Gentlemen, good day, and welcome to IIFL Finance Limited Q3 FY24 earnings conference call. 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, then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Kapish Jain, CFO, IIFL Finance Limited. Thank you, and over to you, sir. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everybody. It's a pleasure having all of you here, and wishing all of you a very, very happy New Year. And on that note, I would like to just update you on for the quarter three of fiscal 2024. So for the quarter, IIFL Finance con- at a consolidated level, reported a profit after tax before non-controlling interest of INR 545 crore, up 29% on a YOY basis and up 4% on a quarter-on-quarter basis. We recorded pre-provision operating profit of INR 960 crore, up 28% YOY and up 4% on a QOQ basis. For the quarter, our consolidated loan AUM grew by 34% on a YOY basis and 6% on a quarter-on-quarter basis at INR 77,444 crore. If I further dissect the AUM and concentrate on our core products, which is driven by gold, home, microfinance, and the digital loan, there we grew by around 35% and 6% quarter-on-quarter to around 34,066. This segment now comprises 96% of our total AUM, and we also crossed a key milestone in our housing company of an AUM of around INR 25,000 crore at a for the firm. Our gross NPA is below the guidance that we gave of 2%. It stands at around 1.7, a shade lower than what we reported last time. And also our net NPA now stands at around 0.09%, which is significantly lower by around thirty-six basis points and twenty basis points respectively when you compare the same to the same period last year. With the implementation of the expected credit loss under Ind AS, provision coverage on NPA stands at 151%. Now, in line with our capital optimization strategy, and we've been consistently following that, our AUM under the assigned or the co-lending portfolio stands at around 39% of the total AUM. And going forward, we'll see a larger share of co-lending emerging in this number. The assigned loan book stands at around INR 18,648 crore, up by 17% and 1% on a QOQ basis. Besides this, there are co-lending assets of around INR 11,586 crore, which is smartly up by around 103% YOY and 10% on a QOQ basis. Our quarterly average cost of borrowing increased by 28 basis points YOY, and in spite of the big change that you saw, both in terms of MCLRs and the repo rates. And on a quarter-over-quarter basis, it is marginally flat, down by around 4% to 9.07%. Sorry, up by around 4 basis points. A brief update on our liquidity. Now, during this quarter, we raised INR 5,046 crore through term loans, bonds, refinance, and around INR 3,976 crore was raised through the repayment of loans. So the key highlights of the fundraising that we did in this quarter was around JPY 7.5 billion, which we raised from Mizuho Bank through the ECB route. We also raised funds from the U.S., from DFC in the finance, for financing our affordable housing book. We also closed our first maiden public issue of NCDs in Samasta, which was subscribed over two times. So our cash and cash equivalents and committed credit lines from banks and institutions aggregate around INR 10,081 crore, which is adequate for us to meet not just our near-term liabilities, but also to fund our growth momentum coming from quarter four as well. We are positive on our ALM bucket across every bucket and exceed the expectation on outflows around them. Our net gearing is also sized lower at around 3.3, which is in line with our capital optimization strategy. Our annualized ROE for the quarter stands at around 19.7, while the ROA stood strong and stable at around 3.8. This all translates into a basic earning per share for the quarter at around INR 12.9, up 29% YOY, and 3% on a quarter-over-quarter basis. From a capital position perspective, we are fairly well capitalized. Our capital adequacy stands at around 19.6, compared to the regulatory requirement of 15%. For the housing finance company, it's around 45.8, and for Samasta, it is also at around 24.2%. Our CRAR is well above the threshold, as I just mentioned, and which is well supported through the internal accruals and the off book as well. With this, I come to an end of the session, and now we open it for Q&A. Before that, I just hand it over to Nirmal, for- Thank you, Kapish. I think I'll just take a couple of minutes on the macro strategy, and then we can have Q&A. So, liquidity has been tight, and that has pushed up interest rates a little bit. But I think the good news is that inflation is stable, and interest rates seem to have peaked out. And from here, this will be trending down maybe the later part of the year, later part of this calendar year. But on the economy, things are very good. The economy is growing very strongly, and with the political stability in sight for next five years, the flow of capital and the flow of money to equity is also very strong. So we see a spate of IPOs and our capital market is in a good state. But at the same time, even the credit demand and, business activity in the MSME sector, that we mostly cater to three different products, is good. Affordable home loans and affordable housing-... Growth has been slower in the last calendar year compared to, say, luxury homes. But it looks like, the things this year should improve significantly, and the demand already is showing signs of picking up. Maybe with this, probably, so I open the floor for Q&A, and we can take up more queries there. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask questions may please press star and one on their touchtone phone. If you wish to withdraw yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Mona Khetan from Dolat Capital. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi, sir. Good afternoon, and thanks for taking up my question. So, firstly, I just want to touch upon the gold yield. We've seen a continuous rise in gold yield, especially over the last two quarters. So, what is driving that? And do these yields include the entire annual or are calculated only on an ongoing basis? Gold yield is on entire annual. Okay. And, in fact, is getting back to the normal level because as you have seen in last few quarters, particularly the last year, last quarter, and the second half of last quarter, yields were impacted by some cutthroat competition and teaser schemes which competition had introduced. Also, our newer branches are in smaller locations, where, you know, we have a slightly, and I say slightly, not, very significantly, a better, yield or, or better ability to price ourselves. But I think we are getting back to the normal levels and, the marginal rise is because of the base, which was lower last year. Okay. So what is a little contradicting is this, on one side, you're seeing the average ticket size increasing, and on the other side, particularly when the ticket size is increasing, your yield should come down, but that's also increasing. So just wanted to understand that. So Mona, ticket size increase is all gold price related. So I would say that broadly what has happened is that gold prices have gone up, and for the same quantum of gold, you know, people are able to borrow little more. And, I mean, adjusted for inflation, so there will always be a certain rise year after year, which is more inflationary. But, other than... I mean, so, I mean, I still our gold price ticket size at INR 70,000-INR 75,000 will be very low. Got it. And when we look at this, 19% yield, is it for the entire nine, nine-month period or just Q3? Because, the charts are not very clear. We see both kind of charts. Okay. This is for the nine months, yeah. Okay. So from a Q3 perspective, the rise is actually more than 50 basis in that case, from Q2 to Q3, if I want to understand. Yeah, it'll be in that range. Yes. Okay. But I- Secondly, yeah. I'll also caution that in Q4, the rate may—The yield may moderate by a few basis point, you know, and, this again is a little, peak quarter in terms of volumes, and competition tends to become intense. So what we have seen in last, couple of weeks or last month or so, that, again, the competitive pricing pressure is coming by other gold loan companies also. Sure. And secondly, you know, typically, we have this step-up in yields across gold financials. So just wanted to understand that on average, what