Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Analysts Meet for Bank of Baroda's results for the quarter ended 31st December 2024. Thank you all for joining us. We have with us today our MD and CEO Debadatta Chand. He's joined by the bank's executive directors and the CFO. Thanks for having me. We have a short presentation. We have a short presentation that we will take you through, followed by the Q&A session. Request to anchor to please take it forward. Yes. Thanks, Firoza. Again, good evening to all on call. So let me introduce the management team. I'm MD Chand and the MD and CEO of Bank of Baroda, and interacting with all of you for many quarters now. With me, Mr. Lalit Tyagi is the executive director. He looks after the corporate credit, the international banking, and also treasury for the bank. With us again, Mr. Sanjay Mudaliar. He's the executive director, looking after the entire IT operation of the bank and including the retail asset of the bank. And with us, Mr. Lalit Tyagi. He's the executive director, looking after the recovery, the agri and MSME vertical, and also the HR function of the bank. And again, with us, the management team, Madam Beena Vaid. She's the executive director, looking after all control, compliance function, and including the retail liability of the bank. With all of us, again, the CFO of the bank, Mr. Manoj Chayani, and he's interacting with you for maybe two, three quarters now, so with this, I'll change over to you for your presentation, and thereafter, I'll go for my opening remarks. You're on mute. Yeah, I'm on mute. Good evening, everyone. And as you know, it's always a privilege to interact with you. And we are ready with our financial highlights of Bank of Baroda for the quarter ended, nine months ended, 31st December 2024. Since we are meeting in the new year for the first time, we wish you all and your family members a very happy new year 2025. Coming to the financial highlights, the bank has posted financial total business volume of INR 25.65 lakh crore as of 31st December 2024. If you look at the advances side, the global advances have grown by 11.8%, which consists of domestic advance of 11.9% YoY growth, and international 11.2%. Segment-wise, if we analyze, we continue to grow our retail. It's an organic growth of around 20%. Agriculture is growing at 13%, MSME at 14%, which is better than the previous quarters. Corporate at 7%. If we look at the system, we have seen a smart growth of around 16.3% in mortgage, 16.6% at home loan, education at 17%, auto loan at 21%, and personal loan continuously. We are moderating the growth, and as of December, we have grown at 24%. Deposit remains a constant for the banking industry at large. However, the bank has grown deposit at 11.8% YoY, with a CD ratio is a little elevated to 84.24%. But the two noticeable aspects are that our CASA has grown YoY of 6.5%, which is better than the peer banks, and we could maintain our CASA ratio around 40% as per our guidance. Bank enjoys a robust profitability, and we have posted operating profit of 7,664 for the quarter with 9.3% YoY growth. Continuously, we are posting profit after tax more than 4,000 crore. This quarter also, we have posted a profit after tax of INR 4,837 crore with a YoY growth of 5.6%. Return on assets continuously, the bank has posted for the 10th quarter more than 1% as against our guidance of more than 1%, and return on assets is 1.15%. Similarly, there is a robust return on equity of 17% as of 31st December 2024. If we look at the nine months period, operating profit has grown by 6.3%, profit after tax 12.6%, return on assets has improved from 1.15% to 1.7%, and return on equity, as we said, it is 17.03%. Yield on advances, nine months ended, it has grown from 8.44% to 8.46%. However, there is an increase in the cost of deposit from 4.85 to 5.09, as a result of which the net interest margin for the nine months has come a little bit from 3.14 to 3.08. However, this is as per our guidance, lower band of the guidance of 3.15 ± 5 basis points, that is 3.10 - 3.20. Bank enjoys a robust asset quality, healthy asset quality, with gross NPA trending at 2.43, which has reduced by 65 basis points YoY. Similarly, net NPA also reduced from 0.70 to 0.59, and provision coverage ratio is robust at 93.51%. One of the key parameters is that slippage ratio. Slippage ratio we could improve to 0.90 against our guidance of 1 - 1.25, and we enjoy a very healthy credit cost of 0.30, which has again improved from 0.39. If we look at nine months period, the slippage ratio has come to 0.81, and credit cost is 0.47. SMA book, as against September of 0.47, it is 0.49. It is at a similar level, and we enjoy a healthy collection efficiency of 99%. Also, we are having a robust capital base of CRAR trending at 15.96%. This is excluding the profit for the current year. If we include that, then the CRAR is improved further to 17.34%, and CET1 of 12.38% as of December will improve to 13.77%. That's all from my side. Chand, sir, over to you. Yeah. Thank you, Chayani. And once again, good evening to all of you. And as the CFO said, happy new year to you, you, all your team members. And let me make some of the qualitative comments over and above the presentation made by the CFO. And if we look at the numbers that we have announced for this quarter, this is again consistent to the numbers we have announced in the earlier quarters. So the point here is that we are looking at a very sustainable business model wherein the growth in book, the growth in profit are something strong, robust, and consistent. The