Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q4 FY25 earnings conference call of Federal Bank. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star one, zero on a touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. Now I'll hand the conference over to Mr. Souvik Roy, Head of Investor Relations, Federal Bank. Thank you, and over to you, sir. Thank you so much, and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for joining us this evening. I hope you had the opportunity to review our results and go through the investor deck, which we had already shared earlier. As always, we are here with our entire senior leadership team, who will provide a comprehensive overview of the quarter that went by and our strategic priorities moving forward. We will begin with our CFO, who will walk you through the key financial highlights and the performance metrics for the last quarter. Following his remarks, our MD will share insights on our strategic direction, and we will then open the floor for your questions. Without further ado, I will hand it over to our CFO. Thank you, Souvik. Good evening, all of you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining this earnings call. Apologies for this 10-minute delayed start. Let me begin with a brief overview of the macroeconomic and banking sector backdrop. The Indian economy remained resilient amid global uncertainties. This was also bolstered by stable domestic demand and prudent monetary policy. RBI's repo rate cut and liquidity-enhancing measures will ensure that the economic focus on growth continues. Inflation is now within the RBI band, and with increased liquidity, banks should be in a position to support growth. The banking sector experienced intensifying competition for retail and semi-deposits. Asset quality remained stable with improvement in recoveries, though challenges persisted in certain unsecured segments. Our bank navigated this environment by prioritizing growth in the mid-yielding, mass-affluent, and MSME segments to drive sustainable profitability and ensure quality growth. Turning to our FY 2025 quarter and full-year performance, I'm happy to share a few highlights. We crossed a major milestone of INR 500,000,000,000 business. In fact, INR 518,000,000,000 was the 31 March number, which marked a significant milestone, and our net profit entered the league of INR 4,000,000,000+. Our other income soared to a new high of INR 1,006,000,000, driven by robust fee-based services. Our NIM improved by 1 basis point to 3.12% despite a rate cut. As you know, more than half of our book is tied to external benchmarks, showcasing our agility in a dynamic rate environment. Core fee income grew at 6% quarter on quarter, outpacing asset growth, reflecting our team's alignment towards a more rewarding franchise. We achieved our decadal best asset quality, supported by strong recoveries and arrested slippages, a feat we have consistently delivered every quarter, even in a tough macro environment. Credit cost for FY 2025 was 38 basis points, in line with our earlier guidance of 35-40 basis points. On the deposit front, CASA grew by a very healthy 6.74% QoQ. More importantly, car growth happened at a very, very strong 27% QoQ and 35% YoY. The focus on liability growth is yielding results. On the asset side, loans against property grew 20.5% YoY. Gold loans grew 21% year-on-year, despite a slowdown in Q4 due to certain regulatory guidelines. Our microfinance portfolio grew 19%, despite we taking a conscious call to slow down the growth and not grow in Q3 and Q4. CVC grew at 35% year-on-year, and credit card business grew at 19%. All of these played to the plan which we had outlined in our analyst day of focusing on the mid-yielding segment. Our CRAR stood at a healthy 16.4%, positioning us for a self-sustaining franchise. In terms of distribution, we opened 85 branches during the year, and we were quite careful in terms of choosing the locations of this expansion. On the quarterly results, net profit for the quarter was INR 1,030 crore, up 14% year-on-year, driven by strong revenue growth and operational efficiency. On cost, we had a few one-off costs in the OpEx, which. Traditionally, in Q4, our cost is always higher as compared to the other quarters. In this quarter, we had a few one-offs, which is more towards the branch expansion. We had almost 39 of the 85 branches opened in Q4. Our spends on campaigns, advertisements, on car campaigns, and a few other related expenses increased the cost. You see a slight uptick in the CFO's quarter. Having said that, our OpEx to assets for this year, FY 2025, is one basis point lower than last FY. On the balance sheet, total deposits grew 6.5% quarter on quarter to INR 2.83 lakh crore, and CASA deposits at INR 85.7 lakh crore, up 6.74% QOQ. Our CASA ratio was at 30.23%, better than last year's CASA ratio. Advance of growth 12% this year to INR 2.38 lakh. Our CD ratio was at a very comfortable 82.79 in Q4, ensuring balanced growth and liquidity. The focus on LCR continues, and we saw impressive results in this quarter in that direction. We degrew our wholesale deposits from financial entities, which ensured that our LCR improved further, and as of 31st March, it was at 145%. Asset quality, as I mentioned earlier, is robust, with GNPA at 1.84% of advances, down 11 basis points quarter on quarter, and NNPA at 0.44%, stable sequentially. We strengthened our provision coverage to 75.37%, over 400 basis points improvement over last year. Our capital position is strong, with CET1 ratio at 15.04%, well above regulatory requirements, providing ample headroom for growth. ROA was 1.24%, up 2 basis points over last year, and ROE was 12.82%, underscoring our progress towards sustainable profitability. Strategically, we have accelerated our focus on mid-yielding segments, which Mr. Manian will cover in his update. Before I hand over to Manian for his comments, I want to take this opportunity to thank our ED, Ms. Shalini Warrier, as this will be her last earnings call with Federal Bank. I want to take the opportunity to thank her on all our behalf for the excellent contribution and guiding the bank during the last week. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank Thank you very much. Over to you, Manian. Thanks, Venkat. Venkat has provided a detailed overview of our financial performance for the quarter, and I would like to offer some insights and highlights that underscore our progress and strategy execution. This marks my second full quarter leading the organization, and I'm confident in our direction and ability to execute. In February, we shared our strategic vision, and while two months is a short time frame to demonstrate transformative results, we are making meaningful strides in the areas we prioritized. Each month is an opportunity to advance our objectives, and we are pursuing our strategic teams with focus and momentum. The quarterly results reflect several positive developments that align closely with our outlined strategy, demonstrating our ability to deliver on our commitments. Our deposit growth has been good, with particular strength in CASA, and even more notably in current accounts. Retail current accounts, as well as wholesale current account acquisition, has accelerated. Acquisition of high-value savings account variants, higher-value savings account variants, has shown significant uptake. Current account acquisition is running at a 50% higher rate compared to the previous period. The deposit mix has improved and greater granularity and—sorry. This is clear to all of you? Sorry. Operator? There is a lot of static. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah, deposit mix has improved with greater granularity and enhanced LCR alignment, as our reliance on financial sector deposits has significantly decreased. These factors have contributed to a robust LCR position. We have successfully implemented key initiatives to strengthen our financial and operational framework. These include a new transfer pricing methodology, a RAROC-based pricing model, and a comprehensive business-wise profit and loss system, fostering a culture of accountability among business managers for profitability and ROE. Additionally, we have introduced a robust business budgeting approach tied to branch potential and rolled out revised scorecards aligned with our strategic priorities. These initiatives have been well received by our teams and are driving renewed energy and focus, positioning us for long-term success. These efforts have also optimized capital utilization, resulting in improved capital adequacy, a testament to our disciplined approach to resource management. On the asset side, we set a strategic goal to accelerate growth in our middle-yield portfolio, and we have achieved a robust 19% growth rate across most products in this segment. While gold loans faced challenges in the last quarter due to recent regulatory issues, the recent regulatory clarity positions us to resume steady growth in that product as well, consistent with our performance over the past year. In the low-yield segment, like home loans, HL, and corporate banking, we are adopting a nuanced approach to growth. For HL, we are focusing on risk-return trade-offs, prioritizing customers who offer a broader revenue opportunity and relationship rather than competing on ultra-competitive pricing. In corporate banking, we have significantly outpaced book growth with faster expansion in liabilities and fee income, guided by our customer-level RAROC framework. We also identified and exited few large transactions which were not aligned to our strategic customer-level RAROC aspirations. Our self-funding ratio has increased, as highlighted in the presentation, and fee income in this segment has risen significantly faster than the asset growth. Notably, 75% of our new corporate client acquisitions are in the mid-market segment, reinforcing our commitment to sustainable, profitable growth, as outlined in our strategy document. In the high-yield segment, our cards business is performing strongly, with healthy growth in card acquisitions and balanced mix of organic and co-branded cards. As the credit environment stabilizes, we will increase our focus on personal loans to capture growth opportunities in this product. The microfinance segment requires continued caution, and we are approaching it prudently. We have largely maintained our NIMs while achieving growth in our targeted areas. To enhance NIM stability, we have introduced measures such as resetting new floating-rate loans at T+90 instead of T+1, shifting our car loan business to fixed rate, and offering medium-tenor fixed-rate loans in our business banking segment. We have also reviewed and implemented new savings and term deposit rates recently. These steps reflect our proactive approach to balancing growth and profitability in a challenging environment. On asset side, our asset side progress aligns with our strategic objectives, and we are confident in our ability to sustain growth in the coming quarters while managing NIM pressures and maintaining prudent risk-return dynamics. As policy rates trend downward, we are strategically managing asset yields and deposit pricing to balance growth and cost-of-fund objectives effectively. Fee income growth has outpaced asset growth materially, aligning with our strategy to diversify revenue streams. We continue to maintain and enhance asset quality and recovery efficiency, reinforcing the resilience of our portfolio. We have taken a significant accelerated provision against our unsecured book in the current year, thereby enhancing our book quality. All this is in line with our strategic objective of quality of earnings. On the operational front, we are making steady progress across our strategic teams that I outlined, the 12 teams that I outlined in the strategy document. For instance, our talent acquisition efforts have been highly successful, with overwhelmingly strong interest from top professionals. Of the 14 key N-2 level positions identified, we have filled nine with new hires expected to join over the next three to four months. We are also thrilled to welcome Virat Diwanji, who will assume responsibilities from Shalini Warrier as she transitions to her entrepreneurial journey. Virat's addition significantly enhances our strategic and execution capabilities. We have launched Operation Udaan, previously known as Free the Branch in my strategy document, led by a senior internal leader and supported by a Big Four consulting firm. This initiative is set to modernize our branch operations over the next 12-18 months, unlocking significant potential for efficiency and customer experience. On the brand front, we are excited to have appointed Vidya Balan as our brand ambassador, with our first ATL campaign featuring her set to launch in the coming couple of months. We are also collaborating with a brand design firm to refresh and elevate our brand identity, with updates expected to roll out in the near term. While it has only been a few months since we embarked on our strategic journey across 12 key teams, the progress we have achieved is encouraging. We are committed to maintaining this momentum. Our focus on these teams is laying a solid foundation for our future success. With a clear strategy, deliberate execution, and a confident team, we are well positioned to continue driving progress and delivering value. Thank you, and we are now open for questions. Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. If one who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touchstone 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. Operator, we may start. The first question is from the line of Mahrukh Adajania from Nuvama. Please go ahead. Yeah, hello. I had a couple of questions. Now that you already started focusing on maybe loans, and there was progress on that even in the fourth quarter, do we expect that most of the consolidation of the lower-yield segment is done, and can we return to the high-yield loan growth in next year, that is, in this year, FY 2026? That's my first question, and then I have a few others. Yeah, you want to ask your questions, and then or? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. In terms of deposits, congratulations on the strong growth in current accounts. You had already—that was the key takeaway even in your strategy day. Is most of it very sticky? For many other banks, the year-end CASA is not very sticky. Given that you kind of started on a low base, will most of it be very sticky and will stay on the book? Also, in terms of margins, right, there are many—I mean, there are many more, or at least two more repo rate cuts expected. Where do you—and you will have an uptick in your middle proportion. What, according to you, is the level of margins below which you will not go overall for FY 2026, right? The EVLR book is a high proportion. If you just do a rough math, it shows a big decline. The loan mix is also changing. CASA is also improving. Where do you see the bottom of margin in FY 2026? These are my questions. Coming to your questions, Mahrukh, if you really look at the—we have provided that data. If you look at the medium-yield segment, which I had also focused on during my strategic presentation, the growth rate on our medium-yield segment is fairly strong at 19% on a YoY basis. Even on quarter basis, it is a strong number. We are quite clear that that effort will continue. There are a couple of things there which can actually grow better. In fact, if you look at that, our gold growth QoQ was not as strong as the YoY number, and that was because of the regulatory issues that we faced at that point in time. The new circular is—draft circular is, in fact, favorable from our point of view, and we are quite confident that we will be able to resume growth in the gold loan front. Our middle-yielding segment has shown strong potential for growth, demonstrated growth in the last quarter, and we are confident we will continue the growth. You have also seen cards, which is what we have categorized as high-yielding products, has also grown strongly through the year. The product that has not grown there is personal loans, which we believe that through this year, we will be able to revive growth in that product because we see, at least from our data, see clarity on credit environment being positive. Of course, the MFI, which we want to be—we will continue to be cautious for a couple of more quarters or maybe at least one more quarter, if not more quarters, to see whether we can grow that. I see immense potential in growing all these businesses. I also mentioned to you that in the corporate side, as our—while we have just begun the journey on the mid-market acquisition, as we build that acquisition, I think we will be able to build growth even in the corporate segment overall through the mid-market route. On the home loan is where just now, the last quarter and last year, the growth was muted, relatively muted. That's a segment where, like I mentioned, we want to look at a holistic approach to customers there and grow that business. Given all of this, I am reasonably confident we'll be able to get a reasonable rate of growth going on the asset side in the next year. On the NIM, I would put it this way, Mahrukh: nobody knows that number. There are too many things saying there from our perspective. One is, of course, the policy itself, policy rates themselves. Second is, we are changing our mix, as you can see, middle segments growing faster. Also, we have converted many of our products to fixed from floating. We have changed T+1 to T+90. There are multiple factors playing. Of course, our objective, and of course, we have cut savings rate, as you know, in April. There are multiple levers playing. Our objective is to try and minimize the impact, but it is difficult to yet give you a guidance for the year on where the NIM will be. Obviously, our attempt is to minimize the impact on NIM and try to keep it as close to it is today. It is going to be challenging to keep it exactly at that level through the year. On the CASA side, let me put it this way that, yes, there is year-end effect in CAS. We were also lucky to some extent because Eid happened at the end of the year, and we had large remittances inward into India, and they stayed for a few days with us before getting remitted out to the final destination. We were a bit lucky. Having said that, even on an average basis, CASA has shown close to 7% kind of average growth rate in the quarter for the quarter. While, yes, there is, as is usual in the CASA business, towards the end of the year, things do bump up a bit. Even on an average basis, we have strong growth there. There is a fundamental change in CASA acquisition. Our CASA acquisition rates on the retail side are at least 50% or close to 50% higher than what they were in the first six months of the year in terms of numbers and value. There is a fundamental shift that has also happened, and we are hoping to sustain momentum on CASA growth, CASA growth, and CASA growth. Of course, CASA also we can do more. It will remain a focus, and we are fairly confident the team will be able to deliver that. I hope I have answered all your three questions. Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you, and all the best. Thanks. Thanks, Mahrukh. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rikin Shah from IIFL. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. I actually had quite a few questions. I'll bunch them up together unless you want me to break it down. The first one is that if we look at the reported margins, they are flat sequentially, but your loan yields are down eight basis points, and cost of fund is up five basis points sequentially. How is the reported margin flat QOQ? That's the first question. The second question is on the transition of repo repricing from T+1 to T+90 days. I wanted to check whether this will be applicable only for the new disbursements or even the entire backbook gets repriced accordingly. An extension to this is that while you did highlight that the SAR rates have been cut by 25 basis points, now given that your SAR rates are in line with the frontline banks for most of the buckets until INR 5 million, do you see any other levers beyond INR 5 million SAR rate cuts potentially or maybe TD rate cut to offset any margin pressure? That is the second question. The third one is on the quantum of corporate recovery, which you had highlighted in the presentation. What is the quantum of the same, and where would it be included? Would it be included in the recoveries from the return of accounts, which is shown under other income, or is it netted off from the provisions? Both of them are moving very favorably QoQ. That is the third one. The fourth one is on the LTV on gold loans, right? That has come off significantly by six percentage points to 62% now. Given that it was well below the 75% limit, what were we trying to optimize here, which resulted in the degrowth, and now that you believe that it can start growing? That is the fourth question. The fifth one is on the cost. I just wanted to understand why we are attributing the cost related to branch expansion as a one-off. This is the medium-term strategy to go after the branch expansion, right? Why is that a one-off, and why may that not recur in the future? How do we think about the OpEx growth going ahead? Those are my five questions. Thank you very much. Okay. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. First one was NIM. On NIM, what's your Venkatraman? I can. I can. Rikin, hi. On the NIM, what has happened is the increase in yield on investments and increase in other earning assets has helped us ensure that the NIM maintained, in fact, its fund is higher than what it was in last quarter, 3.12 in capital. And the retained capital, which has helped us, nine months capital, which is increased. That's number one. Second one, your question was on transition T+1 to T+90, whether it's on new or existing. It's on new. Third question was on SAR rate cut 25 basis points. This is beyond five million. Any other actions? I'll ask Manian to respond on that. Before that, I'll also answer your question on the corporate recovery. It is shown in the provision line. It's netted there. Manian, the question on SAR rate cut and LTV for gold, Harsh, if you can just help us. Thanks, Venkatraman. Just to follow up on this before Manian takes the remaining questions, what will be the quantum of corporate recovery? 150. 97. Thanks. That was one. 97. 97 was one big account. There were a few others. There will be around 110-115. Okay. Got it. If it is included in or netted off from the provisions, then why is there a significant jump in the recovery from return off? Do we expect that to kind of taper down going ahead, or can it kind of sustain at the current level? Rikin, if you have seen traditionally Q4, we have very good recovery from return of assets because there's a large push and focus on that. I don't expect us to repeat that level of recovery, at least in the coming quarters. Got it. Perfect. Very clear. Thank you. On SAR rate cut, Rikin, I mean, as you saw, we have cut based on what the market has done. Our actions on that will remain agile and watch the market and do as per what the market demands. I mean, if the market goes further down, we will go further down. We will retain our competitiveness and yet try and optimize costs to the extent possible on the rate cut. On. LTV. LTV on gold loans. I'll share. I'll come I'll come on the LTV on gold loans. There has been an account of two reasons. One, the LTV is at 75%, but banks in general are required to maintain the LTV throughout the tenure of the loan and not just at the time of origination. Even accrued interest is what we factor in, and we keep a little bit extra margin so that we do not cross LTV at 75% at any point in time. That's number one. The second point is that the gold prices have also increased significantly. Hence, LTV does look attractive unless people take top-up, and we do not really chase top-ups either. That automatically also helps us because the gold prices have, in fact, done a significant uptick because of the gold price itself. Rikin, you had a question on the operating cost branch related. I think the context there is of the 85 branches which we opened in 2025, nearly 50% of it was in Q4. That was one of the reasons why it got bunched up a bit and you saw a bump in Q4. Having said that, it is one of the core costs based on our distribution strategy, and over the year, we will see it getting flattened. Fair enough. The only extension, Venkat, here is that how should we think about OpEx growth going ahead? Because we are in the investment phase, and those branch-related costs are unlikely to taper off in the near term. How should we think about it in the next couple of years? See, on the branch-related, while I will ask Manian to respond on that. On the cost-income related question you asked, we expect to be operating around the 53% level. The range will be around 52.5%-53.5% in the next few quarters. Based on how the growth plays out, we will give you further guidance. Yeah. Got it. Perfect. Thank you, gentlemen. If you look at our strategy document as well, over the three years, we have not shown dramatic savings out of the operating cost, right? We have not guided a significant downward trajectory on the operating cost, and we stick to that. As of now, we stick to that guidance. Got it. Perfect. Thank you, all the gentlemen, for answering questions. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jeewan Gaur from CRISIL. Please go ahead. Hi. Congratulations on the group of numbers. Just want to understand on the remittance market share that has been trending down over the years. Just want to understand what's happening there and what's our strategy on that. Is that one of the key focuses, or it's more like we are focusing more on the car and the? Please go on. One sec, please. You have to repeat your question. That was not very clear. We could not hear you. Sorry. Am I audible? You are now. Yes, please go ahead. Yeah. Sorry about it. Just have one question on the remittance market share, which has been declining a little bit over the years. What is our strategy there and what is driving that decline going forward? Yeah. I'll ask my colleague Shalini to take this question. Hi. Just to come back on the remittance question that you've asked, our remittance market share has normally remained in the range of between 18%-20%. We do see some differences on a quarter-to-quarter basis, but we operate in that range. Having said that, over the last six to nine months, we have focused also increasingly on two things. One, we've ensured from a profitability standpoint that we don't follow some of the trends of giving unnecessary discounts on rates, etc. We've been quite disciplined about pricing, and therefore, our profitability from a remittance engine has actually gone up 14% year on year. That's one thing. The second thing is, in order to ensure that volumes continue to come to our counters, we've increased our exchange house partnerships and other aggregator partnerships, including stretching out into non-GCC geographies like the U.S., the U.K., etc. We've signed up with a few more remittance companies, and we're starting to see throughput to our counters. The coming