Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the IDFC FIRST Bank's Q2 FY '27 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes.
Should you need assistance during this conference, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded.
I now hand the conference over to Mr. Saptarshi Bapari, Head Investor Relations and ESG.
Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Bapari.
Saptarshi Bapari
Thanks, Darwin. Thanks, everyone, for joining the call.
We'll have the presentation first from Sudhanshu, who is our CFO, and then we'll have some brief comments from Vaidya, and then we can open the house for the Q&A. I'll now hand over to Sudhanshu for his opening remarks.
Sudhanshu Jain
Thank you, Saptarshi. Good evening, everyone.
It's a pleasure speaking to all of you. In terms of sequencing, I'll maybe first cover few business numbers and then later on take on the profitability part.
Business momentum continues to be quite strong. During the quarter, we saw a healthy growth in both advances and deposits.
However, the key development during the quarter was the FCNR mobilization under the RBI scheme. Let me start with giving some numbers first on that front.
During the quarter, the bank mobilized ₹34,390 crores, which is about USD $3.6 billion of FCNR(B) deposit under this scheme. This constituted about 10% of the overall deposit that we have at September 30th, 2026.
Against this, we also extended leverage of USD $2.6 billion, which is in Indian rupees about ₹25,000 crores, to NRI customers. If we see on the basis of these loans, then this constituted about 7% of the overall loan book at September 30th, 2026.
At mobilization of USD $3.6 billion, the bank garnered about 2.7% of the overall mobilization the country received under this scheme. This is about 1% higher than our NRI deposit share, which was this pre-FCNR announcement.
As part of the exercise, we also obtained our debut international rating from S&P and CARE Edge. Happy to report that we got an investment-grade rating for the bank on this front.
On the back of the ratings, we were also did a debut bond issuance. We almost raised close to $1 billion of bonds.
The actual number was USD $950 million, and these was raised from the offshore IBU branch from marquee international investors. Since this was a specific opportunity during the current quarter, wherever relevant, I will try to give out numbers with and without FCNR to keep underlying trends comparable with the previous quarters.
Moving on to loans, that registered a strong growth of 30.1% on a YoY basis and 13.6% on a QoQ basis, including FCNR. That book has now reached about ₹3.47 lakh crores.
If we exclude the FCNR(B)-backed loans, the loan assets on a gross of IBPC basis grew by 22.2% on a YoY basis and 5.7% on a QoQ basis, and was about ₹3.29 lakh crores. The incremental growth on the loan side during the quarter was primarily driven by mortgage, vehicle loans, consumer loans, and a slightly faster growth in business banking and wholesale loans, which individually grew by more than 30% on a YoY basis.
The MFI book saw marginal increase during the quarter. That book now stands at ₹6,825 crores and about 2% of the overall funded assets.
97% of the book is now covered under the CGFMU scheme. With respect to credit cards, happy to report that the cards in force crossed 5 million during the quarter.
The book on an outstanding basis stood at ₹9,875 crores, and the credit card spends grew at a healthy pace, about 15% on a YoY basis. We have given more details around the asset growth on slide number 31 in the investor presentation.
Moving on to asset quality, there also we saw an improving trajectory across GNPA, NNPA, SMA across product classes. We give a fair degree of disclosure in the investor presentation around these numbers.
On a headline basis, the gross NPA ratio of the bank improved by about 19 basis points from 1.51% reported in Q1 to 1.32% in Q2, and by 9 bps if we exclude FCNR leverage from the denominator. Similarly, on net NPA, we saw an improvement of 4 basis points to 0.40%.
If we exclude the FCNR-backed loans, the net NPA ratio would be 0.43% as against 0.44% reported in the previous quarter. Further drill-down, if we look for now the retail, agri, and the MSME book, the GNPA ratio here improved from 1.4% to 1.24%, and to 1.36% if we exclude, again, FCNR-backed loans from the equation.
Moving on, the collection efficiency for the current bucket for retail continues to hold well. It has been now stable around the 99.5% for many quarters.
The SMA-1 and the SMA-2 book for the retail was at 0.72% in Q2 from 0.77%, which we saw in the previous quarter. SMA-1 and 2 for microfinance further normalized to 0.6% from 0.7 bps in the previous quarter.
At an overall bank level, SMA-1 and 2 reduced by 4 basis points to 0.58%. The net slippage ratio for the quarter was stable at about 1.6%.
Moving on to deposits, total deposits, which is customer deposits plus certificate of deposits, that reached at ₹3.48 lakh crores. The growth was about 25.9% on a YoY basis and 11.8% on a QoQ basis.
If I just talk of customer deposits, that has crossed ₹3.4 lakh crores. It grew by 26.9% on a YoY basis and 14% on a QoQ basis.
This also included FCNR, and if we exclude FCNR deposits, customer deposits grew by 14.1% on a YoY basis. Here is where we slightly calibrated the growth because we got strong FCNR inflows during the current quarter.
This was more a conscious strategy which we followed during the course of the quarter. As a result, we did reduce the bulk deposit ratio from 17.1% to 13.9% in the current quarter, and also repaid certain certificate of deposits as it came up for maturity.
If I talk of CASA deposits, that grew to now ₹1.66 lakh crores. The growth on a YoY basis was 19.8%, while the CASA ratio for the quarter came to 47.6%.
This was lower because of the FCNR deposit mobilization in the denominator. The average CASA ratio still, I would say, was healthy at about 48.4%.
If I move on to profitability, happy to report that the profit has remained above ₹1,000 crores for the second consecutive quarter, and the profit for the quarter stands at ₹1,045 crores, which is an improvement of about 196.5% on a YoY basis, while it was marginally down as we had reported higher treasury income in the previous quarter. We have also given in the presentation our numbers on a core PAT basis.
When I mean core PAT, that excludes trading gains for all the periods, and also certain one-off items which we had called out in the previous quarters, like the impact of the fraud incident, some income tax refunds and interest which had come in the previous quarter. These details are given in slide five of the presentation.
Again happy to report that on a core basis, the profit has crossed 1,000 crores, and this was about ₹897 crores in the previous quarter. Some more drill-down, all operating metrics continue to demonstrate a healthy growth trajectory.
For example, NII grew by 21% on a YoY basis and 3.5% on a QoQ basis. NII growth was, in fact, 4.5% sequentially if we adjust for interest on income tax refund, which we had called out for Q1 '27.
NII growth in the current quarter was also broadly in line with 21.1% YoY increase reported in the previous quarter. The net interest margin for the quarter was 5.58% as compared to 5.90% in the previous quarter, excluding the income tax refund which we had reported.
Now, I will talk about why was the moderation in NIM during the current quarter. The NIMs moderated because of, I would say, three or four factors.
One was the FCNR, which, I would say, was the primary reason. Since this came into the denominator, we had an impact of about 16 basis points on this FCNR-backed lending.
Second, because we have mobilized strong I would say FCNR deposit flows, we, in the interim, also parked such liquidity in low-yielding treasury instruments and nostros balances. That had an impact on NIM of 7 basis points.
Then there were also impacts because of change in asset mix, because we have grown wholesale banking and business banking at a faster pace. That had an impact of 5 basis points.
Last is the day-count convention impact, because this quarter had 92 days vis-a-vis 91 days in the previous quarter. To summarize, 16 bps is because of FCNR lending, 7 bps is because of excess liquidity, 4 bps is because of the day-count convention, and 5 bps is because of other asset-mix changes.
