Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Ujjivan Small Finance Bank Q3 FY 2022 earnings conference call hosted by IIFL Securities Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal the operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Alpesh Mehta from IIFL Securities Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you, Lizan, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to Ujjivan Small Finance Bank Q3 FY 2022 earnings conference call. From the management, we have Mr. Ratinder S. Dhir, MD & CEO, Ms. Carol Furtado, Chief Business Officer, Mr. Martin, Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Ashish Goel, Chief Credit Officer, Mr. Vibhas Chandra, the Business Head, Micro Banking, and Deepak, who is the Head, Planning, Strategy, and Investor Relations. Now without much ado, I hand it over to Mr. Davis for the opening comments, after which we will have a Q&A session. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to our Q3 FY 2022 earnings call. As you are aware, we have drawn a 100-day plan in August, and the focus of three areas that we had was rebuilding business volumes, improving asset quality, and retaining attracting good talent. In early December 2021, we rolled out till March 2022, the extension of this plan. Also looking during August 2021, we had shared the FY 2022 credit cost guidance after a detailed audit was conducted on asset book quality and ground reality. With five months of performance under the plan, we believe that currently we are in a good state in comparison to the H1 of 2022. Before I go into the details of the business and financials, I wanted to highlight certain important aspects.
After extending the vaccination drive to cover 99% of our employees and families, we launched an initiative to help our customers and families get vaccinated. Over the last five months, we have been able to help over 60,000 beneficiaries under Sanjeevani Kavach, which is a unique and a very necessary initiative to cover the pandemic and reduce the impact on our society. We have been progressing well on attracting good talent at all levels. At senior level, we have strengthened our board in August 2021, and over the last five months, we have hired some very good and experienced leaders to lead different parts of the bank. Our CIO and Head Digital Banking have already joined us. They come with strong and relevant experience across large banks. Our CFO and Head Internal Audit will join us in mid-March and early April, respectively.
Ujjivan is known to promote internal talent. Continuing with the tradition, we have identified deserving candidates who have performed well with the bank, and especially during the challenging times, to fill up some of the critical business roles. As a matter of fact, today, all positions reporting to the CEO have been filled, or either offers have been accepted, so there are no vacant positions at this moment. Now moving to the reverse merger. On the reverse merger side, we have applied to RBI, SEBI, and the exchanges in early November. SEBI asked us to comply with the minimum public shareholding requirement before the reverse merger. As separately intimated, our board has approved a QIP of up to INR 600 crore through the issuance of equity shares, subject to the approval of the shareholders. This will help us to achieve minimum public shareholding of 25%.
Soon thereafter, we will initiate the reverse merger process, which is likely to take about 12-15 months from today. Now let's move to the business and take a look at how things have progressed. As I mentioned, rebuilding business volumes is one of our primary focus area. Q3 disbursement at INR 4,809 crore was highest ever quarterly disbursement in Ujjivan's history. The growth was gradual, built up month-on-month, with December 2021 delivering INR 1,900+ crore disbursements. This was led by secular growth across all verticals, micro-banking being the leader to steer growth as new customer acquisition is increasing. 16% fresh loans in Q3 as against 9% in Q2. With focus on productivity and process improvements, our other two large verticals, MSE and affordable housing, also did highest ever quarterly disbursements.
FIG, vehicle, and personal loans also made meaningful contribution to overall growth. With strong disbursement growth, gross advances books stood at INR 16,463 crore as on 31 December 2021. This is registering a healthy growth of 21% year-on-year and 13% quarter-on-quarter. We look to continue to build momentum in the Q4 as well, and January this year has been fairly strong, has been strong actually. Deposits continue its growth momentum, closing at INR 15,563 crore, up by 34% year-on-year and 10% quarter-on-quarter. We continue to generate sticky deposit base as evident from our improved retail deposit ratio, which now is at 53% on December 2021, against 48% last quarter.
