HDB

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to HDFC Bank Limited Q4 and full year FY 2026 earnings conference call on the financial results presented by the management of HDFC Bank. 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 call, 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. Srinivasan Vaidyanathan, Chief Financial Officer, HDFC Bank. Thank you, and over to Mr. Vaidyanathan.

Thank you, Nirav. Good evening, and warm welcome to all the participants. Today we have with us our Chairman, Mr. Keki Mistry, our CEO, Mr. Sashidhar Jagdishan, and our Deputy Managing Director, Mr. Kaizad Bharucha. I will hand off for opening remarks to Sashidhar. Over to you, Sashidhar. We can get on to the other agenda.

Thank you, Srinivasan Vaidyanathan, and thank you all. Good afternoon to you, and welcome to the full year FY 2026 annual results call. Let me dive straight into the key aspects of FY 2026 performance. We had estimated the system credit growth to be around 10.5%-11.5%. We did 12%, up from 5.5% last year. As you can see, there is positive momentum, as we had expected. Deposit growth rate at 14.4% continues to grow faster than the credit growth, which is what we've always been doing. The growth rate is better than the system growth rate yet again. Net income growth clocked at 11%, similar to the last financial year, while EPS growth of 10% versus 3% last year. The yield on assets had a faster transmission as against deposits on a full year basis, leading to a NIM drop.

Despite the drop in NIMs, the return on assets continued to be stable at 1.9% due to cost efficiencies, with cost to income declining from 40.5% to 39.5% on a core basis and focus on quality growth reflecting in lower credit costs. I would like to remind the sizable investments we made over the last five to six years, which will bear fruit in the coming years. These investments were despite we witnessing significant events such as COVID, a complex and one of the largest mergers in corporate history. The distribution nearly doubled to 9,700 branches. The number of customers nearly doubled to 100 million customers. Our tech investments more than quadrupled to around $1 billion. The merger with mortgage company HDFC Limited too is an investment for the future.

The bank navigated the same in a stable manner over the last three years, despite changing economic outlook and regulatory stance. The above is going to provide a huge operating leverage in the future. Sometimes all of us have short memories and forget the core business foundation, which remains our moat and strength. Customers at 100 million, we continue to acquire about 6 million-8 million customers a year. This will be the funnel for future growth. 22% of our customers are actually 30 years of age, 42% are less than 40 years of age. This enables us an opportunity to engage through their life cycle, which would be the future engine of growth. We continue to be market leaders in our core franchise offerings, such as cash management. In the capital market segment, we continue to hold about 35%-40% of the account settlements.

In the bank tranche issue, we hold about 40%-50% of the escrow settlements. In the trade part of the business, almost 18%-20% of the country exports goes through us. In the imports, 13%-15% of the country's imports goes through us. In the cards merchant acquiring, almost about 35%-36% of acquiring comes through the bank. On the issuance of credit cards, 21%-22% of the issuances of the system is from us. In the spends, almost 26%-28% of the card spends in the market is through our cards. We are a dominant salary relationship bank in the private sector. We are among the top two MSME banks in the country. As in the mortgages, we are among the top two mortgage bank in the country.

In the wheels business, whether it's auto or transportation, we're the top wheels bank in the country. The above, despite intense competitive environment, reflects the excellence and execution capability of the bank. Our financial parameters reflect strength and resilience of the bank. We have a strong capital position at 19.7%. Our asset quality is extremely healthy at 1.15% gross NPAs. This has been tested across three decades of business cycles. The bank has created a large provisioning buffer of almost 125 basis points to absorb any shocks in the future. Where this is obviously contingent upon any future events that may occur in the future, we don't have any stress in our portfolio as we speak. Our focus is on profitability while pursuing growth opportunities. The loan deposit ratio is not a constraint. The regulator has come out and talked about it.

We have demonstrated our ability to gain market share on deposits every year, almost around 30-50 basis points over the last five years. Hence, it's no longer a binding constraint. We have been building granular and sustainable deposit franchise, which is reflected thus. In the less than INR 3 crore retail liabilities, we have moved up from 31% of the net total accretion to about 47% of the total net deposit accretion for the year. This reflects the focus on granular and sustainable deposits. Having said that, the bank will continue to improve its quality of deposit franchise over the years to come. The bank witnessed an unprecedented event recently, but its strength and resilience were seen with stable and strong deposit flows.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Government of India, the Reserve Bank of India, and SEBI for their unequaled vocal support during that period. However, the most important strength will be our leadership in the technology space. Over the past few years, we have focused on strengthening the bank's long-term competitive position, anchored heavily in our technology architecture to operate as a technology-first institution. A large share of our investment has gone towards improving the digital front and customer experience. We have been upgrading our interfaces, simplifying acquisition and service journeys, and modernizing our digital platforms. We launched in the year our new net banking, mobile banking platforms, and also our payment platform, which we probably did it about a couple of years ago. All of them are at a population scale. Today, our mobile app serves over 16 million registered customer offering.

The features, the USP of our build focuses on security. We have an OTP-less authentication, we have a lock which is for enhanced security, and we have a full stack UPI-enabled wallet, which we call the Zapp Account. A combination of the above will make it extremely secure and probably one of the most secure offerings in the country today. The efforts have increased digital adoption to 97% for payments and service transactions, and 92% for acquisition journeys. Our goal remains simple: Offer customers a seamless, reliable, friction-free experience across all touch points. The next layer after the customer layer is the intelligence layer. This is principally to build an AI-ready engine. We have built a strong intelligence layer that brings automation and analytics to the core of our operations.

By decoupling our front end and back end through a modern API gateway and orchestration layer, we now have a strong foundation for the emerging agent-driven AI model. AI is only as strong as its data. We have built a robust data foundation anchored by a customer level, enterprise level, single source of truth from a customer perspective. We went live with our lakehouse architecture, a centralized, scalable data lake, reusable, enriched data marts. While not always visible externally, this work is essential to our long-term scalability and AI aspirations. The big story is how we created in-house the unified AI platform, which is going to be the center that spans across the entire organization. It allows us to deploy AI agents quickly without building custom interfaces, building systems. The platform brings together enterprise search, document extraction, voice-based agents, a full AI development life cycle.

It supports multi foundational and open models and includes a unified evaluation model for strong governance, compliance, and security. We have an independent unit in the risk team that adds a second line safeguard. The key components includes the Model Context Protocol, or the Agentic Studio and Agentic Mesh. This will enable us to deploy AI agent to scale, placing us amongst a small group of Indian and global banks with such advanced in-house capabilities. We already have five use cases in production and 14 more in development, improving turnaround times, first time right outcomes, and freeing mid-office and back-office capacity for customer-facing roles. The above leadership position will enable us to harness efficiencies across the organization and will be a key driver to enhance return on asset over the next one, two, three years.

The guiding principle is return on assets, loan growth, and deposit growth, and quality of the balance sheet from a risk standpoint. All of it should culminate in a consistent EPS growth. Let me also take on the subject matter relating to some of the matters that we witnessed during the quarter, including the resignation of the former part-time chairman and the Dubai branch related matter. I and the members of the board did provide statements post the March 18th 2026 event. The government of India, the Reserve Bank of India, and SEBI came out with statements in favor of the bank. The legal review, which is what we had committed at the time when we went to the press, is in process.

As and when this happens, we shall provide a summary of the same. The audited financial statements of the bank for the year ended March 26th carry notes which are self-explanatory. On the Dubai branch-related matter, the same has been covered in the notes to accounts as well. There is also an NCDRC order which came out on the March 23rd, which highlights that the complainants are not retail in nature or are not uninformed investors, and they had a clear intent to pursue high-yield, high-risk investment products. We do not have anything incremental other than the above. We would like to pause out here and probably take on questions from here. Thank you.

Thank you, Sashi. Nirav, with that, we can open it up for questions, please.

Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the questions queue opens up. The first question is from the line of Mahrukh Adajania from Nuvama Wealth Management. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi. I just have a few questions. Firstly, that in terms of growth next year, what would be the key driver? First of all, where do you see your growth? You'd said possibly above sector. What could that be? What range could that be? Then corporate growth has been a good driver, I guess, for everyone for the fourth quarter, and that's partly to do with yields as well. Do you see corporate growth sustaining or do you see retail growth picking up from these levels? That's my question.

Mahrukh, hi, Kaizad here. If I got your question as to what would be the growth drivers. First, on the corporate side, I think you would have seen in our release the increase that we have done over the previous year. We do see this sustaining as there has been demand. Of course, we will have to temper it given the fallout of what we see in the geopolitical area, which hopefully should not be more than a couple of months going into this financial year. We do see an opportunity in corporate across sectors in electronics, food processing, auto ancillaries, the renewable sector, and the semiconductors. Also, it opens up, as you well know and are aware of the different opportunities which are now available from an acquisition financing point of view, including what was already there for more project finance and supply chain.

We see the corporate sector, the emerging corporates and corporates, holding up in the year ahead. Coming to your point on retail growth. Mahrukh, if you really see our retail growth has certainly stepped up from where we were last year, and we have seen a better step up, if you've followed our results, in the last three quarters. This step-up has been there across our wholesale business as well as on the personal loan, business loan side. To add to that, we've also seen consistent holding of demand on the mortgage book, and that has also performed well. We've seen a growth overall, if you look at it or if you look at the balance sheet, we've been about 53%-54% in the retail and the balance coming out of wholesale.

Got it. What kind of growth trajectory should we look at for FY 2027? Because I guess the earlier guidance was of above-sector growth, but the sector growth has also moved up substantially.

Yeah. Mahrukh, if you really see our loan growth last year was 5% and our loan growth this year is 12%. I think we will continue to have a good momentum and trajectory in our growth. You have to keep in mind what the geopolitical situation and that fallout is going to be. We are confident that we see the positivity continuing. We've not seen any alarm bells go up as yet, and therefore, we will continue to focus on all these areas that I covered earlier.

Thank you. Mahrukh, I request you to come back for a follow-up question. Thank you. I request all the participants, kindly limit yourself to two questions per participant, and rejoin the queue for a follow-up question. Next question is from the line of Nitin Aggarwal from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.

Yeah, hi. Good evening. Am I audible?

Yes, Nitin.

Hi, am I audible?

Yes, Nitin. Go ahead. Yeah.

Yes, Nitin, you're audible. Please go ahead.

Okay, great. Firstly, congrats on a good quarter in a very challenging environment. My question is two questions. Firstly, on the deposits, so how do you look at the deposit market share? We have done very well in this quarter, but if I look at it in context of how the system itself has done, we have seen a very sharp pickup in the deposit accretion for the system overall. How do you look at the market share that HDFC Bank has been able to garner this quarter in context of system number? Any color, if you can also share on what has driven this huge surge in the business numbers over the last fortnight.

Okay. Let me take that, if that's okay. See, if you look at the quarter, the INR 2.45 lakh crores of deposits that came in, typically you see that the market is pretty active and accretes maximum, almost more than close to half or slightly above half of what the year accretes in the last quarter. In this year, it's no exception. If anything, it has been more squeezed towards the last month of the quarter rather than the full quarter, because January was still tight all across. Somewhere from later part of February to March it has been quite easy and liquid, and possibility of deposit gathering is there. If you look at the composition, so that's one. There is a market tailwind that is there.

I think the system growth, as we saw somewhere reported a couple of days ago, was about, at an aggregate level, 11.5% or so system type of growth. Now, when you look at the composition of the deposits between retail and wholesale, there is some level of wholesale deposits that come in March quarter, naturally because of relationships as well as how the corporates manage their balance sheets towards the end of their financial year.

You'll see that the average of the retail versus wholesale is about a percentage point or two different in this quarter, which in our earnings check, you'll notice that there is 82% against 84% or something, 82%, 83% against 84%. Retail, I'm talking about the retail. Retail continues to power and stays ahead of the 80% mark. Within that, when we look at the composition of the deposits between the core retail. When I say core retail, I mean the higher-ticket size NRIs or certain other institutions that are managed through the branches and so on.

When you look at it, the core retail is faster and almost close to the total, despite there is a good power coming from the wholesale business, but core retail is also almost at that level. We feel quite enthused by the relationship managers gathering and engaging to get these things done. We are quite positioned for continued growth on this area.

Right. Srinivasan, also the other part of the question is any color if you can share on what has driven this huge surge in the business numbers over the last fortnight of the year? I mean, this time the pickup is exceptionally strong across the system.

Yes. If you look at it, the liquidity. Look at the system, what kind of funds that have been available in the system. I think the last time we did quite a significant volume was like INR 175,000 crore or INR 180,000 crore or something like that. This year, given that we have added much more customers and much more distribution strength and more stronger corporate relationships because we've been lending this year. Remember that we have grown corporate loans by 13%. We get higher levels of share from each one of them.

Thank you. Nitin, I'll request to come back for a follow-up question. Next question is from the line of Kunal Shah from Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Hi.

Kunal Shah go ahead.

Thanks for taking the question. Firstly, again, touching upon on the growth side. We indicated we will try to grow in line with the industry average, but we are seeing industry average being upwards of 15%, we are still at 12%. We have been below it. Next year, would we retain the guidance of growing above the industry average or would we say we will still grow in line with the industry average because industry average itself has picked up to a very large extent? On the deposits, how much of this is the transitory nature and how much of this it can sustain? Because last year we indicated that we will more focus on the sustainable deposits even during the period end.

Just want to get the sense because the difference between the end of period and average deposit is quite high during this quarter.

Okay, let me take one by one. The first one is on the growth in the system. At least if you see through large part of FY 2026, the nominal GDP growth expected was somewhere around 9%-9.5%. One consensus until a large part of the year was a system credit growth of around 10.5%-11.5%. This is what we had expected, and we calibrated our strategies and our growth in line with that, and that is why we grew at 12%. You have said 16% or 15%, but actually, when you compare the period-end numbers as of March 31st, which is published by the Reserve Bank of India.

You sort of make the math, it comes to somewhere around the 13.5%-13.9%. That's the system growth. Obviously, it has been faster. It is something that we have to navigate, but it's not too far away from the momentum we have seen from a 5.4% growth in FY 2025 to a 12% growth. I think, as Kaizad was mentioning, we are very well-positioned to continue that kind of a momentum in a manner that we do responsible growth, and we don't want to overstretch beyond what could potentially have some landmines in future. That's the reason why we're not because of this dichotomy in terms of the growth being slightly more than what one expected in relation to the nominal GDP growth.

I think we would like to sort of just leave it as that to say that our trajectory is in the right direction, and we will do what is appropriate from our risk and reward perspective. That's part one. Part two on the, what was the second question on this?

Deposits.

On the deposits. Let me first take the granularity of deposits. The retail has always been, as a proportion of total deposits, has been about 80%-85% of the total bank's deposits. You have three significant verticals where we have a lot of close relationship being, whether it's corporate banking or whether it is the capital market segment as well. Now let's talk about the 80%-85%, which is the retail segment. Within that, there is definitely a focus on trying to see how we can garner more granular time deposits. If you see, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, the granularity of the deposits has stepped up significantly. In fact, the less than INR 3 crore deposits, which has been mobilized in 2026 on a net basis, has grown up almost about 74% over the net incremental deposits for FY 2025 on that less than INR 3 crore bucket.

What constituted 31% of the total net accretion in FY 2025 now constitutes 47%. It's a very significant number because these are all very less volatile and very sustainable, and that is something that we are emphasizing as we move ahead, and this particular number should go up even in future. As regard the-

47% is less than INR 3 crore?

On the time deposits.

On incremental.

Of the incremental.

Got it.

If we have mobilized INR 3.9 lakh crore for the full year, 47% is that. Now, in terms of the volatile or the high-frequency deposits, it's quite natural when you have corporate as a significant part of our corporate and capital markets, which contribute 55% or 53% of the balance sheet, you will have large relationships which you need to patronize. That aspect of the 15% of the total deposits will be volatile in nature. You will see that moving out and probably coming back during every month-end or quarter-end as well. The endeavor is to try and see how, on a full year basis, we try and inch upwards the net incremental mobilization, and that is what we are all working towards.

That gives the confidence on LCR at 114-odd percent because now we are below 115%. How would we look at LCR? Because now LDR is not in focus, but obviously we would want to manage LCR. What range we would want to sustain the LCR within?

Kunal, in the past, we have mentioned that our endeavor for LCR is to be between 110-120. We are somewhere in the middle. Last quarter, I think we were about 116, now we are 114. Thereabout, that's the kind of range at which we intend to operate, to be in the middle. Sometimes it goes higher, sometimes it comes below, but somewhere in the middle is where we endeavor.

Got it. Thank you. Yeah.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Pranav from Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. My first question, Sashidhar Jagdishan, is more on guidance. I think if I heard you right, you said LDR is no longer kind of relevant or a constraint. I also heard you saying that loan growth, you would rather focus on improving momentum rather than benchmarking the system. Is there one metric that you use internally to assess performance which kind of captures some of these pushes and pulls you have on the different metrics? That would also be helpful for, I guess, going to track performance. That's the first question. Second question is on your NIMs. The borrowings have come off almost 11% year-over-year. The NIM trajectory is broadly similar with what some of your peers have reported. Is that something you expected a year back, meaning borrowings comes up, but NIM doesn't really get impacted?

