I will hand the conference over to Mr. Sreesankar R from InCred Equities . Thank you, and over to you.
Thank you, yes, Sri. Good afternoon, all the participants. Good afternoon, Mr. Murali Ramakrishnan and his entire senior management team, for taking time out to do this analyst call to investors and analysts. Without wasting much of your time, or everyone's time, rather, I request Mr. Murali Ramakrishnan to give an overview of the results and then take the operational positions. And in line with what he has been suggesting, what he's been giving guidance, the company has still come out with a good performance. I hope the good performance continue. Over to you, sir.
Good afternoon, all of you, and thank you for joining us for the South Indian Bank Q3 FY 23 earnings conference call. I am joined by my colleagues, Mr. Thomas Joseph, the Executive Vice President, Group Business Head, Mr. Anto George T., Chief General Manager and Head of HR and Admin, Mr. Sanjay Sinha, Senior General Manager and Head of Retail Liabilities, Ms. Chitra, Senior General Manager and Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Sony, Senior General Manager and Chief Information Officer, Ms. Viji, Senior General Manager and Head of Corporate Banking Group, Mr. Senthil Kumar, Senior General Manager, Recovery, and Ms. Minu Moonjely, , Senior General Manager, Credit, Mr. Vinod, who's a General Manager, Treasury, and Mr. Nehru Singh, General Manager, Credit Policy and Monitoring. Let me start with the key highlights of financial performance for the quarter ended December 22.
Bank declared quarterly results with a net profit of INR 103 crore, as against a loss of INR 50 crores during the corresponding period of the previous year. CASA amount increased by 9.9% year-over-year, from INR 28,229 crores to INR 30,660 crores as of December 2022. CASA ratio improved by 186 basis points year-over-year to 33.81%, from 31.95%. NIM improved to 3.52% against 2.64% on a year-over-year basis. Provision coverage ratio, including the write-off, improved by 643 basis points year-over-year to reach 74.51% in Q3 FY 2023, against 68.08% during Q3 FY 2022. Overall, gross NPA reduced to 5.48%, from 6.56% on a year-over-year basis.
Net NPA reduced to 2.26% from 3.52% on a year-on-year basis. Continuing our focus on collections, our SMA-2 portfolio has come down by 48% on a year-on-year basis from INR 1,330 crores to INR 697 crores. During the new book of INR 37,748 crores from October 2020, with a better underwriting reflecting GNPA close to 0.06% and SMA-2 book is 0.22%. During the quarter ended December 31, 2022, the bank had provided additional provision for depreciation on security receipts related to SRs acquired prior to March 31, 2017, amounting to INR 311.74 crores, pursuant to clarification on the master direction of transfer of loan exposure 2021, published by RBI on December 5, 2022.
With regard to status of sale of assets to ARC, we carry a balance SR of INR 1,455.73 crore, and provision as per aging of assets amounted to INR 1,241.16 crore. However, the provision as per NAV, INR 750.11 crore, indicating INR 491.05 crores additional provision in the books. With this, the outstanding SR stays INR 214.57 crore. With this outstanding SR is rupees INR 214.57 crore. For this outstanding point five seven crores, the expected aging provision by March 2023 is INR 48 crore and rupees INR 15 crore for next full year, ending March 2024.
This one-off provision related to SRs acquired prior to March 31, 2017, is not netted off. The bank would have registered a profit before tax of INR 474 crore and profit after tax of INR 306 crore, recording the highest ever quarterly profit declared by the bank. Significant improvement in ROA at 5.56%, as against -0.31%, and ROE at 9.22% against -5.4% on year-on-year basis. Excluding this one-off SR provision, our ROA is at 0.82% and ROE as at 13.05%. Let me now take you through the other operational financial performance of the bank. So total business for the bank increased by 9% and transferred INR 160,789 crore as of December 31, 2022.
Advances grew by 18% year-on-year, INR 70,117 crore, backed by total disbursements of INR 36,957 crore during the nine months ended December 2022. The details of disbursements are as follows: Corporate, INR 20,417 crore, predominantly to A and above rated corporates. Gold, INR 8,269 crore. B segment, INR 4,735 crore, and other retail, INR 3,541 crore, which includes PL of INR 1,609 crore, credit card of INR 670 crore, and INR 1,218 crore of loan against deposits. The share of A and above rated large- from 82% as of December 31, 2021, to 95% as of December 31, 2022. We have nil sweepages in our new corporate book.... We continue to grow our gold loan business.
Our disbursement year-on-year was INR 11,081 crores, with an average LTV of 81.42% and a ticket size of about INR 1.52 lakhs. Gold loan book grew by 32% year-on-year to reach INR 13,003 crores. Personal loan is another segment where we see good traction since the launch of pre-approved PL in December 2021. As on date, our PL book had crossed INR 1,646 crores. Credit card is another growth area, which we launched during FY 2022. As on December 2022, we had issued 187,694 credit cards, with monthly average spends of INR 24,561. The total book as of December 2022 stood at INR 670 crores. As far as SME is concerned, we are seeing good uptake in disbursement month-on-month over the past few years.
We are cautiously growing this segment with average monthly disbursement of more than INR 523 crore for the nine months ended December 2022, as against an average of INR 200 crore for the corresponding period last year. A healthy economic growth and government spending towards infrastructure sectors will help credit uptick in coming years. Our aim is to grow loan book by double digit in FY 2023. Coming to liability portfolio, our core deposits grew by 5.5% year-on-year, INR 88,660 crore. CASA deposits increased by 9% year-on-year to INR 30,660 crore, predominantly due to continued improvement in our SA business, so, savings account business, which grew by 7% year-on-year, INR 25,316 crore.
CASA ratio improved and increased by 186 basis points year-on-year to reach 33.81% of total deposits as of December 31, 2022. While deposits declined by 52% year-on-year, INR 2,012 crore, in line with our strategy. NRI deposits continue to be our strength and now stands at INR 27,964 crore and contributes to 31% of our total deposits. Low-cost NRI deposits grew by 10% year-on-year, INR 9,233 crore. The bank saw robust growth of 14% year-on-year in our NRI remittance business. Our investment book was at INR 24,287 crore, split into HTM of INR 18,960 crore and AFS and HFT of INR 5,372 crore.
Last year, Q3, M duration of the investment book was at 3.2, which we cautiously reduced to 2.47 as on December 2022. The fresh slippages were reduced by 17% year-on-year basis from INR 387 crore during Q3 FY 2022 to INR 320 crore during Q3 FY 2023, which was within the overall guidance. Overall, restructured book stands at INR 1,781 crore, of which business segment is INR 929 crore, personal segment is INR 277 crore, and corporate is at INR 526 crore, agri is at INR 49 crore. The bank holds standard and restructured provision of INR 568 crore. GNPA ratio reduced by a hundred and eight basis points, from 6.56% as of December 31, 2021, to 5.48% as of December 31, 2022.
