N. V. Kamakodi
Good evening, everyone. Dr. Kamakodi here. Happy, welcome to all of you for this con call to discuss the unaudited financial results of City Union Bank for the second quarter and the first half year ended 30th September 2023. The Board approved the results today, and I assume you all have received the copies of the results and the presentation. During March '23 and June '23 con calls, we have shared with you all some of the expectations as follows for the financial year '23-'24, that we are aiming for 12 to 15 percentage growth for the financial year '24, which should be skewed towards the year-end. We hope to close the financial year '24 with ROA of 1.3 percentage, for which NPA recovery will be a major contributing factor. In the absence of treasury profit opportunities in the increasing interest rate scenario, the cost-to-income ratio will be in the range of 42 to 45 percentage. We expect the NIM pressure and expect the NIM at current level plus or minus 10 basis points. Things are happening almost on the expected lines and even getting better in some of the aspects. We have seen about INR 1,280 crores or 3 percentage credit growth during the second quarter 2024. The soft launch of the digital process for the MSME lending below INR 3 crores has started. The project executed by the Newgen Software team and coordinated by BCG is on track. We hope to achieve the number we shared with you during the year-end, particularly for the credit disbursement and growth as we move forward. We closed the second quarter financial year '24 with the profit after tax of INR 281 crores compared to INR 276 crores in the second quarter financial year '23. In fact, if you remember, we had the highest profit after tax of INR 276 crores in the second quarter last year. After that, we had some moderation in the subsequent 3 quarters. This quarter, like I said, the overall, we could have INR 281 crores profit as we had already shared with you all. The ROA for the second quarter of financial year '23-'24 is 1.69 percentage compared to 1.4 percentage in the first quarter financial year '24 and the same ROA was 1.46 percentage for the whole year financial year '23. As you all know, we typically used to have 1.5 percentage plus during the pre-COVID year. In the financial year '20, we had 1 percentage with the ROA and reversed over and above that as the COVID provision. And sequentially, it increased to 1.15, 1.3 percentage and 1.4 percentage in the subsequent years. In this quarter, we have 1.69 percentage ROA. We closed the first half financial year '24 with the profit after tax of INR 508 crores and hope to cross 4-digit profit after tax figure for the full year financial year '24 for the first time. As we discussed, whatever profit we have discussed in the current quarter is highest ever profit what the bank has declared so far in its 120 years of progress. We hope to achieve this figure despite having headwinds in the operating profit. This is mainly due to the positive contribution from the credit cost. Our slippage ratio for the Q2 has come down to 2.06, almost equal to the pre-COVID level. Our absolute slippage number for the Q2 FY '24 is INR 225 crores, while the total recoveries made is INR 229 crores -- INR 299 crores, comprising of INR 230 crores from the live NPA accounts and INR 61 crores from the recovery from the technically written-off accounts. For the first time in the recent past, live recovery has surpassed the live slippage, and we expect this trend to continue as we move forward. The net NPA has come down below INR 1,000 crore mark after many quarters. And the overall SMA 2 numbers to the total advances as on 30th September 2023 stands at 2.05 percentage, which reduced from 2.43 percentage in the first quarter financial year '24, that is June quarter. We also wish to inform you that the RBI inspection for the position as on 31st March 2023 was completed. And there is no requirement of disclosure with respect to the divergence and asset classification or provisioning as per the exact guidelines as given in the results. In fact, last year, in the third and fourth quarter, we had some issues which pulled down some profitability going forward. But now, this year is over, and we don't have -- we don't -- we need not make any disclosure as per the -- to extend the deadline. So sum up, we are finally into a phase where NPA slippages have come down significantly. And the NPA recoveries have started surpassing the slippages. Hence, going forward, we will see substantial reduction in the credit cost and reduction in the NPA getting back to the pre-COVID level, which will reduce the provisions required substantially and take care of the profit after tax. The soft launch of digital lending products have started, which is expected to help us achieving improved credit growth in the second half, as we discussed in the earlier con calls, to achieve double-digit credit growth for the whole year. Both the projects are executed by the Newgen Software team and coordination done by the BCG, and the entire project is on track, which should be helping us to achieve better growth as we move forward. ROAs are back to 1.5 percentage plus, which used to be our [indiscernible] and net interest margin is also at the range we shared with you all in the earlier quarters. And for the current quarter, it is currently standing at 3.74%. Despite the headwinds in the growth, we should be closing the financial year '24 with a 4-digit PAT, a substantial reduction in the net NPA, and ROA around long-term average of 1.3 percentage plus. Overall, except growth, if you remember, pre-COVID, we had a positive progress in all parameters like growth, net interest margin, ROA and things like that, and there were certain setbacks after the onset of COVID, particularly on the slippage ratio and also moderation in the growth. As we explained, we have taken our legs off the growth pedal way back in financial year 2020. And we continued our growth with the gold loan, but there were -- because of certain regulatory observations, we had to stop the agri gold loan KCC product, which became sort of headwind to our growth, and also the growth in the other core sector has also started, showing some amount of progress and which should be improving from now onwards, particularly with the arrival of our the digital lending platform and all. Overall, things are aligning with our long-term progress, and the progress is visible, and we will be able to show the PAT growth by saving the credit cost up to this year. And once the growth also pick up as we are able to see that, everything -- all parameters should be getting back to our long-term benchmarks, which we had set over a longer period of time. Overall, things are settling well, and we hope things will improve from where we are moving -- going forward. With these opening remarks, I open the floor for questions and discussion.