Has something changed in there? More importantly, will a reduction in borrowings have a meaningful impact on NIM, going forward? Is that even a lever that you are thinking about? Those are my questions. Thank you.

Okay. Let me talk about what you ascribed to the borrowings mix changing. Yes, changing of the borrowings mix is a favorable item, where costs that are higher, essentially the spreads that you pay, you can save on that and get to the bottom. However, if you see what has happened, the rate cycle, when you go back about a year, when you were in March, April of last year, the rate hiking cycle had just started in February, and there was no kind of an indication that it would end up 125 basis points in the cycle so far.

Rate reduction.

Rate reduction. Not hiking, the reduction. Rate reduction cycle, 125 basis points was not something that was anticipated last March, last April. When that happens, and little above 70% of the loans are floating rate and immediately the transmission takes place, deposit, as you know, is managed. Within the deposit, when there is a higher propensity for time deposit, which we have seen, the time deposit rate of growth was 15.5% year-on-year when you see now. When the total deposit rate of growth was 14.4%, the time deposit was 15.5%. This is a higher propensity towards the time deposit, which is again, on a relative basis, higher price than the CASA, of course.

That is where it is sitting, and it needs to unlock itself both from how the rate cycle plays out as well as how the mix of the deposits change. Essentially it is moved from one type of funding, which is borrowing, into another type of funding, which also in the funding stack is of a higher order than the CASA. That is where it has gone to be and still needs to unlock fully. That's on the borrowings and where it is. On the question of the NIM, I think we talked about how to think about NIM, which is, see the policy rate, when it started to come down, the assets came down faster and more or less fully there. The deposit has moved.

The pricing on the deposit, if you look at the transmission that has happened, is only about 40-50 basis points that has come into that so far. It's not fully compensated for what the asset pricing has moved down. As we see now, due to the geopolitical situation and uncertainty that is there, the rate cycle is currently paused. If anything, the tendency, at least we are seeing from the G-Secs market, is that the rates have gone up a bit, right? While we don't want to hazard a guess whether the rate reduction cycle is done and it's bottomed and now it's going to start going up, I don't want to hazard. At least by all indications, looking at the G-Secs market, it seems to be going up.

Depends on how the geopolitical situation settles, and so thereby, countries' liquidity and borrowing needs, depending on how the oil prices settle, will determine our trajectory of the NIM. More important, I think what Sashi alluded to in his preamble, in his opening remarks is that what we are focused more than on the NIM is on the returns.

When any of those on the NIM that we manage as best as we could, given the market environment, we do have those levers of enhancing our efficiency both from an operating side as well as from the credit side to realize. That is what in the recent time periods you have seen, where when the NIM has been in a small range-bound, minus or plus, the offsets have come from these to keep that return stable in that range. The quarter was 1.96%, but the year was 1.94%, similar to the full year that you saw last year on the return on asset.

Understood. You see, just if I may just ask a follow-up. My question is more on relative. Hypothetically, if let's say, borrowings were declined by 75%, right? Let's say your borrowings just come down to 6% or 7% of liabilities today, do you think NIM will improve very significantly?

Yeah. If all else remaining same, that means no other factors play in, borrowing percentage coming down will change the NIM trajectory upwards and all else on the other side also remaining same will boost the returns.

Okay, got it. On the first questions on the metric, I think I heard you say that you focus more on returns rather than just NIM. So is some version of PPOP the metric that would be appropriate? What would be your best metric then?

ROA is what we should focus on. PPOP is an intermediate, right? You take higher risk and take it in the top line. You give it away on the credit cost below the PPOP. PPOP doesn't determine what returns you can get, so we focus on the return on asset.

Okay, but that doesn't capture growth, right? I mean.

Yeah. I'd say growth, right? Profit growth and returns. EPS.

Top line growth.

Top line growth and returns.

The combination and EPS.

EPS. That's what we always look to.

Okay. Understood. Thank you, sir. Thank you. That's helpful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next question is from Seshadri Sen from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.

Seshadri, can I request you to unmute your line and proceed with your question?

Sir, can you hear me?

Yes, go ahead.

Am I audible?

Yes.

Yes, Seshadri.

Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Two questions. One is, I was hearing Sashidhar with interest in terms of the investments that has been made in the last five years. Are we now entering a cycle where the cost-income ratio has peaked, and we can expect significant benefits to come through? I know part of it will come from revenue growth itself because loan growth is bouncing back. This should be a better year for margins, et cetera. On the OpEx side, is there a possibility that the overall OpEx could slow down from here because a large part of these investments that you made are done? Or do you think this is an ongoing process and there are not too many levers?

Yeah. Seshadri, yes. If you look at the cost growth that we have, we have seen that at a level, almost at, call it 6.5%, 7% or so is the full year, right? Quarter-to-quarter variations happen, but full-year, call it 6.5%, 7% rate of growth is lower than the top-line growth. You're seeing that benefit coming in. Having said that, the cost to income is a relative ratio, as you know, as you also just alluded to. Even the top line moves faster, you get that relative ratio. More important is also to look at cost to assets. Cost to assets is at about 1.9 or so. We do think that the cost to assets at 1.9 is best in class. However, we do see that there is an opportunity space even in that aspect of it due to various technology implementations.

Which is what I mentioned, Seshadri, that if we just focus on the investments that we have made in technology and implement them across the organization, you should see operating leverage kicking in and enhancing your ROAs.

Thanks. The second question is on retail loan growth. You've done well in terms of recovering the overall loan growth, but retail is still at, I think it's in the single digits. I think it has some upside for a franchise like yours. Going forward, what would be the levers to accelerate retail loan growth? Which products, which channels, more harvesting of cross-selling within your existing customer base? Should we expect some forward momentum in that part of the business in the coming FY 2027 early in the year, and would it be back-ended or front-ended?

I think, I did cover it in my opening response to Mahrukh. We have seen good traction across our products in wheels, personal loans, as well as in the mortgages space over the last three quarters sequentially. In terms of levers today, if I just take mortgages, we were doing mortgages earlier out of about 6,800 locations. We are now covering mortgages from more than 7,800 locations, closer to 8,000. One is we are using distribution. Two is we've got our digital channels working very well, and we have seen a higher utilization of our 10-second loans, both in our Xpress Loans in auto loans and personal loans. We've also seen more addition to the customer acquisition base. That is what Sashidhar referred to earlier, as well as the foray that we have done in the salary accounts.

These salary accounts create the base for us for better cross-sell and penetration of our retail products. We are the leading bank in salary accounts and the quality of the franchise we have out over there. If you look at our physical distribution of branches, if you look at the better penetration and utilization of our digital channels, as well as you look at the increasing acquisition that we have in what we call our pre-approved base because we have the history of the client, because of the salaried relationship, has obviously created the momentum without going down the asset quality ladder.

One is disbursement.

Yeah. Okay, I'm being prompted by Sashi on a very important metric. We have seen our disbursements go up quarter-on-quarter, which is another parameter on the retail space. We do know that on the mortgages side, I do believe that we would be among the top two with hardly a gap in terms of the quarterly disbursements that we have been doing. In the auto loan space, we have grown well. We continue to be market leaders, and we have the largest engagement with all the OEMs as well as their dealer base, which acts as the real feeder for the retail loans. Between the physical channels, between the digital channels, between the customer acquisitions, and across the set of our core retail products, we do see that growing well.

We also see ourselves doing well in a product that we have launched over the last year and has come up very well, has been our gold loan business. We've built a good quality book out over there, and I do see that also continuing to contribute. The last lever I may touch upon, to give you a sense, has been on our SME business. We have been market leaders in our SME business, and today we are number one in the country on the entire SME space or MSME space. To give you some granularity, we are number one in 15 out of 28 states, and we are number one in the top two in 25 out of the 28 states in MSME. If you also see the pack which my colleagues have put out, we've grown our business banking, which is mainly representative of our MSME.

We've grown at about 20% year-over-year, and that will continue to also be in that range of 18%-20%, 21%, depending upon, obviously, some of the developments in the economy. That should give you, I hope, a good sense of what will be the levers on our consumer bank and the channels through which we will get it.

Can you talk about the merger synergies as well?

That wasn't the question, but I'm happy to cover it.

Yeah.

Okay. Another aspect just to touch on the consumer side and the mortgages business as well as some of the benefits that have accrued over the last couple of years from this business that we acquired. Let me touch on a few of the levers, and I'm sure separately we could give you more color otherwise. From the book we inherited, we had roughly a penetration on the liability side, which was about 36% share. 36% of the people who had home loans with HDFC had their liabilities with us. Net of attritions, net of acquisitions over this journey, this 36% has come as high as 50% within the last two and a half years. That tells you the liability franchise that we've got.

As we'd mentioned in our calls earlier in October and January, happy to update you that we continue to have 98% of all home loans that we disburse, our customers opening a liability account with us. Therefore, you've seen this shift move from 36% to 49%-50% of stock as we sit on today. More importantly, more than the 50% stock that we sit on today, approximately a little over 60%-65% of that stock pays their EMI through my own account, which tells you the synergy which a home loan and a liability bring from a value accretion perspective as well as from a risk perspective. The second thing out over there would be apart from the actual CASA balances that have grown, and at that point in time, we roughly had about INR 50,000 gross value of the CASA balances.

We have today grown that to INR 86,000 crore. That's been the growth in the two and a half years, not only in the numbers, in terms of the engagement of the CASA accounts, mainly SA, but also of the value accretion that has happened. A thing I had mentioned in the past, which had come up and that continues to hold good as the book matures, as the engagement matures, that the average balances that we see of customers that keep their liability with us who have their home loan, goes up 2x-2.25x compared to the standard average balances that will otherwise be witnessed in the banks.

Apart from that, finally, there is what we call the cross-sell thali internally, which consists of a host of products, which while not limited to indicatively are the cross-sell that we do on the credit cards business to this portfolio, the insurance policies that they take to insure their homes, the wealth accounts that we open, as well as engagement on our digital properties, including the SmartWealth and the PayZapp accounts or the PayZapp gateway of our wallet that they use. The engagement is all around. Today, nearly 23% of our home loan customers on stock have our credit cards, which are active. I hope that rounds up, Sashi, as you were mentioning.

Yeah. Thank you

the flavor of how this has grown and in the manner it has grown and the way it will continue.

Thank you, Kaizad. Thank you. That was extremely important as to what we are looking at from a mortgage book perspective. It's not just the book, but the kind of primary relationship that we are all focusing on, and that's going to really be a large, sustainable franchise over a long run.

Quality.

Quality.

Thank you. Very concise. Appreciate it.

We have the lowest NPA percentages as we understand in the industry on a book of our size on the home loan book.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Rikin Shah from IIFL Capital. Please go ahead.

Good evening. I had three questions. The first one is on the yield on investments. This number is down about 60 basis points in the last two quarters and the overall yields have gone up. Why is the interest income on investment yields going down? That's one. Second, if you could just highlight what's the cost of deposit and what is the residual repricing, if any, remaining from the current levels. Thirdly, it's on the treasury gain. Similarly, there seems to be no impact on the treasury gains or effects, despite the yield movements and the RBI move. How should we think about it as we move into the next year on this particular two points? Thank you.

Okay. One thing that you touched upon is about the investments yield. Investments yield have been coming down, as you know, until the geopolitical risk started to increase, right? At which time it started to go up. It's the effect of what some of the maturing book that goes out and what the new book comes in is one aspect of it. The second one is in terms of how the yield spike is now. You'll not see that because given the size of the book, when you pick up a new security at this new yield, it's a drop in the ocean, right? It'll take time to bring it in. All you're seeing is the effect of the previous rate cycle moving in. Yeah.

Srini, if I can. Even though the geopolitics, the yields, the 10-year G-Secs were decisively moving up, right? In the last six months specifically. The book yields have kept going down. Just wondering what's the missing part here?

See, Rikin, I do want to realize that you should appreciate that there is something called duration. In a rate cycle, up or down, Treasury manages the book they want to do. There are certain duration aspects, which is previously five-plus years of a duration goes to four-plus something. You come on the curve different parts and different cycles. That's one. Second thing is that you don't instantly see, if you look at what the last two quarters of rate that has changed, and if you look at the two quarters of accretion of investments, you will not see. That is going to be a fraction of the total book that you're seeing. Then the way you need to look at it is the movement. What is the security that is moving out?

That means maturing or participating in OMO that moves out, and what is the security that is coming in? That's the in and out. There's a different equation. It's not a simple equation of what you see on the screen of the current yield that you are seeing.

Yeah, fair enough. On the other two questions, sir?

The other one you talked about the cost of funds. I think we published the cost of funds, which is about 4.4% or so. It has marginally come down. From last year to this year, I think so far it has come down by 50 basis points or so. Cost of deposits is part of a component of that, and very similarly, it moves down in line with that.

The residual repricing, if any comments on that? Or are we already at the bottom in terms of the cost of funds?

Residual repricing, if everything else remains the same, there will be further reduction coming on the residual because the time deposit takes five, six quarters or so to go. Some residual again remains to be seen in terms of the preferences for what type of the deposits coming. Yes. All else remaining same, there is a tendency for the repricing to factor in more.

Got it, sir. The last question on the treasury and FX, any comments, if any? There seems to be no negative impact in this quarter. How do we think about it going ahead?

No, there is some negative impact. If you see that the rate of growth on the treasury income is modest. The reason for that modest is that, I'm talking about the FX component of the treasury, is modest because there is a volume impact. Due to various risks on the foreign exchange trade, there have been lower volumes and lower spreads too. Also in terms of the-

Impact of the unwinding.

There is some impact of the unwinding that is also there. Yeah.

Got it. Thank you, sir.

Thank you. Yeah.

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Abhishek Murarka from HSBC. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good evening. Thanks for taking my question. I had a question on the third-party distribution fee. Actually, if I look at it on a full year basis, the growth has been hardly 3.5%. This is lagging your overall customer growth. This is also when you compare it to the retail asset, retail liability fee growth, this is lagging quite a bit. What is really leading to this? Is it just a slowdown or cross-sell has become more difficult or you're refocusing on some product? What's really leading to this lower growth in this line? That's question number one. The other one is on margin. You said that there's some repricing of TDs left, which should be positive. On the other side, the loan mix is gradually changing more towards corporate.

How should we look at margins from here for, let's say, the next year? Does it trend down or does it flatten out?

Again, I'll first take the third-party products. Yes, the third-party products revenue growth has been modest. Both of those components, which is the volume growth, has also been modest. It's positive but modest, given that whatever preferences the customers have. I think last year there was a good amount of spike that we saw as we entered into the fourth quarter.

FY 2025.

FY 2025. There is some volume kind of tippedness that we have seen. The second thing is in terms of spreads. That is, the mix of products that determine the spreads has also impacted. We have seen that the earnings, that means our earnings on the third-party commission, is also subject to mix of products that get taken. There was a mix also had an unfavorable impact. That means lower realization of income there. That's the reason for the contribution.

Mr. Srini, on the mix, so lower life sales, is it? Is that temporary or is some change in process or something which has led to it? Is it just coincidental or nothing really to read into it? How do we look at it?

It's just a question of how our RMs are engaged as much as they are engaged today versus how they were engaged last year. It's a function of what the preference is, and that is why you saw even the product preference is somewhat different. It's a question of how we get on more customers and spread it around to be much more penetrated. We still have only a mid-single-digit penetration in our base, and the opportunity space continues to be there. Enormous opportunity space continues to be there. Again, you talked about the NIM, which is the second part of the question. Again, just to repeat, the transmission has happened on the assets, and the mix of assets can impact depending on what it is. The cost of funds, while time deposit repricing can continue to be there.

Again, it depends on the rate cycle, what happens. You see that there's a stickiness in the rates across. For the last, I think at least four months, we have not seen our time deposit rate change in the market. We are fairly priced with the competition, and we've not seen four months of any kind of a change that has happened. Which again, as one would give some time for change, you've seen that there are other things in the month of March, the geopolitical thing that's coming about, that has hardened the rates again. It remains to be seen, but it's a range-bound is what I would say, but focus more on the returns.

Because if this becomes kind of where it is continues to be within a small range-bound, then we work towards getting returns to be stable to going up through other levers.

Got it. Okay. Thank you for that.

Thank you.

Thank you, and all the best.

Thank you. Next question is from Piran Engineer from CLSA India. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Hi, team. Congratulations.

Piran, sorry, we are losing your audio.

Piran, kindly repeat because we lost your voice.

Sir, we have lost the line for the participant. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take that as our last question, as we have come to the end of the time allotted for the call. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Vaidyanathan for closing comments.

Thank you. Thank you all for participating today. We are closing at the appointed time, which is 5:00 P.M., because we have another meeting scheduled soon after this. If there are any more questions, comments to be provided, please feel free to contact our investor relations team. We'll be happy to engage with you over the next few days, weeks, whatever it takes. Thank you. Have a great weekend. Bye-bye.