Recovery and upgrade for the quarter amounted to INR 426 crore, and reduction in GNPA during the quarter on account of recovery and upgrade was INR 319 crore. The NNPA ratio improved by 126 basis points, from 3.52% as of December 31, 2021, to 2.26% as of December 31, 2022. Our endeavor is to bring GNPA closer to 5% and NNPA closer to 2% in FY 2023. Net interest income for the quarter increased by 44% year-on-year, INR 825 crore. Net interest margin improved by 88 basis points year-on-year to 3.52% in Q3 FY 2023. The sequential growth in CASA had led to improvement in CASA deposit by 40 basis points year-on-year to reach 4.27%.
Our cumulative NIM stands at 3.16%, and we endeavor to reach NIM of 3.2% in FY 2023. Our core fee income increased by 10% year-on-year, INR 140 crores. The bank reported net profit of INR 103 crores in Q1, Q3 FY 2022, due to improvement in net interest income and reduction in provisions on account of lower slippages and better recoveries. But for the one-off events of additional SR provisions, our net profit would have been at INR 306 crores. Treasury profit for the quarter was at INR 29 crores, excluding the SR provisions. Overall provisions had decreased by 88% year-on-year to INR 41 crores in Q3 FY 2023. The reduction in provisions was mainly due to lower slippages and better recoveries. Our PCR improved by 643 basis points on year-on-year basis, from 68.08% to 74.51% as of December 31, 2022. Our aim is to-
Sir, could you repeat that last line, please? Your voice was not audible.
Our PCR improved by 643 basis points on year-on-year basis, from 68.08% to 74.51% as of December 31, 2022. Our aim is to further improve PCR to 75% in FY 2023. PCR, excluding write-offs, improved by 12.19% year-on-year basis, from 48.01% as of December 31, 2021, to 60.2% as of December 31, 2022. Our overall capital adequacy ratio continues to be robust, with 16.25% as of December 31, 2022. Our Tier I ratio stands at 13.71% as of December 31, 2022. We are hopeful that the momentum in disbursements and collections will continue in the coming quarters to achieve the desired target. With this, we now open the floor for questions. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their desktop 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. We will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles... We have our first question from the line of Apurva Ari from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Good morning, Rohan here from Equirus, and congrats on good set of numbers.
Thank you.
Understand, if we look at the current environment, I wonder, what are the measures that we are taking to ensure that the retail deposit growth keeps pace with the asset growth incrementally? If you could highlight.
See, it's a continuous effort, and as you know, liquidity is certainly an issue in the market, and every bank, as you know, they are trying to revise the interest rates, which is offered to the customer, for the right reason, because inflation is high, and therefore, for real interest income to come to investors, banks need to increase their deposit interest rates. So we are continuously holding our ALCO every 10 days, and for the past few months, and we are very closely looking at the rates which are offered by the market versus against the rate offered by us. And we are also continuously looking at the flows in each market, and we take a conscious call on how we want to manage these deposits.
On one hand, we need to certainly be concerned about the passing on the interest rates to consumer deposit holders. At the same time, we also need to see how we can continue to pass on this increase in cost to our customers, because, as you know, our cost of funds will keep mounting up if we continue to take deposits at higher cost. And for us to continue to keep the NIM at a certain level, we need to pass on the interest rates to the customer. So while doing all of this, we need to be conscious of the quality of the customers who we are onboarding.
So it's a, I would say it's a, equation where, wherein we need to look at all these, individually, and at the same time, how they come together collectively. The two benchmarks which we use, basically to decide on this is, how is my credit to deposit ratio, at any point in time, and how is my, liquidity ratio? It's, these are the two things which I, LCR, liquidity, ratio, which I continue to Liquidity Coverage Ratio, which I continue to look at. So these two, and at the same time, we are also very clear in the geographies where we handle. Obviously, each geography has its own, dynamics, and we are also having a very significant presence in Middle East, so we continuously look at even our deposit rates on corporates.
On the asset side, are we getting a request on renegotiation of the yields and on the spreads, basically, over the benchmark? How is the experience in the last 2, 3 months?
Yeah, if you see, our NIM has been continuously growing. That goes to prove that we are able to pass on. Our NIM, actually, in this quarter, for the delta alone is at 3.3%. So clearly, we are seeing growth in NIM and growth in the interest rates which are linked to reference rates. Clearly, the ability of this increase in cost to be absorbed by all the segments is not going to be easy, because if you look at the repo rate, it has gone up by 2.25%. Clearly, not everyone would be able to absorb this increase in cost. So, it's a very large corporates and large SMEs which are doing well, and even prime and super prime customers who won't take this increase that easy.
So it's a continuous effort put in by the team to put across the view that the cost, overall cost is going up. So therefore, it makes sense to pass on some of this to the customers, so that we have a win-win strategy. Customers also get the benefit of not necessarily the higher cost, which otherwise would have been, as against the bank not charging very low interest rates because they are unable to pass on.
What will be the cost of funds on the NRI deposits currently? Bleended cost of funds?
NRI specifically, I, I don't want to to share that number. But basically, what we'll do look at is our total cost of deposits. That has gone up by 40 basis, that has gone up by 4 basis points, in particular.
On the asset side, in the personal segment, the growth is primarily coming from the others, which has almost doubled in last year. So which are the products which are there, which are showing growth?
I read about the growth which you have shown in personal loan. Even in my statement, I mentioned about the growth in personal segment. Anyway, I'll just give you the numbers. Just hold on for a second. Yeah, personal loan is, your book currently stands at INR 1,609 crores of books, which was at, corresponding, period of last year, it was at INR 571 crores. So INR 571 crores to INR 1,609 crores is the growth in personal loan. Credit card, which was the time we started, credit card business around that time, so credit card book at that point in time was INR 36 crores, today, that stands at INR 370 crores. Loan against deposits used to be at INR 1,150 crores, that's today at INR 1,218 crores. The rest are are very minor ones. So predominantly, it is, I would say, PL credit card, which has grown, and which is still very insignificant portion of our overall book.
Lastly, from my side, there was gold price increase in the last quarter, but the gold loan book has not increased. So, what's the trend there? Is the demand weak from the customer side? How should one look at it?
Why do you say gold loan book has not grown? It has grown.
Can you repeat?
Gold loan, let me just tell you the number. If you were to really look at the year-over-year growth for gold is 5.43%, year-over-year gold. Retail gold, I'm talking about, which has grown from INR 2,716 crore to INR 2,864 crore, when we compare December to December quarter. Other retail, sorry, not other retail. The agri gold, let me just tell you, the gold loan total portfolio, if you were to look at, we were at INR 10,147 crore as of December 2021. That is today at INR 13,398 crore. We have shown a year-over-year growth of 32%.
Even, Q-on-Q growth is from INR 13,226 crore to INR 13,398 crore, which is about 1.3% growth Q-on-Q, quarter-on-quarter.
So I was more talking about the Q-on-Q because the prices have increased recently. So from INR 12,900 to INR 13,000, not much growth there. So that was-
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but these things keep happening. I mean, there's no trend or there's no systemic risk. Obviously, see, one thing which you should also notice is that gold loan is the one business where if you were to really look at the market, the entire players reduce the gold the rate of interest for gold loan to even as low as the 6. 7%, 7% sometime back. So now with the way cost of costs are going up, all the banks have also started increasing the rate. And earlier, the arbitrage which customers used to have as against NBFCs to banks, obviously, all the banks were showing good growth.
