Note: This is a preliminary transcript and may contain inaccuracies. It will be updated with a final, fully-reviewed version soon.
INDIAN BANK (NSE: INDIANB) Q4 2026 Earnings Call dated Apr. 29, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Binod Kumar — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Unidentified Speaker
Ashutosh Choudhury — Executive Director
Analysts:
Anand Dama — Analyst
Ashok Ajmera — Analyst
Unidentified Participant
Parth Gutka — Analyst
Unidentified Participant
Jay Mundra — Analyst
Jayant Kharote — Analyst
Unidentified Participant
Sushil Choksey — Analyst
Presentation:
Binod Kumar — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Yes, sir. Please start, sir.
Anand Dama — Analyst
Sure, sure. Good evening ladies and gentlemen. We welcome you all to Indian Bank’s post results Conference call for the fourth quarter of financial year 2026 hosted by MK Global
Unidentified Speaker
Will be recorded
Anand Dama — Analyst
From the top management. We have with us Sri Binod Kumarji, M.D. CEO Sri Ashutosh Chaudhary Executive Director. Sri Shiv Bajra Singh, Executive Director. And Shri Brajesh Kumar Singh, executive director. And Ms. Mini, TM executive director. First I would request MD sir to briefly summarize the key highlights from the fourth quarter. FY26. FY26 results. And also provide strategic direction on growth margins and asset quality for FY27 post which we will have the Q and A session. Over to you MD sir.
Binod Kumar — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Anandji. My colleague on board, Mr. Astos, Mr. S.B. Singh. Mr. Madam T.M. Mini. And one correction. Mr. Brijesh Kumar Singh is not here. He is or some other other meeting. And dear, dear investors analysts. Thank you for sparing on time and coming to the call of Indian Bank. So I. If I summarize in a result. I think it has been a decent year. Almost all parameter except cost to income ratio we have done better than. Our guidance has grown by 12.79%. And total deposit has grown by 12.29%.
Advance has grown by 13.43%. CASA which has been the challenge. CASA. Still we have grown by 10.85%. And after a deep in June, inconsistently all three quarter my CASA share has gone up. In September it was 13.87%. Then 39.08 then 39.67%. So Casa. Casa we have been able to maintain almost. We have given guidance of 40%. So 39.6% 7% almost. We have maintained we remain very cautious in raising bulk deposits. Of course we have to. But we remain very cautious in raising bulk deposit. Advance has grown by 13.43% and primarily contributed by RAM sector.
RAM has grown by 15 point to 8%. And corporate has grown corporate. Last year if you see my growth was only 3%. This year corporate also has grown by 9.19%. And within RAM it is contributed primarily by retail which is 18.72%. And MSME which which is 16.3939%. We have sanctioned around 6 lakh loan and 48,000 crore to MSME sector. J loan remain our strength area. So J loan also has grown very at a very decent pace of almost 28% and reached up to 1.27 trillion. Coming to the efficiency parameter efficiency parameter Net profit has reached for the quarter 3,103 with a sequential growth of 1.3% and for the year 10,918 to 12,156 with a growth of 11.33%.
Operating profit has touched 5,286 with QoQ growth of 5.21%. If I talk of annually it has gone from 18,998 to 19,916 with a growth of 4.83%. NII also 7,109 it has touched with a sequential growth of 3.09%. If I talk of annually with a growth of 6.91% and has 26,915 other income we have seen marginal decline sequentially y 8.32% growth primarily because of the impact on the treasury income. If you see for the quarter it was 3.23% but if you see annually it has come down from 3.1 to 3.24 so 17 basis point decline and we have given guidance of between 3.15 to 3.30.
So we have maintained that ROA ROA for the quarter it is 1.28 Q4 it was 1.28 but if you see annually in March it was 1.32 and March 26 we ended at 1.31. So only one basis point decline in that return on asset for the quarter it is 18.98% but for the year ended it is 19.53%. Then post cost to income ratio. Of course cost to income ratio is one area where we have given call is being
Ashutosh Choudhury — Executive Director
Recorded and transcribed
Binod Kumar — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
But actually we ended up for the year it is 46.03 but we have taken course correction and cost to income ratio has come down from 46.90 to 44.99 in March 25. Provision coverage ratio is constant at 98.28. We are maintaining since this December also March also for the year also it same credit cost annualized for the quarter it is 0.47 annualized it is 0.31. Then asset quality asset quality it has gross NPA has come down from 3.09 to 1.98 with a reduction of 111 basis point net NPA from 0.19 to 0.15.
Slippage ratio for the quarter it is 0.96 but if I talk of annualized it is 0.85 which has come down from 1.11 recovery. For the quarter it is 1,499 but for the year it is 6,651. We have given guidance of 5,000 between 5,500 to 6,500 SMA. SMA of course I will like to highlight. So I will start from March 24. March 24 my SMA was 15.59 which came down to 18.06 in March 25 and now it is 4.73%. So good work has been done by the department in on SMA front and SMA. If I talk of more than 2 more than 5 crore it is 922 crore only we have made some provision.
