Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Manappuram Finance Limited Q3 FY 2026 Earnings Conference Call hosted by DAM Capital Advisors Limited. 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 the conference call, please press star one on your touchscreen phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Sanket Chheda from DAM Capital Advisors Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir. Yeah, hi, very good evening to all of you. We have with us the senior management team of Manappuram today to discuss their Q3 results. So, with us we have V.P. Nandakumar, who is the Chairman and MD, then Dr. Sumitha Nandan, who is an ED, Mr. Deepak Reddy, who is the CEO, Ms. Bindu A.L., who is the CFO, Mr. Manoj. Okay. Robin Karuvely, CFO, actually, one minute. Okay. This is from, hey, did we say? Sorry to interrupt, sir. Yeah. Sorry, so your voice is not audible. It's slightly breaking. Yeah, is it audible now? Yes, yes. Go ahead, sir. Yeah. So, Suveen P.S., CEO of Manappuram Home Finance, and Mr. Robin Karuvely, CFO of Manappuram Home Finance. Without further ado, I'll hand the call over to Mr. V.P. Nandakumar for their opening remarks, after which we'll follow up with questions and answers, which would be conveyed by Deepak Reddy, sir, and Sumitha Nandan, ma'am also. So over to you, Nandakumar, sir, for your opening remarks. Thank you. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to welcome you to Manappuram Finance Q3 FY 2026 earnings conference call. Firstly, I would like to thank our investors and analysts for their continued interest, engagement, and valuable insights. We shall remain integral to our journey of building a resilient and sustainable financial institution. In the current scenario, the Indian economy, underpinned by strong domestic consumption, has remained resilient amid global geopolitical uncertainties and imposition of tariffs. Historically, high GST collection, PMI showing an expansionist view, strong vehicle sales, etc., reiterate the resilience of the Indian economy. Our economy is projected to grow at 7.2%, making it one among the fastest-growing economies in the world. With government policies favorable for growth, the NBFCs play a significant role in the growth story by ensuring financial inclusion and easy accessibility to funds. Manappuram is well-positioned to ride the growth curve through its flagship product, home loans, and offering MSME, microfinance, and home loans, mainly to cater to small businesses and individuals at the bottom of the pyramid. Operating environment: The third quarter of FY 2026 unfolded against the mixed operating backdrop of the NBFC sector, while macroeconomic indicators, particularly consumption, demand, and rural activity, slowed gradually, showed gradual improvement. The lending environment remained competitive and tightly regulated, with heightened emphasis on asset quality, pricing discipline, and regulatory compliance. From a sectoral perspective, home loans continue to demonstrate resilience, supported by favorable gold prices and steady demand for short-term secured credit. At the same time, certain unsecured and semi-secured segments across the industry, notably microfinance, continue to face challenges with borrower cash flows and collection efficiencies under close monitoring. Financial performance overview: For Q3 FY 2026, Manappuram Finance delivered a stable and measured performance, anchored by the strength of home loan franchise and disciplined risk management across portfolios. On a consolidated basis, we reported a consolidated AUM of INR 52,125 crore, above 13.8% year-on-year and 17.9% year-on-year, driven primarily by expansion in gold loan AUM. Our consolidated gold loan AUM for the quarter was INR 38,754 crore, above 23% year-on-year and above 58.2% year-on-year, supported by gold price and strong customer demand. Consolidated gold tonnage was INR 58.9, above 3.2% year-on-year and above 2.8% year-on-year. Consolidated PAT for the quarter was INR 239 crore, above 9.8% year-on-year, and down by 14.3% year-on-year. Our nine-month ended consolidated PAT was standing at INR 188 crore. Importantly, when assessed through the lens of our core business, the underlying earnings profile remains healthy. Our liquidity buffers and provisioning coverage continue to provide both comfort and flexibility as we navigate near-term uncertainty. Stand-alone business performance: Our stand-alone EM stands at INR 44,209 crore, above 60.9% year-on-year and above 36.3% year-on-year, driven by gold loan business. Our stand-alone PAT was INR 381 crore, above 1.3% year-on-year and down by 13.9% year-on-year. Our nine-month ended stand-alone PAT was standing at INR 1,149 crore. Microfinance: Asirvad Microfinance continued to operate in a challenging environment during Q3 FY 2026, while the broader sector is showing early signs of stabilization. Credit costs remained elevated, reflecting our cautious pushing stance and conservative recognition processes. Asirvad EM stands at INR 6,091 crore, including gold loan EM of INR 1,610 crore. So, down by 1.2% year-on-year and down by 39.2% year-on-year. Loss was INR 156 crore in Q3 FY 2026 versus INR 168 crore in Q2 FY 2026, which was improved by 6.9% sequentially and improved by 16.9% year-on-year. Net NNPA stands at 1.8%. Our diversified lending business, including vehicle finance and affordable housing finance, moderated with a clear focus on asset quality and risk-adjusted returns rather than aggressive expansion. Our liquidity: Our balance sheet remains robust, with the capital adequacy comfortably above regulatory thresholds and ample liquidity on hand. Funding diversification remains a priority, and our access to bank funding, market instruments, and ECBs provides stability in managing our cost of funds. Strategic priorities and outlook: Gold loan business continues to be a core growth engine for Manappuram Finance Limited, supported by favorable structural and regulatory tailwinds. Industry-wide, gold loan AUM is expected to scale sharply over the next two financial years, driven by elevated gold prices and rising preferences for secured credit and regulatory streamlining. Against this backdrop, we remain well-positioned to capitalize on the next phase of sectoral growth. The board has declared an interim dividend of INR 50 for this quarter. With that, I now invite Mr. Deepak Reddy, CEO, to provide business insights, following which we'll be pleased to take your questions. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, good evening, and thank you all for joining this call. Last quarter, I laid out to you a set of what I call six priorities as we transform the business. As Mr. Nandakumar has shared, you know, our performance in the quarter, I thought I would give you an update of how we are progressing on our priorities, and how confident we feel on things at this stage. I'm happy to state that we are progressing well on all of them, and I continue to remain very enthused about the possibilities. Also, to reiterate what I had mentioned last quarter, you can expect me to give you a full strategic roadmap for the company and firm guidances from next financial onwards, and as we close next year's operating plan. On my priorities, I'd laid out my first priority was on accelerating gold, which our chairman also talked about. We are making good progress, and you would have seen from our results, our AUM growth momentum has rebounded strongly. We continue to run multiple price sensitivity tests to determine the ideal scheme mix as we move into next financial year. On gold, I talked about, you know, four sub-priorities. One was on improving our branch infrastructure. We are, you know, our new branch design is ready. We are in the final stages of negotiation with our vendor partners, and we are getting ready to, next year, completely transform our branches, the experience for our customers, and the controls we have in the way we work at our gold loan branches. We talked about last quarter about building on our digital journeys and going paperless. We are making good progress here again and targeting to go paperless for most of our customer acquisition processes in the next 1-2 quarters. This will not just ensure better customer experience, but will help us improve our portfolio quality and controls also. I talked about introducing a new best-in-class AI security systems in our branches. I'm happy to say that we have closed down our model and partners, and we are now guiding into the implementation phase from this month onwards. Co-lending is a big priority for the group, and I'm happy to say that just this week, we have gone live with co-lending, which will give significant return profile to our subsidiaries also. My second priority was on our consolidate-to-growth strategy for our non-gold businesses. As seen from our results, we have to significantly improve on our credit performance and profitability here. Towards this, we have, as of now, significantly scaled down all these businesses and the geographies in which they operate, including for MSME and vehicle loans. We have additionally paused car loans, new and used, and farm equipment loans. Underwriting norms have been tightened, and our collection infrastructure is gaining momentum. We are also working on stepping up our LOS platforms for MSME and vehicle loans to ensure our processes are more streamlined and controlled. We hope to go back to a growth path from quarter one FY 2026, 27 onwards, after strengthening our systems, processes, controls, and teams. My third priority was around organizational effectiveness. Our new delayered organization structure is beginning to show effectiveness in terms of operating rigor and ownership, which was, and ownership by the teams is something which is very dear to me. I must say I'm very enthused that teams are adapting very positively to this change, and this gives me great confidence in delivering our growth aspirations. We are also shortly rolling out a very comprehensive set of changes to our people and HR practices, which I'm confident will further enthuse and bring better business momentum and ownership to the organization. Simultaneously, we are mapping out all our processes currently towards making them simple, simpler, and more efficient. Priority four, I talked about enthusing top talent. I'd mentioned that we are onboarding a top-quality leadership team. A new group CFO, a group compliance officer, and a group general counsel have already joined us. They are actively leading the transformation efforts, and that they are already making their presence felt in a very positive way. We are in the process of also onboarding new group heads of technology, risk, internal audit, operations, HR, and two group business heads. Some positions in levels below are also being actively staffed where required. Priority five was getting ready for the medium to long term, even as the long term evolves. Towards this, we have kicked off an engagement with a very large firm towards determining our go-forward technology stack. As this is expected to take a 2-3 years migration to fully evolve into a new age digital technology stack, we are also simultaneously working in determining various solutions that can be quickly plugged into, even as a new stack goes live. Our go-forward product strategy is also being worked on, and when we talk to you about our new strategic plan in quarter one of next year, we will share the same with you. On our subsidiaries, which was my next priority, building our subsidiaries, I must say that Asirvad is showing very encouraging signs, and I'm confident that we are at the tail end of the negative credit cycle. Business volumes are showing good growth, collections are improving, and our new book performance is performing very well. Our new book today is approximately one-third of our portfolio, and as we get into, let's say, quarter two of next year, you know, it will be approximately 57%-60% of our portfolio, which will add to, you know, the overall performance. We used to have a lot of negative growth, which means our degrowth. We used to have higher degrowth than AUM buildup, and happened to say that we have largely taken care of that, and the degrowth as we end December is only 1%, and we'll go into positive territory as we speak. A lot of credit parameters, including the number of customers of ours who have more than three loans, customers of ours with more than INR 2 lakh, etc., are showing extremely good and encouraging signs. So, business growth coming back, even as we tighten our credit parameters, is something that in this huge is meeting. The organization is clearly being galvanized for strong growth and performance portfolio and portfolio performance in FY 2027. Our housing finance company, as I had mentioned last quarter, is a strategic priority for us, and we have very strong plans for a housing finance company. A top-quality team is being put together for the same and should be in place by quarter one FY 2027. Till then, you can expect low to moderate growth in the housing finance company. I'm aware that these are fairly simple priorities that I have laid out for now, but I believe these will be the foundation of what is to come in the coming years. Thank you all for your continued support and for being a part of this transformation journey along with all of us. Now, thank you. Now we can go for the Q&A session. Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star one on the touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, please wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of [audio distortion] from [audio distortion]. Please go ahead. Hello. Am I audible? Yes, sir. Yes. Yes, sir. Yeah. Thank you so much for the opportunity. The first question is on the gold AUM growth. I just want to understand if we look at the gold customers, there's about a percent increase, quote unquote. So, you know, the AUM growth is very good at 23%. So how should we think about, you know, how much of that is gold price driven? And how should we think about the gold AUM growth when the gold price start moving up or going forward? So the ticket size during the quarter, we have seen an increase, especially our strategy with a lower yield for high ticket customers. So the AUM growth is almost 22%, but the growth in number of customers is not that much because of our strategy by shifting to high ticket forward. Yeah. And if I would just add that to what Bindu has stated, I mean, I think we must take into cognition, you know, two, three other facts also, you know, which come into play in the gold loan business. There is something called customer prudence also, which comes into play because these are the jewels of the family, and these are very auspicious in our country, right? If you look at the LTVs, both weighted average and simple average LTVs of our portfolio, they remain the same prior to gold price increase and now. You know, they all hover between 57%-60%. You know, so to your question, do you see significant risk? Now, let's say the price of gold falls significantly, then we have for a short temporary period of time, yes, there could be a small, you know, a correction that we have, but that is always temporary. It has never been, you know, beyond at the most 3, 4 months and the 2, 3 months at the most. So we are not, you know, we don't, you know, too concerned about that. I must say also, let me say worst case scenario, gold price comes down also. I would say that our company is very strongly poised to be able to manage that situation because we have an advantage in our online gold loan portfolio. You know, that online gold loan app, which most of our transactional customers transact on, you know, it is very easy for them to repay and make sure that LTV, regulatory LTVs are met, and they don't have to, you know, customers don't have to keep rushing to branches, which a lot of our competitors will have to do. So I think we're fairly strongly poised, you know, so even if there is a correction, seems unlikely today, but you never know because the price has very highly gone up, which it shouldn't really be too much of a worry to us, other than, as I said, one, two months. We should be fine. Another thing I must state is gold loan as an asset class has got fully established in India today. Over the last one year, it is the largest retail asset lending class in India. So gold loan is today a great product, not just for negative times in the economy, you know, where the normally in negative times in the economy is when the price of gold goes up. It's a great product for negative economic times. It's a great product even for normal economic time because customers are saying it's a fabulous product for them to take. It's easy to avail, you know, the repayment obligations are in their control, you know, because of the product is structured, you know. So, and that's how it's already established as the largest retail lending class over the last one year. So, you know, largely on gold, I think we have a good story in the country. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Thanks so much, sir. Just on the yield perspective, how should we think about the gold yield going forward? You know, should it go down further to like 18% as we talked about earlier, or how should we think about that? Yeah. The yield will be similar to whatever is the yield in the market, which has been charged by leading gold loan players. We will be with that. We are already in that, that range. So we continue to be with the market. So we work, I mean, to adjust, you know. Yeah. Please go ahead. So sorry. So it's 18.5, 18.3% in terms of the gold yield already in line with the market for your segment, or because we're also on a shift to larger ticket size customer, right? So I just want to understand, I say, one, two quarters of the world, where, how should we think about the gold yield? This is similar to the other leading players in the market. So we'll be maintaining, as I told, we'll be maintaining more or less the same rate as other leading players. So they also have these larger tickets, so the average will be like that. Yeah. So we don't expect much change. Got it. Sorry, just, just one last question on the borrowings. If I'm not wrong, it seems that the borrowing has gone up, gone up this quarter much more than the, the loan growth. I just wonder, given that the Bain is expected to inject capital, why do we need to, you know, take so much borrowing this quarter? So the approval is in the final stages with RBI. So, we got some, yeah, interim approval, but we have sought, RBI has sought some clarifications in that regard, etc., etc. So, and they have made some submissions also. That's why the final approval is yet to come through. So we expect the final approval to come through without much delay. Maybe we expect that to happen within another one month. Got it. Thank you so much. I'll jump back to you. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Piran Engineer from CLSA. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, team. Congrats on the quarter. Just a couple of things, on the opening comments. So, Mr. Reddy, when you said that you all are conducting, like, price sensitivity tests to improve the scheme mix, can you just elaborate on what you mean by that? Yeah. So in the past, we have, you know, we used to be, you know, we had taken a strategy of pricing at the upper end of the market. Now, over this year, you know, we realized that we had to, as our chairman said, be benchmarked with competition, which is what we have done. We are running, you know, various tests in North America, and, you know, that's a constant process, but we run it very closely here in terms of, you know, geographies, customers, locations, tiers, and we do check what the sensitivity levels are, and which is what we have been doing to, you know, to fine-tune it because, you know, we moved from a position of, you know, being priced higher than market to a strategic call to be priced at market. And so, does this mean that in geography one, let's say Tamil Nadu, hypothetically, you're offering a INR 50,000 loan at 19%, and in Maharashtra, you'll