Key highlights from Bajaj Finance Ltd (BAJFINANCE) Q2 FY24 Earnings Concall
- Financial And Portfolio Metrics
- AUM grew by INR20,167 crores to INR290,264 crores, up 63% year-on-year.
- Added 3.58 million new customers, now at just below 45 million total customers.
- Net NPA remained steady at 31 bps.
- ROA at 5.16%, expected to sustain around 5% exit basis.
- New Customer Acquisition And Growth
- Added 7.42 million new customers in H1 FY24.
- Targeting 13-14 million new customer additions in FY24.
- Added 106 new locations, now at 3,934 locations.
- In-app service requests now 35% of total requests.
- Product Portfolio Diversification
- Now at 5.97 products per customer versus 5 in FY2021.
- Strategy to cross-sell products to existing customer base.
- Rural Portfolio Health Analysis
- Bajaj Finance conducted an internal analysis on the growth in personal loans and current loan balances from FY2020 to FY2023.
- The analysis showed the number of personal loans grew from 4.5 crore to 10.7 crore from FY2020 to FY2023, with most growth in sub-50k and above 8 lakh loans.
- However, sub-50k loans contributed only 13.5% to total loan AUM, indicating potential credit risk. Bajaj Finance has cut 8-14% of business in urban and rural areas for customers with more sub-50k loans.
- Capital Raise Utilization
- Bajaj will ensure ROE goals are met despite capital raise. Regulatory requirement is to list housing finance business in 8 quarters.
- Movement In Asset Quality
- Increase in stage 2 loans and decrease in stage 3 loans in some products this quarter is due to movement of loans from 89 DPD to 90+ DPD because of more days in Q2 2022.
- This will normalize next quarter. The phenomenon is unique to Bajaj Finance because most loans are due on 2nd of month, leading to this DPD movement in specific quarters.
- Technology Investment
- Strategic investment made in Pennant Technologies, a core lending platform provider for Bajaj Finance.
- Partnership since 2016, now migrating fully to Pennant’s platforms. Robust platforms needed given Bajaj Finance’s scale.
- Strategic for Bajaj Finance to enable Pennant’s growth from small to medium and large player.
- Not just a financial investment, but a strategic one to build capabilities on both sides.
- Credit Quality
- Tracking credit bureau data monthly shows moderation in unsecured loan growth rates.
- New RBI guidelines expected to moderate loan counts further.
- Continued monitoring and orchestrating different levers to control growth and risk.
- BHFL Growth and Funding
- Infusion of further capital needed with target leverage ratio of 7x.
- Committed to investing further in controlled growth of mortgage business.
- Additional 10,000 crore fundraise planned to support growth.