Now, with the rates which are also firming up in the bank, even though banks are continuing to grow, so the rate of difference which the customers probably would have got vis-à-vis a NBFC or a roadside gold lender probably would be much less today. So that's the reason probably people are, but overall, we don't really see that as a trend. We are continuing to see good growth in it.
Mr. Rohan, does that answer your question?
Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Nilesh Jethani from BOI Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon, sir, and thanks for the opportunity. Few questions from my side. I'll just jot down all the questions and then probably you can reply to each one of them. So first is broadly, when seeing our growth, we are largely driving the corporate side growth at a much higher pace. So psychologically or internally, do we have any targets that we will reach a certain percentage of corporate and then we'll focus on a diversified growth? Or going ahead, is corporate is seeing a huge growth, we continue to see, we'll continue to capture that amount? That is first. Second is on the NIMs.
Since our triple A and double A share is increasing, can you help me understand what is our pricing strategy on the corporate side, since triple A and double A won't be leaving much scope to drive the yield growth over there? Third is on the core fee income. When I see our core fee income, it has been largely stable over the last four to five quarters, despite a strong growth in the advances. So are we underpricing front fees, et cetera, to attract growth? And last question is, say, from a two-year perspective going ahead, where do you see our NIMs and ROA to stabilize? And third, if you could help us understand the breakup between what are typical yields we make on corporate and what is the yields and ROA we typically make on the retail side.
These are the questions from my side.
Yeah, let me start by saying, if you ask me whether we are focusing on corporate, at the expense of any other segment, the answer is no. We are actually focusing on all segments, and our endeavor is to grow in every segment, and the endeavor is to build a high-quality book. So if the quality book is possible to be built in SME, I think we'll be the happiest to do, because SME, as you know, it can come at a much better yield also. So the endeavor is to build a quality book across the segments, and therefore we focus on all of them. And as a stated strategy, we continue to grow our retail as well as our all other SME, as well as the corporate book. See, what you are getting to see is a book.
As you know, book is a composite number. Book is a number of what your opening stock is, whatever you are adding as a fresh disbursement, whatever you are taking written off by way of rundowns, and then what you are forcibly exiting because of the quality or due to monitoring, you want to get rid of certain customers who are coming particularly to you. So there will also be some poaching which will happen because customers might get lured by a lower rate by the competition. So what you get to see is a composite number as a book. If you were to really look at disbursements, in all, every segment, our disbursements, disbursements are substantially in nine months of this year compared to nine months of last year, if you see, every single business has grown pretty well.
So to answer your question, are we focusing on one segment? No, we are focusing on all segments, and we are seeing good growth happening in all segments. But are you seeing that getting reflected in the book? What you get to see in the book will be dependent on the nature of that book. For a product which you're starting afresh, for example, a PL or a credit card, where you never had a historical book, whatever you are disbursing will get added to your book. So you will see a delta growth happening there. Whereas for a seasoned business like SME or corporate, there will always be a rundowns happening, there will always be a forced exit, which we'll be doing, and there will always be some kind of poaching which will keep happening.
So therefore, my suggestion is, look at disbursements and look at the book growth together in order to conclude anything about the focus of the entities, because that gives you the complete picture of what the institution is trying to drive. So this is as far as first question is concerned, and we don't have any specific benchmark of percentage of each business contribution to the overall book. We'll continue to see opportunities in all the segments and wherever we are seeing good growth coming, wherever we are seeing opportunities, we would want to exploit that. So as I'm talking to you, we are currently at about 30-31% data of corporate book as total book value.
You know that many of the banks have corporate, retail, corporate and non-corporate proportion, even as high as 50/50 or 60/40 kind of thing. So we are nowhere near any of those benchmarks. So and also, if you are carefully monitoring the economy and the kind of discussions which keep happening in Davos and various other forums, there is a huge pipeline investment which is going to come from both private as well as from government. So we are seeing good investments keep coming in the corporate area. And as a natural corollary, SMA investments will also keep going up. So once we get to see, I'm sure we will have more opportunities to tap in these segments.
And as far as the business outlook is concerned, as far as the rate is concerned, yes, large corporates definitely demands, I mean, good corporates definitely demand a very fine pricing. But you should always remember, which I keep telling in every, like, analyst call, we are, we are not looking at corporate only for credit income. Corporate is actually, source for you to actually increase the total wallet share, which you can earn as a banking institution. Because corporates deal with a lot of vendors, lot of dealers, lot of they have a lot of employees, and their ecosystem is full of opportunities. So when you are talking to a corporate, for example, you might be having 3,000, 4,000 dealers in each state in the country.
If you are talking to a retail FMCG giant, you will have some 3,000, 4,000 dealers in each state. So the opportunity which you have is phenomenal. So we don't look at that credit income which we earn from corporate alone for the bank's benefit. We look at what we can earn as a bank in the overall. Actually, the trend which you've been seeing in the banking industry for good number of years now. I mean, if you are tracking big banks, this is one of the approaches they have always followed, as an ecosystem. Ecosystem banking is what is very popular a few years back, and that is exactly what we are trying to do.
So it throws up a lot of opportunities for you to expand your business, not only in corporate, but in many other areas, including the retail. Because many of the executives working for a corporate would need a home loan or a car loan or any of those, and you will also get a lot more references through them. So it's a good conduit to do many other businesses. So that's how we see a corporate relationship. That's number one. Number two, how are we actually, are we seeing the full passing on of benefit of the interest in co- increase in cost? This I had answered in my first question. Obviously, we cannot expect them to absorb all the costs, therefore, we need to price our thing in order to ensure that we continue to be with them.
Many of the corporates also don't give you opportunity right upfront. You will have to probably enter through a sub, a subsidiary or a associate company, which could be a smaller entity, and then through a nego, interaction with them, they get to understand you, you get to understand them. When you get into the consortium, that's when you actually get to see all the deals at least shown to you before it is shown to somebody else. So we look at it holistically, and that's how we would want to grow our business. As far as NIM is concerned, in each of these business lines and the, and the rate, and the rate of interest which we charge, obviously, it's all dependent on the ecosystem in which that particular segment operates.
In a business segment, for example, you will find well-rated SMEs, demanding finer rates, as compared to not-so-well-rated SMEs. But our underlying filter is the quality. If it's a good quality SME, it is, reflected in our appraisal and also, validated by the CMR rating of that SME customer based on, CIBIL's, score, and also individual promoter scores, et cetera, and we find the cash flows are good enough, then we don't mind them acquiring at a little lower cost. But with a very clear objective that, again, there will be opportunities which we can use, make use of as the entity grows. So this is how we are looking at each segment. Retail, as you know, it's a fixed rate, which we charge, and, home loan is anyway linked to reference rates.
