Swapna Bhandarkar
Swapna Bhandarkar (Head of Marketing and Communications and Corporate Access, Investec Capital Services): Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to this call.
I'm Swapna from Investec, handing over to give a brief introduction about the call and the management to my colleague Nidesh Jain, who is the analyst VFSI. Thank you, everyone.
Nidesh Jain
Thank you, Swapna. Good afternoon, everyone.
Welcome to the Q3 FY26 earnings conference call of Can Fin Homes Limited, hosted by Investec Capital. We will start the call with management commentary, followed by a Q&A session to discuss the financial performance of Can Fin Homes and to address your queries.
We have with us Mr. Suresh Iyer, MD and CEO, Mr.
Vikram Saha, Deputy MD, Mr. Prakash, President, Mr.
Abhishek Mishra, CFO of Can Fin Homes Limited. I would now like to hand over the call to Mr.
Suresh Iyer for his opening comments. Over to you, sir.
Suresh Iyer
Good afternoon, and thank you, Swapna and Nidesh for the introduction. Welcome all of you to this earnings call for Q3 results of Can Fin Homes Limited.
A very happy New Year to all of you. Just to give a brief about the performance of the company, the disbursements, I'll start with the disbursements.
The disbursements in the third quarter have been 2,727 plus crores, which is the highest ever for any quarter in the history of the company. Therefore, in this particular year, in the first quarter also, the 2,000-plus figure was the highest for the first quarter in any of the years.
Same way for Q2, we crossed 2,500, which again was a record for any of the quarters. This third quarter also, in a similar manner, we have been able to have a disbursement of 2,727 crores.
That is a 45% increase over corresponding quarter of last year. Basically, it's a base effect because in the last year, in the third quarter, we had an impact of the e-Khata, which was announced on 27-28th of September 24.
Therefore, the Q3, there was a major dip. To a large extent, it is also a base effect.
However, compared to the Q2 also, we have had a sequential growth of about 7% in disbursements. As a result of this, the AUM growth has inched up from 8.4% to 9.5% plus.
Effectively, about 10% kind of AUM growth is there for the year. However, AUM growth has been slightly impacted because of the higher prepayments.
In Q2 also, we had witnessed a slightly higher prepayments of 1,661 crores as against 1,459 crores in Q1. In Q3 also, this trend has slightly continued and prepayments and loan closures have been at a slightly elevated level at 1,691 crores.
Therefore, this has slightly impacted about 400-odd crores. In the second and third quarter, we have lost because of prepayments, which has impacted our AUM growth.
In terms of the delinquency, for the fourth quarter in a row, we have had an improvement in our delinquency numbers, where in absolute value, the SMA numbers have come down. Last quarter, when we had reported our Q2 earnings numbers, our total delinquency was 3,860-odd crores.
We had said we would like to make it to bring it down to below 3,750, which has also happened. We've had more than that.
In fact, our delinquency numbers have come below that, mainly in the SMA zero. We've also started seeing some benefits coming in because of our lower SMA zero numbers.
We have also been able to focus more on SMA one and two, and there also the numbers have started coming down. Though the delinquency has come down and NPA has been almost the same as Q2, but our provision has been about 10 crores for this quarter, mainly because of the increase in our book size.
Otherwise there is no other concern. The highlight here that I want to mention about the recovery is that the last couple of quarters we have been talking about a little bit of stress in the Telangana portfolio, where because of our actions on the DSAs, some past issues, and also because of the HYDRA and all, the delinquencies had been affected.
In Q3, we have seen an improvement in our delinquency in Telangana as well, and there also for the first time almost after about six to seven quarters, we have seen that the delinquencies have started coming down. That's a positive number.
That's a positive thing, that across our geographies, in all of our zones, we are seeing some improvement in our delinquency numbers. In fact, going back to the disbursement number, in fact our Karnataka disbursements last quarter was negative 10% YTD, which this quarter we have done a run rate of about 250 crores per month in Karnataka, now we are back to kind of a 250-plus kind of numbers.
For the third quarter, we have done 740 crores disbursements, 740-plus crores has happened from Karnataka, because of which now YTD Karnataka has also moved into the positive zone. It is 3% positive YTD.
As far as the other zone, which was in negative, which is Telangana, there also, in fact across the third quarter, in all the three months, we have had a positive number of 100 crore-plus. Telangana, compared to Q3 of last year, there has been almost 30% plus growth in Q3 this year, because of which we have been able to considerably bring down the negative figure of Telangana, and at this rate we are quite positive.
By end of the year, even Telangana will end in a positive zone in terms of YTD disbursements. Third, as regards the spread, we have had a further advantage, which we had last in the last earnings call indicated regarding a particular large-value loan, where the rate benefit of 50 bps was yet to be passed on.
We have received that, as a result of which we decided to pass on a 10 bps benefit to our existing and new customers, housing loan customers, from 1st of December. Subsequently, 5th of December, again there was another repo rate cut.
We further analyzed and from 1st of January, we have decided to pass on a further 15 basis points rate benefit to our existing and new housing loan customers. With this January impact, our total rate benefit that we have passed on to our customers would be 50 basis points, 10 basis points in May, another 15 in July, then 10 from 1st of December, and 15 from 1st of January.
Totally against the 125 basis points repo rate cut that the RBI has announced, the transmission in our books has been about 50 basis points, and entirely we are passing on to our customers. However, there is a benefit that still continues to accrue to us because we still have about 54% of our loans, which are on annual reset.
While we have announced the rate benefit, the actual pass on will happen to those customers as and when the reset dates come. As indicated last quarter, where our annual reset was 59%, this time it has come down to 54%.
We have made some aggressive actions and given time for them of 60 days to submit the documents and are aggressively following up. Hopefully by end of this quarter, Q4, we might end with somewhere around 80-85% of our loans should move to quarterly reset.
This will help us in case of a rate reversal, if the interest rate starts moving up, then the transmission on the asset side will also match with the transmission on the increase on the liability side. That's the plan.
We plan to aggressively move it to our quarterly reset. As I mentioned, because of this slight lag, that we have still experienced a slight increase in our NIMs and spread.
For the quarter, the NIMs have moved to 4.14 from 4.02 last quarter. Obviously it is a timing difference because while we got the rate benefit in mid of end of October, but we decided to give that 10 basis points from 1st of December.
That was a slight benefit that we got. Going forward, now that, with the additional 15 basis points, we expect that the rate would, the, spread would kind of stabilize around this number of about 3.75 to 3.80 in terms of NIM and spread around 2.75 to 2.80.
That would be where it will stabilize because on the liability side, while we have passed on 15 basis on the asset side, on the liability side we still have to receive some benefit on the NHB portfolio, and we still have an additional 1,000 crore of NHB refinance which we are holding. This is in terms of the spread and the NIMs.