The one point which I want to sort of also put across is that the margin impact on FCNR should not be viewed in isolation as because FCNR also comes in the denominator, is correspondingly also reduces operating expenses and credit cost relative to assets. Hence, we have estimated that the overall impact on the ROA could be very minimal, as low as 2 basis points.
Pursuant to the FCNR scheme, we have also estimated an additional benefit of 1%, including statutory benefits which could accrue to us, if we compare this with a normal deposit which we would have raised in the otherwise, if these FCNR flows were not there. This FCNR deposit also would not consume capital.
Hence, whatever we earn, which I mentioned, of 1%, that increases my NII, that increases my profitability, that increases my ROE, EPS, and all of these numbers. Just in terms of how do we see NIMs going forward, we see this recovering to approximately 5.8% by Q4, as some of this excess liquidity would have been definitely put to use by then, and also the expected repo rate increase, which we also are factoring for the course of the year.
Moving on to fee and other income, we saw an healthy growth. That increased by about 24.5% on a YoY basis compared to 22.9% in Q1.
We have given details of the fee composition in the investor presentation. As a result of the increase in the NII and the fee, the total income, excluding trading gains, for Q2 on a YoY basis was a growth of 21.9% versus 21.5% reported in Q1.
During the quarter, the treasury gains were modest at about ₹11 crores, as compared to ₹181 crores reported for Q1, which was largely due to the hardening of the G-sec yields during the quarter. Moving on, the opex for the quarter was at ₹5,942 crores.
This grew by 16% on a YoY basis and by 3% on a sequential basis. The increase of 3% corresponds to an increase in core income growth of about 4.6% on a sequential basis.
As a result, the cost-to-income ratio, excluding trading gains, improved by 57 basis points on a sequential basis to 70.2%, and was, in fact, 358 bps lower on a YoY basis. Operating jaw, which is the growth between the total income and the opex, that continues to improve.
In fact, for the quarter, it stood at 592 basis points, and for H1, it stands at 553 basis points. If you remember, we had guided for an upwards of 500 basis points which we would endeavor to maintain, and we are broadly on track on that front.
As a result, the incremental cost-to-income ratio was about 55% for H1, and that has also resulted in some of this opening of the jaws, which I sort of spoke of slightly earlier. If I talk of operating profit of the quarter, that saw a healthy increase of 38.5% on a YoY basis and 6.6% on a sequential basis.
For three quarters in a row now, we are getting an operating profit increase of upwards of 30%. Moving on to provisions, that reduced by 21.7% from ₹1,452 crores to ₹1,137 crores on a YoY basis.
On a QoQ basis, if we see, this has broadly remained at the same level as we reported about ₹1,144 crores in the last quarter. However, the point to note also here is that the provision for the current quarter also includes standard asset provision of about ₹100 crores on the FCNR-backed loans.
If we exclude this, then the provisions for the quarter declined by 9.3% on a QoQ basis. The bank continues to hold the contingency provision of ₹515 crores created last quarter.
This is on a prudent basis, considering the evolving macroeconomic and the geopolitical uncertainties. In terms of credit cost translation, the credit cost for the quarter further improved to 1.38% as compared to 1.53% for the previous quarter.
If we exclude the FCNR-backed loans and the corresponding provision, since these are backed by FDs, the credit cost for the quarter would have been further lower to 1.30% on average funded assets. On an average total assets, the credit cost which we have reported translates to a credit cost of 1.01%.
Moving on to last few parts of my opening remarks, we all know that there has been a consultation paper which has been issued by IRDAI. While this is still, as I said, in a consultation stage, there could be a draft circular which could come in, followed by final regulations, and this is largely expected to come in from next year.
We have estimated the impact in as-is in the current form that if this has to come, this will definitely reduce our fee income. We feel that, to a large extent, the impact can be offset by the expected repo increase and the FCNR benefit which I have talked earlier.
We will also continue to work on product-mix changes and closely monitor the developments in this regard. Moving on to capital and liquidity, the capital adequacy ratio stood at 14.66% at September with CET1 ratio of 13.01%.
On the LCR, the ratio was at 125% on an average for the quarter, and with September being higher at 139% because of the FCNR money which came in towards the fag end of August. As you would have noted, that normally we have been maintaining LCR around the 115% mark.
Hence, we would continue to deploy some of this excess liquidity. We also broadly feel that this will get largely consumed in a month or so.
With this, I will hand over to Vaidya for his opening remarks.
V. Vaidyanathan
Good evening, everybody. Really, really a pleasure to talk to all of you.
I'm really happy to share with everyone who've been observing us and tracking us for a while that second quarter in a row, our bank posts profit after tax of 1,000 crores. It's a landmark event for us, considering where we started.
It feels good. It encourages us to keep going.
It appears to us that a reasonable look is that this should continue in the months to come as well, or the quarters to come. Now, if you see the core profitability meaning that if you take off what can be considered a one-time income like a treasury trading income, etc., last quarter, the bank had posted a PAT of ₹897 crores, which we rounded off to ₹900 crores.
We'd called it out last time when we posted 1,070-odd. We had said that a portion of that is treasury income, core is 900.
The quarter before that, the core was 746. The quarter before that was 430.
The quarter before that is 300. You can see the trajectory.
I can safely say that the trajectory is fairly established by now. This quarter, on the core, without any adjustments, it is ₹1,036 crore.
We feel good about that. I always said that we'll be in kissing distance of 1% ROA.
It looks like we will get there. In fact, this quarter also, we had ROA of about 0.93%.
Sudhanshu mentioned the FCNR in the denominator effect, but for that, probably it'd been a bit higher than that. Broadly, in other words, the trajectory of profitability is looking good.
I also want to say that the trajectory of profit maybe is today, but actually it is because of many investment the bank has been making for many years. If you recall, many may not recall, it's been a while back, but in the year that was the merger year, we were posting something like about 700, ₹800 crores, ₹750 crores as the core PPOP.
Now PPOP is now touching something like ₹10,000 crores, or annualized. I think that trajectory is looking good.
Now you can take a sense where it might look next 2, 3, 4 years from there. In today's numbers, I'll try to give you a picture of that.
The key thing to notice what is happening to underlying economics. This is very important to understand, because if you see the H1 FY '27 actuals, the interest income is 7 10.7%.
The interest expense is 5.0%. The NII is 5.7%, as you know.
Now fee income is 2.1%. These are all actuals.
The total income for H1 '27 is 7.8%. Now the cost-to-income ratio is currently 70.4% on stock.
Now if you subtract from that the credit cost, the ROA comes to about 0.99 for the half year. For a minute on your spreadsheet, go and plug the cost-to-income ratio at 55%.
Why 55%, I'll explain to you in a moment. Put it 55%, and you see what it does to the opex.
Opex comes down to 4.3%, your PPOP becomes 3.5%, the provision is still 1.1, which is actuals, the PBT becomes 2.4, and ROA becomes 1.8 1.88 1.84. The point is that on an incremental basis, the bank is now making return on assets of about 1.8% plus.
On the stock basis, 0.97 or 0.93 that I mentioned to you. What is the point?
Why do we assume that's a 54 55, and why you should assume so? Now if you look at the incremental cost-to-income ratio, what you do is that you go to H1 '26.
Our operating expenses was 10,400 ₹10,000 crores, and our operating expenses in H1 of '27 is 11,000. You get the drift.
The incremental opex between H1 '27, H1 '26 is ₹1,627 crores, and the incremental income is ₹2,900 crores. On an incremental basis, the bank is posting 55% cost-to-income ratio.
