Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Capri Global Capital Limited Q1 FY26 earnings conference call hosted by Go India Advisors. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Hardeep Doshi from Capri Global Capital Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir. Hello? Yeah. Yes, sir. Please go ahead. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Q1 FY26 earnings call for Capri Global Capital Limited. This is Hardeep Doshi, Head of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations. As a brief disclaimer, the discussion on today's call regarding Capri Global Capital Limited's earnings performance will be based on judgments derived from the declared results and information regarding business opportunities available to the company at this time. The company's performance is subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that could cause results to differ materially in the future. Given these uncertainties and other factors, participants on today's call may observe due caution while interpreting the results. The full disclaimer is available on slide 63 of the earnings presentation, which is also available on our website. Participants are requested to take note of the same. With us today on the call, we have Mr. Rajesh Sharma, Managing Director of the Company, Mr. Kishore Lodha, Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Sanjeev Srivastava, Chief Risk Officer, and Ms. Divya Sutar, Director of Business Strategy. I now request our Managing Director, Mr. Rajesh Sharma, to present the opening remarks. Over to you, sir. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I hope you are all doing well. We announced our unaudited financial results for the first quarter of the financial year 2026 earlier this month on August 1. I trust you had the opportunity to review the earnings presentation, which is also available on our website. Before I move on to the financial and operational highlights, there are a couple of things I would like to specifically highlight. During the quarter, we successfully completed a Qualified Institutional Placement, raising INR 2,000 crore in primary equity capital. This was a landmark event for Capri Global Capital Limited, marking our first QIP in over a decade. The offering received a strong and broad-based response from both domestic as well as foreign institutional investors, which we view as a powerful endorsement of our financial performance, governance standards, and long-term strategic roadmap. This capital infusion significantly strengthens our balance sheet and enhances our ability to scale operations across core lending verticals, including MSME loans, affordable housing loans, gold loans, and construction finance. Importantly, it also provides us with the additional flexibility to invest in next-generation technologies, including generative AI and data science capabilities, which continue to play an instrumental role in sharpening our underwriting, risk management, and customer engagement. Beyond business expansion, this fundraising opens up new avenues to further diversify our borrowing and deepen our liability franchise. As we scale responsibly, we remain focused on improving credit access for underserved customer segments, driving greater operating efficiency, and building a resilient, well-diversified, secured portfolio. Coming to our business and earnings performance during the quarter, overall, I would say it is a good start to the year, a good quarter on volume, Assets Under Management, OpEx, profitability, ROE, and ROA. We commenced FY26 with healthy momentum across our lending businesses. As of June 30, 2025, our consolidated AUM stood at INR 24,754 crore, registering a year-on-year growth of about 42%. This performance was led by robust retail AUM growth, driven by a 69% year-on-year surge in gold loans and a 32% year-on-year increase in housing loans. Core lending AUM reached about INR 4,681 crore, up by 64% year-on-year and contributing 18.9% of consolidated AUM versus 17.8% in Q4 FY25, underscoring our deepening partnership with leading banks. Disbursement for the quarter grew 51% year-on-year to INR 8,458 crore, supported by expanding distribution reach and improved customer onboarding. Growth continues to be granular and well-diversified, with the number of customers surpassing five and a half lakh, reinforcing the strength and scalability of our retail-led model. MSME loans grew to INR 5,477 crore, while our housing brands portfolio stood at INR 5,490 crore, translating to robust year-on-year growth of about 14% and 32% respectively. The MSME business is gaining from our calibrated rollout of a small ticket-sized secured business loan called Microlab, now present in over 94 locations, helping us reach emerging self-employed borrowers with lower ticket-size requirements. In housing finance, we continue to see resilient borrower demand across the affordable segment, where rising urbanization, income formalization, and housing upgrades are driving demand for secured credit. Further, the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana subsidy scheme is also fueling the growth. Our gold loan business maintains strong momentum in quarter one, FY2026, with AUM rising 69% year-on-year to INR 9,105 crore. The portfolio is supported by 821 specialized branches, with average AUM per branch at INR 11.1 crore. As of June 25, 737 branches are operating above the breakeven of INR 5 crore AUM per branch mark. A fully digitized loan journey, AI-enabled security system, and high customer stickiness driven by repeat borrowers