Going forward, in terms of disbursement, we anticipate or we are hopeful that we should be able to do about 3,200 to 3,300 crores of disbursements in Q4, in line with our H2 numbers, 45% in H1 and 55% in H2. That should take us to our guidance number of 10,500 crore disbursement for the entire year, which we are positive we should be able to maintain, we will be able to do.
In terms of our delinquency, we further expect a little improvement in our SMA1, SMA2 numbers. Obviously in Q4 usually there is a reduction in our NPA also.
Last year it was a little less, but normally in Q4 we do see some good amount of reduction in our NPA. Therefore, in credit cost wise, we don't expect any further NPA provision in Q4.
There is a very likely reversal which might happen because of the reduction in NPA, but definitely no increase in NPA because we don't see that kind of stress in any of the geographies or in any of the segments. That's as regards this.
The last point is as regards our IT transformation, that is also a major impact. You would have seen from the presentation that during this Q3 we have also added some more elements which we have completed and implemented and which have gone live, mainly the HRMS, the DMS, and the Aadhaar data vault, deposit, which is almost on the verge of completion.
The testing is almost, UAT testing is almost done. It is expected that by end of this month it will also go live.
That leaves only the LOS, LMS, where the deadline was January, and 19th of January was what has been given by our partner. There are some delays in the deadline.
I expect that it might end up around February end or something, in which case we are inclined to actually push it into Q4, Q1 of next year. Q4 there will be no impact of the IT transformation, which is why we feel that 3,200-3,300 crores is a very much achievable number in terms of disbursement.
In a nutshell, I think for the quarter, in terms of disbursement, in terms of delinquency, and also spread and this thing, it has been a very satisfying, I would say, quarter. Going forward also we are positive that we should be able to achieve the guided number of 10,500 crore for disbursement, and Q4 we can expect some more improvement in our delinquency.
With the spreads and NIMs being maintained, I think Q4 also would be a positive quarter for us. That's in a nutshell, the brief of the performance.
We can open to all of you for questions. Thank you.
Swapna Bhandarkar (Head of Marketing and Communications and Corporate Access, Investec Capital Services):
Swapna Bhandarkar
Thank you, thank you very much, sir. I would request all the participants, please just take a minute before everybody raises their hand.
Just a reminder, this call is being recorded, and if any of you have any questions, do raise your virtual hand and I will unmute you. In the interest of time, I will request everybody to keep your questions limited to one or two questions and we'll come back to you in the queue.
Also another request is please state your name and the organization that you are working for. Thank you very much.
Nidesh, would you like to go ahead with any questions on your side?
Nidesh Jain
Sure. Perhaps we can start with the Q&A.
I think I'm seeing questions there. Shreepal, you can go ahead with the question.
We will unmute you. Please introduce yourself and ask your question.
Swapna Bhandarkar
Swapna Bhandarkar (Head of Marketing and Communications and Corporate Access, Investec Capital Services): You can.
Shreepal Doshi
Hi sir, Shreepal this side from Equirus. My question was pertaining to the lending rate.
We've taken another 15 basis point in Jan. Cumulatively we have had 50 basis points.
Are we seeing other peers also in the landscape following the similar trajectory on the lending rates or are we early in this because we are seeing some prepayment related issues.
Suresh Iyer
Thanks, Shreepal. See basically we have passed on because, we have experienced that kind of a benefit.
I am not sure how much of a benefit the others have experienced on their liability side. As we have moved all our bank borrowings to repo linked borrowings.
Therefore in our case, all the loans we have experienced a benefit or a pass on of the 125 basis points. Except for that one which is linked to TBill.
In our case, of course, there is a bit of a prepayment pressure, but more than that it is just that, even after passing on 50 basis points, I think our spread, which was around 2.55 at the beginning of the year, has already moved to 2.89 for the nine months ended December. In spite of passing on, we have actually had some benefit in the rates, mainly the timing impact, but it's also because, we already have experienced it, we have passed on to our customers.
Shreepal Doshi
Right, sir. I think in 3Q also you had highlighted that we might play this pricing strategy related tweak so that we can gain momentum in the market in terms of, let's say, growth being better than what we saw in the earlier quarters.
Is it in the same direction that we are sort of moving in?
Suresh Iyer
Yeah. In Q2, the earnings call, we had said that there is one large 2,500-3,000 crore of term loan where we are yet to receive that 50 bps rate benefit.
Once it comes, there is definitely a scope to pass on 10 basis points to the customers. That happened at the end of October or thereabouts.
Basically we were in a position to take it in the November ALCO and pass it on from 1st of December. That's what we did.
Same, this time we did not have that problem. We had the benefit of the 25 basis points coming through quickly.
From 1st of January we have done that. Of course there is a bit of a pressure, which is quite evident in the loan closures and BT out and everything.
Obviously, this would help. Obviously, as stated last quarter, we would still want to at least maintain our spread and we will not compromise on the spread and NIMs below this.
That's the strategy at least.
Shreepal Doshi
Right. The second question was on the NHB funding side.
That, of course, had been falling because I think the rates there were not so lucrative. Incrementally, are you seeing what is the kind of rate that you are seeing being offered by the NHB borrowing?
Suresh Iyer
You are talking about NHB borrowing? NHB, our blended rate that we are getting at which we are getting the refinance is 6.3.
It is very comfortable. Why we did not pick up the entire 1,000 or 500 crores is because first of all, of course, there was, we don't maintain any treasury book where we can keep the surplus funds.
Whatever funds we are raising, we are utilizing it for either prepayment of borrowings or for lending for loans. In this case, the other thing was that first of all we required less amount of funds.
Second thing is that, we had other committed lines of disbursement from banks. We still hold close to 4,000 crores of undisbursed unutilized bank sanction limits.
That is still there. The other thing is that, in Q4 normally the rates are at an elevated level.
Basically, the other thing, our thought process was that if we can, take 1,000 crore and keep it for Q4, then it will help us in meeting our entire requirement, and we will not be compelled to go to the market and raise at a higher cost. As a pricing strategy also, we decided to postpone, take that 1,000 crore in Q4, and this quarter we'll definitely be availing the full 1,000 crore of the sanction.
That should also help us.
Shreepal Doshi
Got it, sir. Thank you so much for answering my questions.
I'll come in the Q4.
Nidesh Jain
The next question is from Sonal. Please ask your question.
Please introduce yourself and ask your question.
Sonal Minhas
Hi, sir. This is Sonal Minhas from Prescient Capital.
Thanks for taking my question. I hope I'm audible.
Nidesh Jain
Yeah. Sure.