Although we are not seeing any stress because of West Asia crisis. But we have made a provision of around 310 crore in the keeping this crisis in view. But as I told in the SMA data we are not seeing any stress. This is purely prudently. We have made so that in case something happens then we will have some kusan. Then during the year we have sanctioned around 4 lakh 26,000 crore. Taken all together retail, agriculture, MSME corporate with a growth of 62%. 62% growth there is in the sanction corporate also we have sanction around 1 lakh 1.31 trillion.
So corporate also around 62% growth. We have seen maximum growth is in MSME at 81%. We have a pipeline of 51,000 crore and not much of stress we have because personal loans we don’t have much. Only 6,500 MFI also not much 3,300 in corporate. Last year around 8,000 crore exposure in NBFC it has come down by around 8,000 crore or out of that NBFC exposure in AAA, AA and A it is around 99%. So majority of that is in AAA category. Coming to the guidance. Guidance we are giving deposit guidance of between 9 to 11% advanced growth of between 11 to 13% CASA approximately we will maintain around 40% CDR around 80% gross NPA between 1.50 to 1.60 net NPA at the same level I mean less than 25 0.25.
You can say recovery of course as our pool is coming down. So going forward this year also if you see from last year to this year it has come down by around 1000 crores. It was 7600 which has come down to 6600. So giving guidance of between recovery between 4500 to 5500 AUC recovery last year also was good. We have given guidance of 2000 and actually we surpassed that. We are giving guidance of recovery in return of book between 1200-1500 NIM guidance also see I don’t see further rate cut but cost of deposit I expect that it will remain elevated because of advance growth is outpacing deposit growth.
So I see some pressure on the NIM. So that’s why I’m giving guidance between 3.10 to 3.25 ROA also I am giving some guidance between 1.20 to 1.30 credit cost we will maintain less than one slippage ratio we will maintain less than one. Broadly these are the things and apart from that we have taken some initiative. Like I told in CASA we have taken some initiative. Because of that we we have been able to maintain CASA almost maintain CASA share various product we have launched and two products we really we have some seen good traction.
We are analyzing why other products have not taken up. So in that line we have launched in Aspire for women because indespire we have seen good traction. So we have launched Indespire for women and in the gig champion for gig workers we have launched a new product. So hopefully we will see some traction in coming quarter in very recently we have launched in operative account we have around 34 lakh in operative account we have made them operative and that has resulted in total balance of around 4000 crore.
Similarly we are focusing on QR code and post machine etc because float I believe this nobody now that financial literacy is improving and there is a structural shift People are becoming investors becoming investor instead of savers. So we have to rely on float and salary account we have added around more than 3 lakh salary account we have added during the during the quarter average balance. I would like to highlight average balance. If I see average balance in saving fund normal account I am saying ex BSBD account it has gone up from 30,000 which was last year to 46,000.
Similarly in current account average balance has gone up from 1.8 to lakh to 2.64 lakh. So we are focusing on the strengthening of the relationship. Depending of the relationship of course Two challenge I will say for this year growth I believe country government and RBI as you must be seeing in the newspaper also they will take all measures to sustain the growth economic GDP growth. So if GDP growth is intact I believe credit growth will also be intact. If there is some headwind on the GDP growth of course then impact will come on us but two immediate challenge I see is the recovery.
Recovery of course. Thousand crore already it has gone down and this year treasury profit may not be to the extent it was last year but there also some good news. We have not booked very high profit in the treasury that means we have not sold some good yielding security so that may help us in passing through this phase. Now I will request my colleague Mr. Asutosh to highlight about the digital initiative what we have taken during the year.
Ashutosh Choudhury — Executive Director
Thank you sir. Good evening all. The digital business of the bank for financial year 2526 has grown by 63% and reached 2.72,000 crore. The mobile banking customers has increased to 2.36 crore. The base has increased and the mobile banking transition has shown a healthy growth of 15%. That is 65.8 lakhs per month the transaction is happening there. The digital adoption rate in retail and agree has reached to 97%. That means the loan, the retail and agree loan that has been sanctioned that is 97% through digital channel the bank is implementing 10 plus AI and agentic AI related platforms with the help of almost more than 160 fintech partners.
When Sarej talked about the CASA let me say last year we introduced a segment of customers VVX those who have not visited the branch for quite some time but we have classified them that particular category of customers are almost increasing and it has reached to 22 lakhs and the base identified to move some more customer that base is almost 1 crore plus. So in the digital aspect we have done that and this year we have introduced CRM platform. The CRM platform that we introduced is for retail. Now we are going to introduce for corporate and in that platform the module also will enable service request and sales management.
