Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Yes Bank's Q3 FY 2025 earnings conference call. On the management panel, we have with us today: Mr. Prashant Kumar, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Rajan Pental, Executive Director, Mr. Manish Jain, Executive Director, Mr. Niranjan Banodkar, Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Pankaj Sharma, Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer, and Mr. Sunil Parnami, Head of Investor Relations and Sustainability. Mr. Prashant Kumar will now give you an overview of the results, which will be followed by a Q&A session. 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 this conference, please signal an operator by pressing star and then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded.
Before we proceed further with this call, please note, while all efforts will be made, that no unpublished price-sensitive information would get shared. In case of an inadvertent disclosure, the same would, in any case, form part of the recording of the call. Further, some of the statements made in today's call could be forward-looking in nature. A note to this effect is provided in the Q3 FY 2025 results presentation itself, shared on the bank's website. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Prashant Kumar. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Very good afternoon, everyone. I would like to start by welcoming and thank you all for joining us for Q3 FY 2025 earnings call. On this call, I am joined by the senior team members of the bank. On behalf of the entire leadership team at Yes Bank, I would like to wish everyone a very happy and prosperous New Year 2025. Moving straight onto our Q3 results, as you would recollect, a few quarters back, we had outlined a detailed profitability improvement roadmap, which, at a headline level, was essentially centered around improving the bank's operating profitability via improving our margins, fees, and reducing our cost. We had also guided for our sense of recovery and redemption from our security receipt portfolio.
I am humbled to report that despite multiple headwinds around liquidity and deposits, system-wide credit history, and latest economic data indicating some mixed trends, we have remained right on track and delivered five consecutive quarters of sequential expansion in net profits. What is more encouraging is that the bank has delivered a 25% YOY and 10.6% sequential growth in our third quarter pre-provisioning operating profits at INR 1,079 crores. This is the second successive quarter of operating profit expansion. For the PPOP, as a ratio to average assets, improved by 10 basis points both sequentially and on YOY basis, and inched up to 1% from 90 basis points. Having said that, as we look to replicate the same over the coming quarters, we would remain extra vigilant of the external macro, be more prudent and calibrated, yet nimble and agile in our approach and actions.
Talking of individual components, in Q3, our net interest margin came in at 2.4%, flat both sequentially as well as the same quarter last year. From a margin standpoint, it was the important quarter of inflection, as it marked the beginning of meaningful reduction in our outstanding RIDF deposit balances, which reduced by over INR 8,000 crores, largely towards last week of December 2024. These RIDF deposits now stand at around 8% of our total assets, as against 10.5% to 11% over the last few quarters. As a result, the bank prudently reduced its borrowing by 11% quarter on quarter, as outlined earlier. Going forward, while we may continue to see some RIDF-related calls majorly for periods prior to FY 2024, on a net absolute basis, the bank looks to be well on course to reduce the same below 5% over the next two to three years.
Moving on to the cost of funds and cost of deposits, both of which were largely flattish over Q2. Our deposit engine has been firing well with sustained pickup in our CASA balances and CASA ratio, which we believe over time would start to also meaningfully contribute to our operating margin expansion and profitability. As on at the end of Q3, total deposits at INR 2.77 lakh crores, which is up 14.6% YOY. CASA and retail TDs, that is up to 3 crores, are now at 62.6% of our total deposits. In Q3, our average daily savings account balances have grown 32% YOY, and current account balances have grown by 22.1% YOY.
As you would see on page four of our investor presentation, over the last four quarters, we have improved our CASA ratio by nearly 350 basis points, unlike the industry trend which has seen a drop in their CASA ratio over the same period. This reflects the trust in Yes Bank brand, a strong acquisition engine, a very well-run deposit franchise, which has been consistently delivering through right customer selection, a strong customer value proposition, a motivated team, the right incentives, and performance scorecards, and an integrated best-in-class tech stack. Not only that, and as we have been articulating in the past, we have also seen really leveraging our branches as the core fulcrum of our business and generating assets and fee-based businesses out of those branches as well.
