Thank you, Shweta. Good evening, everyone.

On behalf of Elara Securities, we welcome you all to Q2 FY26 Earnings Conference Call of Muthoot Finance Limited. From the esteemed management, we have with us today: Mr.

George Alexander Muthoot, Managing Director; Mr. Alexander George, Whole-Time Director; Mr.

George Alexander, Whole-Time Director; Mr. George M.

George, Whole-Time Director; Mr. George Muthoot Jacob, Whole-Time Director; Mr.

Eapen Alexander, Executive Director; Mr. K.

R. Bijimon, Executive Director; Mr.

Oommen K. Mammen, Chief Financial Officer.

We express our gratitude towards the esteemed management of Muthoot Finance to provide us the opportunity today to host this conference call. Without further ado, I now hand over the call to Mr.

George Alexander Muthoot, Managing Director, for his opening remarks, post which we can open the floor for Q&A. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Good evening to all of you. This is George Alexander Muthoot, Managing Director.

We have the members of the board also with me because today afternoon we had our board meeting for reviewing the Q2 performance of the company. I am glad to say that Muthoot Finance consolidated loan assets under management grew 42% year-on-year to 1,47,673...

73 crores, and as against 1,04,149 in the corresponding half-year of last year. During the half-year, consolidated loan assets under management grew by 25,000 crores, a growth of 21%.

Consolidated profit after tax stood at 4,386 crores as against 2,517 crores last year, an increase of 74% year-on-year. Muthoot Finance, the portfolio in Muthoot Finance per se, the standalone profit of Muthoot Finance stood at 4,391 crores in the half-year as against 2,330 in the last finance half-year, an increase of 88%.

The profit after tax for the Q2 financial year stood at 2,345 crores as against 1,251 crores in the Q2 of the last year, an increase of 87% year-on-year. Loan assets under management stood at 1,32,305 crores this half-year as compared to 90,197 in the preceding half-year of last year, again registering a growth of 47% year-on-year.

During this quarter, during Quarter 2, financial year '26, gold loan AUM increased by 11,723 crores, registering a growth of 10%. Now coming to the subsidiaries: Muthoot Homefin, the AUM stood at 3,247 crores.

A total revenue for the half-year stood at 222 crores as against 155 crores in the last year, a growth of 44%. Profit after tax stood at 10 crores.

Stage 3 loan assets stood at 1.69% as of September 30, 2025. Belstar Microfinance is a subsidiary again of Muthoot Finance where Muthoot Finance holds 66% stake.

Loan AUM for the half-year stood at 7,717 crores, and the total revenue stood at 840 crores. It incurred a loss of 1 lakh...

160 crores during the half-year, which is consistent with the adverse environment generally in the microfinance sector. However, the losses have narrowed down from 1 lakh...

128 crores in Q1 to 32 crores in the Q2. Stage 3 loans stood at 4.58 crores, which is also consistent with industry peers.

Consequent to the RBI allowing microfinance companies to have 40% non-microfinance loan portfolio, Belstar has opened 23 gold loan branches in the half-year to diversify the loan products portfolio. Muthoot Insurance Brokers, an IRDAI-registered company, has a revenue of 70 crores, and it has achieved a profit after tax of 23 crores in this half-year.

Asia Asset Finance, a listed subsidiary based in Sri Lanka where Muthoot Finance holds 72.9% of the stake, the loan portfolio stood at Sri Lankan rupees 3,868 crores as against 2,600 crores in the last half-year, again an increase of 48% year-on-year. The total revenue also stood at 440 crores and the profit, an increase of 40%, and the profit after tax of Sri Lankan rupees 40 crores as against a profit of 30 crores last year.

Muthoot Money Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Muthoot Finance, is an RBI-registered non-balance... non-banking finance company.

Today it extends loan against vehicle finance as also loan against gold loans. The loan port...

the loan portfolio for the half-year stood at 6,393 as against 2,491 crores, an increase of 63%. The total revenue increased to 501 crores as against 146 crores in the half-year, an increase of 244% year-on-year.

