Thank you, Swapnali. A very good afternoon to everyone who is present on the call today.

Along with the management team of SBI Card, I extend a warm welcome and sincere thanks for joining us for the Q2 FY27 earnings call. India's growth outlook remains resilient despite an uncertain global environment.

As per RBI, real GDP growth for FY27 is projected to be 7.1%, up from 6.7% projected earlier, reflecting the strength of domestic economic activity. The International Monetary Fund has also recently raised India's economic growth forecast to 7% for both FY27 and FY28, citing resilient domestic demand and strong services activity.

The upward revision reinforces India's position as the world's fastest-growing major economy, despite rising global oil prices and persistent geopolitical tensions. Against this macroeconomic backdrop, the growing scale of digital transactions and increasing access to formal credit are contributing to the development of more integrated payments and credit ecosystem.

Digital payments ecosystem continues to scale rapidly with UPI remaining at the center of this expansion. UPI transaction volumes grew 27% YoY to approximately 145 billion transactions during the first half of FY27, underscoring the increasing frequency and ubiquity of digital payments in India.

The credit card industry continues to maintain a healthy growth trajectory, with cards-in-force increasing by around 10.5% YoY to over 104 million as of August 2026. Cumulative credit card spends for the first five months of FY27 stood at more than ₹10 trillion, reflecting the growing scale of the credit card ecosystem.

The industry continues to witness evolution both in terms of customer demographics and usage patterns. As per the industry reports, credit card customer base is becoming younger and more diverse.

Nearly half of the first-time credit card users are now aged 30 or below, while approximately 46% of the new users are coming from semi-urban, Tier 2, Tier 3, and rural markets. This reflects the growing democratization of credit and the expanding opportunity to serve customers beyond traditional metropolitan centers.

As a customer-centric organization, SBI Card understands this and is well-positioned to make the best of these opportunities. Our strategy is focused on building a more robust credit card business, leveraging differentiated products, strategic partnerships, and digital capabilities as key growth levers.

During Q2 of FY27, we continued to focus on building a healthy, sustainable, and well-balanced portfolio while maintaining our priorities around profitable customer acquisition, customer engagement, operating efficiency, and portfolio quality. During this quarter, we augmented our co-branded credit card portfolio with the launch of Google Pay Flex SBI Card.

This credit card is designed to simplify and elevate the everyday payment experience, delivering a convenient blend of rewards, flexibility, and security. We also launched the Advantage SBI Card on SBI YONO to offer a seamless digital journey that enables SBI customers to avail a secured credit card backed by a fixed deposit.

We continue to roll out customer-centric national and regional offers with many revered brands including Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Air India, Bosch, LG, Sony, HP, among others. We continued the long-term strategic partnership with Apple for instant discount across different Apple products, including the newly launched iPhone 18 Pro.

We continue to strengthen our AI capabilities across customer engagement, sales, and employee productivity. We are happy to share that CII National Artificial Intelligence AI awarded our hyper-personalization program under the innovative category.

Coming to the business performance, our robust business model, disciplined portfolio management, and prudent risk management has enabled us to deliver strong results. Let me share the key metrics.

Cards-in-force have grown to around 2 crore 32 lakh with 8% growth YoY. In line with our guidance, we added more than 1 million new accounts during the quarter, witnessing 18% increase YoY.

The net card addition for FY27 till August is at 8,60,000 new cards, which is highest in the industry. We will continue to maintain quarterly run rate of more than 1 million new accounts during the year.

Our new account sourcing distribution remains balanced, with about 49% sourcing from banca and 51% from open market this quarter. SBI Card continues to be India's second largest credit card issuer, with cards-in-force market share at 18.5%.

As regards spends, as per RBI August 2026 data, our spends market share has grown to 19% in FY27. Total spends during the quarter reached ₹1,10,689 crore, with a growth of around 3% year-over-year.

Retail spends reached the highest ever level of ₹95,299 crore, with a 6% growth YoY. This is despite the festive sales being in Q3 this year and there being a seasonality impact on the Q2 spends.

We have seen robust growth across most POS and online spends categories. Online spends contributed 62.8% of the total retail spends in the first half year of financial year, witnessing strong growth across discretionary categories.

Key categories include consumer durables, furnishing and hardware, apparel, restaurants, and jewelry, among others. Corporate spends were at ₹15,390 crore during the quarter.

UPI spends on credit cards continued to grow 17% quarter-over-quarter, majorly in department stores, groceries, utilities, fuel, electronics, and apparel categories, driven by RuPay and QR acceptance expansion. Tier 2+ markets have the highest UPI active cards-in-force and UPI spends, adding to the growth momentum.

