Thank you, Sagar. Good evening, everyone, and a warm welcome.

It's great pleasure to have you with us as we review Bandhan Bank's business and financial performance for the quarter and nine months ended December 2025. We truly appreciate your time, your continued support, and your participation on today's call.

I hope the year has begun on a positive note for you and your families, and I wish all of you a healthy, successful, and fulfilling 2026. Joining me today are Mr.

Partha Pratim Sengupta, MD and CEO; Mr. Ratan Kumar Kesh, Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer; Mr.

Rajinder Kumar Babbar, Executive Director and Chief Business Officer; Mr. Rajeev Mantri, Chief Financial Officer; and I am Vikash Mundhra, Head of Investor Relations, along with our senior management team.

We will take you through the key business trends, achievements, and challenges during the quarter, followed by a Q&A session after the management's remark. With that, I invite our MD and CEO, Mr.

Partha Pratim Sengupta, to share his perspective on the quarter's performance. Over to you, sir.

Thank you, Vikash. Good evening and thank you for joining us today.

On behalf of Bandhan Bank, I am pleased to extend a very warm welcome to all participants on our earnings call for the third quarter of FY26. I hope you and your families had a wonderful start to the New Year, and I wish you continued good health, prosperity, and success in the months ahead.

This quarter was marked by strengthening across our core businesses. In line with our strategic focus on quality growth, we saw steady momentum in advances, improvement in the EEB book or more popularly known as the microfinance book, and further strengthening of the secured book.

On the liability side, our continued push towards granularity resulted in stronger retail mobilization and a calibrated reduction in high-cost bulk deposits. Margins improved sequentially as the cost of funds eased, and asset quality trends moved in the right direction with lower stress formation and reduced NPAs.

While these are positive outcomes, we remain sharply focused on accelerating CASA and improving asset quality further. Before I move into the financial and operational performances for the quarter, let me begin by highlighting a few key initiatives we undertook during this period.

These initiatives reflect our continued focus on enhancing our products and services through innovation and strengthening our ability to serve customers more efficiently. During the quarter, aligned with our digital transformation agenda, we made strong progress.

We enhanced the Bandhan corporate internet banking platform with a better user experience, stronger security, and access through partners like BillDesk and Cashfree. We also implemented real-time transaction monitoring to proactively identify and mitigate risks of our clients.

In merchant acquiring and payments, we continued to scale our capabilities. We onboarded Razorpay as a payment gateway partner, supporting key sectors such as government, utilities, and education.

Our POS terminals now integrate directly with customers' ERP systems, improving efficiency and reducing manual reconciliation. Additionally, we launched our in-app collection solution, enabling mobile-based payment acceptance without physical devices.

Overall, these upgrades strengthen our digital ecosystem and position us well to support the evolving needs of our corporate and institutional clients. Let me now walk you through some of the key initiatives undertaken during the quarter to strengthen our control framework and enhance our product offerings within the EEB group loan portfolio.

Starting with control enhancements, we focused on improving transparency, accuracy, and customer communication. First, we introduced real-time SMS acknowledgments for cash collections made during group meetings through our tablet-based systems.

This ensures customers receive immediate confirmation of their payments, reinforcing trust and transparency. Second, we launched a real-time digital dashboard for our operations executives.

This enables more effective monitoring and reconciliation of transactions conducted by our relationship officers during group meetings, significantly improving timeliness and accuracy. Third, we initiated pilot testing of Bluetooth-enabled portable printers and now also completely integrated tablets with printers to issue instant printed receipts at the point of collection.

This further enhances clarity of communication and builds greater confidence among customers. On the product enhancement side, our efforts were centered on offering greater flexibility and convenience to our customers.

We introduced 18-month and 36-month tenure options in group loans, providing customers with more choice to match their repayment schedules to their cash flow cycles. Additionally, we have expanded repayment flexibility by offering bi-weekly and monthly repayment frequency options, reducing repayment stress, and enabling better financial planning for customers.

Overall, these initiatives underscore our continued commitment to strengthening controls, elevating customer experience, and expanding flexibility across our product suite. Let me now take a moment to highlight two significant developments during the quarter that had a notable impact on our financials.

The first relates to the portfolio sale of NPAs and written-off accounts to ARCs, and the second pertains to the impact of the newly notified labor codes. As part of our ongoing effort to strengthen the balance sheet, we executed the sale of NPAs and written-off accounts of unsecured EEB and ABG portfolio, mostly unsecured, to ARCs during the quarter.

We sold ₹3,707 crores of write-off portfolio also, which was realized at a valuation of roughly 9%. Out of the total security receipts issued for this portfolio, our share stood at 62%.

On the cash side, we received ₹126 crores, and this inflow has been recorded under other income. In addition to this, we also sold ₹3,165 crores of NPAs, unsecured loan in the EEB and ABG book, at a valuation of around 18%.

Our share of SRs for this pool was approximately 47%. The transaction generated ₹303 crores of cash for the bank, and this has been used to offset our provisions under the provisions line item in the P&L.

Together, these actions reflect our continued focus on strengthening the balance sheet while ensuring disciplined resolution of stressed assets. The second key development relates to the new labor codes.

On 21st November 2025, the Government of India formally notified the four labor codes. The bank has undertaken a detailed assessment of their impact wherever applicable, particularly with respect to the revised definition of wages.

As a result of this assessment, we have created an incremental provision of ₹120 crores towards gratuity during the quarter. This provision, which primarily arises from the change in wage definition, has been accounted for under employee cost in the P&L.

I now move to the performance of Bandhan Bank for Q3 FY26 and nine months FY26. The quarter demonstrated several underlying strengths across our core businesses.

Our advances continued to show healthy momentum, with underlying growth remaining strong even after accounting for the recent NPA sale. The EEB portfolio has stabilized, reversing the earlier trend of degrowth, and our secured book continues to strengthen, improving the secured mix further.

On the liability side, deposit granularity improved meaningfully, supported by strong retail deposit mobilization, even as we deliberately pared down high-cost bulk deposits to improve the quality of our liability profile. Margins also showed an encouraging upward turn, aided by a sustained reduction in the cost of funds and improving deposit mix.

Asset quality trends were constructive, with lower slippages QoQ, better early stage indicators, and an improved NPAs following the ARC sale. In terms of areas we are sharpening further, CASA growth remains soft industry-wide, but we are intensifying our efforts to strengthen customer engagement and enhance product propositions.