Again, it achieved a profit after tax of 106 crores in this half-year compared to 5 crores in the previous year. We are delighted to report another strong quarter with standalone loan assets under management rising to 1,32,000 crores.

The steady trajectory highlights the resilience of our business model and the continued trust our customers... of our customers.

Standalone profit after tax also increased 88% year-on-year to 4,391 crores for this half-year. In view of this performance, we are upgrading our financial year '26 gold loan growth guidance from 15% to 30% to 35%...

30%. Favorable regulatory changes in the RBI for gold loan sector, higher gold price, and tighter norms for unsecured credit are expected to boost gold loan demand.

We will continue to expand our non-gold loan portfolio also, including personal loan, which today... and including microfinance.

These non-gold loan portfolio is about 12% to 15% of the consolidated loan portfolio. The microfinance sector is showing renewed resilience following the implementation of regulatory guardrails and improved underwriting, auguring well for future performance.

We are accelerating our digital transformation to deliver faster, more seamless credit access for millions of customers worldwide. With an enhanced branch network, a trusted brand, and sustained investment in technology and innovation, Muthoot Finance is well positioned to deliver sustained growth throughout the financial year '26 and beyond.

I think with this, I would like to conclude my short address, and I would like... I would be delighted to give clarifications against...

against any of the... from any of the investors.

Thank you.

Mahrukh, we are not able to hear you.

Sir, hi. Good evening, and congrats on these results.

Sir, I just have one question. I wanted some understanding on your yield.

It has moved up again in this quarter versus Q1. Last quarter, I remember you had some 350 to 400 crores of recovery benefits.

What is that recovery benefit in this quarter that is leading to a yield expansion again quarter-on-quarter? Is it somewhere around 550 to 600 crores in this quarter?

Is that estimate right? Just wanted some thoughts on this, and then I have another question.

Raghav,

I think the reason why it has increased a bit, probably in the NPA bucket there has been a liquidation of some old dues, especially in the light of increased gold price. There we have been able to generate a better yield, somewhere around 300 crore-plus.

That should add to the additional yield, interest income, which has been generated. As on NPA accounts we do not recognize the interest.

That has come in as an additional yield. Rest is probably because of the churn in the book.

Okay. You also, I think last quarter you had mentioned there was some 150 crores that you were to receive from the ARC sale.

Has that come in in this quarter?

No. The collections from remaining portion of ARCs, this quarter it is small.

Very small.

Very small.

Okay. Understood.

You're saying the entire yield expansion that has come, which is from 19.56 to 19.99, that's entirely because of this 300 crores. Is that understanding right?

Because the math doesn't seem to add up only about 300 crores because I think last quarter when you had this 350, 400 crores, adjusted for that, the core yields were somewhere around 18, 18.5%. Hence the question that if this benefit is only restricted to 300 crores or is it more?

That's it.

Yeah. Roughly around 300 crores, and the yield should be somewhere between 18 and a half to 18.75 or somewhere around that range.

Understood. Perfect.

That was all from my side. Thanks for answering that.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah. Hi, sir and team Muthoot.

Many congratulations on the strong quarter. Just going back to Raghav's question on the yield movement.

If I reduce 300, 350 crores from last quarter and this quarter's interest income, that interest income has still grown 14% versus loan growth of 10%. Are our fresh disbursement yields going up in the last few months?

No, it's not that interest income is going up, because the portfolio also has gone up,

no? Portfolio is up 10%, interest income is up 14%, 1-4, if I adjust for the 300 crores.

Okay. We have a bouquet of products for yield, etc.

High-yield, low-yield. It sometimes happens that in some quarters the higher-yield portfolio off-take may be higher.

That's simple that. It's just not that such a lot of retail loans, some of it happens like that.

It only means that during the quarter or just before that last quarter, more high-yielding loans would have been disbursed. That's it.

Okay. We should not read too much into it.

It sounds like that.

Yeah. Exactly.

That's what Oommen was also trying to say.

Okay. Now I understand.