Sonal Minhas
Thank you, sir. I was just trying to extrapolate the numbers for the year, and it looks like the year-end book growth would be close to 10-11-ish thereabouts as we close the year.
I understand you'd given a guidance around 15% a little while back, looking for the next year, basically, given that the software stack will be done by Q4 and the tech platform would be ready, would the other systems. Are we equipped to actually have a higher growth, or closer to your longer-term average growth for FY27-28?
That's my first question.
Suresh Iyer
Sure. See, you are right.
We may not be 10%. It will definitely be higher than that.
As I mentioned earlier, we are looking at around 3,100 to 3,300 crore of disbursement in this quarter. Frankly speaking, we had in the beginning of the year, if you see our data, in the previous year, our normal prepayments every quarter, closures and everything put together, amortization and everything, was around 1,380-1,350 to 1,380 crore every quarter.
We had actually planned keeping in mind 1,400 to 1,450, quarter-wise we had planned it. The last two quarters our prepayments have been higher, about 400 crore worth of AUM growth has been impacted.
Had this been at the rate at which we had anticipated, we would probably have been around, 41,100 to 41,200 kind of a range in terms of our AUM by the end of this quarter. Yes, about 400 crores has been impacted because of the higher prepayments.
In Q4 also, if 3,200 crore disbursements, assuming the same level of 1,700, we expect about 1,500 is the net addition to the book. We should end somewhere around 42,000-plus kind of a thing for our...
That will be around 11% to between 11 and 12% is what we anticipate in terms of our AUM growth, which is yes lower. We had indicated that 12 to 13%, or somewhere in that range between 12 and 13, is where we will end up for this year.
Next year onwards we had projected for 15%, not this year. We will be probably around, anywhere up to because 400 crores we have lost, that is about one percentage point in terms of because we were 38,200 crores at the beginning of the year.
So 400 crores is 1% we have lost because of the higher prepayments in terms of our AUM growth. That is correct.
Next year we are looking at about 13,500 crores, and considering 1,700 crores every quarter as the prepayments, or thereabouts, 13,500 crore and 7,000 crore prepayment amortization BT outs should give us around 6,500 crore of addition to the book. That is what is the plan for next financial year, which should be around close to 15%, assuming we end at 42,000 crore this year.
Sonal Minhas
Got it, sir. Sir, follow-up question just to understand the nuance of how the BT out and the prepayment works, and this is a theoretical scenario, just trying to understand that if we would have reduced the rates, let's say maybe passed on more rate cuts to the customers, would the BT outs been lower, and whom have we lost these customers to?
Are these banks? Are these peers who are more aggressive?
Just trying to understand the on-the-ground dynamics.
Suresh Iyer
Sure. I think it's a very valid point.
Unfortunately, what has happened in our case is we have about 54% still of loans which are on an annual reset basis. While the rates...
so it helps us in terms of getting, lag, it helps us in terms of improving our NIMs and spreads. What has happened is the annual reset customers are the ones where the prepayments have been very high.
The quarterly reset customers have been very, although they constitute about 46% of the book, but, the prepayments, if you look at it, less than 20% of the prepayments are happening in the quarterly reset book. Basically, it is our failure to communicate to the customers, or to convert them, or the delay in converting them into from annual reset to quarterly reset, which has hurt us, I believe.
Because, if it was, because at least when our customers do appreciate that we have passed on 50 basis points, and we have regularly— this is the fourth rate cut that we are passing on to our customers. What has happened is the annual customers don't get the entire benefit; they have to wait for that one-year period, and we have, I believe, not pushed it.
We should have done it much faster. That is, I believe, the main reason why the prepayments are happening.
Having said that, prepayments are mainly for two: one, obviously, is the rate point, which we could have handled this way. The second point, of course, is that there are also customers who go for takeover plus top-up, and many times we are not in a position to offer them the same level of top-ups that they are able to get from the market.
Those kind of cases we have to let go. Those are, conscious calls.
On the rate side, if we had communicated better, probably we would have been able to save some of the portfolio from moving out.
Sonal Minhas
Got it, sir. Thanks for explaining.
I'll fall back into you. Thank you.
Shreepal Doshi
Thank you.
Nidesh Jain
The next question is from Shreyans. Please unmute yourself, introduce yourself and ask your question.
Hello, Shreyans? Swapna Bhandarkar (Head of Marketing and Communications and Corporate Access, Investec Capital Services):
Swapna Bhandarkar
Shreyans, if you're unable to... Hello?
Yeah. Hi.
This is Shreyans Guttani from SG Securities. I had a couple of questions.
One was basically looking at a long-term trend, in terms of the borrower mix. We've seen structural increase in the self-employed non-professional category.
Where do we... I don't know if this is a function of us moving out of South India, or, as Northern India, there's just more of that population, or are we looking to increase that, and where do we see this stabilizing as a mix of our book?
Suresh Iyer
It's not a function of the geography change in geography. In fact, if you see one of the slides, we have mentioned the four pillars of our Vision 2028 document, where we have said one of the things is we would like to increase our SENP book.
We were almost at 73-27. 73% was salaried and 27% was self-employed.
By FY28, we have indicated that we would like to, we are okay to take it up to 65-35. That is the thing where we have now, from a 73-27, we have moved to 69-31.
By FY28, we are okay to move it to 65-35. It's more of a conscious call.
As far as geography is concerned, actually, if you look at it, our salaried percentage is highest in the North. Among all the six zones that we have, our North zone has the highest percentage of salaried segment.
It is not that the non-South geographies have a higher self-employed segment. Yes, within geographies also there are pockets where self-employed is more, if you look at, say, if you look at Rajasthan, or maybe if you look at parts of Tamil Nadu, mainly the Tirupur side and all, yeah, there are.
It has nothing to do with the geography, but consciously we have taken a call to slightly increase our self-employed so that we can have a slight improvement in our spread, which is visible also. Because while the rates have been coming down, we have been passing on the rates.
If you see, our yield has been somewhat kind of maintained at 10.10 was, I think, there. We were 10.14 or thereabouts.
It's just come down to 10.07. Basically, this strategy has helped us also maintain a little bit of our yield, and it's a conscious call.
Got it. As we see this book seasoning, what kind of NP ratios do we expect in terms of now versus current for this particular?
See, we have got the last couple of years, or whatever, if you see, our salaried segment GNPA has been in the range of about 0.5 to 0.6%. Whereas self-employed category, our this thing has been range-bound around 1.6 to 1.5 to 1.7%.
This is the range-bound figures. Even the last eight quarters, the numbers have kind of remained in this particular range only.
Yes, to that extent, there will be a slight increase in our delinquency numbers, if you look at it. We are confident that we will still have quite a bit of delinquent pool in the existing pool where we can connect and reduce those numbers.