So as we keep going, moving the reference rates, we will continue to deal with them. Again, home loan, like corporate, is a big conduit because typical home loan customers, you find them very stable, good income. And if you... I think if you are giving a good FOIR, you have a good scope to, you know, be with him for longer period for his other, consumer requirements, et cetera. So it's a lifelong relationship with the home loan customer. And a home loan book also brings in a lot of stability. So this is, so each business has its own objective in your overall portfolio. So long answer, but suffice to say that we are clearly understanding what we need to do, how we need to do, and what we need to price in each of these segments, with a very clear objective that we want to onboard quality assets through build our portfolio, which will be profitable.
Got it, sir. So there's two-
Mr. Jethani, I request you to come back with you, sir.
Okay.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure the management is able to answer queries from all participants, kindly restrict your questions to two at a time. We have our next question from the line of Sonaal, from Bowhead Investment Advisors . Go ahead.
Hello, sir. This is Sonaal. Hello, sir, this is Sonaal Kohli. How are you? And congratulations-
Thank you.
-to set of numbers.
I'm sorry, can you use your handset, please? You're not clearly audible.
I'm using a handset only. I'm audible now?
Yes. Please, go ahead.
Sir, am I audible to you?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.
Sir, I have a couple of questions. Firstly, what was your SMA one and ECLGS book, ex-NPA?
My total portfolio is INR 70,117 crores. The SMA -1 is INR 1,200 crores, and SMA -2 is INR 97 crores.
Sir, what is your ECLGS book?
Sorry, come again?
What is your ECLGS book? Emergency credit line book.
ECLGS book, INR 2,007 crore.
How much, sir?
INR 2,007 crore. INR 2,007 crore.
Okay. And this is all standard number? Are you telling me?
Yeah, this is the gross advance as of December 31st, 2022. Yes. Out of this, we have an NPA of... No, it's not. All is not standard. Out of this, we have NPA INR 141 crore.
... So two further questions, you know, firstly, any further heat on restructured book you expect an outlook for growth in next slippages? Second question, outlook on NIMs, you know, in the immediate term and more from a, you know, immediate term, as in, like, coming one or two quarters and from a one-year perspective. Also, you know, your NIMs on, you know, old book is relatively mature than, you know, the new book. So is it because the quality of the loan book and the mix vary substantially, or is it largely because of higher GNPAs in your, you know, old book, while new book does not have GNPAs, you know, because no interest, you know, write-offs? Thank you.
Yeah. First, let me, I've not understood your second question because it was a very long question. Let me first answer me your first question, where you talked about what is the, outlook on EC, I mean, the slippages which we are anticipating. So this year, if you are, if you are closely tracking what I've been communicating is, so the full year we gave a guidance of INR 1,600 crore as slippage for the full year, of which INR 1,000 crore was to come from my regular book, and INR 600 crore was to come from 55% of my restructured book, which was INR 2,400 crore as of Q1.
So, 25% of Q1, 1,600, INR 2,400 crore, or INR 600 crore, and INR 1,000 crore from my regular book, which was adding up to INR 1,600 crore. As again, INR 1,600 crore, which I gave as a guidance, as for the full year, we are at INR 1,105 crore as of Q3 end, and we expect approximately another INR 400 crore to come in Q4. So this, we expect the total slippages to be INR 1,500 crore, around that, which is well within the guidance of INR 1,600 crore, which I've given as guidance. Next year, we are expecting slippages in the range of INR 1,800 crore, is what we are anticipating for the next full year. However, we will get to know the...
We will come back with a more closer number as we move towards the Q4, and we get to see the performance of the portfolio as of Q4. So this is as far as slippages is concerned. Second thing is, NIM for the full year, I gave a guidance of 3.5% for the year ended March 2022, and sorry, 3.2. And as of Q3 end, we are at 3.17%, so I'm pretty much closer to the guidance which I gave, which was 3.2% in March.
As far as NIM for the next year, that is by March 2023 or 2024, this will be as per the strategy document which we had circulated earlier, wherein we had indicated a NIM of 3.5%, 3.5% for the year ended March 2024. This is what we gave as guidance. Obviously, our endeavor is to probably surpass that much before March 2024. This is as far as NIM is concerned. Sorry, your last question, I didn't understand. Your... It was a very long question. Can you repeat it again?
Sure. Sir, I'll come to the last question, which is on the clarification of a number you gave. Did you say your slippages expectation for next year is INR 800-INR 1,000 crore, or did you say INR 1,800 crore?
INR 1,800 crore. INR 1,800 crore. Yeah.
Sir, why do you expect your slippages to be so high next year, considering, you know, you already recognized most of the, you know, stress by now, and it was only INR 1,400 crore this year?
Yeah. Let me, let me, if you know the mechanics of how the slippages happen, typically, there is a standard book, and there is a restructured book. Okay? If you look at standard book, even for the best of banks, you can go and verify this number with even HDFCs and ICICIs of the world. Even in the best of banks, large banks, who continue to grow at a very, very faster pace of adding huge delta to their advances book, you'll always find them slipping by 1%-1.25%. This is the ratio which you would see in large banks. So obviously, these books, these banks have, some of them have cleaned up their balance sheet much before. Therefore, you will continue to see a very stabilized slippages happening from those books.
Banks like us are concerned, if you look at it, what you should be concerned more about is not slippages, how we are actually covering ourselves with the PCR. Because what actually matters is PCR. So PCR today, excluding write-off, I'm at 60%, and I'm expecting it to close more closer to 65%. 60%-63% is probably what I'll end up by March. Our endeavor is to reach 65%, and our endeavor is to reach net, I mean, PCR of 70% definitely in the coming year, coming financial year.
So the way I look at it is, this 1%-1.25%, which is what we get to see in good, well-run banks, probably would be 1.5%-1.7%, or maybe even 2% for bank like us, which carry some legacy book, which continues to be there. If you were to look at my GNPA numbers, we still carry a GNPA quantum, which you must have noticed it. It is still continuing to be closer to... I'll just tell you the number, though we have come down marginally this quarter, but then still we are carrying INR 10,843 crore is my gross NPA. My net NPA is INR 1,529 crore.
If you get to see this, these numbers, obviously, we need to clean this up through an effective recovery and effective closures. So that is what we need to do going forward also. So the way I look at it is, our slippages, we are estimating it to be INR 1,800 crore. This will probably come from the fact that our portfolio, which is currently standing at INR 70,000 crore, which has got a new book of INR 37,000 crore, which will obviously get built up in the coming year also. That book, irrespective of the quality you build, you can assume that over a period, 1%-1.25% slippages will happen from those books.
This is what we get to see even in large banks. Then you get, you can anticipate some 28% or 30% slippages happening to your restructured book. So my restructured book is coming down. It was INR 1,997 crore as of Q2 end, and currently it is, it has come down below that also. Thousand seven, I think it's, thousand seven eighty crores is what we get today. So we continue to say that maybe 30% slippages will keep happening from this, and 1.2%-1.3% slippages will happen from your regular book. With all that, we have done an estimate of INR 1,800 crore. As I said, we will come back with a number, much closer to Q4.
So thank you for this elaborate answer. So my question which was pending was-
Can I request another in the queue?
Sir, answering what the MD sir asked me to, you know, the question is, you know, answering him.
Yeah, okay. It's okay. Let me, let me just finish this question, last question.