Eventually, the incremental becomes the base as long as you keep repeating more of the same. Now you might ask, how confident do we feel about repeating this?
Now look, for three quarters in a row, we have been pointing out that our opex growth is 500 basis points lesser than the income growth. It's three quarters in a row.
It has some predictability now. We feel we can reasonably, give or take, stay in this zone for the next few quarters as well.
We feel all of this year, i.e., in '27, we can operate the bank at 55% cost-to-income ratio. That explains to you why I requested you to plug that 55 into the stack.
The moment you plug it into the stack, you don't need to do any adjustment, and you don't have to go by our projections of what cost-to-income ratio will be in the future. You don't need to go there.
You just need to take it what it is, and plug it there, you get a sense of where it might get to. We are actually happy to share with you that eventually our bank is not going to stop at one.
This will increase because incremental is what it is, what I described to you. The second thing is that the loan growth.
Now on the bank front is that the loan growth continues strong at at least 20% is clearly in a visibility. We've reported 30% this quarter, of course, YoY.
That's because that about 25 or 35 ₹25,000 crores of FCNR(B)-backed loans are also showing up here. Though the FCNR(B) was actually 35, ₹34,000 crores, this 24 I'm adding back because that is the amount the bank had raised in IBU and had lent to customers, which customers brought back as deposit to the bank.
If you look at it like that, it shows 30, but actually think of it more like 22. Now on the deposit front, again, it's showing us 25.9, but really read it more like a capacity to raise to 20.
Net of FCNR(B), probably lesser than that, but that's because we consciously reduced it because there was too much liquidity. Think of the core capacity of the deposit side to keep growing at 21%, 22%.
Think of the loan growth growing at 20%. So 20-20 both sides, so that the income will keep flowing in strongly.
Now for a 20% growth, if our opex growth is 15, then 500 basis points I told you, and I told you where the cost-to-income ratio incremental comes, and then you plug in the ROA, rest of the story I told you. Now the next thing is that when you see this payoff, then straightaway, when we see the 500 basis points difference between the opex growth and income growth, you find that naturally operating profit then grows not in proportion of the book, but higher.
Operating profit is now growing at 38.5. That's how the stack is playing out.
The good news is that after operating profit comes credit cost. On the credit cost, we have now come down to about 1.3% or so of the loans or about 1 1% of assets.
Now, of course, it's all-time low for us. We are very happy about that.
We are very cautious about it, because Q3, Q4, El Niño's full effect is yet to show. We will watch this very, very carefully.
As far as our eyes can see, looks like this is reasonably achievable in the next two quarters as well. Therefore, if you take this at one, then the rest of the stack plays itself out.
How the PAT will really play out. Now next, I'd like to talk about FCNR.
Now the really good news that all of us should take note is that for a bank which is just about 7 years ago, we started in full earnest to be setting up a deposit franchise. If you remember, retail was just ₹10,000 crores, it is just at the start.
Let me say from the date we got a license is 10 years. Let's take that date.
For a bank just 10 years from a deposit license, just think that we could raise ₹34,400 crores, that $3.6 billion of FCNR(B) money. We have no overseas branch, we have no subsidiary, we have no rep office outside India, just customer trust and digital capabilities.
It should give you a clue about how strong the bank digital capabilities have become, if this is the kind of money the bank can raise in that window. Now the other big benefit of FCNR(B) is that they are 3- to 5-year deposits, it has given the bank a lot of structural liquidity.
Particularly now that interest rates has suddenly risen in the last 15-20 days, we are now almost beginning to be overjoyed that we raised this kind of money for such long tenor at low cost. The other thing is that there is some, let me say, understanding or misunderstanding, let me say, about what this FCNR(B) does to NIM.
I've seen people tend to jump to conclusions that whenever people has raised FCNR(B) through leverage meaning having raised money through IBU and giving it to customers, it has come back to us as deposits. Particularly, let me say the balance sheet expands by that amount.
In our case, that amount is ₹24,885 crores. Since I spoke too fast, let me just slow down and explain that to you.
In the IBU that we have, we have raised this amount of money as borrowings, which we have further given ahead as loans to customers, which came to us as deposits. Now because of this, the asset side expands by that amount.
Now when the assets are expand, then the NIM drops to that extent. In our case, that impact is 16 basis points.
Now oftentimes, many are looking at the 16 basis points in isolation and then wondering that, oh my god, your NIM has dropped, is your profit going to reduce? That's not true.
I want to clarify. While the NIM percentage dips by the 16 basis points because of this impact, when you go back to the ROA tree, because eventually it's the ROA tree, when you go back to return on assets tree, the opex is also now going to be divided by the expanded assets, which is the new number, which is add ₹25,000 crores to it.
There you get the benefit in operating expenses. Similarly, when you take credit cost, again, that will get divided by a larger expanded base.
When you come down and trace this down to the ROA tree, in our case, it's estimate is that's only 2 basis points. I'd request analysts to not immediately read this 16 basis points as a red flag, because please go down and see what it does to the opex and what it does to the credit cost also.
You'll see at ROA level, it's not much impact. This is one important clarification I wanted to bring to you.
Now the last bit I'd like to talk about is what this FCNR(B) has done to our cost of funds. Now actually, before I come there, let me just talk about the IRDAI, and then I'll bring that back in context.
All of you know this IRDAI has come out with the insurance paper on commissions to be paid, etc. Now the paper is what it is.
Let us assume it comes in its current form. We have to be prepared for it, and we have to know what the impact will be.
Our own sense is at our bank is that there are three countervailing factors which will also compensate for that. One is that the FCNR(B) deposits that we have raised is giving us about 1% benefit to the overall cost of funds, cost of deposits, what it would have cost us had we raised it domestically.
Let me read out the broad maths to you. Basically, the impact, one is we have raised it at a rate, the rate differential between the rate we borrowed it in the IBU and what we lent to customers, there is a small margin out there, let me call it 40, 50 basis points.
Now when you add that back to the eventual price we pay to customers, which is 6.75, and 6.75 becomes 6.85, I think, because of the quarterly impact.
Sudhanshu Jain
Because it's annualized.
V. Vaidyanathan
Because annualized, because if we pay customers 6.75, it's actually 6.85 because of the annualization of the interest. Let me take that number of 6.85.
Just take, pull out that sheet. Where are you?
Could you please Yeah, numbers are with me. The annualized cost of FCNR deposit is 6.86%.
We add some hedging cost to it, and then I told you that there is some positive spread in IBU, because between the rate that we borrowed and the rate we gave it to customers, there is about 40 basis points positive margin there. That gives us about 29 to 30 basis points positive spread there.
Then there's also the fact that there is no PSL requirement on the deployment of FCNR(B) funds. All in all, our own estimate of that cost of funds money is basically about 6.8% or so or 6.85.
Similarly, Had this money had to be raised in India at this point of time, and you know the rates currently, our own senses will cost us, including the CRR, SLR cost, maybe the annualized cost would be, if the customer rate is 7.25, you add some annualization to 7.45 to 7.50, and then you add SLR, CRR cost to it, that's more like about 7.8 or so. Blend between the 6.80 to 7.80, there is about 100 basis points benefit in having raised this money at the right juncture.
That on the ₹35,000 crores is a material amount that is going to come to us, which is not in our plan at all. The second thing is about the repo rate itself.
It just so happens that 25 basis points repo rate went up, so that will increase the yield on the books on the floating rate book. Deposit doesn't rise immediately, as you know.