Deposits from retail branch banking grew 50% year-on-year, driven by customer acquisition and rising average ticket sizes. For example, retail branch banking savings account average balances have moved to INR 24,000 in December 2021 against INR 21,000 in September 2021. Our cost of deposits continued to decline. It was 6.1% for Q3 versus 6.2% in Q2. Overall, the cost of funds also declined to 6.2% from 6.3% in Q2. Moving to collections. Collections have improved consistently under our focus strategy laid down by the 100-day plan. We've strengthened the collection team further and had a detailed approach towards different buckets and stress pools. The results are visible and heartening. January 2022, collection efficiency now stands at 97%. Restructured book collection efficiency at around 80% is in line with our estimates.
NPA collections have also been rising given the alleviated ground efforts. Collection ex-GNPA is already at 99%. With improvements in collection, PAR book has declined substantially from a high of 30.8% in June 2021 to 14.9% in December 2021. Healthy collection and improving business also improved our asset quality with GNPA declining to 9.8%. NNPA is almost half to 1.7% from 3.3% in September 2021. SMA book is now at 5% against 7% in September 2021. Most of the SMA book is in the 0-30-day category. While the overall picture looks good on the improvement in collections and asset quality, we believe some bit of scope is still left, especially in the segments like MSE and housing.
A decent portion of the book was restructured under RF1 as well as RF2 , wherein collection for both the set of the restructured book started from October 2021. This has restricted the improvement in overall collections, whereas restructured book collection is below the overall collection. Also, we have made some changes in the credit policy and expect benefits to accrue in the coming quarters. We have cut down on high-risk segments that contributed to higher slippages. These include identified segments in the housing LAP and MSE LAP. Another area of improvement is from the legal actions in the secured book. Last quarter, we had mentioned that we would have started the process. In Q3, we have seen recoveries and upgrades improving. We expect the momentum to build up further in Q4, and the effect will be visible.
In addition to this, we have not used our floating provision of INR 250 crores despite improving portfolio quality. We are maintaining a high PCR of 84%, which builds in adequate buffer to support growth. With growing book and reducing NPAs, yields and NIM have started to improve across segments. Q3 NIM was 9.1%, a healthy increase of 100 basis points from 8.1% in Q2. Business profitability is back on track as we recorded a pre-provision operating profit of INR 141 crores, double that of Q2. I just want to touch very briefly because we have taken some time. I would like to touch upon the building blocks of the Ujjivan strategy of mass market banking, which is technology and digital.
Now, since the inception of Ujjivan, we are focused on this part of the business, and I'm pleased to say that if you look at the UPI statistics, Ujjivan is the top among all SFBs in UPI usage as well as compared to other banks. I think you know, it goes without saying that our focus here will continue. To this extent, we have this month brought on board one of our new persons in the committee, which is Mr. Sriram Srinivasan, as head of digital banking. He has come with 25 years of digital banking experience and has worked extensively in Citibank, HSBC, Standard Chartered and Digital14. He, along with Ashwin Khurana, who is our Chief Information Officer, will spearhead our digital and technology initiatives at the bank.
I think this emphasis will continue, and you will see results as we go forward. Now, I just want to quickly touch upon the outlook for, you know, for the rest of the year and beyond. As you are aware, India is going through the third wave. We have been very cautious during January 2022 in terms of growth and focused on collection efforts. As mentioned earlier, the January 2022 collections were better than December 2021. Having said that, I believe the improvement could have been better if the third wave wasn't there. What we believe is that the daily fresh cases have already begun to reduce, and we have remained confident on delivering a Q4 which is strong in terms of business growth, collections and profitability. We do not change our growth and credit cost guidance, and we keep the same impact.
On the OSP growth guidance of 15%-20%, we might end financial year 2022 towards the higher end. Our credit cost guidance was made assuming that we would utilize the floating provision. However, we are hopeful to contain financial year 2022 credit costs within INR 1,200 crore without using the floating provision as we carry it forward on our balance sheet to provide a buffer. We look to close this fiscal and start financial year 2023. We are witnessing increasing confidence from our team members and expect the momentum created in the last five months to continue driving a strong next fiscal. That's all from my side. We'll now open for question and answers. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone wishing to ask a question may please press star and one on your 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. We take the first question from the line of Gaurav Panchal from Haitong Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, all. Thanks for the opportunity. My first question is on the COVID-related provisions or cutting provisions which you mentioned of around INR 250-odd crore. This is already part of our calculated PCR, right? Of 85%.