quarters, we will see an increasing share from those partners as the technology solution gets embedded. Through both profitability actions and volume actions, our remittance market share remains in that range bound that you saw in the presentation. We are committed, and clearly, it's a very integral part of our business. It's a corollary to our NR business. It's a business we know and understand very well. We have a three-pronged strategy, including relationship management, operations, and technology. We will continue to invest in that business to make it more and more robust and increase volumes on that. Hope that answers the question. Thank you. Yes. Thank you so much. On the corporate recovery, is any of the amount booked in the NII line? Is it only the remittance recovery or corporate recovery? No. No. The recovery is booked in the provision line. Got it. You said that on the yield on investment, we managed to get it higher. Just want to understand, did we change permanently some of our portfolio allocation, or how did that happen? I didn't get your question. Can you repeat it, please? Yeah. You're saying that the yield on investment is helping margin this quarter. Just want to understand. There is no significant change on the investment strategy on the bank. Overall, from an investment standpoint, the mix, duration, etc., has broadly remained the same. It is a marginal move, but nothing significantly on the approach. Got it. Thank you so much. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Puranan Jagar from TLSA. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, team. Congrats. Just a few questions. You are breaking. The voice is cracking. Can you? Yeah. Am I audible now? A bit better? Yeah. You're audible. You're audible. Okay. Perfect. Just a few questions. Firstly, congrats on the quarter. Our aggregate slippages have been inching up for the past few quarters. Anything to read into this? That's question number one. The second, is it a reiteration or just getting back to Mahrukh's question on loan growth outlook? Are we saying that it picks up from this 12%, 13%, or 14% levels currently over the next two-three quarters, or are we refraining from giving any guidance? Third, if you could just give us the average CASA ratio for the quarter and the prior quarter, that would be useful. Coming to the aggregate thing, please read MFI in that. It is the MFI slippage that is causing that aggregate to be higher. Of course, our MFI portfolio is a small portfolio, but yes, there is slippage coming from that portfolio that is reflected in that aggregate number. That is one. As we have said, we have not grown that portfolio. We have remained focused on asset quality there. Having said that, yes, slippages are coming from there. That is number one. Second point you had was guidance on the growth. The growth. Yeah. We are guiding that the growth should get better than the 12% that we have seen now. Yes. That is the broad guidance. That is true. We do not disclose the CASA number. We average. I mean, you've given the Rupee Crore number, but you've not given the average deposit. So it's sort of you have a numerator, not a deposit. We have not followed the practice of giving that. We can. That's correct. You've given average CASA and details of EOP for the rest of them. The split. Yeah. Exactly. We have already disclosed the CASA average, right? Okay. Fair enough. Just one clarification. This 25th of February, repo rate cut was passed through right from the day after the repo rate cut. Correct? Yes. Yes. Yes. That's how we calculate the numerator. We are on T+1, and 50% of our book is closed to 50% of our book is repoed. We are trying to migrate the new loans as well as existing loans on renewals, on non-retail loans to T+90. That is a process, and that will not have an immediate impact on the. It will take some time to migrate to that. Got it. Got it. Okay. That's it from my end. Thank you and wish you all the best. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Param Subramanian from Investec. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thanks for taking my question. Firstly, again, on the NII line or margin. The NII is down quarter on quarter, right, about 2.2%. I want to understand, there is loan growth in the quarter. How exactly are we saying that margins are flat quarter on quarter? Because that would imply that interest earning advances are down, right, on an average basis quarter on quarter. No. Param, the average loan growth is, and it is about average loan growth and EOP loan growth. That is the difference. That is what is causing the drop in NII. Plus it's a 90-day. Yeah. Plus it was a 90-day quarter, and it was a 91-day quarter. There are small, small things that are making a difference. Repo rate cut also. Repo rate cut. Repo rate cut. Yeah. All three put together, basically. Okay. Actually, for example, last quarter on a flat loan book, quarter on quarter, you had shown NII growth. Is it something related to that as well? You had shown 3% quarter on quarter NII growth. Is it that the base was inflated? We're just trying to understand this quarter on quarter movement because that is not telling you the margin that you are reporting. It was twisted in last quarter. Yeah. It's a very technical thing, Param. Last month, there were two extra days. They pick it up separately. We'll pick it up separately and explain to you. Last month, there were two extra days. A lot of these calculations we have gone through. Yes, there is no inflation of one and deflation of other on that business in any case. Got it. I think I'll take this offline. Yeah. Another question I had on this, on slide 35, where you're showing that you've brought down the concentration of top 20 borrowers, depositors. But incrementally, we are seeing that bulk rates have gone down, right, and gone down more sharply than some of the retail rates. Are we sticking to this, or will we be more nimble going ahead because opportunistically, that's where the lower cost is? Param, actually, we have been nimble. If you really look at the quarter two to quarter three, our wholesale deposits dropped significantly, and they have actually risen in the last quarter. Top 20 is about concentration, not about the overall book. If you look at wholesale rates were lower, so we did increase our wholesale deposits in the quarter. Q4, the wholesale deposits have actually gone up. The mix has changed. Our earlier wholesale deposits used to come from financial entities. We have reduced dependence on them and actually got it from more LCR-friendly and DICGC-friendly sources. Therefore, we are absolutely nimble and agile in making sure. The top 20 is about concentration. Actually, we have expanded the base of wholesale depositors and increased our deposits without increasing the concentration. Fair enough, Manian. Basically, going