It takes a year for the fixed deposits to get repriced as and when they mature. There is a gap in between, or there is arbitrage in between.
I can't call it arbitrage, but there is a time period in between where the benefit comes to us. Then we are also assuming that for the rest of this year, i.e., between now to March of this year, we are expecting another 25 at least a 25 basis points more increase, so that makes it 50.
Then we are expecting something to come up next year as well, maybe 25. That's at least a house view at this point of time.
If numbers are different, then outcome will be different. These are our current house views, about 50 basis points.
That is 25 already done, 25 yet to come, and maybe 25 more next year. That also is giving us a certain amount of income.
Finally, this money, if you have to raise this ₹35,000 crores in India, in the domestic market, that will also have a cost of raising, which is all not there now. When we add these things up, we broadly feel, give or take, we should be in the zone that we should be able to manage.
The impact should be broadly managed, should be in the zone. We therefore feel that, give or take, that should be managed.
Other than that, let me just share with you that the book is building very well. We expect this trajectory to be stable at least or grow.
We are, of course, very watchful of this El Niño and the impact it'll cause to us. There are a couple of states which have declared drought, etc.
We have to see how much portfolio we have to manage that. As I can see right now, it doesn't look like there's a immediate impact in Q3 or Q4, and then we'll take it as it comes.
That's all I have to share with you, but thanks for staying with us through this call.
Saptarshi Bapari
Darwin, we can open the floor for Q&A.
Operator
Certainly, sir. Thank you very much.
We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone.
If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to please use handsets while asking a question.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Our first question comes from the line of Akshay Jain with Autonomous.
Please go ahead.
Akshay Jain
Thank you, sir. Thank you for the opportunity and thank you for the detailed margin bridge as well as the ROA trajectory.
Just one clarification on this. I don't see an impact of funding cost moderation in both the margin bridge as well as the ROA expansion which we discussed.
Since we have raised strong FCNR funds, should it not improve our ability to reduce funding cost differences vis-a-vis larger peers? That's my question number one.
Second question is more of a clarification on the NIM bridge. How has the 34,000-odd crores which you raised on FCNR been deployed in loans, liquidity, as well as repayment of bulk liabilities?
What is the spread you are assuming between liquidity as well as loans to get this 7 basis points of liquidity drag which you have been quantifying?
Sudhanshu Jain
Maybe, Akshay, I'll answer that.
Akshay Jain
Third on asset quality, which I will follow up later, yes. Hello?
Sudhanshu Jain
Akshay, maybe I'll answer that question. As I said, most of this money came towards fag end, while we were able to reduce some bulk deposits of about ₹5,000 crores in September, and also we didn't roll over certain certificate of deposits, again, about ₹5,000 crores in September.
There was still an excess liquidity, which was parked in, I would say, low-yielding investments and nostros balances. As a result, the September LCR was about at 139%.
As we speak, in October, the further usage of this excess liquidity has happened, and as I said, we should come to the normalized levels of LCR of about 115%-116% in a month or so. Which means that the drag which we had in September because of parking it in treasury instruments, that is largely sort of taken care.
Hence, we have said that in Q4, because this certainly gets solved in Q3, the 7 bps drag sort of vanishes from the 5.58% number, which we've reported at Q2, because that includes that drag.
Akshay Jain
Understood.
Sudhanshu Jain
Similarly, on the deposit side, Vaidya mentioned that there's an overall benefit of one-odd percent, including PSL benefits, that will come over a period of time. Since these were deposits which were raised for a 3 to 5 years, definitely this will flow into the P&L equation certainly starting from next year.
We could see the full impact.
Akshay Jain
Sir, my question was more on the structural cost of funding side. Since you are becoming big, your liability franchise is improving, as well as given your strong performance on FCNR side, did not improve your ability to reduce the funding cost incrementally?
V. Vaidyanathan
No, we'll keep a very close eye on that. We've been doing that, if you notice, that we were earlier paying 7% in our savings accounts, then we made it 6.5, then we made it 6.25, now we made it 6%.
Above 25 lakhs, we're only paying 6 now. For us, it's a material change for somebody who's raising.
It's a continuous process, now only for a small slab in between, we're giving 7. After that, it now comes straight down to 6.
It's a continuous process, we've got to constantly moderate that and titrate that.
Sudhanshu Jain
Akshay, some of the funding costs could also inch up because repos are also increasing, you may have some corresponding increase on the liability side, right?
Akshay Jain
Mhm.
V. Vaidyanathan
What we've done, at least the cost of funds is continuously coming down. When we draw up our next year's plan for cost of funds also, we are by the time assuming that right now interest rates on the rise.
Whatever fixed deposit you have to raise next year, we assume it will come at a higher cost. Overall, I think our own blended cost of funds of '28, don't take it as a guidance, but I'm just giving you a bit of an off-the-cuff estimate that next year should be maybe 3 or 4 or 5 basis points more, maybe at over this in overall cost of funds basis over FY 20 7, '28 over '27, give or take, we feel we should be able to manage about maybe 5 basis points.
Sudhanshu Jain
5 to 10 basis points in this range.
V. Vaidyanathan
Maybe 5, probably. Anyway.
Somewhere there.
Akshay Jain
What's the repo rate hike you're building in this?
V. Vaidyanathan
We are assuming 25 more 25 already done, 25 more in the rest of the year, probably in December itself, and then April of next year, 25.
Akshay Jain
Even for a 75 basis points or say a 50 basis incremental rate hike, the cost of fund impact should be only 5 to 10 basis points, is what?
V. Vaidyanathan
May not even be 10, but let's be safe and say 10.
Sudhanshu Jain
Somewhere there.
V. Vaidyanathan
It'll be somewhere there, yeah. Because you should remember that bank is running high CASA percentage.
This is super important point to note.
Akshay Jain
Yes.
V. Vaidyanathan
Isn't it? Because bank runs a high CASA percentage, our FD percentage is only 50%.
When interest rate goes up, it doesn't affect that much.
Akshay Jain
Understood.
V. Vaidyanathan
Got it, sir. Fortunately, on the savings front and current account front, there we are already doing well.
I told you we're actually reducing it. Money's flowing thick for us because we developed good tech capabilities, good mobile app, and good customer service, and all that.
All put together, we feel like next year, we'll be able to manage comfortably.
Akshay Jain
Understood, sir. Secondly, on the asset quality front, while you have managed this quarter pretty well, though there was a minor inch up in the slippage ratio, but I guess that can be ignored for this quarter.
How should we think about it incrementally? Because a large number of your NBFC as well as bank peers have been guiding a bit cautiously on the El Niño as well as the macro impact and the oil prices.
Anything you are seeing over there, and how should we think about it? The trade cost guidance of 150 to 160 basis points stays, correct?
V. Vaidyanathan
Let's take this. Now, in our case, we put out in our presentation very clearly what is our 0 to 30 DPD.
We disclose the full funnel, 0 to 30. We then talk about 31 to 90.
Then we talk from the 90-plus gross. Then we talk 90-plus net.
We show everything. As of now, our data numbers don't seem to suggest that there is a problem coming, the numbers per se.
Numbers per se, oftentimes backward-looking doesn't tell the future story. When we look ahead, to say, we don't expect that in the next one or two quarters, immediately things are going to change dramatically.
Because it doesn't change so quickly, because after all, it's a large book. This impact of the El Niño and the drought in Maharashtra, Karnataka, etc., we want to watch it much more carefully and cautiously before we make new comments.
