up.
Just to give you numbers on that, last year, Q1, we had an employee base of 9,553 people. In Q4 of last year, we had employee base of 9,677, whereas for Q1 of this year, we had a, we have an employee base of 9,894. So in all, we have, I mean, in all, we have increased our, number of employees of, from 9,677 from of Q4 to 9,894. So that has resulted also in increase in salary cost. But you know that this increase happens in Q1, but this is pretty much taking into account the full year employee requirement.
Understood. Understood. Sir, and my last question was a bit of a clarification on the credit card. So during your opening remarks, you did mention that there was 100% provision made on the credit card portfolio without considering FLDG. So just wanted to understand, number one, how big is the quantum? And second is, should we assume that given that we already have a FLDG provision out there, that provision that we have taken in the first quarter might get reversed during the course of the year?
Yes. It's a good question. So what we were doing till last quarter was whenever we were getting, we have an FLDG arrangement of 4.5% with our Fintech partner. So whenever we were receiving FLDG based on the NPA slippages happening, we were actually, when it comes to provisioning, we were netting it off, and therefore, this was not reflecting in provision. Whereas, consequent to the new guidelines, which RBI had come out with in terms of digital lending guidelines, we still maintain the view that credit card guidelines, which RBI had issued in 2016 and, even subsequently, is the one which we should be guided by.
But in view of this FLDG guideline, talking about new digital lending guidelines, which is talking about FLDG, we are just waiting for clarification in order to really account it as a you know an inflow into our income. But in line with IRAC norms, we need to anyway provide for NPA slippages happening in credit cards. So earlier, we were netting it off. This quarter, we actually had shown that in our provisions, therefore, you are seeing an increase in provision. However, the inflow which we have got by through FLDG, we have not accounted for it. We are waiting for that clarification. If it happens within Q2, then we will see the reversal of that happening in Q2 itself.
Sure. And sir, how big is the quantum?
Thirty-eight crores.
INR 38 crore. Sure. Sorry, and just one last question, if I can squeeze in. So, sir, this quarter, we have also seen a jump up in slippages. Now, I understand that there is a bit of a seasonality out here. Keeping that aside, I mean, should we assume that our full year, guidance that we gave of slippages of about 1,500 odd crore and similar quantum of recoveries, we would be able to sustain that?
Yes.
Or-
Yes.
Okay.
We always seen that Q1 slippages are always on the higher side. If you look at last year's Q1 and even prior year Q1, slippages in first quarter are always little on the higher side. This slippage also in this quarter happened due to 2 specific corporate accounts which had slipped, and this usually happens in Q1. So going forward, we are still maintaining the guidance of INR 1,500 crore, and fairly confident that we'll be able to curtail it within that.
All right. Perfect. Thank you so much for the clarification, and wish you good luck, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Priyansh, who's an investor. Please go ahead.
Yeah, yeah. Am I audible?
Yes, yes, yes.
Hello.
Yeah, you're audible.
Yes, sir. I have two questions. First of all, that is regarding NCLT. How much exposure we have for those corporate which are under NCLT? And like, is it fully provided?
Senthil, you want to answer that, while I take the exact numbers. Senthil, are you there?
Yeah. Am I audible?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You see, I'm saying when I how much of portfolio lying exactly with NCLT? I think I'll just give you the numbers in some time. Whatever we have is, you know-
I will answer that. See, we have referred close to 14 accounts to NCLT, and the GNPA as against these 14 accounts adds up to INR 236 crores. As against that, we have provided for INR 217 crores. In effect, we have provided for 92% of the accounts lying in NCLT.
Like, when do we expect or like, how much do we expect that, like, in the coming quarter of this financial year, we may able to recover from these accounts?
See, it purely depends on how NCLT functions. I mean, this is nobody's, nobody can guess that correctly.
No, no, sir. I, I fully understand. What I'm saying is that if we-
If you look at some-
If some cases are supposed in the advanced stage, something like this, suppose this KYC meeting already happened and kind of thing, so that, I'm just getting about that one.
So let me just complete what I'm saying. It's. I don't think it's a good idea to speculate which one will get done, because many of these accounts are lying today, either in loss assets or SMA one or two. These are the status of these assets. So, and you know that in NCLT, like, right at the time when IBC got introduced, the expectation from IBC, as we saw going forward, I mean, from then on, we weren't really seeing good traction happening at that point in time. Subsequently, we had couple of good recovery also happening through IBC. So my suggestion would be not to really overestimate or underestimate in this area.
Suffice to say that we are keeping 92% of our accounts referred to NCLT, and it's if you compare my overall number, it's insignificant. It's INR 236 crore is what we are talking about, therefore, it's not very material. And we have, again, sir, we have provided anyway for INR 212 crore, 92%. So in my view, I don't want to speculate whether we will recover more or less from this.
No, no, just, just to add, I thought, you know, we also have to keep in mind that, you know, COC happening, getting a plan in place, is not a recipe for immediate. Intech itself, if you remember, they had in, you know, May of 2022, and then we finally got the money in March of 2023. I'm saying it's not possible to estimate with that.