of 55% power this growth. With ongoing network expansion and the activation of co-lending partnerships, gold loans remain a key growth driver of high-yield secured growth business model. Our construction finance portfolio grew 61% year-on-year to INR 4,521 crore, now funding over 280 active residential projects with an average sanction size of INR 41 crore. The book remains well-diversified and granular, reflecting our focus on working with mid-sized developers in metro and tier-one cities. We continue to emphasize disciplined underwriting through rigorous due diligence and escrow-based cash flow management, ensuring a risk-first approach. Demand in the affordable and mid-income housing segment remains strong, providing a steady pipeline for scalable and prudent growth. Now I'm coming to the earnings performance. Let me now provide an update on our core earnings. Our yield and spreads on net advances remain healthy in the quarter at 16.9% and 7.2%. Our net interest income for quarter one, FY2026, reached INR 416 crore, marking a 38% year-on-year increase driven by robust growth in our loan book. We continue to strengthen our non-interest income streams in quarter one, FY2026, reinforcing our strategy of building a diversified and resilient earnings profile. Non-interest income grew 53% year-on-year to INR 166 crore, contributing 28.5% of net total income for the quarter, driven by strong growth in core lending fee income and insurance distribution. Our car loan distribution business maintains its steady momentum, with originations of INR 2,651 crore in quarter one, FY2026, up 19% year-on-year. With a growing footprint and deep relationships across 12 partner banks and presence in institutions, we have built a scalable and high-volume platform in this segment. In insurance distribution, we generated net fee income of INR 28 crore in the quarter. With partnerships across 18 insurers and increasing penetration across our retail customer base, we expect this business to become a meaningful contributor to our overall fee income going forward. Meanwhile, core lending income extruded INR 73 crore, supported by rising disbursal volume with partner banks. Our branch network expanded to 1,138 locations in quarter one, FY2026, with a net addition of 27 branches. While our employee base remains steady at 11,546, over the past few quarters, we have seen a clear shift in operational efficiency, with our cost-to-income ratio improving meaningfully to 55% to 49% in 4Q FY2025 and 65% in 1Q FY2025. During the quarter, we had one-time benefits of INR 15 crore in the operating expenses due to the reversal of provisions on account of change in the perquisite policy. Adjusted for that, our cost-to-income ratio would have been 49%. The sharp improvement reflects the benefit of our maturing branch network, rising productivity due to various AI-enabled tools, and increasing digital enablement. Pre-provision operating profit surged 115% year-on-year to INR 312 crore during the quarter, underscoring the impact of operating leverage and disciplined execution. As our network continues to mature and technology adoption deepens, we see further headroom to drive productivity gains and sustain this trend of improving operating efficiency. We continued our strong profitability momentum in Q1, FY2026, delivering a robust profit after tax of INR 175 crore, up 131% year-on-year. This sharp growth was driven by expanding margins, operating leverage benefits, and consistent performance across all key business segments. Despite the impact of recent equity fundraising, return ratios remain healthy, with ROE of 13% and ROA about 3.2% for the quarter. As regard to asset quality, our credit cost for the quarter increased to INR 81 crore in quarter one, FY2026, from INR 18 crore in 4Q FY2025, or 1.6% of the gross loan book, and our provision coverage ratio in stage three loans remained at 41%, demonstrating our prudent provisioning and conservative approach to risk management. Increase in credit cost was on the account of higher resale provision of INR 55 crore, mainly driven by increase in stage one provision of INR 24 crore, increase in stage two assessed in MSME loans and affordable housing loans of INR 71 crore, resulting in an incremental provision of INR 22 crore. One account in construction finance with outstanding loan of INR 16 crore slipping into A, which provisions of INR 8 crore had been created. However, there was a write-back of INR 7 crore provision due to recovery from the previous accounts. One-off provision on car loan receivables of INR 11 crore. Gross stage 3 assets were at 1.7%, marginally higher on a sequential basis, but improved by 48 basis year-on-year, while net stage 3 assets stood at 1%, down 19 basis year-on-year. Collection efficiency remains strong, reinforcing the resilience of our portfolio. We are further enhancing our risk management framework by leveraging advanced analytics and data science to sharpen customer risk profiling and improving underwriting, ensuring disciplined, sustainable growth. Following the successful completion of INR 2,000 crore equity raised through Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP) during the quarter, our balance sheet is significantly stronger, providing ample headroom to accelerate growth across businesses while maintaining financial prudence. This capital infusion has resulted in a robust standalone capital adequacy ratio of 34% for CGC, supported by a total equity of INR 6,438 crore, while Capri Global Housing Finance Limited closed the quarter with a healthy capital adequacy