In the medium term, I don't see the numbers, and in the last so many years that we have been there, Can Fin has not seen a GNPA more than 1%. We are confident that that will not be breached.
We are confident of keeping it below 1%. Got it.
Last question was on the annual reset portfolio. Assuming that all of that resets to quarterly, what kind of NIM impact do we expect, and what steps are we taking to reduce this prepayment increase that we are having?
See, actually, we have factored the future conversion from annual to quarterly when we passed on the 15 basis points to our customers. Basically, first of all, there was this December 5th repo rate cut, which we have experienced on 40% of our book.
That, of course, is something which we are going to get, which takes care of some of this 15 bps that we have passed on. The second thing is that, as I had mentioned a little while back, that in our NHB portfolio, which is all at annual reset, we still have some portfolio which is going to see that benefit.
NHB book, approximately 62 to 75 bps is the reduction in the PLR, which they have impacted. Some of that NHB pool, we are likely to experience that also going forward in the next few months and all.
Therefore, we have factored those things into it, and currently we are at 3.89% as the nine months NIM and 2.83% as the spread for the nine months. We expect that we should be, even after all this 15 basis points and factoring in the benefit that we are going to get, it will not go below 2.75, and the NIMs will not go below 3.75.
Got it. This is after everything converts to quarterly?
Yes, yes, yes. Perfect.
That's it. Thank you from my end.
That's all from my end. Thank you.
Nidesh Jain
The next question is from Raghav Garg. Unmute yourself, introduce yourself and ask your question.
Please restrict to two questions per participant. Raghav, you can unmute yourself.
Raghav, we're not able to hear you. I think you unmuted yourself, but...
Raghav Garg
Can you hear me now?
Nidesh Jain
Yeah. Okay.
Raghav Garg
Hi, I'm Raghav from Ambit Capital. I have a few questions.
See, one, I wanted to know what is your plan on branch expansion for the next two years, which is 27 and 28? If you can add some geographic color to it, which states or regions will you expand more?
That's my first question. Should I ask all my questions, or should I wait?
Suresh Iyer
Either way. You can go ahead.
Raghav Garg
My second question is, can you highlight what is the number of marketing executives that you currently have across all of your branches? Because I think last time when you had indicated this number, it was about 100.
That's in July 2025. Has it increased from there?
Last question is on your IT implementation. See, I understand that you may end up taking it in next three to six months.
I just wanted to understand at a very broad level, whenever you do decide to take it, what is the number of days operations that will be impacted before operations fully normalize? Those are my three questions.
Thank you.
Suresh Iyer
Thanks Raghav. See, in terms of the branch expansion, our vision document still we plan to have about 300 branches by FY28.
We are currently at 249. Next two years we plan to open 25-25 branches.
We already have identified some 20-odd locations which we are very keen to open. We will be opening about 25 branches in the next year.
If you see the branch expansion, so far most of it has been in the North and the West zones. We have not opened any branch in Karnataka and Telangana.
Obviously we had some slowdown there, which was for various reasons. Basically we will continue to look at the other geographies only.
Maybe we may open a couple of branches now that Karnataka has come back to its old 250-plus kind of a number. We may look at a few branches in Karnataka, but by and large it will be North, West, Tamil Nadu and East, where particularly Andhra Pradesh we are quite positive about.
These are the geographies where we will be looking at branches. In terms of marketing executive, we had 90 as at the end of the last quarter.
Currently also the numbers are the same, one or two, given one or two here and there attrition and new joinings and all those things. That is the status.
The number was about 37 at the beginning of the year, and in Q1 we increased it to around 90 slowly to up to 90 in the second quarter. In this quarter we have continued to keep the number as the same at 90.
Last quarter, if you see, our 90 people in the team, in the first quarter we had about 101 crores of business sourced through the team with 37 people. In the second quarter this number increased to around 185, and in this quarter we have done more than 250 crore business has come.
Almost on an average these 90 people have done close to around 80-90, 90 lakh-plus kind of sourcing per month per staff. That's the kind of sourcing that has happened.
We have not added anything, but going forward, yes, we plan to at least increase some in the next financial year. Again, by FY28, end of FY28, March 28, we at least expect to have about 250-odd people in the sales team.
The third question on IT implementation, see, we, as I mentioned earlier, we may look at probably taking it to Q1 for the LOS, LMS part of it, deposits will happen now. That is more because, if it comes closer to the March dates, then probably we may decide to either do a small pilot this year and most of it next year, or entirely the next year.
The impact in this year may not be there. What we expect is that the way all our other modules have gone, and also in the sense and the way we have seen the customization aspect to it, I think it will be about three to four days of downtime.
Beyond that, I think it will be some one or two weeks for the teams to get accustomed to it, because basically, since customization is less, it's mostly the UI/UX which is going to change, and some process flows will change. Getting used to it will be some effort.
Other than that, I think it should not take too long also for the branches and the staff to get accustomed to the new system. Probably, if you have to put it into numbers, I would say in the quarter in which we impact, probably about 300 crores, 250 to 300 crores of business impact would be there.
I would put it in that number, that way.
Raghav Garg
That's helpful. Just one clarification: you said 200 marketing executives by when?
March 28, is it?
Suresh Iyer
150 by March 28. Probably this year we are at 90, we may increase it to about 150-odd next year, and another jump in the FY28.
Raghav Garg
Thanks, that's very helpful. Thank you.
Nidesh Jain
The next question is from Nipun. Nipun, please unmute yourself, introduce yourself, and ask your question.
Nipun Khemka
Hi, sir. This is Nipun Khemka from InCred Capital.
Basically my question is, why do you think we are underperforming as compared to the NBFC system growth of home loans?
Suresh Iyer
Why we are underperforming? See, in terms of AUM, yes, we are a little lower than the industry level of about 13 to 14 percent, mainly because growth this year, if you look at it, current year, disbursements have grown at 19 percent, which I think is comparable.
By the end of the year, with around 3,200, 3,300 crores, we should end up around 22-23 percent disbursement growth compared to last year. In terms of disbursement, I don't think that is a major issue.
As I mentioned earlier, our AUM growth is slightly lagging, one because it always comes with a lag, and maybe the next year can be a little better, and two, we have lost about 400 crores because of higher prepayments this year. For that, our growth would have been around 11 percent plus in this quarter, end of this quarter.
I think these are the two things I would say we are lagging behind.
Nipun Khemka
Okay. My second question was regarding the IT implementation that we are doing and we are currently, within the...
What do you think would be the competitive advantage that we might have post implementation of this infrastructure?
Suresh Iyer
See, in terms of our IT, our existing IT infrastructure, or IT thing, is quite dated. Our current IT platform is something which was implemented in the company way back in 2011.