With festive sales and Diwali starting in October and November this year, we expect the spends to pick up further. Coming to the financial performance for the quarter, revenue from operations was ₹5,141 crore, registering a 4% YoY growth.

PAT was strong at ₹778 crore, with an increase of 75% year-over-year, mainly driven by improved credit cost. Operating cost during the quarter was ₹2,649 crore, with 7% increase YoY.

The cost-to-income ratio for the quarter was 58.7%, up 193 basis points year-over-year. We expect cost-to-income to remain around 57% to 59% for the year.

Receivables for the quarter were ₹58,376 crore. We continue to focus on building the EMI book.

With festive season and sales now underway, spends and receivables are expected to pick up in Q3 of FY27. The interest-earning assets were stable at 55%, with revolver rate at 22%.

Portfolio yield for the quarter was 16.1%. The daily weighted average cost of funds for Q2 was 6.8%.

The cost is up by 18 basis points quarter-over-quarter. Net interest margin for the quarter was 10.8%.

With cost of funds expected to increase over the next few quarters, we expect NIM to be range-bound. We will continue to optimize our borrowing mix to minimize the impact of increase in cost of fund and continue building a bigger EMI-based portfolio to keep the NIM stable.

Speaking about the asset quality, our actions taken over the last two, three years have led to continued improvement in the asset mix, with NPAs now being the lowest post-COVID-19. Continuing the reducing trend witnessed over the last five quarters, gross credit cost has improved further by 98 basis points quarter-over-quarter and 342 basis points year-over-year to 5.6%.

Gross NPA has reduced by 14 basis points quarter-over-quarter and 95 basis points year-over-year to 1.9%. Net NPA is at 0.77%.

Slippage ratio is also showing continued reduction. Company was carrying an additional provision of ₹70 crore up to the previous quarter.

The prolonged conflict in West Asia and the resulting higher energy prices, inflation, and interest rates may impact household cash flows. Accordingly, an additional provision of ₹30 crore has been made to prudently provide for the heightened macroeconomic uncertainty.

With this, the company now carries an additional provision of ₹100 crore as of quarter ended September 30, 2026. With disciplined customer acquisition, prudent portfolio management, we expect gross credit cost to stay around 6% for the current financial year, subject to any adverse impact of the ongoing geopolitical crisis on asset quality.

Our liquidity position continues to be strong. Our capital adequacy ratio was at a comfortable level of more than 26%.

ROA for the quarter was 4.4%, 180 bps higher YoY, while ROE was at 18.4%, 631 basis points higher YoY. To conclude, India's credit card industry continues to offer significant opportunities for growth, and SBI Card is well-positioned to capitalize on them.

We will continue to focus on strengthening customer relationships, enhancing our market position, and driving sustainable, profitable growth. Our forward agenda rests on five levers: expanding our footprint into Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets, focusing on banca penetration, deepening premiumization and spend per card, optimization of credit cost, enhancing our digital and data analytics capabilities, and sustained cost discipline.

Now we are open to take questions. Thank you.

Thanks for taking the question. Firstly on the overall spends growth as well as that translating into the receivables, we were of the view that 2Q could be an inflection point with respect to the receivables growth, and maybe spends growth should also get into double-digit kind of a number.

Should we see that traction going forward getting into Q3? Maybe Q2 last year had a higher base and that's the reason spend growth appears to be still in a low single-digit kind of a number.

How long would that entire journey take in terms of spends moving to that level and receivables also improving? That's the first question.

Second, with respect to overall margins, if we see the cost of funds, it's been up on a daily average basis by almost 20-odd basis points. We have not seen that kind of an impact on margins in this particular quarter.

If we have to look at it in terms of the margin profile looking at the rate hikes which are now expected, how do we see the margin trajectory from 10.8-odd percent currently? Yeah.

Yeah. Kunal, for your first question as to when we had spoken, I think, last quarter or the quarter before that, we had given this guidance that because the festive season as well as the acquisitions that we have been doing, the upticks in the acquisitions which has happened, we had guided that the receivable growth will be witnessed in the second half of the current financial year.

We stick to that guidance, that you are right about the base being higher this time because the festival has started as of 22nd of September 2025 along with the GST benefits, whereas this year the most of the festivities have started from 11th of October. Obviously, the spends and their getting translated into receivables will be happening in this quarter.

Actually, we are seeing very encouraging results already in respect of the spends, but it is still early days. We stick to the guidance that we had given that the spends getting translated into receivables will happen in the second half and will start from Q3 itself.