Akshay Jain
Understood, sir. Just one more point on mortgage GNPA.
I can see that it has been steadily increasing, and it is up by almost 27 basis points in the last 1 year, as well as the credit card SMA has inched up by 14 basis points this time on. Is it anything to read in this?
Or we are getting too much into the numbers?
V. Vaidyanathan
No, you're getting too much into numbers, because see, mortgage, what happens that we are practically not growing the mortgage book for the last, I think YoY growth is practically nothing. There's normal aging happening, because when you set up any business, initially it starts with zero, and then it increases, and then it stabilizes at some point of time when the book has a natural stable growth rate.
As of now, because mortgage book hardly has any yield, we are not pushing it very much. It's just if it comes as it comes, that's about it.
It's more because of the normal aging of the book. Nothing to read out there.
I think mortgage only gone up from if I'm not mistaken, has grown from Are you referring to the gross NPA, or are you referring to the SMA?
Akshay Jain
Yeah, 1.27 to 1.54.
V. Vaidyanathan
Yeah. 1.27 to 1.5.
1.54 by itself is 1.54 only, right? That too with the full security of mortgage, nothing to worry.
Akshay Jain
Credit card piece?
V. Vaidyanathan
Credit card is ulta, na? Credit card GNPA has come down from 1.99 to 1.49.
Akshay Jain
There, I'm looking at SMA, sir.
V. Vaidyanathan
Oh, okay. SMA, okay.
Fair point. There it's gone up from 135 to 149, but nothing to read there, nothing to call out, nothing to read.
These are normal variations of quarter-to-quarter.
Sudhanshu Jain
We're seeing credit cost actually coming down.
V. Vaidyanathan
Exactly. On the credit card.
Sudhanshu Jain
We're actually seeing credit cost coming down, actually.
Akshay Jain
Sir. Thank you, sir.
Those were my questions.
Sudhanshu Jain
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Param Subramanian with Investec.
Please go ahead.
Sudhanshu Jain
Hi, Param.
Param Subramanian
Yeah. Hi, sir.
Good evening. Thanks for taking my question.
Sir, firstly, the slide that you have given, slide four, which you discussed also, where you're talking about your incremental cost to income of 55%. Sir, is this something that you want to be held to going forward that that incremental cost to income will be 55% for the next, say, year or so?
Is that something that we should look forward to? Secondly, in that slide itself, you're saying 30 basis point drag from liabilities business, but there will always be some drag.
What should that number be on a steady state? That's my first question, sir.
Yeah.
V. Vaidyanathan
I think these are very good questions. I like the way you framed it, "Would you like to be held to?"
Okay. The thing is that, yes, currently cost-to-income ratio is coming at 55.
We've done the math also there. We've actually shown you how exactly we compute at 55.
Indeed, for the last 1 year, in other words, to get an income of ₹2,957 crores, you've spent only ₹1,627 crores. In other words, cost to income is 55.
Question is that will it stay this way? As far as our eyes can see, for this financial year, i.e., for '27, this number looks firmly in the bag.
In other words, for H2 also, we expect similar number. That's how we planned our business model.
See, basically it all depends upon the 500 basis point differential between how much the income grows and the opex grows. We feel that that's what we want to achieve.
We have been achieving it now for three quarters. Let me leave it at that.
You can also plot it broadly in your scheme of things. Now with regard to your second What is the second question?
On the drag.
Param Subramanian
Sir, on the 30 basis point liability drag, yeah.
V. Vaidyanathan
Let me explain that to you. I'm happy you asked that question.
See, basically, you know that we've been always calling out that the liability side business is a drag because it's a new bank, setting up 1,200 branches, 208 teams, and all that, and setting up so many things, technology and all that. Think of it, let us for a minute assume that the analyst estimates of this financial year for the bank is about 5,900 crore, ₹4,400, ₹4,500 crore.
Let us assume for a minute, these are the numbers, I think ₹4,400 crores is the estimate for this year. For a minute, you assume the bank will meet it.
Okay? Because can do a quick simulation out here.
Now, if indeed those are the numbers, let's call it 4,400 for the year. Now it is well known, if you go to our slide in the liability slide, we already called out current loss is 0.7% on the average deposits.
If you do the math and take it net of tax, you will find that the loss turns out to be about ₹1,500 crores on the liability side, maybe a little less than that. By definition, the assets should be making something like about 5,900 to ₹6,000 crores.
Now assuming the bank is oversimplified and said has only two parts, one is assets, one is liabilities, think of it, bank makes 1600 ₹6,000 crores on the lending side, makes a loss of ₹1,500 crores on the liability side, and net-net, that's suppose bank posts about ₹4,400, ₹4,500 crores. Think of this equation.
Now in this equation, if you divide this by the average assets of the year, you will find that assets is making 1.3%, you will find liabilities is making minus 0.3% by the same numbers I just described to you, and net-net will come to 1%. Obviously, if you see the trend line, we're giving the trend line also in the presentation, if you see the trend line, we are not planning to lose 0.7% forever.
It's coming down. It's coming down from 3% to 2% to 1% to 0.7.
It has to come down to zero. In other words, stretch this forward for maybe 3 years from now, you'll find that this number of 0.7 becomes zero.
Which means the drag from liabilities will become zero, and that 1.3 is 1.3, which you can see even today. Now on that 1.3, which is the asset-side ROA the bank is making, now we assume two more, three more years go by, and some more operating leverage comes.
Therefore, you must expect this 1.3 should go to 1.4, 1.5, 1.6. It should happen.
That's the way to read that.
Param Subramanian
Got it, sir. Thank you so much.
Very detailed explanation. Thank you.
V. Vaidyanathan
Which means that even today, if this was not a new bank, if this had no drag on liabilities, had we been like any other bank which has been 30, 40 years, 25, 30 years in business, and there was no liability side loss, imagine. The bank today anyway making 1.3 even today, as seen from the books.
Then operating leverage the next 3 years, it should take you to something beyond that, for sure.
Param Subramanian
Fair enough, yeah. Got it, sir.
Thank you so much. Sir, next question is on the margin.
I think this was asked earlier also, but see, this waterfall that you are showing, where you are saying that the repo rate hike will help our margin by about 7 basis points, that assumes, I understood, I think 50 basis point of rate hike, right? Because there are other moving parts also, there is tight liquidity in the system, we are pretty confident that despite all of that with 7 basis point on a 50 basis point rate hike is what we are talking about on a NIM, right?
The assumption is of 50 basis point and some repricing on term deposits as well?
V. Vaidyanathan
Eight, eight. This is 8 basis points, seven.
Sudhanshu Jain
Seven. Maybe, Param, I'll answer that question.
So, 25 bps repo increase has already happened. We have assumed one more repo increase happens maybe in the next quarter.
This is a NIM projection for Q4. Cumulatively, we should get some benefit of these repo increases, which is two increases, in this year.
However, there could be a corresponding increase in funding cost. What we have put out there, 7 bps, is a net impact, which could be an increase because the repo goes up, offset by some bit of a funding cost increase.
For us, about 30 32% of the book is linked to repo. On a 50 bps increase, a 33 bps should broadly translate to about 16, 17 basis points, but we have assumed broadly half of it to sort of translate in terms of a NIM trajectory.
That's the broad calculation here.
V. Vaidyanathan
The other thing is that this 7 bps factors 50 bps, basically. Basically, it assumes 25 already done and 25 yet to come.
Sudhanshu Jain
Yeah.