Thank you very much. On behalf of HDFC Bank Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect the line. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to HDFC Bank Limited Q3 FY '26 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Srinivasan Vaidyanathan, Chief Financial Officer, HDFC Bank. Thank you, and over to Mr. Vaidyanathan.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Nirav. Good evening, and a warm welcome to all the participants. At the outset, I know that it's 6:15, 15 minutes behind schedule. We had another meeting we had to conclude and come. Apologies for that, but we'll take as many questions as possible and extend where required. With that, without much ado, we'll straight go into the opening remarks by our CEO and MD. And then we'll -- and we have our DMD Kaizad, any comments we'll take, and we'll go straight to Q&A after that. Sashi, over to you first, and then we'll take it from there.

Good evening, friends. Thank you very much for joining in on a Saturday evening. I know it's rather late, but always appreciate your being here on a Saturday evening. I think we've just sort of declared the results, and you probably would have seen the financial numbers. We're reasonably sanguine and happy about the outcome that has happened. It's in line with our expectations. Looking back, I think the credit growth buildup has been extremely encouraging. We set our sights on a very balanced credit across customer segments. The easing rate cycle and the benign credit has provided catalysts for the credit growth. The CRR release enabled credit deployment slightly ahead of our expectations. As regards to funding, the funding through deposits, we continue to maintain rate discipline, and that has been extremely key. Core individual retail customer segments were seen to be quite strong. For both current and savings, having focused on granular segments have given us encouraging outcomes. And more of this, I'm sure Srini will sort of give the numbers. We did, however, fall short of our strong ambitions, but we are confident that continued focus on our strengths will bring the expected outcomes. On the growth, profitable growth, as mentioned earlier, cost of funds has moved down, reflecting the tailwind effects. CASA growth has been positive. Cost has been under control as productivity improvements have brought in efficiencies. Credit, which has always been our USP, remains best-in-class, allowing us to deliver stable returns as we pivot to the next stage of growth. Looking ahead, the regulator and government continues to be focused on supporting economic and credit growth. At the same time, optimally managing external factors. During the quarter, availability of liquidity was impacted due to some of these. We saw enhanced activity in open market operations and FX swaps to combat some of these challenges. India has demonstrated stable political conditions and consistent policy regime. This has led to being one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world. Growth with subdued inflation management was at the top of the order, and hence, we believe and we are very optimistic about outpacing loan growth in the coming year in FY '27, as we had sort of mentioned to you all along for the last 18 months. Liquidity and benign credit costs provides us a lot of runway to grow. Overall, liquidity in the country is expected to stabilize post trade deals. The foundations are in place to build deposits to fund loan growth. We are expanding our -- we continue to expand our customer base. We are now intensifying customer engagement primarily and largely focused on granular mobilizations. We are aligning pricing with segmented approach, and we shall see that in the coming quarters as well. There's been a lot of talk on the CD ratio. We did sort of drop our CD ratio to significantly since the merger to March '25. As you know, the kind of indicator is not necessarily on the radar for the -- from a regulatory perspective. Having said that, we believe that our glide path to lowering of CD ratio will continue. It's an important focus for sustainable profitability. I completely acknowledge. The cycle -- the easing cycle with credit growth focus in the country surely needs our participation. So the speed of CD ratio movement depends on how we are able to provide funding in the system at rational rates. But having said that, we're very confident that whatever we seem to have committed in the last 2 years, I think by March, I think we should see and by March '27 -- '26 and '27, we should sort of achieve all the -- most of the committed metrics that we have laid out for. I would like to say that under the current scenario, we don't think that we shall be constrained by the CD ratio. To reiterate, we are confident that it will be on a downward glide path. I would also like to reiterate that we shall meet the glide path that we had indicated earlier in terms of the growth, our top line growth, which is in line with the system this financial year and faster than the system in the next financial year. In summary, I have a great appreciation for our customers for partnering with us, and I have the greatest gratitude to all our 200,000 staff who are pillars making this place work successfully. We are confident of the path forward that we have set for ourselves. Thank you very much, and we have all of us here, Kaizad, Srini, and the team here to take on any questions that you may have. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] First question is from the line of Mahrukh Adajania, an analyst.

Sir, my first question is on the LDR. You did allude to it. But when do you think now you would reach an LDR, say, close to 90% or below 90%, like any time frame? So that's my first question. And my second question really is on agri compliance. So two large banks have been asked by RBI to make provisions on a certain agri portfolio because of noncompliance issues, provisions of INR 12 billion to INR 13 billion. So as we stand today in terms of your agri portfolio, do you think there is full compliance or there could be some issues somewhere given that it's a large portfolio, it's spread out across the country. And do you think you would be liable to such provisions in the future?

Okay. Thank you, Mahrukh. I'll take that. The first thing you touched upon is the LDR from a timing point of view. I think Sashi alluded to that we are committed on the glide path of taking it towards the downward glide path, and we continue to be in that. But on a quarter-to-quarter basis, it is slightly different. And that's because of the seasonality and the opportunity. And you know that in the recent time period, the further opportunity was also provided with the easing cycle and the credit growth focus in the industry as well as the CRR release, which provided that ample opportunity to do that. So given that, we do expect that over the next 1 year to 2 years, we would be getting down further into the levels that we had previously been there, call it, the 90s or low 90s and so on. And that's the level of confidence we have and the pillars that are required to drive that are in place to do that. That's one. The second one is in terms of the agri that you asked about, the regulatory kind of impact, if any. Our regulatory inspection is also complete. And whatever required according to the regulatory requirement, there was about INR 5 billion or so thereabouts, which have been taken in the overall context of our book and our results, if you see, they have been absorbed within that, and there is no special and we have had certain other things that were there. And so in future, we need to operate in a model that is acceptable with the regulatory. So that -- whatever is that, that's an ongoing process of what we do. Any one-time is already subsumed and it is there. And as far as the calibration that we need to do on the agri consequent to those kind of things, recalibration of our book due to the scale of finance, so that what is indeed an agri and what is outside of the scale of finance, scale of finance is the one that determines how much is required for the farm and how much of that is over and above the farm requirement by the farmer. Those evaluations we will take and go through that process to calibrate that. That's in terms of the future impact on that.

But did the INR 5 billion come this quarter only then?

Yes, it is already subsumed in December.

In December. Okay. And what would be the size of the portfolio? Any such indication you could give?

Our agri portfolio is published. You'll be able to see the...

No, the size of the portfolio on which the provision was taken.

No, that's not something -- that's not consequent to this at all because it depends on loan item and what is the scale of finance on each one and so on. But at an aggregate level, that's the kind of level.

Next question is from the line of Kunal Shah from Citigroup.

Yes. So again, getting on to the question on LDR and deposit growth in particular. So if we want to get the LDRs down and still want to grow loans above the industry average comfortably, then we need to see the acceleration in the deposit growth. And you said like pillars which are required are very much in place. So any reason maybe for a slightly slower deposit growth this quarter? Otherwise, we will need like almost 500, 600 basis points higher than the industry average deposit growth now to get the LDRs down. And any rundown in the bulk deposits, which have been there in this quarter? And if you can quantify that?

See, let me take this and maybe Srini and Kaizad can add into this if required. Kunal, if you recall, we gave a broad range. Number one is there is no regulatory what shall I say, benchmark or a requirement to meet a loan deposit ratio. Was it there as a bit of a nudge when the outlook was negative or when the system outlook was a little tight, liquidity is tight in the period when inflation was moving up and rates were moving up and there was a little bit of a concern on the credit quality of the system. There were certain preventive measures that the regulator had said that try and ensure that you bring down the LDR or maintain a certain stability in LDR. That is the -- at that point in time. Whether that -- whether there is a number that you need to meet, I don't think there is any compulsion. But in our own interest, we had given a kind of a glide path wherein we had said that we will come to a certain number in FY '25, which we achieved. We said we will try and be in a range of somewhere between 90% to 96% in the year FY '26, which is what we will be is what we are very confident about. And then maybe by FY '27, by the natural growth and even with the growth in the way we are expecting in terms of faster growth rate, I think we should land somewhere around the 85% to 90% for FY '27. We continue to believe that this is going to be there. It's not an easy thing, as we have said, of course, but we know what are the strategies we need to do. There were certain tactical measures we could have taken in the third quarter. We chose not to, but that's all right. I mean these are sometimes learnings we probably may have missed, but we know what are the things to be done to bring about these kind of meeting our glide paths that we have committed in the broader sense on a longer -- medium- to longer-term basis. So as regards the kind of deposit growth that is required, I think the pace at which we are growing deposits in line with the top line growth that is more or less matching 11-plus percentage in the second year -- in this year should -- and probably slightly faster, which is what we normally do in the fourth quarter, like most -- what we have done in the past, should lead us to the kind of range that we are -- we have committed to. And we are very confident that, one, as we have a clear cut, as I said, all things remaining same with whatever we are seeing in the macro, we should believe that the growth runway opportunities for growth and hence, in the deposit requirements other than certain events that may happen, which you and I will not be able to predict now, we are reasonably confident that we will land -- and as Srini mentioned, don't look at quarter-to-quarter movements. We are on a -- you look at on an annual basis or on a medium- to long-term basis, the trends will be in that kind of period. So I think the inflection has started. We had to contain ourselves in FY '25 for all the right reasons. I think now we are opening up, the engine is opening up, and you will start to see this kind of a consistency in the trajectory that we have laid out for ourselves.

Sure. And anything on bulk deposits rundown, quantification, if possible?

More than quantification. I mean, Kunal, that's part of the business. There are certain segments that we patronize. I think Sashi mentioned about where rate discipline has been the key. And to some extent, we participate for relationships and certain extent, we don't need it, we don't go there. But on the whole, if you look at the retail or non-retail, retail, there are individuals in retail, which have been phenomenally growing and growing. There are certain non-individuals in retail, which is branch related. It could be institutions, trusts and HUFs and whatnot. Examples of some non-individual but branch related, where we have had some lower levels of growth. And there are certain other customer segments which we have seen, particularly capital market segments where it has been low, where we have not paid rates as much as what the market has demanded or what the competition has offered. And that is what you see that is reflected in our cost of funds. If you look at our cost of funds is down by about 10 basis points, 11 basis points or so in the quarter. So we're trying to manage it growth with the profitability, and that is what you are seeing, right? So segment to segment, time to time, it changes, but at least you've got a color of how we operated in the recent time period.

So you're right, Kunal. Just to supplement what Srini is saying. The focus -- the good part is retail has grown very steadily and very -- and all these are the granular ones. I'm very happy with that. If the non-retail, tactically, we did not sort of offer the kind of market rates that were there. And we said it's all right because we did sort of know for the kind of growth that we needed, that is good enough.

Got it. And one last question on labor code. So the impact of almost INR 8-odd billion, looking at our employee cost and then comparing maybe the labor code impact vis-a-vis the employee cost for others. For us, it seems to be relatively on the higher side, more than 10% of the employee cost, not so much for the other banks. So is this more of an estimation which has been done? And what would be the recurring impact which would be there on the cost as such?

Good point. Thanks for raising that. One, it is an estimate given whatever information that we have. And that estimate is driven through an actuarial process, right? So you go through the normal process of how you do and there is an actuarial valuation and determination of how do you do. Again, that is -- there is some signs in that, but it is based on certain assumptions that come. That's the second thing. The third thing is that variables. When you look at these variables, the definition of what is wage, what are determined to be wage inclusion, exclusion, the rule-making on that is pending. You know that, right? So there are some assumptions that go for one of the variables that go into those assumptions, and that is not based on determined rules, that is based on some assumed things. So that's the second -- third thing. The next item is the -- that individual organizations can be very different because of the longevity of the staff that you see there. So that determines on how long and what is the kind of tenure and so on and so forth, both historical and anticipated. And so many other factors like that go into play. So at this time, I would just ask you to take it as a higher estimate based on best available information and through a scientific actuarial process that has come. And as and when the rule-making evolves, as and when more information is available, this will be evolved. And again, we can -- I can't venture to come out with a forward-looking or what impact on an ongoing basis, cannot do at this time. And the reason being that we need to have all of these in place before we can get there. And that is why this is not determined at an employee level to say next month when somebody retires, this is the kind of amount that it can come or what will be the amount determined for a provident fund and so on and so forth. It cannot be determined at this stage. This is a really high level based on best estimate.

Next question is from the line of Chintan from Autonomous.

May I get into the LDR again, please? So Sashi, please, did I hear you correctly when you said 85% to 90% by FY '27? That seems to be aggressive to me. If I look at consensus numbers, it's expecting 13% loan growth and 93% LDR. If you are going to achieve kind of the 90% in the next fiscal year, that suggests a very strong deposit growth number. And I know you've kind of said that you want to prioritize growth now. So it's not piling up. So if you could help us...

Chintan, thanks for asking. Maybe then let me -- I've given you a broad range because I don't want to box myself with a narrow range. But having said that, we have been operating in a range of around the 87%, 88% in the premerger level, 3 years before the merger. And so when I say 90%, of course, I would have meant somewhere around the plus or minus in that particular range of 90%, maybe around the 88%, 89%, et cetera, or it could be 90% to 91% as well. But why I mentioned this, at least the trend lines that we are saying, if it's -- it can be 96% for FY '26 or a 95%. We are all right. At least the direction is what we are looking at for. We just gave a broad one so that we know what -- if we are lucky to really step up growth or the liquidity changes and we have more benign liquidity and no FX operations or FX swaps or open market operations, maybe then it will be wonderful. So that is why I'm saying since I do not know what's going to be the liquidity condition in this, therefore, I gave a broad range. But even if I achieve these kind of directions directionally going there, that's something that we can achieve. As I said, there is no regulatory number to comply to. It is just a direction that I think we need to achieve for ourselves, let alone the regulator asking us to do. It is something that we believe just by doing what we are supposed to do will lead us to that kind of thing. I don't have to do anything extra to measure that metric. It will happen. So when we did sort of forecast a faster growth rate for ourselves than the system, we also -- as we have seen, we have been having deposit growth rates in line with normally the top line growth, slightly faster than the loan growth. So estimating that is what we believe where we will land for FY '26 and '27. So don't take it literally that we may be on the lower end of that range. It could be anywhere in that range. Practically speaking, it will be somewhere -- if it's 90% is that range, then somewhere around the 90% is something that we'll be happy with. Similarly, somewhere around the 95% is something that we'll be happy with for FY '26.

Appreciate that. I mean if you're trading off EPS growth for slightly slower ROE improvement, that's fine. I mean that's not the issue, especially if the opportunity is there in the market. So -- but I just wanted to make sure because we have an occupational hazard to kind of do our due diligence in our model. So I just wanted to get that flexibility that you have highlighted now. The second question was around asset quality. Could you -- you've got a unique vantage point, second largest bank in India. Could you give us some idea about any pickup in growth momentum, any pickup -- any issues in asset quality, particularly due to the U.S. tariff or in the MSME area? So it's a combination of is growth improving? And are there any asset quality concerns more broadly, if not in your book?

So if I got the question right, you want to know the trend for asset quality and how it is looking. Across segments and even first at the sectorial, you're well aware that the banking industry right now to borrow a term is going through a Cinderella phase where you've got very strong balance sheets when I refer to that from an asset quality point of view. We have the lowest accretion of gross NPAs and net NPAs are at decadal lows. Mirroring this trend has also been reflective on our books. We have seen very low accretion to gross NPAs. And none of the particular portfolios have indicated any stress building up. So I think the economic environment with the kind of GDP growth that one has seen, the kind of consumption growth that one is seeing as well as the wage increases that one has seen on one hand and on the other, the lowering of the interest rates and affordability, therefore, going up, including the fiscal benefits that were given to not take up much time, I would say the asset quality continues at the bank to be pristine. And as of -- as we see it, there is no particular segment which is showing any major signs of concern. Srini, would you like to...

Perfectly good. There will be seasonality in agri specifically...

That is separate...

Outside of that, every segment, including the agri segment period-to-period, if you see, is lower, both from a leading delinquency and into the slippages, which are far lower. And then from there, going into loss given default is also lower. You're seeing that the recoveries wherever we are there, that is also on an absolute level, good level. Chintan, I hope that gives you a perspective on both sides.

Yes. And just on growth momentum, are you seeing things improve generally in the economy?

In the economy, the growth momentum, yes -- if you look at some of those indicators that we have seen, the -- take the crop cycle itself, very improved. The sowing cycle has improved over prior year, very healthy water reservoir levels have aided that. The manufacturing PMI continues to be in the expansionary zone with many programs that are coming in. Services sector doing very well on the consumption demand side. If you look at the recent time period for card spend, which is important for you to look at, the overall card spend up 15%, 3.4% sequentially. Within the card spend, when we look at the discretionary category of card spends, the discretionary category spends have grown 21% year-on-year. The nondiscretionary, which is the bread and butter normal activity is about 13% up. So that indicates that when the kind of a discretionary spend goes up, people do go and indulge. That's what you're seeing there. On the other side, we do see revolver rates not picking up. So which means people are spending to pay down. So there are certain other segments of the society, which is what is spending. So on an overall level, I would say that similarly, you've seen the auto and the tractors and so on. 2-wheeler has been somewhat less than expected, but then the 4-wheeler autos and the tractors type have done exceedingly well. And you're seeing some of that reflected in the aggregate level GDP output that gets reported too.