Operating expenses remained well-managed and broadly in line with our guidance, despite certain regulatory-driven one-offs. While slippages have improved, we continue to remain focused on further strengthening recoveries, reducing incremental stress, and moving steadily towards our medium-term credit cost aspirations.

Overall, the quarter demonstrates improving fundamentals and continued balance sheet resilience. While my colleague and CFO, Mr.

Rajeev Mantri, will provide a comprehensive overview of the financials, I would like to take this opportunity to highlight a few performance indicators from the third quarter of FY26. As on 31st December 2025, our gross advances stood at about ₹1.45 lakh crore, reflecting healthy growth of 10% YoY.

On the liability side, deposits reached ₹1.57 lakh crore, growing faster than advances on YoY basis, a reflection of our strategic focus on maintaining a balanced and sustainable franchise. Retail term deposits continued their strong momentum, growing by over 36% YoY, underscoring the increasing trust of our customers and the strength of branch network.

CASA now stands at 27% of total deposits, and the overall retail mix, including CASA and retail term deposits, improved further to 72%, signaling continued strengthening of deposit granularity and stability. Aligned with our diversification agenda, our secured book at 57% of overall advances continued to gain share within the overall portfolio, supported by steady growth across secured products.

This shift reinforces the improving risk profile and balance within our advances mix. Our NIM for the quarter at 5.9% remained healthy, showing sequential improvement as a benefit of lower cost of funds flowed through.

For the nine-month period as well, NIMs remained largely stable at 6%. Credit costs showed a small improvement sequentially, and we remain committed to bringing them down further through this year.

Gross and net NPA ratios improved significantly at 3.3% and 1% respectively, while our PCR, including technical write-offs, improved to 84.3%. For Q3 financial year '26, our net total income stood at ₹3,379 crores, while operating profit was ₹1,445 crores.

The bank reported a PAT of ₹206 crores for the quarter. This is almost 89% higher than what we had reported for the Q2 FY26 ending September.

For nine months financial year '26, ROA and ROE stood at 0.5% and 4% respectively. Our capital position remains robust, including nine months FY26 profit, the capital adequacy ratio stands at 17.8% and Tier 1 capital at 17%, providing ample headroom to support future growth.

We also continued to expand our distribution footprint, taking the branch network to 1,831 branches, with 20 new branches added during the quarter and conversion of 57 housing finance centers into full-fledged banking branches. This expansion enhances our reach and strengthens our ability to serve customers more efficiently.

To conclude, this has been a quarter of steady progress and strengthening fundamentals for Bandhan Bank. We continue to execute with discipline across our strategic priorities, driving quality growth, deepening our retail franchising, enhancing our digital capabilities, and reinforcing our risk and control frameworks.

While there is more work ahead, the trajectory is encouraging, and we remain fully committed to building a stronger, more resilient, and more diversified bank. I would like to thank our customers, employees, shareholders, and all stakeholders for their continued trust and support.

Thank you.

Yeah. No, with this, I would just like to invite our Chief Financial Officer, Mr.

Rajeev Mantri, to take you through the detailed financial performance of the quarter.

Thank you, Mr. Sengupta.

Welcome again, everyone, to the earnings call. We'll now move on to the business performance for the quarter.

I'll walk you through the financial highlights and provide an overview of how we have performed. Let me first start with the advances, where the trends for this quarter reaffirm the progress we are making in reshaping the balance sheet.

As of 31st December '25, the gross advances stood at ₹1.45 lakh crore, representing 10% year-on-year growth, and on sequential basis the growth was healthy at about 4%. Importantly, if we adjust for the NPA sale of ₹3,165 crores during the quarter, underlying advances growth would have been higher at 12% year-on-year and 6% quarter-on-quarter, indicating sustained business momentum beneath the reported numbers.

The EEB book, which is our microfinance portfolio, stood at ₹50,076 crores, showing a 11% year-on-year and 3% sequential decline. However, when we normalize for the NPA sale to ARC of ₹2,759 crores, which pertain to this segment within the overall NPA sales undertaken during the quarter, the portfolio would have recorded a growth of 2% on a sequential basis quarter-on-quarter.

Operational trends on the ground, including improved collections, supported by increased demand, and the strengthened field controls, reinforce the confidence that degrowth phase in EEB book is behind, and the portfolio is stabilizing with a more constructive trajectory going ahead. Our non-EEB portfolio continues to demonstrate strong, broad-based growth at 25% year-on-year, driven by sustained momentum across both retail assets and wholesale banking, the non-EEB portfolio accounts for nearly 65% of the total advances, up from 63% in previous quarter and 58% a year ago.

Within this, retail assets grew by 57% year-on-year, led by secured segments such as 2-wheeler, auto loans, and gold loans. Wholesale banking also performed very well, growing 32% year-on-year.

Excluding ABG and PTC, the growth is even higher at 43% year-on-year, supported by deeper client engagement and effective execution. These trends validate the strength of our diversification strategy.

Our housing loan portfolio also grew at about 10%. On portfolio diversification, we further strengthened our secured loan book across wholesale banking, housing, and retail assets.

The secured book grew 27% year-on-year and is now accounting for about 57% of the total advances. The shift towards secured lending remains a key strategic lever for enhancing asset quality and improving the long-term risk profile of the bank.

In terms of segmental composition, the portfolio is now more balanced. The EEB group lending accounts for 22% of total advances, SBL is at 12%, wholesale banking at 31%, housing at 23%, and retail loans at nearly 10%.

This mix reflects conscious deconcentration efforts and a calibrated rebalancing towards more secured, stable, and diversified asset pools. Let me now move on to our deposits performance.

As at December 31st, '25, our total deposits stood at ₹1.57 lakh crore compared to ₹1.41 lakh crore a year ago, reflecting a growth of 11% year-on-year. Importantly, deposit growth on year-on-year basis continues to run ahead of our advances growth, consistent with our focus on funding stability and balance sheet resilience.

On a sequential basis, the deposits moderated marginally by about 1%, but this was largely due to the planned runoff in the bulk deposits. Bulk deposits declined by 6% quarter-on-quarter, and their share in total deposits reduced further to about 28% compared to 29% in the previous quarter and 31% a year earlier.

This steady decline is intentional and reflects our ongoing commitment to reduce the reliance on higher-cost, less stable funding sources, and improve the durability of our liability base. Our efforts to deepen a granular retail-driven deposit profile remains on track.

Retail deposits, which comprise both CASA and retail term deposits, grew by 17% year-on-year. Within this, retail term deposits maintained strong momentum, growing 36% year-on-year, which underscores the continued trust and engagement of our customer franchise.