Just on this in terms of just having started the festive period at all, maybe how has been the traction in the first few days? When we look at it maybe in terms of that entire trajectory of maybe a double-digit or mid-teens kind of a retail spends growth, if we are to look at it, is that very much visible?

Yeah. Yes, as I mentioned, we are seeing very good, encouraging results, the way the EMI offtake is happening, the way the conversion of spends into EMIs is happening.

In the early days, whatever we have witnessed till now, the results are very encouraging. As of now, as we had said, we will not give a guidance on the asset growth because we still need to see how the entire quarter will play out.

The guidance we had given was that in the second half the receivables will grow. We are already witnessing it.

As regards the spend, we will stick to that in the retail spends category, we continue to see good traction. Festivities have just started, and we are expecting the spends growth to be somewhere from the mid-teens to the high teens for the entire year.

Mid-teens to high teens for entire year.

For the entire year. We have been in the range of somewhere around I think 15% to 16% as of now also.

We'll continue to see somewhere around the same range from mid-teens to high teens for the whole year. I hope that answers your first question.

Thank you. The second one?

The second one, for the margins, you're right. Now the thing is with the way the repo rate has already increased, there's definitely very high expectation of one another at least around another around 50 basis points increase going forward.

As we had been again guiding that, see, where we will be working, one, on optimizing the borrowing costs that we have been working on. We will continue to do that going forward as well.

The second thing is that we have been working on changing the mix of the receivables. As we have been indicating that if we can convert more and more transactors where we carry a zero carry where we have a negative carry to EMIs, that will definitely improve the yields overall and will keep the NIM stable.

Uncertain days, I would say, in terms of COF, but definitely a lot of work can happen and already happening on the yield side. We will continue with the guidance that for us, we will work on keeping the NIM stable.

In percentage terms from EMI, the current proportion of 33-odd percent, maybe it should at least get towards maybe 2% to 3% percentage points higher to offset any increase in cost of funds, otherwise there would be still depression on margins which might continue. Apart from that, there would be no lever on the yield side apart from the mix shift?

You're right. The good thing is that despite, as we had said initially also, that the revolvers have a negative bias, but revolvers have been stable.

On the EMI side, as I mentioned earlier also, we are seeing good offtake. For one reason is that some of the things like, as you all know, mobile phones and all have become more expensive, there we are finding more takers for EMIs as well.

All those things are resulting in a higher offtake of EMIs. That is the biggest lever.

Rashmi, you can add.

I was just adding to what ma'am said, that we can also increase the rates on the EMI book that we are building. The ability to pass on our increased cost of funds on the newer book that we are generating, that also should help us on the portfolio yield.

Okay. Got it.

Perfect. That helps.

Yeah. Thanks for answering all the questions.

Thank you.

Hi, team. Thanks for taking my question, and congrats on the quarter.

Just firstly on the NIM question again, and if I dissected it into two parts, have we started taking any yield hikes in our EMI portfolio? Or are we relying only on mix from a yield on loans perspective?

Yes, we have already started yield hikes on the portfolio. Girish?

Piran, if you notice, three months back, we were giving subvention, which is the point-of-sale EMI, at around 16.5%. That's up to 17%.

Closer six months to nine months back, that was almost around 16%. There have been hikes both on the point-of-sale installment lending as well as before the payment due date when the customer wants to convert their loans into lending.

That has also been increased.

About 50 bps. On the borrowing side, today when you say you can optimize your borrowings, what exactly do you mean by that?

When we all say we optimize, one is what is the instrument that we are looking at, what is the tenor we are looking at, and who is the lender. Those are a couple of levers that we continue to scan the market for basically the term.

See, we have certain policy guidelines in terms of what should be the mix of the short term, long term. There within the policy guidelines, obviously, if we look at our ALM, basically the most of the assets are short term.

There we have a lot of, I would say, headroom to look at short-term lendings. Having said that, we also are mindful that the rates are going to increase.

We have to continue to balance locking the rates at an optimal level so that we are not impacted by a very high interest cost going forward, on one hand. On the other hand, to the extent possible, if we can negotiate better rates with the lenders, then we work on that.

As I said, instruments as well. Last year, for example, when we found that there were very good attractive rates available on CP, we had even used that as a borrowing instrument.

Right now, since the CP rates are not so good, we have not been doing it. At least on the three compositions that we have of our borrowing, which is the working capital loan, term loan, and the NCD, we keep on scanning the market, looking at what is going to yield the best results for us, and accordingly work on the best, I would say, cost of funds.

You want to add something, Rashmi?

That's enough, yeah.

Sir, just today between a working capital loan and a CP, what would be cheaper, and by how much?

