IDFC First Bank Limited (539437) Earnings Call Transcript
October 22, 2022
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Q2 FY '23 Earnings Conference Call of IDFC First Bank hosted by ICICI Securities. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Kunal Shah from ICICI Securities. Thank you. And over to you, sir.
Thank you, Stephen, and good evening all of you. This is Kunal Shah from ICICI Securities. We have with us today, Mr. V. Vaidyanathan, our Managing Director and CEO; Mr. Sudhanshu Jain, CFO and Head, Corporate Center; and Mr. Saptarshi Bapari, Head, Investor Relations from IDFC First Bank to discuss their Q2 and H1 FY '23 Earnings. Sir, at the onset, congratulations, good set of numbers. And I wish the entire management team as well as the participants on the call a very Happy Diwali. Over to you, sir.
First of all to all of you tuning in today to talk to us, thank you very much. Wish you all a very, very Happy Diwali to every one of you. Now we have -- I got some 5 or 6 quick comments to keep it brief, and then Sudhanshu will take you through the details, and then we'll hopefully give -- have more time for Q&A. Now from our point of view, basically, we are seeing that the credit growth is quite strong, at a -- stable and strong because we are now at 25% loan growth. If you remember, for 3 years at a stretch, we held the discipline of not growing the loan book because we were not strong on the liability side. But now with a 51% or 50% CASA, we are feeling very strong from the inside on the deposit side. So therefore, now we are in a position to start growing the loan book. The important thing is that we are growing the loan book along with growth of deposits. So for example, last quarter, we grew our loan book, Y-o-Y growth on deposit, the loan book was 25%, but we also grew the deposits by 37%. So now we know we're entirely funded to deposits through incremental deposits on a strong basis. And therefore, it provides us the solidity and also gives us the confidence that we will be able to sustain the CASA of 51% or 50%. That's very important because we need CASA for 2 reasons. One is, we need CASA for normal growth, growth, which we feel that about 20%, 25% of loan book growth should go on for a while, we need deposits for that. But in our peculiar case, we also need deposits to pay off that legacy bonds and borrowings, et cetera, which we need to pay, and that's about like INR 5,000 crores, INR 6,000 crores a year. So really for that also. But the good news is that we are able to raise enough deposits to pay off both the past liabilities and also fund our growth. So that's coming comfortably. Now the second part of the point is to notice that the credit quality. Now on the credit quality front, I'm actually happy to tell you that the -- all the input parameters, we call input parameters as underwriting quality is an input parameter. And underwriting quality, frankly, we were always good for like for 10 years now, our gross NPA has been 2% and net NPA was 1%. So 10 years is a long time to establish a model. But the underwriting method, meaning the score, it's not the -- not just the output of [ 2% and 1% ]. It is the score that is -- of credit score of customers and onboarding continues to be 84% or 85% of the customer base of credit score above 700. So that tells you that our customer profile is good and stable for a long time now. Now this time, we have also given some additional data in our presentations about underwriting method or LTV, our average ticket size, the location, et cetera, a little more expedite is there. Now the other input criteria that we see is how much is new to credit customers, that's -- that number is also trending downwards. We don't want you to trend too much downwards because after all it's our specialty and we've grown their business for 10 years now, but still -- it's still very much low, I would say. Then the thing that -- about the number of checks that return on presentation, that is really at an all-time low. What we track is the number of projects that return after presentation -- sorry, in the first month after booking. So supposing you booked a loan in January due -- and the checks are due for presentation, first it is due for presentation in February, then we just check February, how many checks are returning. And that number is really at an all-time low. And if it's low means the quality of incremental underwriting is very good, in fact, better than before. So these are called -- these are our input parameters. Frankly, all these input parameters with no exception are all behaving -- are all showing that they're doing -- we're doing well, which means that if you ask us to take a guess at the credit quality 1 year from now, 2 years from now, I would say it will only be better from today, so -- because of the reason I told you of input parameters. The third thing is about -- is also the SMA. The SMA is off to the uninitiated, I could say that think of a loan book, the loan book could have some defaults or delays. And 0 days to 30 days customers who are in -- 0 to 30 meaning, 0 days to 30 days outstanding, they're called SMA-0 and 31 days to 60 days is called SMA-1 and 61 days to 90 days is called SMA-2. So our SMA-1 and SMA-2, which is the most, which you can call it, 31 to 90 DPD, these are the 6 -- these are the -- in this bucket, our SMA same year last time used to be 3%, which means that 3% of the portfolio could go to NPA. The amazing thing is that this SMA-1 and SMA-2 has now come down to 1% in retail, just think 3% down to 1%. So which means that if there's not much portfolio left in that bucket only, we're not expecting much NPA formation going forward. So this also represents or talks to the quality that we are building. Now -- so all in all, if you ask me, I'm feeling very comfortable or very happy with the quality we're building in the book. We can boldly guide to a low NPA and low SMA and all that in the future. Now last thing is about our response. So this year -- this quarter, we had a -- if many of you would recollect, we had a lot of security receipts that we had -- which we had from the bank because these were infrastructure loans sold to ARCs prior to the merger. Now the good news is that this quarter, we sold our -- some SR, and we got a happy outcome, I should say. Many of you would fear that we'll take a hit and all that stuff. And happy outcome meaning, we actually got a -- we had taken a provision of INR 200 crores for those SRs. Now INR 200 crores got released because they're actually sold well at a good price. So that INR 200 crores suddenly you think of it like a bit of a unexpected money or a found money, now