So, sir, you know, you gave a guidance on the, you know, NIM side. Thank you for that. So I was trying to understand from your end, you know, the reason why NIM is high on the new book, is it because the loan book is materially different or, you know, lower in quality? Or is it because you had high GNPAs on the previous book and the new book is clean of that, and therefore, you know, you don't lose any interest on your NPAs? And also, you know, the slippage side, what you said, INR 1,800 crore, I think a relevant number, because of the reasons you told us, would be a net slippage number during the recovery. So if you know, the gross slippage is INR 1,800 crore, any rough estimate on what, you know, net slippage, which is really material, you know, do you expect in next year? Thank you so much.
Other way of asking this question, I would say, is what is the expected upgrade and recovery which you are anticipating for the next year? If I were to rephrase this question. So just to tell you the number, INR 600 crore is what we did as of March 2021. INR 1,500 crore is what we did as of March 2022. We are expecting it to be thousand. We'll be exceeding that number, maybe closer to INR 1,600-INR 1,700 crore is what we anticipate by March 2023. Next year, our endeavor is to do INR 2,000 crore of upgrade and recovery for next full year. These are all estimates. Obviously, we'll have to work out these numbers, go to our board, get their consent before we officially announce it.
On the NIM, sir?
NIM, as I said, will be... It's our strategy, 3.3%.
New book versus old book. The question was why, you know, the NIM is high on the new book?
I don't think that is very material. I mean, I don't think you need to be really knowing about new book, old book, et cetera, because as we keep growing our book, anyway, the book will get churned and you will find that this new book, old book, I just want to give you a perspective that we continue to carry INR 33,000 crores. As of, as of INR 37,000 crores, I'm saying INR 37,000 crores is a new book, and we still carry the old book. And the old book is also, as you know, as, since it's a book which you are talking about built before 2020, obviously, performing ones are continuing to performing, and non-performing ones anyway will skip out. And that is what we get to see in our GNPA and net NPA and recovery, all that we talked about. So it doesn't really matter.
Overall NIM and overall slippages, overall recovery, I think is what should concern.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Renish Bhuva from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, sir. I'm Congress, great to be on board.
Thank you.
From my side. So one is on the, you know, this, new, in terms of the ultimate, the new products, so like the PL, the credit card, you know, so just wanted to understand that, you know, given, these are the new products, which might not have seasoned yet, so what kind of collection efficiency we are seeing in this new product? And also, just to understand from the, proposition perspective, whether these loans, has been extended to the, ETB customers as of now, or we are also, sort of offering this product to NTB customers?
Good question. See, clearly, the new book which we've added today is showing impeccably high good quality. Therefore, there is no, honestly, there is no feedback on recovery and those kind of things. Because the new book, as far as these products are concerned, clearly, the overall delinquency as in rocking is only 0.06%. So to that extent, it is still quite low. But to your question, how are we offering this to new set of customers?
As far as PL is concerned, we definitely have a pre-approved personal loan, which is basically doing the data analytics on existing customers, arriving at a rule of who we want to provide, and cross-checking with their credit history. We are offering a pre-approved personal loan. The experience which we are seeing. See, these products, since they are unsecured, we need to continuously monitor them. We need to continuously keep close track of them. We also have a product called Imputed Income, where the customer might be our existing liability customer, but he may not have a great liability relationship with us, but he might be an existing customer of some other bank. Where there is an opportunity based on imputed income, we can come with a pre-approved offer.
So he's an existing customer, but he, he may not be the primary customer for them. So these kind of customers also, we keep offering them pre-approved products, whether it's a personal loan or a credit card, or those kind of things. So I think the key to get the unsecured right is to, A, get your overall risk appetite very clearly defined, and continuously sourcing high-quality cases, continuously monitoring them using vintage curves. I am happy to say that we do very regular reviews of all these new products which we have launched, using vintage curves to see any corrective action to be taken. Since all these are model-based offerings, we can quickly pick wherever we are going wrong. So I can tell you that, we have handled, I mean, I have handled much larger books with this kind of methodology. Therefore, I really don't see an issue at all.
Sir, what is the average tenure for this product? I mean, just to understand the seasoning of this product.
... Yeah, it's all three years, four years, like what any other bank offers. That's in our tenure.
Okay. Okay. And so my second question again, on the advance in terms of the region. So we have seen that rest of India, you know, is growing at a much faster pace, up around 50% Y-o-Y basis. I understand that most of this coming from the corporate book, you know, wherein we had offices in Bombay or Delhi. But just to understand how the other groups, like MSME, you know, whether these groups are also gathering pace in rest of India region?
Yeah, yeah. They, I think we have given in our investor this presentation, we have given even product-wise, if I'm not wrong. So I think we are getting to see opportunities in all these products. So again, let me just reiterate, I am not hung up on region. I am hung up on quality. If that comes from anywhere in the country, we would want to tap it. So it's not if you are getting to see more of rest of India, probably the way we are source today, we are getting to seeing opportunities there, and we are. And those are, those places which are, which we are spotting, we are meeting with our quality standards, therefore, we are ongoing there.
Other than that, there is no deliberate strategy to say that we are specifically focusing on rest of India, not looking at Kerala, nothing like that. There is no, at least in my mind, there is no differentiation. I mean, we are looking at quality, and this quality, wherever it comes from, we would want to go.
Got it. Just to follow on, on this split side. So again, when we look at the ticket size, you know, like INR 5 crore-INR 25 crore segment, has been degrowing. So what is happening there? I mean, why that segment is not growing from last few quarters?
See, this is a... Let me put it this way. See, this, I think you are referring to the slide which is presented in our investor presentation. See, this in my-- I, I have a completely different view on this slide. Probably, we'll take this slide off in the future presentation, because it doesn't really make any sense to me. See, if you are doing... See, look at what kind of products we are offering. We are offering products which are basically retailed today, which is the focus, where we are looking at INR 5 lakh, INR 3 lakh. Obviously, these are all prices which are going to be far, far lower than the crores which you're talking about. INR 5 crore-INR 25 crore, if you were to really look at that segment, this is a segment which we can offer either from SME or from corporate.
These are the two segments where we can offer this product. Today, you look at the SME, for SME to have a high ticket size of, let's say, INR 8 crore, 9 crore, 10 crore, 15 crore, this is the band, if you know, this is the band which normally doesn't give you great collateral. Because these companies, if your exposure alone is, let's say, INR 10 crore, for example, you will be in a multiple banker consortium banking, where at least you will have a limit of, let's say, five banks giving 10 crore each, let's say INR 50 crore. Therefore, this turnover would be close to INR 200 crore-INR 250 crore. The 200-250 crore company doesn't give you collateral. And SME and banks which have actually had a focus on this segment, higher ticket SME, invariably, they all had issues.
Because the moment SMEs, let's face it, SMEs don't have the wherewithal to get out in case of an adverse situation in the economy, because their resources are limited, unlike a corporate. Therefore, these and you don't also have a collateral to really reduce your loss given default. So this is a segment which typically gives you a lot of default. Having said that, it is not that you cannot use good credit tools to underwrite good quality cases here, but yes, definitely we would want to do that, but we would definitely want to do that and tap that as we go along. But let's get the act right in the areas where today you are seeing more opportunities.
