Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Prince Tiwari, Head of Investor Relations at AU Small Finance Bank. Thank you, and over to you. Thank you, Yashashri, and a very good evening to everyone, and welcome to AU Small Finance Bank earnings call for the first quarter of fiscal 2025. We thank you all for joining the call on today evening. The format for today's call will be very similar to last few quarters, where we will have opening remarks from the senior management for the first 20-25 minutes, and that will follow with a question and answer session of about 35-40 minutes. To start the call, we will have our MD and CEO, Mr. Sanjay Agarwal, share his thoughts and strategy on the overall performance of the bank and the outlook for the remainder of the year. He will be followed by our Head of Liability, Mr. Shoorveer Singh Shekhawat, who will share his thoughts on the liability strategy of the bank, given that it is such a topical conversation. Besides them, we also have senior members of the management team on the call today to answer any questions that any one of you may have. For the benefit of everyone, and so that we can take everyone's questions, we would humbly request everyone to keep the number of questions per participant restricted to two, and join back in the queue in case of any further questions. In case your questions are related to data keeping, you can always reach out to the IR team anytime, post the call, to have the data clarified. With that, I now request our MD and CEO, Mr. Sanjay Agarwal, to kindly share his thoughts on the quarter gone by and the announcements that we have made and the outlook for the bank. Yeah. Thank you, Prince. Good evening to all. Appreciate your patience, you know. So, very happy to announce you that today the board has decided to file an application for the universal bank. And the board has also has constituted the committee under our chairman, Mr. H.R. Khan Saab, and of course, with the M.S. Sriram Saab and Pushpinder Ji, along with me to review the application and file as soon as possible. I think this is a very important milestone for us, because universal doesn't come easy, right? But we have done a lot of good job in last seven years, you know, done a lot of hard work on the street to come to this stage. So I really want to congratulate the entire supporter of us, you know, in last seven year of journey, be it government, be it regulator, be it our customers, employees, investors, for their wholehearted support, you know, in our high and lows both. So very, very excited to see that how quickly we can file the application and move forward in our journey, you know. Moving on to the present, overall macro aspect is this, that we got the general election, and that made us very proud as Indian. You know, it was done seamlessly. The volume which we handled in May and June, in that heat, is highly, highly appreciable, because it's not easy to handle 1.4 billion people. I think our whole faith in our constitution has gone up. As we continue to, the government has given us a lot of hope. I think the budget was in line. To be very honest, I believe that budget is very suited to the organization like us, who actually deal into the unserved and unreached markets. I think the effort around MSME credit and of course, the overall approach to give affordable housing, focus on other housing, MSME, the industrialization, skill training, will only help, not only country, but your bank too, you know? I mean, I don't want to touch much narrative around economy. You know, it looks very promising. You know, India is shining, India is growing, India is confident, and I believe your bank is, is building themselves, you know, to really arrest or, you know, take all the advantage in times to come. So very happy in overall sense, you know, the how the quarter has gone. And overall business side, you know, we already narrated our strategy in March and of course, the last quarter in April, that, you know, we'll be focusing more on in terms of low-cost deposits. And in our deposit strategy for last quarter, we reflected in a way that the deposit the cost of money has gone by seven dips, you know, and we haven't grown our deposit book because we preferred cost over the volume. And I think overall narrative on deposit the strategy and everything, I think Shoorveer will tell you more after my call, you know? But overall, if I see, you know, the deposit numbers, the overall retailization, the CASA, the cost of money, you know, in terms of building the entire deposit franchise, you know, we are very happy that we are on some path. And the path may be difficult as of now, but we will, we want to walk on this path, you know, for some time so that the actualization of deposit franchise, we should get it in times to come. But overall, I would say deposit is not easy, but it is also not difficult. And the quantum we want to raise this year, you know, I believe that the team will deliver this. And we believe that we'll also save some costs around it, you know. Shoorveer will let you know more about it, right? But other than deposit, if I see assets, I think our asset strategy has really executed well. We narrated that, you know, our focus would be on high-yield assets, and this year, the target is around INR 60,000+ kind of disbursement, out of which 20% disbursement has been done in this quarter, and the yield on this disbursement is around 15.8%, you know, and which is considerably around 250 basis point up from the last quarter, you know, which was a standalone quarter. But I think this jump is enough to arrest any kind of pressure on yield, you know, so I think that is there. And in terms of momentum, be it, retail, be it, SBL, microfinance, you know, commercial banking, affordable housing, all has very promising numbers, you know, and I think first quarter actually has surprised us in terms of disbursement, because generally it happens around 16%-17%, but this time it has, has up around 19%-20% of the overall target. So of course, the asset quality, also, in my opinion, remains very strong, you know. As we narrated, in our, guided in our March, call that, you know, overall, we believe that the kind of market we deal in, the kind of yield we deal in, in the assets, you know, normalized credit cost will be in the range of, 1.10-1.15. This quarter it remains around 1.2, 1.25, and it's a first quarter, it will remain like this, you know, but overall, on a yearly basis, I believe it will be under the guided range, you know? So I think perfect on the asset side. Other than that, you know, be it our technology, be it our people, strategy, all remain very strong. Merger is also going on well, you know, be it people, product, technology, all are getting integrated as per plan. So I would say the first quarter has given us a lot of hope that we are on right track, you know, and now by getting the permission to file an application, you know, it will give us the next hope, you know? I believe that, overall, you know, the performance, other than, you know, maybe here and there, one or two things, you know, we remain very solid. I hope that, you know, the Indian economy, the Indian environment and this platform, you know, will empower us more and more in times to come. So happy to be, happy to be in space, you know, to be very honest. I think the team has done a lot of good things in the last maybe now four, five months. We'll come back, you know, and so my focus area would be more around branch banking, you know, where the heavy lifting is done for the deposit franchise or deposit build-up, you know. I really want to focus on our credit card business, because it has its own challenges last year, but we are in decent shape, so that is one thing which I want to really focus on. And of course, the microfinance business, because there is a little bit, you know, initial, I would say feedback that, that, that market is heated up, you know, and we have to take some corrective actions. But as I narrated earlier, that our microfinance business won't be more than 10% of our overall book. We will create an extra provision of around 3%, which we have done in last, in this quarter balance sheet. So, so in that sense, you know, very well done. So very happy and, you know, thank you so much, and happy to answer your any questions, you know, and want Shoorveer to take from here and have some detail around, branch banking or the deposit franchise. Thank you so much. Should we begin with question and answer session, sir? You should speak. Sir, you'll have to mute the connection, the video connection. Hello? Yeah, Ashlesh, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Yes. Shoorveer from Bombay office would like to share his thoughts. Sure. Please go ahead. Yashashri, can you hear me now? Yes, we can. Please go ahead. Thank you, sir. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Shoorveer Singh Shekhawat. In the last quarter, I was entrusted with the responsibility of heading the liabilities business for the bank. I am thankful to the management and the bank for their trust. I joined AU as part of the bank project team in 2016, and since then I have handled various role, various roles, from adding liabilities products to building video banking and taking care of marketing and communications. Over the past 12 months, I was heading Swadesh Banking, Government Business, Wholesale Liabilities, and Cooperative Bank Business for AU. I take this opportunity to share insights and our views on deposits, one of the most discussed business segment in recent times. Reflecting on the last quarter, as shared by sir, we maintained our liabilities book near to March 2024 levels. Our overall deposit book stands at INR 97,290 crore as of June 30th. Our CASA deposits grew to INR 32,034 crore, a 1.8 increase over pro forma merged CASA on 31st March 2024. Keeping deposit growth muted was a calibrated move to use excess liquidity from the year-end deposits to optimize our cost of funds, visible in the improvement in our CASA ratio and reduction of cost of funds from 7.10% to 7.03%. As part of this strategic decision, we did not renew approximately 1,000 crore of expensive deposits during the quarter, mostly from Fincare Small Finance Bank. We also optimized our savings account rates, reducing them in lower buckets to better align with the overall cost strategy. Almost 1% reduction in 1 lakh to 5 lakh buckets, and a 0.5% reduction in 1, less than 1 lakh bucket. We are closely monitoring the market liquidity and adjusting our approach accordingly to balance growth at optimal cost. In quarter one, FY 2025, the market liquidity situation remained tighter, with significant rate competition in the market. We competed with mid-sized universal banks, with our term deposits and savings account rates almost at par with them. Term deposits remain a real benchmark of rate competition. On retail term deposits, today, large banks are priced around 7.2%-7.4%. Mid-sized private banks are closer to around 8%, similar to our rates, and smaller banks are priced around 25-50 basis points higher. Even in short-term tenors and bulk term deposits, large banks are aggressive, making rate competition intense. There have been a lot of discussion around the financialization of savings in India, with shift towards financial assets like equities and mutual funds. This trend towards equities and mutual funds and SIPs is at early stages and is expected to grow. However, in our experience, the current account, market size and opportunity, which is one of the most important segments of deposit growth in terms of cost, will continue to grow with sustained GDP growth and business activity led by, led by micro SMEs and SMEs, and specifically, the government focus in the recent budget seems to be more focused around this segment. The granular savings account is the core foundation of digital payment ecosystem for day-to-day use by individuals. Its market size and opportunity shall continue to grow with growth in income-generating population and penetration of digital payments. The entire concern or the discussion has been around the impacted segment, which is the investable surplus, whether in terms of term deposits or the high-yield savings, though, given the geographic and economic divergence in our country, in my personal view, the impact shall be, become significant only in next five to seven, 10 years. However, we are working on a comprehensive strategy for the capital market segment to capitalize on this changing trend and opportunity. Having said that, at AU, we have substantial room to grow our deposits within existing markets as our penetration remains small at approximately 0.5% of the overall deposit market in India. We have around 717 liability branches with 2,414 touchpoints. Given our wide, yet limited distribution vis-a-vis competitors, there is a significant potential for growth and increase in our distribution. To tap into this opportunity, we already have well-seasoned, dedicated teams for raising deposits, like branch banking, government banking team, cooperative bank team, wholesale deposit team, TASC team, NR team, and corporate salary team. We have recently restructured the corporate salary team to target deposits from stable, salaried customer segment. Overall, we remain confident to grow our deposits by 25% this year, but we will continue to revisit our deposit strategy quarterly based on market liquidity conditions and the rate of interest dynamics. In our endeavor to build a granular retail deposit franchise, we continue to work on our key execution pillars from a strategy perspective. A, A, comprehensive and superior product suite with improved service quality. This is what for AU has always been known for. Easy banking, top-notch digital solutions like AU 0101 and video banking, segmented acquisition focus on affluent and mass affluent customers via focus on Ivy, Royale and Platinum products. One of the special focus, which we guided earlier in our investor day also, was to improve current account as a percentage of overall deposits. This, as from a strategy side, we are focusing by four important levers. First, segmented propositions on retailers, traders, you know, gyms, salons, and various segments which operate in the industry. Leveraging the AD-I products to penetrate an EXIM opportunity. One of the important levers in this strategy of increasing current account penetration is the leverage of our business banking customers, as well as the business banking or the commercial banking team on ground. Our all business banking customers are driven for primary banking across current accounts, savings accounts, CMS and trade products. We currently have around 65% penetration of current accounts in our commercial banking segment. This is where a larger focus has been built into the execution side. Most important of the strategy items to leverage the entire cost benefit is by improving the cross-sell and product penetration using wealth, credit card, QR, and various customer, consumer asset products the bank has built over the period of last 7 years. As part of the Fincare integration, 136 community branches have been fully integrated into the AU's liability franchise. These branches now offer the complete suite of AU's liability products, services, and solutions. All new customers being acquired in these branches are on AU's products and services, and existing customers will be migrated by end of this year. We aim to achieve approximately INR 2,000 crore in acquisitions from these branches, which are aligning with AU's productivity and should reach similar run rates by quarter three. During this quarter, we have opened 11 new branches and launched 8 new products around EXIM and trade related with AD-I opportunity, revamped our senior citizens savings account scheme. During last quarter, we also established new partnerships with Bajaj Life Insurance and Star Health Insurance, broadening our range of insurance products and partner availability for our customers. We continue to enhance our digital wealth platform and have launched feature where a customer can holistically view his entire MF holdings across all platforms at one place. We have also introduced on the wealth side, the GIFT City-based investment solutions for our HNI customers. Our focus on branch profitability will leverage the comprehensive product suite we offer to cross-sell and upsell to liability customers, aiming for branches launched until FY 2020 to break even in FY 2025. In summary, we are well positioned to leverage our competitive advantage of 360-degree complete and superior product suite, segmented multi-sales channel teams, well-established high performance culture to optimize our costs and drive profitability in the coming fiscal year. However, as we move forward, we will adapt to the market forces, which will define the liquidity and cost of funds. We are cautious on how the rate competition pans out during the year, but are confident that given our strength, we should be able to deliver on our deposit targets and numbers. Our core endeavor remain raising low cost, stable retail deposits with high customer engagement. Thank you. Prince, over to you. Thank you, Shoorveer, and thank you, Sanjay Ji. Yashashri, we can now open the call for question and answers. Sure, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Participants who wish to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset while asking a question. This is required to ensure optimum audio quality on the call. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We have our first question from the line of Kunal Shah from Citigroup. Please go ahead. Yeah. Congratulations for a 1.6% ROE in the first merged quarter, as well as the Universal Bank. So first question is on Universal Bank licensing application. Okay, so any timeline which you would want to suggest wherein we'll make that application? Okay, and secondly, maybe any kind of calibration on the balance sheet or regulatory requirement, which we can expect that bank will start building up, okay, through this entire application process? So that maybe from RBI side also it is more comfortable in terms of getting transition to universal license. Yeah. Yeah, hi, Kunal. Thank you so much. So, Kunal, we will, we'll be doing application as soon as possible, so I can't set the timeline today because we got the approval two hours back only. But team is on the job, you know, so we expect, you know, maybe in August only, we should be able to file. And, so that is point number one. In terms of second, I don't think because we are scheduled commercial bank, you know, all regulatory everything remains as per scheduled commercial bank, you know? So we don't have to do anything, honestly, to get the license, you know, in terms of balance sheet built up or building anything extra. So there won't be any extra cost to do this. You know, it will be very normal transitioning, you know, from small to, I don't know, it can't be called AU Universal Bank, it will be AU Bank. So it should be a very simple process. Of course, regulators will take their own time. That also I do not know as of now, but it looks because the transition guidelines are very clear that who can apply and who are eligible, you know. Under that, we have gone and took the board approval, and now Mr. Khan, the Chairman of the Board, himself will supervise the entire process of filing the application. So I think we are in good shape. Sure. Second question on ROAs. So in fact, what we guided for, in terms of the full year, we are almost, there in the first quarter itself. We indicated that maybe margins, we could see some moderation, cost to income would also maybe get towards closer to, like, 63 odd%. And credit costs, instead of 120 basis points, could be like 110-115 basis points. So broadly, fair to assume that this will be the stable level of the ROAs, or are there any levers available to improve from here on through the fiscal? Kunal, I would say again, very early in the year, you know, this is just first quarter. Not much unknowns, you know, not much variables, which we will not be able to control as we move forward. That is my sense, you know, so we really want to stick to our earlier guidance that we should defend our last year ROA, which is 1.6, you know? But I can assure you that I'm not seeing any vulnerability around our asset quality, you know, it is as per prediction, as per our business plan, which we have figured out. very early in the year, you know, that is absolutely going through that, you know. We are able to redeem our high-cost deposits, you know, and that is why our deposit has not grown, but we have been able to manage cost in this quarter, but I don't think that we can be on that path for long. You know, we need to raise money also. The money is coming at cost. So, but at what cost, you know, again, it's variable. So we really want to be very honest here that, you know, we should not have any exuberance because our first quarter result, you know, is a tough time in my opinion, in overall sense about liquidity, deposit competition and all those things. So really we want to be more safe than aggressive there. And other than that, you know, asset strategy is absolutely in place, you know. So be it Retail, SVL, housing, gold, microfinance, you know, being our retail asset, our deposit distribution is well in place. You know, we are around 2,400 distribution points, right? Entire pan-India presence. So I'm hopeful that this, this distribution not, not only will help us for this year, maybe for next 2-3 years, you know, we are. I'm very confident about our asset franchise, both in terms of volume, yield, and asset quality, you know. So that's my sense. So let's go more deep in the year, and then we'll able to comment that how our ROE can be panned out. But as of now, I want to be strict with our earlier guidance, that is 1.6 ROA. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, and all the best. Yeah. Thanks, Kunal. Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Renish from ICICI. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi, sir. Congrats on the good numbers, you know, quarter in the year. So just, sir, two questions, one, again, on the, let's say, the asset growth, which will be linked to the deposit growth, right? So we are expecting 25% growth in FY 2025, wherein first quarter, you know, a sequential decline, which means we have a steep task of growing the deposit base by almost 8% sequentially for the rest of the three quarters. And when we look at the tough cut in the SAR rates, of course, you know, it must have been recalibrated internally. But do you foresee a risk to the asset growth if the deposit growth the way we want it to be, if that doesn't happen? I think good question. Good question. So, so one data, you know, which is clearly in our favor is our CD ratio. So we are around ex refinance of assets, you know, to take the refinance assets out of the calculation, then we are around 84%, you know, so that gives us room, you know, to have that belief that, you know, we will build deposits. So, and, you know, again, I would say that, well, if you ask me what's the real challenge, the real challenge is maybe around costs, not the volume. So I believe that, you know, we will able to build around INR 25,000 crore of deposits, you know, in next nine months, you know, but I think the real challenge can be the cost, right? So that is why, you know, I don't think that it is a serious challenge on our asset growth, you know, because then we have to take a call that, you know, can we handle 10 basis points? Well, that's why I'm telling you that, you know, I don't want to revisit our ROA expectation for this year, you know. Like, if we able to raise a deposit at that rate which we have raised in last quarter, our ROA will go up, right? But that is why I want to take that margin with me, that, you know, even if I go up in my cost in deposits, you know, I can defend my ROA, right? So I don't think the risk is there on the growth, you know. The risk may be on the, on the NIM, but and that is why we are creating our goal that, you know, our ROE should be in the range of 1.6, you know, so but even things can go back from here also. So we will come back and tell you people that, you know, what is our ROE in next quarters, right? But as of now, I don't think any risk around our asset growth because of deposit. Right. And is it safe to assume that, as we stand today, there is no risk to NIM as well? I mean, or you would like to, let's say, reassess or revisit some of those metrics in Q2? Sorry, you want to comment on this? Yeah. So, Renish, you know, before I get on to the NIM question, just one more data point to your earlier question, just for the benefit of everyone. If you go back and see last year as well, in the Q1, we did not grow or we chose not to grow our deposits, right? In FY 2023-2024. Then we went on to grow our deposit by 9% and 9% in Q2 and Q4, and 7% in Q3. So as Sanjay articulated, and last year we raised, between Fincare and us, INR 20,000 crore. This year, the requirement is INR 25,000 crore. With the expanded distribution, we remain confident. The question is all about cost, right? So just to put that number out there. Now, as far as the margins are concerned, again, we saw some expansion this particular quarter, because of the overall enhancement in the yields, you know, ALM yield expansion as well as the merger benefits coming in, but we have also guided, and the cost of fund that we saved, right? But we have also articulated that, or, or what