what do we do with that money? So we thought that we will use that to improve the provisioning coverage ratio of the bank. So we -- and we used it largely towards -- so our retail PCR has now gone to 77.6% gross of technical write-off. The reason we take it -- a good benchmark in the gross of technical write-off is that even the write-off customer base we are collecting from. So when you calculate provision coverage ratio as a percentage of gross of technical write-off, it will be appropriate because it's provisions divided by the gross NPA, including write-off bucket because you're going to collect from them as well. So that number has now touched to 77.6%, which is an all-time high. And you can think that, that INR 200 crores has broadly been used up for that purpose. So it's not come to the P&L in a way, but at least it strengthened the balance sheet to that extent. On the wholesale side, of course, the PCR is now very, very good. We don't worry much about it anymore. It's like upward of 90%, 95% onwards or 97%. On the infra, it's the only one that we had a bit of an issue. But frankly, the rundown book today or tomorrow, it will go away. So the last thing is on profitability, I'd say, that we are very, very strong in profitability. A very simple way to understand our profitability is that last year, our loan book has grown by 25%, but the growth in our operating profit -- core operating profit, pure NII plus fees minus OpEx, core-core, that is up by some 84%. So if book grows 24%, but operating profit grows 80%, I'd say it's a bit of a -- it's a little higher side. I'd not expect that every quarter we'll get such kind of a high number. But certainly, we feel that overall, this year, our operating profit should be upward of -- at a year-to-year level, we should expect at least a 50% increase in operating profit over last year, but quarter-on-quarter, it is even healthier than that. So you get the drift there. So that's on profitability. So basically, in all, I'd say that all our indicators are moving very well. We're very happy about how the numbers are going. And hopefully, you'll also be more comfortable with us now because for the first 2 years or 3 years, we gave you this bad news or that bad news, so this wholesale or that early profitability, whatever. But now I feel that most of those clouds are behind us, and we're feeling pretty okay, pretty good about the future. Now in essence, I'd say that as I sign off, I'd say that we're building a really high-quality bank. Our products are very customer-friendly products and anybody experiencing us is usually very happy. I personally just happen to meet or bump into many customers whom we know our customers of the bank. And most people have really happy things to say about our service and all that. We are a very customer-oriented bank, then our corporate governance is also really very good, balance sheet is very strong, ROE is catching up. So overall, I'd say that things are looking good. So with that, over to Sudhanshu, if he has any specific numbers to share.
Thank you, Vaidya. Good evening, everyone. I will call out a few key numbers for the quarter. I will start with the balance sheet side, which is now at INR 2.1 lakh crore and has grown by 23% on a Y-o-Y basis. The growth was largely driven on the asset side by the retail portfolio. The overall funded assets grew by 25% and 6% sequentially to reach INR 1,45,000 crores. The -- in the retail class, the Home Loan segment grew by 59% on a Y-o-Y basis, rural loans increased by 34% on a Y-o-Y basis, and consumer loans increased by 36%. These are certain asset classes which I've called out, but we have given a detailed breakup on Slide 41 of the presentation. Moving on the wholesale side, the non-infra corporate book, that also grew by 20% Y-o-Y and by 4% on a Q-on-Q basis. The infrastructure book degrew further and is reduced by about 41% on a Y-o-Y basis and by 11% on a Q-on-Q basis and is now sub INR 6,000 crores. It now merely forms 4.1% of the total funded assets as compared to 22% at the time of merger. So there has been a significant downward move here. Moving to the liabilities front very quickly, the customer deposits has grown by 36% on a Y-o-Y basis. The CASA deposit growth was very healthy. It grew by 37% on a Y-o-Y basis to INR 63,305 crores. The CASA ratio was again very strong at 51.28% as on September 30. Average CASA deposits also grew by 13% on a Q-on-Q basis and 32% on a Y-o-Y basis. Even on the term deposit front, the growth was strong at 35%. So overall, the customer deposit growth came in very strong during the current quarter. The bank continues to maintain excess liquidity. Of course, we would want to calibrate some in due course. But for the quarter, it stood at about 131%. This is well above the regulatory requirement. The branch count now stands at 670 branches. The bank added 19 branches in the current quarter. Bank has also substantially granularized their liabilities and which is reflected by CASA and TD less than INR 5 crores, which is standing at 84% of the customer deposits. We have further repaid about INR 2,000 crores of high-cost legacy borrowings during the quarter. This residual borrowings now stands at [ INR 20,444 crores ], which is still at a high cost of 8.8%. We would sort of bring it down further. We have given statistics in the presentation in terms of what would be the rundown on this portfolio. Moving quickly to the asset quality. The gross and the net NPA of the bank was at 3.18% and 1.09%, respectively, reflecting a sequential improvement of 18 and 21 bps. PCR, including technical write-off, has been enhanced to 76.5%. This was 70.3% at the start of the year. Further, if we strip out the rundown instead of book, the PCR coverage is 83.3%, including technical write-off, and net NPA instead of the reported 1.09% would be down to 63 basis points. In the Retail and Commercial segment, the GNPA and NNPA came down sequentially by 8 and 20 bps, respectively, to reach 2.03% and 0.73%. The PCR on this book stood at a healthy 77.6%. We have increased PCR by about 545 basis points here during the quarter by further tightening the provisioning policy. On the corporate book, ex infra, we continue to have a strong PCR coverage of 98%. Another data point to note, the restructured book as a percentage of total funded assets has reduced to 1% now as compared to 1.3% last quarter. The gross and net slippages for the quarter were at similar levels as the last quarter despite the increase in the overall book. Vaidya mentioned about that SMA on the retail has been coming down. It came down from 3% in September '21 to 1.8% in March '22, and now it was 1% at September. Even