Correct.
Thank you.
That's why I'm saying it's, if it happens, it's a bonus for us. If it doesn't happen, I mean, we are conservatively estimating, and, we will not be hesitant to even provide fully and wait for the resolution to happen.
Thank you. May we request, Mr. Priyansh, that you return to the question queue for follow-up questions, as there are several participants waiting for their turn. Our next question is from the line of Ish Mohit SOIC LLP. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. So this is a question. What will be a full year credit cost guidance?
1.8%-1.9%.
Right. And, is it because you're seeing some, like, more asset quality, 1.8, 1.9%, it seems a bit on the higher side?
No, we have always been, in fact, we were at a much higher number, if you can see, last few quarters, I mean, we were always at much higher, but this I'm saying is actually first time we are actually telling you below two.
Right. Right. And what will be a full year guidance for GNPA and NPAs numbers?
GNPA, we are looking at four point. We want to, we are currently at about 5.1%, around 5.1%. We want to move towards 4.5% as far as GNPA is concerned. Net NPA, we are currently at about 1.88%. We would want to move towards 1% by the end of the year.
Okay. Sir, anything on the successors, like, any internal candidate or external candidate?
Sorry, I can't hear you clearly. Come again?
Anything, anything on the successors? Is it an external or internal candidate, or when does it get announced?
We have actually sent our, I mean, NRC has sent the recommendation for two candidates to RBI, and RBI, we are expecting RBI clearance to come, hoping to come around mid of August. Obviously, at this stage, I, we can't reveal anything else. So we are also waiting for RBI clearance, and after that, we will anyway come back and let you know about the successors.
Okay. Thank you, sir. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Vivek Jain from Chanakya Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir, I have two questions. On the page 27 of the presentation, you have mentioned business loans, slippages in business loans, INR 266 crore. Can you share the breaks a bit for corporate and retail now?
Sir, sorry, your voice is not clear at all. You will have to repeat your question and maybe talk a bit slowly because it's garbling.
Yeah. So on the page number 27 of presentation-
Uh.
You have mentioned the business loan slippages amounting to INR 266 crore. Can you share the breakup between retail and corporate loans?
Just a second. So you are talking about INR 266 crore against business loan. Is that what you are asking?
Yes, sir.
INR 260 loan is business loan only. Corporate is shown separately, you know, INR 53 crore.
So this business loan is given to retail sector?
Retail, no, personal segment is INR 96 crores. I mean, if you're talking about segment-wise, NPA slippages are INR 468 crores. Agriculture is INR 53 crores. Business loan is INR 260 crores. Personal segment is INR 96 crores, and corporate is INR 53 crores.
No, so this business loan is given to retail or corporates?
I didn't understand. Retail is to individuals. Business segment is SME. I didn't understand your question.
Okay, so this is SME, INR 266 crore?
Uh, yes.
Okay.
We are clearly defining that personal segment, retail is to individuals. We are saying SME is below INR 250 crores of turnover as per the definition of RBI, SME, which is business segment. Anything above INR 250 crores is corporate, so we are classifying them as per that only.
Okay. And, you have mentioned that two corporate account has slipped to NPA category. So how much is the exposure to those accounts?
Those accounts adds up to, close to.
Fifty-three crores.
One second, I'll, you can ask.
Yes, sir. So, so only three accounts were there, amounting to total INR 53 crore. One account is actually the amount is low. In one, it is above INR 30 crore, so that's how it happened.
Thank you. Mr. Vivek Jain, may we request you to return to the question queue for follow-up questions, as there are several participants waiting for their turn. A request to all participants to limit your questions to one or two per participant. Should you have a follow-up question, we would request you to rejoin the queue. Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Rahil Shah from Crown Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir, good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
Most of my questions have been answered. Just, what are you targeting in terms of loans, loan book growth? That's all I wanted to know. Or what is going to happen for the year?
Yeah. Yeah, we are targeting for two times the growth of GDP. We are expecting GDP growth to be around 6.5% for the full year. So we are expecting 13% growth for we are endeavoring to surpass that. As of Q1, we have done about close to 15% growth. Full year, we are giving guidance of 13% growth. Currently, the asset book is at about INR 74,000 crore. We would, we are endeavoring to reach INR 82,000 crore by the end of the year.
Right. Okay, sir. Thank you so much, and all the best.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Tejas Shah from Antique Stock Broking. Please go ahead.
Hi, so what is the provisioning coverage ratio that we have right now?
Excluding write-off, including write-off, it's about 76%, excluding write-off, it's about 65%.
Okay. When do you plan to take it forward to 80%, 90%?