growth has been said, as I mentioned, 9%-11% deposit guidance and 11%-13% advance guidance. Our deposit growth is 11.8%, and the advance growth is 11.8%. This is one quarter where the growth of advances is almost equal to the growth of deposits. As you know, the quarter also has an underlying market condition of a tight liquidity and also a tight deposit market wherein there are still elevated cost structure on the deposit side. We also said earlier one of the concepts of slightly utilizing the bank's book more. Typically, we call it a RAM and the corporate. RAM is the retail agri and MSME. If you look at the percentage of RAM in December 2024 over December 2023, it has improved 200 basis points from 57.9% to 59.9%. As the retail continued to grow at 20% quarter to quarter from any quarters now, on the agri and MSME, as compared to the September, we added almost 200 basis points growth in December over September. The percentage of growth in agri and MSME is almost 2% higher than the YoY growth we had in September. So we'll continue to focus on the utilization story and would work on making a diversified book so that we have margin-accretive measures so that we improve the margin and the profitability going forward. At the same time, a higher diversified book and a lower RWA density book, right? On the CASA front, a noticeable thing that, as the CFO said, our growth is 6.5% this quarter. And again, just to remind that our growth in September was 7%. And earlier also, we said that we continue to focus on the retail side of the CASA and also on the retail term by innovating product in the market, trying to improve our service standard, adapting more and more digital part of the entire journey. That's significantly giving us positive outcome. Both the quarters, the growth has been, as you know, the system growth on the CASA front, and we are very satisfactorily placed at a growth of 7% in September and 6.5% in December. The growth in operating profit, the key focus of the bank is how do you again structure the operating profit as the core theme of optimizing that. If you look at the growth this time, the operating income growth is 9.2%. The operating expense growth is contained at 9.1%. The operating profit growth is 9.3%. And the net profit for this quarter is 5.6%, whereas the nine months is 12.6%. Considering that, the measure of profit matrix of the bank is quite strong, robust, sustainable, and we're working to maintain also going forward. On the margin side, earlier we guided the market 3.15%± 5 basis points. Let us also make one accounting change that happened also during the year. There was a change in the accounting from penal interest and penal charges. So that impact is almost 5-6 basis points lower. With that, also, the bank could achieve a nine months 3.08% margin, which is slightly lower than the lower band of our guidance earlier. So going forward, our operating guidance for the margin for the full year is 3.10%. That means 3.05%± 5 basis points with an upside upward because of the change condition that we are looking at for this quarter, particularly on the liquidity side and also on the rate expectation on the monetary policy that we have going to be. So that continued to be something that we are quite mindful how to operate at a margin guidance, which again, coming on the strong side, the book is calibrated, keeping the margin and the ROA guidance. So in that way, you would have seen our growth is a strong and robust for this quarter too. Asset quality, as the CFO said, right, the Gross NPA and net NPA trending downwards. The slippage cost and the credit cost has been much lower than the guidance we had given, but we'll continue to retain the guidance at the same level. On the digital, again, we're working. Recently, there was an IBA digital conclave wherein the bank was winner in two segments of the digital technology awards and also runner-up in two. So continue to be digital as a key focus on the business model that we have and continue to have. To sum up on the guidance, we keep the deposit guidance the same at 9%-11%. The advance guidance continued to be 11%-13%. The slippage ratio continued to be 1%-1.25%. The credit cost continued to be the guidance of less than 0.75%. The margin guidance is 3%-3.10%, that is 3.05%± 5 basis points, with a condition that we think can come, can be positively upward also, which can typically take us to the upper band of the guidance, which would be the lower band of the guidance earlier. In spite of the fact that the penal interest, penal charges impact is almost 5-6 basis points for the full year. With this, again, thank all of you for joining on the call and open for question and answer. Over to you, Foram. Thank you, sir. The first question is from Rikin Shah. Hi, am I audible? Yes, sir. Yeah, Rikin, please go ahead. Yeah. Thank you, sir. Good evening for the opportunity. And just a few questions. The first one is on margins. The domestic advance yield has declined again very sharply in this quarter. And what explains that? Because the corporate loan growth has also kind of slowed down versus the last quarter run rate. And in your opening remarks, you mentioned that there could be an upside risk to our margin guidance of 3.05%, which is the midpoint. How would that really kind of come through? Because if the rates are cut, while of course your MCLR book is higher, why would that be an upside risk to your guidance? So that's my question number one. The second question is on asset quality. The personal loan GNPA ratio in the last few quarters has been rising. Despite