ratio of 29%. Liquidity remains comfortable, with over INR 3,700 crore in cash and bank balances. Investment in undrawn credit lines across CGC and CGH F giving us the agility to navigate evolving market conditions and deploy capital strategically. Borrowing stood at INR 15,979 crore, with a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.5 times. We continue to diversify our funding mix by tapping capital markets, increasing the share of NCDs and commercial paper. During the quarter, we successfully raised INR 150 crore of NCDs at competitive rates between 9% to 9.25%. Our board has also approved a public NCD issuance of up to INR 1,000 crore, which we plan to tap opportunistically. Additionally, the softening interest rate environment, driven by a reduction in repo rates and subsequent decline in MCLR, is expected to further lower our cost of borrowing, supporting our profitability. Our technology investment remains foundational to our ability to scale securely and efficiently. We invested INR 26 crore this quarter in technology, data science, and systems, reflecting our belief that technology is not a one-time CapEx, but a continuous engine of transformation. We are focusing on leveraging generative AI in further enhancing our processes for evaluating customer profile, collateral in collections, cybersecurity, and compliance, yet upgrades remain core priorities as we expand our digital footprint. I'm also pleased to share that CGC has received a strong ESG rating of 69 from NSC Sustainability Rating Analytics, placing us ahead of most listed NBFCs on the NSC and reflecting our robust governance practices as well as our structured approach to environmental disclosures. While we see room to further strengthen the social pillar, this rating is a strong validation of our ESG journey and our commitment to responsible growth. Complementing our ESG progress, we continue to strengthen our brand visibility through impactful campaigns like "Tarakki Kehar," which has significantly enhanced awareness and recall across our key markets. Tagged by a 360-degree media plan spanning TV, print, digital, and branch-level activation, this campaign is helping us to build not just visibility, but also a deeper emotional connection with the people we serve. Now, we would like to open the session for questions and answers. Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Gaurav Purohit from Systematix. Please go ahead. Hi, sir. Am I audible? Yes, sir, you're audible. Yes, sir. Okay. I have a few questions. I'll start with growth. Growth has been fairly robust in the recent quarter. Given the current momentum that we're seeing, is there a possibility that we exceed the 30% target growth range for the next year? Thank you. I think we are going to remain on course for a 30% growth, and we believe that is quite healthy growth. We don't think we are going to exceed that this year. Okay. Also, sir, on growth, what is giving you comfort on growing so aggressively? I understand that you are primarily into secured businesses. What do you think can go wrong given the current environment? Some of your peers have started reporting some stress in the MSME segment. Do you think that could, later on, result in some delinquent fees, or are you seeing that kind in your portfolio right now? I think our confidence on 30% growth comes that we are, as you rightly said, we are in a collateralized portfolio. We have the ability to recover by various means, including disposing of the property which is mortgaged to us. Out of about 35% portfolio is the gold, which is the asset quality remains in our complete control where we can auction the gold and recover our money. As regards the other segment, we agree that MSME, we are seeing some slippage, more particularly from a state of Madhya Pradesh, where we are already toning down our disbursements, and cautiously, we are progressing on that. However, other segments of housing finance remain very stable, where we have not seen much challenge in asset quality. Now, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana credit subsidy coming into play, where the loan-to-value further goes down, giving us a higher security margin. I think we are going to see good growth in that segment. While this quarter, some more delinquency has come because of various reasons, including that first quarter, always we have seen the rise in the delinquency, either because of seasonality or also Q4, we run a lot of campaigns and incentive programs. One of the reasons is also that quarter is less than 90 days. Some of the slippage because of the February 28th month, some of the 61-90 cases slip on in the month of April because of those two days' advantage in the last quarter. A combination of this. However, if you see the overall delinquency, that is still our GNP in the range of about 1.7%, Net NPA is about 1%. It is very, very healthy and robust. Sir, like the trend we've seen in the last year, do you see these slippages coming down significantly in the coming quarters? I will say that slippages will not be as much as what we have seen. We will see that overall asset quality remains in the range we have projected. As a company, we have given the guidance that our gross stage 3 assets will never cross 2%, and net stage 3 assets will never cross 1.2%. I think we intend to maintain within that range. Specifically to projects of our quarter, it will not be possible. It can always vary 10 basis here and there, but overall range will remain the way I set. Fair enough, sir. Also, in one of your recent media interactions after the