Yeah, we'll be doing that. We want to reach first, the first milestone of 70% by the end of the year, excluding write-off. What you should remember is that as we keep increasing PCR, you need to keep providing far in excess of what the IRAC norms mention. Therefore, even this quarter, for example, as against INR 267 crore of provisioning which you have done, only INR 115 crore refer to the IRAC norms, provisioning as per IRAC norms. Just because PCR is at a higher level, we need to keep providing far more than what we need to provide. Therefore, if you keep increasing your PCR, it also means that you need to provide far in excess, which obviously will depress your profitability, et cetera.
So while that being so, we would want to reach healthy levels of 70%+ for PCR excluding write-off, and that is the indicator which I'm sure all analysts are interested in. And that would obviously mean that including write-off, it will go beyond 80%.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Vikash Bhatt. From Vikash Bhatt, please go ahead.
Thank you. Good set of numbers. Congratulations.
Thank you.
I just missed the earlier part of the presentation. Could you please explain the INR 199 crore provisions for this quarter? And, are we likely to have a similar or lower in other quarters, if we-
Yeah.
Provisions?
Just hold on for a minute. Let me just take that. See, this INR 198 crore of provisioning which you've done, I'll let me take two minutes to explain what all comes under this. One is the provision for NPAs, which include, including write-off, excluding technical write-off. So that for this quarter is INR 247 crore. And we have actually done reversal of 14 crore, which was provided towards standard assets. We have done reversal of 27 crore against FITL. We have done reversal of 2 crore against managed foreign currency. We have done a reversal of 4 crore against provision for non-banking assets, and we have done 1 crore reversal as against provision for fraud. Netting of all of this for the quarter, it is two. It comes to INR 198 crore.
The same number for Q4, provision was INR 134 crore because of the other thing which I talked about, the substantial recovery, et cetera, which happened. The same numbers towards provision for NPA is 56. That was specifically to the quarter four, which was not there for this quarter. And then standard asset reversal provisioning was INR 18 crore for Q4, FITL reversal of INR 16 crore, and we had to provide INR 2 crore towards managed foreign currency. That's what got reversed this quarter. And then INR 6 crore towards other impaired assets, which again has been, has come down to minus, I mean, 1, 1 crore, reversal of 1 crore now. So total for the Q4 was INR 39 crore. As against INR 198 crore, Q4 it was INR 39 crore.
But if you look at it, this was primarily due to provision for NPA, which was a substantial, which had a substantial reversal in Q4, while, the overall NPA, I mean, as I showed earlier, this provision for NPA also includes INR 38 crore, which are provided towards credit card, credit card, which was actually netted off in the last, till last quarter.
Okay, thank you. And the other through the rest of the year, are we likely to see similar provisions, or is it to be more moderate than this?
I think, typically, Q1 slippages are on the higher side. So, we are continuing to hold the guidance of INR 1,500 crore slippage for the full year. So we certainly expect it to moderate in the coming quarters.
Okay. Thank you, sir.
Okay.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Jai Mundra, from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, good afternoon, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, if I adjust, as you said, the NPA recovery, right? If I adjust for that in the NII, the NII growth is around 1% quarter-on-quarter. That would mean that your margins would have still declined versus fourth quarter. And then, you estimate a full year margins rise of around 20 basis points. So what are the levers in a scenario where the growth is still coming from corporate, which is very competitive? B, the cost of deposit would still ideally rise, and the yield expansion is likely to be, you know, more plateaued. So wanted to understand your thoughts there.
Yeah, yeah, good question. See, first, let me tell you, when the increase in cost, repricing of deposit happens, depending on the ability of each business line, we are able to pass on. Just to give you a sense, amongst all the businesses, the business which was able to pass on higher cost is actually corporate. Though corporate is very competitive in terms of, end price to the customer, but the ability to pass on has actually been demonstrated very well in our corporate group, number one. Number two, your overall, NIM will start increasing as you keep increasing your composition of your unsecured. Today, my unsecured book is, less than 1,000- less than 3,000 crores. 1,900 crores, towards PL and about, 925 crores towards, credit card.
This we definitely expected to see growing because it is still today at a very low level in comparison to my overall retail book also and overall asset book also. So you know that this comes at a good NIM, and we are actually hoping that we are coming up with two big initiatives which are WIP, with which hopefully we'll be able to improve the traction of personal loan happening and credit card happening, with which we are expecting to see an increase in NIM going forward. Having said that, we will also continue to endeavor to pass on increase in cost across all other business lines, too. So in terms of gold loan, in terms of SME loan, all that also we will endeavor to keep on passing of increase.
But you are right, in terms of the repricing of deposits, we have done repricing to some extent, but then there is still some more to be done. Maybe by second half, you will be probably seeing moderation. We also hope that, you know, regulators not increasing the repo rate beyond 25 basis from the current level. Hopefully, after that it will stabilize. So I would tend to think that, you know, you can probably may have to reprice little more, and then hopefully it will stay on. And from then on, our ability to pass on this increase in cost to the customer will decide the NIM traction going forward. Yes, I do agree that it's not going to be easy to take it to 3.5% level.