So this will not only deepen the existing relations relationship with existing customer but also it will give a boost to acquire new customer Based on this sales management. Now I would like to tell a couple of things that we have done during this particular financial year. We have digitized the corporate credit. The journey is almost complete and we are taking one step forward in a corporate credit journey that I will discuss with all of you. We have partnership with POS aggregators where we can provide POS machine to customer of other banks.
Then we also introduced a new corporate website. We are strengthening our UPI app In UPI the updated version will be introduced this financial year we have introduced EFRM solutions that is a real time AI driven behavioral analysis platform which will help in curving the digital flaws as well as money Mule account. We have introduced end Optima that is our cash management services where almost 150 plus corporate customer has been onboarded. So in the pipeline I would like to also highlight some of the things.
We are introducing a corporate ecosystem engine which will help our relationship managers while negotiating with the customers. We are also planning to introduce an RFP creator because we produce a lot of RFP for onboarding IT and non IT vendors. We are also in the process of introducing invoice processing. This will automate the received validation, approval and payment of invoices in CRM platform. We are introducing lead nurturing management. We are introducing an intelligent document reader. This will help in our documentation post sanction when we go for documentation this will check legality of that particular document.
So also with this EFRM solution, this suspicious transaction reporting that we are planning to automate. Along with this with our news and contact center we are automating the grievance redressal mechanism which will reduce the TAT and improve the customer experience. Thank you sir. With this.
Questions and Answers:
Anand Dama
Thank you sir. Now we’ll take up the Q and A. So request all the participants to use the raise hand option. And if you have a question please unmute yourself. First question we’ll take from Ajmeraji. Please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Ashok Ajmera
Yeah. Hello. Yes
Binod Kumar
Ajmiraji.
Ashok Ajmera
Yeah hello sir. Good evening sir and congratulations for yet another good quarter. As you yourself had also said and I can see also that you have surpassed on the all almost every front except one or two on the guidance. So that is commendable and not only touched or this thing but like in case of the credit also the growth is very good. 13.43% even in the deposit also in spite of the various challenges you have done very well. 12.29% and occa recovery in the entire year is very good. 2508 crores.
Of course next year the target you have reduced a bit than that. So my compliments on that sir. So my first question or rather I would like to seek your views and comments on this ECL guidelines Now they have been finalized now and RBI declared the final guidelines which we were waiting for quite some time and many of the banks had already started preparing for that and making some extra additional provisions also. So in our case, in our bank how is the preparedness, how much total hit we are going to going to get and whatever the time has been given?
I think up to 31st March 2030 or some people are saying 31 how are we prepared to take Care of this extra provisioning. So just my first even though. Though you are saying that even in this quarter Also you made 310 crore extra provision on the standard asset to take care of any eventuality. But that is. That is on the geopolitical situation in West West Asia war. So can I have your your views on this sir?
Binod Kumar
Yeah. So before. Thank you Ajmeraji. So before coming to that the this quarter also we have sold IBPC of around 6,000 crore and we have opened 102 branches against. We have set target of opening around 300 branches in three years. So we are on track of that. So coming to your question to your ECL guidelines Ajmera ji guidelines have come only yesterday and few things they have added. So whatever we have calculated in the draft guidelines I think impact will be little higher than that. However we are in the process actually guidelines has come only yesterday.
We are in the process of calculating which I think in a week or. Because see I. I can give some number but that will not be very event because ultimately next meeting we will say sir you have. You have told this number. Now you are saying this number. So I don’t want to create that situation. We will give you concrete numbers so that variation is minimum. But having said that, having said that let me assure you all of you that impact is not going to be very huge. Because we as you all of you know we have been preparing in different ways.
Not in only name of ECL but we have been preparing in different ways. And so we since last five years we have been going through a very good phase I will say benign asset quality phase. So I don’t see much of the impact in the. I mean overall impact. And as I told you earlier in the. In earlier call that we will be able to absorb all the impact in one year. Now I am saying now we will be able to absorb all the impact in say six to nine months maybe between one one to three quarter maybe that is I mean broad.
Broad. Broad you can say.
Ashok Ajmera
Yeah okay sir. Point well taken sir. Sir my another observation is on the slippage in this quarter which Is increased to 1,355 crore as against about thousand crore in the last quarter. And going forward with this kind of situation prevailing you know geopolitical which impact might not have seen much in March but in this quarter in the coming April, May, June we might have some impact on that. And you also covered little bit on this. So. So where do you see the. I mean first of all do you see that it Will make major impact if, if.
If the war I mean goes on or we, I mean there’s total uncertainty on that. So how and how much impact do you see and from where it can come negatively and how are we prepared to take care of that? So that is my another. If you can just elaborate on that. And coupled with that, you know the SMA numbers has drastically has come down. SMA 2 from 4309 crore to 922 crores. And SMA 1 has gone just little bit 700 crore only higher. So whether going forward, you know both these questions are coupled. I mean it’s basically connected to each other.