At this point in time, it is a working capital loan which is cheaper by almost about 50 to 60 basis points, actually more, 70 to 80 basis points.

Sorry, could you repeat that? Your line is a bit unclear.

70 to 80 basis points.

Got it. Then just lastly on your credit cost outlook, ma'am, you mentioned a 6% number for FY27, but we are already at 5.5%.

Is 6% just a number based out of conservatism, or is it more realistic? Because that implies an inch-up from 2Q levels.

If you look at the first half credit cost, it is 6.05%.

See,

there will be certain seasonality impact also once in a while, because when you have festivals, overall the thing is that we believe that 5.5% to 6% is a pretty good credit cost to have, because ultimately you have to keep on optimizing the risks and the returns. That is why we are giving an estimation of 6%, and if we are at 6% also, we are comfortable, provided we can ensure that that is the credit cost which is stable.

That is why we have given a guidance of 6% as of now.

Understood. Okay.

That's it from my end. Thanks, and wish you all the best.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone. Apologies, I had some tech issues earlier.

My first question is on the credit cost side. I think if I exclude the ₹30 crore provision which has been built this quarter, we are at 5.45%.

How much scope further do you think we have from here? This is already a very benign credit cost.

Based on the early delinquency trends, the data which you have, do you think it can undershoot further from here? What we believe,

first of all, this is not a provision. This is a write-back that we've done.

We have retained ₹30 crore as a management overlay, Anuj. In terms of the credit cost, we would say that more or less stable now.

We don't expect, as we have given our guidance of 6%, that this is somewhere we would like to be, because, see, ultimately we are in the business of risk-taking as well. As I mentioned earlier to Piran, we'll have to continue to optimize our risk and return.

As we grow the asset, there will be certain seasonalities also. We are comfortable between 5.5% to 6%, and we don't expect the credit cost to moderate much beyond that.

That is where I would like to pause right now.

Got it. That's very helpful, ma'am.

The second thing on the mix side, I think can you give us some sense of on the revolver side, I think if I look at the sequential basis, the mix has not changed, the interest-earning assets, but the overall receivables have come down. The IEA on absolute basis has come down actually on a QoQ basis.

My question here is when you look at from a new sourcing basis and you had tightened your risk filters earlier and obviously that portfolio has seasoned a bit, you would be getting some more data points on how the IEA in that portfolio is, is that portfolio doing better in terms of the book IEA or it's similar or lower? Just to understand how the IEA movement can be going forward.

We have been guiding that we are seeing a downward bias on the revolvers. Actually, we are pleasantly happy to see that the revolvers have been stable for this quarter.

We have been saying that since we have been stringent in the new acquisitions, the revolver rates have been lower for the new acquisitions and we hold by that. The encouraging thing that we observe in the current quarter has been that the interest-earning assets have improved moderately.

The thing is, see, I cannot compare Q2 of '26 to Q2 of '27. Right now we are not comparing, I would say, comparable time zones.

We will get, as I mentioned earlier as well, that we will start getting better clarity in terms of how the interest-earning assets, the receivables are trending by the end of this quarter. Again, on the campaigns, we are seeing very encouraging results on the EMI side.

Revolvers are also holding on. Watching the trend.

Lastly, if we were to assume a 70 basis points interest rate hike cycle, let's say, in this year only from RBI—25 is already done, let's say, your assessment of 50 also comes through—so what kind of NIM pressure do we see for the next year? Any kind of pro forma numbers or whatever guidance you can provide, that will be very helpful.

Thank you.

Anuj, first of all, the entire 50 basis points, even if it comes in in this particular year, it will come and hit us with a lag. As our book gets repriced in about 60 to 75-odd days, as we've been telling you.

It will come and hit us with a lag, the entire cost pressure will not come in this financial year. Second, as we mentioned, that we have the ability to pass on the increased cost of funds on our incremental book.

Which, obviously, as Girish earlier on another question mentioned, that we have been doing that, and we will continue to do that as well, that incrementally whatever book that we are building, we do it at a higher yield as well. There are certain measures, as I just said, which would be available to us to make sure that the impact of the 50 basis points additional if it comes in doesn't come and hit us at day one or in one particular quarter.

If you remember, in Quarter 1, our cost of funds just went up by about, I think, 3 basis points, whereas the market benchmark rate had gone up, because we had positioned our liability book in a manner where the maturities were bunched up in a certain way to avoid the pressure in Quarter 1. This quarter, obviously, we felt the impact of the entire cost of funds going up.

There are such levers available to put a lag and be able to adjust our portfolio yield with the increasing cost of funds.