percentage of customers typically, you know, delay payments and undergo step-up in yields in your case? And if you could also share what's been the trend, say, pre-COVID and now in this percentage of customers. Thank you. So COVID was a little exceptional time period in terms of people needed a lot more, loans also. So, and that is behind us. It's, like, almost three-year-old. But, what you say is that the penal and interest and the, because people don't pay in time, it, that is not very significant in our case. It will be around. I think, you know, if you see the, our state-wise breakup, no, so 1- 30, 30- 90, for gold loans is about 15% in total. So those are the customers where not all, but many of them, probably there can be a increase in interest rate. So if you see our presentation, slide 13, so you have a state-wise breakup. In gold, you'll see that 85% of people are zero DPD. They are paying in time, so you won't have any increase in interest rate for them. And the remaining, again, it depends, you know, but in some cases, in that 15% remaining, we can take higher interest. Got it, sir. That's very useful. And this 15%, was it very different pre-COVID? Not through COVID, but just wanted to understand pre-COVID. Again, it's, you know, question of what kind of customers you target and what kind of products you have. So up until then, how many competitors were targeting teaser products?... then there was a tendency to increase the rate more aggressively and quicker. But, you know, then I think most industry players have realized that, it doesn't work, and customers basically resist, resent, and they move away to the competition. So the industry practices are maybe, you know, also getting aligned a little bit. I really don't have the numbers at what it was pre-COVID. It may be slightly higher, but not very different to my mind. Got it, sir. Thank you. I'll come back to you. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Renish from ICICI. Please go ahead. Hey, yeah. Hi, there. Congratulations on the set of numbers. Just two, three questions from my side. One on this, you know, the entire noise about the unsecured loans, including, let's say, sourcing via digital or fintech partners. And, given, our digital loans are largely, you know, sourced from these fintech partners, plus we do have some, I think, 2 odd% exposure to personal loans, wherein the regulator is incrementally, you know, is being very watchful. Do you foresee, because of this, there can be any moderation in our AUM growth or you would like to revisit our growth assumptions in near term? No, good question. So what we have done is, we had a few partners, but now in last quarter itself, as soon as the RBI came down, came up with this policy, we have scaled down those partners, almost like kind of discontinued with many of them. So today, our personal portfolio is around 2%, and last quarter it degrew. It did not grow actually, because whatever old loans are running down, because in the middle of the quarter, we put break. So it will not have any impact on our AUM growth, one. This 2% what you are seeing will also go down now, because we are not doing incrementally personal. We may do very sporadic, very, very insignificant to our existing customer if need be. Like suddenly I've got a home loan customer, I've got a customer with a good track record, but by and large, this product is, you know, discontinued for us. So what you are seeing right now, the portfolio 2%, this will also go down. So a negligible impact of this on our, you know, AUM as well as yield or profitability. On digital loans, I mean, digital business loans? Yeah. So digital loans, we are focusing only on business loans. Also, what we are doing is that, we have started supply chain financing. So there's a company in which, our fintech fund is invested and taken a controlling stake, and they have the software and the relationship. So these are short duration loans, but, you know, with the dealer, or with, you know, distributors or some of the, you know, companies like the FMCG companies or automotive companies we can tie up. So the supply chain or the invoice discounting is two months, three months, or less than six-month product. Yield is lower, and that will basically, fill the gap of, you know, whatever, digital partner, that we earlier had and probably will also help us grow faster. But this will also have a moderating impact on the yield of digital loans. So you'll see that this quarter there's a bit of a fall, because the short duration loans are at 11%-13%, 14%, but they are, in a way, if the anchor dealer is like quality AA or AAA, so they are more like treasury, but, you know, so you can price them competitively. So that is how the digital product will evolve. Got it. So you don't foresee, even if, let's say, regulated tomorrow ask these fintech partners to tighten their credit rules, we don't see any AUM growth integration? So our participation of fintech partner is negligible and we are also scaling it down. So our strategy and philosophy has always been that we want to do credit underwriting ourselves. So we really don't believe in the FLDG model, because you are giving FLDG only when you want your partner to take part of the risk and, that means that you are not doing the full underwriting or you don't have access to the, entire data. So that is... I mean, we had, you know, to a limited extent this kind of partnership also, but that is not what we are encouraging, and we are discontinuing. Some of the times you can't discontinue overnight because some of the fintech partners are, dependent, and you also have a portfolio that you need to collect. But strategically, we are not into that business model. Got it. For us, even if digital partners, it becomes, you know, it hardly impacts me. Got it. Got it. So I mean, just to summarize, I mean, we are just fine-tuning our model, at least as per what regulation wants. I mean, is that the right- I have 38,000, 38,000 employees on the ground, so, and, you know, almost 4,500 branches, including all the subsidiaries. So for us, you know, we invested so much in people and branches primarily because we want to source our own loans. Got it. Got it. Got it. This is very helpful, sir. Right. Secondly, again, if I look at the, you know, stage-wise, product-wise, breakup, surprisingly, our bag, Stage 1 is the lowest, 83-odd%. Yeah. So just wanted to understand, I mean, why, why is that? And structurally, does this portfolio is likely to be same way or there is some seasonality to it? No, actually, we have tightened our credit policies and in some of the businesses, like microfinance or whatever, we slowed down the growth, but we want to be a little more stricter on the credit underwriting standard. So I think that is what will be reflected in the stage-wise loans. Sorry, sir, actually, my question is for a LAP portfolio, wherein our Stage 1- LAP portfolio, okay. Yeah, yeah, at 83%. So basically- Got it. - We are dealing with 17% 1+ DPD customer. Right. I just wanted to get a sense what is, what is happening there. Because if you see our loans against property, it's a very small ticket loan against property. Loan against property is the product where you can have typically INR 50,000 to INR 50 crore... and still everything can be LAP and can be MSME. But our average ticket size of loans against property is about INR 7.9 lakh. Got it. Which is, you know, you can imagine that less than INR 10 lakh of property loan. Okay, this is a product where collection is also done physically. So typically you can have a little higher than, you know, the normal larger LAP in the Stage 1 and Stage 2, but they get collected. So our experience on this product has been fairly good. Got it. Got it, got it. So basically- If you see INR 7-8 lakh of LAP loan, then there'll be Tier 3, Tier 4 towns, the self-occupied residential property. That is how incrementally we are doing this business. Got it. Got it. So do you... I mean, do you see this proportion normalizing to 90-odd%, or this will continue to remain this way only? I think this will continue like this, if we have to maintain the yield. Because see, if you see our LAP yield is around... See, okay, you know, there's always a compromise in, yield. So we are getting 18% yield, around 18%. So you can do a LAP at 11%-12% and have a very high quality of assets, but for our kind of yield, I think it will remain broadly in a similar range. Got it. Got it. Got it, sir. And, sir, just, if I may, last question from my side on the microfinance side. So again, you know, our regulator in his various commentary has been mentioning about MFI lending rates to be on the higher side. So any risk we foresee? I mean, potentially, MFI yield should come down or we'll be able to sustain at current level? So maybe they'll come down by around 50 basis points in next few quarters for us, as a, you know, as a suo motu this thing. But you know what is happening in MFI? There are many small MFIs who are charging even 28% and more. Yeah. I think that should be there on the RBI's mind when they are talking about this. Because, for the cost structure that is there in the MFI, even many banks and their subsidiaries charge interest rates similar to what we are charging. Yes, yes. Got it. Got it. Okay, sir. Thank you very much. Still, I think we would like to say that the yield may come down by 50 basis points over next few quarters. Got it. Got it, sir. Okay. Thank you very much, sir, and best of luck for coming quarters, sir. Thanks. Bye. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shubhranshu Mishra from Phillip Capital. Please go ahead. Sure. Thanks. Today, first question is on the housing loans. Given the fact that the CLSS is over, are we expecting any kind of a revamp or a relaunch of CLSS with a new name or another CLSS to every current budget? That's the first on housing, because it has had an impact on supply of affordable housing. Second is on the gold loans. If you could spell out what the top 50 branches contribute in terms of disbursement and AUM and top 100 branches. Just want to understand the concentration there in terms of disbursement as well as AUM. Also, what sort of LTVs are we working with in gold loans in this quarter or in the last two odd quarters with the gold price going up? And my third question is around, again, harping on the digital loans. Given the fact that we are doing business loans, what sort of businesses do we select? Or maybe, what sort of businesses do we reject? I think that would be the question. And if you reject, what would be the key reasons for rejection of those businesses? Thanks. Fine. So you are saying the businesses we reject for housing loan, you are saying? Yes. What, what sort of rejection parameters would we have for, Okay, I'll have Monu take the housing loan questions in a minute. Yeah. Or maybe, Monu, just why don't you take the housing loan questions first? Yes. Yeah, hi, Shubhranshu. Hi. Yeah. So I think your first question was on CLSS, will it be back or not? Right. Right. So as per the initial indication, it seems it should be there, but maybe in a new avatar. So we are all expecting that it should be part of the budget expectedly. Although as far as we are concerned, if you can see, our disbursements have been pretty stable and largely growing as we have had the distribution in place. So I think, Shubhranshu, that was your question for CLSS? Correct. Correct. Yeah. So was there any other follow-up question on HL? I think- Just that, kind of supply side squeeze because of the lack of CLSS. Sorry? We just see a supply side squeeze because of the lack of CLSS. Yes, yes, for sure. Especially in the metros and Tier 1s, we do see a lack of supply because of developers not coming out with new supply, and also the fact that the mid segment and the premium segment is doing exceptionally well. So yes, absolutely there has been a constraint of supply in the metros and the Tier 1s. No doubt about it. Understood. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Right, coming back to your gold loan question. Now, I don't have the data handy, but at least, you know, because we monitor all the branches, so I don't think there's any concentration as such. So even if you take top 50 or 100 branches in terms of, say, they have levels in the average AUM, and I don't think it'll be significantly more than that. If you are taking a 100 branches or 50 branches, then, it still will be less than, you know, 5% or 10% of our, total portfolio for sure. So there is not much there. Okay, to answer your question, is there a concentration in gold loan branches? It's not significant at all. Understood. Understood. That was helpful. The part on LTV and because the gold loan price, right? Right. Now, LTV as of now is around 68%-69% or so. Maybe 75% is a statutory thing, but our LTV would be around little less than 70% at this point in time. Which was, last quarter would have been how much? Something similar, maybe 1% here and there, not significantly different. Understood. Understood. And my last question on business loans: What sort of businesses do we reject? What sort of businesses we reject for- Business. Which product? Business. In business loans, you said that we largely do. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay, there's a whole lot of. So first of all, there are many PIN codes that we reject. Then there are many businesses which are, like mobile or, you know, so I think there's a very long list, and also it varies from area to area. So every state probably might have a different rejection list also. But typically mobile phones, restaurants, and these businesses, we are more careful about. Also the, we because we do smaller loans, so typically we don't have jewelers as our customer segment for business loans. So because our ticket prices are smaller, so they are mostly grocery, textile, and, you know, these kind of products. Understood. So is it a fair assessment that these would be largely traders and not manufacturers? Yes. I think largely shopkeepers and traders and very few manufacturers, but there can be a few ancillary units. But bulk of it will be, traders and shopkeepers. Understood. Understood. This is very helpful. I'll come back and with you. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhijit Tibrewal from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. So the first one is on microfinance again. I've seen that you've calibrated your growth a little bit, given that we were already growing at a very, very strong clip. So, I mean, is this, I would say, sequential decline in disbursements that we've seen in this quarter, a conscious strategy or how should we kind of look at? I think it's a conscious strategy to tighten the credit rules and the amount that we give. So last quarter, as you have noticed, that sequentially disbursements have fallen, but even after... I mean, so we are still growth by 10% on a quarter-over-quarter basis, so we'll maintain this pace, actually, but this is conscious. It's very thought through strategy. Got it. And so where are we tightening things in microfinance? Because, I mean, the ticket sizes are largely same. So how, what customers we accept and what customers we reject, is the key thing. So if the like supposing customer has three loans or two loans or one loan, and, if the customer's bureau score now or 15 days or earlier before the settlement, there's a whole lot of criteria that, you know, we put in. Venkatesh, you joined? Venkatesh? No, sorry, microfinance. So I think the number of criteria that we are tightening, Abhijit. Excuse me, sir. He's available. He's available. Yeah, from the bureau, so also microfinance customers have their bureau data. I think the policies you can tighten at different levels, and in different states it works differently. Got it. Hello? Yeah. Hello, can you... I mean, does this answer your question? Yeah, yeah, that answers my question. So the second question I had, again, on gold loans, you've said or said already that we have kind of tightened our standards there, stopped working with few of the fintech partnerships that we have. Increasingly, we are not doing personal loans now, except as a cross-sell product to other product customers. But, sir, I mean, will it be fair to say that, I mean, the lending that we did in the past, let's say until March 2023, where our onboarding ticket sizes used to be around that 30,000, 40,000. From there, we are continuing to see flows because if I look at it as the gross NPAs in digital loans on an absolute basis, it continues to inch up. Even if you look at the GNP on a lagged basis, six months or one year, it is only