CASA deposits stood at ₹42,730 crores, reflecting a 4% year-on-year decline. This was primarily a result of the savings rate reductions undertaken in Q1 and subsequently in Q2 and Q3.

The lower rates led to an outflow of certain high-value, rate-sensitive balances that were earlier costing upwards of 6%. It is important to note that pressure on CASA is not unique to us.

The industry as a whole has been witnessing similar challenges, with most banks reporting softness in CASA ratios due to the interest rate environment and the shifting consumer behavior. The positive development, however, is that core granular savings deposits continue to gain strong traction.

These balances are more stable, less sensitive to pricing, and at lower cost, and their growth indicates that the underlying strength of our CASA franchise remains intact. As customer engagement deepens, branches get leveraged, and our granular deposit strategy continues to build traction, we expect the quality of our liability base to improve further over the next few quarters.

Moving to collections and asset quality, we are seeing improvements across various indicators. Starting with collections, our overall collection efficiency, excluding NPAs, improved to 98.1% in the month of December compared to 98.7% in September '25.

Within the EEB portfolio, full quarter collection efficiency for Q3 stood at 98.2%, and for the month of December specifically it was 98%, up from 97.5% in September. These improvements reflect the sustained recovery efforts on the ground.

Additional details are available on slide 20 of our investor deck. On slippages, the improvement is visible and broad-based.

The bank-wide gross slippages declined to ₹1,314 crores in Q3 FY26 from ₹1,590 crores in the preceding quarter. The largest contribution to this improvement came from the EEB segment, where slippages moderated to ₹942 crores compared to ₹1,118 crores in the previous quarter.

Recoveries and upgrades at the bank level amounted to ₹351 crores, slightly higher than ₹332 crores in the previous quarter. Better recoveries coupled with lower slippages indicates stabilizing portfolio behavior and better resolution throughput.

We are also seeing encouraging signs in the early delinquency buckets. In the EEB portfolio, the combined 0 to 90 DPD pool, which is SMA-0, SMA-1, and SMA-2, reduced to ₹2,310 crores or 4.6% of EEB advances, compared to ₹2,497 crores or 4.8% in the prior quarter.

The most meaningful improvement came in the SMA-0 bucket, which declined from ₹1,582 crores to ₹1,328 crores. This movement indicates easing forward flows and supports our expectation of further improvement over the coming quarters.

We've given detailed disclosures in slide 21 of our investor deck. In addition, during the quarter, we completed a sale of ₹3,165 crores of NPAs to ARC, primarily from the EEB and the ABG portfolios.

Following this sale, our GNPA ratio improved sharply to 3.3%, and net NPA declined to 1%. In fact, it's 0.99%, the net NPA ratio.

Credit cost for the quarter moderated slightly to 3.3% compared with 3.4% in Q2 FY26. A point worth highlighting is around provisioning coverage.

While the reported PCR stands at 70.8%, when we include the provisions that we have kept against the security receipts as part of the ARC sales, the effective PCR comes to 74.2%, which remains broadly unchanged on a sequential basis. This reflects the stable provisioning position even after the NPA sale.

If we include the technical write-offs, our PCR including the write-offs stands at 84.3%. Let me now move on to the earnings performance for the quarter.

The net interest income for Q3 FY26 came in at ₹2,688 crores. While this reflects a year-on-year moderation, but on a sequential basis, it improved by 3.8%.

Net interest margin for the quarter improved to 5.9% compared with 5.8% in Q2, supported by nearly a 20 basis point reduction in the cost of deposits. This improvement more than offsets the natural yield compression arising from the rising share of secured lending in the portfolio, a conscious shift that strengthens the risk profile and enhances earnings quality over time.

Looking at the non-interest income, the reported number shows a 38% year-on-year decline, but a 27% improvement quarter-on-quarter. However, there were certain one-offs in the last year during the same period.

For normalizing for the same, the core non-interest income grew 32% year-on-year. Importantly, the income from third-party distribution grew a strong 35% year-on-year, highlighting deeper branch level penetration and better cross-sell productivity.

We also saw healthy improvement in processing fees, supported by the improved disbursements in the EEB portfolio. Operating expenses for the quarter were ₹1,934 crores, rising 6% sequentially.

This increase was largely due to the ₹120 crores provision for gratuity following the implementation of the new labor codes. On a year-on-year basis, opex growth was contained at 2%, helped by the absence of one-time ESOP-related costs that were present in the base quarter in the last year.

Despite the regulatory-driven one-offs, our opex to average assets ratio remained well-managed at 3.9%, only marginally higher than 3.8% in Q2. This reflects continued discipline on cost control.

As a result, the operating profit for the quarter was at ₹1,445 crores, and the net profit was ₹206 crores compared with ₹426 crores a year ago and ₹112 crores in Q2 FY26. The profitability ratios for Q3, which is return on assets, was at 0.4%, and return on equity was at 3%, reflecting the combined impact of the one-off items and reducing NPAs taken during the quarter.

Briefly talking about the nine-month performance, NII for the nine months for FY26 stood at ₹8,034 crores, supported by the continued expansion of the secured book and stable margin performance. Operating profit for the nine-month period stood at ₹4,424 crores, reflecting resilience in core earnings.

NIM, opex to assets, and credit cost for nine months FY26 were at 6%, 3.8%, and 3.4% respectively. The net profit for the nine months was ₹689 crores, resulting in annualized ROA of 0.5% and ROE of 4%.

Taken together, these results reflect steady progress on the bank's strategic priorities to improving business growth, sustainable product mix, and better asset quality, the actions that strengthen the franchise for the long term. Thank you for your time and listening patiently to our updates.

On behalf of the entire management team, we truly appreciate your continued interest and support. With that, we would now be happy to take your questions.

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

Sir, I wanted to check if you can specify the EEB slippages during the quarter and the recoveries, if any, in the movement of NPA for EEB only? Thanks.

Okay. During the quarter, EEB slippages has been to the tune of ₹942 crores.

There has been a significant improvement. Q1 it was ₹1,089 crores, Q2 it was ₹1,118 crores, almost ₹170 crores down from what we have seen in the earlier quarter.

The recoveries were ₹113 crores, 1-1-3. The net slippage was ₹829 crores for EEB.

Sure. Sir, is there any restatement of SMA-0 of last quarter, because it looks like there is some restatement.

Is it because of ARC sale or there is something else also?

No, SMA-0 is largely unaffected with the ARC sale. There has been also a good improvement.

You are talking of the EEB segment?