More opportunities being seen in SME, where your ticket mixture on an average is INR 80 lakh-INR 1 crore, where we see a lot of potential, where you can actually pretty much use your model, pretty much use your underwriting techniques to onboard good quality cases, where you'll also be able to back your exposure with a good collateral, where your loss given defaults are going to be low. So as a segment, that segment is preferred in relation to a segment where you have a high ticket size. So but having said that, yes, we will definitely tap that segment, too, but it will come as we go along. Today, in the corporate, for example, you will also come down in segment from the corporate side. Today, the focus on corporate is to first build a high-quality corporate book.
Therefore, invariably, we are using rating as a synonym for quality. Therefore, we use external rating, plus we also do our own appraisals, ensure that we onboard good cases. Through them, we would want to tap their suppliers, dealers, et cetera. Probably, these are the SMEs who will be in INR 250 crore-INR 200 crore kind of top line, where we will also have a linkage with corporate. So corporate links the business, which is one of the good businesses to do, because you can get a support from the corporate to stop supply or for enabling us to recover money in case of a problem, et cetera. Where you also, you can arrive at the linkages between customers, know that you are mainly handling a good set of customers. That segment, that segment definitely we'll be focusing, but we would want to come down to that segment after we really do a good job in both lower end of SMEs as well as the higher end of corporates.
Got it. Basically, sir, this is what I wanted to understand, that strategically, a INR 5 crore-INR 25 crore ticket size is which we are not considering as of now, rather than we are focusing low ticket size and the maybe a little higher ticket size.
Yeah, if a large corporate wants a INR 15 crore loan, I'm not going to say no.
Got it.
If a corporate wants a INR 10 crore loan, I'm not going to say no. So it's not that I'm not focusing on that ticket size. I am looking at customer. If the customer is of good quality, it doesn't matter whether I give INR 1 crore or INR 5 crore or INR 10 crore, so long as he has the ability to pay me. So it's not my choice that if somebody comes and says, "I want INR 8 crore," no, no, this is not the segment. No, I'm not approaching from that segment. The hundred thousand crore corporate customer might also want a INR 15 crore loan. So why would I not give him a loan? Such opportunities probably are not much today, at least in the segment where we are.
We will definitely, for that, let me just also take two minutes to tell you the way forward. How you want to grab this product, there's a methodology to it. We should get our model right when you look at higher ticket sizes. So today we have a credit model for SMEs to handle up to INR 2 crore. We need to build a model where we can handle SMEs, as well as the lower end of corporates, to give a ticket size in the range of, let's say, up to INR 30 crores, for example, from INR 2 crore up to INR 30 crores. If you build a model and if you back test the model with your goods and bads, and if you can arrive at your risk appetite and calibrate your sourcing accordingly, you can build a very good portfolio there also.
You will be able to get a decent rate in comparison to your large corporation rates. So but we, it requires some amount of work and some amount of, technology in, which we need to do. We'll also be able to do that once we have a platform in place. The SME platform is yet to come. We are hoping that it will get commissioned by Q4 or maybe Q1 of next year. Once that comes in, we can completely digitize SME business. The retail platform is also expected to come by Q4 or max by Q1. We'll completely digitize the retail businesses. Once you've digitized, then your model can be easily integrated with your, platform, with which you'll be able to undertake very comfortably.
Thank you. Participants are requested to restrict their questions to two at a time. We have the next question from the line of Priyesh Jain from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon, sir. Sir, as you mentioned earlier, the cost of your customer deposits have gone up by four basis points. We see that the other banks, their rates have gone up by about 25-30 basis points. So, could you throw some light as to why SIB has not seen a similar increase in customer deposits? And my second question is related, like, can you also give a quantum of how much has the bank's FD rates moved in the last six months?
No, yeah, if you were to ask the second question, probably I may not be the best person to give you that. Maybe you will have to do your secondary research on comparing deposit rates of various banks and arrive at conclusion. As far as the first question is concerned, which is specific to us, we are, we don't want to, say blindly that, other banks are raising by 40 basis points, therefore, we'll also raise by 40 basis points. Because each bank's journey is very different. Each bank's position is very different.
A bank which has got a NIM of 5%, kind of percent, may not mind going and, acquiring a deposit at, let's say 7.9% or 8%, because they might be lending to microfinance, or they might be lending to STPL, where you'll be able to get 25%, 23% kind of IRR. We are not in that segment. Why are, why are we not in that segment? We don't want to be in that segment at this point in time. When I have a GNPA, which is still at about 5.4%, and where I know that I need to get that act in right, and I need to bring them down before I embark on risky segment. See, high risk, high return segments is something which we need to go as a strategy.
Today, we don't want to play that strategy. Therefore, if I am in those businesses, then it gives me a lot of leeway to go and increase my deposit cost without worrying about it, because even if I increase my cost by 1% or 0.5%, I know that I can increase the, lending cost by, 3%-4% in such segments. Today, we are going after quality customers where the appetite for passing on the rate will not be that much. To that extent that we can pass on, negotiate, and we can make a good sense out of them, I, I will continue to play that game. And today, just because I'm not pricing my... I'm not passing on my 40 bips or, 100 bips increase in my deposit cost, I'm not, losing out heavily. I'm still at a comfortable CD ratio, I'm still at comfortable LCR, and I'm still comfortable with my overall deposit growth and overall CASA growth. So we hold the ALCOs every month, and we continue to monitor this, and we will formulate our strategy as per what is right for our bank.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Tushar Sarda from Athena Investments . Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity, and many congratulations for a fantastic turnaround in the performance of the bank.
Thank you.
What I wanted to understand, sir, was on this security receipts you mentioned that it is before 2017. So if you can just update on the, you know, recovery process and, you know, when do you think it will actually materialize?
I'm glad that you asked this question, because I was actually anticipating this to be the first question from any of you. Anyway, so let me actually, it will be a long answer, so please bear with me, because I want to give you a complete picture, and I want to completely dispel any wrong interpretation of any of the analysts. So this requires a little more in-depth understanding of how the whole process works. See, let me start by saying that banks, in order to manage their portfolio quality, we sell our NPA assets to ARCs. Okay, this is a process every bank does it in order to manage their GNPA numbers, et cetera, so that it goes out of their books.
Okay, so, this bank has also done that, and we have been doing that right from 2004. From June 2004 onwards, we have been selling assets. Of course, we first, one asset got sold in 2004, and after that, the next set of assets were sold in 2014. So as I'm talking to you, from 2004, June, which was one pool, then from 2014 onwards, we have sold one pool in 2014, two pools in 2015, three pools in 2016, one pool in 2017, one in 2018, one in 2019, two in 2021, and one in 2022. These are the number of pools we have sold. In all, we have got the...