inching up in digital loans. Yeah, you are right, actually. So those are, loans of a very small ticket size and some through some fintech partners, so... But typically those loans are of shorter duration, but yes, there's a flow from those loans. Got it. And sir, typically, what are those? What is the tenure of the loans? By when can that pool of loans, INR 30,000-40,000 average ticket size pool run down? So typically 6-12 months, they run down very soon. I mean, if it would run down, but maybe another quarter or so. So I think it would run down significantly. Got it. Got it. Maybe my last question here is on home loans, but from Monu, sir. So just wanted to understand co-lending in home loans, both in terms of, I mean, disbursements or as a percentage of the home loan inventory, and it has been on a declining trend for the past few quarters. Is it being done intentionally, or are banks not too keen on co-lending in home loans now? No, yeah. Hi, Abhijit. How are you? So in this case, in home loans, as we saw that two things: one, we were sitting on a pretty adequate capital, number one, the demand is, hasn't slowed down really. And also, we have this principal business criteria which has got kicked in by NHB, which is that you have to have a minimum percentage of individual home loans on the loan book itself. So otherwise, so we are pretty much very well on the capital, and this principal business criteria is just keeping us on track to how much we can put it off book. So otherwise, no other reason for us to. We are very consistent, and we see this is a long-term strategy. Understood. This is useful. Just to add, what he is saying is that- Yes. The HFC has three components: a very small component of construction finance and LAP and the home loans. So banks are very keen to do co-lending of home loan, but if they don't do for other product, then the criteria applies for loans on my books, and there I have to maintain the home loan percentage to remain HFC, you know. So that is one, but other than that, with 45%-50% capital adequacy, you know, there's no compulsion to do co-lending at aggressive pace. But we'll still continue to do that because we have a long-term relationship, and it's a part of our long-term strategy. There's no demand to at all, Ajay, from the other side. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Got it. And sir, just squeezing in one last question. Sir, I mean, we keep talking about, I mean, retail products. All retail products are doing exceptionally well for you. I mean, I mean, the wholesale piece that you have in CRE, wanted to understand how are you thinking about it? I mean, I mean, while we keep doing the construction finance in the HFC, more from getting more retail home loans, but other wholesale book that you have in the standalone entity, are there any plans of sort of running it down? I mean, whatever loans, if at all they are, I mean, stressed, and are there any plans of kind of getting into some ARC transactions and disposing them off in the next 6-12 months? So, Abhijit, okay, there are two parts to the question. One is construction finance through HFC, which will continue, but typical ticket sizes are small, maybe INR 30 crore-INR 50 crore or... And there also, Monu's preference will be, and, you know, probably consciously he will look for developers where we can be a priority or a preferred partner to do home loan. So the doubt is into our core business of home loan. Am I right, Monu? Absolutely. That's what we are doing. Then secondly, coming back to the wholesale piece in the NBFC, we are looking at. So what has happened is that, in last COVID period, the projects have been delayed. The projects' collateral is good. That's good, because we don't have any problem with any of the borrower as such. So we are looking at various options, and the option may be, you know, maybe not to transfer to ARC as such, but transfer to a different entity or, sell down or some of the debt which, you know, we have a builder, we convert that to, you know, maybe get another builder who can take over the loan also, as I, you know, become like a sell of the project. So there are certain alternatives that we are looking at, where we can do a bulk reduction of these loans in the NBFC book. And that will help us, restore our capital adequacy also, and then, you know, again, the core strategic focus will remain on the retail that way. So we are looking at some alternatives there, but it's still too early, and, if we have something concrete, then obviously, you know, we'll communicate to everybody. Understood, sir. This is very useful. Thank you very much, and all the very best to you and your team. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Anusha Raheja from Dalal & Broacha. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks for taking my question, and congrats on good set of numbers. So firstly, on, you know, post RBI, you know, increasing the risk weightage, which entity of yours has seen the rise in the borrowing cost? I don't think so it would be for home finance, but NFI and this standalone entity. So the borrowing cost impact has been there on all the entities, but yes, on HFC is less, but there is impact, and this time this is an increase you see. So I think the, you know, impact has been there on all the entities. And the interest rates have gone up little bit, which is there in our slide 9. No, slide 11, sorry. No, slide number 12, you'll see the rate increase impact. So how much has been the increase? Standalone has gone up by 12 basis points. Home Finance is flat, actually down by 2 basis points, but what you are saying is right. So the Home Finance remains static. Samasta is up by 11 basis points on a quarter-to-quarter basis. Now, that would be the blended yields, you know, but incremental rate at which you borrow, how much that is? Almost up by 50 basis points. Up by 50 basis points across Home Finance and Oh, Monu, Home Finance, how much is the impact on incremental? Any idea? It's hardly any because we have an NHB refinance, so incrementally it's just about 20 bits, 20-25 bits. That's it. Okay. So other businesses will be? 20-25 basis points. 20-25 basis points, I think that'll be the impact. Because, you know, we also expanded our borrowing basket. We went and raised funds through ECBs from Mizuho Bank, Japan. We were also leveraging the opportunity to raise funds through the shorter window, which was near zero, which is helping us in addressing the requirement, the increase that's coming on the bank borrowing, which again is around 25-30 basis points. So in all, the impact on the overall borrowing is ranging between 15-20 basis point. Okay. And so do we see- On the incremental side, I'm saying. On the incremental side. Yeah. Yeah. So do we see further rise, you know, in the borrowing cost or, you expect that it will, you know, remain at this rate? I think that now. At least this is my personal view, but nobody can have a, you know, but my view is that I think interest rates seems to have peaked out. So from here, they may remain at elevated level for some time- Yeah. - and may come down the later part of this calendar year or, you know, from the later. But I think for next few months, they remain at this level, but they won't go up from here. So we have, you know, got our outlook changed last month, from CRISIL. Even Samasta Entity, I should, I would like to highlight that we have got a rating of double A from India Ratings, which will help in their ability to borrow from wider window as well, and the element of shorter opportunity that we have. All these will help us in keeping our cost of borrowing under cap from an incremental perspective as well. So CRISIL has upgraded our outlook to double A positive from double A stable. So you know that these things will also... They're helping us to, you know, make sure that we can mitigate the damage of interest and increase in the system. And incrementally, we should look at, you know, interest is coming down after a drag of maybe a quarter. Okay. If I just observe on the asset side, I think largely whatever the increase that has happened on the borrowing cost, you know, you have passed it on to the customers, right? So we have seen sequential rise in the lending rates as well. So, on a spread basis, I think we are up by around 10 basis point, on