QIP, you had mentioned that there's a potential of a credit rating upgrade. Any progress over there? If you can share with us. About what? Credit rating. You had mentioned in one of your media interviews. If XRI is on, we should see the result by mid of September. Okay. There's a possibility of a reduction in your cost from third quarter onward? Yeah, I think because as far as the reduction of cost is concerned, I think for the next 12 months, we'll be having a higher dependency on NCDs, commercial paper, and also a lot of loans whose MCLR is going to get reset. Their MCLR has already announced the reduction by various banks. We see the inflation has also come down. Overall, interest rate scenarios should look like the interest rate is going to remain softened. That effect will be seen over a period of time, next six months. Whenever the individual banks' MCLR gets reset, we'll get the advantage. Plus, our incremental borrowing is going to be at a lower level by at least 30 - 40 basis. We'll see quarter on quarter, our cost of funds will come down. By the end of the year, I think our overall cost of the funds should be at least come down by 40 to 50 basis. That was a sizable reduction. Just one specific question on your Microlab because you said that is helping you scale up your MSME. One of your peers has actually discontinued the best development in that business, and that's definitely in the Southern India market. Any comment on that? How your, I understand it is a very recent venture, and the book is not yet sealed, but any signs of stress that you're seeing there? I think we are also growing that book very cautiously, depending on the various feedback and observations that delinquency has arisen in the Microlab segment. However, we are creating a differentiation by using the technology and also data science capability, where various risk triggers are being built. We have gone a little slow till our full stack of technology gets rolled out, which should be happening by the end of September. We are cautiously treating there, and we are confident that given our experience in the collateralized lending, we'll be quite cautious the way we do the collateralization and legal title search. In case going bad, your ability to recover comes from the confidence, the right valuation, and the right title. We are quite confident that we'll be doing better than the competition in that business, backed by our technology and data science capabilities. Sir, one last relating question. Sorry to interrupt, sir. Please rejoin. Okay, I'll come back. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sweta Padhi from SBI Securities. Please go ahead. Hello, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. Congrats on the great set of numbers. In this question, we have seen a slight increase in the gross stage 3 assets in the construction finance segment. Can you shed a little light on that? The second question is on the cost-to-income ratio. The performance has been very good on the cost-to-income side. Where do we expect this cost-to-income to settle by FY2026 exit? I think our cost-to-income ratio on the increased scale of operation, it should come down. However, we are going to add another 150 - 100 branches this year. We expect the cost-to-income ratio to remain in the range of about 50% throughout the year. If we remove the impact of the addition of the branches, then the cost-to-income ratio in real terms will be in the range of about 46% - 47%. We assume that because of those branches, the impact will be there. It will be much lower than last year. If we are able to do even the cost-to-income ratio in the range of 50%, we are on the track to deliver ROA in the range of about 3.5%. Yes, sir. On the construction finance part, the slight increase in the gross stage 3 assets? There is one account which has slipped into the NPA, and on account of that, the value of that account was INR 16 crore. INR 8 crore provision has been provided for. Already for that account, as we do, if you see the last quarter, the recovery has also happened in this on account of one of the NPA about INR 7 crore. This is a constant phenomenon. Further, there are a lot of developers who are coming forward to take over that account. This remains a consistent basis that whenever NPA happens through the SARFAESI or other means, you are able to attract the other developers to take over the account and recover amount. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Chintan Shah from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead. Thank you for the opportunity, and congratulations on a great set of numbers. Just firstly, on this, basically, the asset quality, sir, as you mentioned, the GNPA is likely to be below 2% and NPA below 1.2%. Given that some lenders have already flagged some risk on the MSME portfolio, what gives us the confidence? How are we getting that confidence? If you could just throw some light on the collections part as well, how are the collections panning out? That's the first question, please. Yes, as regards the collection is concerned, I think we are about 520 people, very strong team, and we have very good analytics on the collection. The processes automation is in place. We are able to track actively our collection agent performance and drive them. We have an attractive incentive plan to push them higher. Having said that, we have seen some of the slippages happening in MSME. We are more cautious for our incremental underwriting and taking the right measures. Currently, our collection efficiency is in the range of about 