that, we have seen almost 7% QoQ PL growth in this quarter. What's the thought process there? Of course, your retail slippages have moved down, so that's a bit more comforting. The second part of the NPA would be gold NPAs. Even they have slightly moved up, of course, from a very low base. Any color you would be able to share on that? That's my second question. Thirdly, it is on SMAs. Last quarter, of course, we had called out a couple of accounts because of which it was elevated. They seem not to have been rolled back. Do you expect them to see a rollback in the coming quarter? Lastly, your slippage credit cost guidance, you're kind of holding it up despite your nine-month performance reasonably below that. Anything to read into it? Do you expect any kind of further deterioration, or should we expect the current run rate to kind of maintain? Those are my four questions. And just two data-keeping questions. Like always, the total number of employees and standard restructured account, that would be helpful. Thank you, sir. Thanks, Rikin. Actually, on the margin side, there is no upside risk. What I said, the upside bias. So when I say 3.10, what I'm telling is that we'll try to have an upside bias. That means we'll try to achieve 3.10, not a risk to that, right? So that's the clarification I want to give, point one. On the personal loan, you are right. Actually, if you look at the GNPA that we announced for the personal loan, the book is small, let's say INR 32,000 crore. And the GNPA for December and September, there is almost a 0.5% increase on the GNPA. In terms of amount, it translates to a INR 100 crore per quarter. My first slippage for the full quarter is INR 2,500 crore. That's insignificant in that way. You rightly said that because other segment of the retail is much lower benign slippage, so this is getting adjusted actually in that manner. So there is no concern per se. Actually, the quality of the book will improve significantly when we stated a one and a half year back that we're going to moderate on the growth in the process. Actually, we improved the underwriting standard. So there is no concern. Similarly, Gold Loan, if you take the absolute amount in terms of the 0.71%-0.80%, the amount translates to INR 36 crore. So that also is insignificant in that way. So the normal slippage guidance is INR 2,500 crore normalized basis for quarter to quarter, and that continued to hold on that. You also talked about SMA book rollback. Yes, there is already actually we rolled back. Lalit Tyagi, sir, can you just throw some light on this? The SMA book at 0.49. SMA book is including restructured around 28,400, which is 2.48% of the total loan book. Rikin, just to add to what Lalit sir said, actually slightly you're looking at 0.49% to some 0.45% in the last quarter, right? And that is higher than the 0.23% earlier. So a couple of accounts, four or five accounts, which was there, which was more of a technical or the, I mean, what you can say, temporary liquidity mismatch out of that three already pulled back again today. So if I look at the clean SMA that we have declared, actually it is not 0.49%, now it is 0.19% because all these accounts have been pulled back by this time. So there is no concern with regard to the SMA in that manner, right? Yeah, thank you. Thank you, sir. Before we go ahead, just one request because please limit yourself to two questions per person, and we'll come back to you at this time. The next question is a question from Rakesh Kumar. Yeah, hi. Hi, sir. Can you hear me? I can hear you. Please go ahead. Yes, sir. So just coming back to this margin number and the credit number, so we had a sharp fall in the recovery on the written- off number. And if I look at recovery coming from NPA, that number is broadly similar. There is not much of a change on a sequential basis. So what I think that your recovery number on the written-off book has kind of, you know, like dented your margin number. So firstly, what is the recovery on written-off number is going to be for fourth quarter and going ahead. And is the recovery number, you know, the interest income accrual number going into the interest income line, was that number INR 300 crore-INR 350 crore that we lost this quarter? No, actually just to clarify, last quarter, the recovery from written-off there was a one-off, which you also clarified last time. Because of that, the amount got boosted. Our normalized run rate for recovery out of written-off is almost INR 750-INR 800 crore. And if you look at Q3 of December 2023, also it was almost at the same level. This quarter is almost at the same level. And going forward, we'll maintain the normalized. There may be a possibility of one-off in a couple of quarters, but that would be add-on to that. So the fall in the recovery in written-off this is the last quarter entering the Q2, Q3 over Q2. It is also supported this time by the higher treasury income and also one tax element of the interest on the tax refund. So that clearly negating bit of the fall in that manner. So in that way, the bank's book is well balanced in terms of taking any impact because of the recovery or written-off account. Last quarter, it was one-off. Otherwise, the normal rate is the level that we have, I mean, this quarter the number is. but sir, just to know that what is the interest income accrual that we would have done in second quarter, you know, because of the recoveries, NPA recoveries and TWO recoveries, what that number was? I think we'll update you roughly around out of that, it can be INR 500-INR 600 crore. That is what