offer it at 18% because the crowd in Maharashtra is different? That's the question. Yeah. I mean, competition is definitely different. Competitive factors, density of branches, how, you know, how evolved the market is in the state, all of these go into pricing decisions. Typically, the early states were South Indian states of, let's say, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, where density of competition of branches is very high, competition levels is very high, you know, and then, you know, you'll take different pricing strategies for different locations, right? And as I said, you know, we, we are, you know, we are getting ready for, we are already showing very strong growth. We are getting ready for much, much more significant growth. And there's a lot of tests that we're doing. But I think the takeaway you can take back is from being priced above market, one of them you can expect to price at market going forward. We have shown that in the last quarter. The results will come through. I mean, you'll see the leverage benefits come through very strongly in the quarters to come. Good. So on a journey, on a scale of 1 to 10, where are we in the journey of getting priced in line with peers? We are already at 10, is it? We, I would say that, I mean, that's a question to put a number. So I don't want to put a number, but you asked me. I would say that around 8. Around 8 or 8.5, I would say. I would say we are. We are almost there. Yeah, we are close. Yeah. We are almost there. Got it. Got it. And then secondly, you also mentioned, you know, a number of initiatives like transforming the branches next year to improve the customer experience. You're working with a consultancy firm, to, you know, develop the tech stack. How should we, like, these are obviously very good initiatives for the long term, and they're important. How do we think about how OpEx trends in that regard, in FY 2027 and maybe beyond? There will be some investments, a lot more capital investment that we are going to put in, but I don't think and we are in the process of making a budget for next year. I don't think you should be overly worried about that. I mean, of course, there will be some investments, but the initiatives will also result in cutting of OpEx where required, in optimizing of OpEx where required, and also leverage benefits coming in. So OpEx as a percentage, you should see all those leverages coming in. So I don't think you need to be overly worried about that. There, let's say the new structures you're putting in, new people putting in, they'll have to pay for themselves and much higher productivity. Understood. Understood. Just lastly, just repeating the same question of this one earlier, and this is probably to Bindu, but, like borrowing growth being higher than loan growth, is it just simply back-ended, because borrowings have grown like at 28%-29%? I'm just talking of standalone balance sheet. So is it just like an end-of-period phenomenon, or was it like just throughout the quarter? And if it was throughout the quarter, then why was it so high? It is end of the quarter only. If you see our liquidity position, we have almost from 1,500-2,000 times to 4,000 growth as we were getting a lot of limits at the end of the quarter. Okay. So just end-of-period phenomenon. Yes. Yes. Got it. Got it. Okay. Yeah. That's it from my end. I'll get back in the queue and wish the team all the best. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhijit Tibrewal from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead. Yeah. Good evening and congratulations on a strong gold loan growth. Again, kind of circling back on the yields, sir, our yields have actually declined from 19.7% last quarter to 18.3% this quarter. So, I mean, while these are portfolio yields, what I'm trying to understand is what that essentially means is the gold loans that you would have done in this quarter would have been even, even lower yields, right? Basically somewhere around 17, 17.5. And earlier, when CEO sir said that maybe on a scale of 1 to 10, we are at 8, 8.5. So, so eventually we expect these yields to stabilize around that 17.5% market yield. No, we would expect the yields that, you know, the way the market is operating today in condition, our expectation is in the range of 18%. But I mean, that's what we expected to be. Right. I mean, so we, I mean, so the question is, you know, let's say, I must say, because our, we have a very unique and a very strong customer proposition in our, in our online digital gold loan app, OGL app. And, you know, so that, you know, as a result of that, our pricing transmission of between onboarding and book yield is much faster than that of competition. So, you know, so I, I view that as a positive thing both for customers and us. The expectation is in the range of, you know, 18, 18, 18.1 up to maybe 18.15, depending on how things go, is my expectation as of. Got it. So, so essentially that also I'm guessing would be done by the end of this year, and then from next year onwards we should look at stable yields thereof. That's correct. Got it. The other question I had was on, on this billing transaction. I, I'm, I'm sure earlier in the call, Manappuram sir commented on it saying that, we received some kind of an interim approval and the final approval is expected to come through in the next one month. But, sir, I'm just trying to understand, you remember also, a media article that came out, and then we also refuted it or clarified on that on the stock exchanges. But at least, I mean, that problem which was highlighted in that article of RBI not being okay with, being having, majority stake in, in two NBFCs, has that part at least been addressed with the regulator? Yeah. It is, it is not majority stake. Controlling interest. Controlling interest. Right, sir. Right. I'm sorry. Yeah. Controlling interest in both the NBFCs. Yeah. Controlling interest. But that part, Bain is working out something, yeah, whereby this is addressed. So, we are in discussion with RBI, and, yeah, and whatever RBI has told Bain is ready to go by that. So, that will not create any problem with regard to promised investment in Manappuram as well as the joint control in Manappuram. Got it, sir. So essentially, sir, I mean, if I understand this right, that whatever the RBI suggested, Bain is happy to go ahead with that so that, I mean, we can get a controlling joint control in, in Manappuram. Anyway, anyway, anyway. Yeah. Whenever we get the information. Obviously, that. Yeah. Yeah. So, one thing is very clear, sir, yeah, Bain is interested in Manappuram. Got it, sir. And, and sir, then lastly, rather two last questions. One is, we discussed about this, this customer, number