Talking of our customer value proposition and technology, we recently launched our flagship all-in-one super app for businesses called iris by YES BANK , bundling over 100 plus features over mobile and web across payments, collections, tax payments, and other business requirements. The bank continues to see very good traction in its next-generation UPI payment app, namely Yes Pay Next and Yes Pay Business, strategically targeting non-Yes Bank retail as well as business customers. Details of all these initiatives have been given on page 18, 19, and 20 of our investor presentation. We believe this coupled with our leadership and digital payment ecosystem and fast market share gains in NETC and NACH business gives us a distinctive edge which would further fuel our CASA as well as cross-sell engine. Speaking of our fee income, the same came in at INR 1,512 crores, up 26.6% YOY and 7.5% sequentially.
It is pertinent to highlight that our fee income as a percentage of total assets is currently at 1.5% and has seen a steady ramp-up of 20 basis points over the last eight quarters. It reflects our consistent synchronized execution, and going forward, we expect this momentum to continue and be edged by our distribution ramp-up and sustained improvement in our sourcing, cross-sell, partnership, servicing, customer delight, and technology. Talking now of our OpEx cost, Q3 was the second successive quarter wherein further the bank delivered an improvement in the cost-to-income ratio. Total operating expenses at INR 2,657 crores, up by 13.2% YOY and only 0.9% sequentially. As guided earlier, with asset mix largely remaining stable between wholesale and retail, coupled with our ongoing transformation exercise, including right-sizing initiatives and greater leverage of technology, productivity, and process improvement, we expect our cost-to-income ratio to continue to further improve from here on.
So, to summarize, we are well on track with sustained pickup in our deposits and CASA, 100% compliance in PSL and its subcategory, RIDF resolution already underway, our cross-sell, fees, digital payments, and transaction banking flow thriving well, and cost-to-income ratio is starting to improve. Now, moving over to advances and asset quality. At a headline level, there is no change in our overall strategy, and we would like our current advances mix between retail and wholesale, which is currently around 60-40, to largely remain the same over the medium term. Though, having said that, this ratio may see some transitory movement between quarters, owing to change of gears, risk, and profitability calibrations across segments. A flexibility or advantage that comes with being a trusted universal banking franchise with full range of products catering to various customer segments.
In addition, within the segments as well as between the products in a particular segment, we would continue with our strategy of profitable growth, though the overall pace of growth may moderate depending upon external macro and our internal risk-adjusted returns threshold. For quarter-ending December 2024, our advances have grown by 4.1% sequentially and 12.6% YOY, with strong growth in our mid-segment of SME and mid-corporate, which continued to deliver growth in excess of 25% on a YOY basis. On the other hand, our retail advances were flattish quarter on quarter and were down around 3% YOY due to ongoing recalibrations aimed at profitability improvement. You can see the differential growth rate across the retail products on page 44 of our investor presentation. In the corporate segment, we have maintained the growth momentum of the last few quarters.
On asset quality, I won't go into the headline details as all these vectors have performed in line with the trend of the last several quarters, and you can find them in our disclosures. Our net NPA, along with net carrying value of security receipts as a percentage of advances, now stands at 0.6%. We had guided for our SR security receipts to have negligible or nil value by the end of FY 2025, and we are well on track towards that as the net carrying value stands at 233 crores as of December 2024. Another key highlight in overall numbers is the strong recoveries and resolution at 1,843 crores, which takes the cumulative recoveries and resolution for nine months of the current financial year to over 4,400 crores.
We are on track to achieve the guidance of INR 5,000 crores for FY 2025, and we would like to highlight that the SR portfolio would continue to contribute towards our recoveries and resolution even after becoming nil in terms of net carrying value on our balance sheet. Now, I would like to draw your attention to slide six of our investor presentation. Here, we have laid out several metrics with respect to our retail asset quality. As you can see, the retail slippages, which include the total portfolio, have been flat on a quarter-on-quarter basis despite the adverse operating environment, especially on unsecured products, including the microfinance. On a one-year lag basis, the slippages have actually marginally improved as a percentage of advances.
Within this, the secured portfolio has seen sharper improvement in terms of slippages, and even within the unsecured products, except for microfinance, other products have seen a flattish trend in quarter three. Another encouraging trend is that early delinquencies in the form of 31-90 days overdue loans are now stabilizing across both secured and unsecured products. I would like to highlight that this has been an outcome of several interventions and actions with respect to our underwriting, scorecard, collections taken over the past nine to 12 months. As I conclude, let me reiterate that all the key business vectors are progressing in a desirable direction, including the two important trends that we have seen this quarter in the form of the reduction in RIDF balances and flattening out of retail slippages.