Yes, sir. The EEB SMA-0, which is last time 4.9% as per third quarter presentation, seems to have changed a little bit.

Jai, overall, there is no change in the SMA-0, but yeah, on a state-wise there was some changes. Yes.

No, SMA-0 has declined. From Q2 it was 1,582 in the investor presentation.

I think you are referring to the previous investor deck to now, and I think as Vikash clarified, maybe for some of the states there is some reclassification, but the overall SMA-0 number is the same.

Yes. Sure.

Sir, now last three quarters, MFI slippages have been declining, and this quarter the disbursements have also picked up on QoQ YoY basis, both. What is your assessment?

Other banks have seen a material improvement in the reported asset quality. What would be your assessment in the near term or maybe one or two quarters on EEB asset quality?

There we are finding lot many positive trends in the EEB segment. Our disbursements are going up, as has been presented by Rajeev, we have seen that QoQ also disbursements have gone up.

Number two is that the slippages are also coming down. Going forward, we are expecting that this will further improve, because when we look at the vintage book and the delinquency book in terms of the vintage, we find that almost last one year, the slippages has been very, very low.

If that trend continues and then we will have a much, much better and healthier book in this segment in the coming quarters. One second, Ratan this side.

We've also got a better 99.6% regular collection in the last two months. We are seeing a lot of green shoots in the last two months.

Right. X-bucket collection efficiency is now 99.6%, right?

Is that you meant, Ratan?

Yes, yes. In November and December month, we witnessed 99.6%.

That's X-bucket. X-bucket.

It has substantially improved from October.

Yes. Correct.

Okay. Sir, any comment on the credit cost?

How should we build the credit cost? Right now it is a bit elevated.

You have done the ARC transaction also and have kept little impact on the PCR, but how should one look at credit cost going ahead?

While the guidance is difficult to give at this stage, but we can say that it would substantially improve. Even in Q4 also we are expecting an improvement, because the loan loss provisioning we are expecting much lower than what we have done this time.

With the trend that what EEB is showing and the performance of the businesses like in wholesale banking, we have almost very low amount of slippages, and the retail also for that day. If we are able to contain, I can say that the credit cost would improve.

Our guidance factor is at the end of FY27. We are still hopeful that we will probably be achieving it by the end of FY27.

Jai, we had given a guidance of 1.6 to 1.7% as at the end of FY27, we are moving steadily towards that particular guidance. Right, 1.6-1.7 for overall and around 2.5% for EEB, right?

That was the guidance given. That is broadly more or less intact, right?

That's 1.6 to 1.7 overall and 2.5 to 3% for EEB. Okay.

Last question, sir, if I may ask, is the treatment of this ARC transaction. My understanding is, correct me if I'm wrong, that you had two tranches.

One is written-off portfolio, ₹3,700, you sold it for 330, 332, and you got, let's say, 62% you invested 62% in the SR portfolio, around ₹130 crore you got in cash, right? That is because it was written off, it has moved to other income.

It's ₹1 ₹126 crores, to be precise. Yeah.

Correct. Okay.

The transaction B, which was not written off, you received ₹300 crores. What happens to that ₹300 crores, ₹303 crores?

₹303 crores is just cash what we have received, and it has actually brought down our NPA figures. It was just appropriated against the outstanding, it has brought down our NPA figures.

The balance amount is in the SRs, where the ARC has taken a higher share at 53% and 47% is us.

Just to specify, I think ₹3,165 crores of NPA sale, we got a value of 18%, that amounts to a deal value of ₹570 crores. We got the cash from the ARC of ₹303 crores, which represents 53.25%, and our share, Bandhan Bank's share, was ₹266 crores, which is the 46.75%.

Correct. Sure.

Thank you, and all the very best. Thank you, Jai.

Thank you.

Hello.

Hi, Mahesh.

Hello.

Hi, sir. Congrats on the quarter.

Just before getting to my questions, can you just once again explain the ARC details? You got ₹570 crores from that sale, which is 18%.

Then the cash out of it, you said, was ₹303 crores, but then you said Bandhan Bank's share was 256.

Maybe I'll explain that, Piran. Rajeev here.

There were two pools that we had sold. One was the NPA pool, which amounted to ₹3,165 crores.

The value we got was 18%, which is ₹570 crores. The cash component of that was ₹303 crores, representing around 53%, paid by the ARC.

Bandhan Bank's investment was ₹266 crores, 2-6-6, representing around 47%.

The ₹256 crores is the SR that you got?

Yeah. ₹266 crores is in the SRs.

That's correct. Similarly, we had the second pool, which is the write-off pool of about ₹3,707 crores, which was sold to Phoenix.

For that, we got a deal value of about 9%. The deal value was ₹332 crores.

The cash that we received was ₹126 crores, representing around 38%. Our investment, which is Bandhan Bank's investment, was 62%, amounting to ₹206 crores.

Got it. That explains this ARC bit.

Just quickly on mortgages, for the last few quarters now growth has been slowing down, NPAs are going up, what are we doing to sort of reverse this?

The first thing what we have done and we are gradually on the process of stabilization, earlier, if you can look at it, it was onboarding, underwriting, and also the operations were done by the same person. This was, especially in the affordable segment, the risk was increasing.

We have changed the system. Now it is completely different sets of people doing the onboarding, and underwriting is independent, and then finally the operations, who just look into the entire thing before the disbursement of the loan.

This one effort, I would say that it will definitely improve the quality factors of the housing finance segment. This is number one.

Number two is that we are also streamlining our underwriting process, and soon we will be coming with the new business rules, and it will be more or less rules-driven rather than doing a lot many, I would say, on manual basis underwriting. A third is that the dependency on the personal, I would say, hearing for that year, that is also getting I would say that now we are more on the structured way of information trying to get the information rather than on personal data or personal hearing or more on the basis of their other salaried incomes backed by bank statements, backed by other I would say income tax returns, GST returns, etc.

That will definitely improve our quality. The fourth is that our continuous effort in increasing our share in the salaried segment.

If you can look at it, at present we are almost 46% in our salaried pool. Housing?

56%. We are at 56% in the housing pool in the salaried segment.

These are some of the steps taken. You see, a lot many of these NPAs are from the legacy books, no doubt for that day, where I think one more important thing what we have done it is that earlier, although we have acquired the Gruh Finance, we have not actually make a true merger in the sense that they were allowed to maintain their own process, procedures, and keep their identities in and the way what they have been doing before.

That major change has already taken place, as you have seen that 57 of the housing finance centers have now been completely converted into branches. This is one.

