Central Bank of India (NSE: CENTRALBK) Q4 2025 Earnings Call dated Apr. 28, 2025
Corporate Participants:
Unidentified Speaker
M.V. Rao — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Mukul Dandige — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Unidentified Participant
Raju Barnawal — Analyst
Ashok Ajmera — Analyst
Sushil Choksey — Analyst
Amit Mishra — Analyst
Sarvesh Gupta — Analyst
Presentation:
operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for patient. Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Central bank of India Q4FY25 earnings conference call hosted by Antique Stockbroking Limited. As a reminder, all participant line will be in 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 Saturn 0 on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Raju Varnawar from Antique Stockbroking Ltd. Thank you.
And over to you sir.
Raju Barnawal — Analyst
Thank you. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining post result conference call of Central bank of India. From the senior management side today we have with us Sri M.B. rao, MD and CEO Sir Sri VI Executive Director Sri M.V. murli Krishna Sir Executive Director and Sri Mahindra Duhare Executive Director and Mr. Mukul Dandike Chief Financial Officer. Now without any further delay I hand over the call to MD sir for his opening remarks post which we will have a Q and A. Thank you. And over to you sir.
M.V. Rao — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you. Thank you Rajan and good afternoon to all the participants. And really we are thankful for the keen interest what you are showing in our results. And first of all we are very happy to inform this year gone by has many good things for the bank in many aspects. Just I will give the highlights and details will be given by our CFO Mr. Mukul. And as far as the performance highlights is concerned this is the first time where total business has crossed 7 lakh crore. Now our business stands at 72798 crores. And on the net profit again it is the highest ever net profit in this financial year.
That is 3,785 crores. And coming to gross NPA it is now at 3.18. A year back it was 4.50 and net NPA has come down to 0.55. Earlier it was 1.23 and provision coverage ratio now is at 96.54%. Coming to the other ratios which are most important that is the NIM that is net interest margin which stands at 3.40. It is same as that of the previous year. The return on assets now it is at 0.86. Earlier it was 0.63 and then ROE has improved to 12.48 of earlier 9.53 and then CRAR has improved to 17.02%.
Earlier it was 15.08. And coming to the top line numbers that is the total deposits which stands at 4.12 lakh crore. And the CASA deposits which is one of the best is 48.91%. And then our gross advances has shown an increase of 15.24%. Now stands at 2.90 lakh crore. And then our CD ratio is improved. Now we are at 71.13%. These are all the highlights for this year and including with the quarterly highlights our CFO will explain. Yes, Mr. Mukul.
Mukul Dandige — Chief Financial Officer
Thank you sir. Thank you so much. The interest income on advances has seen a YoY growth of 13.36% and it stands at 22,339 crores. There is a YoY and QoQ increase in the quarterly figures. Also the interest on investments has seen a 6.12% growth and it stands at 10,092 crores in March 25. The other income has been at 318 crores vis a vis 385 crores in the previous year. Mainly because we had a 205 crore IT interest refund last financial year. As far as the interest expenses go, the YOY growth in interest expenses has been at 10.90% and total interest expenses are at 19,769 crores.
The interest paid on deposits has seen a growth of 9.34% to 18,488 crores. The other interest has gone up to 1,281 crores. The staff cost has gone up by 14.37% and it is at 7,219 crores for the financial year. And the other operating expenses have seen increase by 12.10% to 4,409 crores. The fee based income and total other non interest income fee based income has seen an increase of 18.61% on a yoy basis and it stands at 2180crores for March 25 as against 1838crores in March 24. The total non interest income has seen a growth of 24.26% and it stands at 5855crores vis a vis 4712crores.
Noteworthy is that the recovery in write off for this financial year is 1,716 crores vis a vis 1,433 crores during the last financial year. The total interest income if we see there is an increase of 9.58% on a YOY basis and it stands at 33,600. The total interest expenses has gone up by 10.90% to 19,769 crores. The net interest income has seen an increase of 7.76% and it stands at 13,897 crores. The total expenditure has gone up by 11.85% to 31,397 crores. The operating profit has seen a goods growth of 10.34% and it stands at 8,124 crores and the net profit has improved by 48.49% to 3,785 crores.
