Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Vikash Mundhra. Thank you, and over to you. Thank you, Yashashri. Good evening, everyone, and a warm welcome to all the participants. It's our pleasure to welcome you all to discuss Bandhan Bank's business and financial performance for the quarter and year ending March 2024. We will take this opportunity to update you on the recent developments in the industry, as well as on Bandhan Bank during the quarters. To discuss all this in detail, we have with us our Founder, Managing Director, and CEO, Mr. Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Ratan Kumar Kesh, Executive Director and Chief Business Officer, Mr. Rajinder Kumar Babbar, Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Rajeev Mantri, myself, Vikash Mundhra, Head of Investor Relations, along with other senior management team of the bank. We will be happy to provide you with any clarity required from the current quarter numbers and the way forward. Now, I would like to request our Founder, MD, and CEO, Mr. Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, to brief you all on the bank's performance. Thank you, Vikash. Namaskar. A warm welcome to all of you. The Board of Directors of Bandhan Bank Limited approved the bank's financial results for the quarter and the year ended March 31, 2024, at its meeting held earlier today. I am pleased to state that we have had a satisfactory quarter on the business front. Let me begin by talking a bit on the macroeconomic scenario. Despite the various global uncertainties, India's macro parameters remain strong. RBI expects the real GDP growth of 7% and CPI inflation of 4.5% during financial year 2025. The banking system liquidity is a bit tight in the last three months. One expects the RBI to lower the repo rate in the second half of this financial year. The favorable macro backdrop should continue to help the momentum in the Indian BFSI sector in the coming quarters. Performance for quarter four and the financial year 2024. Our bank has made a robust quarter in terms of balance sheet parameters, with a pickup in growth and advances and deposits in line with our guidance. The advances portfolio in the last two financial years has shown resilience, which is reflected in the improvement in our SMA buckets as well. Additionally, with an even stronger focus on recovery, we should see positive traction in our asset quality. As you are aware, the microfinance business faced severe headwinds during the pandemic, and we faced issues with asset quality. We had, over the last few years, made provision against these assets. We have reviewed our legacy portfolio and, as a prudent measures, have done a technical write-off during the quarter, which resulted in lower profits for the quarter. Our CFO, Rajeev, will explain this in detail with the numbers. Profitability has been stable for the first three quarters of financial year 2024. In the current quarter also, our top line has met with expectation. However, due to an increase in provisioning on account of technical write-off and slightly higher operational expenses, there is a dip in the profit for the fourth quarter. The bank is on the path to becoming a strong universal bank, and I am happy to say that the bank has a committed team with shared values, which will strive to meet the expectation of all stakeholders. With respect to CGFMU, the audit is in progress and should be completed very shortly. Based on my interaction, I am confident and hopeful that we should get a positive result. Going forward, we expect the growth momentum across major business verticals to continue for the next financial year and build a strong retail franchise. Bandhan Bank has a strong network base of around 6,300 banking outlets and more than 33,500,000 customer base across the 35 states and union territory, out of 36. Our focus will continue on rural and semi-urban areas in the underserved regions. Growth momentum in microcredit will continue, along with the focus on growing the housing and the commercial banking portfolio. We have the confidence on the team of microcredit, who are very seasoned, to run properly and very good way to maintain the growth and the quality of the portfolio. After the successful completion of migration into new CBS, we have initiated several steps to boost cross-sell and branch- led sales to grow the retail asset and liabilities portfolio, and also increase productivity per employee, supported by our digital and analytical initiatives. The bank is in the hands of seasoned and talented leaders who will take the strong risk culture ahead. Overall, we are well on our way to achieving long-term strategic goals of portfolio and geographical diversification. New senior leadership talent. As mentioned in our earlier calls, we were in the process of strengthening the senior management in line with our growth plan and our journey to becoming a universal bank. During the last three months, we have had several members of senior management joining the bank. Our new Executive Director, Rajinder Kumar Babbar, who is also our Chief Business Officer, joined us in February 2024. Ratan Kumar Kesh, who is our Chief Operating Officer and Executive Director, has been with us for over a year. Rajeev Mantri, our Chief Financial Officer, also joined us during the quarter. We also have appointed head for our wholesale banking and also housing and retail business banking. With this, the new appointments, we now have the full management team on board, and these colleagues, they bring in a wealth of experience and domain knowledge. I have the confidence they will lead the bank in the next phase of the growth, which is Bandhan 2.0. As you are aware, on April 5, 2024, I announced my decision to retire as MD and CEO of the bank on completion of my current tenure on July 9, 2024. The board, in accordance with the business continuity plan and succession plan of the bank, has appointed a search firm to assist in identifying potential candidates to take on the role, after which we will approach RBI for its approval. We'll keep you updated on the developments in due course. However, I can assure you that with the current management team, the bank is in very safe hands. Also, as disclosed earlier, I'll take a strategic role at the holding company. I will be available for any guidance or advice if the bank needs. As this will be my last earning call as MD and CEO of Bandhan Bank, I would like to personally thank the investors' community for the support and guidance provided to us over the last decade. I thank my depositors, who have trusted me and my organization, and have deposited their money with the bank. All the best to the team running the bank in Bandhan 2.0. I now request Rajeev Mantri, our CFO, to take you through the financials for quarter four and financial year 2024. Thank you to all of you. Thank you, Mr. Ghosh. I'd like to welcome all the participants to the earnings call. This is Rajeev Mantri. I'm the CFO for Bandhan Bank. Let me begin with the balance sheet as at March 31, 2024. We'll start with the details on advances. As at the end of the financial year, the gross advances stood at INR 124,724 crore, which grew at about 14% year-on-year and 8% quarter-on-quarter. However, this number has been after the impact of a technical write-off that was done during the quarter, which we'll talk about in more details. If we adjust for that, the growth in advances would have been higher at about 18% year-on-year and 11% quarter-on-quarter respectively. In the base of financial year 2023 numbers, there was a short-term loan of about INR 2,150 