Yes, it is part of the PCR of 85%.
Okay. First is that. Second is if you can provide some color on the movement of NPA. In the last quarter, you had mentioned INR 600 crore of slippages. How much slippage in this quarter recovery, if you can throw some light there.
In terms of slippages, we had about INR 200 crore, INR 290 crore as against INR 660 and INR 620 in the previous two quarters. In terms of recoveries, in the Micro Banking as well as in Retail Banking, we had a substantial increase. Micro Banking has gone up by about 70%.
Two forty-two.
INR 242 crores for the quarter.
Okay. Thank you.
Yeah.
Sir, one last question is on the ticket sizes. You know, if I look at the ticket sizes for group loans, they have significantly increased on a sequential basis. What explains that, sir?
Actually, our ticket size were on the lower side before the pandemic, and we you know are seeing a good demand in our customers for higher ticket size loan, also higher tenor because you know business requirement you know at this point of time you know ticket size requirement on a higher side. What we have done is, we have tried to increase ticket size for the customers who have larger business and have been able to pay throughout the pandemic period. At the same time, we have also increased the tenor, so the EMI burden on the customers remains the same. It is largely because of the customer demand and the market demand.
Sir, you know, the income levels would have not gone up this significantly for these borrowers, right?
Income levels, you know, if you see our customer acquisition pattern in the last quarter also, 80% of our customers are coming from existing customers who are repeat customers who are only two or three cycles old, and 15% customers are new customer acquisitions. So these customers who are with us for a long period of time and with very good track record even during the pandemic period. Hence the ticket size for these customers will be on higher side naturally as the ticket size progresses with the number of cycles.
Okay. Fair enough. I'll come in the queue again, sir. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rohan Advant from Multi-Act. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. My first question is on the operating expenses to average assets, which is at 7.9% in Q3 FY 2022. I understand that we've restructured our collection teams and that has yielded good results. But going forward on this line item, what is your outlook? Should that start coming down going forward as income increases or the OpEx intensity reduces as collections normalize? If you could throw some light on that. Thank you.
Rohan, this increased elevated efforts on the collections will continue for a quarter or two, maybe at least for next two quarters or depending upon how the collections and how our PAR levels move. Definitely next year, H2 onward, it will come down significantly.
Okay. My second question was, in your opening remarks you mentioned that the collection efficiency in the NPA bucket is improving. Like you stated, for restructured it is 80%. Can you state what is the collection efficiency within the NPA bucket?
See, I'll answer this with two metrics. One of them is the cash collection, and the second will be percentage efficiency.
Mm-hmm.
In terms of cash collection, Micro Banking, we have done about INR 215 crore during the quarter as against INR 136 crore in the previous quarter. In terms of Retail Assets, we have done about INR 35 crore of cash as against INR 16 crore. Both of them have improved by more than 50%. In terms of efficiency, it is about 40% for both Micro Banking as well as Retail.
Within the NPA bucket, right?
Yeah, in the NPA bucket. That's right. 40% for both.
My last question is, you've taken a board approval for INR 600 crore. To meet with the RBI norms, you would require a much lesser dilution. While we do, you know, the minimum public shareholding norm, will we also raise some growth capital now?
Rohan, we have not decided on the quantum of the QIP. It is a board resolution that we have taken of INR 600 odd crore. Accordingly, we'll go ahead when we decide on the size and all that, we'll decide later.
Okay, got it. I have more questions. I'll join back in the queue. Thank you for taking my questions.
Sure. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Renish Bhuva from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you, sir. Sir, two questions. One, on the incremental growth, you know, especially in the MSE segment wherein collection is still sort of lagging the overall portfolio collections. And still, we are witnessing like a 10% sequential growth in this portfolio. Sir, how we are making sure that incrementally we are onboarding quality customers and asset quality in this portfolio going ahead, you know, will set up for better than what we have witnessed during the pandemic? That is my question number one, sir.
