Thank you so much. Good evening and a very warm welcome to everyone on the call.

Thank you for taking the time to join us today and for your continued engagement with the bank. We definitely value these interactions and look forward to sharing our annual performance as well, and along with, of course, our outlook for the year.

We'll share with the opening remarks from our MD and our ED will walk you through the key highlights of the year and with the strategic priorities going forward. This will be, of course, followed by a detailed Q&A like we always do.

With that, over to you, sir.

Thank you, Souvik. Good afternoon, everyone.

Before Venkat takes you through the detailed financial performance for the quarter, I would like to share a few reflections as we close out the last year. This marks my first full financial year as MD and CEO of the bank.

Over the past 18 months period, our efforts have been directed towards sharpening execution, strengthening our core, and aligning the organization firmly with our long-term strategic priorities that we had shared in the analyst meet last year. Our Q4 performance reflects a strong operational quarter with outcomes that are consistent with the direction we have articulated throughout the year.

The progress we are seeing is not incidental. It is result of deliberate actions taken across both sides of the balance sheet.

We have had a record quarter on several metrics that details of which Venkat will cover later. On the liabilities front, we have undertaken a calibrated restructuring of our deposit profile.

Our focus has been on improving the quality and granularity of deposits with a clear pivot towards retail liabilities. We hit a milestone of over 1 lakh crore in CASA.

Our sharp focus on CASA and specifically CA is clearly showing results. As a result of this approach, we have consciously reduced our reliance on high-value deposits, which has contributed to a more stable and cost-efficient funding base.

At the same time, we continue to build on our traditional strengths. Our NRI franchise remains a key differentiator and we have further strengthened our leadership position in this segment.

NRI deposits have now crossed 1 lakh crore, alongside a continued increase in market share reinforcing the strength and resilience of this franchise. On the asset side, we remain committed to a calibrated shift in our portfolio mix.

This is inherently a medium-term journey, and we are encouraged by the traction seen across most of our identified focus segments. Growth has been broad-based and aligned with our objective of improving risk-adjusted returns in a market where we have seen intense and sometimes irrational rate competition.

Our fee income trajectory during the year has been extremely encouraging, reflecting improved cross-sell, better product penetration, and a more diversified revenue profile. Profitability metrics have also shown resilience.

Our ROA has now reverted back to the pre-rate cut levels, supported by improved margins and disciplined cost management. During the quarter, we also launched our wealth management business.

This is an important step in building a stronger mass affluent franchise as well as deepening customer engagement, enhancing our fee pool, and building a more comprehensive financial services proposition for our clients. In parallel, we have taken a more scientific and data-driven approach to our physical network strategy.

Our branch expansion and restructuring initiatives are now guided by detailed studies undertaken by us along with reputed experts in the domain. This is helping us build a more efficient, well-distributed, and a future-ready branch network.

In line with our recent brand refresh, our branches have begun transitioning to a renewed and refreshed outlook. The project on reimagining our branch operating model is also making very good progress.

As we look ahead, our focus remains unchanged: consistent execution, disciplined growth, and continued strengthening of the franchise. With that, I will hand it over to Venkat to take you through the numbers in more detail.

Thank you, Manian, and good evening to all of you. Before I give my comments, let me start by congratulating my colleague, Manikantan, for becoming the CFO of the bank and I welcome him to this key position in the bank and wishing you all the very best, Mani.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you all for joining us today. I trust you have had a chance to review our investor presentation and disclosures.

I will focus on the key financial and balance sheet developments from the final quarter, but before that, a few comments on the macro environment. The Q4 macro landscape remained largely resilient with growth momentum strong and inflation within the RBI's 2% to 6% tolerance band.

Headline CPI averaged approximately 3.1% for the quarter. The core inflation narrative remains constructive and core CPI averaged around 2.1% for the quarter, reflecting continued supply-side efficiency and absence of broad demand-side pressure.

Food inflation was contained early in the quarter, but picked up towards March, reaching 3.87%, and this is a trend which we have to monitor going into Q1 FY27. On the policy side, RBI held the repo rate at 5.25%, following 125 basis points of easing through calendar 2025.

The principal macro risk to flag is obviously the West Asia conflict, which escalated late in the quarter, 28th Feb onwards, and introduced volatility into global energy markets. The full inflationary pass-through is expected to reflect in from Q1, later part of Q1 FY27.

That said, India's macro fundamentals remain on strong footing. The operating environment, while carrying new uncertainties into FY27, remains fundamentally sound.

Our focus on high-quality credit and balance sheet discipline has kept us well-buffered against external uncertainty. The deliberate shift in our portfolio towards secured and granular assets over the past few years has positioned us well.