crore against fixed deposits, which was for a short period of time. If we adjust for the same, the growth in advances for this year would be close to 20% in financial year 2024. Talking about the businesses, within that, the EEB vertical added about 900,000 new borrowers during this quarter, 2024, financial year 2024 Q4, as the EEB portfolio increased 10% year-on-year and 8% quarter-on-quarter. Commercial Banking grew 34% compared to the last year, Housing at about 11% higher than the last year, and retail book was flat year-on-year. However, if we adjust for the underlying growth rate, if you look at the underlying growth rate, adjusting for the short-term loan that happened last year, even retail banking has seen a healthy growth, driven by various products within the retail assets portfolio. And that, if we adjust for it, is roughly around 65% growth rate in the retail loans. EEB, also known as Emerging Entrepreneurs Business, it comprises about 50% of the advances. Housing is 24%, commercial banking at 22%, and retail at 4% respectively, as at 31st March 2024. In terms of the geographical split, the top five states for our advances, which are West Bengal, Maharashtra, Bihar, Gujarat and MP, they contribute about 60% of the gross advances, and within this, West Bengal contributes to about 24% of the advances. Now, let me move over to liabilities. We have seen good growth in the liabilities for the bank through the year. As at 31 March 2024, the total deposits stood at INR 135,202 crore, as against INR 108,069 crore in the previous financial year, which represents a growth of 25%, and deposits grew on a quarter-on-quarter basis, 15%. Within this, if we focus on the retail deposits, which are the more granular deposits, the total retail deposits, which is the retail term deposit plus CASA, grew by 22%, of which the retail term deposits growth was 26% year-on-year. CASA plus retail term deposit constitute 69% of the total deposits. The CASA deposits within this, at the end of the year, stood at INR 51,150 crore and constituted 37.1% of the total deposits. This increased by about 1% compared to the previous quarter, which, which was at 36.1%. The healthy growth in customer deposits reflects a continued trust in the bank, and I must say that this has come in the context of a tight liquidity situation that was seen during the financial year. Despite that, the bank has been able to grow the deposit book in a very healthy manner. The bank has added, in this quarter, about 10 lakh customers, and if we look at the geographical distribution of our deposits book, the top five states, which is West Bengal, Maharashtra, UP, Odisha and New Delhi, contribute 64% of the total deposits. West Bengal, which has the largest share, contributed 40% of deposits, but in line with our focus on geographic diversification, this mix has come down. It used to be 43% a year back, down to 40% now. EEB deposits contributed about 4% of total deposits, so that continues to be a small portion of the total deposits portfolio. After covering the balance sheet, let me move on to collections and the asset quality. The bank's overall collection efficiency, excluding the NPA portfolio, was very stable at 99% for the quarter ended March 2024. On the asset quality, the bank has seen a very good improvement in the quarter. There have been green shoots in several parameters, which I'll talk about. Let me first start with the improvement, which is seen in the various DPD buckets, especially in the EEB portfolio. In the EEB business, the SMA zero book, which represents one day to thirty days days past due, in the previous quarter, was around INR 805 crore, representing 1.4% of the two, of the book, which is now in this quarter at INR 380 crore, representing 0.6%. So that's a substantial improvement that we've seen in SMA zero. Similarly, the EEB SMA one book in the December 2023 quarter was INR 570 crore, representing 1%, which has now reduced in this quarter to INR 400 crore, which is 0.6%. EEB SMA 2 book in the last quarter was INR 533 crore, which was 0.9% and is now reduced to INR 480 crore, which is 0.8%. Overall, if we add up across these three buckets, the reduction has been quite substantial, going down from around INR 1,900 crore to roughly around INR 1,200 crore. Let me move on to slippages. The gross slippages during quarter four was INR 1,017 crore, which was substantially down from the INR 1,394 crore that we saw in the Q3 2024. Slippages in the EEB book also significantly came down to INR 632 crore, as compared to INR 993 crore in the previous quarter. So we are seeing good improvement coming through on the count of slippages at the total portfolio level, as well as in EEB. We do expect the run rate of fresh slippages to stabilize in the coming quarters as we have been looking at strengthening the quality of the portfolio origination and also as we improve the collection and recovery efforts. As you're aware, the bank faced asset quality issues on its EEB book during the COVID pandemic. What the bank has done is, in accordance with the regulatory norms, over the last few quarters, the bank has recognized these accounts as non-performing assets and has made necessary provisions against them. During the quarter four, we have reviewed in the bank the loans which existed within this particular portfolio, which were impacted by the COVID pandemic. These are primarily relating to the financial years 2021 and before and looked at what levels of collection rates have happened on those. Based on the analysis, in accordance with the bank's policy, we have taken a prudent stance and a conservative stance to do a technical write-off for a portion of this portfolio. So during quarter four, the bank has done a technical write-off amounting to INR 3,852 crore, which is largely in the micro banking portfolio, which is the EEB portfolio, and which meets this criteria pertaining to the pre-COVID period, and which has had a long vintage, and meets the bank's policies in this particular regard. And as a prudent measure, a write-off has been... A technical write-off has been taken. Also, in order to be consistent with its conservative provisioning policy, the bank overall has made provisions of INR 1,774 crore in this quarter. The credit cost, therefore, for this quarter was 5.8%, but if we adjust for the impact of the technical write-off, which has been done, the underlying credit costs for the quarter were 2.3%. With the actions that have been done and the result of that, we have seen that the gross NPA ratio improved at 3.8% as at the end of the quarter, as compared to 7% in Q3 FY 2024. The net NPA levels also reduced substantially at 1.1% as at the end of the quarter, compared to 2.2% as at the end of December 2023. The provision coverage ratio, also known as PCR, as at 31st March 2024, stood at 71.8%, so at a healthy level of coverage that we have got for our NPA portfolio. For the full year, the credit costs were at 3.4%, which showed an improvement compared to the last year. Let me now move on to the profitability, and I'll walk you through the key numbers there. Starting with the top line, our net interest income in quarter four was INR 2,866 crores, compared to last year, the same quarter, was INR 2,472 crores, which is registering a year-on-year growth of 16%. The net interest margin improved to 7.6% in Q4 2024, compared to 7.2% in Q3 FY 2024. This is aided by the good improvement we have seen in reduction in slippage rates, our NPA levels, as well as, the business, focus in terms of improving our margins. Total income in Q4 FY 2024 was at INR 3,550 crore, which