Number two, in the other centers also, we are gradually making them a banking unit so simply where they can do the normal banking activities, and a lot of churning among the staff between the Gruh Finance earlier staff and our new Bandhan Bank employee staff are also taking place. All these steps, we are quite hopeful that it will improve the quality of the advances in future.

Got it. Sir, but all these steps moving from a different process to now a different process, that would impact growth, but NPAs have just been going up every quarter.

See,

that is what I'm saying. This NPA mainly because of the underwriting issues also.

Earlier, the same person was doing the onboarding and underwriting. That has now be changed.

Obviously, once the new independent underwriter comes and assesses the thing, the quality improves.

Okay. Fair enough.

A second question, just on margins, how do we foresee margins for the next four quarters?

Difficult to comment at this stage, but definitely I can say some of the shoots are there. You see, the ARC sale what we have made and for which in order to maintain our provision coverage ratio, the PCR, we have to do a lot much of provisions, additional provisions, which almost net to net is almost ₹428 crores that has come during this quarter.

We don't expect such amount of large provisions definitely, so that we expect definitely our profitability will improve. Number two is the cost of funds, as we have been in NIMs.

The cost of funds, I just can say that it is steadily declining. In the coming quarter, what Rajeev has said that most of the fixed deposits would be coming mature, the old-time fixed deposit will be matured and they will be placed in the new interest rate bucket.

That will improve my cost of funds further, and consequently that NIM. NIM today is at 5.9%, which is definitely one of the best in the industry, but we hope that we will continue to maintain at this rate, 6% on for that day.

There are the slippages. If you just look at it, our operating expenses and also our other income for that day.

One is the scope definitely to increase our other income, where we are focusing. Operating expenses, we have been containing more or less at the same pace what we have been doing earlier.

A little bit definitely cost has enhanced in the field of technology, which is required. On the slippages front, for which we have to make a large amount of provisions, now the EEB segment is definitely giving some green shoots, which is happening.

Slippages will come down. We also expect slippages reducing from the housing loan segment.

The other two segments are quite okay. Considering this trend, while a number guidance cannot be given, but we are extremely hopeful that the coming quarters would be good for the bank.

I think just to add supplementing what Mr. Sengupta mentioned, on the net interest margin, look, last quarter, we did see the impact of the repo rate reduction, which impacted and reduced our net interest margin.

We have seen the trajectory reverse from 5.8% to 5.9% in this quarter, and that is a result of some of the cost of funds coming down. We expect this cost of funds improvement to continue over the next two to three quarters and the NIM trajectory to improve from So there are about four components.

One is the cost of funds, where we are confident because of the term deposits coming for renewal in Q4, as well as in Q1 and Q2, that we should see anywhere between a 35 basis points to a 50 basis points improvement in the NIMs because of this. At the same time, as you're aware, there has been a further repo rate reduction in December, which will come into effect from 1st of January, which will create an adverse impact of about 11 basis points on our net interest margins, because the repo rate affects about 45% of our advances portfolio.

Apart from these two, as the slippages we expect to come down, there should be lesser interest reversals, which will also benefit the margins. Fourthly, as we expect some further granularity of the deposits and CASA improvement, that could create an improvement.

All of these factors have led to the net interest margin definitely improving from the current levels. We are confident that in Q2 we saw a bottom of the NIMs, at least for this financial year, and therefore some further improvement should be expected from these levels.

Okay. Okay.

Just my last question is, what are the yields in our commercial banking and retail loan books? Have we hiked yields in microfinance like some of our competitors?

I think for our wholesale banking book, it's just a shade below 9% as the gross yields, and overall blended for the secured book would be somewhere around 10%, right, across the three portfolios. The total yield on advances is 13.50% for that.

The secured book is lower.

Secured and the EEB book continues to be at around 22% around for that day. So We have not increased the rates as of now for the EEB.

We are evaluating at this point in time.

Got it. Got it.

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

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, sir. Thank you for giving me an opportunity.

Before asking question, I would like to bring your attention to some figures. Post-IPO 2018, the bank has made provisions of more than ₹36,000 crore in provisions and contingencies, and against that, bank has recovered around ₹7,000-8,000-odd crores.

Credit cost has been elevated post-IPO more than 3%. My other friends have asked the question about NPAs and all, and you have answered categorically.

I want to be because shareholders have been continuous pain, and they have lost around 50% of their net worth, right? How do my only question is how the bank is going to have robust risk management system and getting back to its original to getting profitability so that shareholders could be rewarded?

Thank you.

Right. You see, definitely, there has been a dip in the value of the shareholders' fund, because you see there are two, three events you have to just look into it.

We evaluated from a microfinance institution, and when we went for the IPO, our main assets were microfinance. These microfinance were giving a very high returns, and at that time the delinquencies were also less.

Ultimately, what we realized is that this particular segment is vulnerable to many risks. One of them is definitely some climatic or something epidemic, as you have seen what has happened in Corona.

Almost 70% of our books were, as microfinance, went into stress. This was a learning lesson for the bank, and then we gradually thought that, yes, okay, we have to work as universal bank and cannot put all our eggs in one basket, and rather distribute it in a balanced way between the unsecured and the secured segment.

Now, this transition is going on that you need to appreciate. While making this transition, on the one hand, we need to provide for the slippages that has happened mostly in the microfinance segment, which apart from this Corona-related risk, there were other risks, like the political as some of the states we have witnessed.

Then there are other climatic risks also, but it is a common factor so far. Our corrective steps have been taken, as you have said, from the risk point of view, is that we are now distributing our assets and secularly growing our assets.

Microfinance segment at one point in this bank was more than 80%, has now come significantly to around 35%. The I think unsecured book is also 43%.

That is one risk-robust measures we have taken already. Number two is that current transition phase, we have already indicated to our investors right from when I took over the charge, that there will be a dip in profit and profitability, because as we go for a more secured book, definitely the returns will be less.

Nevertheless, this is wanted for a universal bank to create confidence among the depositors and to create confidence among the investors. Now, I can say that we have seen the bottom or the nadir in the month of September, when our profits went to a dip of ₹112 crore.

I can say that now going on forward with this balanced book of positions, along with the lot many risk mitigation measures that we have taken it, I can share that we are now having a wholesale banking group share of almost 31%, and in this segment, let me tell you, that almost 85% of the total corporate credits are A and above, A and above, and 25% are AA and above for that year. This is the quality we are bringing in the advance.