in the corporate book, the ratio of SMA-1 and SMA-2 is sub 0.2%. Moving quickly to profitability. The profit after-tax was highest ever for the quarter, it was INR 556 crores, up 266% on a Y-o-Y basis and 17% on a Q-on-Q basis. I'm happy to share that on a quarterly annualized basis, the ROA did cross 1% and is now at 1.07% and the ROE has reached double-digit and was [ 10.13% ]. The strong growth numbers was largely driven by steady growth in operating income and lower credit costs as compared to the last quarter in the previous year. The net interest income grew strongly by 32% to INR 3,002 crores. The net margin expanded by 9 bps on a Q-on-Q and 15 bps on a Y-o-Y basis to reach 5.98%. The increase was also due to a transmission which happened because of the repo rate increase on the existing floating rate portfolio. Fee and other income witnessed a strong increase by 44% to INR 945 crores. Another point to note is that the retail fees contributed about 92% to the overall fee and other income, and hence, it's quite granular. The bank had a trading gain of INR 116 crores in Q2 FY '23 as compared to a trading gain of INR 122 crores in Q2 FY '22 and a trading loss of INR 44 crores in Q1 FY '23. Core operating income, excluding trading gains increased by 35% Y-o-Y to INR 3,947 crores, aided by strong NII and fee income growth, which I mentioned before. Operating expenses grew by 23% on a Y-o-Y basis to INR 2,895 crores. The increase in OpEx was relatively higher on account of higher business volumes witnessed in Q2. The cost to income ratio improved to 73.34% in Q2 FY '23 from 80.53% in Q2 FY '22 last year. Core operating profit grew by 84% Y-o-Y and 7% on a Q-on-Q basis to INR 1,052 crores. Provisions were also lower by 11% Y-o-Y at INR 425 crores -- INR 424 crores in Q2. The credit cost on a quarterly annualized basis as a percentage of average funded assets for Q2 was 1.2% and for H1, it was at 1.1%, which is still much lower than the earlier guidance of 1.5%. We had some release of provisions on security receipts, which we used to beef up the overall PCR during the quarter. The last bit on the capital adequacy, the bank has maintained strong capital adequacy, and the CAR was -- including profits for H1 was 15.35% with a CET ratio at 13.67%. Even at 15.35%, the bank is well over the regulatory threshold and look forward to continue the growth in a profitable manner. With that, we can move to the Q&A.
So that's 15 minutes or maybe 17 minutes, 18 minutes between the 2 of us. So thankfully, this was a bit shorter. So over to you, people.
[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of [ Bhavin Gala from Marine Capital ].
Could you please confirm if I'm audible?
Yes, sir, you're audible. Please proceed.
Yes. Yes. And festive wishes to the entire team of IDFC First Bank. I have only one question to the MD and CEO. Could you -- sir, could you please help us understand the performance in the recent quarter with respect to the retail -- of retail banking operations, because what we are saying is this segment turned profitable a few quarters back and there was inconsistency as far as the PBT is concerned. But this quarter, what we could see is there was a drastic decline in the PBT from this limit. So if you could help us understand the reason behind this?
I -- no, thanks. I think it's a very important question. If you recollect the -- if you recollect my opening comments and I told you we had -- suddenly we discovered -- not discovered we say we sold the SR and then we got about INR 200 crores of provision release. So that provision release, we took it to retail. And therefore, it is showing up there on the retail line. For example, had we not got the INR 200 crores, we would not have -- we need not have really taken this provision of retail to put it simply. So therefore, if you add back that INR 200 crores, then you know that your numbers are back to the trendline.
Okay. Noted, sir.
I mean was it complicated or was it easy, was it okay or should I explain again?
No, no, no. That's explained.
Okay, okay.
The next question is from the line of Ishan Agarwal from Erevna Capital.
First of all, I wish everyone on the call a very Happy Diwali.
If you take the phone off speaker, please your audio is a bit muffled.
Yes. Hello?
Yes. Yes.
Yes. First of all, I wish everyone a very Happy Diwali on the call. So I have multiple questions here. First question being in your last con call with us, you had advanced the guidance of a double-digit ROE, which was originally given for Q4 of FY '23. However, if I look at the core, core numbers for this quarter, excluding treasury gains and do a like-to-like comparison with Q1, the PBT excluding trading income is lower in Q2 at INR 644 crores versus INR 678 crores in Q1. And hence, ROE and ROA excluding trading gains is lower in Q2. So are you confident that the bank can touch core annualized ROE of 10% ex of treasury by Q3?
Yes.
Okay. Okay. And so secondly, so the annualized credit loss for this quarter was 1.2%, that is blended for retail and wholesale. What will be the annualized credit loss for this quarter for retail plus commercial book?
We have not called that number out separately. But as I said, overall is 1.2% and for H1, it's 1.1%. We would not want to call out separate number for a retail credit loan.
Actually, yes, why I'm asking that is incrementally, our book is...
No, no, no, I'll answer the question.
Yes.
No, don't worry. I think we can explain it a little more, no, there's no issue. So basically, see the retail, retail side, if you take the retail credit loss, it's about -- if you add back that INR 400 crores -- the INR 200 crores, which I said is a extra provision if you don't have that as a one-time item. So is it like about INR 400 crores?
Yes. So yes.
Yes. So INR 400 crores into 4 annualized is INR 1,600 crores.
Okay. Okay.
Of course, you divide that by about a INR 1 lakh crore book, it's about 1.5%, 1.6%.
Okay. Okay. And this should get better as we concentrate more on home loans going ahead or we expect it to be at 1.5%, 1.6% and going ahead for FY '24, FY '25 too?
We like it to be -- we'd like to be conservative on this front and the sales number as we said it right now. And if it gets better, it's just maybe we'll take it as a positive. But you factor in, if you're thinking of the bank, think of it that retail will have -- see after all, it's a pretty good yielding book. So -- and our credit controls are working obviously very well, collections are working very well. Otherwise, for such a low credit loss of -- that we're talking about in retail, it's already pretty good. So I don't want to give any more excessive guidances beyond this.