Now coming to the performance for the final quarter, it was a quarter of robust execution. Let me call out that the numbers I'm going to spell out are on the underlying performance metrics, which will be detailing our core earnings trajectory, excluding impact of one-off gains.

You would have seen in the deck we have called out some one-off gains and the impact of that. We delivered 1,145 crore in net profit, representing nearly 10% sequential growth.

This is the highest-ever quarterly net profit for the bank. The performance was driven by healthy NII, fee income, and disciplined cost management, and tight monitoring of our asset quality.

As we have emphasized before, these outcomes are the result of deliberate shifts in our balance sheet towards a more granular and durable profile. The total business as at 31st March stood at 5,78,959 crores, growing at 4.63% Q-o-Q and nearly 12% Y-o-Y.

Our liability franchise remains the bedrock of our stability. CASA balances crossed the 1 lakh crore mark to close at 1,03,390 crore, growing 8.26% sequentially and nearly 21% Y-o-Y.

Our NRE deposit, which is our moat, reached a significant milestone crossing the 1 lakh crore mark to close at 1,02,620 crore. This represents a robust 13.2% Y-o-Y increase, underscoring the deepening trust and strong engagement.

Our CASA ratio improved to 32.94%, an increase of 87 bps Q-o-Q and 271 basis points Y-o-Y. This is amongst one of the best in the industry.

The steady improvement in our funding mix is materially enhancing our durability with the cost of deposits declining 5 basis points Q-o-Q to 5.43%. On advances, our gross advances closed at 2,68,369 crore, up 3.65% sequentially and nearly 13% Y-o-Y.

Growth continues to be led by the segments we have consciously prioritized for superior risk-adjusted returns. Commercial banking grew nearly 6% Q-o-Q and 26% Y-o-Y, maintaining its position as a primary growth engine.

Agri and microfinance, both saw healthy traction growing 5% and 7.28% Q-o-Q, respectively. Our CV/CE business saw sharp uptick of 8.5% sequentially.

Our gold loan portfolio delivered a robust performance once again, growing 26% Y-o-Y and 9% Q-o-Q. This momentum in gold loan growth has been maintained despite the fact that we were downsizing the book of a specific sub-segment to ensure full alignment with the latest regulatory framework.

Our LAP portfolio expanded by 8% Q-o-Q, reflecting strong underlying demand and our focused approach. We expect this growth trajectory to further accelerate in the coming quarters as we continue to deepen our penetration in this high-conviction segment.

In the business banking, we saw growth of 6% Y-o-Y. This was a conscious decision to prioritize portfolio health and yield protection.

While our commitment to the MSME sector remains steadfast, our focus is on calibrated growth. Our corporate and institutional banking book remained essentially flat Q-o-Q, reflecting a deliberate shift towards credit selectivity.

Amid global geopolitical noise and evolving trade dynamics, we have prioritized portfolio quality and pricing discipline over headline volumes. With exposures fit in high-rated counterparties, we are preserving capital and reinforcing the long-term resilience of our wholesale balance sheet.

Now coming to margins and core income, NIM for the quarter was 2,716.66 crore, growing 2.4% Q-o-Q and 14.2% Y-o-Y. NIM expanded to 3.20%, up 2 basis sequentially.

This was supported by a further reduction in funding cost within the overall cost of funds declining 4 basis points to 5.46%. The other major call out is on the fee income, which is again a record best-ever, stood at 990.92 crore, a strong growth of 10.5% Q-o-Q and 24% Y-o-Y.

Total other income reached 1,145 crore. Fee growth remains well-distributed and continues to strengthen the quality of earnings.

Our cost-to-income ratio improved to 52.86%, down 106 basis points sequentially, which reflects the operating leverage within the franchise. During the quarter, we expanded our physical presence by adding 39 new branches, staying consistent with our calibrated and, like Manian mentioned, data-driven approach to network expansion.

Our asset quality metrics continue to remain strong with GNPA and NNPA both at decadal best. GNPA declined to 1.62% and NNPA down 2.37%, down 5 basis points Q-o-Q, marking another all-time low for the bank.

Our provision coverage ratio excluding technical write-offs increased to 76.55%, up 141 bps sequentially. Credit cost for the quarter was maintained at 47.4%, 47 bps, reflecting our high standards of underwriting and portfolio quality.

As Manian mentioned earlier, both ROA and NIMs have reached pre-rate cut levels. ROA increased to 1.24%, up 9 basis points sequentially.

If you recollect, Q1 it was 1% ROA and we have ended the year at 1.24%. ROE improved to 12.47%, an expansion of 79 basis points Q-o-Q.