The return will take some time, again I'm telling you, that we are also concerned about the shareholders losing their wealth. Definitely I can say that we are taken steps to move on in the right trajectory.

Lot of initiatives we are taken right from in the digital front, we have shifted a lot from microfinance focus to more of a universal bank. We are gradually entering to other segments where the scope of other income will be there, and the profitability would also improve.

I would request you to just wait for a little bit more time. Definitely Bandhan Bank, we are all expecting, will give good returns.

Thank you very much, sir, and we expect that legacy or not legacy, because people move once their time is come or they got a better opportunity elsewhere. I think the NPA has been a constant tapping from where the water is leaking around the banking system.

I think the RBI and the bank itself are very cognizant of that, and they will take care of, because these NPA remain every month, every quarter there is a fresh slippage. I hope this will be contained.

Thank you very much, sir.

Absolutely. Absolutely, and that is why you see because we were piled up with so many of legacy NPAs that we took a decision to take a cleansing of the thing, and we have done the ARC sale.

It has definitely I can say that it has definitely dented to our profit. Today if I had not done with the NPA sale and have kept the NPA at around 5%, I probably could have given you a much better profit figure.

We have decided the other way, cleansing the books and maintaining a healthy book right now. Today's PCR, what one point just a quarter ago we were at 5%, 5.1%, and today we are at 3.3%.

Our aim is to maintain that. As you have rightly said, we have also said that we will definitely give our best to contain the slippages and prevent further NPAs, and definitely also improve the ratio further.

Thank you, sir. Thank you very much, sir.

Hi. Good evening, and thanks for the opportunity.

Sir, a couple of questions. One is on the collection efficiency.

If you look at we have reported marginal improvement across all the geographies, barring West Bengal, where it is a very minor uptick. If I correlate to the SMA-1, then that number has gone up sharply in West Bengal, from to 1.4%.

How do you look at the situation there? What percentage of the MFI book now is in Bengal?

Any procedural tightening or underwriting kind of changes we are doing in anticipation to the upcoming Bengal elections, if you can give some color around all this?

Let me address your underwriting changes. We are making a completely paradigm shift in our underwriting process.

The first is that we are moving from a localized-based understanding to a centralized-based understanding. We are putting business rules into our system so that hardly any discretion or discrimination is there in giving to borrowers the right amount and the right product for that day.

This will soon come. Also, we are revamping the entire thing of this family tree, double credits, and all these things.

All these things are taken care of. A lot of changes are going to happen in the underwriting segment in this EEB process for that.

The second part of your question, you're saying that I think your question was on the collection efficiency and the SMA-1,

right? SMA, yes.

I think, yeah, collection efficiency, we have seen an improvement.

Collection efficiency we have seen improvement everywhere, like I said. In the month of November, December, we clocked 99.6 on regular.

On the West Bengal side in particular, like I said, we have started in the last quarter of fall as well, holiday lead payment, and we have five holidays in the month of October, which led to an SMA-0 increase, regular OTR coming down from 99.5 to 99.1 for the month of October. Again, when there are no holidays in the month of November, December, our regular collection are coming at 99.5 plus.

That blip has only come primarily because of the number of holidays we had in the month of October. Otherwise, if you see, our SMA-1, 2 have been contained overall, and the only blip that came from West Bengal in terms of the holiday led payment.

No stress as such in terms of They are all green shoots on the overall collection efficiency across pan-India. I would just reiterate.

We have also explained earlier also that even one year back, we were not raising any demand on holidays. This was in violation of the RBI's IRAC norms, accounting principles.

That we have amended, and now even if it is a holiday, we raise demand. There are no persons in the field to collect that amount.

Obviously, it falls into the bucket of SMA-0, and if something is residing in SMA-0 falls into the bucket of SMA-1. If you can look in the current month also, from tomorrow, 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th, there will be continuous four days holidays.

In this four days, demands will be raised, but people will not be available to collect the funds. Obviously, my DPD book will go up.

I can say that West Bengal is one of the best states in terms of performance. We also classify our all DUs, the microfinance branches, into four categories, and only two branches are comes under the underperformer for that day, rest all are doing well.

It is one of the still I would say West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, these are the some of the states which are doing extremely good in terms of collection. We have seen in Bihar during the election period also, my collection efficiency was almost at the same level.

Also, Nitin, one more point to add is that since we have done the ARC sale, the denominator has also come down. Therefore, if you look at from an amount perspective, I think the SMA-1 and 2 are at similar levels, but the percentages could be looking like going up slightly more.

Okay. Sure.

What West Bengal now is what proportion of total MFI?

42%. 42%.

Huh, 42. 42%.

Okay.

Sir, the other question that I have is around the employee intensity. If I look since March '24, the MFI portfolio has come down by 20%, but our total employee count remains around a very moves in a very narrow range.

Should it not come down in context to how the MFI business has come down in terms of the portfolio mix and in absolute quantum? Can this be a lever that you can use to control cost, because cost ratios are only inching up every year?

I do agree what you have said is also what we have made an internal deliberations and also is that it's okay, but the question is that, you see, it has come down today, but we are still optimistic that it will go up. Suddenly, we can't take hard measures just showing pink slips and asking that employees to just leave for that day, because it will create also a very that this particular segment, the people often hovers around the various MFIs and the various NBFCs who are in this microfinance lending.

For them, it would not matter that much, but it would matter a lot for us. That is one thing.

Number two, we have already done some rationalization by putting lot many of our business, I would say that what we called as the ROs, that who are just for responsible for booking business, we have placed them in the collection zone. We are strengthening our collection and done some bit of restructuring of our employees.

In addition, if I would just supplement the answer. See, overall our book size, if I include the NPA write-off, which we also keep on collecting and the numbers keep on adding up to our financials, that number remains larger than what it was maybe a year back also.

We are still collecting on NPA and our rate of recoveries are going higher each quarter. Overall, if I see a book right from 0 to NPA plus up to write-off, that number has been growing.

If you consider all of that, we are very closely tracking our employee productivity. The efficiency, productivity is at track, and that has shown an upside in the last two quarters rather than compared to what it is, because overall the disbursements are coming up now in the last quarter, as well as our collection efficiency is also improved.

Right, and I think within the overall headcount, we've also made sure that we invest in talent for the secured business, which is going very fast. While you will see efficiencies in the EEB segment, we have actually seen an increase in the secured to make sure that the accelerated growth happens there.

Got it. Sir, last question is on the

Sure. Thank you so much.

Hey, hi. I just had one question.