Okay. Okay. So third question is OpEx for this quarter is around 8.7% higher as compared to Q1, which is actually higher than the loan growth Q-o-Q. So is it because we have invested more on the technology front or what is the reason for this large jump, because this is also yielding to a cost-to-income plateauing from Q1 to Q2 at 72.9%?
Really quarter-on-quarter, it's very hard to explain this quarter, INR 20 crore...
No, but in general, the jump has been higher at 8.7%?
No, no, no, so let me finish. So before I was saying that it's hard to really pin down a particular quarter or prior quarter, there are a lot of moving parts in a large bank, it's a lot of moving parts. But broadly speaking, you should expect the cost-to-income ratio of the bank to trend downwards from here. If you take Y-o-Y, all these inter-quarter movement a little bit up and down gets evened out. So if you take a Y-o-Y basis or Y-o-Y meaning maybe compare year of '23 versus year of '22 or year of '24, if you see sequences, things will keep coming down from here on.
Okay. So I have a few questions related to the bank and not the quarter. So the first one being, so when Capital First was founded, I would say that we were quite ahead of the curve in terms of developing an algorithmic lending model based on multiple parameters, demographics, marital status, gender, geographical location to state a few. And hence we enjoyed a certain niche in that segment. Now that information related to a borrower is more easily available to a larger number of lenders, thanks to aggregators, fintech start-ups like CRED payment apps, which capture cash flow data and also a much larger penetration of credit bureaus, and also given the fact that now 90% of our borrowers have a credit history. Has the significance of that lending model reduced for the bank?
Yes. Actually, it's a very good question. See, the -- as you know, India is just not served, simple. I mean underserved would be an understatement. So whether we play in this game or some 20 other players play in this game, this is a large story. And therefore, this benefit -- this advantage we have is not going to go away because we'll see it grow up. We are guiding for growth of only 25%. So it's easy. Number 2 is that the -- our ability to use the data, our own ability, forget what others do or don't, I'm sure others can also do a good job on these things, but our own ability to use this data is continuously getting better. So in a large underserved market, we should bother about how well we do and how well we can control a credit quality and so on. So our ability to use the data is only improving every -- year-on-year is only improving. And for example, our algorithms are getting much more refined. Remember one thing that our algorithm is a 10-year-old algorithm that is -- I mean not 10-year-old algorithm, it's been continuously refined since 10 years.
That's maturing. Yes.
Maturing, the right word. Yes. So it's like it's getting, let me say more and more precise, and the quality of that algorithm is getting better and better with every passing, let me say, year, forget year, it's getting better every single quarter, it's getting better and better. So therefore, we feel we are very, very far ahead in this game, because we have gone through R&D ourselves, it's not something that we acquired here and there. It's like we -- remember, we built this company from grassroot of INR 94 crore loan book 10 years ago. So we know every single moving part of this machine. So I think they're getting better, and we will stay -- we will be pretty good on this front.
So I would say that now, right now, it's helping you on the credit quality front and not as much on the yield front because we are also concentrating on better yield customers?
No. The -- it's yes and no actually. Because if you notice, one very definite advantage we have as a bank, we may be new, we may not be as profitable as others, we may have other issues. But the one very unique thing about our bank is that our book itself has been created in an era when our cost of funds was 9% or 10% or at least the models are built for that kind of a -- for that kind of a cost of funds. So therefore, we were specializing in lending at 14%, 15%, 16% and all that stuff, probably more, and at very good credit quality. You know the numbers and I don't want to repeat them. So therefore, now suddenly over the last 3 years, cost of funds have come down. So therefore -- but our capabilities have not gone, capabilities is still as strong. So therefore, we feel that this is a very distinct advantage. So if you see the mix of the book, our mix of the book would have -- would probably be better, better yielding, that doesn't mean we're taking more riskier loans. It just mean that we are more specialized.
Right. Okay. Okay. So -- okay, understood. Now you've always been maintaining -- hello?
Sorry to interrupt, but may we request you to rejoin the queue, please as we got...
Just last question, if I can shoot in?
Okay. Shoot, shoot. Just try.
So -- okay. So you have been maintaining that India is underserved and there's unlimited credit demand, at least for the next 10 years, 20 years. So just for FY '24 because of X, Y, Z reason, the GDP growth stagnates or it's less than 3%, 4%, even in that scenario, will you envisage that because of our small size, we will still be able to grow our loan book by 20%, 25%?
Yes, yes, of course. See, it's very important, if you think a very large bank with INR 20 lakh crore, INR 30 lakh crore loan book and all that stuff, of course, they have -- they will be proxy to the economy, but we are not a proxy to the economy, we are very small yet.
Okay. Okay.
I mean we have a very low base. To give you a small idea, supposing our -- just to pick a number, supposing a loan against property or take any business, okay, we are growing -- we are booking X number of -- X INR 100 crores a month, let's call it, let's say, INR 500 crores a month, if you want to increase it to, say, another number, say, INR 600 crores or whatever it is, these are not the exact numbers, but I think it will probably be close. Now the -- we don't have to do anything. We don't have to change the credit criteria. We don't have to relax the criteria. We have to do nothing. We just have to open some 5 more locations, and lo and behold everything will come on the same location we need to put up some more branches, we'll get it. So that's the benefit of being -- that's the point I'm making when you're relatively early in the -- let me say, when the book is smaller, we have a base effect, let me say. We are nowhere close to the big, big, big players, big players are at least 7x, 8x, 10x our size. And...
Yes. So if I have to put it that way, HDFC Bank is adding an IDFC First Bank every quarter.
It could be, yes, absolutely.
The next question is from the line of Nitin Aggarwal from Motilal Oswal.
Vaidya and team, congratulations on the strong performance. Two questions I have. First is like we have reported some margin expansion this quarter, though the deposit costs are inching up. So if you can talk about how the incremental spreads are moving and how do you see the margins trending in coming quarters? Also if you can share the proportion of loans that are linked to EBLR?