We are currently at 3.34, but our endeavor will definitely be to take it to that level, because we are expecting some more recovery to happen in big accounts in the coming quarters, which will definitely help us to write back some of the sacrificed interest income. With all that, we believe that we'll be able to take it forth of the full year at the end of this year.
Understood, sir. And secondly, while there is some reclassification maybe at the beginning of the financial year, in terms of MSME, et cetera, but, what is the reason for, you know, such a sharp drop in the MSME? Are we getting outpriced by some of the competitors, or, what is the situation there?
See, this revision which we have done in the beginning of the quarter is primarily to ensure that some of the group accounts of corporate which were earlier booked under SME because of the exposures being small, et cetera, now we are realigning them to corporate so that the corporate can be serviced by a single relationship manager who is handling the relationship. So that has led to some of the exposures moving from SME into corporate. Some of the exposures in SME, we had a fairly large exposure in excess of INR 25 crore, et cetera, where we felt it makes sense to be handled by a large corporate team.
Similarly, some of the individual retail loans, which were taken by SME borrowers, which were earlier booked under SME business, we have now moved them because the underlying loan is for the individual towards a LAP or towards a home loan or towards car loan, et cetera. We have now realigned them to the retail. So this is the initial rearrangement which we have done in the opening book of INR 72,015 crore, which we started the year with. But with respect to your question on book growth in SME, it's a combination of few factors. Obviously, the fresh disbursement will add to the increase in book, and you will also lose your book because we want to do forced exit, depending on the behavior of the customer.
Also there will be a little bit of poaching which can happen due to competitive pricing being offered by competition. So it's a combination of them, and, therefore, we will, we are not in a tearing hurry to increase our SME book because we know that it's a very difficult business. You will have to be very, very careful in building that book. Even today, if you look at my first year, first quarter slippage, predominant contribution has come from SME of the past legacy book. So we will continue to be exercising caution in building this book.
But so long as we are able to change the mix of the SME book, with more and more of core SME and, supplemented with the bill discounting for SME, and we are able to maintain quality of the new book, we are fairly sure that it will continue to yield a reasonably good income for us while maintaining the quality of the book.
Right. Last, just data, one data point question, sir. Of the total recovery upgrade and write-off, I mean, if you can bifurcate into how much is the recovery upgrade and write-off separately for this quarter?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Meanwhile, sir, this INR 155 crore of security receipts, net NAV-
Yeah.
Is there any. Let's say, I think the MTN has to happen every six months. So when does this, you know, let's say, gets off fully? I mean, when does it get, gets out of the balance sheet?
Yeah, you are talking about SR?
SR, yes, sir.
SR, we actually provided far in excess. As I told you in the past, we have actually provided far in excess of what is needed. That was the reason why we had a dip in our Q3 numbers. So for the full year, if you look at it, till March 2024, we need to provide only INR 7 crore. If we don't recover anything from the book, we need to provide only INR 7 crore for the year ended March 2024. And for the subsequent year of March 2025, we are looking at INR 103 crore, INR 108 crore, INR 111 crore, is what we are looking at for the next full year if we don't recover anything. But as you can see, whenever we recover, we have a write back coming in this, so therefore, we really don't foresee that to be an issue.
But just to answer your earlier question, fresh slippages was INR 468 crore for the quarter, and we have done a GNPA recovery of INR 217 crore, and then we did a write-off of INR 174 crore. These are the breakup of what we have done in our opening balance of INR 3,708 crore. So the closing balance for GNPA is INR 3,804 crore.
Sure. Understood, sir. Thanks for patiently answering all the questions, sir. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Arjun Bhatia from Bowhead Investment Advisors. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Am I audible?
Yeah, yeah, you are audible. Yes.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. So at the last quarterly call, you had mentioned that credit cost for full year FY 2024 would be around or close to 1% of loans. So just wanted to clarify in that credit cost?
1.1-1.25% is what we are holding. See, I'm actually— Let me put it this way. We are looking at asset growth to reach a book size of INR 82,000 crore by the end of the year, and we are looking at a slippage of not more than INR 1,500 crore for the full year. Therefore, with this in mind, you can, I mean, if you sort of work it out, it'll come to close to 1-1.25% as the credit cost.
Okay, got it. And this.
As I said earlier, it has got a lot of components within that. I mean, if you were to really look at the breakup of. Let me just spell that out, because I, I, in my, in my earlier question also, I had given some breakup, because it's very easy to miss these numbers and probably we can misinterpret. So one is when you look at the credit cost, we are talking about one is loan loss provision. That's the number which we start with. Then we have a restructured and FITL, where if some account is becoming, turning into NPA, then we will take that away from FITL or restructured provisioning. Then there is a security receipt. Depending on the recovery which happens, there is a reversal of provision which will happen because of the liquidation of security receipts.