actually there was a one-off. So obviously, there was an interest income return back on the matter. So I mean, on the interest income, the impact, suppose because of one-off is not there this quarter, almost to the extent of like INR 300-INR 350 crore kind of a number. Impact is there, correct. So that is what I was estimating that INR 300 crore-INR 350 crore is the impact that we have this quarter. Yeah. Secondly, sir, fee income, sir. Fee income is pretty strong. Asset quality is also pretty strong. On fee income, if you can highlight some of the things that why it happened, what are we doing, and why did we achieve this kind of a strong number on our fee income, sir? So you're very right. Actually, earlier also we announced that we started some kind of an internal kind of a thing, which we talked about fee inflows kind of number. And the idea was to strengthen the core fee income. See, the recovery or return other than the normalized run rate can be one-off at some point of time. Treasury income is also highly dependent on the market condition. So the core fee income, if you look at the core fee income this quarter, the growth is 12.6%. And that is where we want to optimize that. There are challenges in terms of because some of the core fee income going shifted, like the moment you go for a normal physical transaction or a digital transaction, the fee goes off. But there are challenges to optimize. Clearly, as a management, as a bank, we are clearly focused on how to optimize on the core fee income. So this quarter, the core fee income, leaving apart the treasury income or the tax refund interest, the tax refund, the core also has gone up by 12.6%. That's something significant. See, the numbers that we're looking at, the book increase is almost 12%, 11.8%. The operating profit increase is almost 9.9439%. The operating expenses is maintained at 9 point something. So I think somewhere we have to have a stability of all this income. And that is what actually we have. If you look at the core fee income this quarter, the growth has been put, but we'll be trying to focus more on that and try to optimize more also going forward. Thanks, sir. Thanks. Many thanks. All the best, sir. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next question is from Piran Engineer. Hello. Congratulations, sir, on the quarter. Just firstly, on the previous question, a clarification: this INR 300-INR 350 crore lower interest income, if we adjust for that, our margins would be about 10 basis points higher. Is that a correct understanding? It is actually. Last time, as I said, there was one account which was a one-off in terms of a recovery of an NCLT resolution. And significantly, the recovery was full in that case, putting a positive interest income impact of roughly around INR 300-INR 350 crore. So there is a normalized work. That is what we said that what is that delta that changed last quarter vis-à-vis this quarter. And that is about INR 300-INR 350 crore. And thank you very much for congratulating the bank. The bank would again try to have one, I said initially, to have a stable, sustainable kind of a growth, both in terms of book and also in terms of the profit number. Thank you very much for that. No, no, no, no problem. My pleasure. So, sir, just one or two more questions. Firstly, on our borrowings, in the last two quarters, it's gone up from roughly 90,000 crore to now 1.3 lakh crore. Can you just help us as to what are these borrowings? Are they more refinance, NABARD, SIDBI, because we are growing on MSME, or are they more infra bonds? And ballpark, what would be the cost of these borrowings of the entire borrowing? Yeah, actually, you said all of that, actually part of the borrowing. And clearly, the borrowing is to substitute on the deposit cost otherwise, right? So Mr. Tyagi, can you just slightly update more on this? Yeah, so thank you very much, sir. So in fact, last quarter, we raised infra bond to the extent of 5,000 crore. Put together, this financial year, we have raised infra bond to the extent of 15,000 crore. And we also tap from time to time the competitive refinance from some of the domestic specialized institutions. Put together, that and the market borrowings have elevated. As the MD said, that when that option is available and cheaper, and all of us know that deposit side, there are some limitations in terms of managing the cost. So we balance it out with that. Understood, understood. And sir, just lastly on Gold Loans, there is a lot of talk about Agri Gold Loans below 2 lakh should actually be collateral-free and not you can't take gold from the farmer. So can you just probably clarify these rumors that are or whatever this news that is going around as to whether this is what the RBI wants, collateral-free up to 2 lakh? And also in regular consumer Gold Loans, a lot of talk about refinancing at the end of it, doing EMI payment, 75% LTV throughout the loan rather than at disbursements. So maybe if you can just share some light on what's the RBI thinking and what is the conclusion, that would be very helpful. See, as long as it's not a guideline, it's normally difficult to comment on that. Actually, there are matters which are again not crystallized, so we have not framed a stance on the matter. But Lalit Tyagi, sir, anything you want to update on this on the Gold Loan side, agri gold? Thank you, sir. In fact, Agri Gold, there is no such guideline till date. But yes, on MSME, there is guideline that up to 10 lakh, we can't take any collateral that may be land, building, or gold, whatever is there. So those we are