V. Vaidyanathan
Because we're talking about Q4. We're talking about Q4 only here, just for just for context.
Param Subramanian
Fair to assume that Q2 to Q3, there might be a slight dip before this, and Q3 to Q4 is when most of the expansion happens? Because Q2 to Q3, the FCNR drag will be higher, just so that we are clear, because you're putting out a margin expansion value.
Yeah.
V. Vaidyanathan
Q3 should be flattish, probably.
Sudhanshu Jain
We feel it to be quite range-bound from the current levels, which we've reported for Q2.
V. Vaidyanathan
It may not dip that much, but then Q4, you'll claw back a lot of it, because the day convention will give you back your 8 basis points, your excess liquid drag will be gone, the repo hike would give you the 7 basis points. Just to tell you that this repo assumes 50 and that is 25 more, which I hope you agree probably will be fair guess.
Would you agree with our comment on that?
Param Subramanian
Yeah. Fair enough.
Absolutely.
V. Vaidyanathan
Therefore, the reason to put out this slide is as to where is the drag and how will it come back is that we didn't want people to suddenly start worrying that, oh my god, they've come down so much, where is it headed? We want to give a two-quarter picture that within two quarters, these things will normalize.
Then, by our own internal estimates, I'm using the word internal estimates, that for '28, when we do our spreadsheet and projections, we assume some cost of funds increase, we assume some repo increase, all that, we expect at least next year, as far as our eyes can see today, to be around 5.8% into '28 also.
Param Subramanian
Got it.
V. Vaidyanathan
You can factor it in when you do your work on us.
Param Subramanian
Yeah. Sir, will there not be an asset-mix impact?
Because I think we are still on excess liquidity. September LCR is pretty high.
The asset-mix impact will not hurt us in Q3, Q4, because we still have to deploy that liquidity. Will there be a higher wholesale proportion of that deployment, just so we are clear on the NIM?
V. Vaidyanathan
We are reasonably factored in. That's why I said we've given a two-quarter view.
We haven't given next quarter's view.
Sudhanshu Jain
Correct.
V. Vaidyanathan
All that is factored. We've done the math.
Looks like we are comfortable, and we wanted the market also to be comfortable that things will come back because of this detailed explanation. That is the purpose.
To be honest, Param, when you read this report, does this give you adequate clarity, it doesn't, or you feel analysts will require some more explanation from us? What do you think?
Just be honest with us.
Param Subramanian
No, I think, sir, you are sitting on excess liquidity. Which is what we're trying to understand, that you're clearly calling out you will benefit from rate hikes.
Logically, that should play out. We're just trying to understand, sir, the extent of the benefit which you're calling out, and I think it's very helpful.
Yeah.
V. Vaidyanathan
No, I'm asking is the bridge clear, I'm asking you. I'm using a sample of one to ask this question.
Is the bridge clear to you?
Param Subramanian
It is. It is very clear what you're guiding for, sir.
That's very clear. Yeah.
V. Vaidyanathan
Okay.
Param Subramanian
Okay. Sir, lastly on the slippages, or from asset quality perspective, I think I heard you mention on Q3, Q4, El Niño is something to watch out for.
Any early signs of any pressure or anything in your rural portfolios especially, because some of the lenders are calling out pressures in some of the drought-affected districts. Any pressures you're beginning to see in your portfolio as yet?
Yeah.
V. Vaidyanathan
No, nothing yet. You should expect reasonably good numbers from IDFC next couple of quarters also.
I always put the caveat, because unknowns are unknowns in life. As from whatever we can see right now, we are comfortable for the couple of quarters as well.
Param Subramanian
Okay. We're very comfortable with our 1.5 to 1.6 credit cost guidance?
V. Vaidyanathan
Yes, definitely.
Param Subramanian
Sir. Thank you so much.
Congrats on the quarter, and thanks for taking my questions, sir. Thank you, sir.
V. Vaidyanathan
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Piran Engineer with CLSA India.
Please go ahead.
Piran Engineer
Hi, team. Congrats on the quarter, and thanks for taking my question.
Just once again, I don't want to harp too much on NIM, but since you've put it out here, wouldn't the September month NIM be meaningfully lower than the 2Q average NIM? If so, wouldn't we be starting off a much lower base in that whole waterfall chart?
V. Vaidyanathan
No, we should be okay for Q3. Sudhanshu, want to take that?
Sudhanshu Jain
Piran, definitely September, as I said, we ran higher LCR because the FCNR money had just come in and LCR was at 139%, which means September NIM would have been slightly lower. As I said, this liquidity is getting fast deployed.
In October, as we see, LCR ratio is that further normalized. I expect this liquidity to be put to use in next maybe 1 month or so.
We have taken this into account and also some bit of a repo increase benefit, which would come in Q3 for the one which has happened. Taken all of this together, we expect that NIMs could be very range-bound in Q3 from the current levels and before it sort of again picks up in Q4.
That's the number which we have put out in the presentation.
Piran Engineer
Just to be clear, this does not factor in
Sudhanshu Jain
Yeah.
Piran Engineer
Fair. No, that's good to know.
Also, just to be clear, this does not factor in a capital raise, right, your 5.8% NIM? If you do it before 4Q, that will be further additive.
Sudhanshu Jain
We will see on the capital, depending on the market conditions and so on. That is something could also slightly benefit whenever it comes into the overall equation.
V. Vaidyanathan
It'll add more cushion to this, actually.
Piran Engineer
Okay. Fair.
Then just moving on from NIM, just firstly on CASA growth, and here I'm looking at quarterly average CASA. Used to be 30% last year, then last quarter moderated to high 20s.
Now it's down to 22, 23. Is it simply just a question of you all being much larger now and scale sort of biting into growth?
Sudhanshu Jain
CASA?
Piran Engineer
Sorry, Piran, which CASA you mentioned? We were not able to hear you clearly.
Can you just repeat? Oh.
Sudhanshu, I'm talking about the average CASA growth.
Sudhanshu Jain
Yeah.
Piran Engineer
That has been about 30% on a YoY basis.
V. Vaidyanathan
Average.
Sudhanshu Jain
Average, okay. Average CASA
Piran Engineer
23. 23.
Sudhanshu Jain
SA growing at 30 and CA is slightly lower pace.
V. Vaidyanathan
Theek hai, Piran, somewhere there 23 or so. You should expect that from us, maybe.
You feel it's low, or you felt it was?
Piran Engineer
No, I'm trying to just understand whether it's a matter of scale catching up or it's a question of, say, governments are moving out, which is what the large banks talk about, which is kind of what happened to y'all two quarters back.
V. Vaidyanathan
No, whatever had to happen already gone, we don't worry that that's not a concern anymore. This 23 think 23 like a base case for us.
Not base case, meaning you're right, it's a more arrival of the bank. It's already built some reasonable scale.
If we can maintain even 20 20% to 22-ish kind of zone, this is 23, but even if you maintain, if the deposits will go by 20 also from here on, because if our overall deposits grow by 20 and CASAs grow by 20, it's fine. We'll maintain the CASA percentage, which should be good enough.
Piran Engineer
No, fair. I think the only risk is maybe a year later, this 23 goes down to 18 and then to 16, just as scale builds.
V. Vaidyanathan
Unlikely, because we are managing this very closely. We just like to see our CASA percentages in the zone of the high 40s.
Unlikely, we let it go there. We'll double up our work.
Our intent is to keep our bank in the high 40s. We've worked hard for the first 7, 8 years to build a discipline of the high CASA.