This pertains to the exits that one is seeing on the ground at your bank. You've seen a few exits at the vigilance levels and the audit executive.

If you could just kind of give us a clarity as to what's happening there?

Let me tell you there is no other issues. Definitely, as you know that we are still being very closely watched by the regulator.

There is no other issue, nothing for that day. It was absolutely because of his family residing in Bombay, and also he has got some other more, I would say, compulsions for that day.

He came up very clearly to me and stated that in normal circumstances, actually he would not have opted for this resignation, but actual circumstances in his personal life has almost forced him to take this decision. There is no issue with the management, no issue with the regulator, I can say that there's nothing as such that has come for that day.

Just because of his personal requirements, he has took this step. Sir, just one, is the team well-settled now or is there a risk of any further exits at your end, because we had one with No, housing to it was, as I have told you, that it was more or less a given decision.

That is completely different. As of now, we have no indication of any senior executives leaving us.

More or less, the team is stable. As you know that this market is open to all.

Anyone getting a very good opportunity and for that day, we have to live up with it. It happens in all banks.

Perfect. Sir.

Thank you.

Obviously, we have to maintain a certain level of PCR. This is one.

Our PCR along with this SR where we have invested is around 74%. As per our IRAC norms, we require a much lesser provision.

Ours and standard book we have provided almost 62%, whereas the IRAC norms says 25% maximum for unsecured, 15% for the secured. Our D1 book also we have provided almost 78%, and D2 onwards, almost 100%.

Our provisions is much more accelerated than what we are required. In addition, we have provided for the standard assets at 1% of our EEB book.

Definitely this ARC sale has almost to the close of ₹528 crores of provisions were required to And I think that's a I think just to supplement, with the ARC sale, the PCR would have come somewhere between 50% to 55%, and therefore, we have taken additional provision to make sure that we maintain the PCR at a healthy level and do not have a higher open risk, right? Our net NPAs are at 1%, which is even below the last quarter of 1.4%.

Okay. Broader related question.

In the NPA sale, what would have been the coverage for this NPA which was sold? Can you disclose that?

Earlier, before this

100%. This was 100% provided what we have sold.

As a 100% provided portfolio gets sold off, the PCR would naturally come down, right? Therefore, we have Your provisions book also gets depleted, so that's why.

Understood. Thanks, sir.

Okay.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Anand Dama from Emkay Global.

Please go ahead.

Sir, thank you for the opportunity. Sir, the labor code impact that we have given is about ₹120 crores, mainly towards gratuity.

Is there any more provision to be made towards leave encashment or pension or provident fund, which possibly would come in fourth quarter? If yes, if you can quantify that.

I can answer that. Rajeev here.

We have assessed. Our leave encashment is already structured in a way which does not require a further provision to be done.

Therefore, based on the current law that came through, I think gratuity provision was the key one that we had to assess. Based on the actuarial valuation, we've taken a ₹120 crores impact on the financials.

Yes, whilst the law has come, I think there are certain rules which have yet to be announced by various states, etc. We are awaiting those to come through.

As they come through, we'll do a further assessment of any further items which could be having implications, and then accordingly come back to the investors.

Okay. Any ballpark impact that you feel that could be there?

As of now, we can't quantify, because the rules are not out, right? We don't know.

Sure. Sir, recently we saw in some of the banks there was RBI supervision, and there they had qualification related to their PSL classification.

Many years back, even Bandhan had similar incidents. How about this year, whether the RBI supervision has been completed?

Are there any qualification or we have got a clean report on the PSL front?

This year this year, the RBI supervision has been completed. We don't have any, I would say, any remarkable qualification, because we are very prudent in classifying the PSL and taking steps.

Nothing material I I would say has been pointed out. As of now, there's been no divergence on the PSL that RBI has found out.

Sure, so that's great. Sir, if you can just give the credit cost guidance for FY26 and FY27?

The guidance that we have given is for the exit of FY27, where we have said that the credit cost we expect to reach around 1.6 to 1.7%. That is the target for the last quarter of FY27.

We are not providing any guidance for the financial year '26 or financial year '27.

Okay. That's very helpful, sir.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you.

Hi. Am I audible?

Hi. You're audible.

Hey, hi. Thank you for the opportunity.

I wanted to ask, you mentioned a few levers that would lead to margin improvement going ahead. Are we factoring in, given that the mix change that we have, the growth has been largely led by our lower-yielding wholesale book, has that been considered?

Should we see MFI growing in line with the overall loan book growth?

Now we have come to a very balanced position, I can say. This, in fact, we were thinking to achieve at the end of FY27, but, in fact, we have pre-achieved it.

We have accelerated. The mix is now absolutely balanced, and we would prefer that we would continue with the same ratio.

This much I can say for the day. There will be a growth.

In fact, in this quarter also, if you take away the ARC sale effect, the EEB book has grown by ₹1,100 crores. It is almost 2% QoQ, and that trend is continuing, and this quarter also you will see a growth.

Today this balance we want to maintain. So 35% almost 40% will be unsecured and 60% will be secured.

This is what the balance what we are planning it.

I think just to supplement, right now, the non-EEB book growth is around 25%, and the EEB as of now is a negative 10%.

Of course, as MD sir mentioned, we are dialing up the growth in EEB, but this will take a bit of transition time so that we are able to reach a higher level of growth. We are expecting sequential improvement every quarter.

Okay. The proportion of EEB will come down, right, for at least next few quarters?

More or less on the same line, it will not be very substantial. The pace of change in secured mix will be lower than what we have seen so far.

Sure. The second question is on the deposit growth front.

How do we see the landscape evolving? Now should we see deposit growth pick up for you in coming quarters, and what would be a loan growth guidance against that?

Let me tell you one thing, if you look at our balance sheets, we have been a quite an outlier in giving interest rates in respect of our deposits on the banking segment. In many of the buckets, we were almost 100, 150 basis points higher.

That was giving a negative impact to our balance sheet and the profit and loss, and specially when we were making a transition towards the more secured books. The moderation was necessary, and we have moderated the rates.

My first plus point is that my retail deposits are growing. At one point of time, a year back it was 60 66, 67%, and now it is 72%.

This is the first thing. Number two is that we are able to cut down the bulk deposits, which were very costlier.

The bulk deposits which was around 45, 47, 48% even a year ago, I can say, is now at 38%. A substantial reduction has been made.

The third is that my CA is growing, although of course not a very quantum term for that day, but definitely average CA this quarter also have been growing for that day. My only worry is now in the SA segment, definitely where we have lost ₹4,000 crores during the quarter.