So then you are looking at the gross advance figure. So for the quarter, for the full year, if you look at it, we are looking at a loan loss provision. These are all estimated projections, so I'm just telling you what we are actually trying to estimate. Loan loss provision for the full year, we are looking at INR 698 crores. This is just to tell you, this is against INR 627 crores for the previous year. And restructured and FITL, we are expecting a reversal of INR 75 crores. This is against INR 124 crores reversal which happened last year. So net, net core provision is anyway zero, therefore, total for the full year, we are expecting it to be INR 624 crores as against INR 503 crores.
Security receipts, reversal will happen for this quarter, which is INR 77 crore. Last year, if you look at it, we had to provide extra towards security receipt in Q3, because of which last year it looked at INR 374 crore addition. Therefore, total provision, including SRs, will be INR 547 crore for this year, as against INR 877 crore for the previous year. So if you were to really look at 82,000 crore as my gross advance book, I'm expecting credit cost to be far lower than what I'm projecting, but we would definitely endeavor to reach around 0.9%-1%. 1%-1.1% is what I want to take it as guidance from.
Okay, thanks. That's helpful. And this INR 547 crore, I guess, also includes this INR 38 crores of FLDG, this provision that you made. You're not expecting the write back in your guidance of INR 547 crore. That-
Yeah, that we expect it to get reversed. Hopefully, we will get clarification and we will expect it to get reversed.
But sir, is it part of your guidance?
Sorry, it's a part, meaning?
Is it like your-
We are expecting that to get reversed during the year. I mean, in Q3 itself, if we get clarification, we'll reverse it.
So it is not part of your guidance, the number of 1.1% you're saying, you're not including this INR 160 crore, right?
Not INR 160 crore, INR 38 crore.
Recurring every quarter, right?
No, no, no. It depends on how much credit card slippage happens. See, the FLDG basically is what? 4.5%, we have got FLDG cover given by our FinTech partner. So whatever NPA happens, we, to that extent, we'll be compensated. So we till now, for Q1, we were at about INR 38 crore, which we are not providing earlier, which we had to provide, because earlier we were netting it off, now we have provided. This, and we are not considering FLDG, which we actually received as an income, for this quarter, though we have provided 100% fully in our provisioning. This we expect it to get reversed for hopefully after clarification, because we are fairly sure that this is not applicable.
Therefore, INR 38 crore we will show, continue to show as a provision, but then the income part, which we are today showing as a depressed income, will get reflected in income.
It will come under other income?
Yeah, other income, yes.
Net impact will anyway be zero, you know, whether the regulation in your favor-
Yeah, net, if you are taking it as income and if you are providing, net impact will be zero. For this quarter, we have not accrued that as an income. We have only provided.
Next quarter, you will anyway provide it in your income?
Next year, next quarter, if we did get, if the clarification comes, then we'll have to account for that as an income. So while provision will be continuing to be maintained as per IRAC norms, we'll maintain that provision.
Sir, lastly, just for clarification, your overall, you know, employee cost for this year, what are you projecting, the range?
1-1.25%.
No, sir, employee cost, absolute amount, sir.
Employee, you are talking employee cost or credit cost? I heard it as credit cost.
Sir, employee cost.
Employee cost, what we have done, as explained earlier, we recruit people for the fairly for the full year in the beginning itself. From then on, it'll be some small incremental numbers which we'll keep recruiting depending on the attrition which happens and depending on the specific skill sets which you are looking at. So and also this actuarial calculation which we do, we will again keep doing it at the end of the year, we will again do it and see whether there is any reversal which we need to do or we need to provide anything extra. So again, this actuarial calculation also involves how much is the - what is the view on interest rates in the market to go up and all that. So it's a complex calculation, as you know.
So we will. That we will take it up, and see whether we need to either provide more or do the reversal at the end of the year.
Sure, sir. I understand, you know, the calculations, but just at a very rough cut level for your internal planning, you know, like, are you assuming a 5% increase in employee cost? Are you assuming a 10% increase in employee cost? A very rough cut, and we understand nothing about future statistics, you know, but just a rough cut number for our awareness.
See, employee cost, frankly, I don't want you to take any guidance. What I just want to tell you is that we do provision based on what is the likely settlement which can happen between association union with the IBA. For that, we anticipate 15% to the increase which is happening. Therefore, we have started providing, hoping that it will be 15%. That we'll continue to do every quarter. That's the only thing which we can have for certainty. Rest all, number of employees getting added or attrition, which is happening, all these are not numbers which we can have a firm commitment to.
So what we are trying to do is, we are whatever we are anticipating, we are as much pro wanting to provide upfront so that we don't get any shocks at the end of the year.
Thank you, sir. Sorry to interrupt. Mr. Arjun Bhatia, may we request that you return to the question queue for follow-up questions, as there are several participants waiting for their turn. Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Pallavi Deshpande from Samiksha Capital. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. Thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to just clarify again, sir, on the NPA provision part, sir. With INR 247 crore without the reversal. So if that correlates to the full year, INR 534 crore, extra times way to look at it, and this INR 247 crore includes 38, so it's actually two hundred and versus full year guidance for INR 550 crore.