Sudhanshu, proportion of loans.
Yes. I'll first start with the proportion of loans, over 38% of the book of the funded assets are roughly linked to benchmark, which could be MCLR or Repo or T-bills. And out of that, about 60% is linked to Repo and rest to other benchmarks. With respect to margin expansion, as we've guided earlier also, we feel that we will be comfortably able to maintain margins around a 6% mark. In fact, this quarter, we are very close to that. We are 5.98%. We of course had the benefit of some reset with sort of benefit which kicked in during the quarter, as the loan came up for a reset, it comes once in every 3 months. And RBI has also very recently increased [ another 50 ] basis points. So that benefit should be slightly higher in Q3. So we feel that even though the cost of funds are sort of going up, even for us during the quarter, the cost of funds on a blended basis went up by about 25 basis points, but since this reset kicked in, even for the new loans, we have increased the pricing a bit. So a combination of this led to a higher sort of, I would say, yield on advances and interest-earning assets and which led to a NIM increase of 9 basis points. So we feel that both these things would sort of work in tandem. And in fact, we could be a beneficiary even going forward, right, as sort of the rate cycle plays out.
But give or take, like this 5.8%, 5.9%, 6%, in that zone, you should expect of us.
Right. Right. Sure. And the other question is on the consumer loan portfolio, while this portfolio has been growing like every quarter and the Y-o-Y growth now is [ 35% ], but this quarter, the portfolio like held essentially flat. So we have seen stronger growth from other banks in the consumer loans. So any specific reason that has caused this?
Let's see the numbers once before we respond. Do you have the number? I don't have. Just 10 seconds. Oh, yes, the INR 19,500 crore -- INR 19,600 crore book that you're talking about?
Yes. The Q-on-Q growth rate like is almost like flat this time?
Yes. About, I think, about INR 300 odd crores we must have sold this quarter?
Yes. So we have sold about INR 333 crores of loans during the quarter, which were essentially out of this segment, plus Q1 also was related also a strong quarter, right, because of the summer, consumer durable sales were also equally strong and so on. So hence these numbers are the way it is.
But overall, Y-o-Y, they're quite strong.
Right. Right. So basically, from the -- therefore the retail book, this piece will remain one of the key growth drivers because lab we have been going relatively slower, but consumer loans will continue to maintain this sort of traction?
No, no, not only consumer, all our lines will grow. I mean, frankly, we don't -- if you look at home loan, our home loan book is something like INR 15,000 crores or INR 16,000 crores. If you think of large banks, they are probably INR 4 lakh crores or INR 5 lakh crores, I mean even INR 6 lakh crores. So can even compare, so for us to grow INR 16,000 crore by 40%, 45%, 50%, whatever, should not be no issue at all. Think of loan against property, that can grow. Think of vehicle financing, et cetera. So see one of the speakers earlier spoke about the base effect. So let me say, we are a relatively small player, I'd say, when you compare to big 4, 5 banks in the country. So we'll keep growing.
The next question is from the line of Lalit Deo from Equirus Securities.
Congratulations on a good set of number. So sir, like I had just 2 questions. So firstly, on the borrowing side. So sir, like within the borrowings, our refinance portion has increased to about 35% like if you include the market borrowings. So just wanted to understand like what is the broad range of interest which we are paying on these refinance borrowings? And also could you tell us about the average tenor of these borrowings, sir?
No, we don't do much borrowings any more in the sense that -- I think you might be talking about market borrowings, these are treasury market borrowings, they are not the big items. But the -- yes, Sudhanshu, you want to say something?
Yes. So I'll answer that. So we keep evaluating various funding options, right, in terms of term deposits, refinance and other market borrowings, right? We see essentially what is the prevailing rate, what is the average tenor of a funding, which could sort of come in. So we have done some refinance, additional refinance borrowings during the quarter, because once they were of a longer tenor and the rates which were available were relatively better.
So this quarter, relatively better.
Yes. If we have to sort of -- if we had to compare with few other funding options, which were available.
But the other -- there is an item called other borrowings. See, if you go through the list, there's something called legacy long-term borrowings.
Yes.
Infra bonds -- sorry, legacy long-term bonds, then the infra bonds, these 2 items are continuously coming down. Of course, refinance, Sudhanshu has explained. Then this item called other borrowings, this could be general routine stuff.
Sure, sir. And sir, again, on the -- in the fee income part. So like we have been going strong in our credit card business. But on a quarterly basis, the fees from the credit card and the toll business has declined on a quarterly basis. So now with the festive season, and we believe that there was -- the spends have been strong. So what could be the reasons for the decline in the credit card piece during the quarter?
So that essentially is a decline which has happened on the toll business. So there has been some changes which has been done in the MDR, right, especially on the issuing side. And this is a notification with sort of came in, in this quarter and was effective April 1 of '22, and hence that sort of readjustment happened through that line item. And on the credit card, the fee has gone up on a sequential basis. So this was essentially largely because of the toll business.
But broadly, I should say all our people who are doing very, very, very well, whether it's cash management or toll or wealth or credit cards, like every product is turning out to be a big success in the market. So nothing to worry.
Sure, sir. And sir, in the home loans portfolio, so like we have been -- we have given some extra details on this portfolio. So just wanted to know if you can share the portion of the salaried customers in the home loans portfolio and how has it changed over the last couple of years?
I don't have the number offhand, but I'd probably -- if I were to ask -- take a guess, it's probably be about 55%, 60% would probably be salaried. But maybe next time, we'll be better prepared on this question.
The next question is from the line of Ashutosh Kumar Mishra from Ashika Stock Broking.
Congratulations, sir, for a very good set of numbers.
Thank you.