To conclude, Q4 reinforces the fact that we are building a more stable, margin-led, and resilient franchise. Our priorities remain unchanged: strengthening the liability franchise, growing in chosen segments, and maintaining a tight grip on credit quality and cost.

While global uncertainties, including the situation in West Asia, require us to remain watchful, the granular and secured nature of our balance sheet ensures we are well-positioned across cycles. We move into the new fiscal year with a focus on risk-adjusted profitability and consistency of outcomes.

Thank you, and we'll now open up for questions.

Operator, before we start, just a small request from our end to all participants, if you can please keep your questions to a maximum of two and refrain from repeating points that have already been covered, that will help us ensure that we can take questions from everyone on the call. Thank you.

Please go ahead.

Hi, good evening and thanks for the opportunity. Manian sir, first of all, compliments on continued traction in your CASA and fee execution for the last few quarters.

I had a few questions, but maybe I'll come back later with more questions. I'll restrict myself to two first.

Given the balance sheet realignment that you were doing this year, both your loan and deposit growth has been below system in FY26. Now once this realignment, which seems to be largely done, could you comment on the growth outlook going ahead?

That's the first question. Second one is on staff expenses, which declined about 9% sequentially.

I'm presuming that is due to lower retiral provisions in this quarter. If you could quantify the same so that we can understand the normalized trends.

Lastly, just a clarification one. The one-time provisions of 460 456 crore are included in PCR.

Why not in contingent provisions? Why are they included in the provision coverage?

Those are my three questions.

Okay. Answering your first one, Rikin, if you look at our deposit growth, I think it is important go below the surface.

If you look at the surface, the deposit growth seems lower than the system. If you just go one level down and look at our CASA growth, it is significantly more than the system, right, in terms of growth rate.

Even our retail term deposit growth is higher than the system. Actually, we have grown our wholesale deposits negatively during the year.

That is a measure of strength rather than weakness is the way we read the situation, because as the wholesale deposit rates were fairly elevated especially during the last quarter and in the last two quarters actually. The fact that we could fund our balance sheet with low-cost liabilities and retail term deposit is a measure of strength and not weakness.

We think we have also resorted to very low borrowings during the year, therefore we have a lot of gunpowder and free to fund growth going forward. We feel fairly confident on the liabilities.

Even on the asset side, again, I would request you to go one level deeper than just looking at the broad headline number, because if you take all the mediating areas that we have chosen and we have stated that we want to grow have all grown extremely handsomely, whether it is gold at 9% or LAP at 8% or all of them actually, each of them has grown extremely handsomely. We feel fairly confident and remain focused on growing these segments, because it is important for us to be focused on profitable growth and there is enough opportunity we see in building growth on that basis.

We think we get increased traction from going from here, not lesser traction. That's about the growth question you asked.

Any specific comments for FY27 if you can? Fair points.

The points that you clarified are well taken. If you could offer any guidance on FY27, that would be helpful on growth.

Rikin, all I would tell you is that we have clearly seen acceleration in all the areas we have chosen and we'll continue to build this acceleration and it'll get better. If you recall, last quarter Y-o-Y looked 8%, today it is looking 13%, right?

Obviously there is traction building up, and we are confident of building traction further from here. Let me leave the guidance at that.

Okay. Sure.

The second question you asked was about the staff cost. We don't want to quantify that because there are provisions that happen through the year and things like that.

Those are not easily quantifiable as to what exact impact that has had. All I would say is that this is normal course of business.

It happens during cycles. There are gains and negatives.

We treat them as BAU. Yeah.

That is on the second. On the third, on the provisions--

On the provisions, Rikin, the conditions remain the same for withdrawal, both floating NPA versus floating standard. First, let me make it very clear, we don't have any particular portfolio where we want to provide this for or there's no concern.

First thing I want to make it very clear is there's nothing which we have specific to offset this against. Having said that, the fact that it's a one-time gain, we wanted to be conservative and create a buffer.

This, we believe we can, as per the draft guidelines, we can use it during the ECL transition, which is around the corner.

Got it, sir. Thank you.

Yeah.

thank you, sir. Thank you for the opportunity.

Sir,

my question is again on growth. How does the war change your outlook on growth?

Like you had indicated that the war led to increase remittances during the early days, but now since things have settled, how is the remittance strength versus historical rates? Will it warrant a relook at growth assumptions on both deposit and loan side?

That's my first question on growth. Number two on margins, now repo cuts are behind us, how should we look at margins trending to FY27?

Is there any further deposit repricing left or is it more or less done? Those are my two questions.

Right.