Sir, and also in your opening remarks you mentioned about favorable regulatory tailwinds. I think you're referring to the LTV you can give at a higher LTV for lower ticket loans.

Have we started doing that for loans less than 2.5 lakhs?

What I meant by regulatory tailwinds is mainly the clarifications, the clarifications and what should I say, confusions being set at rest by the RBI. I think that is what I meant by this regulatory tailwinds.

Of course, we have not started the new, what should I say, less than 2.5 lakh loans and 85%, etc. We have not started, sir.

We intend to start before April 1st? Or we'll just wait for the market to do and then we follow?

We'll take some decisions. I think usually we do and others follow.

Okay. Fair enough.

Good one. Sir, just lastly on cost of funds, how much more benefit can we expect to see over the next two, three quarters?

I think cost of borrowings has started declining. I think last quarter it was 8.99, this quarter I think it is 8.78.

Yeah.

Last time 8.88, now it is 8.78. Yeah.

I think it should come down. I think banks MCLR also started declining, we should see that.

Domestic NCD market also, the rates have started falling, I think the peak level of interest has already reached and I think it's started declining. We should get the benefit the coming quarters.

So 30, 40 bps sounds reasonable? Like 8.78 becoming 8.3?

Our portfolio is also growing, taking in. Probably by the end of the year.

It's another two quarters. We should see some decline, and maybe another 15, 20 basis point decline should happen from first quarter of next year.

First. Okay.

That answers my questions. I'll get back in the queue and congrats once again.

Thank you. Thank you.

Hello. Congratulations.

I have two questions. One is on yield.

Do you have any plans to cut your yields, given that competition is at very varying levels of yield, right? There are gold finance companies such as you which are at 18% to 20%, and then there are SFBs and other NBFCs at around 15%, and then banks are lending at lower.

Maybe they are all different segments, but are there competitive pressures enough to suggest a yield drop or it'll just track the interest rate cuts?

Mahrukh, see, our lowest interest rate will be around 10%, our highest rate will be around 21%. We keep tweaking with these schemes, depending upon how the business scenario is.

That's why sometimes the rates go up, sometimes rates come down, but we generally try to remain somewhere around 18 and a half kind of a level, because we try to cater to different segments, depending upon how the market is. To answer your questions, we have a lower rate products.

We have not done any across-the-board reduction in interest rates.

Competition from all the banks and NBFCs which you mentioned, they are there for the last several years. There's nothing new, nothing new.

Banks are there, SFBs are there, NBFCs are there. Nothing new.

We try to give the best for the customer, and probably see that we grow our portfolio also side by side. If the rate is too high, etc., people may not come.

If it's too low, our yield may come down. We do a balance.

Sir. Thank you.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you for taking my questions, sir. While you've already answered, right, that competitive intensity has remained for last many years, and despite that we've done so well, I'm just trying to understand, especially in Southern India, right, where we kind of keep hearing that there are other NBFCs, right, who have entered into gold loans and who've poached employees from Muthoot, right?

I'm just trying to understand despite so many NBFCs now announcing their foray into gold loans and now starting to build teams in gold loans, it still is not really prompting you to rethink your strategy anywhere, right?

Thank you. I think there is competition always.

This is not the first time. Others are also planning to enter.

There's again, I remember in 2011, '12, there's again a rush of all NBFCs and non-NBFCs also wanting to enter the gold loan sector. After some time, after a year or two, all of most of them lost interest.

This is a that this point of time, there are people coming in, but focused players, people who are focused, we were also focused at that time, we are focused today also, we are focused on gold loans. I think there's always space for us, and we did not take any knee-jerk reactions when such things some people come.

No need for any knee-jerk reactions. We are there, we have our branches, we have our customers, and those customers definitely value the service and products which we give.

I think to answer your point, no need to take any knee-jerk reactions to some people saying that we are, and people poaching from Muthoot always has been there, but anyway people think that by poaching a few managers or some senior managers from Muthoot, they can start a gold loan, but they do they will start, but afterwards they'll find it the the the operations the the challenges in the operations will catch up with them. We'll wait and see.