I would like to thank you all once again for your continued interest in our franchise and progress. Lastly, before we take your questions, let me convey my advance wishes for our 76th Republic Day. With this, we can now take your questions.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to please use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We have the first question from the line of Jai Mundhra from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you, sir, and congratulations on steady numbers.
And thanks for additional disclosures this time around on unsecured and a lot of other areas. Sir, I have a few questions. First, if I were to calculate the slippages, right, the way you have defined PL and credit card slippages, it looks like PL slippages in absolute number and percentage are more or less stabilizing, whereas credit card slippages are rising, whereas the loan growth is actually the opposite, right? So PL growth has been lower, declining YOY 10-12%, whereas credit card growth has been 25% YTD and maybe 30-40% YOY. So I'm just not able to understand that of these two unsecured products, one is having higher slippages but higher growth, and another is slippages are stabilizing but lower growth. So if you can sort of elaborate there.
Yes, Rajan here. So your observation is correct.
Now, in credit cards, the way the book grows is always with a lag because whatever you acquire subsequently builds up as the utilization, and hence the book growth, what you see over there. While we have also calibrated the growth in credit cards vis-à-vis of our potential. Now, while in cards, you are seeing a higher slippage, but if you look at when we are looking at the 30-plus 6 MOB, 3 MOB, we are seeing a flattening again, like PL, what you see as a trend in the slippages. So both the portfolios, they actually need to be looked at a little differently. But PL, one of the other reasons why you see a slowing up of the business was also in terms of us trying to recalibrate our scorecards in view of how the market is behaving and how the macro factors are impacting.
So you're right, PL has shown a flattish trend in slippages, and also in the business growth, it has come lower. But from here onwards, PL, we will be in a position to ramp up, but to the correct segments, and we will again continue to have a calibrated strategy for the credit cards as well. But I can tell you, both of them are showing at a 6 MOV, a little flattish kind of trend, and we expect that to continue.
So, Jai, if I can also add a couple of more points. One, the credit card book, if you look at it from a sequential standpoint, is also not growing at the same pace as it was growing in the past. I think that's number one.
Number two, and that's the nature of the product, the ability for us to, let's say, intervene and de-risk the credit card works very differently from, let's say, a PL. In PL, you can slow down the disbursement. In credit cards, the mix of revolver can change, while you can still have a book that could kind of play out, right? So I think our approach to unsecured, whether credit cards or PL, I think we've been working on it and look at both these sectors with the same lens. It's just that there are nuances to individual products, and we do believe when we look at the 30-plus and lead indicators of risk, that some of the plateauing is playing out.
In fact, if we look at the new sourcing on credit cards, while these are very early indicators, if you actually look at new sourcing of credit cards, the vintage cards are actually showing us far better performance on credit cards. But anyway, I think we'll have to see how some of that data will also play out over a period of time. But I just wanted to make sure that there is no discerning in the way we will look ultimately from a risk standpoint, which is a credit card and PL. It's just that sometimes it's the nature of the underlying product.
Right. Okay. So just to understand this, say, within credit card, would you say that maybe last 12 months' origination, their delinquency is lower than the blended one, or?
Hence, can you make that comment that, let's say, the new origination after your tightening of rules, are they behaving better than the blended number, or they may still be higher than the blended, but better than a historical curve?
For both PL and credit cards, the sourcing quality of the recently acquired portfolio is definitely trending well because, like everybody in the market, there is a fair bit of tightening on the norms.
Actually, it is behaving very well, and hence the slippages are stabilizing. What I wanted to check is, is this better than the blended one, or this is better than a usual vintage curve? That was actually, if you can specify.
Yeah. Portfolio plays on an average after six-to-twelve months. That is how it is. The early indicators are definitely better than the blended.
But the blended also has a lot of shapes, the part of portfolio which was doing well and the part of portfolio which had a concerning trend. So vis-à-vis that concerning trend, we have seen that the pullbacks are better.