sequential basis, right? So, just one question there. I mean, how much you feel that, you know, you know, will be able to absorb it and, you know, your growth will not be impacted? So the current yields are fairly normal. So I think the remaining of this band, maybe 5, 10 basis points up and down, they can go down by 10 basis points, go up by this thing. But I think that what we are seeing right now is, looks to be a stable scenario in terms of what customers can take for the customer underwriting that we want to do. Okay. And so broadly, I mean, is it, you know, too early to comment, like, broader call, you know, on the margins in the for the next two to three quarters, how do you see it? We see stable margins, you know, at these levels, Anusha. Okay. And, in, you know, I've seen in gold loans, you know, growth rate has been quite strong, at around 35% in MFI. Do you see that, you know, this current rate to continue, ahead as well, without, you know, diluting on the asset quality side? You are saying microfinance or gold loan? Both, both. Yeah. So, I think this growth will continue. I mean, we don't see any... As the economy does well and things become better, then, you know, this can become stronger. But, I mean, if you want to be, I don't see any challenge to continue this growth at this point. Okay. And, if I just look on, you know, your asset quality, the Stage 2 assets has increased to around 4.7%, or if I'm not wrong. So, is it more to do with the seasonal nature, you know, of the book or, how is it? I mean, Stage 3 has definitely come down, from 1.8%- 1.7%- It is 2.2. No, it's 4.2. Sorry, this quarter. No, this thing. No, it's not gone up, it's similar. Might have come down, actually. Hello? Yeah, yeah. It is 4.2. 4.2% is our Stage 2, as you see on slide 13. You're comparing with Stage 1 or you're comparing with the last quarter? I'm comparing Stage 2, this quarter versus last quarter. So, how is that, you know- Last quarter was 4.4. Last quarter 4.4, this has become 3, 4.2 this quarter. Okay. Okay. I think broadly, I mean, how has been the, you know, asset quality performance across the segments? Has been very good, actually. So asset quality is improving. Or, we're able to maintain at a high level of quality. So, Stage 1, Stage 2, I mean, they're 20 basis points here and there, but they're in the same range, which that we are comfortable with. Okay. Okay, sir. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Devesh Kayal from Monarch AIF. Please go ahead. Mr. Kayal, I have unmuted your line. Kindly proceed. As the current participant is not answering, we'll move on to the next question, which is from the line of Sanket Chheda from DAM Capital. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, sir, good numbers. My question was on credit cost. So far, the credit cost has been a little over 2%. It has been operating in recent past, but as we move deeper into the marginal macro, do we expect it to come down? No, I think, we expect it to remain in similar range. I mean, unless some event happens that we are not, that we can't foresee at this point in time. So our credit cost on an annual basis should be in this range only. This 2% range? Around 2%, yeah. Okay. And, sir, in last 2.5-3 years, we have almost tripled our housing branches, and also there's about 50% increase in the gold branches as well. So from here on, do we see some moderation in the branch expansion? And, what, what will be the number of branches we'll look to add, on an annual basis? And if it moderates, do we see a possibility of some operating leverage taking in in FY 2025, 2022? Yeah. So, in housing for sure, there's a pause kind of a thing. Gold has slowed down, but we'll continue to set up some new branches. In microfinance also, when there are larger branches, we split them into two. But to put everything together, the pace will slow down and we'll moderate. The operating leverage impact also should be now, next few quarters we should see that... In the last quarter, we stepped up, and maybe this financial year, we have stepped up our advertisement and marketing campaign, and that has impacted our cost income. But going forward, I think, we should see, you know, that impact coming in the operating results. Sure. And last question from my side is, that, our Stage 2 on gold is higher. It has been, high, in the previous years as well. It, comes down materially in Q4, along with the sharp growth also. Now, this time, Q3, usually is seasonally weak, but do we expect, a bounce back in Q4 on growth also and moderation on the Stage 2, as far as gold loans are concerned? Yes. Growth bounce back, you should see in Q4. Stage, you know, the gold loan customers, typically, they're in touch with our branch people, and they also know that, if they pay back by 90 days, then, you know, company is okay with it because it's not NPA. So generally, behaviorally, you know, many gold loan small customers, they let it run for 30, 60 days, 90 days, and they just pay just before time. So some amount of skew in terms of Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3 gold loans will be there. I don't, you know, maybe they'll continue this quarter also, there won't be much difference because as long as you have a gold collateral, fully covered, branches are also not pushing customers too much to pay or liquidate, you know, if the cost is in 60 days. So, obviously, it becomes much stronger and tighter follow-up and control between 60-90 days. Sure, sir. Yeah. I was talking about the trend. Usually by Q3, we have 8%-10% in Q2, and Q4 it falls to, maybe 5-6%. So that is, that's a seasonal fall, whether it will be- Yeah, I think so. Maybe what you're saying is right, that in Q4 there can be a little moderation in this. Okay. Yeah, those, those were the questions from me. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jeet from Pinpoint Asset Management. Please go ahead. Hi, sir. Congratulations on a great quarter. My first question is on the financials for the standalone entity, which is given later in the presentation. So in the standalone entity, we've seen good growth across gold and digital loans. Gold loans are the backbone and seasonal use. But if I look at the interest income, that's actually declined 7% QOQ, and the net interest income has declined quite a bit on a QOQ basis. So if you could just explain that progression, please. So in gold loans, in particular, what has happened is that what we were doing earlier, assignment, now that assignment used to have upfront income as per India's accounting, and we are moving towards co-lending, and co-lending income is accrued consistently. So, you know, the incremental, what last year we had assignment and what we have, so the assignment is moving to co-lending, then we see that the upfront income, which comes as a part of the non-fund based income, that goes down significantly. Secondly, we have taken fair value, based on CRISIL model, a certain reduction in our in the valuations of the AIF units, and that also is reflected in the fair value decline. So these are the things that are impacting the income that you're seeing. Okay, sir. The profitability has gone down because this has also been coupled with our increased spend on the branding budget and the advertising budget. Right. But this assignment income, this is upfronted. Does that get reflected in the interest income line item, or does it get reflected in the non-fund-based income? It's interested in the interest income line item, and it's knocked off from the front-end income, you know. Okay, understood. And, and more on a strategic level, what, what is the thinking behind, going more towards co-lending instead of assignment? Can you explain the process? You know, co-lending is a very stable model because if you do assignment, it's more transaction based. So you bundle assets every quarter, you go to the bank, they negotiate, they check the model, they get the rating done, and they do it. Co-lending is simultaneous. So in a way, both banks and the partners, they are dependent on each other, and over a period of time, you have a stronger relationship. So, as co-lending happens at origination, the assignment can happen only after assets are seasoned for 90 or 180 days, depending on the tenure. So, co-lending, you know. So, okay, we want to have a mix of it, but co-lending