Answering your second one first, Akshay, there is still scope for deposit repricing. As we have earlier also guided that our deposit pricing goes into the first quarter of this year as well as maybe early part of the second quarter as well.

There is still some deposit repricing potential that is possible from here where we stand. Our NIM expansion, as you can see from our numbers, is not only a deposit repricing story, right?

It is a mixed story on the liability side on CASA. It is on repricing of deposits.

It is on mix on term deposits, retail versus wholesale. It is a mixed story on the asset side, medium-yield assets versus low-yield assets.

It is a composite, complex story. It is not a one-trick pony.

There are multiple levers we still have to work on expansion of NIM from here. If you really look at our NIMs of last year versus this year full year, if you just take the last full year NIM versus this full year NIM, you will notice that we have just lost about 2 basis points in our NIM over the entire year's basis.

That's probably one of the lowest in the sector, right? There are very few banks which have been able to defend their NIM as well as that.

Our NIM story is about multiple levers being pulled, and we are confident that we'll continue to remain agile and build that NIM expansion from here. That is on the NIM part.

Your second part was on the remittance and that story. Again, let me just clarify, while our remittance story was good and NR deposit story was good and we crossed 1 lakh crore deposits of NR our NR book, term and CASA put together has crossed 1 lakh crore, the fact remains that our resident SA and resident CA and resident term deposit have grown even faster than our NR growth.

It's not that the growth is being driven by NR remittances and NR deposits. Again, it is a multiple-lever story.

Just clarifying that. Remittances, as of now, remain elevated.

I don't know how this plays out. It is anybody's guess, but my sense is that unless you see significant job losses and returning Indians from UAE for good into India, I don't think this story is likely to change immediately.

Of course, whether that happens or not, I can't predict. If that doesn't happen, I think Middle East will be in a rebuild mode and that will probably need more people to go there and therefore robustness of that remittance may continue.

I would say early to say anything negative about it. As of now, we are seeing positives in it.

Sir,

thank you, sir. Just a follow-up on margins.

We have seen that even larger banks are facing it difficult to pass on the December 25 basis points rate cut. How is Federal placed on this front?

Number two, is there any day-count impact on NIMs this quarter?

Is there any?

Day-count impact. Day-count impact.

Yeah. Day-count impact is there, but we just take it in our stride.

That's it. It is there, of course, day-count impact is there.

Just answering your last one first. Before that, going back, of course we have to compete in the market and we have to pass on the rates as is required.

Obviously, like I mentioned, we have defended our NIM does not mean the defense came only through assets or liabilities, right? Obviously our asset yields would have dropped and our cost would have dropped and we have maintained the NIM.

As I said, as long as in the segments that we want to build growth we continue to find the risk-return okay, we are happy to compete and

grow.

Yeah. Only when we find that the risk-return trade-offs and the ROEs are not good enough is when we are hesitant, but just now we are not seeing that in our chosen areas of growth.

Of course, I'll be happy to get some more yields on assets, but that is another thing we are working on. We are also increasing the discipline on pricing through pricing tools, RAROC-based tools, and things like that.

All that is, of course, part of the execution process which we remain focused.

Sir. Thank you for the answer.

Just to repeat that, both on NIM as well as on ROA, we are back to our pre-rate cut cycle

levels.

Those were at the peak of the cycle and what we have now are at the bottom of the cycle. I would like to believe that there is a qualitative difference between the same NIM and ROA between then and now.

Understood. Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Hi team. Thanks and congrats on a good set of numbers.

Just firstly, sir, as we have been calibrating business banking growth, you said because of yields and asset quality, won't that impact our current account growth?

No, Piran, no, that is not impacting our current account growth. That is at some level, they are connected, but it is not that they are 100% connected.

If both work, yes, I agree that both will feed into each other and will be better. Having said that, we can grow our current account irrespective of what we do on BB.

Okay. Our target CASA ratio of 36% stays, right?

Why not, Piran? We have moved, as we are close to 33 now, right?

32.94

or whatever.

We are almost 3 300 basis points up since we started this journey, right? If we can do that in 12 months, why should we not 12 to 12, 15, 18 months we have done that.

There's no reason for us not to believe 36 is 36 is gettable at some point, yes.

Fair enough. Secondly, just on fee income growth, now last year we've done much better than our peers.

One part of it was just rationalizing fees across various products. It'll be like a one-time reset, right?

Now from this base, how should we think about the drivers of fee income growth or the drivers of a fee-to-assets ratio upward going forward?

Right. In the past also I have said that Of course, apart from general banking fees which we have reset some of it and we have worked on increasing them, there are three key drivers of fee: one, credit card fees; second, wealth management fees; and third, trade and forex fees.