In any case, Jai, I think we should also keep in mind the fact that if you look at our unsecured as a proportion to retail assets and actually, if you look at that as a proportion to all advances, I mean, we are talking about this portfolio up 25% for our retail assets, right? So that kind of gives you a good sense that we are not running like a, sorry, at a bank-wide level, my bad. So it's not that we are looking at a very material risk at a full bank level to kind of come and hit us as well.
Right. Right. Sure.
Secondly, on savings growth, right? So we have been doing exceptionally well in terms of growth, whereas other peers are struggling, and outperformance has been very remarkable. If you can also comment, so we have the graded SA, right? We have 3%, 4%, 5%, and 7% SAR offering. Is this the savings growth also in a way inching up your blended SAR cost? Or, I mean, of course, apart from execution, this pricing is also paying a little bit of a difference. So if you can comment, what is your blended SAR now, blended SAR cost in Q3 and maybe versus last quarter and a year before?
So on that, Jai , our blended SAR continues to be stable actually over the last almost three to four quarters.
And this is despite some of the rate actions that we took more than 12 months back across different buckets where we actually took the headline rate higher for balances more than 10 lakhs. But despite that, over the last one year, in fact, our SAR cost is largely anchored. I think it hovers around, let's say, 5.8%-5.9%.
Sure. And lastly, on security receipts, so now the unprovided book has come down to 233 crores. Assuming you maintain similar 1,000 crore kind of a recovery per quarter run rate, does this mean that next quarter onwards, I mean, you will have, assuming a 1,000 crore recovery, you will have a negative kind of a provisioning also, negative credit cost if not in fourth year, then probably from first quarter onwards?
Jai, I think if you see the outstanding security receipt, it has come down to somewhere around 2,400 crores. Okay? So expecting like we will continue to have a recovery of 1,000 crores per quarter, definitely not going to happen because this is a case which takes a longer time for resolution. But we would be definitely expecting a recovery of somewhere around 1,200 crores every year and overall 3,000 crores plus from this point.
Okay. So sorry, so 1,200 crores per year, right?
Yes. Yes.
And what was the 3,000 crores? Is it total recovery?
Yeah. From the bank over a period of time.
Okay. And sorry, just on credit cost, I mean, how do you look at now you have come to a very significant milestone where SR book may become almost zero maybe by next quarter.
How should one look at, and you are saying that retail slippages are stabilizing. How should one look at credit cost? Could it be like insignificant 20, 30 basis points, or it will still be, let's say, 50 basis points?
So Jai, on credit cost, we've said last year that we will be comfortably below 50 basis points. That is what we had said earlier. I think just from the way the ARC recoveries work, they kind of give us some choppiness. Sometimes in one quarter, it might be higher, sometimes lower. But we do believe on an average, our credit cost should continue to be in the range of about 30 basis points. But again, this is not a guidance. These are just initial estimates. We will frame our guidance and come back at the end of this year.
Sure. Thank you so much and all the very best.
Jai , just one quick clarification. I don't know if you got that right, but the unsecured book is actually less than 25% of the retail.
Right. Right. Right.
So actually, look at that from a bank-wide perspective, it's less than 10%.
Correct. No, no. So that was very clear. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Rakesh Kumar from B&K Securities. Please go ahead.
Hello.
So you are audible. You may proceed.
Yeah. Sure. So yeah, the good set of numbers, and thanks for taking the question. So firstly, the disbursement run rate seems to be marginally lower. So anything that we should know about on a year-on-year basis?
So that's largely a reflection where our retail disbursements have come down.
Okay.
So that is speaking about the recalibration of our retail asset portfolio, which is also in terms of staying away from the very low-yielding asset and also tightening the underwriting for some of the unsecured loans. That has resulted into a lower disbursement value-wise. But now we are inching back towards the normal, which will take some time. But next year, we are quite confident that we will come back to the normal disbursement, and it will result into a growth in the retail assets.
Yeah. In the details, Rakesh, you'll find on slide 44, we have the disbursement in absolute retail given on the presentation.
Yes. Correct. And this cost-to-income ratio, which is coming down for corporate book, is it due to loan pricing issue that is prevalent in the system, or it is due to the asset quality because interest reversal number?
So what is the reason for that cost-income in the corporate segment having gone up?