97% upward in the segment. We are quite confident that our focus will be to resolve the old NPA faster by doing a lot of settlement and other things. We see that while our MSME is 100% collateralized, not like many others where they are giving unsecured business loans, they are collateralized where we have LT cushion about 55% is LTV there. With that cushion in place, even though the accounts slip into NPA, we are quite confident to auction those properties or recover back of those properties by mutual negotiation and recover those amounts. Focus during the next nine months will be that old NPA pool we are able to resolve faster by settling those accounts, by selling those properties faster. I think with that phase coming back, our NPA overall will remain in range bound. As I said, our GNPA will not cross more than 2%. Our Net NPA will not cross more than 1.25%. Within that framework, we'll work. Sure. That's quite helpful. Also, sir, secondly, on this AUM growth, we have guided for around 30% AUM growth for FY2026. On a steady state basis, probably over the next two, three years, could we assume a similar trajectory, or are we looking to moderate the growth post-2026? On the growth front, how should we look at it? Yeah. I would like to say that if you observe that we are a well-diversified company in the secured segment. We have currently five products. We have the ability to change the levers and increase one product which is doing better and reduce the other product which is doing not that well, given the macro environment in some of the segments or some of the geographies. With that capability in place, I think we are quite confident to achieve the 30% growth for the next three years by targeting the AUM to be INR 50,000 crore by FY2028 and maintaining our ROA at 3.5% upward. With those two metrics in place, we are quite confident to continue on that path. I think gold loans, we have done well, where the yield is very good. Similarly, our retail construction finance segment is also doing quite well, given the housing demand on the rise and a lot of traction we are seeing in place. Security structures are good. Again, the housing loan remains a very high, very good growth driver. With all the combination of this, I think we are well placed to achieve a 30% growth for the next three years. Sure. Lastly, on the OpEx front, I think our OpEx is relatively elevated, like around 6%. Do we see this moderating if the ROA is set to improve from year on? What could be the key drivers? Are there interest income, OpEx, or margins, or credit costs? Yeah, some thoughts on that, please. Thank you. That's the last question. Thank you. If you see our cost-to-income ratio, if you look at last quarter Q1 FY2025, it was about 65%. Constantly, by our gold loan branches delivering higher margins, and the overall scale is also going up. The cost-to-income ratio has this quarter come below 50%. As I said earlier, if the overall basis, we intend to maintain our cost-to-income ratio in the range of about 50%. Given that we are going to add another 200 -2 50 branches this year, had that not been done, our cost-to-income ratio would have been in the range of about 47%. Sure, sir. This is very helpful. Thank you. That's it from my side. All the best for the future quarters. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Sagar Shah from Spark Capital. Please go ahead. First of all, congratulations, sir, for an excellent set of numbers. I had around three questions. My first question was related to credit costs. This quarter, we saw the highest almost credit costs as compared to the last three quarters. As you said, you had given the clarification that was regarding the one account in construction finance and some stress in MSME. Looking at the picture and looking like the Q2 will follow and will see a kind of a mirror to Q1, what kind of credit costs should we build in for the entire year, sir, for FY2026? That's my first question. Thank you. I think overall basis, if you look at our credit costs, have been in the range of about 60 basis. We don't see that much elevation. At the most, credit costs will not go beyond 70 basis. It's too early to say because we have seen the seasonality that every year Q1 is a little higher. This year has been slightly more higher than the previous average. Q2 to Q4, between that, we see the remarkable recovery in terms of our old NPAs. By that, we will be able to bring overall credit costs down. Even though on the conservative side, we say this year if the credit cost goes up by 10 basis, it will not cross more than 70 basis for an overall year basis. Okay. Thanks, sir. My second question was related to our growth. Growth in this quarter was way above the industry average and one of the best quarters for you in terms of AUM growth. Even sequentially, the AUM has grown by almost more than 8%. I wanted to understand which geographies are you exactly targeting? Is there any geographies that you are particularly targeting that you are getting such a robust growth and that in such a period? I think we are going to add the second half of the year, the Southern India market, which will be Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Karnataka, and Odisha. Also, we are going to add as far as the gold loan is concerned. These states we are going to: Andhra, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Odisha. These are the five states we are going to add gradually. We'll roll out the branches in the last quarter of this year. Okay. So basically, is it fair to assume that this growth has been from the