Obviously there are a lot of in terms of the elements which are not present. The current IT that we are implementing is a wholesome thing, which is into, one is application side, second is security features, and third is the infrastructure side.
Obviously in terms of infrastructure and security, it is going to be very helpful to the company in terms of the present scenario of cybersecurity and cyber threats and all those things. That's definitely something which we have taken into consideration.
Infrastructure, the way we have enhanced the capacity and everything, we should be able to, definitely system will be able to match up to the higher growth levels and everything that we are planning in the next few years. As for the applications, earlier we had, as I said, a dated application, plus at the same time it was only an LMS.
Now the new application that we are going to include a document management, a lot of other things, deposit module also, much enhanced F&A package, and also has things like other data vault and a lot of integrations and third-party solutions also integrated. That way, a lot of benefits will come in the sense that a lot of activities which are presently manually being done will also get automated, plus the API features and everything will enable us to also quickly attach third-party vendor solutions as and when we require it, and go-to-market time will be much lower.
Plus, over a period of the last, from 2011 to 2025, a lot of things have become a little cumbersome, the processes and all. This new system will also have a lot of simpler processes.
Definitely the time of the branches will also reduce considerably. We expect at least 20 percent productivity improvement, and, we have not actually...
there is no way to calculate how 20 percent and all those things, but at least we expect a sizable amount of reduction in turnaround time for other key transactions and activities.
Nipun Khemka
Got it. Mostly, I believe all the stuff that you just talked about mostly, it will improve a lot operational side of things rather than the growth side.
Suresh Iyer
Operational and security also. I think security also is something which is not usually thising about.
In terms of security, we have taken care of a lot of things, in terms of the SIEM, the SOC, NOC, even in terms of the SD-WAN solution. These are obviously things which will help in the security aspect also.
Nipun Khemka
Got it. Thank you.
Nidesh Jain
The next question is from Yuval. Yuval, unmute yourself and introduce yourself and ask your question.
Yuval Aiya
Hi, sir. This is Yuval Aiya from Nuvama.
My first question was, in this quarter, borrowing from banks have gone up to 62 percent from 57 percent in the previous quarter. Could you just share the incremental cost of borrowing in Q3?
Suresh Iyer
See, banks, all our bank term loans are now at rates below 7 percent. I think 6.92 or something is our long-term borrowing cost, which is there.
Of course one or two are there where we have not yet passed on a small benefit. Other than that, 6.92 is the incremental cost of borrowing, we can say, on the higher side from banks in the Q3.
Short-term borrowings obviously are even lower at 6.4, 6.45, of the rate at which we are borrowing from banks. I would say probably around 6.8 or something could be the blended cost of the bank borrowings for us.
Yuval Aiya
Right, got it. Could you just provide any breakup as to at the moment of the total funding mix?
What is the share of floating rate borrowings and fixed rate borrowings? I understand that NHBs, they have an annual reset.
The other components of the borrowing mix, what is the average time in which you can see the repricing when it comes to floating rate borrowings?
Suresh Iyer
See, in case of our bank borrowing, which you said is 62 percent, 80 percent of that is linked to external benchmark rate, which is Repo rate. There we will immediately see the transmission of the, whether there is a reduction or an increase for that matter.
Then the transmission will be immediate. The remaining 20 percent of the bank borrowings is linked to T-bills.
There also there will be an immediate transmission, you can say. Maybe not to the exact amount.
So 125 basis points will not translate into 125 basis points, but somewhat near that will be the impact on the remaining 20 percent also. Then we have the NHB refinance, where 50 percent of the NHB refinance, which is linked to the Affordable Housing Fund, that is fixed rate.
There will not be any change in that. The remaining 50 percent of approximately of the NHB refinance is at floating rates, but at annual reset.
There the transmission will be in a staggered manner. NCDs are fixed rate, deposits are fixed rate, and CPs, of course, are too short.
Whenever they reprice, they will be as good as floating rate only. Considering the 62 percent bank borrowing and another 6 to 7 percent of NCDs, I think about 65 to 70 percent of our borrowings are there where we will get, within one month transmission on the liability side will happen.
Yuval Aiya
Understood, sir. Even after your quarterly reset?
Sure, thanks.
Nidesh Jain
Next question is from Mohit. Mohit, please unmute yourself, introduce yourself and ask your question.
Hi,
Mohit Surana
Thanks for the opportunity. This is Mohit from HDFC AMC.
Sir, I just wanted to get your guidance for 27-28 on key parameters like spreads, cost-to-income and credit cost. For FY27, you said, right?
Suresh Iyer
Yeah, 27 and 28. For FY27, next financial year, we, if you look at it, our spread and NIM, as I mentioned earlier, we would be 2.75 and 3.75 is what we would be guiding for.
In terms of credit cost, we have guided for 15 basis points. Of course, this year it has been lower than that, and next year also, at least as of the moment, we don't see any stress in any of the pools or any of the geographies.
We don't expect it to be any different, but we will say it will be 15 basis points, you can consider for the credit cost guidance. In terms of OPEX, there will be an increase because FY27 onwards we will have the impact of our IT transformation.
About 1 percentage point is the likely impact on the OPEX. Around 19 and a half percent would be the cost-to-income ratio.
AUM growth we are projecting for about 15 percent, considering a disbursement of about 13,500 crores. This would be the rough tentative plan that we will be working on.
Mohit Surana
Sir, thanks a lot.
Nidesh Jain
The next question is from Amit Thawani. Amit, unmute yourself, introduce yourself and ask your question.
Please restrict to one question, as we have a lot of participants waiting in the queue. Amit, you can ask your question.
Amit Thawani
Yes, am I audible?
Nidesh Jain
Yes, Amit, please go ahead.
Amit Thawani
I'm just going to quickly go through questions. My first question is that we have done a fantastic job on delinquencies.
How much would you attribute that, because we are so south-focused, how much would you attribute that to gold price going up and the economy doing well? Second question is, what is the profile of our non-Salary borrowers?
Third question is, you mentioned that we could have handled our prepayments slightly better through communication with our borrower. What are we doing to improve that?
Thank you.
Suresh Iyer
I didn't get your first question, if you can repeat the first part of it, please.
Amit Thawani
First question,
Suresh Iyer
our
Amit Thawani
delinquencies has done rather well over one year. How much would you attribute that to gold or, some certain macros that you could attribute that to?
Suresh Iyer
See, in terms of delinquencies, I think, I would attribute it more to our profile of customers, where we are focusing more on the salaried segment. And 70 percent of our customer base today, 69 percent, is salaried, and many of our previously it used to be 73 percent as on FY23.