My question is basically on the cost-to-income. So we are guiding a cost-to-income ratio of 55% by the end of FY '25. So can you guide us on what are the lever of this trend which will help us to take it from the current [ 70% to 55% ]?
Okay. See this cost-to-income, let's -- I'll give you some very specifics, it'll make it easy for you. Our cost-to-income for this quarter will probably be 74%, [ 73. ] something. Now the -- we have always said many times earlier, but we'll repeat it for context. We said there are 3 lines of businesses which are going to improve our cost-to-income going forward. And they are very precise defined items, they will play out. Number one is paying off these legacy liabilities. We'll contract them at -- we contract them at [ 8.8%, 8.9% ], we'll replace them at [ 5.5% ]. There's a lot of money to be made there. That will give us about -- on a quarterly basis, if you do the differential of [ 8.8% minus 5.5% ] and you multiply that by this INR 23,000 crores, you will get the number of INR 150 crore. So you think of it, it will come to us nothing to be done. Number 2 is that the credit card business, we told you about INR 70 crore, INR 75 crore. Earlier, we use to say INR 75 crore, now our credit card looks a little less than that because scale is coming up, let's call it, INR 75 crore number round-off. Number 3 on the retail liability side because of branches, ATMs, all that stuff, we told you INR 300 crores a quarter. Now -- so I'm rushing to it because I've said these numbers before, so I'm trying to save time. So in this quarter's P&L, you add these 3 items, INR 150 crores, plus INR 75 crores, plus INR 300 crores and then that number works out to something like INR 525 crores. If you take the PAT impact of that number, that number is if you take -- that is if you take 75% of that amount of INR 525 crores, that'll come to INR 390 crores -- sorry, let me not do that, let me just add these 3 numbers comes to INR 525 crores. Now you divide our expenses of this INR 2,895 crore by INR 4,472 crore, that is this reported number that is INR 3,950 crores of income, and then you add this number, what I said will get -- will come to us by simply playing out the next 3 years. So then that number, you divide INR 2,895 crore and divide by INR 4,472 crore, you'll come to 65%. So in my mind, this is a pretty simple straightforward proof that we will easily head towards a 65% cost-to-income ratio simply by paying off the liabilities and making credit card profitable and making the liability profitable.
Okay. Got it.
So we feel that it's -- it will happen. I mean, in our mind, there's no doubt at all. So I hope these numbers that I told you they will -- if you do the math, I spoke a bit too fast, but if you go back off record and if you do the math, you'll get the same numbers.
So do you think, sir, because of the sharp rise in the cost of funds which is expected in the next few months [indiscernible] to be reasonable?
We couldn't hear you well.
Hello?
Mr. Mishra, your audio is [Technical Difficulty]
Yes. Is it now okay?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes. So because of the -- we have one of the important assumptions which we are taking is the benefit which we are going to get on the paying off the legacy liability. Because of what is happening on the cost of funds and especially in the last 1 weeks or 2 weeks, we are seeing larger banks are increasing the term deposit rate in a very aggressive way. Do you see some of these things getting a little bit more instead of [indiscernible] like that?
No, no, no. When we did the number -- when we -- when I did the math for you right now, that I added INR 150 crores for the legacy that already factors for the new -- slightly higher interest rates.
Okay. Okay. Okay. But the second point...
Just -- sorry, before you go there, so I want to just for other people who probably did not catch up to the conversation, I'd like to explain a little bit more. You see, if you think of large banks, none of them is carrying a borrowing at 8.9%.
Yes.
Yes or no?
Yes.
So when we were borrowing at 8.9%, not that we're borrowing, we have borrowed, let me say, there's a legacy item sitting on the balance sheet. So therefore, you cannot really compare our cost of -- our cost-to-income with other banks because we are early stage. You give me 15 years, I'll show you what our cost-to-income will be, you'll rub your eyes. So therefore, you cannot compare a 3-year old bank cost-to-income with a 20-year-old, 25-year-old cost -- bank with cost-to-income.
Okay. Yes, I agree with you.
Yes. And particularly, let me tell you something very important for you to note, you go back and see the numbers if they're in the public, the cost-to-income of our bank pre-merger was 92%, 92%, the numbers are there on the website. So when 92% has come down to 74-point-something percent, boy, it is a major progress. So it just tells you that incrementally you're building the bank at a very good cost-to-income. And as and when the story plays out, it will come down. So this is to be very much remembered. So don't worry about the cost-to-income. I mean I'm not so stressed about it at all. I know I just have to play a normal game, it will come down.
Got it. On basically, the deposit -- the liability franchise, which we have built over the last 3 years. So how much of them has now been breakeven or if you can give some light on that, that will probably give more clarity on the -- this part, especially on the new branches and how much we are open and what is -- yes?
See, there is no real benchmark about how to compute this, for example, in the sense that do you compute, including allocated costs from the head office or it's in a pure variable basis and everything will give you different results. But broadly, I'd say that our -- close to about maybe 400 -- 300 -- about 450-odd branches or maybe 400 branches on a variable basis would be profitable.
Okay. And roughly, what is -- out of our total OpEx, how much is the technology expenses in our rough estimate?
No, it's -- we haven't specifically gone there.
Okay.
The next question is from the line of [ Sahil Sharma from SS Capital ].
Congratulations on a very good set of numbers. First question I have is, we are building a bank for the next many decades. And I'm sure we're also hiring with that in mind. Can you please talk a little bit about the kind of credit risk team that we have on the retail side? Because I think in the banking, the most important thing is to get the money back, right? It's not just about giving it out.