adhering to. On the Retail Gold Loan, you had some question, right? So what is that? Basically, RBI has expressed some concerns on things like bullet repayment, on maintaining LTV of 75% throughout the term of the loan. And there was a meeting of the Gold Lenders Association with RBI a couple of weeks back. So some updates, even qualitative is fine, but some updates would be useful, sir. No, actually, as far as the Retail Gold, my book is almost hardly 6,000 crore. So it's not a very significant amount there. But then some of the conversation we are not aware as on today. But our business is a compliant business as on today. Mudaliar sir, anything you want to add on this? No, sir. In fact, since the details are not available, I don't think it will be appropriate to give any comment at this stage. Thank you. Okay, fair enough. Thank you, sir, and wish you all the best. Thank you very much once again. Next question is from Mahrukh Adajania, please. Hello. Yes, Mahrukh. Yes, Mahrukh, please go ahead. Yeah, hi. Hello, sir. Good evening. Sir, I had two questions, actually three questions. Basically, firstly, on your credit cost, right? So you had explained that you had made higher specific provisions last quarter and a floating provision of INR 2 billion. And that's why we understand that this quarter, the credit costs are lower, but they are at 38 basis points. So is this a new normal now? Or where do you see your credit costs settle in the fourth quarter or maybe over the next three to four quarters? What should we build in? Like 40 basis points, 35, what is the number? That's my first question, and I'll. Okay, let me take first point one. There is no new normal. The only normal is that the credit cost should be below 0.75%, right? So that is point one. Point two is a case wherein, yes, the credit cost is also linked with the asset quality. And as of today, when we look into the SMA book, the stress book, we are quite comfortable as of today with regard to the asset quality. So in that scenario, I don't think anything like nine months credit cost is 0.47%, right? So maybe a band between 0.5% to 0.75% would likely end in the full year. But again, it all depends upon the forward-looking, what you can say, emerging facts and figures that would come to us. But then the full year it will be below 0.75%. That is what we are fully convinced on this, right? So. Okay, sir. So my next question is on home loans. Obviously, your home loans are growing well. They have grown 4% quarter on quarter. But if you see some private banks, they are not being able to deliver growth of 4%. Very few are delivering even 3% QOQ. So is it that you are getting a lot of refinancing requests from private banks? What is your rate to the most prime customer that you offer? See, there is no, actually, the numbers that we have given is an organic book. So there is no refinancing or anything from private banks on the matter. The numbers that we see is 20% or 19.5% on the home loan, 16.6% is the organic book. It's not like this quarter we have a growth of 16.6%, right? That is consistent for Bank of Baroda, particularly in the segment of home loans. We do have the right delivery channels, the right relationship measures, the right project approval. So that giving us a bit of a positive outcome for many quarters. So continue to grow there. I don't think there are elements which again can slightly put the guidance below what we are growing. But we are quite comfortable with the growth, both in terms of asset quality. In terms of the best trade-off, our MCLR rate being defined on the website. I mean, the bias is obviously, I mean, Baroda is having a better CRISIL score. So that's on the asset quality. We are quite mindful in terms of what is that book we built. In terms of overall, actually, one data we didn't share, the RWA density that we compute for many of the products, including home loan, is showing a positive outcome. So in that way, we believe in good quality Baroda. We believe in the right relationship manager. Actually, one of the important factors in the home loan segment is the time you take to give a sanction, right? So that is what actually we improved significantly in the last many years. So I think there's a sustainable growth that we maintained. On the quality side, it is on a much better side, actually. There is no concern as of today. But your best borrower would be getting at 8.5%, 8.40%. What would be the rate? These are all card rate, man. Actually, the card rate is defined in the website. All right. Okay, sir. Sir, my last question is just one clarification that you did say that your recovery income that goes into interest on loans, it goes there, right? Has come down, though the QoQ growth in loans and interest on loans is matching. But okay, it's gone down from, say, around 8.30 to around 500, 550. That's correct, right? No, no. I just update you, actually, the conversation we had. Actually, our normalized recovery out of written-off accounts is almost INR 750 crore-INR 800 crore. What had happened last quarter, there was one-off in that recovery of return written-off accounts. And because in that particular recovery, the recovery was substantial that we could recover the full amount, the positive impact because of that particular one-off is roughly around INR 350 crore on the interest income, which is not available this quarter, right? Got it. Otherwise, normalized going to be INR 750-INR 800 crore that we're going to have for future quarters also. Right. So the normalized reversal or the normalized accretion to interest income will