Next question is from the line of Nitin Aggarwal from Motilal Oswal.

I have a question on the branch productivity and deposits now that we are so hopeful about the deposits pickup and targeting at close to 90% kind of a number. So like if you look back as to what kind of experiences that we used to have in terms of the branch vintage and the deposit buildup, has -- is that kind of sustaining in the recent years because the deposit growth is just not picking up at the system level and that is a key constraint across banks with LDRs, the number that we are seeing across many banks. And related to this, own branch kind of over the years has been like coming off from pretty high number now to every successive year, we are opening more branches. So do we see...

Nitin repeat that. Nitin repeat that? We could not hear you.

Sorry. So I was also saying that related to this, if you look at the branch expansion run rate, every successive year, we are now opening up lower number of branches, like FY '23 versus '24 to '25, every year, we are going down in terms of branch expansion. So how do you look at this corollary between the branch vintage and the deposit buildup? And do you think that the current pace of expansion will be sufficient for us to sustain that above industry growth rate over the next 3, 4, 5 years? So just some thoughts around this.

Okay. So I'll get started with the last one first, which is to do with the branches. Nitin, you can't look at 1-year branch, but you have to look at a trend of what was it, right? So for that, if you go back to -- you look at a 5-year branch trend, I'll give you round numbers of the branch trend. We opened about 250 branches in 2020, 350 in '21, 750 in '22, 1,500 in '23, 900 in '24, 700 in '25. So if you look at this, 250, 350, 750, 1,500, 900, the opportunity space that it provided, we took that and accelerated all within the overall returns framework, right? All through this time period, if you look at our returns between 1.9 to 2, right, in that period. So where there was, we accelerated, and we don't need to do 1,500 or 900 and so on. We can be more modest, but still add to the branches. It is important to add to the branches because currently, we have only a little more than 6% of the country's branch network with us. So that means our branches 9,600-plus is about a little more than 6% of the systems branch, right? So we have -- and we have more than 11% of the market share of deposits with us. So that's one in terms of -- we have more room to run and more share to gain through that process. Next is productivity, right? What does it do from a branch productivity? If you look at the per branch productivity, we are now at about INR 305 crores or thereabouts on a per branch at an aggregate level. Despite all of these additions that I talked to you about, if you go back where we -- I just mentioned to you about how we were doing per branch, if you go to '23 or '19 to '23, that time period. For that time period, about INR 237 crores per branch, right, at that time. And I told you INR 237 crores per branch before I started to talk about those acceleration of the branches, right? Now with all of those acceleration, we are at INR 305 crores per branch. So at every incremental branch, when we add, it is also at an aggregate level added. But this is at an aggregate level. Then that takes to the next one that you talked about at a micro level, right? At aggregate level is one. Let's talk about micro level in terms of where it starts to have the pivoting point for further scale. First, the breakeven is about 2 years or so. When you look at the breakeven, branches that are in the metro and urban area typically breaks even in about 22 months. Branches that are in the semi-urban and rural area takes about 27 months, thereabouts. On an average, about 2 years, it breaks even. So that's one. And these models are in consonance with our legacy branch models, which means they are confirming to what are traditionally there. That's number one. Number two, the pivoting point where 4, 5 years ago, where we analyzed to what does a branch do in 5 years, 5 to 10 years and 10 to 15 years and so on, when you look at it, where the scaling factor is about the 5th year mark to the 10th-year mark, it moves, and it moves about 3x. Between 5 to 10 years, it goes about 3x up. And then once it goes into 10 to 15 years, 10x up. So that is very important, and that scaling factor continues to operate now. Now what is more interesting and important than that is, currently, if you look at the branches that are in the bucket, 5 to 10 years bucket, which are doing 3x than what they were doing 5 years ago, 1,232 branches, right, out of the 9,600, 1,232 branches are in that bucket, right? And if you look at the branches before that, the 3- to 5-year bucket, 3- to 5-year bucket, we have 1,300 branches. So we are entering into the pivoting point where the cohorts that are entering into the 5-plus bucket is more than the cohorts that are going to exit from 5 to 10. So that is -- again, similarly, when you look at the 10- to 15-year bucket, it got 2,499 branches. And then the 5 to 10-year branches are going to go into those cohorts. And so that's almost 43% of our branches are vintage branches, less than 5 years. So this is the cohort that needs to move through the pipe and get there. And so we are quite -- that is point, I think we said that we are positioned well with good expectations coming out of that. And that's, again, aided by several factors that go.

Okay. So...

Another data point, Sashi was just reminding me because when we reviewed it with him. On an incremental basis, when you look at it, these new branches contribute slightly north of 20% of the overall incremental that comes -- deposits that come, which is very important, right, that these things keep adding accreting as we go along. That's something I wanted to leave...

Right. See, the reason to ask this is also because while advances side is still in our control, we can maneuver the advances growth and choose the business segments we want to underwrite. But deposits, if we compare across the best and private banks also, typically, the growth kind of has its own saturation point. And if you look as to how HDFC Bank has done last year and versus what is the current year, probably we will be closer to in terms of deposit rate versus what we were last year on a good case basis. So for us to talk about that LDR can come so sharply next year, do we look at this deposit growth run rate break out from as to how the trends have been in the recent years? Can this really happen with the kind of vintage gains that we talk about?

Nitin, these get benchmarked by district, by our presence in those districts, that's how we benchmark and that's how we work our marketing and product teams, work with our distribution channels where we are present to orchestrate and move this, right? So two things I want to mention. One is new account acquisition is an important element. We are at about 100 million customers. Last quarter, we added about 1.5 million new liability relationships. It is important to get that new account value because that's how you keep building. And the change in balances. So that means the existing customers adding, accreting has been lower in the recent time periods when some kind of choices into various other financial institution they take. So some of that has been slower. But again, you beat that by getting more presence and more customers and have diversified product -- asset product because you know that in the last 2 years, our retail asset products were slow than where we are now trying to accelerate or move. For every asset product that you have, again, cards, I think not in the last quarter, but maybe a few quarters ago, we have spoken cards. For card customers spending on their card account and having 100 outstanding, at the aggregate level in the bank, we see almost north of 5.5x deposit balances from the customers. So what does it mean? We want more of our customers to have cards. And same with mortgages, which I think last time we spoke, 99% today, we have penetration. That means we are not selling a mortgage product. We want to get the customer relationship. When we are giving a mortgage product, we get the savings account and the savings account gets funded approximately today at initiation at about INR 35,000. And then when you look at the 12-month, 18 months on books, which is the kind of vintage we can measure today and see, we are seeing that it is growing 2, 2.5x. But historically, some of those category customers that we have seen, it has got the propensity to have 5x more than a customer who does not have a mortgage. So liabilities don't come only purely on just an engagement and asking. It also comes by multiple products that get sold.

Next question is from the line of Suresh Ganapathy from Macquarie Capital.

Yes. So first question is on LCR. What would be this quarter? And how it would move post the April 2026 guideline, whether it will move up, move down?

LCR, we reported 116% in this quarter.

And post the new guidelines?

No. The new guidelines, we don't expect any material change that can impact us.

Okay. And just a question on margins itself. It's been almost 9 quarters since the merger, your margins have not gone anywhere. In fact, it is even lower than what you had reported at 3.4%. I know there are several moving parts. Are you really confident that you can get this up in the next 2, 3 years?

Suresh, if you think about the margin, the most important lever on the margin is the cost of funds, which at various points we have mentioned. And within the cost of funds, there are a few. One is the time deposit repricing, which has a lag effect. We have changed time deposit rates in line with the policy rate change, but not fully, but maybe 2/3 way, we have changed 125 basis points is what the policy has changed. We have done about 2/3 into that. We need to see what more. And again, that what's competitively priced, right? So we are not at a disadvantage anywhere there. And that takes almost 5 quarters to flow in. Part of that this quarter, you have seen 10, 11 basis points change in cost of funds. That is the lag effect of that flowing through, then that continues. So that's one element. And the second element is the borrowing. Quarter-to-quarter has remained static at about 13%. But again, more than a quarter, if you look at the year, we were at about 7%. Broadly, the industry is at about 6%, 7%. So there is an opportunity space to beat that to keep coming down. That is another important lever that provides this cost of funds change. And the third one is the CASA, which again is a customer on the other side more than we creating any action where we need to work through to bring selling within the new customers and better engagement, more products, more retail products. That's the kind of process we need to take through to get to that industry average and beat that industry average over time. Yes, there is a line of sight, and these are some of those elements we work through.

Next question is from the line of Prakhar Sharma from Jefferies India.

Congratulations on the results. Just wanted to delve on this deposit growth part. It was an interesting color that you said that the granular retail has grown, but slightly bulkier retail hasn't. Is there any sort of a data point that you can share in terms of the growth or the mix in the two? And one alternative is, can we use the LCR deposit number and the growth there as a reference point to just get some comfort on what's the range of growth there because 4Q onwards, it gets aggressive on pricing. So if you can share some color, that will be right.

The second aspect of the question I didn't get, probably we will see. But as far as the rate of growth is concerned that you asked about the categories, certain other categories that you wanted. Yes, I mean, the -- if you look at the institutional types, they were in the mid-single digits, right? The institutional type of deposits, mid-single digits. That's what we have said. And within the retail branch, the non-individuals were much more modest. I think it was again a little more higher single digit. And the individual, individual within the branches were in the solid double-digit growth.

Sorry, the individual at the branch was at?

No, I didn't give you a number. I said it's a good double digit, and everything else was in single digit. Yes.

Okay. And is there a way to just give a context of within your total deposits, 83% is classified as retail. How much would be the granular retail and how much would be the quasi-institutional retail?

I don't think we have published that. But yes, when we say that is a branch-driven deposits where there are RMs engaged with either an individual or the individual organizations and institutions, that is what.

Next question is from the line of Abhishek Murarka from HSBC.

So Srini, going back to the branch addition question, and thanks for giving so much color. But just net-net, are you still looking to grow or add about 5%, 7% branches this year and in FY '27? Or what are your near-term plans? I understand the whole picture you painted about the scale-up of old branches and how that will accelerate deposits. I just want to know your next 1-year plans in terms of branch additions.

Yes. To answer in short, 5% to 7% implies 500 to 700 branches annual. I don't believe that, that kind of branch addition we can do in the near future. We'll evaluate as we go through the annual planning process and come back at some point in time, but it would be of a good order.

Abhishek, just to add to what Srini is saying. If you've seen the last cohort of what he just said in terms of the 4,800-odd branches over the last 5 years. Today, it is contributing, as he mentioned, somewhere around the 20-plus percentage points in terms of the incremental liabilities or the deposits that we are mobilizing. As this cohort starts to -- which we are seeing delivering and getting to a substantial number, then we know that we have the confidence to start to step up our -- the next phase of launching new distribution points. Obviously, we want to wait and watch. We are not saying we will not add any branches. As he mentioned, we will add branches, but these are probably in -- normally in suburbs where there is kind of an opportunity that is what we are now focusing on. But the -- we want to ensure and stabilize the last cohort of the 4,800 branches stabilize and start to get to a certain level of maturity and level of contribution, which is substantial, then it will -- we know that, that will be on an autopilot and then we can start to see the next phase of introduction. And obviously, at that point in time, we will have to rethink in terms of we would have probably moved far beyond in terms of our branch transformation and automation. So there will be some new thought processes in terms of what we -- how we need to add or how we need to sort of expand our distribution. It's not that it's going to be different, but maybe there will be some amount of recalibration that we will do in the next phase of branch additions.

Sure. So Sashi, as I understand, that's a great point -- for making that point. So today, about 50% of branches, which is this 4,800 is contributing around 20% of incremental deposits. Is it correct to think that when this starts contributing maybe 40%, 50% of incremental deposits, that is when you start thinking about future expansion. Is that the right way to think about it?

Whether it's 40%, 50%, 60%, we will keep on recalibrating because we are -- there are a lot of things that we are trying to do. Obviously, we also -- if you really look at it, we stepped up our distribution the moment we knew that we announced our merger. And we knew that we needed to fund not just at that point in time, the future of -- in the future. So all this is going to add to incremental deposits in a substantial way into the future. But -- so there will be a lot more dimensions that we will examine not just the extent of contribution, but probably certain events that we may have or certain other dimensions that we may look at before we start to step up the pedal on the new phase of incremental. And you look at it even over our 30-year period, there have been these phases of right from 2009 onwards to 2013, '14, we stepped up our distribution. Then we had a little bit of a pause, then we started off again. So we -- this recalibration and doing it in phases is something that we have been doing. It's not a new thing. We have been doing this for right through our 30 years journey. And I think we will continue to do. Obviously, the dimensions keep changing in terms of what we need to look at as we move ahead because the world is changing very fast. The kind of technology implementations that we are doing, as we unveil, we probably may need different thought processes as well. So let me pause out here and probably -- you probably will get the drift.

Sure. And the second thing is on credit cost. Now if I look at your net slippages, ex of the agri part, but let's say, look at the net slippages in the 9 months or last few quarters, around 30, 35 basis points. Write-offs are holding steady at INR 3,200 crores roughly a quarter. So why is the underlying credit cost around 55 bps and not coming off? I mean, don't you think that should also start coming off at some point if this kind of trends continue.

Abhishek, a couple of things. One is the slippages. If you're looking at excluding agri slippages, it's 24 bps in the quarter. Prior quarter was 23 bps. Prior year was 26 bps. So order of magnitude, call it, 25 basis points. That is the kind of a slippage in a quarter, right? That's what you're seeing. So not the 35 or something that you're talking about. That's one. The second thing is that credit costs -- also, you have to look at it, including the recoveries because when you write off certain loans as it progresses through some of the delinquency buckets, then you get it in the form of recoveries. And net of recoveries, if you see, we are at about 37 basis points or thereabouts. And when you look at, again, last quarter, last year, order of magnitude, very similar within a few basis points, 5 basis points. So it's not just about the 55 basis points. It is also about the net of the recoveries, which comes in quite handy. And it's a function of how fast you write off and how you recover.

Sure. That's what I was referring to. So net of your recoveries, et cetera, it should keep coming down because your slippage performance is -- I mean, it's improving. The book is growing and your absolute is pretty much stable. So you're seeing very good asset quality trends. And I was sort of wondering why the credit cost is not coming off.

So why will -- see, in a growing book, if the slippage is steady, the losses are steady, recoveries are steady. I don't know what you're expecting, maybe something else...

So 50, 55 is more or less BAU is what you're seeing.

No, GNPA?

No, no, no, no, credit card. Okay. I'll take this offline. I probably not saying myself clearly. No problem. Finally, just one question on cards. Overall, card receivables are pretty stable. If I look at the data that comes out in RBI, the spend market share for you is doing well, [indiscernible] market share is doing well. So why is it not reflecting in the receivables? Is it just transactors running down? Or is it something else?

No, actually -- great question, Abhishek. I think if you really look at it, the segment that we are patronizing is more the middle and upper middle segment. Therefore, slightly higher-end cards is what is in our portfolio. The proportion of that is large. And a large part of that, over a period of time, we have been -- I mean, as you know, the card -- credit card -- what shall I say, the behavior has also changed over a period of time. Today, we look at it not as net receivable from a revolve perspective, from an asset perspective and an earnings perspective, we are looking at it as an enabler for our liabilities or deposits. Srini has mentioned in the past, and that is something that we are extremely proud of, the spends in the cards actually provide a significant portion of our deposit momentum. Today, 20% to 25%, maybe in the mid of 20% to 25%, I can say, is the range at which out of the total deposit basket, the kind of momentum that you're seeing, whether it's on the healthy balances and what it contributes to total, it's somewhere around that 20%, 25%. So the credit card focus today is more not from a net receivable basis, but from a transactor basis. And as I said, I mean, whether it's a lot of you on the call or people in this room that we are, we all pay on a standing instruction basis on due dates. So this is something that we are very happy with. And so this is the kind of a new strategy that we are evolving. Obviously, we are also recalibrating some of the business model in cards. We have been doing that, and we probably are -- have come out with something which is very encouraging and something that the organization will really benefit from our card strategy.

I want to add one thing on the card, particularly the card revolving aspect of it, right, which is if you go back to 2020 or before and compare to today's revolvers, they are slightly under 2/3 level, right, slightly under 2/3 level. So that means of the pre-2020 levels revolvers, right, at level. And so the profile of the customers, and that is why you see the deposit balances of those customers, which is a little more than 5, 5.5x was slightly under 4x at that time. So the profile of those customers are also different where they do transact, they do keep balances and the revolver balances are lower for certain other segments. And we have not liberally offered the credit line increases and made more and more revolvers to tip them off into delinquency. We've been -- credit has been cautious on that.

Next question is from the line of Jayant Kharote from Axis Capital.