Got it. Any guidance you can provide for next year, Rashmi, FY28?

Not this year, I understand the dynamic around this. Not as of now, Anuj.

Not as of now.

Okay. Noted.

Thank you. Thanks a lot.

Good afternoon, ma'am. Just two questions.

One is on the spend and the other one is on the receivables, and both kind of broadly similar to each other in terms of the question here. If you look at the spend, have you started seeing the, let's say, the riskier part of the customer cohort starting to spend more than what you have seen in the past?

Two, when you look at, let's say, that translation into the receivable side as well, either in the EMI side or on the revolver side, if you could just kind of broadly comment what is the texture of the book that is kind of being built at this point of time? Any trends that is worsening, remains the same, or improving?

Thank you.

I will ask Girish to respond to the first part of the question. As far as the portfolio is concerned, again we are very comfortable right now.

We have a very diversified portfolio, and we are not seeing anything which concerns us as of now.

Mahesh, spend per customer, per account, per card, all of it is going up. The only reason that you see the data in Q2 versus Q2 is because of the festival in the baseline.

Otherwise, on the retail spends, we see a continuous increase. The growth, overall growth of spends is actually coming from both the factors: the increase in number of cards and the spend per card, both going up.

Sorry, if I can just step in there, the question is more about what is the kind of a customer base which is now starting to spend in the book. Are these lot more of the traditional, better-rated customers?

Are you starting to see some of the slightly riskier cohorts even they starting to spend more than normal? I'm just trying to understand as to what is the kind of spends that is coming through in terms of customer profile.

Mahesh, the scenario is slightly changed in the last three years, since the time RBI has put in a guidance that any customer who is inactive for 12 months, you have to get them out of your books. If you actually look at 12-month activity of the customers, it is almost close to 100%.

Whatever is inactive in the 13th month, we have to ensure that that customer is exited out of the portfolio. As far as the increase in the spend portion is coming, what we see typically at this point of time is that people who are taking RuPay UPI cards is where the spend is increasing, and it is just that because their number of options or outlets for using the card has gone up.

We have figured out that trend almost one and a half, two years back. That trend still continues.

This trend is even more significant in Tier 2, Tier 3 cities.

Basically what Girish is trying to say is that in terms of the spend patterns, in terms of the categories of the customers, there's not that a riskier cohort is spending more and the less risky is spending less. The pattern is more or less same.

The increase which is happening in spends is also attributable to the RuPay cards, which were not there in the ecosystem one or two years back. Now that is an additional mode via which we are seeing a contribution.

This quarter itself, ₹21,300 crore of spends have occurred through UPI.

Sure. Ma'am, one last question.

For a brief period a couple of years back, the predictability of the cohort in terms of slippages was something which you said that was getting difficult for you to identify. Have you seen any normalization of trend in those things, that the recent cohorts are better as compared to the earlier cohorts?

Are you seeing that trend, or it's still all over the place?

No, no. I didn't get your question.

See, I'll try to respond. See, we categorize our customers into different risk categories basis what we are seeing within our portfolio, within our own customers, spend behavior, and we also look at the ecosystem, what is his borrowing and how he is behaving outside in the market.

Basis that, we categorize them into different risk categories. We find that the models are working very well, and because of sometimes the early actions that we have taken in respect of the risky customers, we've been able to save quite a bit of loss as well for the customers who defaulted later.

I believe that we have a pretty good understanding of the portfolio right now, and that is the reason that you are seeing the GCC where it is. That has also enabled us to understand which kind of customers to acquire, what are the indicators that we should look at.

In addition to that, the kind of tools which are available now, see, account aggregator, I don't know, two, three years back, how much dependency, we were hardly using account aggregators to understand how the customer, even if he is not my customer, how he is behaving. All those things are available with me now.

We are utilizing it, and that is enabling us to understand the overall portfolio better. Hope that answers your question.

Sure, ma'am. Thank you.

Just a minute. I think there are some more people in the queue, Swapnali.

Let them, if they have to ask questions, let them ask questions.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. Just one thing, I think your interchange income or your spends-based income to your spends has risen quite materially in this quarter.

What is driving that?

Yes, interchange income has increased in this quarter. On certain categories, networks have increased the interchange rates, which is showing up in the benefits that we've got through this quarter.

This 1.35% or number that we are getting this quarter, is sustainable going forward?

Within a range I would keep it, because there is seasonality variation which keeps on happening. There is a definitive increase from the past trendline.

Understood. Perfect.

Thank you. That's it from my side.

Yes. Hi, ma'am.