In one point, one word, there's no need to take any hasty or knee-jerk reactions. People will come and go, but we have been there focused on this.

Got it, sir. Sir, there is then a related question again.

I would say on the same thing, that even despite so many other large NBFCs entering into gold loans, no one is at this point in time introducing any teaser rate schemes, right, just to kind of entice customers, right? Given how yields have been, right, what I'm trying to understand is the pricing discipline in gold loans is still very much there, right?

Everyone is able to grow without really having to do too much on yields and pricing.

I think you put the question, you answered it also. I think I should agree with that.

All right, sir. Then the last question again I had is, sir, while you explained that there were some one-offs in interest income in the first quarter, second quarter, right, and which is why maybe the yields are higher.

From a second-half perspective, if you could help us understand what are the recoveries which are expected, either from NPA resolutions or from the ARC transaction that we in the first quarter called out that maybe another 100, 150 crores we are expecting. A, what are the recoveries which are expected, which will reflect in interest income in the second half?

Then what are the blended, steady-state yields we should expect going forward?

I think yield is what Oommen also mentioned, 18.5%,

18.5%,

that is the rate which we would plus or minus half a percent is what we would be expecting, maybe 18%, 18.5%. That should be the steady-state.

Occasionally some of these comes because, as Oommen said, when there's a churn in the NPA, the old loan NPAs with a lot of interest embedded in them gets replaced by a new NPA with much lesser interest. All the interest which we had actually derecognized will become recognized.

When this churn happens, some of these things happen. Our NPA as of this quarter is, I think, little less than 3,000 crores, and I think it has continued to be there.

That is because we give more time to the customers to take the loan. That is the NPA.

Regarding the ARC, yes, some of it people have come and taken back their gold, and now the gold price is also high, probably more and more people will come and take back their gold. In fact, in the ARC also, all the customers who are able to take back the gold are very, very happy because we did not auction their gold.

Again, there are some little ARCs left, and we are definitely in the money. We are not hard-pressed to auction it quickly, and as and when they come, they will be able to take it back.

Answering the question, the yield should be in the 18%, 18.5% range going forward also. This of course occasionally this churn in the NPA, etc., happens and some extra interest coming.

Got it. Sir, Oommen sir, if you could just answer that question, what are the expected recoveries in the second half?

Expected recoveries means there's no particular customer. It's just such a lot of small loan portfolios.

It is just people coming in taking back their gold. There is no one big customer or some big loans which has to be recovered.

There is nothing like that in this. In the gold loan, it's all average 1 lakh, 50,000 and 1 lakh loans.

They come, they close, and they go. That's all.

Got it, sir. This is useful, and thank you so much for patiently answering all my questions, and I wish you and your team the very best.

Hi. Thank you, management, for taking the question.

Three questions from me if you can help me with those. First one, I think, on the ECB side on the dollar bond borrowings, of course, they have grown to quite decent portion of the overall funding, about 15% now.

If you could just share some insight where you think your target or any steady-state number you have in mind as a percentage of your funding for the ECB borrowings. Second question would be around the new RBI guidelines if you can share what has been the changes since they have been implemented in October, and I believe some of those measures would likely be implemented from April onwards, but just to get a sense of what you expect in terms of changes, in terms of growth, competitive scenario, or anything else which you could highlight.

Just lastly, I think you made some announcement around this particular case about some retail investors having some complaints or some issues. If you could just share where that case is or what is any quantifiable impact you could see there, if at all.

That's it from me. Thank you.

ECB borrowings is around 16%. Ideally, we should have a stable source of funding.

If it is a stable source of funding, it should constitute around 25%, 30%. On ECB borrowings now, we have focused only so far on bonds.

There is also a larger ECB loan market, which probably we will be keen to look at

it. Actually it's all clarifications.

There are not much changes happening. We have not started implementing the new regulations.

It is kicking in only from 1st of April next year. I think there's nothing now to be done on that.

We have not made any changes. There is no big changes necessitated from this regulatory guidelines.