Sir, one question is on your loan growth broad guidance of above system next year. Sir, I just wanted to understand when we are saying we'll grow above the system, what is our range of assumption for system growth? Because we are seeing some acceleration in the system growth itself where we are moving from this 11% to 13% band to maybe closer to 14%, 15%. If we were to move in that band, would we have accounted for that kind of system growth and we say we can grow above that?

So our understanding as of now is next year, we expect system growth to be between 12% to 13% when you look at nominal GDP and the credit growth that's required to support nominal GDP. So if we're talking about 12% to 13%, we are talking about a couple of percentage points above that going into the next year. We see distribution on the retail side, you've been seeing over the last 2 quarters coming up, our positioning also in the MSME space, given our geographic coverage as well as our suite of products that we have out over there and the wholesale piece, which you would have seen in this quarter again coming back. We do believe that we have the customer segmentation to be able to grow at a couple of hundred basis points over system growth next year.

Great, sir. I think this answers you're working with the 12% to 13% range at least. Second part is, on a broader 3-year or 4-year question. We have seen products like mortgage getting a lot of competitive intensity. PSA banks being well capitalized are probably being more aggressive in vehicle, increasingly auto. Do you see this competitive intensity eroding profitability for the larger players over the next probably 3 years, not a 6-month or 12-month question?

See, we are addressing competition only through relationship and not through pricing. Mortgage product, as you've seen that in the last 12 months, we are not leading through a mortgage product. We are leading through relationships where the mortgage product could be a fulcrum around which we can operate. Same with auto. I do want to let you know that our auto loans are almost a little more than 80% self-funded, which means the customers when they take auto loan, we want their liability accounts. We want them to have balances in that and the loan self-funds itself for the most part within the balance sheet. So it is about relationship offering, and that is part of the engagement in the branch, and it's not just a product and a loan balance sheet building approach.

Having said that, Srini, absolutely in order. I think we do continue to be the largest financiers in the auto loan space in the country. not only in terms of the disbursals but also the book size as well as if you see our year-on-year growth in the entire automobile space, I think that is reflective of what our position is and the target market that we will have. So it is relationship. It is also ensuring that we have the right pricing for the product based on the customer segmentation, and we don't feel any need to do business at price points which don't make economic sense.

And your market reading is, as of now, we are not in that situation where aggression is eroding margins for the broader system, at least in auto?

I'm sorry, I didn't catch your question. Can you repeat it, please?

So not for HDFC, but probably for broader system. Are you seeing that aggression in the auto segment from the public sector or maybe the broader system aggravating in the last couple of quarters?

Yes. We've seen it not only in auto, but also in the home loan product. So these are two products where we have certainly seen some amount of, if I may say, a bit of irrational pricing, but irrational pricing has never sustained. It will play itself out and bury itself in a couple of quarters on the outer side, if not earlier.

Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we have come to the end of the allotted time for the call. I would now like to hand the conference to Mr. Vaidyanathan for closing comments.

Okay. Thank you, Nirav, and thanks to all the participants for taking the time to attend. At the outset, I again want to mention that we did come 15 minutes late. We did extend to be there. Further questions, any more comments, Investor Relations team will be on standby to guide and help and explain or clarify anything you need today or over the weekend or next week, whenever you desire, we are available. With that, we'll sign off for today. Have a great weekend. Bye-bye.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you all. Thank you very much for all the hard work.

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

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to HDFC Bank Limited Q2 FY '26 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Srinivasan Vaidyanathan, Chief Financial Officer, HDFC Bank. Thank you, and over to you, Mr. Vaidyanathan.

Thank you, Nirav. Good evening, and welcome to all the participants on a very busy day. Without much ado, let me get to our CEO and MD, Sashi Jagdishan, for his opening remarks before we get on. We also have Kaizad Bharucha, our Deputy Managing Director. We will also get him at some point. Yes, please, Sashi over to you.

Good evening, friends. First, let me wish all of you, Shubha Dhanteras and Shubha Deepavali. So first, let me start with the macro. Global outlook remains very volatile, thanks to the uncertainty related to tariffs and immigration policies. However, the domestic economy appears to be getting stronger. The triad of fiscal and monetary measures, whether it is the direct tax reductions, the GST reductions or the interest rate -- upfronting of interest rate cuts, I think, have galvanized the economic activity in the recent past. The food -- the headline inflation has been printing very low, thanks to the low food inflation. This probably gives the monetary policy committee to maneuver on future interest rate actions. We've had strong rainfall in most parts of the country. The GST rate changes have created a lot of buzz in the market in the later part of September onwards. And coming to the bank, the improvements in the economic activity has given us the opportunity to accelerate loan growth. We can see a lot more color as we get into Q&A. We've seen our growth pick up across segments. We continue to see market share gains in deposits, and we are very focused and disciplined pricing. As expected, due to the front loading of the interest rate cuts on the asset side of the balance sheet, we did see NIM compress by about 8 basis points. We should see over the next 6 to 12 months, the deposit repricing having some amount of tailwind effect in the NIMs. We are managing our expenses in a very tight band, and we should see our investments in distribution and technology creating an operating leverage over the medium to long term. We continue to invest in technology, not just in core platforms and middlewares, which will bring about a lot of stability and scalability in availability, in resilience and in security, but we are also embarking on creating a platform to embark on certain low-hanging new age experiments such as GenAI. Largely, these are for -- to reengineer our processes and create a kind of a great customer experience by reducing turnaround time. It will have a second order impact if it becomes successful, which is what we are all working hard towards into the -- in the bottom line of the bank. I think our USP, as probably you have seen the numbers, continues to be our very healthy asset quality. And we don't see too much of issues in that even in our early indicators as well. Our metrices, large part of our metrices, whether it's NIMs, whether it is cost to earnings, whether it's return on assets have been very range-bound, and we should see a fair amount of stability with a positive bias in the medium to long term. So let me pause out here and happy to take on any questions. We have our CFO, our DMD and other colleagues who will collectively would be answering to some of your questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Nirav, kindly open it up and kindly get to the queue.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Mahrukh Adajania from Nuvama Wealth.

I had a few questions. My first question is on the recoveries in the NPL movement, they look very strong. So is it that the recovery environment has improved substantially? Or is there a one-off there?

Yes. The recoveries, I have a one-off there, where there was an NPA, which performed satisfactory over 2 years and appropriate ratings were received and upgraded. And to that extent, yes, it did improve there. What we did is that, that also releases some provisions, as you know. But at an aggregate level, the contingent provisions have been added by about INR 1,600 crores or so. We have created more resiliency and strengthened the position there. So from an overall point of view, the recoveries -- more than recovery, the upgrades, I would say that upgrades have contributed to approximately 10 basis points.

Okay. So the one-off would be how much?

Yes, the 10 basis points, 140, 1.4% was the prior quarter NPA. We ended up at 1.24%, about 10 basis points was upgrade, which I would not say is recurring, yes.

All right. All right. Got it. Got it. Makes sense. And then in terms of margins, so we had been guiding that -- you had been guiding that the exit margins will be same as last year's 4Q exit core margins. Does that guidance still hold good? Is the repricing on track for that?

Okay. So let me take that. See, there are 2 things, Mahrukh. If you look at the yield on assets, yield on assets have come down from the way -- from the time it started from the beginning of the rate cycle, which is in our printed -- in our published statements, you'll be able to see it, I think, on Page #14. In the quarter, 30 basis points. But over a period of -- from December to now, almost 50 basis points has played out on yield on assets, right, which is you know that 100 basis points changed in the policy rates, about roughly 70% are on floating area. So that works out to almost -- most of that is priced in. The last some tail of kind of a partial month or a quarter kind of impact that can come in the following quarter. But otherwise, a lot of it is priced in there. Then -- from a yield point of view. From a cost of funds, the 4.9% came to 4.6%, so 30 basis points. So slightly -- about half or slightly a little more than half is what you are seeing coming through -- flowing through in the cost of funds, which is where the savings deposit change has flown through. But the time deposit change -- rate change, which is between 70 and 80 basis points or so has changed, but that takes almost 6 quarters to flow in. A little more than 1.5 quarters has gone by. In this quarter, you saw that the cost of funds improved by about 18 basis points on the page, you see about 20 basis points, I think, 19 basis points. You see a 20 basis points rounded number there that cost of funds has come down by. And so it has got another at least 4, 5 quarters to play off, which means over the next few quarters, the rate remaining constant, that means that a stable assumption level, the cost of funds starts to move down. And if the asset stabilizes at that level, you see that pickup coming. Yes, we are optimistic that with the stable rate scenario, our exit should be moving up from where it is today.

Okay. And how do you view the deposit growth? So this time loan growth was very good. And while the deposit growth was good, the incremental LDR did fall, so -- I mean, did rise. So how do we think about LDRs from here on?

Okay. Yes, good question. Thank you for asking that. See, our LDR, we started the year at about 96 and change. Our strategic objectives when we laid out that the rate of growth on loans in this year will be at market and in FY '27 will be faster than the market, predicated that the LDR will come below the 90 mark, somewhere, call it, the 85 to 90 or below the 90 mark, right, which is okay. That's the kind of strategic. It's not a linear progression. And what is more important is that direction of the travel, that means coming down from 96 to below 90, direction of travel is important. The quantum, how it moves, quarter-to-quarter, it can vary because there are seasonalities that play out. In this quarter, you did see -- we did see credit demand that was good. We participated with our clients where it made sense from our engagement and profitability and total relationships. And we will continue to do that. And our strategic objective of getting to grow in line with the system this year and higher than the system in the following year continues to be there.

Next question is from the line of Chintan from Autonomous.

Happy Diwali to all. Can I start with capital. The recent draft proposal seem to suggest a meaningful reduction in risk weighted assets. You are already at a very high CET1 ratio. You have got even more contingent provisions now. You chose to put more buffers on. Your loss experiences are not going to be that bad for ECL. What are we going to do with all this extra capital, given that you are able to grow with your retained earnings even when I look out beyond FY '27?

Let me sort of come in out here. It is -- obviously, you are seeing this kind of a buildup of the capital ratios in the recent past because the bank chose to slow down in FY '25. Now we are on that upward trajectory. You're right, all the potential regulatory changes will have a little bit of a benefit in terms of -- on the capital ratios. But on the ECL side, I'm not too sure because if you really look at it, the bank has already -- has a proven track record and having a very well-established models in ECL. So that's already known to the world and known to you, I'm sure, as we disclosed U.S. GAAP results. But having said that, if you look at the draft guidelines or the fine print of that, there are a lot of prescriptions or of floors that have been prescribed, which means that the pure ECL advantages may get nullified, if not even you may have to maintain higher levels of ECL if such draft guidelines were to go through. Obviously, we need to wait and watch when this starts to come out as final guidelines. But having said that, as we have just mentioned, we are -- we believe that the change in economic cycle probably has just begun. Whilst I do appreciate that we need to wait and watch how -- whether this is sustained even beyond the festive period, but there is a fair amount of optimism in most of us out here to say that this will be sustained. And the moment we hit the trajectory that we have laid out for ourselves, that is in FY '27, we will start to grow faster than the system, we should start to consume capital. If you've looked at our long-term trajectory, we have been consuming capital about 60 to 70 basis points every year on a very steady-state scenario in the past prior to any of these events such as merger, et cetera. But -- so -- and also for a large systemically important bank, it is very imperative that we don't go down necessarily to the regulatory prescribed threshold levels. We need to provide capital or allocate capital for unknown and unforeseeable risk as well. So we do have a capital planning process, which obviously where the threshold levels are far higher than the regulatory prescriptions. So frankly, whilst optically, it may be higher today, but as we sort of get back on to the growth path, I think we would have sufficient capital as one would have when we raise capital, as you've seen in our past history, about normally, we raise capital, we have enough capital for about 3 to 4 years of growth. So I would say that from FY '27, when we get back to that kind of a growth, we should have that much of room and that much of cushion to be able to have 3 to 4 years of growth at least for consuming before we start to look at other options.

Yes. I mean the only thing I would say to that is I don't think you're in a place where you consume 60 to 70 bps of capital every year now. Given your size, even if you grow at 17%, 18%, you would be breakeven on the capital you already generate. Am I wrong out there?

See, yes, Srini.

Yes. You're right that even in this quarter, if you look at it, our capital we generated is 60 basis points and the consumption is 60 basis points, right? So -- and the 19.9% to 20%, the capital ratio change 0.1 is the surrounding. Other than that, it's about 10 basis points change in capital. So generation and consumption at this level is there. But then when you grow faster than the system, the consumption will be faster. When there is a mix which is a little more -- the mix which is a little more oriented on the retail, the consumption will be even more faster than that. So we need to cater and provide for all of those things. And so it is important to keep the capital on our side to essentially keep that opportunity space for growth as much as we can.

Having said that, if there are any opportunities that may arise in terms of other options that are available to sort of delight shareholders, we would be more than happy to do so. We will keep on exploring such options.

Yes. And my second question was on margins. On margins, LDR seems to have benefited this quarter. But when I look at cost of funds, it seems like it is not falling as fast as some of the other larger players. Is that just the timing difference in the way you built up your TD book versus the other guys given the merger and that it should unwind over the next few quarters?

Yes. Our cost of funds moved down by about 18, 19 basis points or so in this quarter. Deposit cost of funds came down by a similar amount. Yes, our time -- our savings account rate change is fully factored in. The time deposit rate change to factor in fully, the magnitude of the changes in the rates that we and many players have done are of similar order, except that it takes us almost 6 quarters to play it through into the cost of funds.

So slightly longer duration, okay.

Yes, that's right. It's -- Chintan, the -- it's also about duration. We normally -- because we need stability in our balance sheet, we tend to have a slightly longer duration to be able to -- especially on the retail side, so that is the reason why the tailwinds will be slightly longer in terms of visibility of getting -- drawing back this kind of repricing advantage.

Okay. And a quick data question. Borrowings from erstwhile limited, how much is left on your books just now?

Yes, annual report reflects the maturity profile of this over the next...

Next question is from the line of Kunal Shah from Citigroup.

So the first question is particularly with respect to deposit market share. So obviously, we would tend to maintain a particular market share on the incremental deposits, which seems to have come off. Is it largely to do with the rundown of bulk deposits during the quarter? Now we see some increase in the proportion of retail deposits as well. But the lower deposit growth this quarter, in particular, maybe just 1.2x the industry average, what could be the reason for that? And should we see the uptick going forward?

Yes. See, one, on the deposits, the market share is an outcome. And our approach is as granular as possible and as far reaching through our branch network, which is why the deposits that come from our retail network is about 83% or thereabouts. Yes, in this quarter, you have seen that where we have put the proportion went up by a percentage point, where the non-retail deposits came down in this quarter, while retail deposits did grow. Yes, I mean, that's -- in terms of the pricing and in terms of the availability and the client relationships, time to time that gets determined, right? We do participate in many of those, but we will be circumspect in how much and when we participate.

Kunal, when I sort of did my opening remarks, I did mention that there was an element of disciplined pricing, and this is what I meant, which Srini elaborated just now. But having said that, I normally -- whilst all of you look at period-end deposits, I have been maintaining every time in my call that you should also look at averages. And averages, I think we have gone really decently well at about 15% year-on-year. I think that is something that we are very comfortable on our year-on-year growth. Thank you.

Got it. And this increase in contingency provisions. So you indicated that on the recoveries, there was some provisioning release, and that was the reason for contingency or is there anything to do with maybe the ECL buildup, you already carry a very decent level of contingency provisioning and we are adding over and above that. So how should we read it? Maybe is it a particular recovery effect, which is getting nullified and that's the reason it's created?

Yes, that is exactly. There's a space -- opportunity space. Contingent provision as the name suggests, it is not -- it is precautionary and not anticipatory and where it is available and opportune space, we do. ECL provisions to the side, whatever -- whenever that comes to life and those draft guidelines are finalized, we can do the fine-tuning of what it entails. But we do feel comfortable with ECL, both from an implementation or from a requirement of provisioning and so on. But at this time, exactly as you alluded to, was the thought process on the contingent.

Sure. And lastly, on fee income side, the sequential uptick is more volume related or is there any element of one-off or some particular pickup in these segments, in any of the subsegments which we are seeing during the quarter?

No. The fee element, if you look at it, the fee has grown by about 9% or thereabouts. One of the areas -- in fact, the proportion by various products, if you see, is almost consistent where you have to look at prior year more than prior quarter because one quarter to another quarter, there are seasonalities of various products, but it is consistent and that's part of the regular growth.

Okay. Got it. Some element of wholesale would be there because that proportion is going...

No, not wholesale, not wholesale. Kunal, the fact of the matter is you started to see the asset buildup happening. The disbursals would have started to kick in during this quarter. So there would be definitely better earnings arising out of the asset disbursals as well.

Next question is from the line of Anand Swaminathan from BofA.

I have a couple of questions. One, we have just crossed the 2-year mark post-merger as well. If we can give some key success metrics in terms of synergies and what has worked out the best? And also, if you can highlight what has been lagging versus what we had envisaged 2 years back? And number two, in terms of the line of sight of ROAs, what kind of time frame are you thinking about now to get back above the 2% ROA mark, which we used to do consistently before?