We have seen some traction in trade and forex, but we can do more. We believe we can do more.

In cards, we are growing fairly at a good clip and I think we will continue to build that and that journey is just about begun. Wealth journey has just not even begun.

I would say we are just a few months into that business. I think there are enough levers again there for us to continue driving fees.

Got it. Got it.

Just the last question for Venkat sir. Sir, now that you've moved on from the CFO role, what functions will you be overseeing?

Now he'll oversee the CFO role. CFO will report into him.

It's more a separation than giving up the role. We have separated the role of CFO from Venkat, Mani will be the CFO, but he will report to Venkat.

Since he has now been elevated to the ED level,

he has other

functions. Yes.

Piran, not to worry, most of the functions are still rolling up to me only. I have enough to do.

Understood. Understood.

Broadly, as many of the support functions, many of them, apart from CFO, IT, ops, vigilance, there are many of them which roll up into Venkat.

Got it. Got it.

Yeah. Sir.

That's it from my end. Thank you and wish you all the best, and thank you once again for not discontinuing the Saturday wala practice.

You've kept your promise. Thank you for that.

Thanks for that, Piran. We have taken your feedback seriously.

Far.

Yes, operator. Next question, please.

Our

Thanks for taking the question. Firstly, after this one-time provisioning that we had done, does it change our credit cost outlook, maybe would we require a slightly lower provisioning given that we have already scaled it up, or maybe transitioning into ECL, we would still continue to maintain, say, 45, 50 basis points of credit cost guidance?

Yeah. Our credit cost guidance is not influenced by this action.

This action is primarily as a transition into ECL. Primarily, that is the purpose of this extra provision that we have taken.

Just to clear, Kunal, our credit cost guidance has been 50 to 60 basis points in the past. Of course, we have done better than that in this year, but broadly if you take the year, we are about 56 basis points.

Full year.

Full year. Maybe last couple of quarters, it's been between 45 to 50, but we still continue with 50 to 60 basis points of guidance, yeah.

Keep the guidance there, especially we don't want to meddle with the guidance just now.

In

view of the uncertainties in the environment, just now we don't want to review our guidance for now. Having said that, if the situation clears and there is better clarity on this Middle East and other geopolitical issues, we will review and let but right now we don't want to change our guidance on that.

Sure. In terms of the exposure linked to Middle East, maybe on the liabilities side, we know of the proportion which is there on the NR deposits, but looking at our presence out there in South, would there be on the retail side, maybe what percentage of maybe the portfolio could be exposed to Middle East, and could there be any risk out there?

You're talking about the asset-side portfolio?

Are you On the asset side, yeah, maybe particularly for maybe the families which are based out of Middle East and we would have given them the loans over here.

Okay. All I can tell you is that it is not a large exposure.

NR segment per se is a more liability-centric segment than a asset-centric segment, it's not a large exposure. Like I mentioned a while back, unless we see job losses and people returning back to India kind of a situation, we don't expect trouble.

Just having told you that, we have gone through this situation post-COVID as well, right, when a lot of disruption on this front we saw, but even then the credit costs were reasonably controlled and stable, so as of now, we have no reason to believe that it will be dramatically high or it will have high impact.

Sure. Just one last clarification.

Is the entire IT favorable orders have been considered in this quarter because the filings which have been done and the benefit which is flowing in, there is some deviation out there. Will there be more that will come through in the first quarter, or largely it is accounted for?

No, no. What we have reported is close to about 1,500 crores of approximately 1,500 crores of refund.

Now

refunds have three three parts to that: one one impact of that is interest on that refund that we've got, which is the 456 crore number that you see in our as a one-off. The second is tax provision reversals, which is the 115 crore roughly number is there.

That is the second. Third is a balance sheet, rest of it is a balance sheet item which is excess tax paid refunded back.

All the 1,500 crore that we have reported earlier have been accounted for in this.

So 900, 950 is directly into the balance sheet.

Yes, that's right, roughly. Broadly, like I said, 450, 115, and the balance, yes.

Perfect, yeah. Got it.

Thanks.

That would reduce the other assets on the balance sheet, yeah. Got it.

Got it. Yeah.

Thanks, that's helpful, yeah. Thank you.

Hey, hi. Couple of questions from my side.

First, again, continuing on what Kunal asked also, on the ECL side, just if you could just kind of give us some color on does the 50 to 60 basis points of credit cost that you're guiding continues in that regime as well, or is there a reassessment to that number?

No, that we'll have to reassess, Mahesh. That is as things stand today, our past guidance was that.

All I said was we are not changing the guidance just now. ECL, change in the West Asia situation, and all that are events which we have not built into that.