I think the salaried segment is where, and I also mentioned that in our salaried segment, our delinquency or NPAs at level is in the range of 0.5 to 0.6 percent, around give and take 0.6, give and take 5 basis points. That, I think, would be more rather than the gold prices or anything that would be there.
I would attribute it more to the profile. As regards the non-salaried segment, see, we are the self-employed and non-professional category that we are talking about.
We are not having any product for assessed income or surrogate income or where documented income proof is not available. Basically the SENP category also is such where we have documented proof where IT returns are being filed.
We have that regular income coming in in that aspect, and it's documented incomes. Obviously there could be some, the actual income could be higher also, but we have the documented income.
That is the profile of SENP category that we have. Prepayments, as you said, yes, what we are doing is, in this quarter we are aggressively pushing to see that.
In fact, last quarter also I had said that we have done it. We have changed our policy, we have got the approvals from the board and everything.
This quarter now we are, communicating, and with 60 days notice we are asking the customers to move to the quarterly reset. Otherwise it was, contacting the customers, taking their linked letters and getting a fresh documentation done and all those things.
It was a much lengthy process, and therefore it was happening only when the customers used to approach us. Now, in fact, we are writing to them, giving them 60 days' time to come forward and get it done, otherwise we will be moving them so that they get the benefit and we'll be passing on the benefit to them based on this.
This is what we are looking at, so that, we can communicate to our customers about the 50 basis points. Otherwise, in the absence of that, because they don't know that they have actually got 50 basis points reduction, they think that, Can Fin has not reduced the rates and they are coming forward for a prepayment.
I hope I've answered the... Yeah.
Amit Thawani
Thank you. Thank you so much for your answers.
Nidesh Jain
The next question is from Prithviraj Patil. Please unmute yourself and restrict to one question.
Prithviraj Patil
Thank you. Hi, thanks for the opportunity.
I'm Prithviraj Patil from Investec. I just had one question.
The share of reliance on DSAs has marginally increased QOQ, and given your FY28 roadmap, there's also a digital channel that you're referring to there. If you could just guide us on how you plan to diversify the sourcing mix.
Thanks.
Suresh Iyer
Sure. Yes, in fact, in this quarter there has been a little increase in our slightly by 78- something to 79-something, our DSA sourcing, in spite of the fact that our sales team has also done better.
One thing we would be doing is increasing the number of sales people on the ground, which I mentioned, from 90 we would like to increase it to 115 this year and thereafter to 150 next year. That would be one thing.
Second is, once the IT transformation is complete, then we will be able to go in for entire digital onboarding of customers, digital sourcing. That is something which, that piece, which is yet to unfold for us.
We have not yet done that. That is something which will happen once we go for IT transformation project is implemented, the LOS, LMS part of it.
That we will once start by, what we plan to do is, onboard various lead aggregators from the market and also do a lot of digital onboarding through links and all those things, so that the customer's experience is purely digital.
Prithviraj Patil
Thank you.
Nidesh Jain
The next question is from Jay Thakkar. Jay, unmute yourself, introduce yourself and ask your question.
Please restrict to one question.
Jay Thakkar
Hi sir, thank you for taking my question. I am Jay from East Lane Capital.
I have a question on your disbursement target of 13,500 in FY27. How should one think about growth in southern states versus the others?
Specifically, what do you assume your growth in, say, Karnataka and Telangana? Should we reach a 10-12% growth in those states as well?
Suresh Iyer
See, in this current year also, if you see, barring Telangana and Karnataka, we have had a 30% growth in almost 25% plus growth in all the other geographies, that is North, West, East including AP and South, that is mainly Tamil Nadu and Kerala. In Karnataka, in fact, we had indicated that, we will have a gradual negative will come down, and by end of the year we will be having a 10% positive, and we are on course for it because by end of the third quarter we are already, moved into the positive zone, and YTD we are at 3% positive in Karnataka.
At the rate at which we have done in this thing with a little Q4 push that will come, we do expect that Karnataka will also be back to the 10% number by end of the year. Only Telangana has been a little slower than expected.
Again, in Q3 we have had a 30% growth compared to Q3 of last year. That gives us a thising that at least may not be a 10% in this year, but at least we'll be ending up in the green in Telangana as well by end of the year.
That's the plan we have. If the same trend continues, the base has already been impacted, next year even if we continue from there onwards, next year even Telangana should have a 10 to 15% growth in disbursements.
Next year we expect that, even in this year, in fact, everybody will be in green, but Telangana would probably be just about flat and Karnataka would be 10%, whereas others would be 25% plus. Next year we expect Karnataka also to contribute at a much higher level.
Jay Thakkar
Sure, sir. Thank you.
Nidesh Jain
The next question is from Rohitash. Rohitash, unmute yourself, ask your question and introduce yourself.
Rohitash, can you hear us? Hello?
Yes, yes. We can hear you.
My question is already been answered.
Suresh Iyer
Thank you. The next question is from Chinmay.
Chinmay unmute yourself, introduce yourself and ask your question. Hi, this is Chinmay from Plesent Capital, Opa Model.
Nidesh Jain
Yes, please go ahead. Yeah.
Sir, I just wanted to double-click on the answer that you gave for sourcing strategy. Bringing down the DSA mix to 60% has been sort of a long-term guidance, but we have faced challenges with respect to that in the past.
If you could elaborate as to what you would be doing differently over the next two-three years compared to what have been our attempts in the last one and two years. Secondly, if you could give the breakdown of the growth between the North and South regions.
This 9% blended number, what does it look like in the Northern and the Southern geographies? Over the next two years, the 14-15% number that you are seeing on a blended level, how that would look like in the North and South?
Two questions.
Suresh Iyer
Yeah. Actually, when we are saying we want to bring it down to 60% the DSA contribution, we are not actually saying that the DSA numbers will go down.
Basically what we are saying that the other avenues will have to start contributing more. We have already seen that, we were at 86% in FY23, which came down, has come down to 79% because equivalent amount of 7% contribution has come from the sales team.
Obviously now with more people getting added to the sales team, this number would again go up. Therefore, even if the sourcing from the DSA channel keeps increasing, the percentage will start coming down.
Another thing, as I mentioned, is that we have yet to see any benefit coming from the digital channel because that has not happened. We have not implemented it.
Only after the IT transformation is over, we'll be able to offer a digital process for our customers, and right from login to sanction, we'll be able to give it over there. That is as regards how we are going to do it.
In terms of the growth, I think we've had... I'll just come back to you on the growth as to how much has been the growth zone-wise.
I'll probably come back to you on that. I just don't have it immediately.
Sure, sir. Thank you.
Nidesh Jain
The next question is from Rajiv. Rajiv, unmute yourself, introduce yourself and restrict to one question.
Suresh Iyer
Just a second. If you are looking at that, how the 10% works out.