So let me try and attempt this and maybe later on, Kaizad or Srini can just jump in. Number one is, let's face it, this is one of the most complex mergers in recent history. Two is, as you know, the bank had to do much more than what it was normally doing in terms of trying to step up the pace of raising funds to meet the incremental reserve requirements, the other LCR requirements that happened on their liabilities, which we inherited and also the funding for the incremental priority sector requirements as well. In addition to that, obviously, when we realized that the economic outlook was changing post the merger, it was -- we took a strategic call that we would like to relook at our glide path and we said we want to bring down the credit deposit ratio much faster than what we had envisaged at the time of announcing the merger. So that meant that you needed to step up the pace of deposit growth much more than what one would have done, even though the liquidity environment is extremely tight. So I think these were all extraordinary events that we went through post the merger. And I think doing all these slightly more than what the organization's capacity was, we still maintain reasonable stability in terms of margins right from the time we had our day 0 or day 1 financial metrices, whether it is in NIMs, whether it is cost to earnings, whether it is the asset quality or whether it's a return on assets. If you have looked at it over the 2-year period, I think it's been reasonably stable and range bound and that itself is very commendable for a population scale kind of an organization. Having said that, we -- during this period, we continue to invest into the future, into technology, into distribution and into resources because we believe that the impact -- if you need to really harness the opportunity of the merger, we need to ensure that we have enough funding to be able to fund the future growth as well. So I think that said, so we were not too focused on managing the cost to earnings during this period. We said, let us invest and let us start to -- and this will harvest itself over the next 3 to 5 years pace. As we see, one of the most important things is on the home loan space. Home loans, as we mentioned, is a very emotional product and the kind of relationship that comes about is going to be long term in nature, far more -- having a better emotional motion, and it is going to have a far more far-reaching impact than some of the consumption -- short-term consumption products. The process has commenced. I think the team has done a fabulous job of trying to ensure that we try and sell home loans from a larger distribution than what we were doing premerger. I think two is when we started to -- start to offer home loans, we said that we will try and cut down the turnaround time so that -- of sanctions. I think now it's in the public domain. For individual loans, we have now brought down the turnaround time to 2 days and for self-employed, it's about 3 days. Three is we will have journeys, which will ensure that we have a one-click experience in offering a bouquet of products when we sell a home loan. So in terms of the upsell, whether it is in terms of having a savings account attached to every home loan disbursal, happy to say that there is almost -- you -- let me have Kaizad sort of speak about it because he runs this very passionately.

So thank you, Sashi. Without going through all the pointers that Sashi mentioned, I think one of the advantages that we brought apart from changing the turnaround times was opening the segment to the self-employed base, which was not there previously when home loans were being done. And that's opened up a larger segment for us. It's also ensured that we are in a position to upsell far more products, including at the liability side of it. Empirical data has shown that whenever a customer has a home loan and he brings with it the check-in account, there is a change in the value of the relationship that comes. So I think we've been already able to start implementing that. We've seen good results over the last 1 year. So with increased distribution, changing our turnaround times, being able to offer home loans and customized products in home loans to different customer segments based on geography as well as their demographics. And in addition to that, the upsell that we have been able to do across a whole range of products, which is the credit cards that go along with it, when a person buys a home loan, the consumer durable loans that go along with it as well as being able to offer them our brokerage services and insurance. So when you look at the whole gamut of the upsell along with the check-in account and an emotional product like a home loan, which is a good duration product, it's already started playing out what we had envisaged as the road map, and I would say that we are on track.

I'll add one just to Kaizad so that this number we can keep talking and tracking these things is credit cards for when a new mortgage is given, the credit card penetration, we have been successful, as Kaizad alluded to, is now a little more than 14%. We are able to get that penetrated. On the consumer durable sanction, we are -- our penetration is in the mid-30s. And on a brokerage account, we are like a 15-plus percent penetration. And so we are progressing on those -- each of those products on the scale of how we want to hit. On the savings account, I think we alluded to, we are 98%, 99%...

That's right.

And the end result in terms of the balance buildup in such accounts are far higher than the normal savings account where we don't sort of place in a home loan. But having said that, as we have mentioned in the call, we believe that from FY '27, when we get back our trajectory, when we start to ensure that all our distribution outlets start to sell home loans, you will start to see the benefits getting more visible over a 3- to 5-year period. And more than that, even the operating leverage on the kind of investments that we have done in both in distribution and technology will also start to play. So I see a fair amount of positive bias in the key financial metrics over the next 3 to 5 years.

Any comments on the ROA trajectory? Our intention always was to go back to the upper end of that 1.8% to 2.2% ROA range. Where are we in that journey now? What time frame we should think about?

Yes. Anand, those opportunity space on the ROA, we are -- yes, we are between 1.8% to 1.85% to 1.95%. That's where we've operated over the last 8 quarters or so, as you see. The space on the ROA comes from cost of funds, because that's where the ROA -- the merger benefits of the -- comes a lot on the P&L through the cost of funds because you replace the borrowings, you change the mix of the deposits from time deposits to CASA as we have so far last 2 years had predominant growth in time deposits. So these are some of those levers. They remain intact, and they remain the opportunity space for us to get there. And yes, that's -- these are the drivers. And it is about the cost of funds, which changes that trajectory.

Next question is from the line of Rikin Shah from IIFL Capital.

Two questions. First one is on cost of fund improvement in this quarter for us, has been marginally lower than peers. Is that only due to the longer duration of liabilities, which means that it's just a timing problem and a lot of that could be back ended for us vis-à-vis front-ended for the peers? Or is it due to higher TD mobilization for HDFC in the reset last 1 year and hence, this difference could potentially persist in the near term?

Rikin, sorry to interrupt, your voice is coming muffled.

Is this better by any chance? Hello?

If you can speak a little bit, go ahead.

Yes. So I was asking on the cost of fund trajectory in this quarter for us relative to the peers. It has been marginally lower improvement. So I wanted to understand whether it is solely due to the longer duration of liabilities, as Sashi alluded to in the earlier point, which means that it would be a bit more back-ended for us? Or is it due to the fact that we have mobilized higher quantum of term deposits in the last 1 year, and hence, this difference may persist? So that's the first question. The second one, just Srini, if you could quantify the additional provisions that we made in the quarter through the P&L against that onetime recovery upgrade that you mentioned. That's it.

Yes. Rikin, the first thing is in terms of the cost of funds, every balance sheet has got a structure, a duration and that determines -- and the mix of time deposit CASA and so on. These determine how the cost of funds move. I think in some other question, maybe 10 minutes ago, we did talk about the space, which is there in the cost of funds and the time that it takes to factor that in. And so that's -- you'll have to wait for some time for that to play it out. And we are focused on getting the core business of franchise of deposits growth and thereby the customer relationship, and it will play out the cost of funds. That's the first thing. The second aspect that you talked about is the provision. I think that also to Mahrukh or somebody I had mentioned that we did add -- if you look at the provisions are on Page #19 of the deck that is there, you'll see that the right side block, where you see the contingent provision of almost about INR 1,600 crores, which is there added there. We also have added general provisions of about INR 600 crores. That's general provision is we have a loan growth that we need to support and various other things. And so our -- effectively, the general provisions is about 41 basis points of loans coming up from about 40 basis points. And similarly, the contingent provision is also up by a basis point or 2. So we have augmented that.

Next question is from the line of Abhishek Murarka from HSBC.

So I have a couple of questions on some of the individual loan segments. First is on personal loans. Do you think all the parameters are now green and you can accelerate, is the risk appetite much better now versus earlier? And for -- or rather to accelerate, do you need to loosen any of the tighter underwriting norms you would have adopted after November '23 circular a couple of years back? Is that a requirement or even with the current norms, you can sort of accelerate? So just some sense there on how you're looking at growth and revival? The second one is on home loans. Now I think you all made very valid points about the product itself and the importance of the product for the franchise. But if I look at the overall growth, you are still 300 bps below the industry growth. I understand maybe it was due to the fact that the period was such where margins were under pressure and maybe you wanted to trade that off. But now going forward, do you see that accelerating again, and enough risk-adjusted returns there to grow at least at par with the industry? And the third is on gold. What are the yields right now? You're growing 5%, 6% Q-o-Q for several quarters over there, is that still lucrative from a return and margin perspective? Are you seeing some yield pressure there? So just these 3 things, if you could talk a little bit about.

Okay. So your first question being on the unsecured book, we've always had an approach where we will not go down our credit standards for underwriting, whatever would be the cycle that would be present. We've always looked at opportunities to grow in segments that we are comfortable. And based on the economic environment and the growth that is there in the economic environment. We've seen a steady growth come through because there has been an uptick in the credit offtake in unsecured loans, and we have appropriately participated out over there. As it unfolds and as Sashi alluded to, we see a positive traction continuing in the economic environment and we will certainly participate in our target market and ensure we capture our rightful share out over there without having to dilute any credit standards. If I move to the mortgage piece out over there, your question was on -- so on the volume rate of growth, last year, if you step back, we did a lot of corrections that needed to be carried out in terms of process, target market, the kind of yields that we wanted to participate in. From there, if you see, we have started increasing our market share. And today, we do believe that we have closed the gap between what we had about a year, 1.5 years ago, and where we are. If you see some of the participants about in the last 90 to 120 days, post the RBI reduction of 50 basis points in June, we witnessed a lowering of rates in the market by a host of players. We chose not to go down the interest rate ladder and participate at those levels because it has to make a certain level of economic sense and return as we also balance it with market share. We do believe we navigated that in a manner where we saw very quickly some of the players revise their rates and bring it back up. We do believe that over the next 18 to 24 months, this is a product that we will be with market. We've already shown that over the last several quarters, but we will not do anything only to get market share gain. That has never been our philosophy. It is a long duration product. It is a product where you connect with the customer and you want to have a customer quality where you can engage even greater across our product suite and have a relationship which lasts through the lifetime of the loans. So that's our outlook with regard to the mortgage business. The third question was on the gold.

Yes. I just had a very quick follow-up here. Is the pragmatism on pricing returning? Or is it just still quite competitive and still not the right time to press the pedal?

It is coming back to some levels of sanity, but I would think it's yet a little distance away, because it's quite an uneven market where you see different players come and accelerate their appetite on home loans and therefore, use rates as a strategy to try and meet their objectives. So we will have to see how this unfolds and wouldn't want to jump the gun where that is concerned. Very quickly, in the interest of time, I move to your query on gold loans. Yields have been good. Our experience as we are growing this book in a steady manner has thus far been very helpful. We do see us continuing on that path. We will be watchful as it is, again, a very emotional item with clients and who we deal with and the clarity of the terms on which we deal with them, we will be cautious of. But yields on gold loan book have been, I would say, pretty rich given that it is a fully collateralized exposure.

Yes. Is the yield here higher than your retail blended yield or at par, just the retail portfolio?

Abhishek, so going into one particular product rate, all I will tell you is that this is incremental to the bank's yield as well as the retail product yield.

Next question is from the line of Jayant from Axis Capital.

Sir, my question is on credit. I think the book has not grown sequentially as much. We do think...

Jayant, sorry to interrupt you, we lost your audio in between, can you repeat your question once again?

Am I audible now?

Yes.

Yes. Question is on credit cards business, when the book has not [ nice ] in this quarter, whereas we do...

Jayant, sorry to interrupt you, we are again losing your audio. Can you speak through your handset, please?

Yes, is this any better?

Yes, try again, try again, softly try again.

Yes. My question was regarding credit cards. The cards book has not grown as much in this quarter. However, the card issuances and the spends have been growing very sharply ahead of industry for the past several months. So is there a mismatch? And have we observed any uptick in the post 22nd of September period?

First on the card overall, first is that the card growth I alluded to, I think it's 1.5 million new card additions in the quarter. And we have seen that -- which we have talked over the last 4 quarters, where from a various spend categories, there are certain spend categories that we are cautious of, and we have been managing through the spend time. There are certain things we like and certain things that we have restricted. Secondly, in terms of various credit lines, we are again the circumspect on increasing credit lines for revolvers. And we have seen that the revolve rate hasn't picked up, if anything, has only come down. And so again, from an overall balances point of view, a good amount of transactors who spend and pay, especially from strategic.

See, very similar to what Kaizad and Srini has mentioned, I just wanted to add that there will be times where probably because of festivities, there will be a fair amount of offers that will be there from e-commerce platforms, and participants in that particular platform probably would have seen a fair amount of buoyancy in terms of spends and spends per card. If you look at the industry data, you would see a fair amount of spends happening on account of the festivities or the start of the festivities by some of these e-commerce platforms. And we have elected and we sort of keep evaluating this particular space to see whether it makes economic sense to participate in some of these spends or not. So if you are comparing or looking at it from an industry perspective, we -- as has been the philosophy, we try and ensure that whatever we participate largely should make some economic sense. It is a fact that we did not participate in some of the large spends that happens during just about the start of the festival on e-commerce platforms. And that's probably one of the reasons why you're seeing a very tepid additions to the net receivables on cards for this quarter.

Understood. And second question was the mix of the new acquisitions, how much would be existing to bank and new to bank? Is there any change of thought here of targeting new consumer pools through cards, because we're not seeing this kind of aggression from other players right now?

Normally, it has been between 65% to 70%, 75% or so is existing, and that has been the level at which we have operated over time.

There's no change in the last 6 months?

Yes, there's no big change.

Next question is from the line of Ravi Purohit from SiMPL.

Happy Diwali to the entire team of HDFC Bank. So I have 2 questions. Most of the other questions have been answered. One is about 2 quarters back, we had mentioned that from the erstwhile HDFC book, we had about 15 to 20 bps of stressed assets which are actually performing, but we were still classifying them as NPAs. So can you just kind of update us on the status of those? Have a lot of those gotten upgraded or some of it, if this quarter, one of the, I think, assets that you were saying that got upgraded was probably part of that eHDFC book. And is there more left there? If you could just share some thoughts there? And second is, in our advances book, we have seen healthy growth on the SME side, the medium and mid-corporate side. So if you could just share some thoughts on what we are seeing on the ground on the SME side from loan opportunities? Those are my 2 questions.

The first one is simple, yes, I did mention to Mahrukh and to another person that the upgrade -- the 10 basis points upgrade is part of that.

As regards to the SME part of it, I think we have seen at a ground level a fair amount of positivity come back. There is actual credit demand, which one is seeing in that segment. We do believe that with our clientele and our footprint, it gives us an opportunity to continue to participate, keeping the underwriting standards, but also participating out over here. And right now, it is continuing to give us the positivity on that segment. The asset quality in that segment has also held up well. So we continue to mine that space within our parameters going forward.

And sir, in the RBI policy recently, they had mentioned about Indian banks being allowed to participate in cross-border or fund cross-border M&As and also there were a lot of relaxations that have come in. So if you could just share some thoughts as to how does it kind of open up opportunities for larger banks to participate in larger cross-border transactions, which hitherto were not kind of available and most of that money was being raised in the overseas markets.

Yes. So I think this certainly opens up avenue for large banks to participate, in fact, for most banks to participate. We will await the draft -- we will await the guidelines from -- the final guidelines from the regulator as well as the draft guidelines which have to come out over here. I do believe that there is a large market available, which was being financed offshore or to a smaller extent being addressed by the NBFCs or by alternate funds. This would now be available to banks, and we will most certainly examine this and look at it and be able to participate given our clientele and the depth of our balance sheet.

Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take that as the last question. I'll now hand the conference over to Mr. Vaidyanathan for closing comments.

Thank you. Thank you. I want to take this opportune time to wish all of you a very happy festival time with your family and friends. Have a great weekend. Bye-bye. And if you have any more questions or comments and clarifications required, please feel free to reach out to our Investor Relations. We'll be happy to engage. Thank you. Bye-bye.

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

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to HDFC Bank Limited Q1 FY '26 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Srinivasan Vaidyanathan, Chief Financial Officer, HDFC Bank. Thank you, and over to you Mr. Vaidyanathan.

Thank you, Nirav. Good evening, and welcome to all the participants today. We have Sashi Jagdishan, our CEO and MD, with us this evening. We'll hand it off to him for opening remarks, then we'll get back to you. Sashi, over to you for opening remarks, please.