Just give me a minute. Yeah. Let me first stick to quarter one. Quarter one-
Yes.
For this quarter, we are talking about loan loss provision was INR 243 crore.
Right.
This basically includes INR 38 crore, which we have provided towards credit cost, credit cost.
Right.
Where we have not factored the FLDG, which you have received as income, we are not factoring that.
Right.
So therefore, to that extent, it is over, I mean, if you really were to get a clarification, to some extent, it is overstated by INR 38 crore. That is number one.
Right.
Number 2, Number 2 is,
This number, yeah. Right.
Let me complete for Q1, then I'll answer your question.
Right.
Second one is, depending on the re, FITL and restructure, where we do keep seeing reversal every quarter. This was INR 43 crore for last quarter, and this is INR 44 crore for this quarter. So this clearly depends on how much recovery happens and how much of SMA 2 flips into NPA from the restructure book or from the regular book. So that will, that, the summation of that is what is causing this extra provisioning, which is to come as per that. Okay, so apart from this, the third factor which affects the provisioning is the SR. Depending on the redemption of SRs, which keeps happening based on the recovery done by the ARC. So this again is a number.
Since we have excessively provided towards SR in the previous quarters, we are only hoping that reversal of provision will happen as and when SR gets liquidated. So the combination of these is what we are seeing as for this quarter, it was INR 175 crore, as against INR 113 crore for Q4 of last year. Okay, so whatever I'm saying for the full year is based on the assumptions which you are making in each of these line items. Therefore, we can't really hold everything to the last digit, which I'm saying. By and large, we would want to look at, I mean, as per our own estimate, we are looking at five, do I, do I say 547? It's a very aggressive number. I mean, very, very, extremely conservative number. For Q4, we ended with INR 877 crore.
For the full year, we ended with INR 877 crores for last year. And the year before, obviously, due to Covid, it was INR 1,643 crores, and FY 2021, it was INR 1,603 crores. So if you were to really look at numbers of last three years, 1,603, 1,643, 877. So if you are really touching 547, which is what I'm saying, I think we should be really congratulating ourselves because it's too an aggressive number which we are wanting to target. Realistically, I would probably factor INR 700 crores-INR 730 crores is what realistically which would happen. But obviously, our endeavor is to better this number.
Right.
So if you take that into account, I'm talking about credit cost in the range of 0.9%, I mean, 1%-1.1% kind of level. Obviously, if we really were able to reach the number which I read out earlier, it will be far lower at 2.67%, which is in comparison to 1.22% for FY 2023.
Right. So just again coming back to this 247, I will exclude my credit card to bring it down to 210, and then that number I can compare to the 547. Would that be right, this first quarter 210 versus 547? Because reversal-
243. See, credit card provision will, whatever, NPA which you are showing in our credit card book, the provision for that will remain in the book. Since we are writing off 100%. See, we are writing off 100% in 90 days. So we have provided for fully for the credit card slippages which has happened to NPA.
Right.
Any incremental provisioning which will happen will depend on how much of credit card is slipping into 90+.
Right.
The IRAC norm says that you can provide depending on your internal policy, and we have taken a policy to write off, provide 100%.
Right.
So in a good scenario where you are accounting for the full income of FLDG, which we get, then it will be neutral because you are getting income of INR 38 crore and you have return of INR 88 crore. To that extent, your provision is up by INR 38 crore and your income is up by thirty-eight crores. Therefore, it's neutral in terms of P&L.
Right.
But going forward, depending on the clarification which we get in Q2, this impact of INR 38 crore will be seeing if it's positive or back.
Right.
As far as the provision is concerned, since you have written off 100%, already, any incremental provision in that will be any incremental slippage which will happen in credit card.
Thank you.
Which will maybe be compensated by FLDG, so long as it is within 4.5%.
Thank you. Miss Pallavi Deshpande, may we request you to rejoin the queue for follow-up questions. Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Siddhant Bhandari from Highw est Global. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thank you for taking my question. So earlier, we had given the guidance that, you know, the net slippages for fiscal year 2024 will be roughly zero. Should we expect at least zero net slippages for the next three quarters or with some potential for reversal, just so that we mathematically hit this number?
Slippages, slippages, we gave a guidance of INR 1,500 crore for the full year, which was, which we have, and we are pretty much sticking to that, though, for Q1 it is-
No, but the recovery that time, with the full recovery.
Full year is INR 1,500 crore. Yes, we are sticking to that.
Net slippage. I come to growth in the recovery.
Gross slippages is INR 1,500 crore. We are expecting a recovery and upgrade to happen to the extent of INR 1,800 crore, which was INR 1,812 crore for last year, which we want to target for this year, too. So but the INR 1,800, 800 crore, which we are targeting, as I said earlier, the set off will happen towards sacrifices which are made in interest income and also the GNPA impact on GNPA coming down. So our endeavor is to reach 4.5% GNPA level by end of March.