represents an increase of 15% year-on-year. The growth in operating expenses was, however, 32% year-on-year. I would like to clarify that these expenses in the quarter included certain one-off expenses amounting to INR 115 crore, and if we adjust for these one-off expenses, which will not repeat in the next quarter, the net growth in the expenses would be 23% year-on-year.... The broad details of these one-off expenses are as follows: firstly, as you would all know, we had done a core banking implementation during the financial year, and there are certain costs which are associated with the capital work in progress, which was in place, which got capitalized and led to an increase in depreciation by about INR 50 crore out of this INR 115 crore. At the same time, during this quarter, there were certain initial teething issues which were being tackled, which have been sufficiently taken care of. But during this period, we had to run certain parallel systems as well as the cost of maintaining the technology, which led to a INR 30 crore increase in cost on that account. At the same time, there were certain accounting-related impact on the fair valuation of stock options under the ESOP scheme, which was resulting in about INR 22 crore of the expenses, apart from some of the other expense increases that we saw. So these are the key one-off expenses that we saw during the quarter. On an underlying basis, the growth was about 23%, as I had mentioned. As a result of the income and the expenses, we saw the operating profit in the quarter registering a growth of 2.4% year-on-year, and the operating profit stood at INR 1,838 crore. As I had mentioned earlier, the provisions for the quarter were higher, largely due to the impact of the technical write-off and some of the additional prudent provisions that the bank has done. The provisions for the quarter stood at INR 1,774 crore, and as a result of the same, the net profit, which is profit after tax for the quarter, was INR 55 crore. On a reported basis, therefore, the return on assets and the return on equity stood at 0.1% and 1%, respectively, for the quarter. However, if we were to gross up the impact of the write-offs, on a normalized basis, our return on assets for the quarter was at 2.2% and the return on equity was at 17%. On the expenses, while we talked about the one-off, on an overall basis, our cost-to-income ratio for the quarter was 48%. If we normalize for these one-offs, the cost-to-income ratio comes to 45%, which is lower than the previous quarter. These were the financials, the key financials for the quarter. Now, let me move on to the financials for the full year, FY 2024. Starting with the top line, our net interest income for the year ended March 31, 2024, stood at INR 10,326 crore, compared to INR 9,260 crore in the previous financial year, representing a growth of 12%. Net interest margin for the year was 7.3%, which was 10 basis points higher compared to the last year's financial year, 2023. Profit after tax for FY 2024 stood at INR 2,229 crore, which was 2% higher compared to last year's profit after tax of INR 2,195 crore. As you know, that this profit has been impacted due to the technical write-off and increased provisions that we have taken during Q4 2024. If we normalize for that, our growth in PAT would be upwards of 30%. Liquidity coverage ratio as of March 31 was 172%, reflecting healthy liquidity position the bank had. And as I mentioned, despite a very tough liquidity situation in the market, the bank has done well in terms of keeping sufficient liquidity buffers. The return on assets for the full year was 1.4%, and the return on equity at 11%, which again, grossed up or adjusted for the write-off, the technical write-off, would have been at higher levels. Capital adequacy ratio stood at 18.5%, with Tier 1 Capital of 17.4%, with balance sheet remaining sufficiently capitalized. The board of directors have recommended a dividend of INR 1.50 per equity share of INR 10 for the year ended March 31, 2024, which is at the same level as the previous year. This would be subject to the requisite approvals that would be sought in due course. That concludes broadly the financial update that I wanted to provide. I will hand over to Rajinder Babbar, who's our Executive Director and Chief Business Officer, for some broad level updates on our business strategy going forward, and then I'll talk about the details of the strategy. Over to you, Rajinder. Thank you. Thank you, Rajeev, and good afternoon, everyone. So this year, our approach will be the risk-calibrated, digital, customer-centric approach. As Bandhan Bank, we have strength, we have a great risk culture in our bank. We have more than 1,700 branches. In the last quarter, we have opened 63 branches, and total we have added to 89 branches. We have more than 3 lakh crore loyal customers. We have a strong processes, and we have a great hold in the share market. So this year, our focus will remain on the risk management framework. We are targeting analytical-based, data-driven sourcing. We will focus, keep on focus on the increasing the wallet share by the digital innovation. The last one year, our 96% of the total digital section in the retail transactions are there. There's a growth in the digital registration, which is up by 26% YoY, and our UPI transaction has increased by 52%. The bank has expanded its government business also. We have a close tie-up with the various public sector undertaking, including the Maharatna, Navratna, Miniratna. The Bandhan Bank was invited by the State Government of Goa to conduct government business there, and in Tamil Nadu, the bank received the mandate from the treasury for the integration of the public financial tracking system. Additionally, we also received authorization for the tax and the non-tax revenue collection in the state of West Bengal. So thank you, and I'm handing over to Rajeev Mantri for a detailed strategic presentation. Let me talk about some of the, some of the key points within the broad strategy beyond what Rajinder has already covered. There are largely 5 points that we have focused in our strategy going forward for the next two-three financial years. Strengthening portfolio quality continues to be an important pillar, where we will be looking at investing in dedicated credit and collections vertical, leveraging data analytics and technology, and utilizing early warning systems, as well as leveraging our customer relationship to have continuous focus on improving the portfolio quality. Driving liability resiliency with a liability-first approach, where we would like to have liability grow faster than the assets and have good focus on liability quality, especially through improvement in our CASA portfolio, and also looking at avenues to reduce liability concentration and creating diversified sources of funding. At the same time, leveraging our branch network and strengthening the same, re-energizing the same to ensure that we can grow our liability portfolio. At the same time, looking at product and segment strategy through targeted customer value propositions and capabilities to be increased, for the liability growth, especially through current accounts and savings account. We will continue to grow our asset book with an improvement in the mix of the portfolio, through greater improvement of the secured mix, secured book, in terms of the asset mix. Digitization, Rajinder has already talked about in terms of the various initiatives that we will be looking at, and those will be the key pillars of the strategy that we have. With that, I would like to hand over