We have no intention of raising more money through fixed deposits and treading the P&L so finely that we let go of the CASA percentage down to the 40s and below 40s. We have no such plans.
We intend to keep it in the high 40s, and we'll do whatever it takes to keep it there.
Piran Engineer
Got it. Then, just lastly on your corporate banking business, now, it's probably the less focused or less talked about one, but from 15% of loans 2 years back, it's now up to 20%.
Just trying to understand really if you can share more color around this in terms of which sectors, what is the rating of the corporates out there, and really what is our right to win out here, especially when we have a higher cost of funds, and there's so many PSU and large private sector banks in this space? Like in retail, we get your moat, right, that you're targeting a different consumer segment, you've got an excellent app, frictionless banking services, you've got all of that which helps you in retail.
How does any of this or what are your moats in wholesale really?
V. Vaidyanathan
Really very good question. People often tend to think that this technology and tech stack, etc., is a very retail thing.
You'll be surprised to know, I feel that the same tech stack and capabilities IDFC Bank has built on the retail side, though you're not using it as a user, because you're an individual, but same thing if you're an enterprise, you will see a real difference of IDFC's technology stack vis-a-vis a, let me say, what might be available elsewhere. For example, in cash management, we have built some really, really good cash management capabilities, on trade, on FX, on many of the solutions, we built some really good tech stack there.
That's an experience thing which enterprise person who's accessing it can tell you. Second thing is that, we have kind of been very successful in building a really good governance capabilities in the bank, even though we may be lending to let me say mid-tier company.
Our delinquency has literally been nil. There's only one ATM company in the last 7 years where we lost ₹100 crores or so, but that's it.
In 7 years, just imagine. Okay?
No bad loans. 7 years.
We've built, when you disperse, not less than maybe 1.5 lakh crores, net book is ₹70,000 crores. That book is coming really well, our confidence has increased.
The third thing is that demand is a lot. We can grow as much as we want, but currently we're growing at the numbers we're growing.
Delinquency is good, yield is reasonable, surround products are very good. We are really, really liking that business, actually.
We think that, in a sense that the book also gets more diversified, better-rated corporates, all that. To give you an idea, A and above rated companies, since you've said what kind of customers we lend to, the corporate side, A and above rated companies makes 76% of our book.
BBB companies is 76%. BBB companies is 20%.
BB and below is 4%. That is our composition.
It's quite comfortable, actually, and with zero default practically. Just imagine 7 years, Piran, no delinquency.
It's something really.
Piran Engineer
No, that definitely is credible. Then how do we think about ROA in this?
V. Vaidyanathan
It's pretty good now, because if you take out credit cost is not there. I'm not saying it'll never be there.
Like we faced ATM company issue. It could be lurking in the corner, but as of now, it's quite low.
When delinquency is low, we are able to get, and our speed is very good, our decision-making is pretty quick. All this also matters.
Our total corporate exposure, including non-funded exposure, we said 70 to you, but if you take the non-funded that put together probably ₹1 lakh crore. The rating distribution I told you it belongs to the full book of ₹1 lakh crore.
Piran Engineer
Got it. No, sorry, Vaidya, I meant what is the ROA differential or maybe incremental ROA differential between retail and corporate?
V. Vaidyanathan
I'll tell you. Our cost-to-income ratio in corporate side is more like 32% or 33%.
Our yield on book is something like about 9.5%.
Sudhanshu Jain
9.2%.
V. Vaidyanathan
9.2 now, sorry. So 9.2%.
If you take out the cost of funds and we probably be pricing the asset-side people about maybe 7.5% or so, give or take, I don't know, but if you do the math of that, and add back fees to it, and if you don't have credit cost, well, at least 1.6, 1.7 ROA is easily in the bag on that front.
Piran Engineer
Understood. That's good color.
V. Vaidyanathan
Probably even a bit more, actually, to be honest.
Piran Engineer
Got it. That's good.
Thanks, and wish you all the best and happy Diwali to the entire team.
V. Vaidyanathan
Thank you, Piran.
Sudhanshu Jain
Thanks, Piran.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Abhishek Murarka with HSBC.
Please go ahead.
Abhishek Murarka
Hi. Good evening, everyone.
My question is on this insurance circular impact. If I go through that paragraph that you've given in the PPT, I wanted to know, have you assumed that the entire revenue that you make will be covered, or are you assuming a percentage of the revenue which you estimate to be a hit that will be covered?
What are you assuming? Because when I back-calculate, the number that I am getting is a fairly high number, it would pretty much encapsulate the entire revenue you are getting.
I just wanted to get that clarification.
V. Vaidyanathan
No, if you do the back-calculation of the benefits of ₹35,000 crore, where we say 1%, I did the math for you earlier, that's also quite a meaningful amount. If you assume that we've already mentioned what we assumed in terms of rate increase, and then the 25 plus 25, and then you put it on a 1 lakh, maybe 20,000 crore floating rate book and multiply that and you see that's also very meaningful amount.
Then we'll also do some product changes and all along the way. We've done some thinking among us.
You do the math, give or take, it is matching up in the zone. We feel that we know what analysts have estimated for us for next year, etc.
We don't see any material changes to those numbers. We believe broadly they're achievable.
Abhishek Murarka
Sure, that's fair. Basically the hit you're expecting and the recovery from FCNR cost saving and 75-pip rate hike, is it coming to something like 1,000, ₹1,200 crores of that order?
V. Vaidyanathan
We don't really call out, because then it'll take us down to a lot of calculations and math to explain. You can go by whatever public numbers you see.
Abhishek Murarka
Got it, but net-net, your message is that things will offset the revenue loss and therefore sort of neutralize the impact.
V. Vaidyanathan
Yeah. In our mind, we're assuming it'll come as it is.
We don't want to assume anything optimistic from here. It is what it is.
It'll come out, and let's be prepared for that, that's it.
Abhishek Murarka
Got it. The second thing is on fees and opex.
Can you just call out how much of the fee and opex would be due to FCNR, if you can bifurcate those two numbers, that would be?
Sudhanshu Jain
Fee was a very small component of about 30-odd crores during the quarter. On the opex front, that number, because we did mobilize borrowings and bonds, that number was more around 60-odd crores.
Abhishek Murarka
Got it. Thank you so much and all the best and season's greetings to everybody.
V. Vaidyanathan
Thank you very much.
Sudhanshu Jain
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jai Prakash Mundra with ICICI Securities.
Please go ahead.
Jai Prakash Mundra
Hi. Good evening, and thanks for the opportunity.
Hi. Sir, first question on foreign borrowings, do you have any more pipeline for raising foreign for ECB or FCB or not much?
Sudhanshu Jain
No, so, Jai, we have largely mobilized the borrowings. We don't have any pipelines as such on this front.
Jai Prakash Mundra
Right. Okay.
Secondly, on LDR, loan-to-deposit ratio was improving as deposits were outpacing loans. Now, because of this quarter wherein the FCNR(B) was strong, so, going ahead, would deposits still outpace loan growth, or LDR is not a very relevant metric in the current situation?
V. Vaidyanathan
There are broad numbers we have to meet, because they are the regulatory requirements, and maybe we'll keep a little cushion on top of it. We don't think that at least for our bank, since you've seen our deposit growth for last 7 years now, we feel that we'll be able to comfortably raise the deposits we need to raise.
We've done our planning for Q3, Q4. We've estimated our outflows, we've estimated our inflows.
We're feeling comfortable.