Nidesh, I just missed. AP and East has gone about 11%, in terms of AUM growth, Karnataka has at 8%, although the disbursement growth is just 3%, North and West both at 15%, and Tamil Nadu also at a little above 15%.
Only Telangana is almost flat, almost, in fact a little negative actually in terms of AUM growth. That's how it works out around 10% AUM growth.
Rajiv Sundar
Yeah. Can I come in, Nidesh?
Nidesh Jain
Yes, please.
Swapna Bhandarkar
Swapna Bhandarkar (Head of Marketing and Communications and Corporate Access, Investec Capital Services): Hi, Rajiv. Go ahead.
Rajiv Sundar
This is Rajiv from Antique Stock Broking. Firstly, congratulations on a very strong performance.
Sir, firstly I want to check on two things. Have you also revised your rewriting rates for BT applications?
Second, did you say in your initial comments that only 250-300 crore will be the business impact from the new LOS LMS implementation? Now the question is, okay, can I just...
I'll just ask this question and then maybe you can answer all.
Suresh Iyer
Sure.
Amit Thawani
Sir, how sure are we of maintaining the spread at 2.75-2.8% level, which is also near about the current level only? Because there is a PILR cut impact yet to come through, plus you are upfronting asset repricing by moving loan assets from annual to quarterly.
Then when you look at the bond market, CP rates, entity rates have only tightened. Then you've already leveraged on the bank loan mix.
You've taken it up to 62-63%. In this whole dynamics of liabilities and asset repricing and then the new pricing of borrowings and new pricing of loans, how do you think that you can maintain the spread of 2.75
Suresh Iyer
to 2.8? I'll answer this part first.
See, if you actually look at our incremental Q3 NIM, it is 4.14. It is for the nine months that it is at 3.89.
For the third quarter alone, if you see, look at the NIMs, it is 4.14. Same also for spread.
Only Q3, if you look at the spread, it is 2.93, whereas for the entire nine months, if you look at it, it is 2.84. Basically there is already an incremental difference which is already there in the system.
As I mentioned a little while back, that because of the timing, we got the benefit. The rate happened earlier in October end.
We got that 50 basis points benefit in the large loan. We instead of doing it from 1st of November, in November ALCO we decided to do it from 1st of December.
That's where the difference is there. We already have a little bit of advantage, which actually we are passing on.
Therefore that will. Even if from that 4.14, it comes down a little bit, it will still be below the nine months average.
It will still be the same also for spread. Plus, as I mentioned that, we have that 6.3% NHB borrowing, which we are expecting in this quarter, plus some benefit of 60 to 70 bps, which is coming from the NHB reset, which is on an annual basis.
Those things we have factored into all those things. Therefore we feel for the entire year also we should be somewhere close to 2.75 plus spread and 3.75 plus NIM.
That is the first part of it. I hope that answers your query.
Second, as regards whether we have changed anything for BT, no, we don't have a separate rate for BT in customers or a separate thing. In fact, we don't have much of a BT in strategy.
Within our existing customers, we don't have that discriminatory policy where for existing customers somebody comes and negotiates, they give one lower rate. Whatever is the rate as per the RBI guidelines for a similar customer, similar segment, similar product, we need to offer the same rate.
We don't offer that discriminatory rate where if somebody threatens to prepay, we offer a lower rate. We cannot do that and we don't do that.
That's the part of it. As regards the 250 crore, yes, what I said, what I meant was that in a normal month, our disbursements would be around 1000 crore if we do in the Q4, it will be 1000, 1100 crores.
If you look at maybe Q1 of next year, it will be around 900 crore per month is the disbursement. What I meant is that in the four days of downtime, plus if you look at another two weeks max about where our staff will have to get accustomed to the system, UI, UX and all those things, that will impact that particular month's disbursement by around 250 to 300 crores, after which again the teams will get used to the new system and should be able to continue in terms of the disbursement because there is not much of a change in terms of the requirement.
The customization levels are almost 85 to 90% is the standard available components. The customization is just about 10 to 15%, most of which is also the integration part of it for whatever we are going to integrate with CIBIL, with CERSAI, with Aadhaar, with PAN, I mean all those kind of things.
Basically the customization is much less. Therefore what I meant was that in that particular month where we implement, we could impact our disbursements, could be lower by 250 to 300 crores.
Rajiv Sundar
Got it clear, sir. Thank you and best of luck.
Suresh Iyer
Thank you. Swapna Bhandarkar (Head of Marketing and Communications and Corporate Access, Investec Capital Services):
Swapna Bhandarkar
Mr. Ravi, thanks for some more questions.
We have about three, four more.
Suresh Iyer
Sure, no problem. Swapna Bhandarkar
Swapna Bhandarkar
(Head of Marketing and Communications and Corporate Access, Investec Capital Services): I'll hand over the mic to Sangeeta Purushottam. Sangeeta, go ahead.
Sangeeta... Yeah.
Am I audible? Please go ahead.
Suresh Iyer
Yes, go. Okay.
Congratulations on a very good quarter. I just wanted to get some clarification on some of the numbers.
If we look at the guidance that you've given for next year, we're looking at NIMs guidance of about 3.75, which is slightly lower than what we have achieved in the first nine months, right? About 3.89.
On the credit cost side, we're saying it will kind of normalize, it will be slightly higher than what we have actually seen this year. Also our cost-to-income is going to be a little higher because of the implementation of the IT program.
Does that mean that overall, if we're looking at about 15% growth in the AUM, when it comes down to PBT or PAT, our PAT growth is likely to be in the single digit then, based on these numbers? See, actually it would not come down to single digit numbers if our growth, AUM growth is around 15%.
What we are saying is we have already seen at around 3.75 NIM and 2.75 spread, something with that. If you look at our two-quarter analysis, whatever you see, our credit cost at 15 basis points and 19.5% also, if you look at it, I think it will still be higher than that.
It should be in double digits. It should be lower than your disbursement growth, right?
Because we're looking at slightly... It will be lower than our disbursement growth because our AUM will not grow at around 25-30%.
If you look at 1,500 crore disbursement growth, disbursement in the next financial year, that should end to around somewhere around 15% in terms of our AUM. Because we have about 1,600 plus, 1,650 plus kind of a prepayment in a quarter.
Next year, assuming it comes to around 7,000 crores prepayment, the addition to the book will be around 6,500 crores, which will be on a 42,000 crore AUM opening AUM will be around 15%. AUM will grow not at 30% or whatever, it will grow at a lower rate of 15%.
Right. If you're looking at, and, our NIM is calculated on our average AUM, right?