Sir,

just if you were to ignore the Middle Eastern crisis today, if you could just kind of give us how are you thinking about how does ECL change the provisions for you?

Mahesh, yeah, it's still too early. We are assessing that.

Let's come back to you with a proper studied response on that rather than quick response. As this came only 2 days back.

We are still evaluating what the full implications will be. We'll come back to you.

Okay. The second question is that in terms of the given conditions at which we are today, would you delay the kind of riskiness of the profile that you are trying to build today?

Will there be some delay to it or you would say that there is nothing required at this stage, we can continue with the current plans that you are having? Let's assume that if you're building your LAP book, you want to build your personal loan book or your credit card book or your MFI book a little bit faster, does this things change today or you say that it's not required right now?

No,

no, no. I think nothing has changed in our plan.

I think as of now, we have no reason to rethink our plan. Nothing has happened which makes us rethink or re-evaluate our plan.

We will continue to build LAP. We will continue to focus.

If you have seen, we have begun in a small way to build the MFI last quarter. I think our plans do not change.

Cards we are building, as you have seen, that is unsecured. Nothing changes in our mind just now.

Sir, just one clarification. In your internal policy, till what can you take your gold loan portfolio to?

See, currently, Mahesh, the gold loan portfolio is around little less than 14%, and we haven't set a kind of any outer limit. It's well within our risk appetite, and we'll take a call let's say if it goes closer to 20%, we'll re-evaluate at that time and decide whether it's appropriate or not.

Nothing like a ceiling at this stage.

Okay. Perfect, sir.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thanks.

Hi, sir. Good evening and thanks for the opportunity.

Sir, first question on gold loan practices. Gold loan, of course, the prices vary quite a lot and even in third quarter they would have varied from more than 15,000 per gram or maybe 16, 16.5 thousand per gram to now 15,000 or below.

Do you calculate the gold prices on a daily basis or you do some 1-month, 2-month average or there is a cap at the upper level? How does this work?

I'll ask Harsh to answer that. Harsh.

Hi.

What we do is there are two things which we do: one is we take the last 30 working days average gold price and the previous day's gold price, the lower of the two is taken. That's the normal course.

In times of extra volatility, we reduce the LTVs also. We reduce the LTV also.

There are two things which we do. Does it answer your question?

No. We take the lower of the two, last day as well as average of

last 30 days

as well as last day. We take the lower of the two and apply it.

Apart from that, depending on volatility, like in March 4th when we saw increased volatility in gold prices, we had also increased the margin over there so that we protect the portfolio. At this point of time, our gold loan portfolio LTV is below 54%.

Right. No, so that is very helpful.

That's clear. Second question is, sir, on cost to income, we had a guidance that we gave in the strategy day, does that hold or any re-thoughts on that cost to income guidance?

Thank you.

If you see our numbers even this quarter and if you adjust for the one-time, we are in the 53-ish range,

right?

We had always guided that we will remain in this range-bound in this 53, 55, 56 kind of range-bound we will remain depending on the quarter. It has some seasonality impact as well.

Right now we have, again, no reason to change our guidance on that. We will stick with our guidance for now.

We have done slightly better than the guidance in the year, but I would say we would right now keep the guidance as is.

Sure. Thank you and all the very best.

Thanks.

Hi. Good evening.

Thanks for taking my question. Congrats on the quarter, sir.

Sir, my question is on the in slide 17, you're showing your overall retail banking, your retail advances, and that is the overall retail book is flat Y-o-Y. Now I picked up at the beginning you mentioned that there is some deposit repricing left, the repo rate cut pressures look like they are behind.

Would it be fair to assume that you will now start pushing the pedal on this, which you have not been doing for the last year or so?

Primarily, Param, if you look at one of the retail thing that affects our growth, overall retail growth, is the home loan business, right? Our LAP is growing, our gold is growing, our agri is growing, CV/CE is growing, MFI is growing.

The weightage of the home loan book is large, which is the largest book and therefore that overall drags our growth number down on retail. On home loan, I'm quite clear that we'll remain agile if we think if the pricing get in the range where that risk-return trade-off is acceptable to us, we will, as a product, we don't have anything against it.

Just now the current market price is what, Param, on a lighter note, 15-year home loans are getting priced at 7.15 and deposits are going at higher rates than that, right? We don't see any sense in pushing the pedal on that.

As and when it makes more sense to us, yes, we will look at it. Even credit card, all the retail segments other than home loan as a product, auto probably to some extent, again auto the rate pressures have been high, but more driven by home loan.

Home loan is something that drags it down.

Got it, sir. Sir, again now on the mix, right, where are we right now in our journey, sir?