If we see the total provisions required, the total provisions for the financial year for NPAs are at 2802crores vis a vis 3,391 crores. In March 24 there was a depreciation or provision investment including SRS. There is a write back of 306 crore crores this year compared to a write back of 265 crores last year. Income tax provision has been at 1149 crores this year and the restructured account Provision is at 539 crores this financial year compared to a write back of 34 crores last financial year. The NPA numbers as MD sir has told the gross NPA has come down to 3.18% in absolute terms also it has come down from 11,340 crores to 9,225 crores and the net NPA has come down to 0.55% and the net NPA now stands at 1,543 crores vis a vis 3,002 crores as of 31st March 2024.
The sector wise NPA classification if we see the retail net NPA is at 0.08%, the agriculture and other allied sector is 1.80 MSME is at 0.96 and corporate and others is at 0.04%. The provision coverage ratio stands at 96.54% and the credit cost is at 1.21. The slippage ratio for the quarter is at 0.56. If we exclude the proactive provision that we have made in the NPA category then the credit cost would be at 1.10%. The restructured book now stands at 5114 crores which includes the normal restructuring at 2169 crores and the COVID 19 resolution restructured book of 200945 crores.
As far as the special mention accounts of 5 crores and above are concerned, the total is 700 crores in 44 accounts out of which SMA2 is only 9 accounts of 93 crores. The capital adequacy ratio has improved to 17.02% with CET1 at 14.73% and the leverage ratio has improved to 6.15%. The total business has seen a growth of 10.37%. Total deposits at 7.19, CASA at 4.79% and we still are able to hold on to our 48.91 that is close to 49% of CASA share. The RAM growth is at 16.13% and RAM constitutes 66.90% which is well within our guidance of 6535 plus minus 5%.
The retail segment which constitutes 28.40% of our total advances has seen a YOY growth of 15.72%. And the home loan portfolio which constitutes 63.32% has seen a growth of 18.40%. On a Y OI basis, the weighted standard advances, if we see total PBB and above, that is the investment grade advances stand at 93152 crores out of the total 97,427 crores which is a very very healthy average. If we see our credit risk, weighted assets also is one of the lowest at 62.94% and our CD ratio has touched 71.13% during this quarter. We have achieved all the mandated norms under the priority sector and the investment portfolio has seen a very good yield with 6.87% being the yield on investment.
The Treasury M duration is at 3.46% and for SLR it is 3.52%. And the PV01 for SLR plus non SLR is at 13.28%. So these are all the highlights of our performance. Now we are open for any question and answers.
Questions and Answers:
operator
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue you may press star and two participants are requested to use handset 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 Ashok Ajmera from HCON Global. Please go ahead.
Ashok Ajmera
Thank you for giving me the opportunity. Good evening. Good afternoon sir. Raofa, Vaida, Malik, Rashnaji and Dorefab and congratulations and compliments to you for another good quarter. Of good set of numbers. Well almost on many parameters the bank has excelled and I think has achieved the one targeted numbers also. So my compliments to you sir for that very good profitability. As you said yourself the highest net profit. Having said that sir, I was some few observations and some clarification sir. Our as compared to many of the other peer banks our credit growth has been phenomenal.
I think we grew almost about 15%. And especially in this quarter itself we have grown by 7.14% our credit book from 2.70,000 crore to 2 90,000 crore. But correspondingly if you see it on the deposit side we are little bit lagging behind. In this quarter it was 3.72%. That’s okay. But overall in the year it was 7.19%. So going forward how are we going to match this difference Though we are as on today we are comfortable with 17% care. But then our CD ratio is also 71%. So we would definitely continue to grow on our credit book.
So this is one just a small observation, some questions if you can throw some light on it and then I’ll ask some couple of other questions.
M.V. Rao
See. Thank you for the good words. And as far as this growth on the advanced visa vis deposits, let me tell you because of our low CD ratio we were not aggressive on the deposit side. And going by the market the rates which were offered on the deposit front was too high and we had enough liquidity to fund our growth. That’s why we have not accelerated on the term deposits but on the lower low cost deposits. Always our focus was there. That’s why we could able to maintain our CASA ratio. And then going forward since what we say is we will be focusing to have stable CD ratio around 72 or 73%.
So now the acceleration on the deposit side will also increase. So we are confident whatever the numbers we are seeing we are going to maintain the pace of on both the deposits and advances side.