Absolutely. Absolutely. I agree with you 100%. So in terms of people we are hiring, it's not so much of credit managers anymore, that's a bit of 5 years ago, but as you know every 5 years, India, assuming so fast. Earlier in credit, we used to hire in credit managers who would really look at a file in great detail and evaluate it and all that stuff. Of course, we still need to do that in products like loan against property or a home loan, et cetera, you still need credit managers who have to really look at some of the files. But incrementally, a lot of people or -- machines are doing all this work. So our focus is, of course, on developing really good high-quality algorithms or using AI/ML et cetera. And the skill levels of people we are looking to hire is of really higher order, not the traditional people who will [ smell ] files and all that. So we're building that kind of people. The other kind of people we are trying to build is the people who can build some really, simply say, quality kind of people, you, of course, need high-quality technology people, people, good high-quality engineers. We provide -- as a bank, we provide really, really good working environment. And our employees are very proud about the bank we're building because you can see from within the quality of the bank we're building and the ethics and all that. So we're able to hire really high-quality people. Any position we look out for like the hundreds of applications pour in, there is literally -- they're spoilt for choice because that comes through. There'll be a hire -- we're looking at hiring design people. For example, as we speak, if any of you are hearing the program and if you are probably a very, very good, high-quality, high-end design person, please let us know, I'll be very happy to hire you right now. We're looking for a head of design who can cut across our -- to build really good user interfaces and UX. So we're looking for that kind of profile of people, high-quality technology coders, DevOps people and all that.
And the second question I wanted to ask about, just tying back to the other speakers' question. I think what we as investors really appreciate, I've been with the bank for like 3 years now roughly, is that we have really turned around DFI institution plus NBFC into a retail bank, and that has been a fairly long and strenuous journey. And on most fronts, we have made tremendous progress. I think the last remaining thing now which is at the top of the mind for most investors according to me is cost-to-income, which is why most of the questions are also around that. And sir, I think your answer is brilliant on the income side especially, which is that how the income will expand. But I think one of the things, which I think we would really appreciate as investors is, if you can also share on the cost side, if there are -- like is this a correct leverage for the cost or, for example, if you double our AUM, you probably shouldn't expect to double the operating expenses, right, for example, probably the branches won't double from here, the lease costs won't double from there and things like that. So I mean, I think one thing would start to really help is if you can give some rough guidance for the cost-to-income for FY '23, FY '24 based on your best understanding?
Okay. Now -- first of all, thanks for that. Yes, we are -- when we're thinking of the bank, we're really thinking long, we're not doing any shortcut. You may have noticed for 3 years have gone by, we've not done one item that's a shortcut, okay? So we'll not do shortcut things. Now the second thing is about when you said you're happy about the stuff, thanks for that. But I'll tell you, we are not just building a DFI converting to retail, that frankly, anybody could do. But the thing is that it's hard, but people could do it. But what we are very proud is about with the culture we're building in the bank, it's very clean, very ethical, people are trained to be ethical, people come from any organization, we tell them this is the way we do work here, not that other people are bad, they are all good quality ethical people, but I think we are building within the DNA, all that is -- that talks on winning. So that's what it is. Now coming back to your cost-to-income comment. One is, of course, I specifically reconciled for you to earlier one of the speakers who talked about the way we added up that 3 items of legacy, et cetera. You add that, you will find that cost-to-income is a little bit come down. I'm telling you within 3 years, you will see that we will get there. You -- if you just watch the story play out year after year after year, it will go there. I'm not -- honestly, I'm not disturbed because I can see it from -- I'm an insider, of course, I can see it, you will also see it. So as the scale plays out, automatically cost-to-income will sort out, that's how it plays initially, there is cost, after that there is income. So that's how it plays. So now with regard to the -- there is one data point which none of you -- which I'm going to share some data points with you, and this will help you understand the bank -- how the bank has progressed, okay? Now if you take the core PPOP of the bank, core PPOP without any other income lines, of course, PPOP for the bank, in FY '19 was INR 1,100 crores, okay, INR 1,100 crores half year -- sorry, annualized, annualized, annualized for the half year, that is Capital First and IDFC Bank put together, both put together for December '18 quarter and March '19 quarter. That is the first half year after the merger, that was INR 1,100 crores. Now if you take the -- even if you assume credit cost at maybe about 1.4% on the whole book, retail being 1.5%, 1.6% and wholesale being a little less than that, blend, blend, if you take 1.4%, which is a very reasonable assumption, we were -- that would come to INR 1,300 crores on the book. So actually, on the core, the bank was a lost machine even after merger for the first half. Pre-merger, I can tell you that it was -- basically the income was INR 743 crore and assume credit cost was INR 988 crore, it is actually a loss situation. So that's not the point. The point is that this was [ INR 199 crore ] negative. Now FY '20, when you do the same analysis, core PPOP minus core credit loss, will come INR 250 crore positive. FY '21 has gone to INR 400 crores. FY '22 has become INR 1,079 crores. And FY '23, you can multiply this quarter's numbers or whatever it is, you have -- unless I have put out some numbers about operating profit, so it's not difficult for you to guess. So we already guided about 50% over last year, that means about INR 4,200-odd crores of PPOP. So the point I'm trying to say is that if something is rising from minus INR 200 crores, plus INR 250 crores in 2020 to INR 400 crores in FY '21 to INR 1,000 crores in 2022 to whatever number this year, it will be a substantial increment. You can see how this chart is rising. So we as insiders can tell you that the core is delivering very strong. So all items still fall in place as it play out. Now you watch at '23, you watch at '24, you watch at '25, I don't think this trend is changing.
Yes. Thank you so much, sir. My last question is on capital adequacy. I think they're at around 15%. Are you comfortable with this? And would there be any need for fund-raise in the next 1 year or 2 years to support the kind of 20%, 25% loan book growth that we want?
Well, we'll evaluate this from time to time because internal accruals is also going to be strong now, growth is also strong. So we'll play out with the equation.
The next question is from the line of Sagar Shah from PhillipCapital.