I'm assuming, Rakesh, you're referring to the segmental result?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. So see, there, ultimately, I mean, it's the nature of the corporate business where you're able to build a scale, and that does not come at any incremental cost effectively. So you will kind of see that from a cost-income standpoint. They operate at very low cost income. But fundamentally, like what you were saying, the reason is more in terms of very fine pricing, which is happening in the market on the corporate side, but not because of any kind of slippage.
Understood. Yeah. Because in this environment, it is more of a retail phenomenon. And on the SR side, sir, so net of provisions that we are doing, how should we see the run rate might be in FY 20 26?
Rakesh, we've not given the guidance on credit cost. But let's say, I think I did allude to that question in the previous question as well, which is this quarter, we are at about 20 basis points of credit cost. And if you look at the split of that 20 basis points, we have about 60 basis points. That is the write-back that we've got from the ARC. And we have about 70 basis points of credit cost on the NPA. We do believe that a function of the normalization of this credit cost, and we've also kind of assuming that we will not have INR 600 crores of write-back every quarter, we do believe that we might have a 10-15 basis points of uptick in the credit cost. But I think it should still be well below 50 basis points.
And our sense is about 30 basis points of range is where we should anchor our credit cost to. And this is to total average, just to clarify.
Okay. Sure. Sure. Okay. Sure. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Dave from HorsePower Securities. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Can you listen to my voice?
Yes.
Yes. Congratulations on having an excellent bottom line figure and expected top line NIA figures. Congratulations to all of you.
Thank you.
So I have two questions regarding your result. So first of all, I want to know if you go by your segment result disclosure sheet, retail segment is still in loss. I mean, how many more quarters would you take to recover the retail segment into black or breakeven?
Yeah.
If I do complete your set of questions, we will respond to that.
Yeah. Second one is regarding the stake sale. Till the stake sale goes on or goes completed, why don't you go for QIP?
Okay. I will take the first question. This is Niranjan, and I have the question to speak about stake sale. So on the retail loss, if you look at the way the retail segmentation is, and it's also a reflection of the way the method for the segmentation works out, so our entire branch distribution infra people cost is all loaded into the retail segment. And then, of course, what we are also encountering over the last four, five quarters is the fact that we've been making higher provisioning as a function of the slippages that we've had in the retail business, right?
The point I think you were making earlier is so we've slowed the book down with the clear focus that we will want to focus on profitable products. Now, it takes time for the new portfolio to start taking shape and start becoming a dominant part of the entire retail book. And that journey, once it starts playing out, you will start seeing the effect of those in your profitability for the retail segment, right? But we are kind of working quite meticulously on solving profitability of retail assets. And that will happen with the change in product mix as well as normalization of the credit cost. Second, what we are also doing is on our entire branch network, we are making sure that we are very frugal and efficient by not putting overloading it with cost to scale up businesses.
We've been able to demonstrate that also over the last 12 months. So if you look at our cost of deposits and our operating cost growth, it's actually quite contained as compared to what you would see in terms of the deposit growth that we are delivering, right? Now, it is a matter of, I would say, evolution where the credit cost will have to normalize, which we are confident about. But it will take some quarters. Once that happens, you will start seeing contribution from the retail business go up. In fact, as we look at our ROA journey of 1% over the next three years, the swing or the delta that will come in will actually be going to come materially from the retail business. And we're all working towards that. But we are very conscious about the observation that you made.
And we are working, trying to execute each of those aspects. That's number one. I think the second point you had was on stake sale. While I will, before I hand it over to Mr. Kumar to take that question, I think the one point I wanted to call out is if you look at over the last three to four quarters, we've hardly consumed capital. And this is despite the advanced book growing in excess of 10%, our trade book growing. And that's because, of course, one is we continue to see improving rating profile or quality of assets on our advanced book. It's also the discipline with which we are now managing the balance sheet, right? It's a function of the two and also improving profitability. So we reported CT1 at 13.3%.
If you go back to our pro forma CET1 post the warrant exercise, which happened in June, we were at 13.4. So over the last nine months, effectively, we just consumed 10 basis points. So just from a capital standpoint, I think 13.3 is reasonable. Of course, at some stage, we will have to look at capital. But we do believe we have enough capital in play to grow from here on as well. But I'm going to now request Mr. Kumar to speak about the stake sale.