Only thing which is there is the new loans which we are permitted to give loans up to 2,50,000 with 85% LTV, etc. That we will consider from next April.

The board will have to take a decision, or the credit department will take a decision on that. Regarding the

The last point, I think we have already filed an exchange filing, which is quite detailed, we don't have anything to add more than that.

Is it possible to give any quantifiable amount? How much are the retail HSRs, what kind of losses being incurred, etc., any just from this aspect?

Love, please go through that exchange filing, no? This has nothing to do with Muthoot Finance, or the loss incurred by the investors.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah.

Yes, thank you for the opportunity. Congratulations on a great set of numbers.

I have two questions. I wanted to understand our average ticket size is now more than 1,17,000.

I wanted to understand at what point or at what ticket size will this start plateauing because, obviously, at the higher end, competition from banks will become aggressive, maybe beyond 2 lakhs or 2 and a half lakhs or 1 and a half lakh. If you can help us understand beyond what ticket size where do you feel for your book you see far higher competition from the banks?

My second question is on the number of customers. Obviously, there was a very strong growth in the number of customers and the slide that you have given of customers coming back with fresh collateral, etc., but in this quarter, that number seems to have plateaued a little bit or declined in certain segments.

It seems a little counterintuitive because we thought that a lot of customers who are not getting MSME loans, not getting MFI loans would still be coming to you all. Has there been some slowdown in the number of people walking into your branches?

Those are my two questions. Thank you.

Okay. Regarding the competition from banks or the average ticket size, etc., there is space and room for everybody today.

As you said in the last line, more and more people are now thinking of gold loan, more and more people are now comfortable to take a gold loan with their jewelry. We don't see competition that somebody is taking away our customers or we are taking bank customers or bank taking.

There is space for everybody. The total business is really growing.

Today the banks have a huge gold loan portfolio. They have a portfolio of about 30 trillion and NBFCs have a portfolio of just less than 3 trillion, there is lot of business being done by the banks and people may go to bank, may come to NBFCs.

My point is it is not that somebody is taking our business and we are taking somebody else's business. There is business for everybody.

Now about this number of customers See,

Shreya, the number we are showing, it's actually the incremental number of new customers. Every quarter if you are able to bring in 4 lakh-plus new customers, that is a big thing.

What you are thinking is probably the outstanding number of new customers. It's not.

Every quarter we have added around 4.2, 4.2

Yeah. Sorry, I lost that.

Understood. I get the part that it's addition of new customers and every quarter it has been

Yeah. Answering Shreya's question on number of customers

Are you there?

Yes, yes. I'm there.

Every quarter we are adding new set of customers, which is around 4, 4.2 lakhs. Sometimes there could be small variations.

Sometimes it could be higher than previous quarter, but the important thing is that every quarter we are adding a similar number of new customers and we are making fresh disbursement to those customers.

Got it, sir. That answers my question.

Thank you, and all the best.

Hi. Thanks for the opportunity.

Just to kind of harp on this point of competition, while I agree that Muthoot has been there across cycles and probably one of the most long-standing players, just wanted to pick your brains on the fact that this time the new competition is AAA-rated, especially from the NBFC side, large NBFCs who are AAA-rated want to scale up this product, also seemingly more invested in technology. How are we trying to kind of stay at the forefront in the product, as well as do you see any risk to say pricing or yields?

That's my question.

I think I have answered a similar question little earlier also. There are people coming, AAA or AA or whatever A rating, etc., with deep pockets, maybe coming into the business, but then we have been focused on this business.

We are focused on gold loan, our branches are also focused on gold loan, and we have seen similar people coming and probably after some time losing interest also. Whatever it is, people come to a sector when they see lot of growth potential.

It definitely answers one question, there is growth potential in the gold loan sector. Now whether somebody is coming and taking away our business, that question I don't think it has happened, it is happening.

Till now, we have not seen anything like that. We will see.

We will wait and see what is happening in the market, and we can always make changes if necessary. To me, if you ask me, I don't think we need to do any knee-jerk reactions today.

Sure, sir. Thank you and all the best.

Yeah.