Binod Kumar
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. So first of all if you see from the mar December it has gone up see slippage. But that is every quarter. If you see every annual march there will be around 400 to 500 crore MOC. So this number has. Hello. This number has. This number has gone up basically on account of moc. And that was also in the last March also there was around 500 crore MOCA. This, this quarter also around 400 corrode MOC. So this march will always be have some MOC. Because of that slippage ratio will be higher there after that.
One thing I can assure you during the financial year this number of course I mean something very. I mean something drastic happens then I cannot say. But in normal situation this number slippage ratio will be better in all the quarters except March again there will be some moc. So every quarter you can assume that this slippage number will be less than that. Number one number two coming to sma. So SMA reduction. I will not take any brownie point because two government account are there so that that is not in SMA2.
That’s why number has come down. So no brownie point for that SMA1 SMA1 increase has come because one account out of that is in SMA1. So SMA1 has little bit increased. But if you see SMA total SMA total SMA has really gone down from last year. 45,000 crore, 46,000 crore. Now it is 31,000 crore. So SMN number overall has come come down. See stress. If you talk of the stress, stress is not only from the war. Stress is already from the tariff point. That means from August you can say that there is some stress in the system.
I have believed in the resilience of the banking system and resilience of our economy. And you must be seeing various positive response from all the governor and various ministers that whatever Required they will try to maintain the economic growth rate. So if economic growth rate is maintained I think the government will take some measure. And because of that I am not seeing much impact on the asset quality also. And if at all, if at all because already it is around four to five months, around seven months.
If you take from August means four and three seven months, almost seven months then almost it should have started some incipient increase in SMA so which we are not seeing. So hopefully we will tie it this time also without being impacted much.
Ashok Ajmera
Sir, now on the treasury also you touched on the treasury front in this quarter also it has taken a toll. You know the loss on the sale of the investment is 100, I mean the 105 crore and then profit 99 crore minus the prop means treasury has a pressure on this as far as this quarter. Even in the last quarter also it was there little bit so. But you also said at the same time that going forward since we have the, you know, higher value, higher yield, lower yield, higher income investments in our book.
So in this coming, in this current quarter how do you see the treasury, you know performing going forward?
Binod Kumar
No, of course there will be impact on the treasury no denying but impact only limited. My point is impact will not be very severe because we have not seen. See if you have sold all the securities and has raised securities with the lower yield then my impact would have been higher. But since we have not sold so impact will be there of course but impact will not be as. I mean as severe. And still I expect that around for the year I am saying maybe around thousand 1200 profit will earn through Treasury.
Ashok Ajmera
Sir, your digital front you performed exceedingly well. In fact there is a lot of advancement. And Ashutosh sir as usual has explained very much in detail about the digital advancement of the bank. But in the real term whenever these journeys are completed and these digital products are put to the use, are we assessing the actual impact of the digital introduction or apart from the surveillance and other things which doesn’t directly produce anything, are we seeing any commercial like benefits? Is there any study done on that and the like vis a vis, you know the kind of investment which you are making.
Every bank is making huge investment on this. But have we started measuring it on the impact on the revenue on the positive side and how much is it is that that process has been put into the practice?
Binod Kumar
See very, very pertinent point Rajmiraji because I have also been saying that we are spending huge in it. But benefit of that to the extent we desire is yet to come. That will happen as our digital. You say what we say adoption. Not only adoption. People actually start using digital channel. Like for example still. Yes, yes of course. If you ask we are. Are we getting benefit? We are getting benefit. Like our 94 transaction are through digital channel. So if they visit the branch cost will be at least 5x higher.
If a customer visit branch cost will be at least 5x higher. Plus we will have to keep more imply. So we are taking benefit. If not directly indirectly we are taking benefit of that. And as this adoption rate of this adoption will increase. Just one data I am sharing say digital FD people come to branch bank for making fd. So we have just tried to push that why people are coming to the branch. There are certain set of people will. They will definitely come. So we don’t discourage them. But those who can do transaction on their own.
We are encouraging them to do transaction on their own. So as when they will do transaction on their own. Of course that will be cost saving to us.
Ashok Ajmera
What a coincidence. Around this I was sitting with a client in the just little before in the afternoon only. And you know of course that is a private bank. So he was having 1 crore rupees only in the current account. It’s a small MSME kind of a client. So I said why don’t you stagger it and put it in the app. D You know that that banker that person came within 15, 20 minutes. They had some visit and on the spot online he made three FDs of 2025 lakhs rupees for different duration of 91 days to 271 days or whatever.