Thank you, Srini, and thank you all on the call to join us on a Saturday evening. Let me just start off with a little bit of what we see on the macro. You all know this much better, but let me summarize. The global situation remains pretty volatile with a weakening growth outlook amid tariff-related and geopolitical uncertainties. Within this context, India remains relatively better placed, supported by a stable macro environment. For this fiscal, we expect GDP growth to sustain, supported by pickup in improved performance of domestic factors. Normal monsoons, income tax cuts, which you saw in the last budget, benign food inflation, as you have been recently seeing the prints on inflation augur very well for domestic demand, especially during the festive season. Concerted policy impetus, which we have been seeing right from January, February of this year until recently, support sustainable growth. Coming to our performance. Let me just recap as to what -- how we traverse this over the last 12, 18 months. Last year, we have grown our average deposits at a healthy pace of 16% year-on-year and continue to gain market share as we have done in the past. However, we slowed down our average advances or AUM assets under management growth to about 7% last year in alignment with our strategic objectives to bring down the CD, credit deposit ratio from 110% at the time of the merger to about 95% as we speak today. This rate of growth on the assets under management has improved to 8% in the quarter just ended, which is the June quarter FY '26. Our growth engines are well geared to grow. And as we move forward, we expect our loan growth to continue to improve from here and remain confident of growing our advances at the system growth rate in FY '26 and higher than the system in FY '27. The growth enablers apart from balance sheet growth remain customer centricity, technology and our people. Some of these aspects, I think during the course of this quarter and probably the next half of the year, I think we shall be talking more about it as we unveil some of the initiatives that is underway in the bank. As mentioned in the previous earnings call, both the CFO and Bhavin did mention, and you can sort of recall some of the transcripts of the last earnings call, policy rate changes impact the loans tied to external benchmarks, while deposit side takes longer to factor it in. As they probably would have mentioned, a large part of our asset side of the balance sheet is floating in nature. It's somewhere around the 70%, and whilst the liability side is more or less fixed in nature. So this would be a headwind in terms of when the rate cycle is on a downward trend. This impact is dependent on the pace and depth of the rate cut. You are seeing that in the results just announced. Whilst we may see quarterly fluctuations in margins due to this lead lag impact, we expect to stabilize it over a period of time. Our asset quality, one of our main USPs remains healthy, positioning us well for growth in both assets and deposits as liquidity and demand improves. During the quarter, we carried out the HDB Financial Services listing process, wherein the bank also diluted some stake and which eventually culminated in the stocks being listed on 2nd of July. We thank all the investors who participated in the said IPO. Earlier today, the Board also announced an interim dividend of INR 5 per share. And they also recommended to shareholders the first ever bonus share issue in a ratio of 1:1. Srini and team will probably give you more details as questions come about from all of you. So until then, I would like to express my gratitude to all our employees for their hard work and performance in a very challenging environment as we move from a -- we managed the slowing down of the engine last year, now to get back into its momentum as we have laid out and as a strategic objective, it requires a lot of courage. I think they have done extremely well, and we are proud of them. And gratitude to our shareholders who have supported us in all our times and to the Board for their leadership support and their strategic guidance. So thank you all on the call for your support as well. Srini, over to you.

Thank you, Sashi. We go straight to Q&A. We can open it up and proceed. Nirav, please open and get into the queue, please.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Mahrukh Adajania from Nuvama.

So I had a couple of questions. Firstly, on your margins. So just wanted to recap on your method of repricing on EBLR. So following a rate cut in how many months does the book -- the full EBLR book reprice or at least the repo book? And just wanted to make sure that the repo -- the EBLR linkage is around 65%, 67%. So that's my first question. And my second question is on growth. Obviously, there's hope that it will recover, but it's only slowing in the interim. So what will trigger growth from current levels, right? Because in the first quarter, even HDFC Bank's growth was subdued and so was everyone else's. So what will trigger growth because it's been falling over the last 2 quarters for the sector?

Okay. Thank you, Mahrukh. Let's talk about the margin and you asked about the EBLR and the pricing and so on. The February price change on EBLR and the April change, yes, both of that for most part would be fully in. The June change of 50 basis points will not be fully in, in fact, substantially will not be in because it takes 1 month to 3 months, right, at least 1 to 3 months for pricing in. Some are monthly resets, some are quarterly resets and so on. So we'll have to wait and get there. So 2 of those are done. And the third one which happened in June, we'll have to wait for that balance of the part to play out. So that's one on the margin from an EBLR yield impact point of view. That's why you're seeing the change in the yield on assets is about 20 basis points or so, no, 30, but you had 7, 8 last quarter had a one-timer. So based on it, it's about 22 basis points or so is the change in the quarter. And so it has to come through for the rest. That's one on the margin. Second, on the growth you touched upon, and I'm sure Sashi will jump in to talk about -- I think we already talked about in the preamble in terms of all of the -- both the monetary policy support in terms of the rate reduction that puts more money in the hands of certain consumers with certain products and also the yield going down. And also the fiscal policy, which also provided relief in terms of some tax benefits. And the overall -- the market inflation, both food inflation and the total inflation below that 4% target, it's 3.7% and some are even below. The food inflation is extremely low or nothing. All of that augurs well for consumption demand to pick up faster, both in the urban segment as well as in the rural segment. And with the onset of the festival season, we do expect that there will be a greater fill in that area. Our approach is not only one segment, while we typically tend to mirror the GDP spectrum, which is consumption being 60%, so retail predominant in that. We are present across all of these segments, and we would endeavor for a balanced growth across all with a tilt towards the consumer. Sashi, from an overall...

So we are seeing some amount of healthy demand from the rural side. I think the segment which we are catering to is already factoring in better monsoon. And so we are seeing some amount of positive inquiries coming in at our ground level there. So there is an opportunity on that front in terms of potential growth. In the recent past, in the urban consumption, obviously, the premium side, whilst is growing, there has been a little bit of a fatigue, but we expect the festival season, which will start shortly, I mean, whether it is the Onam or the Ganesh Chaturthi, et cetera, a fair amount of festivals will start to kick in, in the country from August onwards or even earlier. I think that mood will have a reasonable amount of impetus, and that could be a good trigger as well. As you -- as I mentioned, the fact that interest rates have come down, the fact that people would have now started to see savings arising out of the fiscal larges that was given in the last budget, I think all that will play in with the convergence of the sentiments and the moods, which normally the Indian festivities normally bring about. On the MSME side, I think the sectors that we normally cater to, as I said, despite the kind of uncertainties on the tariff front, I think we have seen a fair amount of upfronting of exports to sort of take advantage of this potential tariff rates. And so we do see a reasonable amount of buoyancy in some of the good customers in the MSME segment as well, which should continue even as we get into the second quarter or the second half of the year. As regards corporates, I think they've been enjoying in the last couple of months a reasonably benign interest rates. And obviously, the system since being flushed with liquidity have the rates being offered to these AA and above corporates are pretty attractive. So obviously, we may be to the -- some of the good corporates, which we are comfortable with, we shall be participating in some of them for their working capital demand as well. We're not seeing anything great on the capital -- private CapEx side as yet, but we shall surely participate in, as Srini did mention, across all our segments, whether it is rural, whether it's retail, whether it is MSME and whether it's corporate as well. As regards to mortgages, that too has been -- has seen intense competition from the public sector enterprises. But having said that, I think some amount of participation considering the brand and considering the fact that we are also trying to see how to optimize our cost of processing on that, I think we should be able to pick up some of the volumes during the stress period as well. So we are -- we have a clear-cut grounds-up strategy in terms of how we will achieve our momentum from now on. As Srini did mention, we are coming from a very low growth for the reasons that I just mentioned that we had a compulsion to bring down our credit deposit ratio rather quickly, which we did reasonably well last year. But now from that low, we have already seen the momentum, although small in the first quarter, I think it's playing out well, and we should see this sequentially moving up over the next 3 quarters from now.

Next question is from the line of Rikin Shah from IIFL Capital.

Just had a couple of questions. The first one, I noticed that the CRB loan classification has been regrouped. So how are the portfolios now allocated to different business heads? Has there been any rejig there as well? That's the first question. The second one is on the asset quality. Just wanted to clarify what is the NPA recognition policy for any onetime settlements offered to the standard customers? And thirdly, on the credit cost, while it's still very, very benign, it has moved up from 29 to 41 basis point on net credit cost basis. Where do you expect this to settle in the interim?

Okay. Yes. A few things. One, on the rejig of the portfolio. You'll see it on Page 11, we have -- you see that there is a small and mid- market, which is there as a separate category and the emerging corporates is part of corporate. That's one, right? Second, there is one other reporting that is there, which product-wise advances, which is part of the separate release, which is also a financial metrics release that give us that is done. That also has got a similar breakup for the 3 time periods, which is last year, last quarter and this quarter, but that's where it has moved, right? And there are some agri book and -- agriculture book and some SLI book, which are part of retail, which are core retail, which has moved to the retail assets. That grouping, you will see in that product- wise advances list that we have provided, you'll see that what has moved from the previous period.

Sure, Srini, but has the business allocation to different heads also been rejigged along with this, if you could highlight that?

So Abhishek, the respective products...

Rikin.

Rikin, respective product heads, right, like, for example, the SLI head is continuing to be the same SLI head is reporting into the retail franchise, which is being headed by Arvind. So the respective business heads have remained the same. They've been reporting into a different hierarchy who report into Sashi differently. That's the only change that has happened. No ground level staff has changed in this. And NPA.

What is the second one he was having?

NPA recognition.

Do a settlement. Settlement, if you do a settlement, onetime settlement, similar part of the NPA.

We follow the norms.

Definitely. There is RBI regulations around those, which will be following that. In most cases, there will be some exceptions to it. But in most cases, it will be following -- any change of such will necessarily classify -- have a classification downgrade. Whether that turns into an NPA, it will depend on each case by case. But largely, any change in that, onetime settlement would lead to an NPA recognition.

Got it. And lastly, on the credit cost, moved up slightly. So how does that kind of behave in the next 12 to 24 months?

See, credit cost normally that the June and December quarters are slightly elevated, which is what you see because of the agri, largely driven through the agricultural portfolio based on the crop season, it moves up between June and December. While I won't venture to give you one particular number, but we have been trying to tell that over the last few quarters that the credit costs continue to be benign. And there will be some point in time, it will revert to mean. And what does that mean is a moot point and how long it takes is also a moot point. But as of now, it continues to be benign and healthy.

Next question is from the line of Pranav from Bernstein.

Two questions. One, on the CASA deposits. The bank hasn't really gained CASA market share or maybe even lost some share in the last 4 to 6 quarters after a stellar 3-year period from '22-'23. So what's really changed? And of course, more importantly, what would reverse the trend? The second question is on your lending franchise. Can you share what percent of your 100 million customers would be loan customers? And I ask this in the context of HDB, right, which claims almost a 20 million customer franchise and has growth ambitions. And I was wondering if there's a chance of a future conflict where both entities are with the same customer.

Pranav, let me answer this, and then Srini can sort of complement what I'm trying to tell. So number one is on -- let's face it, when we merged with HDFC Limited in July '23, there was a day 0 adjustment of about 3.5%, 4% from where we were. So 41% to 38% is -- or 37.5%, 38% is where we settled down on that. If you look at the -- what we needed to do right from the day 0 of the merger, we had a massive effort to reduce the credit deposit ratio. It was a combination of trying to slow down the engine on the loan side and also try and step up the deposits to not only cater to some of the incremental reserve requirements that was necessitated because we took in more liabilities from the erstwhile HDFC Limited balance sheet, but also provide that business as usual incremental reserve requirements as well where we needed to keep that amount of extra deposit momentum. And mind you, we had a kind of an environment, which is rather challenging where the liquidity was very tight from the time we merged with HDFC Limited. When you have this scenario, when you -- you need to give clear directions in terms of what their priorities are. When you have branches and when you need to give clear directions, the direction that was given was the -- you need to get deposits so that we can ultimately ensure that the primary objective of bringing down the CD ratio was -- comes down. So we did not sort of provide any nuances to say that we also want good CASA, et cetera, because that -- it's not something that you can ask anyone to say get CASA. It is CASA is a resultant of multiple ground level strategies in terms of how you engage with customers, how you fulfill the financial needs of a customer, how do you upsell multiple products, and when you upsell, there is a lot of historical evidence and empirical evidence to say that with more and more products that you upsell, you will get your CASA balances. So we are very clear that you will have -- the priority is to get deposits, and that is what the signal was given. So whilst -- which is reflected in the fact that we got in deposits. We got in a good amount of market share. We got in at the prices that the market is paying amongst the large peer group entities. And I think they have done extremely well. And where we are at this juncture, I think going forward, with the liquidity environment being rather benign, the fact is that now we have some amount of breather on the credit deposit ratio and the liquidity in the system and in the bank. We probably will have -- and this year, in FY '26, we will -- our directions to the frontline team is to now start to upsell more and more products, fulfill the needs of what a customer wants, step up engagement and use a great customer experience, which we will talk about now or even in the coming quarters in terms of how we're going to be creating a great delight, which will eventually lead to getting back some of the mojo on the low-cost deposit franchise as well. So this is part one, and we -- you will start to see this. Of course, for a large balance sheet, this will take a little bit of time, but I think we will cover it up, and you will see the needle moving slowly but surely on this particular front. The second part of this question was on the...

Lending customers...

HDB, we have maintained this. I think the segment that they catered to is about a notch or 2 below that of HDFC Bank. For the kind of rates that they offer in the market for products, there is definitely why would a customer from HDFC Bank who has a much lesser rack rates would even go to an HDB for their incremental requirements. Obviously, it is -- it has to be a notch below, and that is not a segment that we are catering to at this juncture. I think we have enough to penetrate our own existing customer base and also the kind of segment that we are comfortable with from a product program basis. So even if one were to do a kind of a deduplication between the customer sets, the overlaps would be extremely minimal, et cetera. So as we speak, and Srini, if you want to add something, the segmentation will continue to be distinct between the bank and HDB for a long period of time. There is 0 or very minimal overlap at this juncture, and that will continue to stay for a long period of time.

So one other aspect of what you had asked also, Pranav, if I venture to say, in our customer base, cards is the maximum penetration from a customer base, almost, call it, 15% to 20% card. We have 24 million cards. It's one of the highest penetration of that. So every other product, call it, anywhere between 5% to 10% to 12% kind of. So it's a long runway in terms of penetrating into our own customer base for various cross-sell opportunities.

Very clear on the HDB one. Just a quick follow-up on the CASA one. I was more wondering if any of your recent actions, I mean, it seems to have coincided with you slowing down corporate credit, for example, right? So I was just wondering if there's something even more immediate or a side effect of what you have done apart from all the other stuff that you talked about in terms of customer experience, et cetera, driving the longer-term CASA.

No, I don't think, Pranav, if I've understood you right, are you saying that the slowdown in CASA is an impact of the slowdown in the corporate segment?

Yes, I was referring to that.

Not really. See, the thing is corporate contributes to just a very smaller segment of -- or a proportion of our CASA. Yes, it is volatile. It has significant gyrations in the fourth quarter of every fiscal and hence, the outflows happen in the subsequent quarter. But is it something that has a significant impact because of that? I don't think so. Frankly, our CASA emanates out of the kind of engagement that we do to the retail segment. And that -- maybe let me add a slightly other nuance as well. The segment that we cater to on the retail side is the middle and the upper middle income segment. We have -- this is something that we have always maintained over a long period of time. And this is -- if -- I can see about 687 people on this call, and I have about a few people in this room. If I were to take this as a microcosm of how a retail of a middle and upper middle income segment will behave, all of us would like to maximize our returns or optimize our returns. So this segment is -- the propensity of all of us to move and manage our funds is going to be far higher than what you would do to probably in the mid- to lower segments. And that will also have a nuance or have a slightly amount of impact in the near term for some of the institutions like us. But that's not something that -- but I still am very optimistic that the medium to long term, if we get our customer experience and our upsell strategies well at the ground level, I think we should be in a position to get back some of the gains that we lost on the low-cost deposits.

Next question is from the line of Kunal Shah from Citigroup.

So in annual report also, you have indicated that you have been taking singles in FY '25 and now positioned to go for boundaries. So any particular segments, the priorities which have been set out apart from what you have indicated in general, the strategy, which has been there? Any key segments which you are looking at? And this quarter, when we look at the number of employees, they have gone up by almost 4,000. So is it like we have ramped up employee addition or it is to do with the lower attrition rate in the first quarter. Otherwise, in the last full year, we have added hardly like 1,000-odd employees. And this quarter itself, we have added 4,000. So is it like front-loading, lower attrition? What is leading to that, yes?

No. See, on the employee front, while I think Srini and the team will give you greater color, but I think these are the impact of the branches that we opened in the fourth quarter of last year. So that is coming about now, at least a larger portion of that incremental hiring is from there. The balance -- some portion will be in technology teams as well. And...

A lot of people we have added in the sales force. That's part of the approach, both asset sales force as well as the brand sales force have added and getting those branches fully manned...

Yes, that is -- as I said, that's the thing. I mean, see, the thing is I'm not sort of here to say that I want to lay off anybody. We are very clear about it because we are blessed to be in a sector and in a country where the demand outstrips supply, and we have a long runway. Frankly, even with -- since you mentioned about the fact that what I spoken about in the annual report, apart from the singles and hitting into the boundaries, I've also mentioned that there are some exciting tech initiatives, which is underway, which I may sort of spell it out not now. We -- I just gave a teaser in the annual report. But at the opportune time, which is just a few months away, we will sort of unveil as to what we're talking about. It will have ramifications in the capacity, but that's not our primary objective. Our primary objective is customer experience, and we are quite excited about how that is going to do about it. But even then, even at that point in time, what we foresee or what I foresee is that we will have employees, we will grow our resources, but it will be more and more in the front end, more probably in technology and less and less in the back-end operations or back-end enabling functions, whether it is operations, credit, other enabling functions of the bank. So the way I see it is that we will have, going into the future, more and more people at the customer-facing and maybe revenue generating, and that is a vision that we have. So adding 4,000 in a quarter is just tactical in terms of, as Srini just mentioned, because we've had opening -- I don't know how many branches we opened in the fourth quarter, and we are just manning it now completely. These are all low-end employees where -- which is necessary from a branch operations and sales perspective. And what was the second question...