of customers earlier, but today what I'm trying to understand is, when, when we look at, gold loan NBFCs, right, this thing around number of customers not growing, a lot, see, tonnage, we understand, like you've explained to all of us in the past that when gold prices go up, it is not important that the tonnage also goes up because customers are prudent and they borrow only as much as they want. But the fact that the gold loan customers are also not increasing, at the industry level, and despite that, if we are seeing gold loan growth, how, how should we read that? Is it like more number of Gold Loan players coming and, and which is where no one is seeing a Gold Loan customer growth, or, or is it like these are the same set of customers who are taking Gold Loans? Does that they're taking higher ticket sizes now, which is what is driving the Gold Loan industry growth? So if I can, you know, take this question, it's an interesting question, and I think I request you to view it from a perspective of growth cycle, you know. So as I mentioned, you know, in the past, we, you know, we, the pricing in the past years was slightly higher than that of the competition. At that time, we thought it was the prudent and right thing to do. And as a result, you know, there were some of our customers who for many years were very loyal to us. Some of them may have moved out of us. Now the gold loan growth, the gold loan price has been going on for almost one year right now. This quarter, you would have seen a significant, you know, take-up rate and catch-up with our growth rates, you know, a big uptake in happening. That's the first part of the cycle, right? Now the second part of the cycle is once the business growth comes, branches being infused, right pricing that we have in the market, then that cycle, the second cycle will now lead to much higher new customers also being acquired because the whole teams are getting galvanized. So I think what you're seeing last quarter growth of significant growth, compared to our previous quarters is step one. Step two, you'll move into this, but we are fairly infused at this stage. Got it, sir. And then I just want to squeeze in one last question. While we have shared that our yields are now comparable to other prominent gold loan players, and likewise the marginal spreads are also comparable to the other gold loan players, it's this OPEX bit, right? I mean, if I look at our ROA tree, right, versus the ROA tree of our peers, I think it is that OPEX, right, which is significantly lower for some of our peers, right? So what is it that we are doing on the OPEX side? Is it just scale you think which will help you bring down the OPEX and translate into better ROAs going forward and better ROEs as leverage comes? Or are there also other things that you are doing, steps that you're taking for OPEX rationalization? Thank you so much. I think the answer is in your question. It is all of them. You know, it is both scale, which is very important, of course, but also a significant process improvement, which as a result brings down our cost also has to are things that we are working on. So I mean, yeah, the answer was in your question, sir. Got it, sir. This is very useful, and thank you for patiently answering all my questions. I wish you and the team the very best. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rajiv Mehta from YES Securities. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, good evening. Congrats on stable numbers. My first question is on the non-gold portfolios. So how deep can this, you know, asset quality deterioration, you know, phase go in vehicle and equipment finance, in MSME, personal loan, housing finance? Because we are seeing spikes in the NPAs. So when do, you know, at what levels can they peak out and by when can they peak out? And just to understand the credit cost impact incremental because of that, what is the current PCR that they're holding on the existing NPAs on each of these books? And would it be right to presume that you would want to address this in terms of provisions or recognition largely in Q4 itself so that you can start FY 2027 on a lighter note? So on vehicle finance, if you see, as the disbursement slowdown, it is more on account of the residual impact. So the quarterly increase is only some INR 40 crore in the vehicle finance book on which the provision currently we, we are doing is still around 25, 20, 27%. So that is the provisions we are doing. But at the same time, we are doing a current valuation of the assets and any kind of shortfall we are providing. And above 730 days also, we are taking a 100% write-off. Similarly for MSME, all unsecured loans, the net NPA is zero. Digital personal loan or the small portion of unsecured, we took a 100% write-off. And on the secured portfolio, as the average LTV is very low and the ECL with a five-year realization period is around 5-6%. But the asset, in case of Vehicle Finance, comparatively easy to repurpose and sell. We will see improvement. But, of course, MSME will take more time and the customers are servicing the EMI with the delay. Okay. And, in Asirvad, can you, you know, share the X bucket, collection trends? And, if I were to look at your stage two and the net NPL figures, would it be right to assume that the credit cost in Q4 for itself will come meaningfully down, from what it was in Q3? Yes. So we have shared the details in page on Asirvad, the bucket-wise details. And if you see 32, the Stage 2 as of 30th of December is only 106. So the trend shows a drastic improvement in decline in NPA in Q4. No, no. I was asking about Manappuram X bucket collection efficiency, in Asirvad in recent months, how much that is. I know that we have a lesser amount of new portfolio, but, how much is the leakage still happening? Yeah. Manoj here. So I'll just answer the X bucket. If you see, I would rather answer that question to address both the new book and the old book. In our collection efficiency in our new book is at 99.78%, which is roughly translating to one third of my book. And like how the CEO had mentioned earlier, in the next two quarters, we expect this to reverse in the sense that we should be looking at two thirds of a book, our entire book, and running at similar collection efficiencies. So that is how robust it is, currently. So that's on the X bucket. Having said that, even the balance of the one third, which is the old book, we are seeing a collection efficiency increase of about 2% quarter on quarter, which establishes the fact that we have not let the old book slip away. We have put together a collection team from within the loan officers spread across our branches where they're dedicated to focus on this so-called old book