Hi. You know, we are taking the growth in the microfinance segment very cautiously, but we are seeing the MSE segment is growing cautiously, and we will be also looking at you know, cleaning up our portfolio quality to a large extent, and then introducing a lot more products in the higher ticket sizes.
No, ma'am, but still we have grown like 10% sequentially.
Yes.
Just quickly, is there any underwriting process or credit process has changed? Let's say still we are cleaning up the book. Which I'm just trying to sort of understand that point.
In terms of, you know, current to X in the last three months.
Mm-hmm.
We have seen our collection efficiency in the NPA bucket that's between 98.5% and 99%.
Okay.
Our incremental in, you know, slippages into the retail portfolio have come down in MSE.
Mm.
Number two, we had identified at September end certain hybrid segments which had not shown resilience to COVID too. Those segments we have cut down from our underwriting starting first October.
Okay.
Point number three, and these were largely segments which had got impacted in COVID.
Okay.
Point number three, we have seen some very good traction on the Fintech partnerships, and this segment has shown very good resilience, and these are all 30-day kind of bill discounting products where the money gets rotated within 30 days. This has given us some very good traction and very good customer quality.
Okay.
In the last two quarters, and we have gained momentum in Q3.
Got it. Sir, any color on the tenure of the loan? I mean, if it is bill discounting, then I'm assuming the rundown will be pretty fast.
30 days.
Time or run rate is pretty similar to what we have seen in November, December in MSE disbursement?
Pardon me, sir?
I'm saying, since the rundown will be pretty fast, you know, in this product, the 10% sequential growth is sustainable going ahead? Or how do you see disbursement panning out in MSE segment, sir?
We actually have seen some very good traction after COVID too. In our last earnings call, we had mentioned this, that starting August, September-
Mm-hmm.
We have seen some very good traction on our higher ticket size loans, and that traction continued in October to December. That segment has done well and that's where our focus area is going to be in the next few quarters. While we've cut down on certain risky segments but gained momentum on the higher ticket sizes.
Got it, sir. Sir, secondly, again, this is sort of repetitive what earlier participant has asked on the ticket size. You know, sort of we have seen pretty a sharp increase from almost INR 36,000- 45,000. Would you be able to give some more color on the sort of, let's say, a customer profile or a geography or let's say to which segment they are operating, which are sort of witnessing such a high credit demand at this point?
Yes, yes. See, as I mentioned earlier that, you know, we, after the second wave, are focusing more on our existing customers whom we were not able to serve during the pandemic. Though these customers were, you know, paying regularly even during the pandemic, and these are very good customers. Most of the customers are old customers who have, you know, getting loan from us for many cycles. Actually, the ticket size here, if you focus more on repeat loans with customers in multiple cycles, your average ticket size will go up. Second, you know, in the recent past, we have also increased our focus towards our sub-segment, which is individual lending. We have an average ticket size on higher side.
In individual lending we provide loans up to INR 2 lakh. There also we see a very good traction happening in the last three months as we have opened our business. As far as geography is concerned, the average ticket size all across is, you know, is growing except some exceptions like Assam, where we have, you know, industry is facing issues. All the ticket size have gone up across it.
Got it, sir. This is very helpful, sir. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. Before we take the next question, we would like to remind participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Deepak Ajmera from KIFS Group. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Good morning, and thanks for the opportunity. Can you hear me?
Sorry to interrupt, Deepak, but your audio is not clear.
Can you hear me now?
Much better. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. By when we are expected to resume like INR 30-40 crores of provisioning per quarter instead of higher provisioning due to COVID, et cetera. By which quarter we are expecting to normalize provisioning? Thanks.
See, when we started the last two quarters, we had a significant amount of portfolio in SMA and NPA portfolio. If you look at the PCR on micro banking, which was the highest impact in the last two quarters in terms of delinquency, our PCR has already touched 94%. Therefore you will see that the trajectory of provisioning will come down sharply because with the 94% PCR it doesn't.
94% on the Micro Banking.