Correct. So basically, yeah, okay. So the recovery, effectively, next three quarters should broadly exceed the. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Dhairya Trivedi from DJT Investments. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thanks for taking my question. Sir, my question is on the composition of the loan book. As I'm seeing, the ticket size of loans more than 100 crore have gone up in value from INR 8,900-odd crore in June of last year, about INR 15,600 crore in Q1 of FY 2024. So are we following a conscious strategy of increasing the wholesale book? And if yes, do you think this could cause some potential issues in asset quality going forward?
See, if you look at our corporate book, 95% of our book is double, I mean, A and above. So, and this we are talking about external rating of A and above. And we are, apart from, of course, relying on external rating, we are always do our own appraisal of such customers. Therefore, we believe that we are actually onboarding a really high-quality corporate customer, so we don't really expect such customers to default. I mean, if A and above, if we are not going to be trusting their probability of default, I'm wondering how one can manage SME and other retail book. So we don't expect it to be that way.
And also what you should also factor into account is that there is this is required for managing the overall composition of the book in order to maintain all your metrics. See, retail and SME takes time to build. Even if you build aggressively a retail book, which no one should do, I'm saying your INR 100 crore or INR 200 crore of personal loan getting added can potentially be a risky proposition, which obviously, unless you maintain manage it properly, you will end up actually having higher delinquency. So diversification of risk is certainly an important factor. Therefore, while we continue to have traction in retail, we should not lose out opportunities on corporate opportunities that's coming up. And as I said earlier in my earlier calls also, corporate is not just about credit relationship with the corporate.
We actually penetrate this corporate through various other opportunities which we get from corporate. Therefore, we are looking at many other things. I'll ask my corporate head to answer this further on what all she's seeing as an opportunity whenever we deal with corporate.
Thank you, sir. So you can see the composition. As sir rightly mentioned, more than 96% is A and above, and of that also, more than 50% is AA A. And here also we are giving a lot of focus to all the PSU companies, where the bidding option comes up. And we have teams sitting across India, and our 100 people are feet on the street is there. So they will go and explore whatever possibility is there, and when the rates are matching, based on the liquidity available for us, we are bidding and getting those opportunities.
When I am talking about the feet on the street with regard to the corporate RMs, wherever they are going, as I was mentioning, we follow the ecosystem concept, wherein the corporate RM will be accompanied by sometimes with the Forex RM, sometimes with the retail assets guy, sometimes the digital partners, and all those people will be accompanying the corporate RMs to find out what are the opportunities in other areas. So that we can right-size all the business that is happening around that corporate, including the employee CASA, the employer CASA, the digital opportunities that are available, the wealth opportunities, wealth investment, everything. So that's how we look upon the ROC of a particular deal when we enter into a particular deal. And we ensure that in most of the cases it is about 10%.
As you can see, around 50% of the book is having ROC above 20%. Thank you.
Okay. Sir, with regards to the credit cost, just one clarification to one of the earlier participants who mentioned that you're, you know, investing a credit cost of 1.8%. And, you know, later in the call, you said that, you know, you're expecting it to be between 1.1% and 1.2%. So what is the total, you know, provisions you're expecting for the year? Is it more like INR 800 crore or something like INR 1,400-1,500 crore?
See, I think when maybe I might have answered like 1.8%. That was a slippage ratio which I'm talking about. Slippage ratio is going to be 1.8%-1.9% for the year. This slippage used to be in excess of 2%, 3% the previous years. So when we are talking about INR 1,500 crore of slippages on the INR 80,000 crore book, I'm talking about the slippage of 1.83%. So probably, if I had sounded it like a credit cost, then probably I'm wrong. I was wrong. I probably was referring to the, I mean, I was referring to the slippage ratio.
With respect to credit cost, I continue to maintain that we are endeavoring to reach around 1%-1.1%. That's the number which we are targeting for the year.
Okay, sir. Thank you, and sir, congratulations on a wonderful tenure with the bank, and wish you all the luck going forward in all your future endeavors.
Thank you so much. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Sreesa nkar from InCred Capital. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, sir. First of all, nice to know that you have continued with what you have set across two years back. Okay. My quick question is, sir, we have had a steady view on the slippages effectively on SMA to the trust accounts. We have been seeing it coming down. In this current quarter, we have seen a sharp jump. Do you think anything special has happened or we still continue to see that SMA two numbers continuing to remain on the lower side going forward?
Yeah, it's a good question. So, certainly, yes, we would, see, when we are, when we are managing the overall slippages ratio, you know that a lot of efforts go into keeping the accounts not to slip into NPA. Therefore, and we also, we also do continue to work with the customer not to let it slip into the higher buckets. So there is the way we manage this is that we look at SMA one and two as one component for managing and NPA as one component for managing, and we look at SMA zero, which basically tells you the initial delinquency. So as a team, as a team, we are trying to look at SMA one and two together, and we are looking at slippages as one lot.