and the hard book. That should take care of our collection efficiencies. Okay. Clear. Just one last one. Cost of borrowing, your standalone cost of borrowing has declined by 30 basis points Q2, but the consolidated only declined by 10 basis points. And when I look at Asirvad, also the cost of borrowing is actually flat. If you can just reconcile this. Yeah, so almost 85% of the borrowing is standalone at 8.80. And the balance Asirvad is around 12% of consolidated borrowing at 10.20, and home finance at 9.50. So the weighted average is coming to 8.98. Oh. No, but ma'am, that is actually declined only by 10 basis points because the standalone cost of borrowing has actually come down by 30 basis points. And Asirvad is flat. So I was thinking that the delta improvement in consolidated should have been higher than that. So, one reason is towards quarter end, we have done a lot of borrowing. So we will reconcile and get back to. Okay. Thank you, [Foreign language]. Thank you. The next question is from the line of [audio distortion] from [audio distortion]. Please go ahead. Hey. Thanks so much again. Just a few follow-up questions. Number one is on the consolidated statements. Under the revenue, is this [audio distortion], which was INR 27 crore last quarter? In the December quarter, it jumped to INR 79 crore, almost INR 80 crore. Just wondering what's, what's that about, if anyone off in there? Can you repeat the question? Can you repeat your question, please? We just missed you in between. Yeah. Yeah. In the other revenue, which is, you know, if I look at the financial statements consolidated under the others, under revenue from operations, there was INR 79 crore revenue over there, which was INR 27 crore in the September quarter. Just wondered why the large jump and, you know, anyone off in there? We will share offline if that is okay. Okay. Sure. Thank you. And lastly, on the standalone ROA, which is something about 3%, right, 3% right now, you know, it's one to two years. How should we think about this ROA going forward, since our yield is, let's just say, continuing to stay here? How should we think about ROA trajectory on a standalone business? ROA going forward. Yeah. Well, we hope to maintain and improve upon ROA because the per branch business is growing. So yeah. So this, here also we have seen growth and we expect that momentum to continue. So there will be a huge volume push at the branches. So, and the OPEX, the HR cost, etc., etc., will not have much impact. So, and we don't expect much of the increase in the borrowing cost. So the ROA, there will be. Around, four. Four. Four quarter. I would say, yes, sir. So we should definitely be looking at 4, 4.25 to 4.5, I think we should. Yeah. 4.25%-4.5% standalone ROA? Yes. Yes. The credit cost. Okay. So that means. Yes. Credit cost issues in the non-gold books will also come down. So that will also. I'm saying, I mean, is it where you want to be? The, I mean, the specific answer is no. But as I said, you know, we have a non-gold book of vehicle loan MSME, which is, you know, for, you know, there, there will be some amount of impairment that we will see for 1-2 quarters. So, you know, that's why we are factoring this when we talk to 4.25-4.5. Got it. Thank you so much. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Gaurav from Capital Market. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi. Thanks a lot for the opportunity. So a couple of questions. First question is to Mr. Deepak. Like you mentioned that you are also working on co-lending, right? And this week only you had merit like. So, so just a clarification on that. Is it the co-lending agreement with the Asirvad that has been done? Because I think on the website of Asirvad, something like that has been displayed that co-lending agreement with Manappuram Finance. Yeah. So we are working with multiple partners right now. Asirvad is one of them. You know, all 3 of all partners that you're working on, hopefully the minimum of 3 partners should go live over the next 1-2 weeks, I would say, or 3 weeks at the most. That's great. That's great. Second, I was referring this, slide number 9 of our presentation, right? So, gold loan, everyone in India who is taking financial sector nowadays aware, and gold loan is booming, right, as an industry. But for us as a company, right, every other segment where we are operating, whether it is vehicle finance, right, equipment finance, MSME lending, or even housing finance, our NPA level, GNPA level, right, in housing finance, we are approximately 5%. Vehicle finance, we are approximately 14%. MSME now we are touching around 6%, right? Where things are going wrong? Because such a elevated level of GNPA, right, coming from a lender like, who is, focused on gold loan, right, who knows that asset quality must be pristine, right? So, so where things have went wrong? Have we analyzed that part, while we have done all the course correction in the last 2, 3 quarters or something, some kind of accountability has been set up? Or, how, how, how you would like to assure that whatever the balance assets we have, they are now remaining the pristine quality and not, some other surprises which we might expect in a quarter or 2 down the line? Yeah. That was my second question. So, Gaurav, you could, I mean, see the importance and seriousness of our thinking in the fact when I laid out my priority. My first priority was accelerate gold, and my second priority was to follow a consolidate and gold, consolidate and growth strategy for non-gold, right? That's the order of the priorities to tell you how seriously, you know, we are taking it. I don't think, you know, we don't have to dwell upon a postmortem of what went right, what went wrong, you know, which is a learning. We have obviously studied our entire, you know, model from acquisition to business, you know, to underwriting to risk to systems. We are taking that all into cognition, and that's what we are strengthening. Till that, that's fully in place. That's why I told you MSME and vehicle loans, you will not see much growth even in the current quarter. It's only as we get into next year you will start seeing growth. And we will correct it, you know. And have we taken specific questions that you asked? Have we seen why, what went wrong? Obviously, yes. We have because you know, starting point was, you know, if it is high, why is it high? What do we have to do to control it? What are the controls we have to put in place? What are the systems we have to put in place? What are the different processes and, you know, credit policies, underwriting policies, risk policies? All of these have been taken into consideration. That's what we're working on. And that's why I said