On the Micro Banking, the incremental provisions over the next two or three quarters will drop sharply because most of the book is provided. In terms of restructuring our RF 1 pool, which was restructured in December 2020, that has now about 95% provided. The restructured 2 pool is almost 20, carrying 23%-24% provision. Therefore again, in terms of additional provision requirement for restructured pool also we don't see too much of provisions happening. It will probably reach normalcy in the next couple of quarters.
Yeah. Thanks. This collection employee, if you are increasing, that should reflect in employee cost. Any specific reason of increase in other operating cost? Is it outsourced employee or what's the reason there?
Deepak, it is outsourced employee. If you look at the slide where we have given the breakup of how the collection team has increased over the last couple of quarters, that breakup simply says how the outsourced employees have increased in the collection team.
Okay. Last question if I may ask is on reverse merger, any timeline, I mean, when we are planning to apply to NCLT for shareholder meeting in the future?
As Mr. Davis mentioned, the entire process will take around 12-15 months. I cannot give a breakup of the timeline of when we'll get the RBI approval or when we'll get the SEBI approval. Right now, the first step will be to meet the requirement of MPS, minimum public shareholding. Once we are done with that, we'll seek a SEBI approval again, and then we'll see how we can move forward.
As we go through each process, we will update our investors and shareholders about the remaining timeframe. We are trying to do it as soon as possible to comply with RBI requirements and RBI guidelines.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhinesh Vijayaraj from Spark Capital. Please go ahead.
Good morning. My question was, in terms of the team build, you had indicated that all positions reporting to the CEO are filled. What about the second, third frontline management positions? That too are we close to closure of everything? Will we start to assume that beginning FY 2023, all positions are in place and the bank will be up and running?
I mean, any organization has regular turnover. Our objective is to bring our turnover or attrition levels back to normal, which is, you know, in-industry normal. Once we get there, which I think is almost going to happen in the next month or so, once that is achieved, we make sure that we try to even push it below. Happily so when I joined back the organization, I'm happy to say that, you know, Ujjivan is already among the great places to work once more. That is an indication of the morale of the staff. I think, you know, sooner or later, you know, we will be able to get back to the levels that we were. Normal business, you know, normal attrition will be there.
That nobody can stop. You know, my objective is to fill the positions from both within and from outside, and you know, we'll give opportunities to both, possibly a 50/50 breakup, but that's how we are going to take things forward. Good people in the organization will get a chance to move up and take up their positions as well.
All right. Good to know. The second question I had was in terms of the floating provisions, you have INR 250 crore. Is that the buffer you're looking to maintain into FY 2023 as well, or are you looking at adding on a certain amount there?
If I understood your question correctly, you were asking whether this INR 250 is going to stay or are we going to add more?
Add or utilize it during FY 2023, yes. Yes.
No. We are not going to add any floating provisions. We believe that this is enough cover for any adverse event that may happen. Therefore, we are going to maintain those floating provisions as we have it as well. Our PCR is quite high, so we don't need to actually take any specific provisions.
Thank you. Those were my questions.
Thank you, Abhinesh.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhijeet Sakhare from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you. The first question is on the outlook on the growth recovery. Clearly a normal environment has helped, but can you talk in a little more detail what were the biggest challenge inside the bank and what were the changes that were brought about for such a sharp turnaround that we've seen this quarter?
In the last 100 days, we really took a step back and looked at what needs to be done to build our business momentum. We had a good analysis of all the business verticals where we stand, and we put in programs, a few of the credit policy tweaking took place, some of the process revisions took place. We also understood the need from the ground. A lot of our senior management team, the leadership team, went across to branches and understood the need there from the customer and the employee side, and put in programs in place that would help us in the growth.
We also ensured that, as Mr. Ittira Davis touched upon in his initial talk, we also put in a program called the Sanjeevani Kavach, which also, through which we vaccinated more than 60,000 customers. You know, also our branch staff, our employees across the organization were vaccinated. This helped us in bringing back the momentum, also to help support the economy grow. It's even the third wave, we see that there has been very minimum disturbance. We are able to grow in all the business verticals. We are taking a cautious approach, but we are growing across in all the business verticals.