Ashok Ajmera
Sir, would you like to throw some light on that aviation account we have been talking about is a big amount, big account. And what is the current status? Like our total outstanding in our books, total provisions made so far in that account and what are the recovery prospects? Because we had some additional collateral along with the other bank Only I think one other big bank is involved with that. So where do we stand today now what is the current status on that. Account overall
M.V. Rao
as far as that particular account is concerned? Recovery is, you know, is the process. You also understand how the things move as far as the recovery which is process. Is not in bank’s hands. But we are actively moving on. You know on the collateral part which is a land parcel, what we have. And further there were good developments as far as arbitration part is also concerned. So there are a lot of positive things that are happening. But as far as our books are concerned, it is a hundred percent technically written off account. It is not accounted in our books right now.
It is totally hundred percent TW account for us.
Ashok Ajmera
So whatever comes will be added to the bottom line.
M.V. Rao
Bottom line. Yeah.
Ashok Ajmera
Sir, this quarter sir, the overall provision has been little more than the last quarter of 556 crore. This time it is 844 crore. Out of that 830 crore is only on NPA. So which what kind of accounts account for it? Making the provision in the large corporate accounts or its overall general delinquency which has led for you to make the higher provision. And with that we have a good amount of restructured book provision also on a restructured book of 5114 crore. So how good we are on the provision account and what was the need of this higher provision then? Do we have any buffer other than the IREC from the old providence?
M.V. Rao
No, no. See let me tell you our nitty gritties our CFO will share with you. But on the big picture side, let me tell you. Our slippage ratio for the quarter is 0.56. And then our freight cost is 1.21. Even if as per the RBI regulatory norms if I want to provide anything for the accounts which are clipped it will be around 15 to 25% depending upon the securities that are available. But since we have the provision coverage ratio is at 96%. So naturally the over and above regulatory requirement provisions are required to be made.
That’s why there is one. You may see that there is a increase in the provisions. But it is purely over and above the regulatory requirement that what we did and further details our CFO will share.
Mukul Dandige
Now what happens to maintain my net NP. Also whatever slippages happen, I’ll have to provide for 100%. So as sir is saying is my regulatory requirement is 15 or. Or say if it goes to DA1D2 or lost in that case 25, 40 or 100. But to maintain our net and CA ratio we are making 100% provision. As far as your question of any big corporate account, nothing. Nothing of that sort. I think the biggest slippage during this quarter is an account of around 3032 crores. Other than that these are small accounts which are marked purely on technical Grounds by the branch auditors.
And we are quite confident that going forward in the June quarter we’ll be able to upgrade these accounts. As far as you are asking some regulatory buffer. So yes we are having regulatory. I mean whatever is mandated as per the IR norm over and above lot of provision is held in NP accounts. In fact if you see my net NPA it is only 1550 crores odd. So that means out of my 10,000, 10,600 crores I have provided for everything else. So we are maintaining that more than that we have. We have done 250 crore provision which we are doing all these three four quarters on the restructured book also which will come handy during the implementation of ecl.
Ashok Ajmera
Okay. Yes. Yes sir. Last point in this round since you are there on this taxation friend, you know I have been talking in the previous some quarters also quarter to quarter there is some erratic numbers, you know. And this time also the total deferred tax asset has been reduced from 4297 to 3145 crores. And the tax provision also has come down to 125 crore from 447 crore leading to higher fat. Though the profit before tax was little lower in this quarter. So would you like to throw some light on that? What is the status? Where do we stand and why did we how much more benefit is to be approved or to be await in future?
Mukul Dandige
Yeah, if we see year on year numbers 22, 23 we had made a provision of 1063.14 crores in tax. 23, 24 it was slightly higher at 1504 crores. Also it is almost comparable 1149, 1150 crores ETL movement. If you see sir, 21 it was 7545. 22 it was 6862. 23 it was 5799. 24 it came down to 4295. And March 21 also it is 3146 and whatever our internal assessment is that we should be able to consume the entire DTA by March 26 and move to the new tax regime which would definitely give us some cushion in the tax rent coming forward.
Ashok Ajmera
Okay sir, very well explained by you. Thank you very much in the for taking my question this round. If time permits I have a couple of other some observations. Thank you sir and all the best.
operator
Thanks. Thank you. Before we take the next question, a reminder to all the participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line office from Indus Equity Advisory please go ahead.
Sushil Choksey
Good evening and congratulation to the team Central bank of India for very good numbers and a very successful qip. Sir, I’m looking to We’ve achieved what we desired in last one year and we have consolidated a path which is getting better for the bank. Can we talk about some growth trajectory now? We also launched the super app. So how are consumer bank and corporate bank will behave with treasury likely to be emerging as a winner in the current year based on the outlook globally and domestically.