we are just talking about, that as the year progresses, we will need to raise deposits, and to that extent, we will have to let go some of the cost on the incremental fund side. So we'll have to see. I think for now, our guidance remains that our margins, full year margins for this financial year will be in the corridor of last year's, which was about 5.5. So maybe add about 10, 15 basis points on that, but allow us to come back on that. I think anything around about 5.7. I'll be happy with anything within 5.7-5.8. Got it, got it, got it. So I think, that's a fair, reply from Prince. I think, that's it. Secondly, again, you know, when we, sort of look at the NFI book, right, so for us, you know, the, the portion is, small. But if we go by a narrative, let's say, you know, most of the guys are hinting towards some of the trend in some of the states. So at this point in time, whatever, provisioning pool we have on the NFI book, though we have a target to reach to 3%. So where do we stand today in terms of, that 3%? Though we note that we have provided INR 17 crore, but if you could just give us the percentage, the total provision on NPA book currently, and according to you, the 3% is the, is it proper pool, or do you want to increase given the current situation? So, Renish, maybe I'll start and Rajeev Ji will just complement, you know, from a microfinance perspective. But, if you look at our, you know, overall narrative that we had set, that we will given the cyclicity, cyclical nature of the entire business on the microfinance side, we want to do two guardrails—we articulated two very clear guardrails in terms of, securing the overall profitability and balance sheet. One was that keeping this overall size of microfinance business, at about 10% of the overall AUM or the loan portfolio. Today, it is about 8%, right? Right. The second, and the second one was that we will have a credit cost of 3% annualized, beginning first, and we have started that process now, right? We have taken it, we haven't waited for the year, but we have started doing it from the first quarter itself. So of course, I think for the full year, you will see every quarter we're taking some amount of provision, which is over and above whatever will be required, so that the total is 3%. If the requirement is more than 3%, then obviously we'll take more than 3%. But at least, so in this quarter, and maybe Rajeev Ji can talk a bit about the microfinance business itself, what the overall view and credit cost. What's the total provisioning we have on NFI today? 93% to cover the GNPA. But why- Give us a minute. I'll give you the exact amount. Just give me a minute. Okay. Okay. Okay. Good evening, Renish, this is Rajeev Yadav. Hi. So, so you are right that this quarter, what we have seen in the industry is, one, a cyclical trend, which normally happens in, in this quarter. But we have seen, you know, collection efficiencies being a notch lower than earlier. You know, broadly, the reasons have been, you know, stated by quite a few players. You know, the heat wave has caused some impact. There has been obviously the election, disturbance. And also clearly, there is an element of, over-leverage, which has, which has increased for the customers. But I, I'll add to some of the points of the guardrails, which, Prince talked about, the two guardrails that we have sort of incorporated as part of the AU merger. But fundamentally, Fincare microfinance business was built around its own risk guardrails, which were besides the operating ef- the, the quality and all the operating me- you know, work that we do. But the guardrails that we had was that none of our states is greater than 2.5% exposure. Our top three states are about 34%-35% exposure. We operate in about more than 300+ districts, and except for one district, there is no other district which is greater than 2% exposure. And we have one of the lowest exposures per customers in the industry, that's about INR 27,000. Our average ticket sizes have been very conservative always in the past. So with these guardrails, what we have sort of enabled that, if we have a little bit of collection efficiency pressure in some, some areas or some districts or some states, we'll be able to hold our portfolio quality much better. On the credit cost, as such, we had a credit cost of about 2.2-2.3 on gross advances. This is after removing the securitized book. And the remaining, point seven percent was built in, ex- you know, on the, as a, as a special provision. So fundamentally, you know, we had a, a bit of a credit cost increase, but, otherwise, you know, we are, you know, we are working towards stabilizing the collection efficiency like we normally do in other quarters. So is it fair to assume that, let's say, you know, first half, is better than actually May, June, in terms of collection or delinquency, you know, whatever metric, you track internally? On early trends, it is definitely a notch better, but I would say we'll have to wait for some more, you know, time for us to comment on that. Renish, the provision number on the overall gross NPA, excluding the write-off, is about. Sorry, on the microfinance book, is about INR 67 crore. So 17 + 51. 70%. 70%. 70%. Okay. Okay, and this is a total provisioning pool, right? No, excluding the write-off. If I add the write-off- Right. because we do also do technical write-off, but if I add that, then it goes to 91%. 93%, sorry. Got it, got it. Okay, that's it. Thank you. Thank you, and that's okay. Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Nitin Aggarwal from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi. Am I audible? Yes, Nitin, hi. Yeah, hi, good evening, Sanjay ji, and team. Congrats on good results. Good start to the March numbers with this quarter. I I have two questions. One is on the disbursement yield, like, if we see there is a pretty good increase over, over the last couple of quarters. And I recollect that for, for a good time in FY 2023 and early 2024, we were not able to raise the disbursement yields, and our portfolio yields were also, like, flattish that point. So has competitive intensity come down, which is now enabling us to increase the yields? And do you see any implications of this from asset quality perspective, as system in general is witnessing some rise in delinquencies? Yeah, hi, Nitin. Okay, Bhaskar, do you want to address? Please go ahead. Yes, sir. Yeah, yeah. Hi, hi, Nitin, Bhaskar here. So, as you can, Nitin, if you look at it on starting of the quarter four, which is January, February onwards itself, we had started inching upward. And if we and when we kind of made that presentation in the month of March, where the strategy document was in preparation a while earlier, right? So we kind of in all the three line of business, essentially, wheels as well as MBL, as well as SL, the what do you call it? The word out on the street was that, you know, we'll have to inch upwards. And also, if that did so happen with the cost of funds going up for all, you know, kind of we have more NBFCs in our market in all the three product lines. And if all of them also increasing their lending rates also did help the cause. And also the fact that given our entire core rural landscape, with the application that we. The application of the vehicles that we do, with the kind of profile that we kind of handle, we really had this room to nudge it up a little, and then we have kind of kept following up there and did that, that we have undertaken that step. To whether it leads to any kind of high whether we have moved to higher risk appetite class, the answer is no, Nitin. We have been doing the same thing over the years. So it is really working in the same area. We're just nudging up the rates a little up in the applications that we handle. Yeah, thanks. Yeah. Okay. Nitin, my whole assessment is that the market, the intensity has gone down because the rate has gone up, you know. Even, I think the NBFCs are struggling to get the desired money to fund those markets. So I would say the intensity has gone down, and we as a bank also has regrouped ourselves and has taken this as a challenge that, you know, let's go back to our older days and, you know, let's price the risk, you know. Let's look for high-yield assets, and let's not be in the part of the race, you know. So I think that strategy has really worked the last two quarters. And so be it vehicle or MBL, oblique SBL, affordable housing, business banking, agri banking, every team has built their book on a better yield, you know? And I