Yeah, just to follow up, ma'am. It almost seems like a step change in terms of how we are now looking at the microbanking business. Just wanted to kind of break it up in terms of how much has your view of the situation on the ground has changed, and have you become little more aggressive, or more willing to participate on the recovery that is happening? To that extent, do you really see the borrower situation actually turning around to that extent?
you know, our long-term strategy remains the same of our portfolio, the composition of our portfolio. On the ground situation, you know, the customers in the microfinance segment are very resilient, and they're able to bounce back quickly. that is helping us with the growth. a lot of our customers are repeat customers, the ones who have stood by us and the ones who are able to repay their installments timely. we are giving them repeat loan. Also our new customer acquisition in a lot of our branches have restarted. like, it was said earlier, we have around 16% of our growth coming in from the new customer acquisition across branches.
Sure. Second one was,
After that, our, you know, collection efficiency in the NPA bucket is around 99.5%, so that is also giving us the confidence to grow.
Sure. Second is that, given that on a relative basis, the non-micro banking business is still looking a little bit soft. Would we kind of be willing to let the microfinance share in the overall AUM increase over the next 12 months or so?
The non-micro banking segment is also growing. We will be, you know, I mean, with improvements in collections and the portfolio, we will be able to relook at our growth in the non-micro banking segment and grow there. Like, I mean, it was said earlier also in Mr. Davis' speech that we would also be growing our other segments through productivity, process improvement, and, you know, relooking at the strategy there. Mostly, you know, we are getting a lot more into the secured lending of a higher loan size, and
Tie-ups.
Hmm?
Tie-ups.
Yeah, fintech tie-ups. Yeah. Right. The fintech partnerships is going to help us in that.
I just want to add to what Carol has said. You know, part of the exercise that I am undertaking after joining, and I think my timely joining in January, middle of January, gives me the opportunity to look at things as we go forward before I plan for the new financial year. We are in the budgeting period, and we are looking very carefully at how to balance this growth. Our long-term objective is to be able to grow other businesses, you know, in a slightly faster way, so that the proportion between Micro Banking and others is in the direction that we have projected a couple of years ago. We will be moving closer to that balanced proportion as we move forward.
Sure. Just finally, a data question, if you can tell us the amount of interest reversals that have happened in the last financial year and the current financial year?
Abhijeet, in the current year nine months, it is around INR 63 crore. For the last financial year, I'll check and come back on the number.
Sure.
Given that the GNPA were not recognized till December, it should not be a very high number, but I'll still check and come back on it.
Sure. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll move on to the next question. That is from the line of Arun Kejriwal from Kejriwal Research. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Ittira Davis. Are you now quite comfortable with the team you have, with the results that you have been able to deliver, your 100-day program? Does that give you the comfort that the next, 60-odd days would be even better than what we have seen?
Well, thank you for that question. I mean, I've spent about a month with the team right now. I'm quite confident and, you know, understanding of the team is very good. They have, you know, I think the very fact somebody once asked me how the last quarter operated without a CEO. I think that tells you the board and the team were able to communicate with each other and delivered a sterling performance.
Right.
I think the team is a very good team, and I have no doubt about it. My guidance will be to help them move, tweak the model a little bit here and there. I think I'm confident that, you know, the Q4 and into the new financial year, we should be all well set to deliver good results.
Okay. One other question. While I'm not seeking from you any guidance for the year ahead, but do you think the banking sector, particularly the SFBs, are now getting over COVID one, COVID two, and whatever little of COVID three we are having, and you can say with reasonable surety that we should be back on the growth path? I'm not talking of Ujjivan per se alone, but the sector. Particularly when I ask this question, the fact that there has been a huge demand for growth, does that augur really well for this sector going forward?
No, I think in the first two waves, the economy, people and government were a bit unsure of how to react. Now that we have seen what the reaction is in the third wave, and this is not just in India, it's a global phenomenon. We are now, everybody is trying to build and work within the COVID wave as business as usual. It can be done. It has to be managed. I think that is what we are seeing, that the COVID is under control in its own way. You know, people are managing this. Then the customer base that we operate with are very resilient. I think that resilience is an important factor.