M.V. Rao
See as far as this financially is concerned we have already set our targets for the business growth. It will be around 14% growth that is the top line growth. And then as far as advances will be around 15 to 16% and deposit growth will be around 12 to 13% and CASA we would like to have around 48% because now we are at 49 and whatever the things that happen and then keeping the market reality we are targeting at 48% with plus or minus 1%. So NIM also we always give that our guidance will be above 3 and we are delivering all the time above 3.4 or 3.35 that our endeavor will continue that on the gross NPA and net NPA definitely we would like to see that below 3% net NPA will be we will be eyeing for 0.45 that is our target.
This is overall big picture. What I’m giving for the this year’s guidance coupled with why we are gung ho is because entirely now all the business is shifted onto the new platform where after the super app we will be activating our wealth management modules and then wealth management structure which is specifically designed to cater to the needs of the HNIs and also a centralized forex cell which is already started working. We’ll be focusing on the NRI deposits and the NRI connections. So this is overall and then one more initiative what we will be doing this year is we have identified almost around 500 pin code centers where our bank physical presence is not there and where banking business is growing around 15 to 16% CAGR those centers we have identified and we will be moving with the BC Max centers.
BC Max is a hybrid between physical and BC center where it will be a very lean and cost effective structure where we are expecting a break even within the first three months. So that is the model that we will be accelerating to acquire the new business and also to provide all digital services to the people who are in those pin code areas. This is a new structure what we are Envisioning and already as a pilot we started in 25 centers and it is doing well and having the good experience. We will be rolling out to the 250 centers within this first half year.
Sushil Choksey
Any outlook on the treasury front how we would be beneficiary because we have stuck to BSEC as a product of investment in the investment book so that would result in the super abnormal profit for the current year.
Unidentified Speaker
As far as salary is concerned with falling rate scenario there will be at least two rate cuts are expected so 658 level of March should go can even reach 6 level so another 6 to 800 crore sale on investment profit is additional profit than last year in is is really expected and it should happen though it may or may not compensate the overall reduction of RBLR like Echo base but on rangy front definitely this this year is going to be a very good time.
Sushil Choksey
Is there any highlights on the super app and any further expenditure for digitization and creating a additional incentives in terms of products and things on the technology is concerned?
M.V. Rao
What is this? Yeah please Ratan. Good afternoon. We have already launched our consumer banking app. Now this year we will be going. Towards corporate banking app that is addressing specifically for corporates and SME segment.
Sushil Choksey
Any estimated expenditure on the digitization work for the next current year or years to come additional expense over what we’ve done.
M.V. Rao
Yeah we we are definitely budget is. Never a constraint for us. We have been very aggressive in investments in technology so this year also we are doing it something around the 300 to 500. We can easily expect that we will. Be able to invest on this technology.
Sushil Choksey
Rao sir, my last question in this round is with the super app and our CASA at 4849 the bank is having a healthy balance sheet. Do we estimate that consumer banking specifically led by housing loans or vehicle loans or any certain products which we are launching we may have a systematic higher growth than the average or higher end of the system which the banks have.
M.V. Rao
See if you see my retail growth whether it is housing, vehicle or agriculture MSME entire RAM segment that we will continue to have the focus and we are already recording around 18 to 20% growth. So whatever the targets we have equitably we have distributed among the RAM segments and corporate segments and we are confident to achieve that it is not that one product will be pressing for 25 or 28% growth and in another product 8 or 10%. That is we always evaluate which particular product is profitable and then trading off with the cost of the capital that that that call we always take on a monthly basis.
So as far as Goldpark is is concerned we are equitably on both on the RAM segment and corporate. We have the equal focus.
Sushil Choksey
Thank you for answering all my questions and good wishes for the years to come.
M.V. Rao
Thank you. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. Thank you. A reminder to all the participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of Amit Mishra from Indus Equity Advisor. Please go ahead.
Amit Mishra
Good evening sir. Good evening everyone. Thanks for the opportunity and congratulations for the good set of numbers. My first question is on other income. Sir, our recoveries have doubled almost double from last quarter. So any big account in this or. There are small. Small accounts.
Mukul Dandige
Yeah. As we have told the total recovery which was recovery in return of accounts which was at 369 crores during the last quarter. It has increased to 549 crores during this March 25 quarter. And the major accounts wherein we have received recovery. Our GM G. GM recovery there was one big account Coastal Energy in which we have received 302 crores.