No, I think Niranjan has already responded in terms of. But we have taken your suggestion. But currently, we don't feel the need for raising any equity because our core equity at 13.3 is adequate to take care of our growth requirements.
Okay. And last question, if you mind, if you don't mind. Yeah.
From here on, can we expect your provisioning to come down quarter on quarter for at least three to four quarters?
You are saying provisioning coming down?
Yes. The provision for NPA, that the credit cost you.
We are currently at, I would say, 71% on the provisioning coverage. And we would like to see that our provisioning coverage will remain at the same level.
Sir, how much? At what percentage would you feel comfortable?
So it's around 70. Around 70%.
Okay. Okay.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we request you to please restrict your questions to two questions per participant. You may rejoin the queue for follow-up questions. The next question is from the line of Srinivas, an individual investor. Please go ahead. Yeah. Good afternoon.
As I can see, there is improvement in the CASA ratio, and there is also improvement in the RIDF deposits as a percentage of the total assets. But these two things together, they should translate into higher NIMs, net interest margins, and consequently, better bottom line and higher ROA. But NIMs are flat. It's at 2.4% for the last two quarters or so. So why this is not happening? I mean, the improvements on both these fronts should lead into higher NIMs. Why that is not happening?
Mr. Srinivasan, I think you made both the points right. On the RIDF, if you see that reduction has happened in the last week of the December quarter, okay? So its impact would start happening in the current quarter. That is one part. Second thing, that NIM expansion is also a function of your cost of deposit and yields on the advances.
If you have observed that we have recalibrated our strategy on the retail asset side, which gives a better yield and better NIMs, and I think we are expecting that going forward, especially with the start of the new financial year, we would see the growth on the retail asset, which is going to help us in having the better yields and the NIM expansion.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, you may please press star and one. The next question comes from the line of M B Mahesh from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead.
Hey. Hi. Just one question on this new ARC guidelines that came in or a clarification that has come in with respect to resolution that the ARC can do with their borrowers. Does it have any bearing on the expected recovery rates on your side?
I think we are not aware in terms of whether the ARCs are facing any issues in terms of these kind of resolutions, even as of now, and whether the change in the guidelines would help them in terms of taking the faster decisions. Since we don't have any, I would be saying, any kind of this kind of business within the bank, so we are not aware what kind of impact it would have. But just to extend this point, given that we are right now seeing a fairly good recovery from that book, you must be having some conversation around this guideline, right? Because you are also kind of looking at those numbers to see how much of recovery you will get in the next few quarters.
No, I think mainly the issue is more in terms of if the guidelines become more stringent, then there is a possible concern. If there is a relaxation in the guidelines, then I think that concern is not there, and we would be definitely seeing some improvement in that. But we really don't know whether there would be a correlation because we are not aware that the ARCs are facing any issues in terms of not able to take the decisions because of that. So far, your assumption is that nothing has changed from your side?
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. And sorry, just to finish this point, what is the current outstanding gross amount of security receipts and the recovery rates expected?
So currently, the outstanding SARs with JPF is 2,400 around there.
And I think if we go with the past track record, we would be seeing a recovery of almost INR 3,000 crores from this pool of the security receipts. And the possibility of also some additional recoveries from the security receipts which have been redeemed in full also cannot be ruled out.
Okay. Perfect. Okay. Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Janmejay Mohanty , an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Hello. First of all, congratulations, team.
I'm very good. How's your life? Sorry to interrupt, but you do sound a little muffled on your line.
One second. Hello. Can you hear me now?
It's a little better, but low in volume, sir.
Okay. So congratulations, team. I'm very good. My question was regarding the AT-1.
Ladies and gentlemen, the current participant seems to have dropped from the queue.
We will proceed to the next questioner, which will be Manish Soni, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good afternoon, [Foreign language]
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15th, 16th is ongoing. In September 28 lakh, in November 14 lakh. Sir, whole year 3 crore ESOPs, sir. So much, sir, any employee gets in one month, in one year, in one month bonus, sir. This is getting bonus every month. Is there any performance base that they are giving, just printing notes, printing machine is with you. Keep printing, keep printing. This is problem only for retailers, these investors, right? Equity is getting diluted, is it not getting diluted. Is there any other, right?