it'll be a slow take up. It is not some, it's not a, we're businesses are not something that we are going to overnight accelerate. We'll get our process in place, we'll be comfortable with it, and of course then we will grow them. We intend to grow these businesses, but when we are confident that we have learned from the past. Going forward, this strong. That's great. That's great. If you allow me one question within this, within this, just to follow up on this, can you give some clarity if, what percentage of within this GNPA segment across the products that we have, what would be the percentage of customers, those who are defaulting in each of these categories, right? One customer who is defaulting in HFC housing finance also, and to whom we have given the vehicle finance also, to whom we have given the MSME loan in, for their business purpose also, right? Or, microfinance loan also. So are there any certain set of customers in percentage terms who are defaulting in more than two, three categories? Or these are exclusively, different set of, customers, no correlation over there? No, so you're talking about customer level NPAs of customers across a group. I think they're very, very, very minuscule. Offhand, I'm sorry, I don't have the exact number with me offhand, but that, that's, that's something that we look into very, you know, very closely. And that, those are, you know, things which are monitored also very closely by us. It's very minuscule. Yeah. I mean, these are customers. Yeah. Yeah. And then, our customer level NPA policy takes that into consideration. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. My last question, I have asked in my couple of interactions also, in last con calls, on branch expansion, right, go specifically on the gold loan side. So is it like, there is something which is stopping RBI to give us, branch expansion approval, or is it related to, Bain transaction? Once that is done by RBI, then only the RBI will give us approval for branch expansion, or we are not going to the RBI for, seeking approval for branch as of now. So, what exactly is the, roadblock or showstopper, which is not, giving us an opportunity to expand the branches specifically for the branch? Well, I think I explained. I explained that, you know, the point in the previous earnings calls also. This is, of course, I mean, I can't speak on behalf of the RBI on why they are giving or not giving. You know, that's not, you know, what I can speak about. But the, you know, I believe it's also because there's a very significant transaction, you know, with a new co-promoter coming on. And I think that's the first priority which probably the RBI, the regulator is also looking at. We don't see any reason why we will not get approvals shortly. We hope to. We have put up our proposals to RBI, which we hope will be favorably decided upon. And is there any specific reason that you think that we have why we are not getting? I think that the answer is absolutely not nothing at all. Thank you. I will come in for now. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shubhranshu Mishra from PhillipCapital. Please go ahead. Hi Deepak. I hear your voice here at Manappuram. Given the fact that you're pretty much outlining to change the organization at various levels, one, if we can maybe in the medium term, two to three years from now. Second is, you have spoke about LOS, LMS transformation. So, what are the tech partners we are looking at to have this changed? Would this have different kind of LOS, LMS for various kinds of asset classes that we would be working on? The third part is, are we also looking at rationalizing the manpower, or having a different orientation for the current manpower? Again, if that would be considered. Shubhranshu, I took that. Put your voice to 2, 3 questions. One on, you know, on the, you know, I mean, a lot of your questions I must say, you know, came a little garbled to us. And as I hope I am answering the questions right. One was, of course, on the strategy which you told us. And Shubhranshu, you know, my request is, you know, please bear with us for, you know, as we move into FY 2027, when we'll share our, you know, that well-thought-through strategy. I request you to bear with us on, you know, on our tech architecture. What is going to be will be premature at this stage because, you know, that's the journey we have just started with multiple tech partners, all studies going on. Because we have taken into consideration multiple factors. One is what is the market today? 2, what is the market expected to be in 3 years, 4 years? And so we have to build a tech platform not just for today. We have to build a tech platform that's going to last us for the next 10 years. And with the advancements which are happening out here, you know, that the solutions are, you know, quite complicated to make. You know, it's not just plain cookie cutter, but we are working, you know, towards that, you know, to put that in place. We're working on multiple partners. You know, it's not one partner. Specific to your question on LOS, LMS, will different products have different LOSs, LMSs? I think that's an output of our entire exercise. Then we will know. But what all I can assure you is whatever it is, each individual product will have individual workflows customized for themselves. It will not be one standard workflow that we will use for all, I mean, for all products. We will have strong LOSs for different asset classes which are, you know, also figurative of how, you know, our competitors also use it with a forward-looking lens also. And manpower was the next question. I think that's a constant one, right? You will always have, you know, options to optimize, you know, technology will come in. Can you optimize manpower? All that, yes. But will the absolute manpower come down? Obviously, no. Because if you're going to talk about our AUM continuing to be 50,000, and then we, you know, are putting in technology, and then, you know, people will come down. I don't think we are looking at, you know, that. We are looking at a very, very strong future for the company where our AUM and our growth is going to be multiples of what we are today, you know. So, I don't think there's too much to read into in this at this stage. It will be steady state, well-thought-through, well-calibrated, and then we'll take the long-term approach. It will not be a short-term approach. It will be a medium to long-term approach that we'll take. One last question, if I can squeeze one. Bain Capital also holds a controlling stake in finance. Which was asked while Adani Capital tie. And to Manappuram Finance to have that controlling stake in. Sorry to interrupt. So your voice is not audible properly. So Bain Capital holds a controlling stake in Tyger Capital, which was as well Adani Capital. Is it possible to have that company merged into Manappuram, so that they continue to hold a controlling stake in that entity as such? They are working out already, working out some strategy whereby their, their interest and what assurance as far as Manappuram is protected. So it's, we are open to that discussion. Shubhranshu, will we and our chairman, right? You said, you know, what are the options that they're looking at? Will it be taken? I think that is completely not our prerogative. That is, that's a question you should ask. You should probably ask Bain Capital. I don't think it is premature. You've seen us holding statements on this whole transaction. You know, there are certain questions asked which we've given responses to, and, you know, we are awaiting clarifications. Right. Sure. Thank you so much. Best of luck, Deepak, and best of luck to the entire team. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Prithviraj Patil from Investec. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thanks for the opportunity. So I have two questions. One, I wanted to know the number for the quarter-to-growth number. And the second was, what is the incremental yield on the gold? So for quarter is around INR 32 crore during the quarter. The yield currently stands around 18%. Hello. Auction, auction is around INR 32 crore during the quarter. Our current yield stands at 18%. Hello. Hello? Prithviraj. Prithviraj? Yeah. Yeah. So I just wanted the auction number and the incremental yield on the gold. Auction is around INR 32 crore during the quarter. Our current yield at 18% on gold loan book. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Pratik Kothari from Unique PMS. Please go ahead. Yes. Hi, good evening, and thank you. So one on OpEx again. So if we go back 3-4 years at similar branch productivity of about INR 10-11 crore where we are right now, the larger peer mutually used to be materially lower than where we are. So if you can just highlight where is this mismatch? We are in the fives. They were in the threes at similar productivity. And I'm going back 4 years now. So if you can just highlight where is that mismatch? What can we do to improve between us? So, Shubhranshu, I think, you know, the, you know, I've laid out our, you know, the various actions we are taking towards this. And, as we roll out our strategy, as we, you know, roll out our operating plan for next year also, I think you'll have visibility, you know, going back four, five years and comparing with competitors, you know, who did what, who did when. I don't think we'd want to do this on a call. No, but do we agree there's a mismatch and we want to work on that, or this is how our business is structured in this stage as it is? No, we have answered that question, right? We have very strong aspirations of growth of the company. And we are, when we lay out a strategy, you'll see it for us. I mean, obviously, you know, we are obviously not happy, and we will never be happy with where we are. Our whole orientation will be always that we have to do better than what we are, wherever we are and whatever stage we are. And that's our orientation. There is a lot of work to do which we are working on, and the results will follow, and we'll share with you the plan. As we get into next quarter, we'll share the plan with you. Almost to the per-brand AUM. And you would have seen, I mean, even already you would have seen the re-branded AUM from the beginning of the year to this year. You know, we've got a little behind, you know, and we know why we're behind. We have also explained to you reasons because we also followed a different pricing strategy as one of them. That was one important thing. We have taken those actions, and you will see them. You know, we are here to be a dominant player in the market in which we will be. Correct. Correct. And this, 4.25, 4.5 standalone ROA, I mean, what timeline did we give for that? As we go into second half of next year. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Varath Singh, an individual investor. Please go ahead. Hello? Yes, please. Yes, sir. Yes. I have one question. This, like, in Asirvad Finance, there is some impairment losses. We are, booking, like, each quarter we see the losses. So this losses is complete losses or in the later quarter, they, they will be covered up? Yeah. Absolutely. Collection efforts are going on for the NNPA book also. But you, you have seen that in MFI, once it is 90 DPD, the collection is very difficult. But a lot of effort is going on. We are taking the collection agencies also to improve the collection. But as the quality of book is improving, we will see a reduced credit cost in the coming quarters. Yes. We should see reduced credit costs. We have taken some impairment this time even on Asirvad book as a prudent measure, even though we did have to some small amounts. But, and as I mentioned, the outlook is looking stronger. Okay. My next question is, like, now Bain Capital, they are acquiring controlling stake in the company. So it will be from the promoter will be shifted to the Bain Capital. And also, when this transaction will happen, there will be open offer. But as I read that this open offer was priced at 236. But now, price for the stock is already increased way higher. So when this open offer will come, there is chance that Bain Capital will get more stake in the company? These details are already given. Yeah. See, the promoters are not selling the stake. This is. Okay. Yeah. This is entirely primary, right? So this is already, it is told to the market, to the plan, about the plan of 9% equity, now, once the appraisal is approved, then 9% through convertible dividends, which will be converted into equity in another 18 months. So they will have 18% stake. And the present promoters will have more than 28% stake. It will continue. So it will be, Bain is, it will be a, a case of joint promoters, existing promoters, along with Bain asset or joint promoter. Okay, sir. Thank you. Thank you. As well as the last question for the day, I would now hand the conference over to Mr. V.P. Nandakumar for closing comments. Over to you, sir. Thank you so much for your active participation as usual. Now, this time, I hope you could hear more about the new CEO strategy also. I hope that definitely help you to understand what the company will be in the coming one or two years' time. Thank you so much for the questions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you very much, and thank you for your continued support. Thank you. On behalf of DAM Capital Advisors Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.