M.V. Rao
Yeah. There is only the P100 crores. Yeah.
Unidentified Speaker
Rest recovery is coming from the various. Initiatives we have taken like selling properties in which we have got physical possessions.
Amit Mishra
Okay sir, got it. So overall your expectation for FY 2016 recovery from NPA as well as from written of account. Do you have any guidance guidance on that?
Unidentified Speaker
The last year we made a recovery. Total recovery of 4,062. And in this year we are eyeing.
M.V. Rao
For 4,500 crores last couple of years. Our run rate as far as the recovery in write off is roughly around four and a half five percent this year also. I mean the technical write off book now stands at 35,413.56 crores. And we expect a similar amount around 1500-1700 crores to be recovered during this financial year.
Amit Mishra
Okay sir. Got it. Sir, in your retail NPAs, the classification I was looking at, there is a slight increase in retail NPAs. So I just wanted to know from a overall industry point of view and from your bank particular point of view how is the retail portfolio currently? Do you think there is stress in retail sector or
M.V. Rao
if you see the. Increases from 858 to only thousand crores.
Amit Mishra
Yeah, there is a slight increase.
M.V. Rao
Yes. It is very minor in this one. I mean not attributable to any. Any stress or anything or any particular systemic thing.
Amit Mishra
Okay sir. Sir, what is your branch extension plan? Because we are spending on IT infrastructure but I think in past One year we have not increased so many branches. So what is your plan for two to three years only for branch extension?
M.V. Rao
Yeah, earlier just I informed you know the way we are expanding through the BC maximum. That will be our future of reaching out to the customers where our physical branches are not there. But as far as the only physical branches are concerned, wherever we feel that it is required that we will evaluate and take the decision. But as such from the corporate side we will be focusing more on the low cost digital hybrid model that is what we call BP Max Center.
Amit Mishra
Okay, got it. So my last question is on ROA. So we have almost achieved 0.9% of ROA. So do we, can we expect 1% of ROA for. For 26.
Mukul Dandige
Actually we thought that we should be able to touch March 25th only 1% ROA. Now we need to. We need to look at the. But looking at our past 16 quarters record we are quite confident that we should be able to touch 1% ROI during this financial year.
Amit Mishra
Okay so thank you so much and all the best for the future.
operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, you may press star N1 to ask a question. The next follow up question is from the line of Ashoka Jmeera from HCON Global. Please go ahead.
Ashok Ajmera
Oh thank you for giving the opportunity. Again most of these questions have already been answered. In fact I had a major question on the recovery which has just been answered but I have got just couple of small things like one on treasury if you look at the segment wise results on the treasury side the income, the profit we have about 888 crore as compared to 318 crore in the last quarter. So overall we have been doing well on the treasury side like sale of investment. Also there is a profit, there is a Treasury profit in the other income going forward.
I think this question was partly covered by I think Sushil but can you give some more color on the overall treasury operations when nowadays that part of the profit on your listing goes to the reserves and only the trading profit comes to the P and L. So how does it look and how is it going to how much it is going to contribute in our overall profitability in the next coming year or quarter or two. Sir.
M.V. Rao
As Meenaji first told already treasury yields are now at around at already at a very from March they have already softened by another 20 basis points so and two rate cuts have already happened in February and April and market is expecting at least at least two to three more rate cuts. So as far as yields are expected they are Likely to go beyond 6 also in this financial year. So treasury games are bound to happen. And all, all banks, in particular public sector banks, you know they are having all excess SLR to the to now 20 say 6 to 7%.
So I would say that treasury gains are high in the pipeline and it depends upon the size of the SLR portfolio. As far as our bank is concerned we are expecting additional 6 to 6 around 6 to 800 crore additional profit to buy. It is going to take care of our other side of credit side where immediately the rates are being reduced. Whereas our deposit liability repricing happens with a. With a lag. So times are good for treasury and it is a cyclical thing. It happens after, after every two to three years. So we are expecting that at least the coming year, the present year and the next year should be on the same line.
Ashok Ajmera
Okay, thank you sir. Sir, coming back again on this credit only we have got a good credit growth. The target set up for 26 is also very good and 15 to 16% of the credit growth. But sir, is this all this current, you know economic or the global challenges which are there, the tariff war and now the another things and there is a maybe more further geopolitical crisis. Looking at this and in the change scenario where even the government of India can in order to attract or can specify the US might reduce duties on some products and which may affect the local industry.