Hi, sir. Am I audible?

Yeah.

Yeah. Sir, had a few questions.

First, I'll put it all together itself. One is on the LTV piece itself.

This time, I think we have consciously or probably because of the market factors, we have kept the LTVs much lower than what it was running till last quarter. It's right now around 57% versus 62%, 61% we had earlier.

Wanted to get your thoughts that is it a conscious decision from our end given the heated prices right now? The second question was, sir, on the branches that we saw a very good branch addition this quarter.

If you can throw some light on the targets and what are the limits which we have unused at this point of time? One last question is that when I look at the Stage 3 reduction, last quarter it was 700 crore,

this year it was around 100 crore. Despite that, our interest income recoveries this time seemed very strong.

Just wanted to double-check that the 350 crore-odd number which you said last quarter was regarding probably the 600 crore of Stage 3 reduction, but this time that number was only 100 crore, yet the number was very strong. If you can give some color on how should we look at the yields?

About the branches, yes, we have the opening branches regularly. We again give request to RBI for permission to open branches.

As and when the permission is received, we will keep on opening branches. We add about 100, 200 branches every year, and probably this year also we will look at that number or a similar number of new branches this year also.

Regarding the NPA, I think Oommen had clarified earlier in the first or second call that it is because of the churn in the old NPA accounts. The old NPA accounts which were really old and had lot of embedded interest which was derecognized earlier, when it was got renewed or closed, those interest, a big chunk of that interest came.

The new NPAs which came did not have that much of accrued interest to be recognized. That is the reason for that.

Got it.

On LTV, the 43% you see is the average LTV, and so a portfolio will have old loans, which is because of the increase in the gold price. Currently if you look at, it will be at a lower value.

It is merely because of average LTV. Otherwise, we are lending at 75% of the gold price as per RBI norms.

Okay. You're saying that probably the older customers who had obviously the LTVs are lower, they have not come and taken extra money on that same gold, which is why the

Whenever they need, they will come and take an additional money if they need it.

If they need, they will come. If they don't need, they won't come.

Understood.

The reason I asked that, sir, if I look at from 1Q to 2Q, the drop was actually a bit sharp. That 38 moving from 4 to 43 was actually a lot sharp.

Probably is it also linked to the Stage 3 reduction? Because

in that quarter there is an increase in gold price, no? Gold price increase.

It purely depends on the gold price increase. When the gold price goes up, the LTV also comes down.

Typically by when, sir, in your experience does a customer comes and takes relatively higher amount or takes some of the gold back?

See, if you look at daily disbursement, we give maximum 75% LTV. The average will be still somewhere around 70%, 71%.

Not all customers will go for 75%. Now later, the same customers, when the gold price increases, their LTV will come down from 70 to say 65, 60, depending upon the increase in the gold price.

No, sir. I understood that, but I'm saying that behaviorally, what have we seen that customer typically in 3 to 4 months again, we should see either the LTV moderation, the customer taking more money or taking some of the gold back?

That depends on the need of the customer.

See, there is one thing which people should really understand. It is not that somebody has pledged a gold and he'll take all the maximum loan every time.

He actually wants the gold back. He will take only an amount which he feels he'll be able to repay if not 1 month, 2 months, 3 months.

If he feels that he is not able to repay that loan, he will not take it on the gold because if he really wanted the full money, he would have actually sold the gold and got all the 100% instead of coming to a financier and taking only 75%. He is a person who needs temporary money, and who feels that after 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, etc., he will be able to take it back.

He will take loans only up to the amount which he feels he'll be able to repay. Otherwise, he will lose the gold.

Those are people. Somebody will not come just because the gold price has gone up.

He will come if he really needs the money.

Sure, sir. Perfect.

Thank you, sir. All the best.

Hi. Good evening.

Thank you for taking my question, and congratulations on very strong profitability. Sir, my question is we are earning very strong ROA, ROE right now.

Where do we plan to reinvest for maintaining our customer base growth and our market share? If not cutting the yields, then would it be in advertisement and marketing or would it be in more employee incentives?