I think you answered the segment of growth, if any specific segment...

No, that I've just mentioned a few questions ago, Kunal. I mentioned about the fact that where we see pockets of opportunities in terms of some of the rural segments, the MSME, some of the MSME segments, even corporate, even though the rates are going to be very fine, but we still have -- now that we have liquidity, I think we will sort of unlock some of it. And even retail, even urban REIT consumption, I believe that with the festive season coming up, we should see the premium segments also and unsecured segments moving up as well. Mortgages, pricing has been as -- like the corporate side, the pricing has been rather fine, but we have our -- we still believe that we can compete there. And there are some pockets of opportunities that we are sizing up as we speak.

Even in this quarter, we did see approximately 1,000 people migration from back office to front office to augment more part of the process of the migration.

Okay. Got it. And lastly, with respect to margins, so maybe what would be the average duration of the deposits, maybe in ALM, maybe because of the CASA classification doesn't make it very clear. But if we look at maybe the average duration of deposits, the way wholesale deposits proportion is also inching up. Now it's closer to almost 18-odd percent. When do we see NIMs of, say, Q4 level getting reached? Would it be by end of this fiscal? Or would it take time after the repricing is over and we see the benefit on deposits also flowing through, plus maybe the borrowings also getting repaid over a period?

I'll start on the deposits as such, right. See, we have a significant portion of our deposits, which are, call it, 12 to 18 months, call it, mid 15, 18 months, thereabouts. So that's the kind of where you have it in the front and you have it in the back, but then the most of it is centered around that kind of a time period. So that's very important. So for the entire cost of funds to play out, it takes a few quarters. That means on renewal, on roles, that's where it plays out there. That's one. From an overall margin, you asked whether by end of the year, yes, we'll have to -- it will take a few quarters. It depends on the -- how fast and how much the rate changes. So that we'll have to wait and see and there is always that -- June was something that one didn't expect that there will be a 50 basis point change in June. And so these kind of things play out. So I will urge you not to look at quarter- to-quarter at all because that is not how we can manage because one, there are certain things on the asset side that will automatically reprice. And on the managed side, which is the deposits that we manage, there will be a lag effect, both from managing the pricing in of the policy change and the roles that happen, there is a time frame to it. Yes, as we exit the year, there should be more stability if there is no more rate change, but then we will have to go through that process as time goes by as to what is going to happen in the forthcoming policy meeting, 1 or 2 meetings what happens.

Next question is from the line of Rahul Jain from Goldman Sachs.

The first question is on the loan growth. So can you give some qualitative color on how would have been the growth in disbursals and new loans that you would have underwritten in this quarter? How is the pace picking up there? And of course, there's always a time lag between the disbursement growth and the loan growth. So if you were to start looking out the next few quarters, how would that start looking out? Can you just share some color on that?

Yes. See, the disbursal growth in mortgages, if you see, is consciously down. The reason being that when there are certain institutions, particularly on the public sector side, which have a rate of anywhere 7.1%, 7.3% or thereabouts, we are not competing, right, at those kind of rates. And we are more looking at rates which are 50, 80 basis points, more than that to provide where we provide better service and get a holistic relationship of the ability to have multiple products. And we are okay to go slower there because that's what we want the full relationship, not a product as such getting pushed at this kind of size. And as it relates to non-mortgages, the disbursals have been quite strong, and we are seeing that 9%-odd growth in the retail assets year-on-year. And there are some seasonalities, agri season and so on and so forth plays out. But overall, those have been reasonably good there, within our, right? We are not -- at 9.6% rate of growth, there is a far higher room to go up to our own standards of where we are used to growing on those books. That's on the loan growth.

And so it's fair to assume that by the time we get into second and third quarter, the stock of loans should also start closing the gap in disbursement growth? And the disbursal growth has been stronger in non-mortgages, shouldn't it also reflect in stronger fee income. But this quarter, we didn't see fee income being that strong for some reason.

Yes. See, fee income this quarter has been subdued to the third-party distribution fees, right? That's where it is lower. Typically, June quarter is lower than March quarter. But then even March -- June versus June, the third-party distribution fees has been subdued. And again, we believe it is timing through the year that this quarter, industry-wide, we did not see much of that third-party distribution fees coming through or distribution sales coming through thereby the fees. But the overall outlook for the full year in terms of the distribution remains quite optimistic and quite strong.

Okay. So disbursal growth and loan growth in second and third quarter should start getting similar. Is that a fair assumption in non- mortgage retail?

No, that's -- I don't want to give one particular outlook, but then certainly, it depends. I think Sashi alluded to say that at the onset of the festival demand, we do expect a good amount of uptick there, and we are positioning ourselves to take advantage of that coming through in the next few quarters.

Got it. Just one last question and more a directional question on cost to income. Ex treasury still, I think the math is 42% or thereabouts. Of course, it has improved versus last year despite the balance sheet reorg. But what's the sense we should get? Where would this number start to get towards in the next couple of quarters? Do we have visibility that goes down to below 40% because we are adding employees, we are adding branches, et cetera, and growth, of course, is a challenge? Or should there be a scope for it to improve and bring it down to below 40%? I'm putting a number there. I know you don't comment on the number, but still just to get some direction or that management would want to prioritize growth, so therefore, cost to income is not an immediate priority?

See cost to income is always a priority even at the rate of growth that we aspire to do. Even we are at a normalized rate of 39.6% or something. But having said that, I would say that quarter-to-quarter certainly is not something that we look at to manage because there will be times where there will be spend required to be supported that is let it be the card spend or let it be some of the festival spend and programs and marketing that needs to be supported. So we'll not be shy of that where we need to do. You should look at an annual where we do. But certainly, yes, we envisage to take it down and keep improving on that.

Next question is from the line of Abhishek Murarka from HSBC.

So Sashi, you said that there's a bit of a breather in CD ratio in the system and liquidity in response to one of the questions earlier. I just wanted to check from a CD ratio perspective, now where would the comfort zone lie? Earlier, I believe it was somewhere between 85% and 90%. But now in the new scheme of things, better liquidity, system looking at growth revival. Would you be comfortable with a relatively higher CD ratio?

See, I'm going to take that, Abhishek, from a CD ratio. We are at 95%, 96%, last quarter was 96%. We are at 95% thereabouts on CD ratio. While quarter-to-quarter, again, even for this year, it can be different. But in the medium term, we would envisage to get the CD ratio to be at the level we were prior to the merger, which was about 87%, 88%. So that is why between 85% and 90% is a range that in the medium term, we'll aspire to be there. And that naturally comes in when you have the deposit growth superior to the loan growth and you keep moving on that will come. And that is all that FY '26 grow in line with the system and FY '27 grow faster on the loans versus the system gets you in the medium term to around those kind of levels in course of time.

Yes. Srini, the thought was that actually with now a little bit of leeway, if you target something a little higher than 87%, 90%, then you can actually grow a little faster as well and use all the deposits that are coming in because at a headline level, you all are getting great deposit market share incrementally. So that's what I was thinking that is that an opportunity now.

Yes. Theoretically, I agree with you, Abhishek. But as I said, it will have a certain amount of gradient. That's the thought process. I think we are in that kind of -- we are aligned to that kind of a thought process. But obviously, we need to also see appropriate demand at appropriate pricing and appropriate risk premium as well. So it's something that we have to manage all these aspects as we move along. But I think we are all geared up to ensure that we don't miss our opportunities. And yes, if we need to sort of have a direction downwards, but not necessarily be tied down to a particular CD ratio number, we are going to be happy to do so. But I guess that clarity will come about as we move to the second half of the year because, as you know, whether in any year and more so in this particular fiscal, I think a large part of your growth will come in from the second half and more -- probably more gearing towards the fourth quarter of this year. So at that point in time, I think there will be enough clarity for all of us. But in the meantime, we are ensuring that the engine is gearing up towards a trajectory, which is what we have stated up. And whether it is disbursals, whether it is across multiple segments, whether it is reexamining the market opportunities or the competitive intensity and trying to see how we can -- now that we have liquidity, how to sort of bat on the front foot, I think we will be doing that, and that will be very visible to the world at large.

Sure. That sounds good, Sashi. And the second question is on this contingent provision of INR 1,700 crores. This was a little over and above the -- whatever you use the windfall gain for. So is this specific to some account? Or is there some policy that drives you to make -- or that drove you to make this additional provision? What was the reason to make the additional INR 1,700 crore provision?

Okay. Abhishek, you should look at what is contingent provision, right? As the name suggests, it's contingent on occurrence or nonoccurrence of certain events, right? And this does not represent any uniquely observed changes in the portfolio. These provisions run through models on various pools of assets under certain probability scenarios, stressing various factors, right? It is intended to provide resiliency and essentially strong reserving position now and for the future. We were at 51 basis points prior to this. Now the contingent provision is about 57 basis points of the loans portfolio. So it is done at kind of various levels, pools of assets runs through various probability models and then that's the reserving that we did.

Perfect. And finally, can you give some color on asset quality and outlook on asset quality in PL, CC, unsecured retail? Just sort of an update compared to last quarter, now what you're seeing and how that has moved...

Whilst Srini may probably give some numbers, if at all he does, but I can tell you that, that continues to be our greatest, what should I say, our USP. I reiterate that ex agri because agri is more cyclical in nature, which you see a little bit of a blip in the first quarter and the third quarter. It continues to be extremely benign, whether it's gross NPA levels or even in terms of the credit cost. I mean if you look at the credit cost ex agri also, sequentially, it's been pretty much stable. So we are extremely happy. And even the outlook, as Srini just mentioned, is pretty much benign. And so even the so-called countercyclical buffer or the contingent provisions has no correlation to any pain points that we are likely to have. Virtually, there's none. It is just building resilience into the future. And that's been a philosophy that we have been patronizing for a long period of time. And I think this is something that we are proud of.

On the particular number, if you look at the NPA on the retail segment, excluding agri, it's at about 82 basis points. Last year same time, it was 82 basis points. So it's been pretty steady at that level. So over a year, 82 basis points, that's the GNPA on the retail segment, which contains cards, PL and all of those sort of products other than agri.

Right. So essentially, you're saying there's no real stress and it's stable, the asset quality there is stable?

Exactly.

Next question is from the line of Chintan from Autonomous.

Can I ask you a couple of detailed questions from your 20-F. The first one is, last quarter, you had said that you have about INR 500 billion of expensive erstwhile limited debt that will mature in 2026. In your 20-F, your long-term debt maturity for 2026 is about INR 1.5 trillion. I wanted to understand what that other [ INR 1 trillion ] in terms of cost or duration and what the opportunity is there in that INR 1 trillion, so excluding the e-limited debt? So that's the first one. And within that also, how do hedges play a role in helping you offset the NIM pressures? The second question I have is on PSL. If I look at the achievement rates, it has come down year-on-year, probably because of the 1/3 base being added from HDFC Limited. If I think about another 1/3 coming next year, there is some kind of rolling shortfall building up in certain areas. How should investors think about this? Would RBI make a call on this at some point and then it is what it is? Or can we prudently put something in our expectations on NIMs on that call? How should we think about it?

So Chintan, that 20-F is a consolidation of all the subsidiaries. So it's not really -- if you look at any numbers there and try and look at that from a stand-alone, it's not going to really make sense. I would encourage that you don't try to find data points from a bank perspective in there, it's not going to be able to match it, and it's a completely different accounting standard as well. We'll pick it up offline to see where we can -- how do we get there on that.

All the subsidiaries are added in that.

Color on kind of non-e-limited borrowings, any opportunities there to do any liability management exercises or something that can help you reduce your cost of funds there?

If you see the borrowings that we do give a breakup, we constantly have something which comes up for maturity, which we have done. Last year, we did have some opportunity to prepay or try and advance some maturities, which we have taken through. We'll keep looking for this. As and when they are available, we'll do that. But given the rates where they are in the market, these opportunities may not necessarily be as much in this current year is the way we think about it.

And a little 2 bits on this one, Chintan. Even if there are opportunities, you have to take a fair value hit, if at all, there are any early redemptions of some of these long-term debt as well. So that is something that you need to factor in. But if I were an investor, I would -- why would I even want to do that if I'm holding a very attractive coupon on the other side. I mean that's reality, and that's what some of the investors have been saying. I'm happy not to keep holding it to maturity. This is -- so sometimes whilst on paper, I would love to do that, but in practice and in reality, there are very few takers on such early redemptions as well.

On the PSL, you touched upon the PSL, yes, PSL is an active management book in terms of how we have. We have -- at the aggregate level, the target is 40. And if we are more than 40, we try to see how to get it to 40. There's always a buy and sell on the PSLC that happens for actively managing. And again, with the market availability, not that every year, it provides an opportunity, but yes, I think you're referring to the annual report or the PSL status of FY '25 status. Yes, there were sales also which exceeded the buy in the year because we were at the aggregate level. We always...

Even as we speak, I think we are reasonably comfortable at the overall price portfolio despite adding 1/3 of the -- a portion of erstwhile HDFC Limited's balance sheet.

The only thing that we always -- the only thing we always look for to get is the small and marginal farmer and the micro segment, which is much more dearer, even availability is limited in the market. But we are not aware of any regulation change that provides really for an opportunity space, we don't know. But yes, those 2 segments are here at all the time. And even the last year that you referred to, we were about a percentage point or so looking for...

Okay. And can I slip in one more? Will 2Q be the trough of NIMs for the bank, given that a lot of the asset repricing will come through by 2Q?

Chintan, it will depend on if there's another rate cut coming or not in the year, we have no idea...

Yes, assuming no more rate cuts.

And you should expect that to happen subject to repricing on the liability side, which should come through. So logically, yes, but there are a lot of other people on the call, we don't want to give a guidance of any form or manner because there have been a lot of moving parts in there.

See, the deposit cost is a managed deposit cost. And the deposit costs do not reflect yet fully pricing in of the policy rate change. And you know that the deposit pricing, particularly I'm talking about the time deposit, savings also it is the same. But for a good amount, the time deposit pricing is more or less maintains parity across various peer players in the system. So it is not just about one moving. You'll have to see whether the cohorts are moving.

Having said that, I sort of mentioned in the past, liabilities are more fixed in nature. So even incrementally, we start -- if our incremental liabilities come in at a lesser price than the stock, it takes a long time for the stock to run off. I mean the modified duration will be about a year or 1.3 years. So you have to wait for that. And that is the reason why you will -- and rightfully, that's what even you have alluded to, you will have a little bit of a trough, all things remaining same, assuming no incremental changes, a little bit of a trough in the coming months before it starts to pick up and stabilize to the -- where the liability benefits also catch up with the transmission that has already happened on the asset side.

Also to look at these things in the annually, not quarterly...

Which is what you've been mentioning even in your last earnings call, yes.

Next question is from the line of Piran Engineer from CLSA India.

Team, congrats on the strong results. Most of my questions are answered. Just a couple of follow-ups. Firstly, Srini, when you mentioned that credit costs will normalize, it's a matter of when and not if. I'm just thinking which segments will result in this normalization because corporate isn't likely to worsen, secured retail is fine and unsecured will only get better. So why should we assume that credit costs rise in future?

No. Again, it's a question of -- the overall credit cost in the industry out of the bank remains pretty low. When I say reversion to mean, it is simply a statistical model. That is why I do not know when -- I do not know how much, right? But if you ask our credit experts, like our Chief Credit Officer, which I think he's alluded to a couple of quarters ago in one of those investor calls that, yes, across all the segments, it has been pretty good and benign. It started maybe a year ago in the lower segment like the microfinance, I'm talking about the industry, it started around that. And then it did not find its way into the other segments like retail segment, SME segment, wholesale segment and so on. So again, that is a question of when, right? It's not something that just moved from one on a quarterly basis or a 2-quarter basis, it starts to move across. So it depends on when it does. And -- but across all segments, there will be some kind of a reversion to mean.

But there's nothing on the horizon, at least in the foreseeable future that we see, right?

No, no, no.

Okay. Okay. That's good. And just secondly, in terms of fixed rate lending products like car loans, personal loans, et cetera, how much have we and our competitors cut incremental disbursement interest rates by?

Piran, it will be difficult to gauge that, right, because different -- there's a large segment there and different players play in a different rate. So it's very difficult to gauge what if everybody has cut and not. First quarter is any which way is a bit slower. If anything, you'll find some of the competition playing out as the festive season picks up in the next quarter.

Thank you all. Thank you very much.

Participants, we have come to an end of the time allotted for the call. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Vaidyanathan for closing comments.

Okay. Thank you all for participating today. If you have any more questions, queries, comments or whatever you need to talk, please reach out to our Investor Relations team, which you are anyway used to reaching out if required, we'll be happy to engage and talk. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Thank you all. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.

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