to our Executive Director, Ratan Kesh, to talk briefly about the CGFMU matter. Ratan, over to you. Thanks, Rajeev. Good evening, everyone. As you are aware that out of the total claim of under CGFMU, in December 2022, we received INR 917 crore of the tranche one claim, and in Q2 FY 2024, we made a second tranche claim, which is pending with NCGTC, the implementing agency. Subsequent to a notice received from NCGTC and our engagement, a detailed audit was initiated, and the data collection was happening somewhere around November and December. When we spoke to you last quarter, we told you that the audit was in progress, and I want to give little bit of color to this audit process. You see, the entire portfolio, INR 20 lakh, INR 30 lakh borrowers is under audit, and even a 2%-4% data consists a huge number of data to be collected for the completion of the audit process, and, which means a huge amount of work. And therefore, the bank has provided all the details and documents. In fact, as we speak today, as part of the audit process, the bank got an opportunity to explain to the audit firm about the bank's business model for EEB, how it has been consistently evolving, and it continues. We have also been able to explain to them that even in the worst difficulties in COVID pandemic and the restrictions that were crippling the humanity at that stage, we have still been able to follow the consistent model, and we feel very, very confident about the practices and the processes that we have followed. I think we are almost at a stage of closure of the audit process. Management is extremely confident about the positive outcome of this, and as we receive that amount, as and when we get it, we will account it on receipt. With this, I request the operator to start the Q&A. 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 touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. We'll take our first question from the line of Mahrukh Adajania from Nuvama. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi. My first question is on the technical write-off. So basically, there is a note to account which mentions a technical write-off of CGFMU as well. So of the total write-offs, how much was CGFMU, and likewise for the provision, right? You separated the BAU credit cost of 2.3% from the remaining. And so how much of it was at all, if any, apportioned to the CGFMU? And my second question relates again to the audit only, that all the technical write-offs. So, what really drove the overall technical write-offs, as in that it was just a prudent measure, or it was a regulatory nudge? Given a lot of discussions about unsecured loans in the sector as a whole, so which of the two was the overriding objective of doing this write-off? My third question is on slippage. So if you see, if you try to, you know, compare the current quarter slippage with the SMA data of the previous quarter, then the slippage is usually much higher than SMA two, and it's maybe 70%-80% of SMA one plus two. So how do you think of how should we view slippages in the context of the SMA disclosures going ahead? That's my third question. Thank you. First, I would like to start, and then CFO would like to add. The first point on that, the total of our portfolio, which is the write-off, it is not in a specific mention about the CGFMU. If I say that the up to—this is a majorly is coming from microcredit, and microcredit, there is an up to 2022 financial year. That means in the 2019-2020, 2020-2021, and 2021-2022, we have the INR 4,601 crore portfolio, and we have that the INR 4,557 crore is NPA. So we are very old portfolio. Out of that, we have been three thousand five hundred and sixty crores have been written off. So this is the way we are thinking about in that very, because of this very old portfolio, of course, some amount will be the CGFMU. We are not considered as an CGFMU portfolio on that. It is a total portfolio, whatever the oldest we are written off in this quarter. Next slide. Rajeev here. So just to answer the three questions that you have asked for, I think MD sir has already talked about the context. If we look at the total write, technical write-offs that was done during the quarter of INR 3,852 crore, the CGFMU portfolio within that was INR 3,053 crore, and remaining was about INR 800 crore. The way the bank has actually gone about this is to look at, on a prudent basis, on a conservative basis, sure of our provisioning, as well as, ensure our portfolio quality improves, and therefore, this step has been done. The review has been done by taking a consideration of the entire portfolio within the EEB book, which is over a particular vintage, and therefore, we have looked at the book, which was, pertaining to years FY 2021 and thereabout, and looking at what exactly has been, the trend of recovery, and therefore, a review has been done in terms of taking a technical write-off. Now, naturally, when we look at that, a portion of the book will include the CGFMU, which I had mentioned, but we have, taken a technical write-off for other than that as well. So this has been a broad review of the entire EEB portfolio, and, and as part of that, based on this assessment, the amount for the technical write-off has been, proposed and discussed with our board. In terms of the what drove this, as I had mentioned, this is primarily coming from the perspective of looking at what kind of collection has happened on this particular book, and also looking at, you know, strengthening our portfolio quality. So this is purely based on the bank's prerogative on a conservative stance that this has been done, and, and, and that is the basis of driving this particular provision. I think your third question was relating to the slippage numbers. I think our slippage is, as I had mentioned, for quarter four was INR 1,017 crore, which is a significant improvement that we've seen compared to the last quarter of INR 1,390 crore. So we've seen a reduction over there, and within that, the EEB book also, we have seen a reduction, which has come through for these slippages, which in the last quarter, we had seen a slippage of INR 644 crore. Sorry, INR 991 crore, which has come down to INR 625 crore in this quarter. I hope that answers your question. Just to add to what Rajeev said, in the EEB segment- How would you, how- Mahrukh, in the EEB segment, if you see, our entire DPD pool is coming down from. Okay, overall at a slippages level, it has come from INR 1,360 crore, INR 1,320 crore, INR 1,390 crore to INR 1,000 crore, and in the EEB DPD pool, is consistently coming down. As we speak today, the DPD pool has come down from INR 2,800 crore in Q1 to, how much is, Rajeev? INR 1,200 crore now. Yeah, 1,260. INR 1,264 crore. So that's the overall DPD pool movement. Got it. Okay. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Jai Mundhra, from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi, good evening, sir. First, sir, I wanted to check on CGFMU again. The entire CGFMU audit portfolio has already been written off, right? So there is no additional PNL impact, irrespective, negative impact, irrespective of the outcomes of the audit. Is that understanding right? Correct. That's correct. Okay, and secondly, if you can highlight the outstanding provisions on the EEB, GNPA that we have. So, I think the GNPA in EEB book, EEB book is around INR 3,200 crore. What is the, outstanding provisions only for EEB portfolio? Sorry, could you repeat the question? Out of the INR 3,200 crore EEB book, what is the outstanding provision? Just a minute. Just a minute. Jai, we have a PCR of 75% on our EEB portfolio. Sure, understood. Okay, and third question is, sir, now if I look at, you know, you can write off either in one quarter or maybe during the quarter, right? So if I look at your credit cost, and this full year, we had slippages of around, or let's say slippages are going to stabilize at similar levels, assuming, but last year we had slippages of INR 5,500 crore, which is roughly, let's say, 4.5% of the portfolio, and we did a credit cost of around, let's say, 3.5%, right? So even if the slippages were to stabilize here, can the credit cost be settled at a higher level? Not, not from this level, but, versus our previous, understanding of 2% plus minus, you know, 20 basis points. So even if slippages were to stabilize at INR 1,000 crore ± on a quarterly basis, the credit cost, how should one look at the credit cost? Yeah, let me take that, question. So, look, our credit cost for the year was 3.4%, right? And this still included some level of, you know, impact that has come through because of the technical write-off that we have done. What we believe on a stable state, if we continue to see the slippage trends that we are seeing now on the latest portfolio, which is already improved, this will definitely come down, should not go up. I think what we believe is our normalized credit cost should be more around 2.5%-2.6%, and, that is the level that we expect, or it could be even lower than that. I see that as per the practical experience of this, the financial year 2023-2024 comparative to the last few years in the pandemic, I hope that will be like to go to this, the 1.8% credit cost in the financial year 2024-2025. No, no, sorry, sir, I'm little bit confused now. So, you know, BAU is 2.5%, 2.6%, but you're saying that 2025, why would it be lower? 1.8%. Yeah. So, I mean, is there any recovery that we are expecting from CGFMU or any other, you know, side which can give the, you know, 80-90 basis point delta or, how, how to look at these, these two numbers, 1.8% and 2.5%? No, I am, I am like to look on that other side on that. First, we'll be like to two part in this. One part is this CGFMU, another part is my normal portfolio, are behave. So I am talking about the normal portfolio behave showing on that, which I have been predicted 1.8%, without any other consideration. If I consider on that the CGFMU money when it will become, it may be different, extra. So, Jai, just to clarify, Rajeev here, we expect normalized 2.5% for the EEB book, but at the total portfolio level, it will be between 1.8%-2%. Okay. Right, bro. Understood. And, on your fee income, right? So we have a positive fee of INR 250 crore-INR 260 crore from ARC and release of provisions on redemption of an SR of INR 800, sorry, INR 80 crore, INR 80 crore and INR 260 crore. And full year basis around 350 odd crore, for full year FY 2024. How, is there, what, what kind of a sustainability, could be there in this, fee, fee income item? So from that, I think INR 60 crore-INR 80 crore of, you know, per quarter- I'm sorry, sir, you're not clearly audible. There's some disturbance. Can you repeat please? Yeah. What, what I was saying is, you know, around INR 60 crore-INR 80 crore of, you know, income from the ARC recovery, we would expect every quarter. Okay. INR 60 crore-INR 80 crore. This would include the provision release also, right, and put together? Yeah. Understood. And lastly, sir, if you were to sort of, you know, steady state growth after, you know, maybe the MFI issue is over, or at least the slippages are now stabilizing, and your SMA pool is also coming down, how soon, how should one look at the steady state loan growth? Because I think in your opening remarks, you also mentioned that you would like to drive deposit growth higher versus asset growth. So what could be the, let's say, FY 2025 growth expectations on loan growth? You see, you see that the, deposit growth is differently, will be like to look on that, the advance growth. Advance growth is not only depend on deposit growth. Deposit growth is an opportunities for first our bank. 1,700 bank branch we have now. 300 bank branch we opened in the last financial year, which is a very good amount of this. The branch can be drive for the deposit, which can be, of course, a help to the business of the asset, and also it will be helpful to the maintain the CD ratio is a better way on that. This is the one part. If I go to this, the business, whatever the microcredit, it is our core business, and we grow. And the portfolio quality have been given the confidence to the bank. So this portfolio has a good opportunities to grow. Whatever we are grown in that, if you see that the year-on-year basis after the pandemic, it is improving good. And the 2023, 2024 is a very good improvement has come as, as a near, very much near to the pre-pandemic. So that it is in we are expected, and also we are, very confident from that from today and the future, this book also grow as usual on that. Sorry, sir, I actually, maybe I missed. What, what is the number you said on overall bank basis? So I am saying that the, it will be like to gradually, you know, coming to this, the growth. But if you see that the this year it has come to the year-on-year growth is at 10%, including, because of the, we are going to this, the INR 3,600 crore as a come, as a write-off. If it is not write-off, it will be come to this to more than 12%. 15%, sorry, 15%. So that 15% will be like to maintain on that year-on-year basis. I trust. Jai, I think you're talking about the total advances growth? No, the microcredit. Microcredit. Microcredit. No, no, total bank level. Total bank, we will, we will 18% plus. Yeah. For the bank, we are looking at for the next 2-3 years, roughly around 17% to 18% to 20% growth, and we would definitely like to look at deposit growth higher than the advances growth. Right. Last question, sir, if I may ask. If I look at your last three to four quarters, you know, our MFI assets, MFI GNPA as a percentage had peaked at around 10%-11%. It has now come down to 5% after write-off. But at 10%-11% GNPA, did you see any difference between individual and group, or it is more or less, you know, same behavior, or you think one portion? It is same. There is no big difference. Thank you, and all the very best. Thank you. Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Piran Engineer from CLSA. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my question. Firstly, if you can just repeat, what was the write-off of the CGFMU book and the non-CGFMU book? I missed it. Roughly for the CGFMU book was around INR 3,050 crore and about INR 800 crore for the remainder. Okay. Okay, but the claims under CGFMU was only about 1,300, right? So I'm missing something here. So there are certain colors to this. What happens is that the overall portfolio is INR 20,000 crore. Of that, certain customers who will become NPA, remain NPA for six months, are eligible to be claimed. Within that, there are certain scheme limitations which say that you can claim 72.75%. So net claim was INR 917 + INR 1,290 odd. That's how it works. So it's not really exactly the same number. INR 2,200 crore, that's what you had mentioned in the last call also, the total claim. Claimable, claimable amount, but the pool will be higher because you have to claim only 70%. Okay, 70%. Okay. Okay, 70%. Okay. Okay, 70%. Okay. Okay, so now, now the entire pool is written off. And we had 100% provisions on this INR 3,000 crore? Once you write off, you have to provide for 100%. We already had- You have to write off. We have additionally provided 11%. Okay, additionally 11%. Okay, fair