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Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sigera Masredi, an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Yeah, am I audible? Can you please confirm?
Yes, please.
Oh, good evening, sir. I mean, hearty congratulations to Prashant Kumar sir and Rajan Pental sir and other board of directors. I mean, these numbers were fabulous and as per my expectation, it was beyond. Okay, so very all the best, sir, and congratulations. And I mean, some investor were talking about ESOP. I mean, end of the day, ESOP has to be distributed to the employees because they are working for our franchise, you know, to improve further. And we must respect our board of directors because, I mean, without these members, without their degree, this bank would have been not in this position. Okay, because we should understand, like when Prashant sir and Rajan Pental, they were taking this company, it was posted around INR 16,000 crore loss. GNPA was 17%, NPA was 7%, and and to raise the, you know, capital and.
Thank you so much. Thank you so much for understanding. I request you to please ask your question.
Sir, sir, sir, oh. So, so, oh, my question is, like, if you see quarter on quarter, right, but deposits are flat. Okay, so 0%. So maybe, like, coming quarters, like, end of this year and next year, this will improve or not, and it will be saturated. Because, as you mention, we were coming from INR 99,000 crore, and now it is INR 260,700 crore approximately. So, is it saturated for our bank, and we expect any growth?
That is one thing. And if you see, sir, NIMs, our NIMs, okay, it's like 2.4, there is no improvement, though we were showing the profits from other incomes and all. So, can you guide us on that aspect? Okay, so there was one question related to AT-1. I, in between, my call was disconnected, because, this, all this SBI, other private institutions, and even retail investors, FPO was successful because of write-off of AT-1 bonds. Now, again, the, I mean, I am not asking anything, how the bank is prepared, because we don't want any comment, comments from the management, because it is under the Supreme Court right now. So, how will the bank is prepared?
Okay, in that situation. So, if you could answer this, because 62, 63 lakh retail investors are there, and you all know that, how our Yes Bank stock is performing, even though other companies are doing well, public sectors. Okay, public and private sectors in the, I mean, in India. Okay, our company is like, since from last year, if you see, do I understand that market cycles and all. So, I would request our management to come and address what is happening in the bank and how we are preparing. Okay, so it's not only me. Okay, I do have patience. I am going to wait three years, five years, and I wish my Prashant Kumar Sir, Rajan Pental Sir, to be continued on the board. Okay, next five years, 10 years, do next year, our Prashant Kumar Sir tenure is going to over. But, I request Prashant Kumar tenure and other board members, I mean, our leader should be there in the board.
So, I answer all your question. The first question was in terms of deposit growth. I think you have seen like slow growth for this quarter three, but I think you would like to continue to see the deposit growth, because how we are targeting that our loan growth. Our deposit growth has to be higher than the loan growth. So, whenever we see loan growth is improving, we would increase our deposit growth, but you would see continuous growth in both deposit and advances. Your second point was related to expansion of NIMs. I think if you just, I would like to bring to you notice one particular data point. If you see last 12 months, we have been able to protect our NIMs despite so many headwinds in the industry, whereas some of the other competition, there is a pressure on the NIMs, and there is a slight decline in their NIMs. So, I think in this tough time, we have been able to protect our NIMs. We have taken multiple steps, and going forward, you would see the improvement on the NIM side also. Your third point in terms of AT-1, as you are well aware, this case is pending before the Honorable Supreme Court, and now we are expecting, all the listing has been done in February. In this particular case, bank is fully prepared in terms of presenting our viewpoint before the Honorable Supreme Court.
Okay, thank you, sir. Very all the best for subsequent quarters, and we expect the profits to continue the same in the coming quarters. As you know, like 62, 63 lakh investors are waiting to turnaround story, and we want to do festival in our homes as well. Thank you, sir. Keep this in mind, and hope we will continue our journey with you and other your team members. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. We have no further questions, ladies and gentlemen. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Prashant Kumar for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Again, I would like to thank all of you for continue to support the bank, engaging with our franchise. We wish all of you, with your family members, a very happy New Year of 2025, and best wishes for the our Republic. Thank you so much.
Thank you. This brings the conference call to an end. On behalf of Yes Bank, we thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect your line.