Just wanted to understand that credit cost, you said, is likely to be in the range of 5.5% to 6%. Do we expect that given all this macro situation, you expect that the credit cost has sort of bottomed out, and from here on it would stay the same and there would be marginal inch-up, or is this more because we'll be utilizing some of the lower credit costs to create additional provisions as what we have done this quarter?

Any sort of color on this if you can help.

See, this, as I spoke in my speech also, that the Middle East crisis has been more prolonged than what it was expected initially when it started. It was expected that the issue will be resolved in a couple of months, but now this has stretched beyond the initial expectations.

Obviously, as the conflict is getting prolonged, we are seeing certain inflation print, we are seeing the interest rates rising as well. The good thing is that, as I mentioned, the GDP continues to be very resilient to all these factors.

We are watching the environment. This is something I don't think anybody has complete clarity on how this whole crisis is going to play out.

The thing that the company could do and is doing is how do we buffer ourselves against, first of all, any adversities which might happen in the macros. To that extent, we have tried to look forward, built a ₹100 crore of management overlay.

If we believe that the situation is worsening, we will take a call at that point of time. Right now, as I mentioned, that looking at where the credit cost is, we are very comfortable.

Looking at our portfolio, we are pretty comfortable. Yes, we do believe that now this credit cost has more or less reached a level where there's not much of a scope to reduce it further.

Understood. Got it, ma'am.

Lastly, in the new cohorts of the new acquisitions that we have done, where would be the revolver and the EMI as a mix for you? Would it be materially different compared to the current book, which is 33% and 22%?

As we have indicated earlier also, because in the last, I would say, one, one and a half years we have been a bit stringent in customer acquisition, and because of that, the new cohorts have been lower in terms of the revolver offtake. EMI, we see equal takers from the new cohorts as well as the old vintages.

Got it. Thank you.

Good afternoon. I just had one question.

Since your liability side is mostly linked to T-bills, and T-bills are already up 50, 55 bps over the last one, one and a half months, how should we think about cost of fund? Is the repo the right number to look at, or it's basically the T-bill which we should look at for modeling the cost of fund going forward?

I will ask Rashmi to respond, but see, it's a mix. Our borrowing has both the reference rates, both T-bill as well as repo.

I don't think we divulge the numbers specifically, and it's a moving number. As of now, we also understand that T-bills have already risen in the last quarter itself.

Repo again increased during the recent MPC. Overall, yeah, the cost of funds has, as you can see in our numbers also, that around 18 basis points of COF has already increased.

That is why we will focus, one, as I mentioned, on our lending strategy as borrowing strategy in terms of the mix, the lenders, the players, the instruments, and overall work towards the stable NIM. Anything else, Rashmi?

That's right. Thank you.

Hello, team. Congratulations on a good set of numbers.

My just one question is on the corporate spend. We have seen it been growing QoQ, YoY for last few quarters, but this quarter we have seen some dip.

Just anything to highlight here? Thank you.

Nothing to highlight here. As we had said earlier also, in principle, we would keep corporate spends as less than 20% of our overall spends, and also we go for margins.

It is an opportunistic play here. We will go for to increase our margin, and this quarter we have let go of certain spends and continue to build certain other spends for the margin purposes.

Okay. Just another one.

You have recently launched this Eternal credit card. Just wanted to understand what is our thinking over here, because I think over in the last few years, we have not tied up with Amazon, Flipkart, or likes of those e-commerce players or what other competitors have done.

This is for the first time we are launching such kind of cards. Just want to understand what is our thinking here and how are we looking in terms of spends coming in from these kind of cards?

Thank you.

We have a couple of co-brand partnerships. Some of our co-brand partnerships are pretty strong.

Flipkart, we already have a tie-up. We tied up last year with Google Pay also.

In fact, one of our strongest co-brand partners is BPCL. Towards that direction to capture, as we have been saying, the different lifestyle needs and spend requirements of these customers, we have been selectively going for co-brand partnerships.

That is part of our strategy in portfolio since long. Spend distribution, I don't know whether we have—

On the new customer acquisition, on the first wave of four years, five years back when Amazon and Flipkart went with co-brand partners, we did not participate for profitability reasons, okay? This time now, when some of them have come for renewal and others, so as ma'am was mentioning, we have a co-brand with Tata Neu, we have a co-brand with PhonePe, we have a co-brand with Google Pay, Flipkart, these are the four prominent ones.

The latest in that line is Eternal. Our customer base is going digital, we also want to acquire our customers digitally, and co-brand partnerships, wherever we get a product where we can create great customer value and profitability for us, we will definitely go for that.

Understood. Thanks for highlighting the other cards as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, ma'am. Thank you for the opportunity.