non-Southern region, mentioned the Western as well as the Northern region? Yes. Okay. Thank you, sir. My third question was the last question was related to the co-lending AUM. The co-lending AUM for this quarter was at around 19%. Going ahead for the entire year, what kind of how much percentage should we assume for the co-lending AUM and to be on book? Co-lending AUM, we intend to project in the range of anything between 18% to 20% range. This range only we intend to maintain this. Okay. Thanks, sir. Thank you so much and all the soft switch questions. Thank you. Next question is from the line of Ashutosh from Ashika Stock Broking. Please go ahead. Thank you, sir, for the opportunity and congratulations for a good set of numbers. I'd like to understand the fee income front. Currently, we are at about 30% of our net revenue coming from the fee income side of it. What is our strategy going forward on this front? Our fee income is mainly coming from co-lending, from car loan, and from insurance distribution. Our fee income, we intend to maintain in the range of about 25% - 27% throughout the year. One or quarter can be up and down by 2%, but overall yearly basis, our plan is to maintain it in that range. Within these three segments which we have discussed, which is the major contributor, and right now, what are our strategies? Co-lending and also income from car loan and insurance. Second question is on the cost of funds front. How much of our borrowing is, you know, liability is fixed versus floating, and how we see things moving forward from here on that front? I think next 12 months, we are going to keep a major reliance on raising the commercial paper and NCDs to meet some of our requirements, and those will be at a low cost. Our lending side, we are going to remain more on the now, given the few regulatory changes, we might shift some of the loan to the fixed basis because we see that interest rates are going to remain softer going forward. That would be our point. Like MCLR benefit and all those, how much cost of fund benefit are you expecting in this whole year? I mean, from the current rate, do you expect it to come by 30, 40 basis points for this whole year? Something like that? There are two elements to it. One is incremental borrowing. Incremental borrowing already started coming down by 20 - 25 basis, hoping that we'll get some rating upgrades. That will further go down by another 25 basis. The second point is that all the MCLR rates are getting reset on the due date of their one-year or six-month if the negotiations are done during the time of drawing that loan. In a serious manner, those banks' MCLR rate reduction benefit will accrue. By every quarter, we'll see some benefits keep coming in. On an overall basis, I think we should be able to get the benefit of the reduction by 20 - 30 basis. This is depending on bank to bank. Got it. On this cost-to-income, IT expenditure is also one of the areas which we are focusing on. Can you give something like what we are doing, what type of expense you continue to incur in that area? Last quarter, we spent about INR 26 crore on various initiatives of the technology, data science, and now this year, we are actively enhancing our team on the data science and generative AI side. We already deployed some tools on the AI transformation, which are going to drive the productivity and impact the reducing of our cost-to-income. I think this spend on the IT is going to be a permanent feature. This is not going to be something that we'll achieve some milestone and it will come down. This is a futuristic investment which we will continue to do. We have currently about 200 people team in the technology infra and data side. Got that, sir. On the last question on geographical acquisition, are there any changes in the opening of the new branches or something like that you want to highlight to investors on that front? I think we are going to, as I said, we are going to add 200 branches this year, a combination of the gold, MSME, home loan, etc. This will remain for the next two years. We are going to add about 700 - 800 branches. That is important because when you plan 30% growth for the next year, you need to plan at least six to nine months in advance. Will these new branches come in a new geography or in existing geography only? Most of the new branches will come in the new geography. Some of the existing geography variances in the potential will increase, but majority expansion will happen in Southern India, as I said earlier. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Next question is from the line of Nina Jada from LKP Securities. Please go ahead. Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity. My question is on the insight. We have mentioned that the borrowing costs are expected to trend down by a positive basis for this year. How are we looking at gains? Are we going to pass on the benefits to our customers as well? If you could quantify how much is prevailing by this year? I think we have to say that overall, if the interest rate goes down for everybody, that at least cost advantage benefit will get passed on to the customer because of the intense competition in the retail segment. However, whatever cost benefit and risk spread going down because of our negotiation and also the rating potential upgrade, that benefit will be able to accrue to our P&L. Okay. Any specific basis points it could go down by? I think our current spread is in the range of about 7%. We intend to maintain that spread at 7%. It can slightly be better because gold loan composition is