Sudhanshu Jain
Jai, we will ensure that deposits grow slightly higher than the loan growth, right? Directionally, LDR should keep improving or stay in a particular zone.
Jai Prakash Mundra
Right. Sudhanshu, you mentioned repo-linked book at around 30% to 33%.
What is the number for FCNR and then maybe fixed and others, if you have that split?
Sudhanshu Jain
No, I have taken FCNR in the math. Out of ₹100, about 60% is fixed, 61% 62%.
Then about 31% 32% is repo-linked, and balance is MCLR. That's the broad math.
Jai Prakash Mundra
Sure. Last question, sir, on ECL, now we are very close to actual implementation.
If you have only pure ECL transitional impact. I know in the last calls, you have mentioned that it will broadly be offset by new credit risk-weight circular.
If you have only the number separately for ECL transition hit and maybe the recurring impact. Thank you.
Sudhanshu Jain
Jai, my commentary on ECL continues to remain the same. In fact, a positive development in this quarter is yesterday only the revised operational risk guidelines have come in.
I had did mention in the previous calls that we could be a big beneficiary on that front. That also kicks in from April 1, '27.
If we take all RWA changes through this operational risk guideline, credit risk guideline, offset by capital impacts which could come through ECL, the impact is broadly sort of neutral on the CET1 ratio. The commentary broadly stays on that front.
We are still fine-tuning some of these numbers, maybe in a quarter or so, we will be able to give further more clarity around this front, but we feel that it's broadly manageable.
Jai Prakash Mundra
Sure. Anything on recurring basis, any number to call out there?
Sudhanshu Jain
Again, as I have sort of said in the past, on a recurring basis also, steady-state credit cost slightly goes up, but we, since we have a large proportion of a retail book, we will also get benefit because of amortization of opex and processing fee put together, which to some extent neutralizes this impact of a steady-state increase in credit cost. On a toto, the net impact on a ROA could be still a small.
V. Vaidyanathan
Manageable.
Jai Prakash Mundra
That is very clear. Thank you and all the best.
Sudhanshu Jain
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Pritesh Bumb with Elara Capital.
Please go ahead.
Pritesh Bumb
Hi, good evening, sir. Can you hear me?
Sudhanshu Jain
Yeah. Hi, Pritesh.
We can hear you.
V. Vaidyanathan
Yeah. Hi.
Pritesh Bumb
Yeah. On the credit card business, congrats on crossing 5 million cards.
Just wanted to check in the past, we have mentioned that once we cross a particular number, which is about 5 million, I think, if I remember, we'll see a material cost-to-income decline especially when we look at the disclosures you made in the past that credit card business was one of the high capital intensive business. Do we see that falling in the cost to income in the subsequent quarters?
Sudhanshu Jain
Cost to income has been coming down. I also did mention that credit cost also has been coming down.
If you see the cost-to-income ratio for the Q2, this is more now into 70s. We feel that the profitability is certainly getting better, and we are well on track on this front.
Pritesh Bumb
Sure. On the flip side, this quarter, we made a feature where zero forex charges, any material impact from that could have been there already?
Sudhanshu Jain
No, not a material impact on this front. In fact, we feel spends could increase as the product offering is quite lucrative in that.
V. Vaidyanathan
We've got to wait and watch how the reaction is, because of course we lose some money on the whole base, and the payback will come when it comes. Anyway, as from day one, we're building customer-first bank, and building on customer first, and pro-customer products and all that.
Hopefully, this will be one more such feature launched by the bank. The benefits will come over time in terms of customer goodwill, trust, more spends hopefully, and maybe even more uptake of cards over time.
Pritesh Bumb
Sure. Second question was on the wholesale book.
I think you've mentioned in a call-out that you take a 360-degree approach. Just wanted to understand qualitatively that with the strong growth, will we have taken significant market share in some of the other features like transaction banking, salary accounts, if you can give some assessment on that?
V. Vaidyanathan
At this stage of bank, we can't call ourselves any material market share, to say. Actually, for that matter, even on the retail side, we can't call ourselves great market shares, because we're still mid-tier bank, let me say, in terms of size.
Certainly, the corporate side, we can't claim that. We find our space in the corporate banking side.
You could obviously be giving large exposure, ₹4,000-₹5,000 crores to some top-tier groups of this country, and you could be earning maybe 6.5% or 7% or whatever. We have found our own space, and by the way, finding huge opportunities, just not small, we're finding huge opportunities in the space we have chosen.
More than market share, we are finding when we say 360-degree approach, we are very keen on cash management. I told you, we built some really good solutions on that front.
If time permits, maybe next time, I'll tell you what the solutions are. Because today, we're running out of time.
We built some really good cash management solutions, so that brings current accounts. We're looking at more in terms of it's building as a good book, high-quality book with many embeddings of multiple products into it, and making good revenue out of that on a stable manner, which over the years can only compound.
Pritesh Bumb
Sure. Just lastly, as a feedback, if you can put one or two slides on what we're doing on AI and cybersecurity, that will be very appreciated for the bank given that we have a very technology-oriented show.
V. Vaidyanathan
Thank you. We'll do that next time, maybe.
The thing is that we sometimes feel that, of course, there are different organizations have different styles of talking about AI. We feel that frankly, talking about AI is like do we ever talk about internet anymore?
It's part of internet banking. Like that, AI is now embedded deeply into our products, our journeys, our processes, our customer experiences, our employee experiences, everything.
It's everywhere. We felt that finally, it has to deliver.
That is the reason we actually chose to focus on the outcomes thus far. Of course, if many of you feel the same way like you're feeling, maybe we'll do some more explanations.
Pritesh Bumb
Yeah. Basically, whatever is happening across the globe in terms of cybersecurity is a little concerning.
V. Vaidyanathan
No, cyber is a different point, by the way. I meant AI.
On AI, we felt finally AI should deliver. We are focusing on outcomes.
Okay? I'll give a small example so that you'll understand.
For example, if our people are processing loan applications a particular way yesterday before the arrival of AI, now today, the same loan application, the ability to see the bank statement, see the GST, see the income tax statement, for the AI to read the documents easily, to analyze them, to process them, and give it back to us, all that has become much quicker. We felt that anyway it's going to deliver results.
That's why focus on results. Now, let me talk about cyber.
On the cyber front, of course, thanks for pointing that out. I agree it's super important, and maybe we'll bring some more angle into that, yeah.
It'll give people more security. It'll make people feel more secure.
I agree with you.
Pritesh Bumb
Yeah. Thanks so much.
All the best.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take that as the last question for today.
I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Vaidyanathan for closing comments.
V. Vaidyanathan
No, nothing to add. We've discussed in detail.
Thanks very much, everybody. Really many thanks for being patient with us and spending over an hour with us.
The key things I want to point out is the NIM angle so that there's no confusion among others. I want to just point out to you one last time that while NIM, you may tend to think that this FCNR brings down NIM, remember FCNR expanding the base also brings down opex, also brings down credit costs in a percentage sense.
In an ROA sense, not going to impact you very much. The second point you want to flag was the insurance thing.
We feel comfortable that we'll broadly manage it. This is the only two things.
Other than that, I think the growth continues, and life will be fine. Thank you, everybody.
Sudhanshu Jain
Thank you, everyone, and happy Diwali in advance.
Saptarshi Bapari
Thanks, everyone.
V. Vaidyanathan
Happy Diwali, folks. Thank you.
Bye.
Operator
Thank you. On behalf of IDFC FIRST Bank, that concludes this conference.
Thank you all for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.
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