Can you share some thoughts on your growth strategy going ahead to ensure that we keep on growing our customer base?

You want us to spend all the money?

I think, sir, for maintaining growth at a customer level of 10 10-odd percent, we would appreciate that if something has to be reinvested in activities. Yeah.

I think we have given a higher guidance this time. We are expecting the business to grow maybe 30% to 35%, we need all the cash with us.

No, but that is a value growth. I'm talking about more customer level growth of 8, 10% being maintained despite more number of players joining the industry.

Our major expenditures are on employees as well as on advertisement, so that's where we are going to spend the amount.

Because I have seen in this quarter that your A&P spend has actually increased in this quarter and even employee cost has been growing well, which is a good thing. These are clearly the two areas where you will keep on reinvesting for growth.

I think this is a bonus season, no? Onam bonus, etc., payments come, incentives are paid.

Of course increments are also paid. I think I'm not sure that may be one of the reasons.

Of course we are adding people also. The branch business is growing, we are adding some people also here and there.

I don't know the exact numbers. This is a general ballpark remark I should make from the overall

You can see the expense numbers break up in the presentation.

Yeah. No, I've already seen.

On Belstar, the losses have come down and now even the book has stopped degrowing. What is the outlook on growth and profitability in the next three, four quarters?

How quickly can we come back to that 15%, 20% growth, 3%, 4% ROA? What is the assessment basis, the current loan stages, the current collection efficiency?

How quickly can we come back to normalcy?

I think probably next two quarters will also be a quarters for consolidation. Probably we may not see big growth there.

Consolidation and maybe making the portfolio better quality would be the focus for the next two quarters. Probably after that, after two or three quarters, we should see business growing also, but again it always be on a calibrated scale only, not something which is what should we say, very high-powered growth, etc., may not be there.

It will take two quarters for it to stabilize. Maybe this quarter the loss has come down, probably by next two quarters we should see a zero loss, etc., and then probably we slowly see business also going up.

Okay. Thank you, and best of luck, sir.

Yeah.

Hi, sir. Congrats on a good set of numbers.

My question was pertaining to the ARC transaction. What is a quantum left that can flow in the second half from that transaction of ARC transaction that we had done earlier?

Another 90 crores is left, so that should come. We are not very aggressive in terms of the recovery efforts.

No, we are in the money. If you want to know that, we are definitely in the money, and principal and interest definitely will come.

We can expect something more than 90 crores also, maybe 30, 40 crores more also from that.

Oh, okay. Okay.

Got it. The second question was pertaining to the auction during the quarter and what would be the loan book split in terms of below 2.5, 2.5 to 5 lakh and 5 and above 5 lakh ticket size?

Auctions is just very minimal. 10 crores, very minimal, minuscule.

Because the gold price is there, nobody would like to send it for auction, people

It was just 5 crores.

5 crores this time. Okay.

Achha,

okay. Okay.

Sir, the loan book split in terms of the ticket size, below 2.5, 2.5 to 5 lakh and above 5 lakh?

Above 3 lakhs is 44%, 1 lakh to 3 lakhs is 33%.

Okay. Okay.

Sir, the last question was pertaining to the let's say the NPA resolution that we saw during the quarter. Just wanted to understand at a blended level on this 3,000 crore of NPA pool that we have, what would be the overall interest outstanding?

Is it fair to assume that it will be more than 30% sort of a number?

Probably. Probably there, yeah.

Okay. Sir, if you could give some let's say closer, specific number, that would be very helpful.

Yeah. Yeah.

No, you can take approximately 30%, 1 and a half years. If it is more than 1 and a half years, it could be higher also.

Because, sir, as one of the earlier participant asked that the reduction was just 100 crore, but the benefit on the interest income has been pretty lumpy at 350 crore. Yeah.

I think we are repeating again on this. When there is a churn, recover the earlier NPA accounts, the new loans gets impacted.

The thing is that because gold price have been high, some of these customers might renew the loan or maybe take out the NPA accounts to sell the gold. The newer accounts because there is a churn which is happening at a higher level, the interest dues will be lower.