slightly improving. Another by, so current composition, it will add another 3 to 4%, and which is a high-yield product and for which all the infrastructure costs and operational costs are already in place. That is going to improve our overall spread. In regards to the interest rate benefit, which comes because of the potential rating upgrade, that additional benefit will happen. As far as the MCLR rate reduction is concerned, because of the competition, that benefit, as I said, gets passed on to the customers. Sure. My second question is on the recent announcement that we have made. We have incorporated two new companies. One is Financial Services, and another is Wealth Management Company. If you can tell us on how we are looking to scale these businesses and what kind of customers we are looking to target, and with the cost for setting up these businesses, will it affect our cost-to-income guides for this year or for next year as well? There are two companies we have incorporated. One is going to carry out the investment banking activities only for the debt capital market. Another company is a securities company, which is going to engage in the sales and distribution of the debt placement at the institutional level, online bond platform, and exchange trading. Both of these will not consume much capital, and they will be from the year one. That will be accurate to the profit rather than taking any dent on the cost-to-income side. On a full-scale operation, we expect that this will also enhance our fee income. For that, by the end of the year, we will give you the exact projection for the coming year. This year, it is in the setup mode. However, whatever the cost, they will be able to make that kind of money. That will be cost-neutral and no impact on the cost-to-income side. Sure. Are there any probable customers we are looking to target, any set of customers? Sorry, can you come again on the question? Probable set of customers for which segment? For these companies which we have incorporated. Companies? We have a team of about 10 people. We are going to add more people there. The team is specialized in understanding the need of the bond market, see the price trend, and we have a large treasury book. Within that, we use those funds to buy the bond and do the buying and selling of the bond. Plus, we hold them for a short term, 15 - 30 days. We help the corporations to come out with the issuance of the bond as a machine banker. These are the fee-based activities we are going to do. These clients can be corporates, mid-sized, or the larger side. It is similar to various bond issuance bankers. You would have observed that they are associated with such bond issuance. Further, this team will also help us to reduce our cost of funds because of their access to the capital market and their connect and understanding of the bond market. Sure, sir. Thank you. That's it for me. Thank you. Next question is from the line of Darshil Jhaveri from Crown. [Foreign Language] Sorry, the participant is not connected right now. The next question is from the line of Akash Ja from AG Gulf. Please go ahead. Hello? Hi, sir. Am I audible? Yes. Yeah. First of all, congratulations for a great set of numbers. Most of my questions have already been answered, so thanks to the previous participant. One question related to your business model, sir. I mean, we are fully secured and have a high-holding book. Macroeconomic cycles can pressure demand, collection, and risk appetite. How resilient are our models across down cycles, especially in MSME loans and construction finance, where borrower cash flows can be volatile? Construction finance, we are seeing that there are two, three important things that have happened. One, that after RERA coming in, there is a designated construction account. There is a receivable account of the customer where all the money comes in. We see it works as a very, very strong monitoring tool as well as a security structure. Having seen the good demand in the construction finance side, we don't see any such challenges. Even out of the two AP accounts, every year one or two accounts which slip into NPA for one or other reason, our team has shown the capability to find another developer, take over that account in the SARFAESI, and recover the entire amount. We are quite confident that even the risk-adjusted return with the low OpEx and the secured nature backed by the strong cash flow of the sale of those apartments, we don't see any problem there. We are quite confident. This business we are doing since the last almost 12 years, we have built a very niche, very good monitoring tools, and we don't see any surprises coming in that segment at all. Okay. Okay, sir. One last question. I mean, post this fundraiser of INR 2,000 crore, how soon can we expect return ratios to normalize? This year, we are confident to deliver ROE in the range of about 13.5% - 14%. ROA will not be less than 3.5%. Next year onwards, our strong fee income coupled with our cost-to-income ratio further coming down because now leverage of operating skill will shrink. Our ROA will improve to about 4%, and ROE should be in the range of about 16% - 17%. Okay. ROE 13 -1 4% this year and 15- 16% in FY2027? FY27, ROA will be about 4%. ROE will be in the range of about 16 to 17%. 16 to 17%. Okay. Okay, sir. Thank you. All the best. Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Somil Jain from Lucky. Please go ahead. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity, sir. Congratulations on a good set of numbers. On the 30% AUM growth guidance, can you talk a little bit about what the mix will look like between the segments? Do you expect the momentum in gold to continue and the softness in MSME to continue? We see that gold will continue to grow, even as we are adding more branches in that segment because we see the strong traction and demand. Now our distribution team is all in place. Gold should be in the range of about 37% - 40%. MSME will remain in the range of about 20%- 22%. Housing will remain in about 20% - 22%. Construction finance will remain in the range of about 17% - 18%. Okay. Gold, you mentioned 37- 40%? Yes. Okay. Secondly, on the branch addition guidance for this year, I think you mentioned 200 branches, right? Yes, 200 - 250 branches we'll add this year. Okay. Will this be any mix on gold or non-gold? I think gold will be in the range of about 100 branches, and the rest will be between housing and MSME. Okay. Okay. Finally, on the 16-17% ROE sort of expectation for next year, what is the credit cost that you've built in? Credit cost on a long term, we are built in about 70 basis. 70 basis. If you look at the last few years, credit cost, except barring the COVID year, the credit cost has remained more or less in this range. Right. The quarter one OpEx you mentioned will stabilize for the year because you're going to add more branches, correct? I think operating cost, keeping in mind our branch expansion, will be in the range of about 50% cost-to-income ratio. Okay, thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Next question is from the line of Lalit Kumar, an investor. Please go ahead. Hello? Hello? Yes, Lalit sir, please go ahead. Sorry. Yes, sir. Are you audible? Please go ahead. Your voice is not audible. Hello? Hello? Are you audible? Yes, sir. Now you're audible. I'm saying that my system has already answered. Okay, sir. Yes, sir. According to Lalit, sir, his question has already been answered. We'll move to the next question. The next question is from the line of Gaurav Purohit from Systematix. Please go ahead. It's a follow-up question. Please go ahead, Gaurav, sir. Hi, sir. Thank you for allowing this follow-up. I just have one question on the Microlab box. I understand it is a very new business, but in case there is a default in the future, what is the legal recourse we have given that the ticket size is around INR 10 lakh and not eligible for SARFAESI? The eligible recourse, ideally, the major effort is by negotiation. We make borrower agree to come forward and sell his property or find another ecosystem to give him the money so that we need not sell the property at much discounted rates. Another option is Section 138 to build the pressure and initiate the arbitration proceedings. Within that, these tools are effective. The combination of bilateral negotiation or using these Section 138 filings to build the pressure, else we move to the arbitration to win the order and then sell the property and rely on money. What would be the typical timeline for this in your best assessment? If we do bilateral negotiation, you can yield the result on a case-to-case basis within less than a year. Cases which are not solved by bilateral negotiation, if you go for arbitration, then it takes a period of effective realization of money, anything between two to two and a half years. Got it. Very clear. Last question I have on the competition intensity. Gold loan as a sector is seeing phenomenal growth. Everyone is focusing on either growth or affordable housing. What is the kind of intensity you are seeing here given that you know we have a steep target of doing 30%? I just wanted to get your take on that. I think overall the segment, which are collateralized, but if you talk about competition, it is very intense competitive. Your right to win has to be how you use your technology automation and ability to turn around the sanction faster and do a better customer service in terms of how you handle them, how seamless your journey are, how less the paperwork you seek without compromising on the asset quality. I think amid the intensity, it is the turnaround time. It is the approach you take it, simplified approach to carry out the whole process, makes a difference. The lending doesn't have a quality other than the service. Fair enough, sir. Thank you so much for patiently answering all my questions. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments. Over to you, sir. Yeah. I think I would like to say that our Q1 has set a solid tone for FY2026. The addition of INR 2,000 crore capital raised gives us the financial strength to accelerate the growth across lending and new verticals. That is by a secured book, healthy asset quality, and solid technology infrastructure. We remain on track to grow 30% annually and deliver sustainable ROE of between 16% - 18% ROA in a medium term to 4% and even growing up to 4.5%. There will be constant endeavor to bring our cost of funds down, and you will see by the end of the year, there's a significant reduction in the cost of funds. We will be quite conscious of bringing our operating costs in control by using technology and various other interventions of artificial intelligence. As we got asset quality, there are enhanced efforts on the collection side and monetizing the NPAs disposing of those repurchased assets to bring the overall Net NPA in the check. On an overall basis, we are on a quite good growth trajectory, and we are all thankful for the support shareholders and other stakeholders are offering to us. Thank you. Thank you. On behalf of Go India Advisors, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.