think, as we move forward, you know, I believe that if there is no interest rate cut in this year, you know, there might be a possibility that we might have more room to increase the yield, you know? So, so I think it's both, the intensity is going down, and we as a bank has regrouped and focused on our core, and so that is the one. And, but I don't think that this will eventually will go and you know, hit our asset quality, you know. Largely, if your book is north of 15% on a gross basis, on advances, you know, you should expect that book at this level would give you around 1.10 kind of NPLs, you know, the credit cost. I don't think that at this level, you know, there is a possibility of any asset quality issues. Of course, the last three year or last four years of very good days of not having any credit cost, you know, are not there, you know. There is a normalization of credit cost as we move forward, but no early bad signs or anything, you know. So that's my sense, you know. I hope it clarifies. Yes, yes, Sanjay, it certainly clarifies. One other question is on the slide- You know, so, Nitin, you know, we are not in an unsecured space at all. So we are into a secured lending, you know. Still our 95% books, you know, of course, if you count microfinance, then 85%, right? The book is secured, right? So, so whether it's MBL, wheels or housing or gold, you know, wherever we are lending, you know, on a higher rate, you know, it's backed by securities. Right. Right. Got it. And the other, other question is on the slide 28, in respect to the portfolio yields for two specific segments, credit cards, there is a sharp increase in yield this quarter on a growing base. And gold loans, like, pretty big gap between how AU Bank used to operate and the yield it used to make and versus what it is now. So what will be the, say, the strategy on the gold loan in terms of yields and the growth now? And on credit card, has the revolve rate increased to drive this kind of yield increase? So what has essentially driven this? So I'll tell you about gold first, Nitin, and then Mayank will comment on the gold, you know, sorry, on the credit card. So gold, you know, Rajeev is on the call, you can ask the question to him also. So gold, we have moved on to the Fincare strategy, because Fincare has built it very nicely over the year. We haven't done that good in that sense, you know, we were not focusing on gold. So our entire gold team has been shifted to the Fincare unit under the leadership of Rajeev. And Fincare was building that book around north of 16%, you know, and with lot of focus on technology, you know, the way they were handling it book. So I think the strategy remains same. You know, we really want to build more gold, you know, in the sense because we have now South also in our whole distribution gambit. So I'll let Rajeev speak about our strategy of gold, and then, of course, Mayank can tell you about credit card. Hi, Nitin. Basically, our gold book was, you know, Sanjay explained it quite clearly, was about a 16.2%-16.4% rate. And we had a much larger book in this asset class, and therefore, the strategy is to gradually introduce our fully automated loan onboarding system, and which has all the controls built in, which is required for this asset class. So gradually roll this out to all the branches, which are about 400 branches of AU, where the gold was being done. And by introduction of this technology, the, the new sourcing would gradually migrate to the, the product definitions of what Fincare was doing. So gradually, we should see some improvement on the other side, and hopefully we should be able to do more business, given the addition of the distribution network of 400 branches to our network, which is about 550 on the Fincare side. Got it. Mayank, do you want to- Hi, Nitin. Nitin, on the credit card side, mainly the yields are increased due to increase in our term book. So our term book really grown well in this quarter, and which is now at 19.7% of our ANR, which was earlier at just 17.8% in the last quarter. So that has given us a good amount of yield increase. The revolve rate, as you asked, revolve rates has not increased. They are pretty much stable from last three quarters. Oh, okay. Sure, Mayank. Thanks, Mayank, very much. Thanks so much for all the best. Thanks, Nitin. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Prakhar Agarwal from Elara Capital. Please go ahead. Hi, thanks for the opportunity. Just, quickly to- Mr. Agarwal, can you use your handset? Your voice is not very clear. Is it audible now? Yeah. Hi, Prakhar, so you need to come a bit closer to the mic. Am I clear now? Absolutely. Yeah. Just quickly, two, three questions. So there's been a lot of talks about CD ratios around the industry. In your mind, when you have a discussion with the regulator, do you look at CD ratios adjusting for refinancing as you highlighted, or it's just the outside CD ratio that is getting calculated in your discussion with the regulator? So Prakhar, the regulator has the specified CD ratio definition, but we as a bank always want to be very prudent on that side that refinance assets, assets which are financed by refinance book, you know, which is around NHB, NABARD, MUDRA, you know, should not be there. So, so that, you know, because sometimes regulator only say to you that you need to understand the what is credit, what is CD ratio, which makes you comfortable, right? Because it's not about that they want to handle for everything, you know. It's our duty also as a banker to make bank very sound and sustainable, right? In that sense, I believe that assets which are refinanced because of all those institutions from that money, you know, is in very safe zone, you know. Other than that, assets are built through from the deposit side. So for me, that is the real CD ratio, and that is why I commented that we are at 84%, you know, and largely RBI is also looking around 80%-85% kind of CD ratio. So we are comfortably placed as of now. Got it. Second, you have spoken about funding costs, and there's been decline on a sequential basis. Can you also elaborate about the cost of deposit, how that has behaved over the quarter? Sorry, should we do have the data or you don't? Well, I have. I'll answer that. So, hi. So if you see that, you know, like we mentioned, it was 7.10, from the transition has moved from 7.10 to 7.03. However, if you want to see, understand the savings account and, you know, term deposit differentiation, on a book level, at the merged entity level, our savings account, cost of fund ranges between 5.5, around 5.58, 5.59. This in the quarter of March term was around 5.8, but the reduction is because, like I mentioned, we dropped, our savings account rate in lower buckets and calibrated that for optimization. From a term deposit side, there is around 10 basis increase in the overall at book level from 7.83 on standalone basis, so it is to 7.92. But that is also to do because of the, you know, the incoming Fincare deposit book, overall. I hope I have answered your question. Yeah, got it. Just one last aspect in terms of liquidity. You generally mentioned that you have used excess liquidity. How do you generally look at from a liquidity perspective, from a balance sheet perspective, and analyze what is excess and w hat is in your mind when you look at from a steady state basis of what should be ideally the number that you should keep in mind when you look at from a liquidity angle perspective? So I think LCR, Prakhar, right? Prakhar. Prakhar. Prakhar. So LCR, we are around 115%-120%, right? Our ALM is perfectly in shape, you know, and as you know that, we don't have that large, in the sense that we don't have a large wholesale book, you know. Our CASA plus retail TD, is the new definition, plus the non-callable wholesale deposit is close to 80%-84%, right? So we don't carry that kind of vulnerable money with us, right? And so we are very comfortable the way we are building our treasury and entire metrics there. So Yogesh, you want to comment on this? Yeah, hi, Prakhar. Additionally, as we mentioned, we keep above the LCR. We keep high quality liquid asset also always, which are comfortable at the moment because as we commented in Q4, we got a growth of 9% in our deposit, and that is, that is why we had excess liquidity, which we utilized in this quarter. And now we are comfortable in terms of our LCR, and also we are carrying some non-large money, where we are not giving any carrying cost. Yeah. Just one more minute, and then come back in the queue. Thanks. Thanks, Prakhar. Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Rohan Mandora from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead. Yeah, sir. Thanks. Thanks for the opportunity. I just want to understand if the universal license in the next- I'm sorry. Hello? Mr. Mandora, one moment, please. Sir, we're getting some disturbance. Hello. Is it better? No, not from you. It's from the management line. Mumbai office? Hello? Can you, can you hear us, Yashashri? Is that okay? Yes, yes. Yes, Yes, fine. Mr. Mandora, please go ahead. Sure. So, sir, hypothetically, if you were to get the Universal Banking License in the next six to nine months, just want to understand from the bank's perspective, how would we look at the asset strategy? Would we be looking to add new products here? Would corporate banking be a focus? Because right now, when we are talking about focusing on higher-yielding assets. So, so just trying to understand, as a universal banking, what changes with, with the current nature of the bank? And how will we look to differentiate against frontline banks once we become a universal bank? Okay. So my friend, why, why hypothetically, yeah? We should become, right? Yeah, yeah, you should become in the next six months. Yeah, no, no. So on a lighter note, but I want to keep this because we are still in the process of building the application, and Mr. H.R. H.R. Khan sir will supervise that. So I think the entire strategy will be discussed and then will be put in the application. So I think we should wait for another maybe three to four weeks to really come out clearly on this agenda. But as a practitioner, as a CEO of a bank, you know, I believe that there will be not much change in our banking strategy. The way we have built ourselves in last seven, eight years, you know, it's quite evident that it's a place of opportunity, right? You know, and we have executed well, you know. The only challenge being a SFB is that people generally have less trust on this platform, you know? So we really want to take that away in our whole process of building universal aspect, right? So but, I think the way we have built ourselves over the years in terms of our execution on asset side, we should remain there. You know, we feel comfortable there. We believe that it's our, it's our, I would say, our expertise area, right? And we want to remain there as much as possible. But I think the larger call will be taken by the by the board and of course, that committee which we have constituted, you know. So once we do that, you know, we'll come and tell you people. Sure. Just secondly, just on the slippages and the provision which have happened in the P&L, if you want to share the split, how it slippages across segments and the provisions, NPA and the non-NPA provisions? So, overall, I think, Rohan, overall, we had guided for a credit cost of about, you know, 1.1%, and the total provisioning is about INR 319 crore. So if you and we had a INR 36 crore bad debt recovery. So if you net that off, then our total credit cost is about 281 odd crore, 283 odd crore, which basically translates to about 1.28 kind of annualized credit cost. So that's the broad number. I think, it was a quarter where, generally Q1 quarter, we all know that. If you go back last year, probably something similar you would see. This quarter was further impacted by the elections, as the general commentary you would have heard from everyone by now, that there was a disruption or there was some amount of discontinuity because of the elections, because of the heatwave. So I don't think there is any particular asset class that we want to call out. It remains within the range, right? 2.5% kind of slippages is something that we operate in, given the kind of assets that we have. If you go back last year as well, same quarter, you'd find similar numbers adjusted for the MFI business, right? So, yeah. Sure, sir. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Pritesh Bumb from DAM Capital. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, good evening. So just to extend the, the last question on, in terms of, strategy, once you become a universal bank. So on the, distribution side, now we are present almost pan-India. So once you, become, a universal bank, what will be the strategy in terms of, your distribution? So now, earlier it was more contiguous, it was, more into top 50 deposit centers. Now, how do you look, for the distribution side? Okay. Pritesh. Pritesh, again, I want to be honest here that we should wait for another maybe three to four weeks to have a clear-cut strategy on it. But I strongly believe that we have around 2,400 touch points in around 1,400+ locations, you know. We haven't covered every location for our deposit built up, you know, so our idea would be that, you know, our first a s FFB also, to be very honest, you know, our strategy should be there that, you know, we should go the places where the large money is based, right? You know, and there, when we go there, you know, build our franchise, you know, it's easy to have some market share from those markets, right? So our strategy of building deposit franchise more in urban and more in kind of cities where money lives, you know, will continue, you know. But I believe that universal bank license will give us that kind of awareness or positioning that, you know, this bank can be trusted more. You know, our acceptance will move up, you know, our brand acceptance will move up, you know, and lot many other areas which we are not as of now that, you know, we are not at all in our corporate salary accounts, we are not much in our NR deposits built up, you know. Our AD-I license has just come in, you know, the entire export community will also get switched to us. The government banking, you know, the entire acceptance level will go up, you know. So in my opinion, there will be lot much, will be coming to us, once we get to that level, right? So it's both, you know, distribution as of now and the brand, which we will try to build over the year and which will get pushed because of this license, you know, eventually will help us. And I, I'm saying that, you know, asset I don't think that is a big, big, big mystery for us. You know, you have seen us from last so many years that asset-wise, we are more confident because in that business we are from last 28 years, right? And, and we can handle, the diversity, the granularity, different aspect of products, you know, and still be in the range of, what makes you people comfortable. Sure, got it. Second question was on other OpEx. Basically, this quarter it was almost flattish, if you look at quarter-to-quarter basis. What were the levers for us available for us for that you know OpEx to be where it is? No, it's very cyclical, so don't read much into this. You know, because there is no appraisal, a little bit appraisal cost has come in, you know, a lot of businesses are 90%-20%, right? So I believe, over the year it will be around 61%-62%, you know, that's my sense. 61%-62% is the cost to income, basically? Yes. You are talking about that only, right? Yeah, cost to 62%. Yeah. Yeah. So I was more talking about the other, other OpEx, which is- Other OpEx. grown by about 2.3%. So last quarter, if you see, there might have been a one-off, on the merger expenses side, especially on the Fincare aspect, right? And, our side as well, we had to take some calls. But, more importantly, Pritesh, Q1 as overall is sluggish in terms of expenses as well. If lot of expenses typically come towards the Q4, related to your CSR expenses, related to your marketing expenses. And that's why if you compare Q4 over Q1, then, it, it will be more flattish. If you compare year-on-year, you will see 35% jump. Got it. Correct. Yeah. Last question from my side is on the credit card side. So we've seen some credit cost increase in few quarters back, and now we're seeing a little bit of stress in the unsecured side. Anything to anything you can outline, which we have done in this quarter in terms of any credit costs, NPA, although the gross NPA is in stock, but anything on the provisioning side which would have contributed a lot? Mayank, do you want to answer? Yeah. Yeah. So, Pritesh, we have done, we have, we have, in the last quarter also, we stated that we will calibrate the business, and we have really done calibration in this quarter. We have not issued much cards. It's hardly 75,000 cards we issued in this quarter. So we have calibrated our entire business rule engine for credit appraisals