In the first two waves, they were unsure of how to react, how to take care, how to respond. Now, you know, one and a half years, two years down the road, they have adjusted. We are seeing this across the country. I think it's quite an eye-opener that, you know, people will come back and you know overcome their difficulties. I think that is the important factors that we are seeing across the country. It'll help all SFBs help the banking sector across, you know, not just individuals, but I think some will benefit better if they have got their information and able to use it proactively.
Right. One last question. There are SFBs and SFBs. Would one differentiating factor as we move forward be the fact that you are highly digitalized and a great user of Fintech? Could we call Ujjivan a highly digital based bank with a lot of Fintech in it?
Mr. Kejriwal, thank you for that question. I think Mr. Davis touched during his speech. Ujjivan got the highest mobile banking transaction during the month of November. It is highest among the small finance banks. In terms of share, it is a 14% share among the small finance banks. Happy to let you know that we have been ranked 31 among the 431 banks which participate on this platform. Our UPI transactions touched 1 million during quarter three. It's an increase of 14%, and in terms of value it increased by about 28%. We have also enhanced our security features on our mobile banking so that our customers can transact freely on this platform.
We already have tied up with two large payment gateway operators. Talks are on with three more payment gateway operators so that our wallet of transactions increases multifold. On the terms of robotic process automation, we had committed in the last quarter that we'll be adding some more. We have added three more in this quarter, and there are 10 more in our pipeline. So our robotic process transactions have gone up to INR 4.85 crores. In terms of Fintech partnerships, six partnerships are live and two more are in the conversation stage, which is in a very advanced stage.
In terms of our API, the 169 APIs are live, and we see a good traction in the number of transactions happening through the API banking. It increased by about 36%. We are on track in digital banking, and with the joining of Mr. Sriram, we believe to push them further.
Right. Thank you. Thank you very much, and we look forward to a much superior number when we report for the year ended FY 2022. Thanks, everybody.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Vijay Karpe from Branchstone Investments. Please go ahead.
Very good morning. Am I audible?
Yes, sir. Audible.
Yeah. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. I have just one question, and this was on the statewide collection efficiency. We had seen the collection efficiency improving from October to December for Tamil Nadu from 94% to 96%. What has that number been for January 2022, and what would have been the billing efficiency for October, November, December and January for Tamil Nadu, and also for Maharashtra, if possible?
Will just give it to you. TM is at 94% and Maharashtra is at 98%.
For January?
For the month of January.
Okay. What has been the billing efficiency for October, November, December and January?
For Tamil Nadu, the efficiency has moved from 94% in October to 93% in November and 96% in December. For Maharashtra, it has moved from 92% in October to 93% in November to 98% in December.
This would be the collection efficiency, right? What would have been the billing efficiency?
Which one did you say? Sorry, your voice was not clear.
Yeah. The numbers which are shared in the presentation, this would be the collection efficiency. What would have been the billing efficiency?
Hi, Vijay. We have not given billing efficiency for any of the state or overall. In general, the billing efficiency is around 3%-4% lower than the overall collection efficiency.
Got it. How much of this improvement in collection efficiency is attributed to the write-off of loans?
We had a total write-off of about INR 150 crore during the quarter. The difference would be very marginal. The impact would be very marginal. Collection in the write-off account would not be very high, and the overall write-off is also less than 1% of the book. Like Ashish said, the impact would be very marginal.
Got it. Thank you so much, and best of luck.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nikhil Ranka from Haitong Securities. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. I just have a few questions from my end. Can I get a cost of breakup for this quarter?
Yeah, just a-
Hello? Hello?
Yeah, just a sec. We'll give it.
Yeah. Okay. My second question is, like, also, segment-wise GNPA breakup for this quarter?
CAR for the December period is around 442. Rest is CAR.
Okay. What is the GNPA breakup for this quarter?
On micro banking it is 11.4%. Housing it's 5.6%. MSE 11.4%. Personal loan 8.2%. Vehicle loan 6.7%.