On the spot within five minutes. You know the FDs were made I mean on this system only and seen. So of course effect wise positive whether it would have been in the current account. It would have benefited more for three days to the bank. Like that’s a different thing. But ease of doing business and you know these things are going to be only thing. You know many of the bankers I’m talking about is that is the time has not come when we start putting. I mean using some tools, putting some measurement that.
That you know the profit or the advantage can become measurable.
Binod Kumar
We will try to.
Ashok Ajmera
Okay, thank you very much sir.
Binod Kumar
It is in the backdrop of the mind but quantification. So one measure I that I run in my mind just share with you that say if you see manpower of the banks has remained constant over last five years. But if you see business of bank has grown by double or in few cases more Than double. So of course a benefit we are driving. It’s not that benefit. We are not driving. Only thing it is not quantified on paper. We will definitely try sir. You
Ashok Ajmera
Become almost 15 lakh crore business bank just shying away with 56000 crores only. So anyway sir, compliments to you. All the best to you. And his time permits. I might come again. Thank you.
Binod Kumar
Thank you.
Anand Dama
Yeah, thank you. Ajmeraji. Any other participant. If you have a question please use the raise an option. We’ll have question from Akshay Badani. Akshay, please unmute yourself and ask a question.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah. Hi. Thank you for taking my question. My question was around the lines of. As you indicated the cost of funds will be going up. Currently also it’s going up. So what levers do we have on the asset side, you know where we could offset this? Or if there are certain set of, you know segments where we can price our loans better going forward.
Binod Kumar
If you ask me very frankly very few levers are left. Because see almost 50% of loan book is linked to external benchmark
Parth Gutka
Cycle.
Binod Kumar
You. You. You have. You have hardly any lever on that. Only that. Then that only area remains loan linked to mclr. So as cost of. Because the their cost of fund is inbuilt also. So only liver. That is the only liver. But MCLR is also formula driven. You cannot do much. Then only one thing we remains. We take benefit of it and try to. I mean at least maintain CASA share. If not increase. Because casa that. That will be the only thing. Because see bulk rate is very high. You cannot do anything with that.
Since bulk rate has high retail term deposit rate. We cannot reduce anything. So that is the only that remains. And asset quality. Asset quality. We have to ensure that asset quality remains very good. Otherwise NIM is also not there and there is issue on the asset quality. Then of course there will be tough time.
Unidentified Participant
So just then coming to asset quality. Since our exposure overall in our loan mix to agri and MSME sectors is high. Although we have created extra provision buffer this quarter. How do you envisage the situation? Especially in both the segments which could be vulnerable going forward given the you know if there could be inflationary pressure going forward.
Binod Kumar
See agree. We don’t have much challenge. Because majority of my agree book is from jewel loan. So I agree we don’t see any challenge. Msme. Of course msme if some stress come which is if industry is impacted, I will also be impacted. But as I told I think government will also do something if something happens Then government will do also something. And at least as of now it is not reflected as I told in sma. Otherwise something must have. I mean started inching up at least in sma, not npa. Then sma, it must have started inching up.
So far I have not seen and believe we will pass through this phase without being impacted much.
Unidentified Participant
Okay. Sure, sir. Sure. Thank you for answering my questions.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you. Akshay. Next question will take from Jay. Jay, please unmute yourself.
Jay Mundra
Yeah. Hi. Good evening sir. And thanks for the opportunity. Sir, if you can quantify that you. You’ve said that the total SMA is 31, 000 crore. If you have the number for SMA 0, 1 and 2 separately.
Binod Kumar
Yeah. Thank you. J. So total SMA is the 31,000. Out of that SMA 0 is 50, almost 16,000. SMA 1 is 9,000. SMA 2 is 6,000.
Jay Mundra
Okay, sure. So sir, I think. Okay. So SMA 0 only has gone up. But if. If I compare versus last quarter then 1 and 2 they have reduced. Okay. 1 is similar and 2 has reduced. Okay. Secondly sir, on your growth. So last year at the beginning of the quarter we also said 10, 11 kind of a growth. But we did. You know, if I look at this year we ended at around 15% kind of a growth. You have excellent asset quality less than 80% LDR. What is the realistic growth number that we should assess? Because sir, 10, 11, 12% is actually lower than the industry.
So are you okay with the growing lesser than industry? Or you want to be at least similar to industry?
Binod Kumar
So this year also industry grown at 16%. So I am okay with little bit. I mean even if little bit slower than industry without compromising on the asset quality and NIM. So my. My focus is of course growth. But NIM and asset quality should also remain intact. But one. One thing why I am giving guidance of 11 to 13% in advance. Let me tell you. Around 16 to 17% of my book is jail loan. And last year JWEL loan because of the increase in price we have seen good number. So maybe similar kind of growth we may not see in jail loan this year.
So that’s why I am giving guidance of between 11 to 13%.