also be then what happened this quarter only, right? No, that cannot be quantified. Actually, Mahrukh, that cannot be quantified. The reason being, many of the recovery may not, you are not recovering the full amount to get benefit of the interest reversal, right? You may recover your principal out of the recovery. But last quarter, there was a one-off case where the recovery was full that included the reversal of the interest income and also the full extent of the principal. So the delta that we made last quarter, that was the point of discussion. Not on a normalized, it may give some reversal of the interest income. It may not give any reversal of the interest income. Got it, sir. Very helpful. Thanks a lot, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mahrukh. The next question is from Kunal Shah. Yeah, Kunal, good evening. Yeah, good evening. Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. Yeah, so a couple of questions. Firstly, on the international slippages and international margins. So again, this quarter we saw a decline. Last time you indicated it can still be managed at 1.9%-2.5%. And given the global rate environment, do we see pressure over there? Or is it on account of maybe the slippage in the, it's a small number, but still like 200 crore slippage, which is leading to a lower NIM in the international market? See, one is the slippage, another is the margin. The margin is stable, actually. If you look at the nine months margin on international, it is 2.02. And this quarter, it's at 1.83. Slightly, when the reset of pricing happens in the international book, both on the advance and also on the deposit, there is a lag clearly. So a lot of refinancing transaction happened on the asset side, which again, not passed on to the extent of the deposit. But broadly, our NIM on the international would be 1.9- 2. That is what we are hopeful going forward we can maintain. On the slippage, particularly that you talked about, although a very small amount of INR 200 crore, can you just update on the slippage side? Actually, this was one of the cases in one of the territories. Probably it is not the normalized degradation rate in international book. In fact, for the many quarters, international book has not shown any distress. At individual asset cases, sometimes these emerge. This is not the normal case for the international book. In fact, it's a very combination of many of the small accounts, which again, based on some accounting change, we made that NPA. But look at last many quarters, it's a very fairly stable asset quality as far as the international book is concerned. And secondly, again, maybe someone asked with respect to the personal loan growing at 7% quarter on quarter. Most of the players we have seen, there is a slowdown which has happened. But I think for us, it is still continuing to be faster pace. And there is a rising NPA on this growing book. So wouldn't we be slightly cautious or conservative in this segment and in the risk that we see? Kunal, you are right on that. Actually, if you look at my base, it is very low, 32,000 crore in personal loan as compared to. And out of that, maybe 50% is the non-digital personal loan, then the digital personal loan. The point you are referring on the digital personal loan, right? So that book is almost 12,000-13,000 crore, not a big amount there. The earlier, the growth in this segment was almost 80%-100% quarter to quarter, right? Actually, I mean, quarter to quarter on a YoY basis. And like in July 2023, when the market was not discussing, we started talking about moderating this growth. So from almost 80%-100% YoY in one and a half year time, we have come back to 24%. A couple of measures that we have undertaken during the process is to completely change the underwriting model based on a much state-of-the-art bureau model now. At the same time, some of the segment which has given a slightly elevated slippage, we completely stopped those segments. So the book is fairly balanced. We are comfortable growing at 24% or 30% or 35%, maintaining the asset quality. In terms of the incremental slippage that you may be talking about in this quarter, it's INR 100 crore on a slippage of INR 2,500 crore for the quarter. So it's not in any way significant. You get an unsecured personal loan is something that you need the market is growing in that segment. You want a bit of margin is quite high. So you can't put everything on the same year. But I don't know other banks, but we are quite comfortable at 25%-30% growth because the underwriting quality is much better as compared to what we had in the past because of the model part of it. Anything Mudaliar sir would want to add further on this? Sir, only one additional point I will give it is we are now moving towards more of the salaried class account where we are going into the personal loan. So that gives us some additional comfort on this. Okay. Okay. Got Got it, and last question on employee provisions. So this quarter, the ramp rate has been high. Is it more to do with the interest discount rate assumption or maybe now, and maybe if the rates decline, would we see a relatively higher provisioning requirement or we have already factored that in because that's going up to almost like closer to 1,150 odd crore for this quarter? You are right. Actually, we are slightly adequately covered in the segment with regard to the discount rate that you are referring to. So we are quite, I mean, that way adequately provided on the matter. Anything CFO would like to add here? Yes, sir. So Kunal, as you know, there is a movement in