You've made great progress on, say, shifting the mix towards medium yield as you've called out, but where are we as in any medium-term target because I was just checking the analyst meet presentation that you made in February last year. The classifications, I think, are slightly different.

Any numbers you'd call out in terms of the mix shifting with low, medium, high that you're calling out in slide 19? Yeah,

19. No, so, Param, that journey is still, as I said in my early this thing, it is a medium-term journey, right, because it's a book.

Incrementally, we can change the volumes quickly, but the book takes time to do. If you look at our journey in the last, say, 1 year, March '25 to March '26, our low-yield book has dropped from 52.2 to 49.8 kind of numbers, right?

It's about 2, 2.5% movement, and our mid-yielding segment has moved by, again, similar number, about 2, 2.5%, right? The more interesting part, if you ask me going forward in the quarters to come, is also the high-yielding book, right?

Our cards has been consistently growing, MFI we have begun to grow again, PL we have begun to grow again. I think there is potential to grow some of that.

I think we are in the journey. I don't think we have reached where we want to reach.

Sure, sir. Sir, one last question if I may.

On the corporate book, what we can see in terms of data, it seems to suggest that the corporate spreads are improving. Is that something that's a growth avenue for next year because I'm just trying to understand because low-yielding is still 50% of your book, what you're calling out in that slide.

Housing, you're saying, we're still going to be cautious. Is corporate something that you are more positive on growth going into next year?

Corporate, two things I would tell you: one is, of course, within corporate, we are also putting more focus on the mid-market rather than very large corporates, which gives us a yield uptick. That last year, almost 75% plus of our NTB acquisitions have been more in the mid-market companies rather than the large companies, so that is one effort that is going on that will show up in terms of yield.

The second more important thing about corporate is, unlike retail, in the corporate, it is probably easier to target revenue wallet and get a better share of that. Therefore, things like I mentioned, trade, forex, and current account.

If you see our self-funding ratio has gone up in corporate. Liability business, our CMS platform has continued to do well.

I think there is opportunity in the corporate to look at a customer-level revenue and do better more easily than it is in the retail side, right? In retail side, cross-selling is a more difficult proposition.

I would say in corporate, yeah, we don't want to grow corporate at 18%, 20% kind of rates, but early double digits, we are happy to keep growing that, but there our focus will be to increase cross-sell, increase profitability rather than just the book. Corporate is less of a book business, right?

It is book and

fee

business, yeah.

Perfect. Very useful.

Thank you so much, sir. Congrats on the quarter and especially the phenomenal progress on CASA.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi. Good evening, everyone.

Congrats on a strong quarter. I have one question on the branch expansion.

We have opened lower branches this year versus what we opened last couple of years. How critical is branch expansion for us to sustain this liability and the CASA mix growth as that has been one of the key focus area?

How do you think about that?

Nitin, if you recall in our earlier calls, we have discussed that in the first half of the year, we deliberately went slow because we wanted to bring more science into evaluation of our existing network and how we plan our future network, which is an exercise we did. We also wanted to work on rebranding and redesigning our branches going forward.

We had decided that we'll keep the number low in the first half, and as we get comfort with that exercise, we will start building the branch network back. Of course, we finished that exercise, and, as we did a brand relaunch.

We have a new branch layout also in place now, the design in place. We have also completed the exercise about studying our network.

We have also come to conclusions on what restructuring of existing network we need to do in terms of restructuring a branch, relocating a branch, and things like that. Now we have more comfort, and that's why you see in the last quarter alone we have added over 30 branches, 39 branches in the last quarter.

We think we'll continue to be focused. As of now, we plan to launch about 100 branches in the next year.

Yes, branches are important in the liability strategy, but remember the part of the restructure exercise and relocation exercise was also improve productivity of the existing network. Our CASA growth is not, again, just an outcome of new branches that we will put.

It is also about how to get more out of existing network, and that is an important consideration for us in the

Right. Got it, sir.

Thank you, Manian sir. Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Hi, thanks for opportunity.

Hi.

You've demonstrated strong operating leverage with cost-to-income falling sharply and ROA improving to around 1.36%. How do you see this going forward?

What could be the drivers that could possibly take it above 1.5% and do you see any execution risk that could prevent that from happening?

Rohit, let me just put a note of caution on that. If you notice our deck, we have with one-offs and without one-offs stated.

In fact, in entire commentary that Venkat used, he used the without one-offs ratios, right? With one-off, it looks like 1.36, but without one-off, it is 1.24.

Just for the purpose of clarity, I thought I'll mention that.