Yeah. Okay. That's it from my end. Thank you.
Thank you. A reminder to the participants, anyone wishing to ask a question may please press star and one. The next question is from the line of Rishab, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Hello, am I audible?
Yes, Rishab. Hi. You're audible.
Yeah. Hello, sir. Good morning. Sir, my first question is, I mean, what about branch expansion? You haven't opened any branch from last many quarters. What is the way forward?
Yeah. I mean, during this COVID crisis, it didn't make sense for us to open branches when, you know, business was at slowdown or come to a standstill in some parts of the country. As part of the plan for the next financial year, we are looking at opening branches, and once we make a decision in the next con call, we'll let you know how many branches we are doing.
Okay, sir. Sir, many of the banks now are tying up with neobanks. What about Ujjivan in this regard?
Yeah. It's part of our roadmap. The discussions have started, and we'll be letting you know once we make significant progress on that.
Okay. Sir, in quarter one investor presentation, you mentioned about credit card business. What is the update on that?
Yeah. The credit card business is something that we have been checking with our customers, you know, whether they need it or not. I think going forward, we will launch it in some form or the other. It will be, again, something for the next financial year.
Okay, sir. Okay. Thank you so much, sir. That's all from my side. All the best.
Thank you. The next question is on the line of Rajakumar, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning. Thanks for your presentation. Can you hear me?
Yeah, we can hear you.
Yeah. I said just two questions. I just want to know when do you expect to close the QIP? Also just want to know whether you'll be able to price the QIP at a good price given that your shares prices are subdued because of you know, the lawsuits.
Hi. We won't be able to comment on market outlooks right now. We are confident on the business and the performance and all those things. Basis that, we'll test the market when we go and meet investors. Basis our interactions, after we have released Q3 business numbers and after the quarterly results, we see a good amount of transactions coming back. We remain confident on it.
Okay, sir. Great. Sir, the next question is, what is the credit guidance for FY 2022-2023? And also, will you be able to maintain or improve the NIMs for the upcoming year?
We see the credit cost to be significantly lower in the current year as compared to the year gone by because of obviously the COVID impact, and this was an external event on which no one had a control. We see the credit cost normalizing over the next two or three quarters. We already have a very, very healthy TCR. The incremental cost, as I said earlier, will be nothing in comparison to what we had seen in the last two quarters. We see that it'll be somewhere in the range of 1%. We also carry a floating provision of about INR 250 crores, which is yet to be utilized, so that can be used as and when we require in case of an adverse event.
Sorry, sir. You said 1% is the credit cost guidance for next year. Is that correct?
We are not really giving any guidance. What Ashish gave was an indicative assumption that aspiration that we want to have in FY 2023.
Okay, great. Any color on the NIM?
See, NIM is something that depends also on how your GNPA book moves.
There is no pressure on these as such because these interest rate that we are charging on the various products are where they were. As the GNPA reduces on the book, NIMs should improve. That actually gives us some scope of re-looking at the product portfolio also. Even if the Micro Banking book is also performing well, so there's absolutely no reason for us to believe that there will be any kind of a pressure in the NIMs going forward.
You'll be able to maintain it, at least, as far as
Again, like I said, we are not giving any guidance, but directionally, there would not be any pressure on the NIMs.
Okay. Great. Thank you, sir. All the very best.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Gaurav Jani from Centrum. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Just one question. From a regulatory standpoint, as per SEBI, when would we have to apply the minimum shareholding guideline?
Yeah. We had our IPO in December 2019. The SEBI guideline requires us to be 25% public shareholding within 3 years of that IPO.
Okay. We
December 22 is the outer limit as far as SEBI is concerned.
In December 2022. Okay. Thanks. Bye.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the last question. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Ittira Davis for some closing comments.
Well, we appreciate the time that all of you have taken to participate in this call. Your questions were very useful, and I hope our answers have benefited you. We look forward to continuing our dialogue with you on a quarterly basis. Thanks to IIFL for hosting this call.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of IIFL Securities Limited, that concludes this conference call. We thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line. Thank you.