I just have a few questions. One is despite a fall in our corporate spends, our opex has not declined substantially.

My understanding is that corporate spends carry a higher opex. Is it that we've shared a little extra for retail acquisition?

The opex has been flattish quarter-on-quarter, Meghna. You're right that given that there's been a slight dip in the corporate spend, there should have been a marginal dip in the opex as well, but there have been investments done and for the business growth.

You're right about that, yes.

Fine. Thank you.

On Slide 14, actually there's a refinement in account classification which has bumped up SBI's share to 46% in CIF. Can you explain a little bit about that, what's changed?

On that one, see, we keep looking at the tagging of the classification of our cards and the entire portfolio. As we looked at the entire portfolio in a little bit more granularity in terms of channels, etc., we realized that certain classifications, the way the accounts have been classified, need to change.

That is what was carried out in Quarter 2, and the result of that has been incorporated in the results this time, as you see it. The number wasn't that big enough, because you also stated that if you were to do the same classification in the previous quarter, the numbers between banca and open market would have remained the same.

Last quarter I think it was 36% CIF, that was SBI, and this quarter, the CIF is now 46%. The realignment is due to—

10%? Yeah, 10% of the portfolio we had to reclassify them based on the granularity as we looked at the—

Features.

Exactly. In terms of the account features, parameters.

Got it. Just lastly, what is our proportion of RuPay-linked credit cards in CIF?

We do not disclose that.

It is more than 1/3 of our base now is—

Thank you.

Hi, ma'am. Thank you, and congratulations for the great set of numbers.

My question was on Slide 7, where the spends per card has been around ₹1,67,000-odd for a while now. Is there any strategy that we have in mind where basically we would want to increase the spend per card because even if we add up cards-in-force meaningfully, I think unless and until the retail spends goes up, I think the spend growth will remain largely muted.

As we basically rely more on the corporate spend, I think that is not going to bring in much profitability. Any thoughts over there?

Anant. As I mentioned earlier, that if we are comparing Q2 to Q2, it would not be a right comparison, because the spends will start growing in the current quarter, festivities have started in the current quarter.

The second thing is that in the last two quarters we have done better than what we have been doing in the past. After the acquisition, the spends start building up.

There's a little bit of a lag effect over there. We totally agree with you that ultimately if I'm acquiring a customer, the idea is to engage, enhance spends, and the next step would be to enhance the receivables.

A lot of initiatives are being done towards this end, and corporate is definitely not something that we look at. This is a retail spend that we are speaking about over here.

On the corporate side, we look at it with a different lens in terms of the margins, in terms of the profitability. These numbers when we look at them, 167, this is the number that we look at in terms of the customer engagement.

Having said that, it's not so that this engagement is not happening. If you look at our slide number on the market share, I don't know which slide it is.

If you look at the market share slide, you will see that we are one of the players where the transaction volumes market share has also grown. This will only happen when we are engaging more with our customers.

We are not just growing in terms of the market share in terms of the spends, we are also growing in terms of the transaction volume. This is something that we will continue to work on, and as we have acquired more customers in the last two quarters and with the festive is already underway this quarter, you will see better numbers in the next quarter.

Just want to add one thing, Anant. If you look at the chart below that on the same page, 30-day spend active rate is at 53%, and this is without the festive season.

Last year with the festive season it was 53%. That itself shows the increase in the engagement of the existing customers, and hence the spend per account that we are getting from existing customers.

Maybe in next quarter where should we basically look at this spend per card? Should it be somewhere about 170, more than ₹170, or so?

What is broadly our expectation? How that spends will basically convert into overall?

I think mid-teen growth is what you have guided on the spends.

If it is ₹167 for this quarter, next quarter it will definitely be above ₹170.

Okay. Have you guided on the receivables growth for FY27 now?

No, not as of now, but we've said that we will start seeing growth for the second half. We stick to that.

Should we assume a single digit, mid single digit kind of for the whole year?

As of now, it's early days, Anant. We would like to get more clarity before we give any guidance.

See, 45% of the portfolio is transactor. Transactor volumes can move overnight.

It's too early to give a guidance in terms of the growth. Definitely there will be a growth going forward.

Ma'am,

this GS2 increase which has happened on a quarter-on-quarter, though it is very minor, does that worry you? Is that a trend or it's more seasonality and basically it will come back?

What did you say, GST?

Stage 2 Stage 2 assets have marginally gone up, yeah.

Anant, if you see Stage 2 marginally is up there, but if you total the Stage 2 and Stage 3, it is the same spread. It is, you can say, the quarterly or seasonal activity.