You, you know, I, I, you know, when we sell it to ARCs, as per the regulations now, ARCs are supposed to be paying 15% by way of cash, and the balance 85% of the recoverable amount, which has been estimated from the ARC side as how much we can recover from the NPA which you are selling to them, they will offer it by way of SRs, and these SRs are owned by both by ARC and bank in a certain proportion. We own, let's say, 85, 80%, they own 20%. That could be one ratio, or it could be 85%, 15%, depending on how we want to do it. Now, the total SRs which the bank is holding out of the various pools which we, which I had mentioned, as of today is INR 1,955 crore, okay?
In these 1,955 crores, what actually happens is when ARCs go and engage with the customers, they will go and negotiate with the customer, go for one-time settlement, go through all kinds of resolution, go to the court, get a resolution connected, et cetera. Once they recover money, they set off their own costs, their own fees, et cetera, and then SRs will get redeemed. That is when you, as a bank, get back your SRs given to you by way of cash coming from ARCs. So this is what we call SRs getting redeemed. Total SRs which got redeemed is INR 500 crore out of these many pools which I talked about. So out of the INR 1,955 crore of original SR, SR redeemed is about INR 500 crore. So that means we have a balance SR today of INR 1,455 crore.
So once an SR is formed, what actually happens is when the resolution keeps happening, every quarter, the ARC is supposed to tell a net asset value based on their own estimate of the SR value, depending on their predictability of how much money can they recover from each of those cases. So obviously, one can't go by ARC's version alone, so typically, rating agency will have to look at independently and ascertain whether the recoverability assumed by ARC, is it right or not. So they generally do it by way of giving a band on in which the recovery happens. So depending on the band in which the recovery is happening, the banks are expected to provide if they have assumed a higher recovery than what rating agencies are now telling us that recovery is only this much.
So that is what comes back and hits you as a provisioning, additional provisioning, which every bank does it at the end of every quarterly results. So like, so this rule, till 2017, was based on the NAV independently clarified by credit rating agencies, based on which banks were providing provisioning. In 2017, March, regulations came up, and where they said, prospectively, from 2017, 2018 onwards, prospectively, you will have to provide in your books higher of the two things. One is either the NAV as declared by ARC based on the rating agency's confirmation or aging provision. If that book were to stand in your own books, how it gets aged, depending on which your provisioning keeps going up. Whichever is higher, you are supposed to provide for any from 2018, prospectively. So all the banks, including us, they were also providing prospectively based on aging from 2018 onwards. That is what we continue to do in every quarter. Therefore, from 2018 onwards, all the pools are basically provided as per aging. Now, with the recent guidance which regulators have come, clarification regulators have come up with in December 5th, they said even for all the SRs which are outstanding as of 2017, with the pools which were got sold before 2017, for which you are holding SRs as of today, even for all of them, you need to provide based on aging.
Every bank which had sold some pool of, for which SRs are outstanding today, for the pools which were done 2017 and prior, obviously, they will have to provide 100% of whatever they carry, because it's six years, five years since that event had happened. Therefore, everybody will have to provide 100% of whatever they carry. That number for our bank turned out to be INR 312 crore. Good news is that because of our exemplary performance in NII and in various other things which we talked about, we are able to absorb this one-off additional provisioning which happened due to the clarification given by regulator. Despite that hitting the bank, still we came up with a number of INR +100 crores plus as net profit.
If only we had provided for based on regulator's concession, let's say, over a two quarter or over a three quarter or over a six quarter, if we had got that concession, probably you would have seen a very evenly spread out provisioning hit due to this event. But because it had to be taken in one shot, good news is that we were able to absorb it fully, and also the good news is that it's not going to hit you going forward, because now, as I'm talking to you, I'm sitting so comfortably because my SRs outstanding as of today is only INR 215 crores, okay? And I'm carrying provision as per aging is INR 1,241 crores, and provision as per NAV is INR 750 crores, so I'm carrying excess provision of INR 491 crores.
My, my outstanding SRs today is only INR 214 crores. So the INR 214 crores SRs which I'm carrying, if I don't do any collection from them, and if I provide based on aging, my provisioning will be INR 48 crores. And for the next full year, it's only INR 15 crores. So you can imagine, from now till March 2024, I am going to be, even if no collection happens, I'll be loaded with a provision only of INR 63 crores. Compare that with the hit which you have taken this quarter. So-
I understood that, sir, but my question was, you know, on the recovery, so are you taking-
Recovery, recovery, I'll address that. Sorry, I have not touched the recovery. I thought I'll first explain the whole process, then I'll tell you about the recovery.
No, no. Thanks, thanks for a very detailed explanation.
Recovery, what happens is that we engage with ARCs, and ARCs, obviously, they also work in the same ecosystem, so they also need to go through the court process, et cetera, et cetera. So, and they also had the COVID issue hitting them, et cetera, et cetera. After all that, if I were to really look at how much is the redemption which has happened in this book, in the last, period. Let's talk about, from June 2021 onwards. June 2021, this is the period when we were in the middle of COVID. You must recollect that.
Yeah.
INR 5.3 crores was the redemption. In September 2021, it was INR 3.74 crores. In December 2021, it was INR 23 crores. In March 2022, it was INR 42 crores. In June 2022, it was INR 42 crores. In September 2022, it is INR 54 crores. In December 2022, it is INR 39 crores. So in this year, for example, we have already redeemed INR 36 crores, INR 96 crores, INR 135 crores, which was as low as, you know, less than INR 20 crores prior to 2021. And all these recovery which we are talking about, the numbers which I read about, are all coming from all these pools which I talked about.
That's fantastic, sir. I think this information is not there in the presentation. I'll have a relook at it.
You're right, but then, we'll be happy to share it with you. No problem.
Okay. And sir, second question I had was, you know, your new book, your NPA is low, but your slippage rate is high. So is it slippage from the old book or, is it that it slips and then it gets upgraded?
Why do you say my slippage is high? I didn't understand.
No, no, your, the slippage reported is around INR 300 crores plus every quarter, right? So, that's around-
It is predominantly coming from, again, from, the old book only. So I'll just give you the breakup of that. Just, just hold on.
That's what I just wanted to reconfirm.
Yeah, I just, I'll just tell you. Just a second. Give me a minute. Yeah. See, I'll just tell you the NPA. NPA, gross NPA, which is standing as of today, INR 3,844 crores. Okay? Of which the old book NPA is INR 3,805 crores.
Yeah.
Okay? The thirty-nine crores is from the new book, and in this thirty-nine crores, which you... If you notice, this also includes the FLDG, which we have on credit card. That was entire money, there is no loss there. And gold, where there is no loss for us. So this includes everything. So as such, if you knock the top, my net gross, my NPA in this is 0.06%. That's my NPA. If you look at SMA-2, SMA-2 for the, from the new book of INR 37,000 crores, is only INR 84 crores. For, from the old book, is INR 613 crores. So overall, SMA-2 is INR 697 crores. So suffice to say that in the total SMA-2 book also, out of INR 697 crores, INR 613 crores comes from old book.
Mm-hmm. Okay. And sir, my last question is, if we, you know, ignore this provision which you've done, on the security receipt, then your run rate is almost INR 300 crores net profit per quarter.
Yes, yes.
Do we expect this to sustain going forward? I mean, it can vary by plus or minus a percentage point. More comfortable, would we expect this to continue?