That is also again because of our high interest rate, lot of institutions used to keep savings bank deposits with us for that day. With the moderation of the rates, we have lost those chunky deposits of around ₹18,000 crores.

A large extent of this has been replenished by my retail core deposits for that day, and that is to the around ₹14,000 crores. While still maybe we are a deficit in CASA by what we have been there a year back, we were around 31%, our effort is that we should soon reach that number, 31%.

We are working on that. That's why lot many products we are bringing.

We are also revamping our retail internet banking. You will soon find a completely revamped mobile banking for Bandhan Bank, and that app, I hope you will like it if you are a customer of our bank.

It will very seamless. We have already done it for our corporate internet banking customers, who have appreciated the steps that we have taken.

A lot many other initiatives also in the digital field, and also in the other journeys, customer journey fields, we are taking it. I can tell you that today even we have done a lot of customer security for that day.

We are receiving appreciation letters from various state governments, central government, including the Ministry of Home Affairs regarding containing our mule accounts, regarding taking absolute protection for the cyber securities. Lot much many customer confidences we are trying to give in for that day so that Bandhan can be the prime savings and account for our customers, and we are working on it.

Maybe one, two quarters are needed, but definitely we will be achieving that. That's our target.

Also, I think just to reiterate, our overall guidance that we've given is a 15 to 7 15% to 17% CAGR on advances, and deposit growth to be higher than that. This is over the next two to three years.

From the current levels, we will be working towards meeting those guidance levels.

Sure. Thank you.

Hi, sir. Thanks for the opportunity.

Sir, in the opening remarks, you mentioned that you have done some product tweaks. Now the collection has been bi-monthly and even monthly, and if I heard correctly, you have elongated the product repayment lifetime also.

Can you please elaborate, sir, and the having the option of monthly, bi-monthly, weekly, is it specific to certain states or within the same state people may have different choice, and could it not create further confusion or how do you think about it?

We have now started from this month itself, and we started doing the pilot from December month, fortnightly and monthly repayment for EEB loans, primarily for group loans. Individual loans of SBL, we always had monthly repayments.

Because of holiday and flexible repayment given to all our customers, we say that let's move towards fortnightly, like many of the other financiers are. There are the advantage to move towards fortnightly simply because the customers also like flexible repayment mechanism at their end, and secondly also it takes care of the holiday repayments.

These are the two things we started from the month of January, and this will also keep us in good stead in terms of our collection efficiency going forward.

Sure. Customer, there is no longer any weekly repayment, right?

It is either fortnightly or monthly?

No, it could be weekly as well. The choice is given to the customer to continue with the weekly, and in a homogeneous group, we also look at moving customers from a weekly to fortnightly at the time of renewal.

Slowly over a period of time, the shift will move from weekly to fortnightly for many of our customers. This whole transition of movement may take more than a year also, but the journey has started now.

With weekly, homogeneous groups will typically move from a weekly to fortnightly at the time of renewal.

Okay. What about the elongation?

We have now introduced many more, I would say, digital collection systems. The first of all, the QR code has been given to the customers, number one.

Number two, we have introduced also the Bharat Bill Payment System, through which the customers can also pay. We have introduced the YMO collection system, by which these are getting tracked also.

There are several measures taken by which the customers need not come to the banking units also, and now nor it is required for my people also going to the customer. Even a soft call will actually ensure recovery also for that day.

Based on that, and also to increase the productivity of our people, because now what is happening, every week if a person goes to visit a particular customer for that day, it is taking lot of his executive time, which probably not required if the collection efficiency is there, and now today with the CIBIL score coming, with the customer fundness going up, repayments are natural also in many ways. That is why we thought that to increase the productivity and to give more time to our people to focus on delinquent accounts, on the SMA accounts for recovery and all these things, this step has been taken.

We have already started this project from January onwards, but definitely it will take a year-long time, because, say, till November onwards all loans were in the weekly panels. Unless those are repaid or phased out for the day, it will take.

Over a period of time, definitely it will increase the productivity, and it will also increase the quality.

In addition to that, Rajinder Babbar here. It is related to the previous question where there was a question there's a 20% reduction in the book size, but the manpower reduction is 10%.

We are overall looking at that. In the EEB, that minimum a staff has to handle a particular number of accounts.

Now in our case, he's visiting on a weekly basis. In other NBFCs, basically on a monthly basis.

Definitely our staff is moving four times in the market. That is the ultimate purpose, how we can increase the productivity, reduce the cost.

We are slowly, slowly shifting to the 15 days. Automatically, the number of account handled by this staff will be scattered in a normal manner.

That is the ultimate purpose, to achieve the maximum productivity. During this transition also, we'll make sure that the focus on having center meeting discipline continues.

Center meeting discipline. There nothing changes on that piece.

Even with the QR code digital payment coming in, the center meeting discipline remains the core of our business, simply because even if the payment is made, we are asking all our customers to come in, and the group discipline continues.

Right. Anything on the elongation of the tenure?

In the opening remarks, I think I heard something on that effect.

We had tenures of 12 and 24 months. Now we are offering them flexible tenure extensions of 18, and it goes up to 36 months as well for the highest ticket size.

Typically we move from a 12 to an 18 months, and it's all based on the ticket size That does not put much pressure on the customer. Suppose we shift from a weekly basis to a fortnightly basis, automatically the repayment schedule is doubled for that day.

That may put a pressure, so that's why we have elongated a little bit 18 months, will not put much pressure on the customer in making the repayments. Right.

Now 12 months become 18 months, and 24 months at the option of the customer can become 36 months. 12 months 12 months, 18 months, 24, 36 months are the options.

All options are there depending on the ticket size. The options are given to the customer.

Similarly, the weekly payment, the fortnightly payment option. Right.

Similarly, the weekly and the fortnightly payment option. Right.

Hopefully it will help smoothen at least the repayment capability. Okay.

Lastly, sir, there were news reports of West Bengal getting into elections, some immigrants getting a bit of disturbance in terms of I can give one simple statistics. The districts where these have been reported, our collection efficiency has not been affected.

We are still doing more than 99% collection in those areas on regular loans. We keep a close watch on a daily basis on that.

We keep a close watch, it has not yet affected in any way. News we also come and read in the newspapers, but no way affected.

Great, sir. Thank you, and all the very best.

Thank you. Thank you.

Like to thank all the investors and everyone who has joined on the call. Thank you for continuing to repose your trust with the bank.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you.

On behalf of Bandhan Bank Limited, that concludes this conference call. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.