Slippages, we though we had a slippage of INR 460-odd crores this quarter, which was earlier, as earlier explained, it was due to 3 specific accounts, big accounts which got slipped into NPA this quarter, which was earlier lying in SMA-2, which slipped into NPA this quarter. Like that, there are accounts which obviously, especially SMEs, et cetera, where we are seeing also increase in slippage happening, in the composition of INR 460 crores, which we declared as slippage for this year. The co-contribution has also come from the legacy SME cases.
So while the endeavor is to pull them back into SMA one and SMA zero, and some of them to make it a standard, I mean, to make it to come without any default or delay, it's a continuous effort which you need to put in to ensure that they are maintained. So, so long as, I mean, the way I would look at it is SMA one plus two as one bucket and slippage as one bucket, and SMA zero, which generally happens due to technical reasons also. We don't, we definitely have an eye on that, but then we are not too worried about it. Whereas SMA one and two together as a block and the slippage as a block, we do a close watch on that.
Yes, sometimes it happens that, you know, whatever you have been maintaining under SMA 1 and 2, do slip into showing as NPA. And like the same, the same fashion, some of them which were lying as SMA 1 can slip into SMA 2, which we'll be able to pull it back to SMA 1. So the way we manage it is to look at them as one block. So I'm not entirely worried about the increase which is happening in SMA 2 for this quarter. We will definitely look at SMA 1 and 2. If you look at SMA 1 number, they have shown a decline. I'm sure Senthil can substantiate that with the numbers. Overall, SMA 1 plus 2 put together is looked at as one block. Senthil, you want to supplement your my answer?
No. In SMA one and two together, I think we are in the zone of about INR 1,900-INR 2,000 crore. I think there is some slippage which happens in a quarter where SMA one goes to SMA two. But overall, you know, the numbers are about INR 1,900 crore between the two of them.
Okay. Okay. Thank you very much, sir. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Somil Shah from Paras Investments. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir. So if we see your net interest income for this quarter was down, and last four consecutive quarters, we were seeing an uptick. So what was the reason for that?
I had explained this reason earlier. I don't know whether you were there in the call during that time. Basically, this was because I took how we are accounting for whenever recovery happens from a large account. We actually attribute the recovery happening first towards the sacrifice of interest, which we do, and then we are posting it against the NPA. Therefore, such abnormal collection which we do in any particular quarter will help us to reverse sacrifice interest, which was a very high number for Q4 and a much lower number for Q1. If we net that off, actually, NII has gone up by 1% for this quarter compared to last quarter.
Oh, okay. From this quarter onwards, we can see an uptick going forward?
See, no, this will again be dependent on the recovery and upgrade, which keeps happening in subsequent quarters. You might see some uptick also happening there. So for that quarter, your NIM might appear to be little higher also. So that's the reason why we saw 3.67% NIM for Q4 and 3.34% NIM for this quarter. But for the full year as a bank, we were at 3.3 for last year, and we are now at 3.34. And we are endeavoring 3.3-3.5% for the full year.
Okay. And, sir, still we have no news on your successor, so is there a probability that you can continue for another 2, 3 quarters?
No, we have actually sent our names to regulators, and we are expecting regulators to revert to us. We are expecting that to happen hopefully by mid of August. I mean, we can't really specifically assert in any time. We hope that it will happen by. And therefore, I mean, since I've expressed my interest not to continue, obviously the question of me continuing beyond September doesn't arise. We will definitely ensure regulators will take that into account, and we are expecting to get their reply soon. Once that happens, we will come back to announcing that.
Okay. Okay. And sir, one last question. For this financial year, are we, I mean, can we target a four-figure mark for the net profit numbers?
Yeah, that's what we are endeavoring to do. INR 1,000 crore is what we are targeting.
Okay. Okay. Thank you, and all the best, sir.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraint, that was the last question of our question and answer session. I would now like to hand over the conference to the management for closing comments.
Yeah, I would like to thank all the participants who took the time off to be part of this call. Also, I also wanted all the analysts who are part of the call to know that we have a very strong second line of leadership, and that's one reason why I had all our senior leadership to be part of this call. Also they have answered few questions which came on the way. I just want to say that the endeavor which we have taken to really put the bank in good condition is based on the fundamental shifts we have done in all the areas, be it asset, be it liabilities, be it quality of sourcing, be it digitalization, be it technology investment.
Everywhere, we have taken a lot of efforts to put the fundamental blocks in place, and that's what is actually getting good traction in the way the bank is performing. So I just want to thank all of you for the excellent support which I got all through my tenure of last three years. And you're continuing to show curiosity and ask many questions, definitely would help us also to correct some of the things which we were probably doing in a different way, and so that we are aligned to what is expected from us by the market. So I once again take this opportunity to profusely thank each one of you for the excellent support all of you have given during the entire tenure. And I'm sure you will is poised for a much larger growth.
The bank has huge potential to grow, and we are. I would certainly expect this bank to be featuring among the good medium-sized bank in couple of years from now. Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of Antique Stock Broking, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.