Jay Mundra
Understood? Understood. And said the retail term deposit that should continue to improve, right? I mean as of now even if the repricing bulk of the repricing is over, but still the cost of deposit will keep reducing only. Right? Is that the understanding right? Or. Or not?
Binod Kumar
No. See, retail term deposit also we. We are not able to reduce Any rate of interest on that. Because bulk is at elevated level then you cannot keep very wide gap between retail term deposit and bulk. So because of that even retail term deposit will remain at this level. Or maybe few of the banks you have noticed in March few of the banks have increased retail term deposit rates.
Jay Mundra
Right? Okay, sure. And sir, if you can quantify your AFS reserve. How much was. How much is the AFS reserve as end of the quarter and maybe quarter three. So just to understand how much was the swing?
Binod Kumar
Yeah. Swing is December quarter it was 4,000 plus March quarter it was minus. It is minus 200.
Jay Mundra
Okay, so. So around 4, 200 crore swing, right?
Binod Kumar
No, 4, 4,000. I told. Sorry, 400. So 400 to 400 to minus 200.
Jay Mundra
Right? Right. And said total gold loan books are in. You have given the retail gold. But how much will be the Agri Gold and MSME Gold put together? If you have that
Binod Kumar
1.27 is the total jewel loan. One, 1.27 lakh crore.
Jay Mundra
Right. Okay. Thank you so much, sir. I’ll come back in the queue.
Binod Kumar
Thank you. Thank you. J.
Anand Dama
Yeah, thank you. J. Next question will take from part Gutka part. Please unmute yourselves.
Parth Gutka
Yeah. Hi. Hi sir. So my question is on the overseas advances. You know, last couple of quarters we are seeing. We are seeing phenomenal growth in. In this segment. Can you just elaborate on the same? You know which. Which part of the as in this relating to which sector and from which regions. Yeah.
Binod Kumar
We have only two branches.
Unidentified Participant
Sri
Binod Kumar
Lanka, hardly anything. Only Gift City and Singapore. So we are participating basically in the syndicated loan and some trade finance. I mean not any sector specific. But we are participating in syndicated loans from different sectors. It are not any specific sector.
Parth Gutka
Okay. Okay, sir. And my next question is what is the proportion of bulk deposits within the overall deposits.
Binod Kumar
Bulk and CD taken together around 18 to 19%.
Parth Gutka
Okay. And what is the internal threshold?
Binod Kumar
We have not kept internal threshold as such. But we will like to maintain in this range only. I mean less than 20.
Parth Gutka
Okay. Okay, sir. Thanks a lot. Sir, thanks a lot for answering my questions.
Binod Kumar
Thank you.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you. Next question will take from Akshay Badlani. Akshay, please unmute yourself. Yeah, Akshay is not around. We’ll take the question from Jayant Karate Jain. Please unmute yourself and ask your question. Jayant, request you to unmute yourself and ask a question.
Anand Dama
Jen, we are not able to hear you.
Jayant Kharote
Sorry about that. So first question is on the asset quality. If you can help us quantify what is the total outstanding floating provisions that you hold on your book contingent or floating and then follow up to that is the ECL requirement. I know you said that the number could be higher if you could help us. What was the initial assessment at least in the size. Why I’m getting slightly confused is you said the number may be higher but then you said we will do it in three quarters and not four. So is it about the steady state impact or is it about the one one time impact?
If you can just sort of give me three, three clarifications.
Binod Kumar
So in NPA in fact we are not holding any floating provision LPA whatever account we are making only a specific account wise provision number one. Number two. See while while I told it is number is higher when we make assessment of the ECL guidelines there were certain things we have taken up with RBI. Based on that we have made various scenario. So. So keeping these scenario in view I have told that maybe we may need one year time. But now that final guidelines has come and now we with I mean almost certainty we can say of course number we are calculating and why there is some impact.
Because HTM book earlier it was not part of the draft guidelines. Now STM book has come. That’s why impact will go up. But overall impact what we are saying say worst case scenario. So from worst case scenario now it has improved. That’s why I am saying it will go up but overall yearly overall impact will be less as compared to worst case scenario.
Jayant Kharote
Sir, and you also done some accelerated provisions this quarter, right? Related to the West Asia or so. Including that what is the total provisions that you hold outside your pcr?
Binod Kumar
They don’t tell even me. My CFO is very hard nut he does not disclose to me also.
Jayant Kharote
But you would have some idea because it will be needed in our ECL to offset the ECL impact right?
Binod Kumar
They are giving only the impact that to exact they have not given so far. So we are working on that. Let us, let us see.
Jayant Kharote
So how much of this quarter at least can you call out of the provisioning? This quarter was linked to NPA provisions and otherse
Binod Kumar
NPA will not help much. So we have around this quarter around 500 odd crore we have made in the standard.
Jayant Kharote
Great sir. So second question was regarding LCR if you could help us give your average LCR number. And again how. How has that been trending? And I have a follow up.