First of all, congratulations for excellent set of numbers as you say. Now I have just 2 questions actually. So first of all, we have already reached about 10% ROE in this quarter itself actually instead of the fourth quarter that you were guiding for. So we are early in the game actually. So going ahead, if we -- what are the key drivers for further traction in the ROE, if you're expecting anything around -- anything traction in ROE for around 13% to 15%. So what are the drivers, first of all, for the traction in the ROE and the ROA? And the second question is going ahead, since we are having almost a very good run as far as the economy is concerned. So going ahead, do you see the -- even on the -- even on your corporate front, your corporate growth even for credit will go up as compared to retail? And my last question was, have we seen the average cost of the deposits and borrowings that is coming at around [ 4%, 6% ] if we compare for this quarter. So are we taking out on the average cost of deposits and borrowings actually at least for this quarter and for going ahead?
Yes. I'll start with the last one. So on the average cost, as I said, average cost for us for Q2 was about 5.5%, which was about 25 bps higher than the previous quarter. Of course -- and many of the repo increases, I think are [ casted ] in the market rate, and that's how it's playing out. So we don't see a substantial increase going forward. Offset to this, as I said, even the loans get repriced in the equation. And hence we see that both should move in tandem. So we are not very worried on that front.
Sorry, one thing to add to this. From our point of view, we don't take any fixed positions on interest rates in the market. So we are, right now, frankly, we're paying only 4% up to INR 10 lakhs, and we don't intend to touch that honestly. But I've always said that we have enough margin. And if required, we'll always touch something or the other, but we won't let our deposits or machinery slow down. We don't see the need as of now, but we'll watch.
Okay. Okay. Sure, sir. Now yes, for my first question, so what are the key drivers for that ROE going ahead, sir?
Scale, scale, that's all.
Okay. So scale. But is this anything related to maybe your OpEx growth normalizing and your income growth increasing, can we relate to that extent?
That's what scale means, right? Because you're -- supposing the expenses increase by maybe 22% -- 20% to 22%, but income grows by 30%-odd, that straightaway -- and remember, income is -- we expect it to grow by 30% on a larger base and the expenses to grow [ 22% ] on a smaller base, obviously, even today -- so you know how scale plays out. It's exactly scale and operating leverage. And of course, there are so many other product lines like fees and all that stuff, so many new lines of business we launched, all that will grow.
Okay. So -- okay. So because in this quarter...
Sorry to interrupt, but for any follow-up, may we request you to rejoin the queue, please. The next question is from the line of Franklin Moraes from Equentis Wealth Advisory.
It's 7:30 p.m., I'd love to wish all of you a Happy Diwali, and we should close the meeting. So if you have any last few questions, just put it and wanting to do that.
Just one last question, sir, before...
Yes.
The next question is from the line of Franklin Moraes from Equentis Wealth Advisory.
So I just wanted to understand from the time of opening a branch to the time the entire costs are loaded, what is that period, how many months does it take?
No, no. We -- I told you earlier, it's hard to -- everybody pose different numbers on these things because if you take it on the basis of pure variable cost, you'll get one answer, if you fully -- take a fully loaded cost, you'll get another answer. So without depending on which way you look at it, it could even be 18 months, it could be 24 months, it could be somewhere in that zone depending on how you load the cost and look at that. But we should ensure getting -- looking at like that, the way we look at it is that, end of the day, cost, we don't want to give explanations to people that this is because of this reason or because of put more branches or credit cards or legacy liabilities, et cetera, these are really details which people like yourself or anybody is willing to bend a little extra back -- my apology, anybody is going to do some extra work, they understand these things. But for most people, end of the day, people will just look at your ROE and say, end of the day, are you improving? So whatever it is, all costs put together, we are committed that our ROE will go up. So it will go up year-on-year from here on, we have no doubts in our mind. It's already going up. You can see the last 4 quarters, this -- we feel that this will go on. I must say one last thing because it's very important in the context of some of the questions that are asked earlier. Now you take this quarter's PAT of the bank, okay, now I told you that there are 3 items, which are those well-known items, so credit cards, legacy liabilities and the setup costs of the branch, right, -- of the bank. So you take these 3 items, we told you it's INR 525 crores or let's call it, INR 500 crores. Now you take the post-tax impact of that number, that'll probably be about INR 375 crores or INR 380 crores. Now in other words, if this has just been a mature bank, give it 3 years and -- or maybe 4 years, and then you find that this amount of money will come -- start come into the P&L hopefully. Now this quarter's PAT was INR 555 crores. So you add INR 555 crores and add that number of INR 375 crores, you'll go to INR 946 crores. You add INR 946 crores into 4, that's INR 3,800 crores. So what's the equity base today, INR 22,000 crores. So what is INR 3,800 crores for [ '22 ], you're touching, nudging [ '16/'17 ]. So do you have any doubt in your mind that these 3 items we can't turn these things around those 3 items, of course, we will. So in my mind, even if you do a simple plain math of just add these numbers and then do it, bank is heading to a very healthy ROE. So for those of you who are willing to wait to give us the time, you will see the numbers, and we have no doubt.
Yes. Thanks a lot, sir, for the elaborate response, and wish a very Happy Diwali.
Yes. Thanks. Thanks very much. Thanks. I wish you all a very, very Happy Diwali. From our side, let me tell you that we are feeling quite comfortable.
Yes. Thanks, Mr. Vaidyanathan and the entire senior management team of IDFC Bank for answering all the questions. And thanks all the participants for being there on the call. I wish you all a very Happy Diwali. Thank you.
Thank you, everyone. I wish you a very Happy Diwali.
So from Sudhanshu, Saptarshi, myself and all of us at IDFC First Bank, we wish everyone of you a very Happy Diwali to all the people who are listening to the program today. Thanks a lot. Bye.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of ICICI Securities, that concludes this conference. We thank you all for joining us. And you may now disconnect your lines.
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