What is your overall view on this sector? What kind of businesses will flourish and will need more credit? If you look at the remaining 35, 37% of your other than the retail book, where do you come the demand is going to continue or may come more.
Mukul Dandige
Sir, with the change of classic definition under SME we expect that we will continue to have good growth in msme. Retail also we are clocking a growth of more than 15% under corporate also. If we see some capex happening in that case we will be open to fund those kind of CapEx. And in the last quarter you would have seen that our corporate growth has also been very robust. So I don’t think that achieving this 14 to 16% growth in the advances should be any issue.
Ashok Ajmera
All right, thank you very much sir and all the best. Thank you.
operator
Thank you. A reminder to all the participants that you may press star and one to ask a question. The next question is from the line of S. Gupta from Maximal Capital. Please go ahead.
Sarvesh Gupta
Good afternoon sir and thanks a lot for giving the opportunity. So one question is on the lean side. So this quarter we saw relatively rapid fall in the NIM almost I think 20 basis point. So given this like what is the outlook for the coming years? Especially because if there are rapid rate cuts, you know, how should we see the nim and related to that wanted to also understand what is the book like in terms of breakup between externally linked versus NCLR and fixed rate.
Mukul Dandige
Okay. So as far as the NIM is concerned it impacted us because the treasury income also has come down. Even though if you see our interest on advances has gone up by 157 crores and my interest payment on on deposit is only 115 crore. So I mean as far as interest on advanced interest on deposit is concerned we are positive investment income has gone down by 98 crores. And further to maintain our liquidity bound we have, I mean the interest in borrowing has gone up by 135 crores. So that has had the impact that the NII is minus.
So that is why the NIM has come down. However, with the thrust that we are laying on not only maintaining our CASA at 49 or 50% plus minus 1%, we are pretty sure that overall NIM we should be able to maintain well within our guidance of about 3%. As far as the breakup of RBLR and other advances is concerned, we have roughly around 1,72,000 crore booked. One sitting on RBLR around 70,000 crores is on MCLR and 38,000 is on fixed rate.
Sarvesh Gupta
Okay. And secondly I think in this year as a whole our staff and other OPEX also grew at a relatively healthy pace of 12 to 14%. So how should we see the OPEX trending in the coming years? And were there any one offs in this year?
Mukul Dandige
See the wage division or settlement was signed in March 24th. However a lot of the announces and other things were payable from 1424. So because of that this expenses have slightly gone up. Further we have recruited some 1500 odd staff members during this financial year. So that has contributed to increase in the staff cost. But with their deployment we should be able to generate additional business which would more than compensate for the I mean staff cost. Secondly, in line with our thought process that we would like to make the our target terminal dues fund self sufficient.
If you see around 460 crores additional provision has been made in the terminal dues for this financial year. So that is another aspect because of which it appears that the staff cost and other things have increased. But there is no one off item in the staff cost for March 25th.
Sarvesh Gupta
Okay. And the other OPEX that also increased at more than almost 12%. Is it because of the advances or.Primarily
Mukul Dandige
10 to 12% would increase because rent, rents, then lighting and other expenses they would definitely go up as we, I mean renew the leases as we open new branches, new premises would be undertaken. So all those expenses are. But they are well within the. I mean radar and well within the overall control and well within the reach.
Sarvesh Gupta
Okay, so one more line item was miscellaneous income I think that had gone up a lot in the non operating income. So any, any, any one off or what exactly was that one?
Mukul Dandige
See this 44 is with 0 penal charges. 114 is with 67 crore as penal charges and 154 is with 97 crores as penal charges. Because now RBI has said that you cannot charge penal interest. So this has become penal charges.
Sarvesh Gupta
Okay. Okay. Thank you sir and all the rest.
operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, you may press Star and one to ask a question. Reminder to all the participants that you may press Star and one to ask a question. Ladies and gentlemen, you may press Star and one to ask a question. As there are no further questions from the participants, I would now like to hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
M.V. Rao
First of all, thank you for all the participants and the way bank is delivering for the past 16 quarters that we will continue to deliver and even in our day to day delivery it is going to become digitally agile and the super app what we have rolled out and also the new tools on the wealth management that is definitely going to help for the further progress in in our back. Thank you. Thank you very much for showing the interest. Thank you.
operator
Thank you on behalf of Antique Stock Broking Ltd. That concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. And you may now disconnect your lines.