ahead, also, we will be nimble and looking at if it is opportunity to. We will optimize cost of funds whichever way we can. As I said earlier, in an environment where repo rates are only headed downward, we have to be absolutely nimble in managing our cost of funds and therefore nimble. We will remain on top of that. We did not say that, but a small thing like our cash retention limits in our branches have halved in the last quarter. That adds almost one paisa to the NIM. One basis point to the NIM. There are a number of things that are possible, and we will remain alert and agile to make sure that we optimize our NIM. Great. Very helpful, Manian. Thanks for this. Just one last question, if I may. This has been asked before. Any number you would like to put around the medium-term growth, say, balance sheet growth that one should be looking forward to? Param, we have given that guidance, right? We have always said we will lie in 1.2x-1.5x the industry growth rate or the nominal GDP growth rate. Both are roughly same metrics, roughly come to the same thing. That is the guidance that continues. Param, the evidence is in seeing that in the results this quarter. If you see, we chose to, we had earlier said that we will choose to grow in middle-yield segments, and we have grown that middle-yield segment at an average of 19%. Clearly, our intentions are evident, right, what we want to do. Great. Thanks, Manian. Really helpful. Thank you on all of this. Param, also on page 17 of the deck, we have also shown a trend analysis of our asset book. Please go through that. It's something new that we have added. I think it will offer you a better explanation there as well. Sure, sir. Yes. Thanks a lot. Yeah. Thanks, Param. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Deekshant Boolchandani from DB Wealth. Please go ahead. Hello, sir. Congratulations on the strategy working out in our favor. Sir, my first question is that in the previous quarters, you have mentioned, I think previous quarter, you have mentioned that we will wait for the credit cost environment to stabilize before we expand in the unsecured credit. Can you just paint a word picture at what point will we press the accelerator to capture that market, which can help us get more sort of credit growth in that market? Right. You can already see that on our credit card book, we have already started growing much faster. The growth rate is significant. If you have noticed the growth rate on our credit card book. We think on credit card, we were getting more comfortable based on our underwriting standards and our book. We had got more comfortable, and we are already pushing for growth in credit cards. Both organic and inorganic have grown. We have got a balanced growth going there. That is one. On personal loan, as I mentioned, I think we have noticed that the slippages have come off, and we are getting more comfortable in growing that segment going forward. That is one area where we are about to start pushing for higher growth. The area that we are not yet, I would wait for a quarter or two maybe, is the MFI, where we have still not seen slippages or the quality of the portfolio give us comfort to push the accelerator on that. On the unsecured, I would say cards and PL, we are okay to grow. On one, we have begun to grow already. On one, we will begin to grow now. On one, we will pause for a while more if that answers your question. Sir, you mentioned the credit cards. If you can give us the ballpark number on out of our total profitability of INR 4,000 crore this year, how much would be the profits from our credit cards? It's still very small addition. Any ballpark number would be fine because it's. Card business is about scale as well. It needs some time to scale up and deliver profitability. Right now, the profitability is nothing much to write home about. Still early stages. Are we above our break-even cost right now, sir? Yeah. We don't lose money. We don't lose money, but we don't make money enough. Yeah. Got Got it. Got it. Sir, you have mentioned that we are right now going towards much more of a fixed interest loan book. And from a philosophical perspective, also from a value perspective, also we believe in having much more fixed loan interest book going forward. Let's say in the next six to seven quarters from 30%, what is the growth that we are aiming to achieve? No, no. There is a nuanced difference between what you are saying and what I would like to communicate. It's not that we prefer a fixed-rate book. It is just that there are products which are better done on fixed rates. When we moved car from floating to fixed, we thought we were getting more aligned to the markets and also playing some part of our book better ALM match on some part of the book. We do not want to overplay the fixed-rate game because that game looks good in some part of the cycle, and it will not look good in some other part of the cycle. We do not want to overdo any of this. We need to get the right portfolio mix, right balance in the portfolio between fixed and floating, long and short. All of that, we need a reasonable mix. We don't have a strategy to push very strongly for fixed product, fixed-rate growth. Yeah. It would be in this range, plus minus 2%-3%? Again. Difficult to comment. Difficult to, I haven't just come from that. Let me put it this way. If you see, we want to grow fast, which are fixed-rate products, right? Car loans, we want to grow fast, which are fixed-rate products. Personal loans and gold loans are fixed-rate products, right? I would say, and we want to grow these. It will play out, I would say. Corporate is largely floating rate, and therefore it will be lower growth than these. I would say, yes, it will inch upwards. I haven't done the math on where it will get, frankly. One last question here is, as we are going towards more of expanding our car book and also our corporate banking, could you just give us some sort of clarity into what is our major focus into the next, which is the current financial year? I am sorry, I was not able to enter into the Mumbai event that you had. I was not in town. No. Broadly speaking, current account is, of course, not only corporate. It is a corporate and retail strategy. We had said that we need to bring more into that. There are many things, products, distribution, all of that we have to see. Current account is clearly, as we had explained at that time, the big gap. CASA ratio is on the current account side because we were 24 plus 6. 