When you collect on the old loans, you get a higher income, but the new NPA is might be the dues will be lower.

Right, right. Got it.

Just a last question I wanted to squeeze in.

Somewhere around 30%, 35%. I don't have the exact numbers.

The last question was pertaining to the business strategy. We have gold business being done under three companies now.

What is the thought process going ahead? Will we continue with this structure or there could be some change there?

No, no.

We'll continue with this structure, yeah.

Got it, sir. All right.

Thank you for answering my questions, and good luck for the next quarters.

Hi. Good evening, and congratulations on a good set of numbers.

Firstly, if I look at your Stage 3 levels on the standalone book, which come down sharply over the last two to three quarters to about 2.25%, what will be the target, if any, for the end of year at your end on the NPA levels, given the kind of price run-up and given that people are coming back to repay the NPA?

Actually we support our customers who ask for more time. When customer comes and says he wants 1 month more, 2 months more, 3 months more or 4 months more to take back the loan, we look whether we are in the money.

Are we a loser? If we are in the money, we don't mind giving him more time for that.

That is how this thing remain as an NPA. As and when they get the money, they'll take it back.

There's no hard and fast rule. A very high NPA number in our books always cast some doubts on people, although it is fully secured, we'll not lose any money.

Nevertheless, people will ask so many questions, why is your NPA higher, etc. For a gold loan company, NPA is not an issue.

It should not actually be an issue. We should not compare the NPA of a gold loan business to maybe the NPA of a personal loan or such other loans where NPAs result in loan loss.

No NPA till now has ever resulted in a loan loss or an interest loss for any gold loan company, including Muthoot. When we hold something as an NPA, it is only to see that the customer doesn't lose his gold through auction.

It's only to support the customer. Otherwise, we don't need to keep it an NPA.

We don't need to keep it. We do it so that customers will not lose their gold because it's a precious ornament for them.

That is the reason for the NPA. Finally, we don't have a target for NPA.

We only see maybe the gold in the money, we will retain it in our books.

Okay. Given the environment, is it fair to say that the NPA levels will continue to decline by 30, 40 bps like we've seen in the last two quarters?

I think it's around 2% to 2% to 3% will remain in that level only.

Okay. Sure.

Secondly, what would be our incremental cost of borrowings from banks as of today?

I think most of the banks 1-year MCLR is around 8.65 to 8.75, 8.8. That will be because we are taking term loans, and it's all linked with 1-year MCLR.

Okay. What percentage of your book is linked to MCLR?

The borrowings are linked to MCLR?

All borrowings are linked to MCLR.

Okay.

All bank borrowings are linked to MCLR.

Noted. Just finally, under Belstar, you recently opened 23 branches in H1.

Is that the total gold loan branch count we have under Belstar?

As of September, it is that one. We are still opening more branches.

Plans

to open about 150 branches by this year.

Sure. At this point of time, the gold loan AUM under Belstar is not meaningful is a fair assumption?

Not meaningful, correct.

Sure. Noted.

Thanks so much and all the best.

Thank you, sir. Thank you for giving me the opportunity and congrats on a good set of numbers.

Just one data point if you can share. Sorry if I'm repetitive.

Can you share the auction number for this quarter as well as Q1 FY26?

This quarter it's 5 crores. Q1 also, Q1 I think around

Q2 it is 5 crores.

Q1 is 13.

13 crores. 13 crores Q1, 5 crores Q2.

Okay. Thank you and congratulations.

again George Alexander, Managing Director here. We had our head office team here, many of the directors, including our Executive Director Mr.

K. R.

Bijimon and the CFO Mr. Oommen.

All the other directors are also here, and we are happy about the results, and we are also pleased that we had a good set of deliberations, and I'm sure we would have clarified many of your questions, etc. From our side, we will try our best to perform as well in the coming months and coming years also so that we deliver best results to all our stakeholders, whether it is the investors, the bankers, or our customers, and our employees.

On that note of good performance which we assure for the next years, I would like to hang up. Thank you.