I will, yeah, we'll endeavor to reach, to come to that kind of levels, definitely. I, I leave it for your imagination, but then, we don't want to give a very, very prospective number. What we will endeavor to do, I'm telling you, we would, yes, we would, we would be happy. More the merrier for us.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Pujan Shah from Congruence Advisers . Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. One of the broad questions would be, so, if we see on a historical perspective, the last two years, we have been our branch expansion and also customer touch point is being hovering around 925, 926. Now, let's suppose after we have made so much of the thing like introducing credit card, which and all this stuff, and doing the cross-selling, we have not been like, we have been able to see business per branch has been, like, roughly around INR 164 crores on that range.
So what could be the, let's suppose we are talking for the next two years of horizon, so what could be the range of the branch expansion we are expecting, and what are the critics or opposite side we are being expecting for the expansion of the branch? And due to this, what are the expectation on the cost to income ratio in the next two years?
Yeah. See, first of all, the as far as the branch expansion is concerned, I think, the way banking is moving, as you know, so banking is going to be more and more digital, and every bank is talking about digitalizing the entire thing. Having said that, is the brick-and-mortar required? Yeah, of course, brick-and-mortar is required to continue to increase your touch, contact point with the customer, et cetera. Therefore, we need to prioritize the capital expenditure which you want to do for a bank of our size. So when it comes to investing between, tools which are required for digitizing, where you would be able to leverage your technology and get more, delta business, as against building brick-and-mortar, definitely we would prefer to leverage on our investment technology. That is what this bank is doing.
We have been continuously investing INR 180 crores-INR 200 crores every year on technology, and you know that we have also been continuously winning lots of awards in technology area, and we are indeed using technology for growing our business. I mean, case in point is, our credit card business. Case in point is our, supply chain finance business, where we are using our, leveraging our technology to build our business there. So we, obviously, with the platforms coming in, which you already invested, with retail platform coming in, SME platform coming in, et cetera, we would definitely be going in for more and more digitalization of all these businesses, where the scope is phenomenal. So the way I look at it going forward, each business will be having multiple channels for growth. One of the channel will be brick-and-mortar....
So, as I could admit that there are four or five routes by which businesses can be grown. One is your traditional distribution channel, which is your branch network. The second one is your outsourcing model, which is basically your own DMAs, DSTs, depending on the business. Obviously, retail is more amenable to this, so you will have more channels to source from. Third one is a digital sourcing, where you are not really agnostic about the place. You have a good app, and anybody from anywhere can get in, and he can look at his offering, and he can probably prefer to do.
Only thing which one needs to be cautious is to ensure that your serviceability and collection ability is there in such places from where the customers are getting onboarded. That is the only thing which you can ensure. So digital is the third way. Fourth way is co-lending. There are many relationships which I talked about today, and each business today has got an opportunity to grow their business by getting into co-lending opportunity. So co-lending is another way by which you can grow your business. Fifth one is, many of them not only use the distribution channels today, they also use their own verticals for sourcing, which will be supplementing the distribution network to source more.
And apart from that, you can also go out and acquire assets by way of buyouts and by way of securitization or by way of, with all the NBFCs and many of the small, banks which are present there, you have an opportunity. So today, when you look at the opportunity, business can be grown through these five, six channels, which I'm talking about. So brick-and-mortar is one such one, one such channel. Certainly, we'll be looking at investing brick-and-mortar, provided we feel that the delta return investment is going to be much more from there in relation to others. Today, we find the leverage is much better in technology and technological investment.
Okay, sir. That's quite detailed answer. Thanks, that, that's it. That's information. Thank you.
Thank you. This is the last question from the line of Ankur Kumar from Alpha Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello, sir.
Uh, hello.
Thank you for taking my questions. Sir, on the NIM side, you are saying that we are currently at 3.2%, but we plan to go to 3.5% in the coming weeks. Given the pressure on the deposit side in the system, how do you think we can reach those, we can increase from the current levels?
Good question, but if you recall, when did this rate start going up? You noticed that the market rates have started going up almost 2.2%-3%, right? Repo rates have started going up from March of last year, correct?
Yeah.
So 2.23% rates have gone up. So did it not bring pressure to everybody? Obviously, it brought pressure to everybody. So each bank is working with this pressure only, and they are still showing whatever they are showing as performance. So we believe that we will be able to do. Yeah, whether it is easy, answer is not easy. Whether it is challenging, and of course, it is challenging. But whether it's possible? Yes, it's possible.
Sure, sir. And on provision side, any guidance for the coming year you would like to give? And on asset side, you are saying we can go to 1%. So given improvement in NIMs that you are expecting, isn't this ROA guidance is a bit conservative?
No, all our estimates will be conservative only. I don't want to give some number which I don't want to, which I'm not able to, not going to deliver. So I would rather be conservative in numbers and show it in my performance. So that's been my approach always wide. So wherever I'm erring also, probably I would correct it and come back and tell you that this is what we anticipated, but this is not going to happen. So as far as provision is concerned, I can give you a, guidance on, slippages I've already given you. INR 1,000 crores-INR 2,000 crores is, I mean, INR 1,800 crores is what we are anticipating as a slippage. That number, we will anyway work it out in more detail, and we will come back and share it with you.
Our provision coverage ratio guidance I've already given you. We would want to reach. We are at 60% now. We would want to reach 62%-63% by March. We would endeavor to reach 70% by the end of next year. So you can imagine that one is provisioning, which will happen as per slippages. Maybe we'll also start providing much more than what we need to improve our PCR.
You have also said that we expect this profit after tax of INR 300+ crore to continue going into the current quarter.
That is, that I leave it for your imagination. We can only tell you what we have done. I leave it to you. I don't want to say any number. We will continue to do what we are doing, and let's hope that we surpass all your expectations.
And, sir, one clarification in the presentation, page number 5, where we're talking about numbers without SR depreciation and with SR depreciation. So in this profit after tax, without is INR 306 crores, with is INR 103 crores. So basically, 3x profit after tax has reduced on 3x. But our ROA, there is showing as only marginal improvement from 0.56% to 0.82%. So I couldn't understand, basically, are we doing correct calculations in this or no?
We will recheck on that. My understanding is 0.8% is our ROA. We'll double-check on that number. But you- your understanding is right, that this SR provisioning, additional provisioning, is that one-off, which I had explained. So if you knock that off, if you have not done that, your profit is what, exactly what you say. We will recheck on the ROA number. ROA, we were, about 0.6% as of September end. We will recheck this number. My understanding is they would have done it correctly, but we'll recheck this number.
Sure. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Sreesankar R from InCred Equities for closing comments. Over to you.
Thank you, Assisi. First of all, thanks to Murali Ramakrishnan , and their team for patiently answering a lot of questions, which came your way. I think the list, so many people were still about to ask questions, and we overshot our time by around 15 minutes. Thank you all the participants for engaging themselves in a interesting question and answer session. Thank you very much, sir. We'll close this call right now.
Thank you. Thank you so much, sir.
Thank you. On behalf of Templet Equity, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may disconnect your lines.