Having said that,

yes, our journey is to where you are saying, and that is something that we will continue to work on. That, as I said again, all the three, at a broad level, as I always say, that there are very three simple things to do.

Of course, that was in a lighter vein, but liability cost and therefore right mix of liability, right mix on the asset side second, and fee growth is third. The fourth potential can be the cost aspect.

As I have always guided in our next 12 to 18 months journey, I think we don't want to guide on cost too much, but on the other three, we want to continue maintaining that momentum of improvement. As you can see, we touched 1% ROA three quarters back.

We are up to 1.24 just now. Let's see what we can maintain.

Of course, this was an exceptional cycle, rate change cycle, but yes, our objective is to continue the trajectory of expanding both NIM, fees to assets, as well as ROA, ROE therefore, resultant.

Hi. Sir, can you help me with what is the LCR for our quarter?

119.

119.

Okay. You plan to maintain it around these levels or you would want to take it up?

Yes, we are comfortable with 115 to 120 range. Yeah.

Sure. Secondly, I think we talked about there are no job losses as yet, and so you do not see any immediate retail stress.

On the MSME and the business banking side, do you foresee some stress, customers coming and talking about that they being stressed at this point of time and fits them up for restructuring? What's the ground situation at this point of time?

Can you just talk about that?

Anand, based on our current portfolio behavior, we have no reason to report any stress. If you have seen our slippages, they have remained 0.74%, it's in a very acceptable range that it has been all the time.

Even looking at our current SMA-1, 2, we have no reason to believe that there is any stress building up in our portfolio just now. This is always an evolving situation and I don't know how deep this problem gets, but all I would say is I don't have anything to report as on today.

Sir,

the provision that we have made in this current quarter, floating provision, that is more towards ECL than West Asia conflict?

Yes, absolutely. The floating provision has nothing whatsoever to do with asset quality.

Our asset quality remains absolutely robust, no deterioration in it. This is primarily as a transition to ECL.

It's clear. Sir, what could be the overall ECL impact if you have assessed if you could just talk about that?

We will come back to you on this. We have not yet fully assessed the impact.

Of course, this is just 2 days old, final. We will work on that and come back with our numbers.

Based on the older guidelines like October 2025, what could be the impact?

No, but a lot has changed. Older guideline to new guideline, there is a lot of change, Anand, there is a lot of change.

From old guideline to the draft, there was a lot of change. I think what has not changed is draft to this outcome, not much has changed.

We will assess the full impact and come back.

Sure, sir. That's very helpful.

See,

all I can tell you is that our asset quality is reasonable and robust. Whatever impact will have, of course, it'll be an industry-wide impact, and therefore we do hope that given our robust asset quality, our impact should be reasonable.

Thank you for the opportunity and congrats on a great set of numbers. First question is on the LCR disclosures.

I see it's fallen below 120%. This is now almost a 20% point, Y-o-Y decline and it's been steadily moving down.

What is your internal board level threshold and what is your comfort level to operate at? The context to this question is as we are accelerating on growth, the ask from our CASA growth will probably move beyond 20% next year if this LCR lever is not to the same quantum.

Kharote, this LCR with respect to CASA and all that, I don't know. That is a complex question, I will not get into that.

All I would say is we are currently operating at about 120% roughly. We are comfortable operating at 115% to 120%, and in fact we have consciously brought it down from earlier levels of 135, 140 that we used to maintain earlier.

That is also a NIM destroyer, right? Higher LCR than required is also a NIM destroyer.

It's a conscious call and we are quite comfortable with 115, 120. As regulatory requirement is 100.

We are quite comfortable.

So 115 to 120 is your comfort zone?

Yes. 115 to 120.

Yeah.

Okay. The second question is with regards to your credit card book growth.

It is moving quite differently from the industry, 23% Y-o-Y. What would be the growth in interest-earning assets?

Would it be fair to assume the transactor growth will be much higher at 30, 35%?

Okay. I'll ask Virat to take that question.

Yeah. Your assumption is correct.

The growth of transactor is pretty robust because bulk of the credit cards, organic credit cards that we issue are given to our existing customers. From that point of view, the transactor percentage is growing.

Having said that, the overall interest-earning book has also seen some growth and more on the EMI side rather than the revolver side. Okay.

This is very helpful, sir. Thank you and all the best for the next year.

Thanks, Jayant. Operator, with this, we'll close the call.

Thank you all for joining us today. I'd like to again extend our congrats to Mani sir on his appointment as the CFO of the bank and we wish him continued success and all the very best.

On that, we'll bring the call to a close. If you have further queries, feel free to reach out to us.

We'll be available for further chats. Thank you so much and have a lovely day ahead.

Thank you

all.