Binod Kumar
Yeah LCR we are comfortable throughout the year we are comfortable. And because of the implementation of this new guidelines from 1st of April there is benefit of 4 to 5 basis point.
Jayant Kharote
So where are you right now on the LCR?
Binod Kumar
LCR127
Parth Gutka
Average Age127
Binod Kumar
Average127
Parth Gutka
We are at 123124
Binod Kumar
Average is 127 at present year we are at 123124
Jayant Kharote
Sir. Then just to add if you are sitting at 127 and you will have 400 to 500bps release why run at such a high LCR when you are paying such high cost for deposits? Why not operate at 100150020 and it will help your NIMS
Binod Kumar
Without taking name of the bank. One bank had to raise very huge sum at very high cost. So I don’t want to create that situation where when everybody panics. So a little Kushan is always. What do you
Jayant Kharote
Think is a fair number? What is a fair number that every bank should operate at?
Binod Kumar
I think around 150 to 120 we should have going below 150. I mean say one some event may entirely impact. And and let me tell you we are not making a special special I mean efforts for maintaining LCR whatever we have access in the SLR book that is contributing to maintaining of the slr. So it’s not like that specifically for this purpose we are purchasing slr.
Jayant Kharote
Okay. So basically that’s where you are also not guiding for very high trading profits because you want to enjoy that on both on NIM side as well as SLS LCR side benefits of that bonds. Great. At least that is a good stated strategy. Thanks. Thanks. And all the best for them. Thank
Binod Kumar
You. Thank you Jain.
Anand Dama
Yeah, thank you Jain. Last question we’ll take from Ashlesh. Ashlesh, please unmute yourself and ask your question.
Unidentified Participant
Hi sir. Good evening. So two questions from my side. First one is on the comment you made prefer to prioritize maintaining margin and asset quality over just growth. Good to hear that. But sir, if I have to paint a scenario where over the next year the cost of deposit go continues to inch up from this level let’s say by 20 or 30 basis points. How would you in that scenario maintain your margins? What levers would you have at your disposal? That is one. Secondly, you made the statement about ECL that you will potentially be able to absorb it over a period of 1 to 3/4.
Does that mean that the the ECL shortfall one time number will be somewhere between 1 to 3 times your quarterly PPOP? Is that, is that the understanding?
Binod Kumar
So the. I mean you can make inferences but that is a huge number gap. One to three quarter is a huge gap. So. So cot of course as I told you if cost of deposit keep on inching so part of that will be offsetted by increasing in mclr. Because cost of deposit is also part of the mclr. So part of that of course MCLR will also increase start increasing then that will help.
Unidentified Participant
Anything, anything you can do on the asset side possible change the mix further towards better yielding assets or high pricing.
Binod Kumar
See asset side. I really. I mean don’t see much of the scope. Because in corporate boot book definitely not something can be done in the segment say mid segment. You can say between and again retail MSME is linked to your EBLR there also you cannot increase so spread etc. So that book is also tied up. Only thing remains some. Some corporates between mid segment corporation. That’s why we are focusing on mid segment corporates. Between 50 crore or 100 crore to 500 crore there we can command little better price as compared to the corporates or retail and MSME.
And that area remains my focus area.
Unidentified Participant
Understood sir. And second one on that ECL thing. Just trying to understand the statement which you have made when you say we’ll be able to absorb it in one to three quarters.
Binod Kumar
But that is. That is huge wide range. Let us see. I will come up. I will give give numbers very shortly. It’s not like that. We have some assessment. But I don’t want to give any number and then come back and send that. No, no. It has gone up and. Or it has substantially come down. Either way it is not right. If you. If you give you. If I give you a number and that number go up. It is not right for anybody. And either way also if I give number and then you come down substantially. That is also not right.
That’s why. And it is too early for yesterday. It has come.
Unidentified Participant
Understood sir. And just lastly if I can squeeze in one more. Given that bond yields have increased over the past few months. Does that mean that your provisions for AS15 can decline materially over FY27?
Binod Kumar
I expect materially means. I mean per quarter if you are meeting making say 800 to maybe 100 crore. You can save. You can save.
Unidentified Participant
Understood sir.
Binod Kumar
Yeah.
Unidentified Participant
Perfect. Okay sir. Thank you.
Binod Kumar
Thank you. Aslis
Anand Dama
Sir, one question which has come in the chat box again it is related to ECL only is that earlier basically you had said that about 1 to 1.5% will be the impact on the capital in terms of ecl. Now it would have gone up or down Whatever like you may do the calculation but does it mean that in FY27 itself you will absorb the ECL impact through PNL and you will not need any impact to be taken on the 1st of April 2027 through network?
Unidentified Participant
No. No. Is that what it means? No. No. No.