still will become a little more larger on the part because it's a long-term relationship. Every day it happens, so, you know, you are fairly comfortable with that. Okay, understood. Very clear, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shweta Daptardar from Elara Capital. Please go ahead. Thank you, sir, for the opportunity. I have three set of questions. So number 1, you mentioned earlier that, the margins are looking stable, visibly going forward. So what reinforces your confidence, given the fact that there is recalibration on MFI portfolio, digital loans are being clamped down due to regulatory forbearance, and also affordable, disbursements are declining? So which are the vectors that you believe will drive the stability in margins? That is number 1. Number 2, so admittedly, there's, the, the supply shock that's staying on affordable housing finance side, right? So, can you just throw light upon how are we faring on productivity measures there, in light of, say, presumably, these inquiries might have come down or, the third, how is that you handle per month? You know, what is the, what is the status there? Thirdly, so you mentioned that on the microfinance business side, there is, there will be recalibration on yields, right? I mean, you also mentioned that RBI might come hard probably on small, smaller players with higher interest rates on 28% north. But then, still we are sort of recalibrating both growth and yields. So are we coming from the fact that we are seeing some systemic risk building up, say, over-leveraging of customers? You also quoted an example wherein, you know, somebody might be having a home loan or such. Are we seeing that? Or maybe you also sense that somewhere due to aggression led by payments in the sector, probably regulator, maybe 1-1.5 years- Can you pick up the hand? I think your voice is a little dim. So can you just, you know, speak in the- Okay. Is it, is it any way better now? Yeah, this is better. Okay, go ahead. Okay, okay. So yeah, so I was wanting to know the reasoning on why the recalibration on yields and growth on microfinance side. So is it that you believe that the over-leveraging of customer has gone higher? Or secondly, you believe RBI may be probably one or two years down the line, might again sort of bring the cap on the net interest margin or the sense that you know, there has been certain markets or geographies which sort of would have heated up for you or for industry in particular? Yeah, those are my three set of questions. So, Nirmal, may I answer the affordable one first? Yeah, please go ahead. Yeah. Yeah, hi, Shweta. So, Shweta, as far as affordable housing is concerned, you're absolutely right. There's been a constraint of supply in the metros and Tier 1. I think, Shweta, if you look back our strategy for the last 2.5 years, we're actually... We have gone more deeper into the country, into Tier 3, Tier 4 cities. And, so hence, what is getting incremental business for us is the deeper geographies. If you see sequentially, in the last three quarters, our affordable housing, our housing home loan disbursement has increased, from... It's also gone up from Q2 to Q3 as well. So, Shweta, we believe that the kind of branches we have opened, they're yet to reach an optimum level of productivity. So we don't see, although there's slowdown in the metro in Tier 1, but we get offset by our deeper distribution. So I think we should be good as far as the continued growth of affordable housing is concerned. But Tier 1 and metro, yes, it's slowed down, but we are offsetting by that, and it's shown in the numbers as well. Yep. Okay, and how are we faring on, say, AUM per employee or AUM per branch? Right. So if you see, we have two kind of setup, one which we call as hub locations, another is called as expansion locations. So expansion is typically a very lean model we have, which is very technology-backed, and most of these locations are, say, less than one year old. So all of these locations as of now, to average out the AUM, will come out in few years. But otherwise, as far as the hub locations are concerned, we have about 50 locations, and they constitute almost as a housing finance company, they almost have about INR 24,000 crore of portfolio. You can so easily say it's about holding about INR 500 crore plus portfolio. Right. Okay, that helps. Yeah, yeah. So now, Nirmal, got the rest, please. Nirmal, should I answer on the microfinance? Yeah, please go ahead on the microfinance. Yeah. In terms of the. If you look at the, the credit cost post, I mean, during pandemic, it had gone up, and subsequently our pricing was slightly calibrated because of that. But if you look at, kind of, this quarter onwards, we have reduced our prices by 50 basis points. And also, if you look at it in terms of the growth, I mean, we have been little more cautious in terms of how we have been growing the business in certain pockets and all those things. There, as such, there's not been any thing, but we just wanted to make sure that we are taking the cautious approach in terms of how we have been growing the business over in the last one year. And given the new regulations which came in about last year and the new, I mean, the overall rejection percentage, if you look at our credit bureau thing, has gone up also substantially. Okay, that's a fair point. And the last question on the vectors to stability margins, because the higher-yielding portfolios are sort of getting recalibrated in my understanding. Hello? Yeah, can you come again, please? Sorry. So what are the vectors for margin stability? You know, what reinforces your confidence? Because I believe that all the higher-yielding products have been sort of getting recalibrated, especially on the yield transfer, be digital loans, affordable disbursements declining, microfinance yields, slightly coming down. So what gives us confidence on margin stability ahead? Yeah, but if you look at our, we have also substantially brought down on our, I mean, with especially with respect to microfinance, we have brought down our, our OpEx is on a downward spiral. And also, we are also looking at borrowing. Borrowing cost also has come down, with respect to microfinance. So now, I mean, we will be able to maintain the NIMs. Okay. And even concerned, like, across, the NIMs should be maintained, right? Overall book. Yeah. Kapish, can you come on this? I'm so sorry, can you repeat? Sir, you are guiding stable margins, so how do we see that? You know, what reinforces our confidence on stability margins going forward? Correct me if I'm wrong, most of our high-yielding products are getting recalibrated on the yield front. So what is the confidence on margin stability ahead? Okay, just so there are, one is that they're getting recalibrated in terms, in a very narrow band, so it's not that there's a significant impact on the product and the interest and margin band. Secondly, if you see that, the, well, the growth that we have, like in microfinance, even after slowing down, was 7% quarter-over-quarter last quarter. So it's around 30% growth is something which we'll maintain. So it's not that growth is going down to a negative level. Secondly, as the mix of... so if you really see last few quarters, then the mix change, which is, so we have a home loan, which is a low-yielding product. MSME LAP can be relatively still, you know, lesser as we go ahead in terms of, but the digital loan, microfinance, are high-yielding product, so they've been growing faster. But, you know, instead of growing much faster, they'll continue to grow fast, but, you know, at a pace which, you know, we are comfortable. So if you work out the weighted average of everything, we don't see much impact on the margins, on the yield also. And as I said, that later part of the year, you'll see probably cost of funds also coming down, in line with the systemic interest rates coming down, and that probably will give us more leeway to bring the rates down. But supposing, for argument's sake, even if you don't bring the rate down of gold loan or microfinance, you know, there's also... I think we are not really violating or we are really not on the, in terms of RBI or any other, competitive pressure in a situation where we have to do any radical, reduction in our yield. Understood, sir. That helps. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Also, yeah, any other more questions you have? Yes, sir, we have few participants. Can we take them now? Yeah, please go ahead. Thank you. We'll take the next question from the line of Rajiv Mehta from Yes Securities. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi, congratulations on good set of numbers. So I've got a few questions on gold loans and microfinance. On gold loans, if you can, spell out what was the movement in overall tonnage? And, also if you can, you know, throw light on how is the average pledge per customer moving in the last three, four quarters? Average? Yeah, pledge per customer moving in the past 3, 4 quarters. So, the pledge you can work out based on the LTV, as I said. No, I'm asking average tonnage, tonnage per customer. Tonnage per customer, I think, will be grams, you know, so. Yeah, grams. Yeah, correct. Yeah. So average ticket size, INR 75,000, gold worth INR 110,000. So you can calculate that. It changes based on the carat and the adjustment. So it'll be few, 20, 30 grams or whatever. And then in terms of tonnage growth, I think we had about 2% tonnage growth last quarter quarter-over-quarter. So the festival quarter is a lot of releases, but still we had a tonnage growth of around 2%. 2%. Year-on-year, it's around 8.7%. Correct. Correct. And sir, what has been driving the improvement in gold loan yield? Because, you know, we've been seeing a lot of competition having come in, and there was also competitive, you know, reduction of rates, 1.5-2 years back. And now the yield for us has been continuously improving. What is driving it? So, one, Rajiv. So if on the base, if you see last year or earlier, you know, when there was a cutthroat competition, the yield had come down artificially or not artificially, but maybe unsustainably low than what is the relative sustainable model which is around here. We are still very competitive vis-a-vis the yield of competitive players. And the newer branches which have been set up in smaller areas, there we are able to command a little better yield. So all these factors are combining to give us slightly more yield in the last quarter versus previous quarter, and the trend in last three quarter is the same. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sir, can you give the breakup of the gold loan book, in terms of, say, ticket size below INR 1 lakh, INR 1 lakh-INR 5 lakh, and more than INR 5 lakhs? That will be helpful to understand the profile and also the yield. Not much change in what we had last time, and the discussion was asked earlier. Because of the millions of customers, you know, it remains more or less similar. But the data will send it to you, Rajiv. I don't think I have it ready here. Or if somebody can dig it, I'll just let me check. Sure. If you want, I'll come back to you on this. Sure, sir. I'll just move to microfinance. So microfinance, we have got one plus DPD of 3.7%. Which markets are, you know, driving this slightly higher number? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you look at certain markets like, for us, maybe MP, Rajasthan and Odisha are slightly on a higher side. If you look at the older market, like, Tamil Nadu will be on a, slightly on a higher side for us. Okay. Okay. And, among the new borrowers being added in microfinance, you know, where do we, you know, come in, in terms of, being, or, you know, which number in terms of being the lender? Are we the... I mean, are we unique or we also, you know, pick up a customer being a third or a fourth lender as well? Yeah. We, new to credit, will be close to around 9%. New to Samasta is close to around 40%. And we have close to—I mean, we don't go to the fourth lender at all. We have—we just—I mean, one of the things, if you looked at why our growth is thing, is we recalibrated, and we are not looking at this over-leveraging of customers and all that, and we don't want to be the fourth lender in the thing. And in some of the cases, we are okay with giving higher ticket size to our existing customers who have been with us for a longer time, and looking at customers who have been borrowing from multiple borrowers. Okay, okay. Just lastly, wanted some more color in terms of, Nirmal spoke about, you know, recalibrating, you know, calibrating underwriting in MFI. So one was the aspect of not chasing a borrower and becoming a fourth lender. Which are the other aspects of, you know, what we've changed in terms of underwriting or customer selection in MFI? Yeah. We have looked at very geographically specific things, how the market is playing out in couple of these geographies. And certain geographies are slightly, if you look at the borrowing levels have been thing, and overall economy in those places have been not supporting. So we normally slow down in certain geographies and things, and we take a call on time to time basis. I mean, so if you look at the... If the rains are not sufficient or something, we look at it in a different way. Once things are better, we go back and see more traction in those geographies. Hmm. Sure. Thank you so much. Yeah, one question that has come through social media, actually, so it's about the AIF provisioning and RBI norms that have come for that. So, you know, we had certain units in our HFC, which were, which required provisioning, and we've done the full provisioning for that. So the INR 900 crore portfolio on our book of our loan AUM, INR 77,500 crore, and our loan book, which is close to around- Forty. 47,000 crore is not very significant than advance. Secondly, we have proactively taken some provision, as I said, in the fair value of the units in this quarter. And this AIF is termed for three years, is coming to an end in the month of June, 9th June or maybe some Sunday, but in the month of June of this year, where we expect it to be, you know, closed, liquidated or completely distributed. So I think, you know, I don't think, you know, that's a serious concern from the way our numbers will, it will impact the numbers of our capital or, you know, the provisioning or income. We have taken some provision, and if required more, we can take it, but it's just one more quarter, and after that, we get liquidated. By the way, yeah, we can go to the next question. I just thought that I'd take up this question because this has come through some social media. Yeah. Thank you. We'll take the next question from the line of Jigar Jani from B&K Securities. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, thanks, sir, for taking my question. Just wanted to understand, our Stage 1 provisioning is down sequentially from 1.9%- 1.5%. So have you revised the ECL model this quarter? No, sorry, what is 1.9, 1.5? The provisioning on Stage 1 assets, which was in Q2, 1.5% or 1.9%, has come down to 1.5% this quarter. So have you revised the ECL model this quarter? No, it's 1.9% is this quarter, right? So, uh- So, okay, you're saying it is came down? Okay. So, maybe I'll have to check this. Where is this change in terms of the Stage 1, or is it a weighted average, is it different? Yeah, actually, in CRE portfolio, I think there is a revision from 10%-8%. Yeah. So that is the weighted average. Okay. So, These are all based on the actual performance of the assets, you know, they work out on the numbers. But what we have done is, we've increased Stage 3 provisioning from 44 to 49. Okay, so- Stage 4 has increased. So this is on account of some roll forward or is it actually or See, our overall provisioning would have gone down because Stage 2 and Stage 3 are increased more aggressively. So if you see Stage 2 has increased from 7.6- 8.2, and Stage 3 has increased from 44.5- 49.6. Okay, okay. Understood. And, sir- Based on the actual roll-forward, you know, they calculate these numbers. Okay, understood. And sir, any update or any timelines on the QIP? When can we expect some update on that? So we have taken approval for a year, which is now valid for another ten months or so. We are not in a hurry to do this thing, but you know, at appropriate time in market and every other conditions, you know, are okay, we'll look at that. But I mean, it's not imminent. Okay, okay. Understood. Thank you so much. That was all my questions. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhijit Tibrewal from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead. Yeah, thank you for allowing me a follow-up question. So just one question on microfinance. If you look at the last three quarters, the NPAs have been pretty much sticky at around the last three, four quarters, NPAs have been pretty much sticky at around 2.1%, your Stage 3 numbers, despite we taking provisioning write-offs in the Samasta MFI. So, I mean, why is it that we are still seeing kind of incremental continuous flows in microfinance? When, I mean, if I look at all the other NBFC MFIs, COVID pain for them is largely over. I recall we've done some amount of restructuring. So, I mean, when can we really expect this number, the gross GC number in microfinance to start trending down and credit costs in the microfinance business to start coming down? Yeah. In terms of if you look at the provisioning and the Stage 3, it's gone up from 63%- 80%. And if you look at also if you look in couple of places, there have been some kind of a thing, but all those have been evened out in terms of the- how the book is performed. And we, in the last four quarters, it's on a downward spiral. Loan book also is similar. And loan book also is on a similar level, actually. Yeah, I think you said the Stage 3 is 2%. So I think we need to compare this with industry players to figure out whether Stage 3, 2% is the normal or is below or higher than the other peers. With the time we had, I think we can discuss this separately. If I compare my lagged NPA numbers over the last 4-5 quarters, they've been smartly coming down there. Okay. And I did read it, comments on those competitors yesterday itself. It's not with me handy, but that's why you see that this, the lagged NPA, which is the right measure, has been showing improvement. Understood. Understood. Got it. Got it. This is, this is useful. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shubhranshu Mishra from Phillip Capital. Please go ahead. Hi, sir. Thank you for allowing me, follow-up question. Two questions. The first one is on, the risk management. What, what is our collection infrastructure? How many people out of that 38,000 do we deploy across businesses and collection? So that's first. Second, just a clarification: Did we mention that we do an assignment of gold loans? Because gold loans are bullet loans, and we're regulated by them to allow, assignment, or securitization transactions for, gold loans. Sorry. Can you repeat, please? I couldn't hear you. Right. Can you hear me now, sir? Yeah. So the first question is on the collection infrastructure. How many people do we deploy in collections out of the 38,000 people across businesses such as MFI, mortgages, digital loans, and other gold loans, so on and so forth. That's the first one. Second is, you mentioned that we do assignment on gold loans, but the regulator mentions that we, we can't do assignment or securitization transactions on gold loans given the fact that they are bullet loans and not term loans. So if you can clarify on this, that part. Thanks. No, gold loan assignment transaction cannot be done with bullet. So gold loan, no, I, I don't... You are saying they're bullet loans, so we don't do bullet loans for that. Okay, we do EMI gold loans there. Okay. And if there may be a small portfolio of bullet loan, that we don't assign. But our bullet loan portfolio is very, very negligible. In collections, so we have 125 people in our digital loan and LAP. How many people are there in collections in home loans? There are more than 500 people in collections for HFC. More than 500 people, and gold loans, primarily branches handle it, but there may be a small team to oversee. All put together, we'll have about 700-800 people in collections. Absolutely, yes. And then there are agencies also to support in certain buckets as we require. How many agencies do we have, sir, across hard buckets? At local levels, there'll be multiple, but, you know, I don't know. How many agencies we deal with? So in HFC, we don't employ agencies. Really, we all do in-house. So we have different buckets of collection people. We don't employ agencies in HFC. Our agency requirement is visible, but still they're supported for a hard bucket or whatever. But there are a few locally tied up, so I don't have that number, but they, they are not, like, very significant in our total contribution to collections of cost. Understood, sir. You mentioned that we largely do EMI gold loans in, No. assignments. Is that- It's not EMI. It may be monthly interest or a regular interest payment. So the bullet loans are... So gold loans, what we do, okay, they are not really EMI, but interest is paid on a monthly or quarterly basis. So, no, what is written on the customer loan sheet, sir? Is it a bullet repayment loan, and we are collecting the interest on a monthly basis? So that is how we define it as a monthly interest loan or have we told on the customer loan sheet that it is a monthly interest loan? No, the customer loan sheet very clearly will say it's a monthly interest. Okay. Okay. So just a counter- Customer always have option to change the loan, you know, if they want to, but otherwise, written very clearly. Right. So just a counterintuitive question to this: So if we are doing it on a monthly interest, then the interest would be, the yield would be yield dilutive, right? If we are collecting on a monthly basis rather than doing it on a bullet loan basis. But our yields are pretty much closer to the other gold loan NBFCs. No, if you see the... Okay, there are two things, that how fast you grow various branches, but other gold loan entities have higher yield than us. What you are saying is right, that if you try and accumulate it, then obviously you can command higher yield because of the way IRR works, and you can charge a penal or higher rate of interest. But our yields are lower than the many others that are in the industry. Sure, sir. Maybe I'll take this offline, sir. Thank you so much, and best of luck for you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Anusha Raheja from Dalal & Broacha. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks. Just on this AIF exposure only, how much was the provision that had come in this quarter? So this quarter, incrementally, we have done INR 40 crore provision in our NBFC and in our HFC. The INR 180 crore rupees is completely knocked off from the capital itself, so, you know, we have made that is the provision. There was INR 10 crore provision than last quarter also for the year. So are we comfortable again? About INR 180 crore, we have knocked off from the capital itself, so obviously, it doesn't require a provision because we have not considered it in capital. And other than that, we have another INR 50 crore of provision. Okay, and how much could be the pending part, or you have fully provided in this quarter itself? No. Okay, we don't have to fully provide it. It's not that these assets will become zero and then, you know, this thing, but, as I said, that we have, we are complying to the guidelines. So one is, that the guidelines basically were that the receivables which are transferred in last 12 months. Now, our AIF has been there for 2.5 years, and we have not transferred any new receivables. So these receivables were transferred 2.5 years ago when AIF was formed. So really, that particular clause of the circular is not applicable to us. Okay. Okay, sir. But still, we are conservative, we are trying to make adequate provision for this in case of liquidation or in case of closing down of the firm. Yeah, thanks. Thank you. [Vipin] if you are still on the call, our actually lagged NPA is down by 40% to what it was in March. I'll discuss with you separately, but MFI is actually showing improvement in the lagged NPA. Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Kapish Jain for his closing comments. Over to you, sir. So thank you very much for joining this call and for a very interactive conversation that we had. We're happy to take any further question, queries, or any anything that you want to understand further. You can reach out to to our investor relations team, or you can also connect with us separately for any conversation that you wish to do. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. On behalf of IIFL Finance Limited, that concludes this conference. We thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.