enough. And, sir, in the entire book, what are our standard asset provisions outstanding over and above the INR 3,400 crore NPA provision? Give me a second. Yeah. So as at March 31, 2024, if we look at our overall provisions, we are at INR 4,448 crore, of which the NP-related provision is INR 3,437 crore, and the standard asset provision, which basically is across three broad categories, where we have the normal standard asset provision at INR 360 crore. As you know, that we maintain a higher standard asset provision for the EEB book, which is at INR 443 crore. And in addition to that, we have an additional provision of INR 126 crore. So in total, we have- INR 30,000 crore. INR 900 crore plus of standard asset provision that exists. Got it, sir. And, the best case recovery from CGFMU will be this INR 1,200-INR 1,300 crores, correct? That's our second claim, which is pending with the agency. Yeah, because the first INR 900 crore we have received, and it's in our account- Yes. in a way. Yes, yes, yes. That is correct. And the INR 1,300, we will add to our provision buffer, is it? Is that how we are thinking about it? We don't know what we will do at this stage. As soon as the claim comes, we will take a decision in consultation with the board. Got it. Got it. And just lastly, in terms of our, slippages from MFIs, I think INR 625 crore slip, but it's still a relatively high number, like 4% annualized. So any particular states where you're seeing this slippage, and how should we think about, a run rate level there? We'll ask, Vishal, who's our business head for EEB, to talk about the same. Hi, this is Vishal here. So we have got slippages primarily coming in from states of Punjab, and also some of that is being carried forward from Manipur. And apart from that, Maharashtra, Gujarat are two states where in terms of the other states where we are present, our numbers are slightly higher. But otherwise, if you see the trend, it's coming down quarter-over-quarter, and last quarter was pretty nice at INR 600-odd crore. Going forward, I think the trajectory would remain similar. Okay. To add to what Vishal said, A, we have augmented our collection and recovery efficiency. That's improving well. Second, DPD pool has gone down. Third, as Rajinder mentioned, we are using more analytics and database disbursement, which would obviously ensure, wherever we see stress coming, we would ensure calibrate our growth accordingly. Understood. Okay. Okay, that answers my question. Thank you, and wish you all the best. Thank you. Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Nitin Aggarwal from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi. Am I audible? Yes. Yes? Yes, sir. Hi, good evening, everyone. After listening, your last results call with us, we would like to thank you, first of all, for founding this great institution, leading it through some of the very challenging periods, and all the best to you for all the future endeavors, sir. Thank you. Sir, I have three questions. First is on the margin improvement that the bank has reported in the fourth quarter. So how sustainable is this NIM? And was there any one-off interest reversal that really supported this performance? Let me take that. What we have seen definitely for the year is a 10 basis points improvement in the NIM, as you've seen, from 7.2% to 7.3%. For the quarter, we've seen higher NIM improvement of about 38 basis points. If you see, during the quarter, we have also seen a reduction in our slippages, which has come off sharply. So as the slippages continue to perform better, we do see an improvement that will help us on the NIMs. However, as you know, we have also been saying that we will be diversifying our portfolio, and we are working towards improving the secured mix within our advances. And as that portfolio increases, there is going to be some impact of reduction in the NIM, in a contained manner. So I think both of these will play out by itself. So whilst we do see good business focus to happen in terms of maintaining and keeping our NIM intact, there would be a natural impact due to the change in the mix of the portfolio, which should come through. Okay, sure. And the second question is on the audit, wherein you said that the process is going to get completed in the short term. So any specific timeline, if you can share? And, do you think that the outcome of this audit can have a bearing on the earlier claim also that got passed and not just the pending one? So, I think, given the quantum of the audit, the data, documents, and details that they have asked for, we are fully cooperating, and I think we believe, based on the conversation, it is at a fairly advanced stage. Putting a specific date would be inappropriate at this stage. However, we believe that we should be able to get a resolution in the next, which is this particular quarter, which is quarter one. Will it have any bearing? As of now, as I said, that management and all of us are extremely confident, and as we have interacted with the audit agency, we have been able to furnish detailed documents and explain to them the consistency of the process. Therefore, we do not believe at this stage of any impact of the tranche one claim. Okay. Sure, sir. And so lastly, if you can just share some color about the overall how the ticket size is trending in the individual loan segment versus the group loan, and some color around the asset quality differential between the two segments. Now that the asset quality is coming, how do you believe it goes to? From the EEB portfolio group loan, we are at ticket size of INR 50,000, INR 55,000, INR 60,000. On the individual, we have a ticket size of INR 150,000 overall. Some of these group loans, when they graduate after the serving customer cycle, they move on to individual loan. In terms of the quality of portfolio, I think, like I said, they've been improving quarter-on-quarter. On similar terms, between group and individual, the differences are very minuscule. Group would be a little below this in compared to the performance of the individual loan book, but pretty much similar, and even the improvement is also on the similar line. Right. I'm sorry, your voice is muffled, Mr. Aggarwal. I was asking on interest rate also, if you can share some color. How is the interest rate between the two segments? Also, it is pretty much a difference of only 50 basis point lower in the individual loan compared to the group loan. Okay, sir. Okay. Sure. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management is able to answer queries from all participants, please restrict your questions to two at a time. You may join back the queue for follow-up questions. We'll take the next question from the line of Saurabh Kumar from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead. Hi, sir. Just, looking at your, you know, slide 18 of your presentation. So two things. One is you said 2.5% credit cost for your microfinance business. So will that assume like a 3% slippage? And I ask this because if you look at your entire 0+ overdue, 0, 1, 2, and NPA, and adjust the write-off, I mean, your stress pool is largely flat QOQ, which means 0+ movement wouldn't have happened, but your 2.5% would be then assuming that your underlying business will continue to run at a 3% slippage. Is that, or would that understanding be correct? Yeah, I think that would be a broad, broadly correct assumption. We will be targeting to reach those levels of slippages with the collective effort from the business. Okay. And the second is, on OpEx. Could you quantify, I mean, I know there are one-offs this year, which