Binod Kumar
1 to 5% I have told. I have told you I will absorb in one year. That is. That is what I have told. 1 to 5% impact. So. So maybe somebody might make inference out of that. But of course no, of course some impact will come in next year also. Because entirely we cannot make provision in this financial year. Although we have four quarter but still we cannot make entire whatever requirement is there. So some impact will spill over to the next year also.
Anand Dama
Okay. And despite assuming I mean observing the ECL impact, you still guiding about 1 point to 1.3% ROA
Binod Kumar
This year?
Anand Dama
Yeah.
Binod Kumar
Yeah
Anand Dama
Sure. So do you expect some one offs to come through? Like you know that you’re going to absorb so much of ECN impact this year itself?
Binod Kumar
No, no, no. Oneof normal this year also S. Despite doing all these things we have been able to maintain around 1.3.
Anand Dama
Sure sir
Binod Kumar
Last question. Only challenge that treasury will not be there. So. So. So. So part of that will be compensated by. I mean decrease. I. I expect that it will not be as severe as last year
Anand Dama
Here. Sure. Last question. We’ll take from Sushil Chiji. Please limit your questions. So. So that we can end the call on time. Over to you sir.
Sushil Choksey
Good evening. Congratulation to team Indian bank Sir Based on current global environment India may be better off. And southern states are even better off. Because lot of manufacturing, gcc even textile has some stability and some other sectors. How is the pipeline visible on various sectors starting from renewable infrastructure, data center, MSME and what is unavailed credit as of today.
Binod Kumar
So we we have around 51,000 crore pipeline out of that sanction and unavailed is 34:35,000. That is term loan only. So that is the pipeline.
Sushil Choksey
What sectors are attracting Indian bank to underwrite Businesses sir,
Binod Kumar
Two, three sectors Sushilji. One green. Green you see already green are everywhere. Battery also, EV also. Then solar power also transmission line also. I think this year transmission line we will see lot of this. Government, Government, PPP and then data center. Data center also we are seeing lot of demand in data center. I think last year road sector has been little slow. But we may expect this year some traction in the road sector.
Sushil Choksey
Any color on MSME Specifically from southern region which led by auto Ancillary textile. Other manufacturing sectors like leather dineries in south.
Binod Kumar
I think textile is struggling since last time in one year before that also textile was not doing very great and in fact that has saved many of the textile companies since last 23 years they were not going very good. There are many I know many of the company they are. They have not availed any of the working capital. Even few of the company I know who has not availed working capital since their sales is not very good. Sir. So so. So. And food. Leather also leather. We don’t have much exposure in leather.
So we don’t worry much on that count. Only a little bit worry we had for the textile But I think they have so far they have tied tied away.
Sushil Choksey
So being conservative at the same time being prudent on quality you are very comfortable where your growth is concerned. Despite challenges for this year. This is the summation of your. Yeah
Binod Kumar
Yeah yeah yeah. Yes. Yes. I mean asset quality plus bottom line is also important.
Sushil Choksey
Sir. One last question to Ashutoji. What is the digital budget for this year? And as India is transforming we also need to transform. Processes are changing. What is our budget now for coming years on the digital spend?
Ashutosh Choudhury
Let me answer it in a relative manner. The budget will be more or less equivalent to the human cost. That means the salary and all those things we are paying to our employee. So in that way you can definitely correlate.
Sushil Choksey
So you will match the human cost in digital spend.
Ashutosh Choudhury
Almost the employee cost will. It will be in and around that
Sushil Choksey
Say any. Any signs on RAM specifically of some kind of indicative warnings that economy is having some impact. Specifically in April.
Binod Kumar
Not. Not much of impact we have seen Sushilji because even otherwise SMA it would have start. Started increasing SMA. So not much impact we have seen.
Sushil Choksey
So thank you for answering all my questions and good luck for the year to the entire team of Indian Bank.
Binod Kumar
Thank you. Thank you.
Anand Dama
Thank you Sushilji. We will take that as last question. With this we come to the end of Indian Bank’s post results conference call for fourth quarter FY26. I now request the management to give their closing remarks if you have any. Sir.
Binod Kumar
No, I think all the points has been discussed. Only thing as I told we remain very cautious for the bottom line and growth. Bottom line and asset quality and growth. We. We are okay with 1 to 2% less than the industry so that is okay. This year also it is around 13.46% whereas we could have sold even more because around for the year we have sold around 23,000 of IBPC. So we remain cautious of that. And two challenges, as I explained earlier, two challenges this year, see recovery and a treasury income.
So. But we will be able to maintain whatever guidance we have been given. Thank you. Thank you all. Sir,
Anand Dama
That’s. Yeah, that’s very helpful. On behalf of MK and the management of Indian Man, I thank all the participants for joining this evening and have a good day. Thank you.
Binod Kumar
Thank you. Thank you, Anand. Thank you all.