See,

one thing is there, Anant. Now that as I think we have more or less plateaued in terms of the credit cost.

There will definitely be certain months where we will see more spends happening, a little bit of delay happening. As long as we are in a range of, say, 5.5% to 6% in terms of the credit cost, we are comfortable.

We think we have a pretty good grip over the portfolio, we will continue to monitor that.

Sure, ma'am. That's helpful.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you.

Thanks for the opportunity again. One thing is on the opex side.

I think if I look at the levers there, you are pushing new card additions, which tends to be opex intensive, and I think the festive season is coming as well. Do you think the opex guidance which we have articulated earlier, we could be at the higher end given you might need more engagement from the customers, a need for more promotions, maybe?

How do you see that trajectory maybe going forward in the quarters and the FY28 as well?

Q3, definitely, as you are also aware, opex does increase, because most of the spends will happen. We will adhere to the guidance that we have given, that cost-to-income will be in the range of 57% to 59%.

Anything else, Rashmi, on the opex side?

Nothing, as of now the same here.

Good. Lastly, on the fee income side, we have seen across the various lending entities as well, there has been a lot of regulatory focus on cutting down the fee income.

Can you just give us some handholding on how to see that line maybe for FY28 and '29? Is it going to, let's say, hug the receivable growth, or should we anticipate a low single digit, any kind of color you can give given that we have seen that across the lending entities, that seems to be a bit of a moderating at the moment.

Thank you.

Anuj, on the fee side, there are two fees: interchange fees and the rest are the other instance-based fees. What we have said earlier also, that interchange is going to move along with the spends, because typically that rate has been constant or slightly increasing over a period of time.

That is a growth along with the growth of spends. On the instance-based fees, last time we said that should grow in line with our cards growth.

Whatever is the number of cards that is growing, it should grow similarly in line with that. These are the two things that we had stated.

On the third part, on the receivables, we have not given any guidance as of

now. Just to clarify, Girish, this would be growth in CIF, the non—

Broadly growth in CIF, yes.

Got it. Thank you.

Thanks a lot.

Hi, thanks for the opportunity, and congrats on a good set of numbers. I have two questions.

First is on the origination metrics. Now that there has been a fair bit of improvement in credit cost over the last more than a year, do we look to relax some of our origination criteria and the underwriting standards to grow the card at a faster rate?

Do you also track what is the card rejection rate, and how has that changed say over last couple of years, any color around that?

Nitin, thank for the compliments. The team has worked for the last, I think, one or two years to reach in terms of the profit numbers.

Coming to your first point, see, as of now, we have not relaxed the filters. We keep on dabbling, we do pilots, we keep on looking at which other cohorts which can give better income.

The lens is more in terms of the overall profitability rather than just looking at the risk. That is something we are working on.

We have been working for almost a year now. As we have been saying earlier also, that there's no dearth of applications, there's no dearth of eligible candidates.

As we have been able to sharpen our underwriting skills, we continue to get good applications, and we continue to underwrite them. Despite our guidance of 1 million plus, I think this quarter we have done 11,06,000 cards.

If we get a good customer, we will definitely look at them, we will definitely approve the cards as well. Yes, to your second question, the rejection analysis, the reasons, improving the journey, those are somethings that we continuously work on.

We have a very close eye on, and we don't speak a lot about it, but that is something which is basically something very critical and important for us, and we continue to monitor it very closely.

Right, got that. Second is on the opex.

While you have indicated a slight rise in cost-to-income, but if I look back say over the last four, five years also, our margins has come a long way over these years, but still we have maintained cost-to-income ratio in the 50s. That is something very commendable as in maintaining such a narrow range.

Now that margins will be a little bit more under pressure probably as the funding cost increases, banks passes on the rate, but at the same time you are looking for a better growth, asset growth also. How should one look at cost-to-income ratio for next year now?

Any color around that?

See, for this year we have given a guidance of 57% to 59%. As of now, we are not giving guidance for the next year.

Definitely, as I mentioned earlier in my speech as well, that on one hand we will continue to work on profitable acquisition of customers, on the other hand we will also ensure cost discipline so that we have, as we mentioned, in the last couple of years we have been able to maintain the cost-to-income, and if possible, we reduce this further going forward.

Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you.

Thank you, Swapnali. I sincerely thank our shareholders, customers, partners, employees, and everyone who's present in today's call for their unwavering support, continued trust, and confidence in the company.

Thank you once again for your time and participation. On behalf of the entire SBI Card team, as we start with the festive season, I wish you all season's greetings and a very happy Diwali.

Have a good evening. Thank you.