case of the gratuity. It has moved from 6.99 to 7.05. And also the fund size requirement is there. So as a result of that, there is an increase in this provision amount. But we are prudent in taking the provision. All the provisions as required have been provided till date. Next question is from Jai Mundhra. Yeah, hi. Good evening, sir. Thanks for the opportunity. Good evening. Okay. Please go ahead. Sir, a few questions, sir. First one, if I look at your interest on advances, right? Only the gross interest on advances, that has gone up by 9.7% YoY in this quarter versus 11.8% growth in advances, right? So we are in at least we would have increased the MCLR. We are doing more PL, less corporate. Asset quality has been holding up. So why is that the interest on advances growth is lower than the loan growth? Okay. If I respond to that, actually, rather, that's very positive that the book increase is 11.8% and the interest income increase is almost 9.7%. See, one instance that would have seen that we are also in the meantime building the quality of the book, right? So the quality of book covers with regard to, as we discussed previously, we can reduce the personal loan growth. You know the margin in personal loan is very high. Similarly, segment where there is a bit of elevated stress there, you would have seen my NBFC book has gone down as a percentage. The YoY growth is very less because this is influenced by the regulatory norms that came in. So it's a balance in terms of how do you again put the income growth at the same time, create the underwriting quality. Earlier also we said for us, the underwriting quality is one of the main building block while creating the book. So in that way, I'm quite happy that the growth is both balancing out in the 11.7% and 9.6%. So going forward, I mean, depending upon the interest outlook, there may be changes on the pricing of the loan asset, and then we'll map it out accordingly what the percentage increase there will be. Okay. Anything, Madam Beena, would like to comment on the planning perspective on the income growth in advances? You are mute, ma'am. No, sir. Okay. Okay. Secondly, sir, on your margins, right? So I heard your commentary. If I were to adjust for the 350 odd additional recovery that we had in second quarter, right? So then the margins in second quarter would have been 3%. And that has now come down to 2.94%. Would you believe, considering your emphasis on quality and still tight liquidity, that trend maybe should be similar, right? I mean, Q4 margins can actually be lower by similar adjusted number, 5-10 basis points lower. Could that be a fair assumption? See, my nine months' NIM is 3.08%. So one factor, again, I said during commentary that the penal interest and penal income, the impact is almost 5, 6 basis points negative, right? So otherwise, it would have been 3.13% or 1.4%. It's on the written-off the recovery out of returns exactly. It depends on the recovery that happens, how much you are recovering. If you are able to recover higher than the principal, obviously there would be an interest component that will go to the interest income. So there was some write-up on that, so that positively contributed. But at the same time, let us also look at the deposit cost, which is again being elevated across the system. Rather, the margin cut that we have taken is much lower as compared to many of the industry that we have seen. So it's a balanced call. You would have seen that there is a corporate loan growth slightly lower as compared to what we did in September. Typically, while providing full money to the CapEx the term loan segment, a lot of refined transactions that happen, a lot of takeover transactions that happen, which is again at a very fine price, obviously high-quality asset. There again, slightly we tried to grow lower as compared to the last quarter. So these are all calibrating calls in terms of how do you manage it. But the full year guidance that on the margin side we said 3.05± 5 basis points. That means 3%- 3.10% for the full year. I'm talking about Q4 can be any number that you can estimate, but the full year would be 3%- 3.10% with an upside bias. Why the upside bias is that a couple of factors that we are anticipating that the market to happen, particularly there is an improvement of liquidity that is happening because the regulator, the RBI, injected durable liquidity now. If there is an expectation of a rate stance change or a cut happening in Fed policy. So our market borrowing side, that is also a significant amount undergo a change because that can reset quickly on that. Typically, the CD book that we are carrying almost can reset in no time. A lot of other deposit also that are maturing deposit happening before March. So based on that, we anticipate that full year guidance will be keeping somewhere between 3%-3.10%. Whatever may the scenario going forward on the rate cut. So sir, you are saying this is assuming some rate action also, right? Even if there is a rate cut, you will hold on to this more or less the guidance, right? The upside, that is what I said. Ideally, otherwise, you can take the median number at 3.05, right? For the full year. But I can still optimize to 3.10 if some of the assumption comes true for us, right? In that way. Thank you, sir. The last question for this evening, we'll take it from Nitin Aggarwal. Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Sir, I have a question around your business growth. While you have reported a similar growth in advances and deposits, and that's something we appreciate. But at the same time, bulk deposit mix has also gone up during the year. So what will be the any particular threshold that you will look to maintain? Because as you go forward, the requirement of deposits will remain as is to support the loan growth, and CD ratios are already elevated. So any particular level of bulk deposit beyond which you will not want to venture in? Sure. We said earlier multiple quarters, the dependency in the bulk has to go down. Actually, if you look at Bank of Baroda, the earlier quarters, there was a high amount of dependency vis-à-vis bulk deposit. We said every quarter now, almost six, seven quarters, we are saying the dependency has to go down. The dependency doesn't mean that the outstanding would go down for every time. Although we reduce the outstanding consistently for many quarters, this quarter slightly increased. The slight increase vis-à-vis the normal growth of deposit of, let's say, 11.8%, this 14% vis-à-vis 11.8% is vis-à-vis of two reasons. We are able to grow CASA higher than many of the peer set, right? My last quarter, CASA growth is 7%. This quarter is 6.5%. But also at the same time, the retail term deposit also is able to grow at 9.5, 9.6%. That is allowing us slightly on a mix to grow slightly higher than the bulk deposit, keeping there is a liquidity constraint in the market, right? So in that way, the stance continues to be lowering the dependency. But if there is a requirement where you can optimize on the both sides or in there is a requirement to give a certain resource mobilization, then we'll keep on raising on the bulk deposit. The number that you are looking at, 224,000, there is an almost 25%-28% component of certificate of deposit there. And the certificate of deposit, as you know, for a short term, it is much lower than the wholesale bulk deposit rate. And in case there is a hypothetically thinking a cut happening, this market would react very fast to that. So in that way, we balance out. It's a combination of many strategies in terms of how do you optimize on the cost. The stance continues to be lower dependency on the bulk deposit. That means this is a percentage of total deposits will not go up. From many quarters, actually significantly we have reduced, although we have not disclosed to the market the number, but we said we reduce the dependency on the bulk deposit and then continue to be the same stance for the future quarter. Right, sir. And sir, the second question is on the retail GNPA. Because if I look at the segmental GNPA, retail is one space wherein the GNPAs have gone up over the last one year pretty sharply. And within that, specifically the personal loan, wherein on a book which is growing well, the GNPA ratios have been inching up. So how do you look at that? And how long will you think the stress will continue, especially in the personal loan book there? The personal loan, see, the GNPA personal loan, December over September, the growth is point. It has gone 3.16%, I believe it has gone to 3.9% kind of in that. In terms of the absolute number, this is roughly around a fresh slippage of INR 100 crore, right? And my normalized slippage amount is roughly around INR 2,500 crore. That's not significant for me. Mind it again, retail, one and a half year, we improved the underwriting quality, but then there are legacy book there. This book is a small book, actually. My outstanding is INR 31,000 crore. The incremental slippage that we are talking about is much lower, and the retail GNPA is going down. Like other component of the GNPA, I mean, the elevated slippage is not there. So it's much more manageable. This is a segment where it's a NIM accretive. It's a good margin. There is a requirement. People look for a bundle product with a secured loan along with the unsecured loan. So we will grow at 24%, 25%, 30% kind of a level and quite comfortable growing at that level and not going to put any stress in terms of slippage, particularly on the unsecured personal loan. So on a planning perspective, Madam Beena, anything more to comment on the retail personal loan on this? So with regard to the retail personal loans, we have been going quite slow. The growth this year has been, though it has been 7%, we are more or less going with salaried class advances. And we are not looking at the other advances as we looked in the previous years. So our focus would continue to be on the salaried class personal loans. Not that we would degrow, but our focus would be more on the salaried class, and we would continue to grow, but with regard to the best of advances. Okay. Thanks, sir. Wish you all the best. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. That's the last question we will take today. Can I request Manoj Chayani sir to please give the word of thanks? So as we conclude today's analyst meet, I would take a moment to express our sincere gratitude to all of you for your time and participation. We are thankful to each of our analysts for their valuable contributions and their feedback, which will help this organization to grow in a longer way. Your continued support, engagement mean a lot to us, and we look forward to have a stronger bond with you. If there is any worry, any clarification required in future, also you can contact me or our investor team at IR anytime you feel like to get it clarified. Let's have a stronger bond with each other to have a stronger organization. Thank you for your participation. So thank you very much, all analysts on call. Thank you very much. Thank you. Congratulations, sir. Congratulations, sir. Congrats. Thank you. Thank you very much.