6% was our CASA ratio and 24 was the CASA ratio. Therefore, we saw an opportunity in CASA, and that is what we are continuing to focus on, both on retail and wholesale. On the wholesale book, otherwise, our focus remains more holistic in terms of a customer-based, RAROC-based approach to a customer. We want a wallet share, which is a mix of advances, current account, foreign exchange business, and any other fee business. We remain focused on maintaining customer-level risk-adjusted returns. That's our strategy, and that will continue. That has already begun to play out, as I explained in my opening remarks, beginning today, and it will continue to be the focus. Sir, last question here. Our peers in the market have been able to be in the 40% ranges of our CASA book. Do you think that we can achieve that going forward, maybe in the next year and a half? Year and a half? Yeah, yeah. Like six to seven quarters, eight quarters. No, no. Look at our strategy document. We have guided that over three years, we'll get to 36%, is what we have guided. Changing CASA ratio at the same time growing the book is not possible to change it by 4%-5% in a year. We will be realistic about it, but we will be able to grow it to those levels in five years if you are. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you so much. Really appreciate this. Thank you. Participants, in order to ensure that the management is able to address the questions to all participants, please limit the questions to one per participant. If you have a follow-up question, you may rejoin the queue. The next question is from the line of M B Mahesh from Kotak Securities. Please go ahead. Hey, hi. Yes, again, I'm coming back. Hi, sir. Just coming back on that margin again. Your yield on advances and cost of deposits have moved in two different directions. So the number of days doesn't explain that movement. That's one. Second one is that in the last two quarters, you have significantly reduced your wholesale or the lower-yielding advances, which should have been margin positive on the yield side, even if you have some offsetting factors on the EBIRR reduction. Just trying to understand what are we missing here. Mahesh, as I said, there are many small elements which have caused the Venkat, do you want to take them? Sir, I think only on the absolute NII drop, Mahesh, is C, 90 and 92 days, not on the NIM percentage. I hope that is clear. Yeah. The response on the 90 days was NII minus 2%, not on the NIM. Okay? Just clarifying that. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jignesh Shial from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thanks, Shruti. The primary I wanted to understand, you're seeing a stagnation in your home loan book overall, and you're saying you're focusing on better-yield home loan product altogether. If you can give some clarity what kind of customer profile or what kind of portfolio are you building about here, if you can give some clarity on that, that will be really helpful. I do not want more, we will take it up later. This is if you can answer it more on a. We are not saying that we want to build a different customer profile. We are saying, as I said, we want a more holistic relationship customer while doing home loan business, which means home loan customers should give us multi-product relationship rather than just home loan because home loan per se is not a profitable enough or ROE accretive product. The idea is not a different segment. The idea is to have a relationship which is more holistic and therefore look for growth in that kind of segment. Card insurance? Yeah. It can be a multi-product customer like we have saw. He can be a savings account customer. He can have our card. He can have wealth management business with us. He can do many things, right? Thank you. Insurance. Many things. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kunal Shah from Citigroup. Please go ahead. Yeah. Questions are mostly on the ROE lever. When you look at it, maybe because of EBIRR, we will see some pressure on margins. OpEx, also, you indicated it might not come off. Credit cost also could remain broadly in a similar range. Would fee become the only lever in the very near term to manage the ROE? When we look at it particularly on the credit RWA, in fact, that's going up because of our focus on the middle-yielding segment. If you have to look at it in terms of return on risk within a set of credit, then that seems to be still lower. What initiatives are we taking to manage that? Secondly, on your EBIRR, so EBIRR, which is, say, one-day reset, what is the kind of proportion if you look at because of changes which we are making, maybe the rounded DBs and the moving to more towards the fixed rate? Should we assume that EBIRR on one-day reset would be broadly at a similar range or it might come off as a proportion of the overall book? Second part of the question, I didn't understand. First part of the question, Kunal, of course, like we said, this is multiple variables at play, and we have to be agile. I think the only alternative in the current environment is to remain agile and manage these multiple variables. I mean, it is very difficult to say that this is one thing we will do and get our NIM management correct. I think our approach to this is, like you have seen in the last quarter, remain agile, find options which will keep control on our NIM to the extent possible. Sitting here just now, I cannot be telling you what exactly I will do two quarters later because I don't know what the exact situation and facts at that point will be. All I can assure you is we are being extremely watchful and agile about this, and we will watch what are the right steps at each point in time. Like somebody mentioned on the call, we are one of the first few banks to cut our interest rates on savings, right? We will remain agile is all I can tell you. That is the initiative if you ask me. The second part of your question, I did not exactly understand the EBIRR-related question, Kunal. If you want, we will take that offline. I did not exactly understand that question. We can take it. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. Sorry. Sorry. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Parag Thakkar from SWAT Capital. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thanks a lot, and congratulations on a good set of numbers. First of all, fee income growth was very healthy. Do you expect the fee income growth to continue this kind of traction going ahead also? That is what our desire and intention will be, Parag. Parag. Parag, no? Parag. Parag. Yeah, Parag. Yes. That is what our intention and desire will be. We will do our best to keep that momentum. Correct. Basically, based on asset liability duration, when can we return to the normal NIM, even if the rates are cut by 50 basis points more? You will try and protect your NIMs, as you said, in various ways. Just based on asset liability duration point of view, when can you come back to the normal? I mean, when the deposit gets repriced to the extent the rate cuts happen on the asset side? Yeah. About a year, if you ask me, broad principle-wise, about a year. Thank you. Participants are requested to please limit the questions to one per participant. The next question is from the line of Krishnan ASV from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead. Yeah. I put my hands to taking this question. This was related to slide 17. I just want to understand the mix as it is moving towards middle-yielding businesses. That's fairly visible 24 over 25. Is the economics in any of these businesses also changing? Given your focus on doing more with the same customers, can you just walk us through how this economics used to be, say, two years back vis-à-vis what are we targeting now next two years? I didn't get your question. Economics in what, Krishnan? The economics of that segment, so the middle-yielding segment, which you have highlighted in the orange, which is now at 50%, earlier it used to be at 48%, right? The economics of that business, what I mean is the return on assets that you make on that business. What did it used to be, say, two years back, the Federal Bank of two years back? What would it have looked like? Vis-à-vis, what's your aspiration there? Where do you intend to take it? Where do you think other low-hanging fruits to take it? The question broadly, broadly in principle, I'm not getting into specifics of each product. The fundamental choice of middle-yielding assets was that they will be more ROE accretive than the low-yielding products, right? Low-yielding products for ROE accretion need other, like corporate, for example, can be low ROE lending, but it can enhance ROE through other means like fees and things like that. Whereas products like CVC, these products, on standalone basis, they have the ability to deliver reasonable ROEs, right? Of course, any cross-sell and anything is a bonus on top of that. Fundamentally, some of these middle-yielding products have the ability to deliver better ROEs. That's the principle behind chasing what I call the middle-yielding segment. Historically, of course, there are products there which were, for example, CV is a new business, relatively new business, which is about a three- to four-year-old business, four-year-old business. It has gone through a learning phase. Now the team is more confident of pressing the accelerator on that, which was not the case, say, two years back or three years back, right? They were still learning the business. We have stated in our strategy document that we'll get into businesses like tractors. We'll get into businesses like business loans. There are all these middle-yielding. I think there is immense potential in the middle-yielding segment to look for products which are standalone, better ROE products. That's part of the strategy. I don't know whether I answered what we were looking for. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Kaushik Poddar from KB Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Yeah. On the cost income ratio, which is a little high, around 56%-57%, where do you see it in another two years? In our strategy document, we have given a guidance on our cost to income ratio. In fact, it is one item on which I have not shown gain in reaching our targeted ROE and ROEs. We have essentially guided a flat-ish cost to income number over the next two to three years. 53 handle, 53, 50. That handle is what you should expect in the medium term for us to remain at. Because we will invest. We have several elements of investment, which, of course, we will, as I have always said, calibrate those investments along with outcomes on revenue so that we can earn the right to invest through enhancing revenues. Broadly, I would say we are not expecting significant deviation either way from our cost to income. You look at the annual cost to income this year is what? 50? 54. 54. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Anand Swaminathan from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Thank you. Since you've joined, has there been any change in the structure of the relationship with any of the fintechs, any product changes, anything you can highlight in terms of any change in approach to your fintech channel? Thank you. On the card side, credit card side, of course, we had a regulatory issue on doing business. We have resumed business with one of the fintechs on that, which is KPR. The other one is still under scrutiny in RBI and dialogues at RBI and the partner level. We will see and resume it in a form that may be slightly different, but we will work towards it will fit into our strategy. On the personal loan side, from distribution perspective, we are enhancing relationships with more fintechs because we are treating them as distribution partners. That is something that we are expanding. On the savings account side, just now, the two partners we had, we continue to engage with them in the same way, except that we have reduced focus on numbers and focused a bit more on quality of acquisition of accounts with them. And cross-sell. Cross-sell and quality of acquisition has been a higher focus with those two partners. Those are the changes. Sure. Thank you. The decline in the personal loan account numbers is purely conservatism or anything else happening there? Decline in personal loans. Yeah, yeah. Like I said, through the last year, we remained conservative on the personal loans. We are looking at relaxing some of that given the portfolio performance, which is giving us confidence to go back and relax some of those norms. Yes, through the last year, we had tightened our norms, and that is reflected in the lack of growth in the portfolio. Also, of course, the decline rate there you see. One last question. Yeah. Can we take one last question? Sure. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this will be the last question for today, which is from the line of Jai Mundhra from Icici Securities. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi. Good evening, sir. Just one question. Assuming no further rate cuts from RBI and the basis you have with your savings account, how should one look at the margins in the near term? Thank you. Parag, I must say, I'm up your movement, Thakkar. No rate cuts from RBI is not something that I'm thinking about just now. Jai, that situation is quite hypothetical. I think there are going to be rate cuts, and we have to remain agile and see how we manage our NIM. No rate cut is not even a best-case scenario or extreme-case scenario probably just now. Right. Sure. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you for joining us today. We really appreciate it. Thank you for all the questions, and we remain committed and confident of continuing on this journey, which is an exciting journey that we are all looking forward to. Thank you. Thank you so much. Bye. Thank you. Bye. Thanks, everybody. Goodbye. Bye. Thank you. On behalf of Federal Bank Ltd., that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect the line.