you called out, but how would you think about your OpEx growth or OpEx to assets for next year, assuming your loan book growth at 18% odd? Sure, let me take that. So, look, I think the broad details of the one-off, we have already explained, but if I were to talk about the broad strategy of what the bank is intending to do, as part of the strategy, we will continue to make investments, especially in the important areas which are part of the strategy, such as people, technology, branches, especially re-energizing of the branches, as well as creating the key capabilities that are required, which are part of the business plan. So that investment will continue. At the same time, what we are looking at is areas of operational efficiencies and improvement in productivity, which will be looked at in great detail, to see how exactly those could be driven. But that, as you would agree, would naturally take some bit of time. So we will be looking to continue with similar level of cost income that we have, at least for the next financial year, but gradually over the next two to three years, see an improvement in that through operational efficiencies and productivity. That, I think, is a broad plan that the bank would have. The cost income plan? I can add on that. This is, totally we cannot be like to, though it is an immediate, it is not an operational cost, it is an investment also. If we see that, that there is 300 branches we have been opened in the financial year 2023-2024, last year. And we have given in that nearly 2000 employees. So their productivity will come to this year. So that is the one side we can say that, and also those branches as an infrastructure cost. So this is an investment part we are seeing. And, I think that in the second part on that, which are developed even separately, credit, I say that the recovery vertical. That vertical also huge number of people we have given, and we have been seeing that there is a good improvement which has started to coming on that. Both will be like to see that, that some investment has come and some improvement also has come to this quality of the portfolio and the deposit growth. It will be very good for the financial year 2024, 2025 and onwards from that. So this is the way we are looking in that. Okay. Sir, just one last question. May I request you to join back the queue, please? Fine, I'm back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Mohit Jain from Tara Capital. Please go ahead. Hello. Yeah, good evening, sir. So just wanted to have one clarification regarding CGFMU. You said, sir, we had a claim of almost nearly INR 200 crore, and I think it's and grossing it up to 3,000-odd exposure, which we have written off. I guess the INR 900 crore already has been received by us. So, in that case, why have we again considered for the write-off purpose? No, so it's the pool that we are talking about. INR 900 is the claim amount we have received. Mm-hmm. The pool is still there with us. Okay. That pool is CGFMU pool, along with some of the other pool, is INR 3,800 crore. That's a technical write-off. Now, leave the CGFMU aside. CGFMU claim is, as I said, a borrower has to be an NPA, stay NPA for six months, become eligible. Of the eligible pool, we'll have to see how much is 72.75%. Of that, we have to minus how much we have recovered ourselves. Mm. That's the amount that we can claim. So it's a bit of a computation. So the total claim was INR 917 plus INR 1,200-odd. INR 917 we received, INR 1,200-odd is pending, which is where audit is going on, and as we said, we are hopefully closer to the audit process. The write-off is for the entire pool, so these two will not coincide and really exactly compute in that sense. Yeah, I think that, Mohit, rather rightly mentioned, I think the write-off decision is based on the bank's policy. Mm. Looking at what qualifies as part of it, and not targeted towards the CGFMU portfolio, and therefore, this is on a prudent basis as per the bank's policy that we've taken the decision. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Look, and then my second question is, I'm referring to slide 18. I'm seeing that in respect of loans which have been disbursed, let's say, 12-18 months back, we are seeing a higher rate of NPA, like between 3.5%-4%. Is it the normalized rate that we can expect for the future also, or is it because of, let's say, state-specific issues we had in this portfolio that we had this higher rate? I would say that we will definitely improve from what was there 10 quarters back, quarter one, FY 2023, up to quarter four, FY 2023, 2023. The NPA rates were in the range of 3%, range bound at 3.5%-4%. That, like what Rajeev spoke, it will come down below 2.5% for sure. Okay. So we have seen improvement. If you see the latest, last three, four quarters from quarter one, FY 2024, the numbers have been not even touched 1%. So we are pretty confident of working towards and moving towards 2.5% on the EB front. Okay, sir. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Manish Shukla from Axis Capital. Please go ahead. Yeah, good evening, and thank you for the opportunity. Firstly, on the write-offs done during the quarter, can you please tell us what is the vintage of these loans, both in terms of when they were originated and when they would have turned NPA? Yeah. I think, as per the policy, what we have done is bulk of it is greater than 48 weeks beyond the NPA date, and I think that constitutes bulk of the portfolio, which has been considered for write-off. It originated largely 2019-2020, 2020-2021, which is the COVID period and before. So the coverage on this particular portfolio as of December would have been how much? 75%-80%? Yeah, around 80%. 88%-89%. 89%? 89%. CGFMU was 80%-89%. The rest- The rest pool will be 70%. So I think cumulative will be above 85%. So, I mean, the write-off policy essentially still remains, give or take 40 or 50 weeks. Or is there any change in that policy as well? That's the policy now. Okay. So incrementally, this is what one should expect from a write-off perspective. We haven't changed the policy. We have gone by the policy and then, implemented. Okay, fair. By when would you expect to send the names to RBI for the succession? Name of? The potential CEOs. Has that already been sent? Very good question. So, we'll be waiting on that and see when they will respond. No, my question is: How do you send the names to RBI? That's all I'm asking. No, that- How- That, that will be take the time. Already we have been set up a search committee, and search committee have been also appointed in a what you call that, a headhunter. And we are working on that. And when it will be like to finalize, then we will be like to inform to all of you on that. But the only reason I asked, Mr. Ghosh, is that we are 50 odd days away from 10th of July. So I'm just wondering what happens on 10th of July that. Give us some time on that. In the next month, can be like to give some time, some of- Sure, sir. Okay, thank you. Those are the questions. Thank you. Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Prakhar Agarwal from Elara. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi, sir. Thank you so much for taking my question. Three sets of questions. First, on this write-off that you said, two things in this. One is, what changed particularly in Q4? So you mentioned that you have not changed any write-off policy, and we have been maintaining that. So what changed in just one quarter for us to take such a material write-off? And in addition to that, if I were to just look at your historical write-offs, which has taken from 2020 to 2024, and gross it up as a percentage of lagged gross book, it is more than 20%, which is higher than what industry has reported or peers have reported. So some light on that? Yeah, maybe I can, I can take this. So look, I think the bank has been, you know, reviewing the portfolio and how exactly the collections in this portfolio has been happening over the last few quarters. And this has been a continuous journey of assessment. Given we were at the financial year-end, and we wanted to ensure that we have done a good look at what the portfolio is and what do we need to do to strengthen our portfolio quality, we basically utilized and assessed this portfolio as part of the policy that exists, and then proposed this particular action. I think it's a continuous assessment, but at the same time it is important that we start the new year with a fresh view in terms of what the portfolio is. We've already started to see improvements in the slippages, and I think as you see, this quarter is where we saw the maximum improvement come through in the slippages. So whilst we knew that we had taken actions in terms of improving the slippages, in this quarter, we actually saw the manifestation of that happening, whereby the slippage is indeed reduced, and therefore we thought it's a good opportunity for us to actually take this action in this quarter, of doing a technical write-off, and then ensuring that we continue to focus on improving the slippage rate even further, going forward in the next financial year, and start with a better clean slate. So I think, as Rajeev said, we, we believe that decisively we are out of the pandemic problem. In fact, all the parameters as you see, you can clearly see that practically the slippages has come down significantly, recovery rates have improved. DPD pool has dried down, so therefore, this was a great opportunity for us to really look at fresh and, and live beyond the pandemic period. So of course, I, mention in a different way on that, no? Actually, this is an, we are technical write-off. That not means we are come out from this customer, and we have the separate recovery vertical. They are, looking those customers to recover, and my frontline staff are not know that, who are these people are, technical write-off. They could not understand. So that there is no difference between this technical write-off and taking this customer in the book. In the same treatment we are maintaining to recover on that. That is the way we are looking. So, similarly, just to comment on this 20% number that I spoke of, as a percentage of loan book, if I were to just run it over the last three years, the write-off that you've seen, that number seems to be reasonably higher than peers. Much higher than peers. You see that is the situation we are impacted, how many people have lost their lives in that. Nobody have been found in this type of situation. So that is the. It is not in a only the incident for one organization, it's a incident for the total world. So that is the part we are coming back from that, and growing this, the book is a very pre-pandemic. That is the very hope from the bank. Future will be like to more way to grow in a good portfolio. Thank you. We'll take our next question from the line of Prakhar Sharma from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Thank you. Sir, my best wishes to you for your future endeavors. Thank you for being around. Thank you. Sir, I just two questions at a broad level to anybody who wants to, you know, take this one. So first is on the slippages. The 10,000-odd crore. Is the slippage number really low? Because generally in the fourth quarter, your slippages are lower. In 4Q FY 2022, your slippages were about INR 1,365 crore, after being very high for two quarters. In 4Q FY 2023, they were about INR 1,100 crore, after being high for a couple of quarters, and those numbers were actually coming on very high SMA book. So, you know, the opening SMA book for this quarter was much lower than those two years. Still, we've had about 1,000-odd crore slippages. So is the slippage number really low? That's part one. And secondly, on the loan growth ambition, just wanted to get a sense on, you know, what gives you the comfort of, you know, growing in high teens when, you know, a lot of the growth might come from a new-to-Bandhan Bank type of customers, across some of the new segments. So do you think, that sort of a growth, is, you know, manageable from an operations perspective? Those are my questions. Thank you. So first one, I mentioned on that. We have it that the EEB book, now this financial year, 2023-2024, we disbursed INR 65,000 crore, and out of that, only INR 160 crore is in NPA. So that is the one part. Whatever we have been seeing in this quarter, some is INR 1,000 crore we have been seeing, and maybe the INR 600 crore plus, and that amount actually is the older portfolio. Of course, there has been some portfolio is a 2022-2023, we have been seeing some slippage, but after that also, we have been seeing this is the 2022-2024 portfolio we have in the book in INR 11,000 crore only. And this INR 11,000 crore, whatever that contributed small amount, but today, if you see that the last quarter, in the last month of the last quarter, March and April onwards, whatever we've seen that, it's a very good way to moving on that. So my feeling in that INR 65,000 crore, which are disbursed in the last year, it was in only INR 165 crore, and which is the 0.11% of the portfolio. If we see that the last year we saw that, that this portfolio was in it, nearly 2% of that. So in that sense, we are seeing that the slippage is coming, further coming down when this 2020-2023 portfolio gradually is coming closed in this financial year. And this new portfolio this financial, it is given a good performance about that, the slippage point of view. With regards to your question on the operational capability to grow at 18%, I think that we don't see a challenge because we have just about completed our core banking migration. We have got state-of-the-art technology system. We have also upgraded some of the surrounding system. We are working aggressively on the digital lending platform and digital sourcing. So the operational capability is improving from what it used to be. Therefore, we have a far better company now. I think just to supplement- Prakhar, another point, if you see that at the last March, our slippage was 5.6%, has come down- SMA pool. SMA pool, sorry. This SMA pool has come 2%. That is a very good improvement has been happened. Prakhar, just on the second question to supplement what Ratan mentioned, the total assets book is where we expect, the total advances where we expect around 18% growth. Within that, the EEB book, we are looking at around 14%-15%. Yeah. Sure. Thank you, and all the best to all of you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take that as the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to management for closing comments. Over to you, sir. We would like to thank all the participants for joining and would request you to continue to have the faith and the confidence in the bank. Thank you so much for joining. Thank you to all of you. This is my last call, and you have been helped me lots of... I honor all of your support and the help. I hope that I have the confidence on myself and that you will be continue this support. I also trying my best way to play my better role. Thank you to all of you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. On behalf of Bandhan Bank, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.