also. And I think, the new version of our credit engine coming up, this is further strengthening our credit appraisals and optimizing the limits also, which we are issuing. And, also we have identified a lot of segments which were going bad in the last year. And, we have seen. We have taken a lot of insights from the industry also, where the segments are showing, especially on the high utilization of unsecured limits and exposures. So we have curtailed those segments. And with this, the overall, I would say, the overall segment score has also increased for us, like, if you, if you see super prime scores of 780+, our major contribution of sourcing is coming through that segment. Like, it has gone above 40 to 44% levels in this quarter. So a lot of good work has been done on the credit underwriting side. We are looking, our all our early indicators are also showing stable or reducing trends. Though, yes, for the first quarter, normally the collection remains slow, so, mainly because of what all is narrated in the call earlier. But other than that, we are not seeing any signs which are giving us more stress to look upon at the moment. Sure. Got it. Thank you so much. All the best. Thank you. Thanks, Nitesh. Thank you. Thank you. Next question is from the line of Nidhesh from Investec. Please go ahead. Thanks for the opportunity. Firstly, on the incremental yields, so 15.8% that you reported this quarter, do you think that is a sustainable number going forward? Or you see that, because of loan mix changes, et cetera, in this quarter, this number is slightly on the higher side? Nidesh, I think we did mention on the presentation as well that the endeavor would be to sustain it, right? Of course, it's the first quarter. Going ahead, we'll have some festive seasons in Q4, so there might be few bits here and there, but I think the entire effort is to ensure that we, we can maintain these, these kind of disbursement levels and yields. Sure. Secondly, on the credit card business, the 75,000 credit cards that we issued, is this the new normal? Or, because I think for, for the full year, we have guided for around, 600,000 credit cards, so. Yeah, no, no, no. I think for the full year, we remain on very similar to last year numbers, you know, around 555 lakh cards. So it will pick up as we go along the year. Sure. Lastly, can you quantify the credit cost in the credit card business in this, for the quarter? The quarter was a bit seasonal, but I think for the full year we have guided for anywhere between 6.5%-7%. That should remain. Okay. Thank you. That's it from my side. Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Sameer Bhise from JM Financial. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Just a question on fees, especially the general banking fees. I understand there is an impact of the merger, but it looks particularly strong for 1Q. Any specific reason there, and how should we look at it going ahead? The other, the fees, right? Prince, you're on the... Sorry, uh- Prince, fees. Yes. So on the fees, overall. Sorry, Sameer, right? Sameer, Prince here. Sorry, I just got distracted a bit. For the overall fees, I think we delivered about 1.7% of average this particular quarter, and if the last full year as well, we were around 1.7% kind of level. So we do hope that we can sustain that number, if not grow, because credit cards, bank issuance, wealth, you know, the entire- Yeah, Sameer. So I think I would say our other fee, you know, is firming up, right? And there is no one-off, you know, so there is no PSLC, there is no treasury profits, you know, it's, it's based on the business volume. So our processing fee or the insurance income, the AD income, you know, I, I would say that this income will only go up because we will get traction in our AD-I business as we move forward. So I think the other income, because we don't have much options, other than this, right? So, like, wealth product is also coming up, but it will take one more year to really give you some numbers there, but very focused on the other income side, and, and team is doing a very good job, in, in that terms. Sure. Thanks. And secondly, in terms of write-offs for the quarter, would it be fair to say that larger proportion was triggered by the microfinance book, or it is well spread? Predominantly microfinance and credit cards. Okay. Okay, fair enough. Yeah, that's all from my side. Thank you and all the best. Thank you. Thank you. Next question is from the line of Ashlesh Sonje from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead. Hi, team. Good evening. A couple of questions from my side. Firstly, on the outlook for cost of funds, you have guided for a 35-40 basis points increase in cost of funds for FY 2025 over FY 2024, which means, your expectation is that it will be around 7.15%-7.20% for the full year, whereas you are currently running at around 7%. What makes you think it will go up by that much over the rest of the year? Well, I think, again, nobody knows, brother, right? How the rates will inch up, you know, I think today only we saw, Axis Bank, you know, the big boy, raising around 10 bps, over 15 bps or 20 bps on their deposit, right? So, you know, we really want to be really honest on this call that we don't want to derail our, asset franchise. You know, we really want to build our asset franchise. So and we don't want to be, I would say, overprotective around our ROA, you know. So we want to be in a range of 1.6 ROA because, in case, you know, the cost goes up, you know, we should not surprise market at all, right? So if it remain positive, the way it remain in quarter one, then there would be an upside in ROA, you know, that's for sure. But I think money is coming at cost, you know, and we don't have that much ammunition with us that we can survive on this cost for two quarters, right? So we need to raise deposits, you know, so we need to price it. So and that's unknown, that's a variable which we can't control as of now. Of course, Shoorveer and team is doing, and of course, that will come. We'll do more, much heavy lifting around the CASA, the retail GD and all those things, but still we really want to remain in one zone. So that's the sense, you know, that we want to really be guiding you that, you know, maybe around 33 basis points, you know, our cost can go up, you know. So that's the overall around it. Okay, understood. So secondly, if I look at your NP ratios in select segments, they seem to have inched up a bit on a sequential basis. Like PL is up 70 basis points. Even in the MBL book, it has inched up by around 60 basis points QoQ. Can you elaborate a bit on this increase? What is driving it? You look at the cyclic or the sequential? Sequential it will go up, because in the first quarter, the first quarter, you know, this time it was general election, it was quite a heat in North India. And generally, quarter four remains very strong in overall retail industry as a structure. So I don't think we should misread much about it, you know? And so I would say that I'm quite confident that we'll remain in the guided range in whole year, right? Just that the increase seems a little on the higher side this quarter. That's all. Not much. Not Not much. Yeah. At least MBL also had a measure of the Fincare book, so both the books have come together. Okay. Perfect. So it would have gone up. Then it could have gone up because Fincare was doing the SBL business around 18%, so you need to price the risk also there. So that's why I'm saying you, the NPA data are relatable, right? It is based on our risk profiling also. Understood. Perfect. Thank you, sir. Yeah. Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Anand Dama from Emkay Global. Please go ahead. Thank you for the opportunity. We can't hear you. Could you use your handset more, please? Hold on. Is it better now? Yes. Please go ahead. Yeah. So first, basically, I think at the beginning of the call, I think you alluded that the margins have actually improved quarter-over-quarter because of the lower cost of funds. Is it possible for, for us to tell us, like, you know, what's the pro forma merge NIM for fourth quarter, and how basically, what is the kind of improvement that we have seen during the current quarter? I'm not sure with the data, sorry. No, I think pro forma merged on the margin will not have. In the P&L side, we haven't really, because there were certain adjustments, so I don't think that'll be right to compare. If you look at our own numbers, we have, we were at 5.15 in the last quarter as we exit. Of course, Fincare was a 10% margin business, and they form about 10% of the book, so they, they, they bring in about 1%, close to about 70-80 basis points. So that's the impact that you are seeing. And for the overall cost of funds, we have already articulated it's a 3 basis points reduction on the AUM side. And, so secondly, you know, it is good to see that basically you've started again building contingent provision. But our specific PCR has been slipping down now to about 65 odd%. Is it possible that we will inch it up, during the year to close to about 70 odd%, while we also continue to build the contingent provisions? And, basically, whether the credit cost guidance that we have given, includes this kind of increase. So, and, you know, again, we have a very stringent provisioning policy. For unsecured book, we provide 100% on 180-day. In fact, for credit card, we provide 100% on 120-day itself, right? Even on the secured side, we start off at 25%, at 90 DPD, and then do 180 DPD, we take 50%. At 270, we do 75%, and at 450, we do 100%. So, and historically, you've seen our non-performing defaults and, you know, recoveries. So honestly, we are quite comfortable, and, with that policy, the end number is a product of that policy. Where exactly is the bucket movement? If it's more early, early buckets, then probably you'll have a lower PCR, excluding technical write-offs. If it's the NPAs are more aged, you'll see more higher provisions. But I think it's more about the provisioning policy, and we are very comfortable with that right now. Any thought in terms like where do we want to take this contingent provision buffer to towards the end of the year? No, so contingency provision, very clearly, we have created for a particular purpose, and that purpose is, as we have articulated earlier as well in the call, as well as on various forums, is for microfinance business. And that's where we are saying that we will take a 3% kind of annual credit cost on the MFI loan portfolio at the AUM level. So any contingency that we see us building over the next few quarters will just be a by-product of that. That where exactly is the MFI portfolio, how much is the credit cost, and the differential will go towards contingency. Okay. But the other, you know, assets as well, like particularly cards, the other businesses that we are into, there also we could see higher delinquencies going forward because of the kind of stress that we are seeing in the system. So do we plan to build some buffer over there as well? Not really, because I believe that AU is around 85% secure, right? So, and unsecured part is, including microfinance, is not more than 15% as of now, and that will remain for this year. So I think, and, you know, in our, secured book, of course, the PCR is around 65% or 70%, you know, what you are narrating, but actual credit card is just point 50% of that, right? Right. I think we are adequately covered. Our overall, in terms of NPA and the provisioning is very well covered. I mean, on credit cards, we provide 100% at 120 day. How conservative can we get? Okay. Sure, sir. Thanks. Thanks a lot. Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Param Subramanian from Nomura. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity, and congratulations on the merger. My first question is on the credit cost, and along with that, the ROA guidance. So what I heard was that, you know, the 1.3% credit cost we've seen in this quarter, you're guiding that it will come down to 1.1% by the end of the year. We really need that to work because you're talking about, you know, the margin also moderating, you know, in order to meet the ROA guidance of 1.6%. So, how confident are we that, you know, this number will roll off? Because considering, you know, the credit costs or the write-offs we are seeing, you pointed out is in segments like credit card, MFI, where we are seeing, you know, the trend line moving upwards, right? So yeah, that's my first question. Yeah. So I'm confident, you know, of course, there are, there may be some unknowns, variables which we do not know as of now, but our track record says, our overall calculation says that, and being in secure asset mode, you know, and we know that quarter one always been not so good in terms of collections, because quarter four always remains so high. There is a tendency of some slippages, you know, which we have also seen in this quarter. But there will be a strong pull, you know, as we move forward in quarter three, quarter four of this year. So, I think we should not surprise negatively, on an overall sense. So if you ask me, I am more than confident that, you know, our credit card should be in the range of 1.10 on a year basis, which will include the contingency provision for MFI. That's one sense. And, so, and of course, the ROA, again, there is a room of, some kind of, upside there, but don't want to take that, exuberance as of now, because again, little variable, little unknown in, in the cost of money as we move forward. So we really want to build our business, you know, in the sense that let's do a north of 60,000 of assets, you know, let's do some kind of 25,000 of deposits. You know, let's build a decent, asset, there, you know. I think that sense is more prevalent, you know, than a small number here and there. Because I know in long run, as I'm commenting, that first 10 years of any bank always remain crucial, right? And that foundation we are laying of building, I would say, very decent assets, you know, in terms of overall, you know, which has the risk pricing in place, right? So, and of course, we have the deposit franchise built up, you know, through retail, you know, through entire metrics, be it CASA, CD ratio, LCR. So I think the... We are learning every day, to be honest, right? So, so I think both numbers are defendable in my sense. Just, one point, Param, for everyone's benefit, just one point and just a clarification point. This 1.1% credit card that we are talking about all through the call, this is on advances- Yes. Not on the balance sheet. It's for it. Balance sheet, it will come down, I mean, accordingly to 0.8 or 0.85. Yeah, yeah. Got that. Got that. Yeah, thanks, Sanjay, sir. So just a couple of other questions on this. Since you said there is, you know, some upside there possibly on the ROA, sir. So if you could quantify, maybe, you know, if you worked out on the PSLC side, what kind of income can we generate, you know, post-merger? And also you took a, you know, board approval for a capital raise. If you could talk a bit about that, is there any plan around this? Because your Tier 1 is, very healthy. Yeah. No, no, no. no. Capital raise, resolution is a very routine- Enabling. - enabling one, so, we don't envisage any kind of capital raise in this FY. Okay, perfect. That's very clear. On the PSLC piece, any working? Because last year that was, I think, also zero. Yeah, Param, PSLC, we see each quarter basis. So whenever we see there is opportunity for assignment or securitization also, we did in first quarter. So we always see what we will do. If we see some cost benefit, we do securitization assignment, IBPC. So, so I think we'll see at that time, if we will have any excess portfolio, we'll see either PSLC or securitization. So, Param, just to give you clarification here, the only demand for premium is from small marginal- Small mar- Farmer, which is around 10% of everybody's PSL requirement, right? You know, and we are also building our books. So the scope of selling SMF book is not there now, you know. The other PSL, other priority sector surplus we have, you know, be it micro, be it general PSL, you know, maybe agree, but demand is not there because now the whole basket has gone up to next level in terms of applicability, right? So I don't think that in the longer run, you know, PSL can have not much revenue as other income, right? That's my sense, you know, but let's see. Uh, but- Let's see. Yeah. Yes. Thank you so much, sir. Very helpful. Thank you. All the best. Thanks. Thanks, Param. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take that as last question for today. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Prince Tiwari for closing comments. Over to you. Thank you, Yashashri, and thank you to all the analysts and investors for participating in the call and asking your questions. Hope we were able to answer them to your satisfaction. In case you'd want to reach out for further clarification questions, you can always reach out to the IR team at ir@aubank.com.