There aren't other sources of income that we're building in. I'm just doing a very simple back-of-the-envelope calculation that if our average AUM growth is, say, 15%, and I'm applying some of these numbers, which are slightly lower NIM, slightly higher credit costs, slightly higher cost-to-income, I end up getting numbers which are kind of single-digit.
Where am I going wrong? I'll put it this way.
See, this year also we are guided for a 15 bps credit cost, but, as of now it is about 10 bps and likely to come down because we have a normally Q4 as a good quarter where we expect some NPA reduction and some reversal in our provisioning also. In fact the credit cost at 15% this year also we are guided for about 2.5% to start with as our spread and 3.5% as our NIM, but we are able to manage a little better.
Obviously, these are all more of a guidance and we would obviously will try to achieve a little better. We may not be able to achieve on all the aspects, like this year we have slightly because of the prepayments not been in, may not be able to achieve our 13% AUM growth, but by and large we will try to see that we achieve those numbers.
It's more of a guidance, it's not an exact number anyway. We will obviously our attempt or endeavor would be to do a little better.
Okay. All right.
Thank you. Thank you.
Swapna Bhandarkar (Head of Marketing and Communications and Corporate Access, Investec Capital Services):
Swapna Bhandarkar
Thanks. I will request Mr.
Jay to ask the question, but before you do, sir, just would request you to restrict your question to one question in the interest of time. Thank you.
Jay Thakkar
Thank you, sir, for taking a follow-up. I just have a question on housing versus non-housing.
Non-housing book is growing pretty healthy at 25-28%, but it is still 14% of the overall AUM. We have guided this to be, say, 20% by FY28.
Structurally, how should one think about your NIMs or, say, spread in housing versus non-housing? Obviously non-housing should one would imagine that would be a better rate.
Also in terms of asset quality, should we see, structurally, slightly higher NPAs when your non-housing mix goes to 20%?
Suresh Iyer
Okay. Yes, the spreads are definitely higher in terms of NHL, and that's obviously one of the main things that we have factored into, that it will help us slightly improve our spread and NIMs.
That's what is happening also. We have put a cap on the amount of or the percentage of non-housing that we are able to, we are ready to accept.
So 65-35, in terms of this 80-20 is what we are for the HL. I'm talking about HL including the CRE portion.
We are looking at around 84 going down to around 80. About 4% change, which will happen will slightly, yes, impact in terms of our NPA, because as I mentioned earlier, our NPA and all, this thing is maybe a little higher than this.
Overall, as I had indicated, we will definitely not be looking at something anywhere more than 1%. Even right now, as we speak, we are at 0.92.
Going forward in this Q4, we might further bring down our gross NPA a little further down. In which case, there's quite a bit of scope available for the.
By and large, I don't see much of a change in the NPA, at least in the near future, we don't expect.
Jay Thakkar
Thank you.
Suresh Iyer
Thanks. We have one question from Siddharth.
Go ahead, Siddharth. You can ask your question.
Hi, am I audible? Yes, you are.
Hi. Just one question to previous follow-upers.
We have the room to grow above 15% AUM simply by our ROE and our capital adequacy, which is at a very probably at an all-time low or a decade low, I think. What are these levers and, when can we expect you to push on it?
Push on the, sorry? About the 15% growth levels, because we have enough capital adequacy available.
Is it possible for us? See, possibility is one thing, but if the industry today is growing at 13-14% to 15-14%, in fact that is what it is, and in fact affordable housing levels are in fact coming down.
I think, running for growth in this thing is not something we would want to, kind of do great numbers where the industry itself is growing at around 13%. Ideally, we would want to grow at about 2 percentage points above the industry level.
Today if it is at 13%, we would be happy with about 15%. I think that would be a very conservative approach, but at the same time a way to maintain the quality of the book also.
Obviously, if tomorrow the growth rates in the industry itself pick up and there are some incentives offered and, etc., then we would also obviously want to grow better than that, or 2 percentage above whatever is the then rate. That's wonderful to hear.
Perfect. Thank you.
Swapna Bhandarkar
Yeah. Thank you.
Hello? Swapna Bhandarkar (Head of Marketing and Communications and Corporate Access, Investec Capital Services): Thank you.
Hello? Thanks.
There's one last question from Mr. Chinmay.
I'm going to unmute you and then we can move to the next conclusion, sir. Chinmay, your last question, please.
Thank you for the follow-up, sir. My question is if you could just give a high-level understanding of the branch opening strategy.
Do you look for, do you open branches contiguous to the existing branches, or do you actively look for locations with fewer number of prime lenders? Typically, how does this process look like, if you could just give a high-level understanding?
Suresh Iyer
See, it's not that we want to only go where the competition is not there. It's not like that.
Of course, even within the competition, we are fine with that. That's not the point.
Firstly, we look at whether there is a proper market and there is a good amount of demand for the in the medium to long-term range, because we don't want to have a one-off situation where suddenly for a year or so the growth is there and then it just... We look at tier one towns mainly, or outskirts of metro towns, where we can have a sustainable business for the medium to long-term kind of a range.
That is what we look at. Then what we look at is the credit quality, because some pockets there is a general tendency of higher delinquency.
We would want to avoid those kind of not entirely that we avoid, but what I'm saying is we would like to plan accordingly or take that into one of the factors that we consider. As regards the location, practically we are there in most of the locations.
Today we are 249 branches spread across 21 states. Almost we are there.
Whichever place we look at would not be beyond another 30-40 or maybe 70 kilometers from an existing branch. Indirectly it is a kind of, you can say a contiguous strategy, growth strategy only.
Few pockets maybe we may have, but by and large all the locations that we have identified currently are those which are kind of near 60-70 kilometers from an existing branch only. That's basically the thing.
No new geographies that we are looking at. We are only looking at the existing geographies, but going deeper in those geographies.
Gotcha. Thank you.
That's very... Thank you.
Swapna Bhandarkar (Head of Marketing and Communications and Corporate Access, Investec Capital Services):
Swapna Bhandarkar
Thank you. Thank you, everybody.
Before we conclude, I would ask Mr. Iyer to give his concluding remarks.
Suresh Iyer
Sure. Thank you.
Thank you everyone for joining this earnings call, and I hope we've been able to answer all your queries. In case there are any add-on queries, you can obviously anytime get in touch with us.
Many thanks to Investec also for organizing this. We'll be putting up, as you all know, we do put up all our the transcripts of all our meetings on our website.
Any such meeting, you can always also refer to the transcripts, which we'll be putting up in a day or two on our website as well. Thank you.
Thank you everyone for joining. Swapna Bhandarkar (Head of Marketing and Communications and Corporate Access, Investec Capital Services):
Swapna Bhandarkar
Thank you, everyone. With this, you can leave the event.
Thank you very much.
Suresh Iyer
Thank you.
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