HDFC Bank Q1 25/26 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Q1 deposits rose 16% year-on-year while advances grew 8%, lowering the CD ratio from 110% to 95% and targeting system-level loan growth in FY26 and above-system in FY27.
  • Negative Sentiment: With ~70% of assets floating-rate and deposits largely fixed, recent rate cuts have created a margin headwind due to repricing lag, though management expects eventual stabilization.
  • Positive Sentiment: Asset quality remains healthy with gross retail NPAs ex-agri stable at 0.82% year-on-year and ₹1,700Cr of additional contingent provisions enhancing credit resilience.
  • Positive Sentiment: HDB Financial Services IPO launched on July 2 via a stake dilution, and HDFC Bank declared an interim dividend of ₹5 per share plus its first-ever 1:1 bonus share issuance.
  • Neutral Sentiment: The bank added ~4,000 employees in Q1 to staff new branches and bolster tech and customer-centric initiatives, reflecting ongoing investment in growth enablers.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
HDFC Bank Q1 25/26
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, you've been connected to the HDFC Bank Limited conference call. Please stay connected. The call will begin shortly. Participants, you have been connected to HDFC Bank Limited conference call. Please stay connected.

Operator

The call will begin shortly. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to HDFC Bank Limited Q1 FY 'twenty six Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in a listen only mode, and there will be no opportunity for you to ask questions after the brief commentary by the management. Please note that this conference is being recorded.

Operator

I now hand the conference over to Mr. Srinivasan Vedyanathan, Chief Financial Officer, HDFC Bank. Thank you, and over to Mr. Vedyanathan.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Thank Thank you, Neera. Good evening, and welcome to all the participants today. We have Prashid Jadvishan, our CEO and MD with us this evening. We'll hand it off to him for opening remarks, then we'll get get back to you. Prashid, over to you for opening remarks, please.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

Thank you, Srini, and thank you all in the call to join us on a Saturday evening. Let me just start off with a little bit of what we see on the macro. You all know this much better, but let me summarize. The global situation remains pretty volatile with a weakening growth outlook and the tariff related and geopolitical uncertainties. Within this context, India remains relatively better placed, supported by a stable macro environment.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

For this fiscal, we expect GDP growth to sustain, supported by pickup in improved performance of domestic factors. Normal monsoons, income tax cuts, which you saw in the last budget, benign food inflation, as you have been recently seeing the print on inflation, although very well for domestic demand, especially during the festive season. Concerted policy and impetus, which we have been seeing right from January, February this year until recently, support sustainable growth. Coming to our performance. Let me just recap as to what how we traversed this over the last twelve, eighteen months.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

Last year, we have grown our average deposits at a healthy pace of 16% year on year and continue to gain market share as we have done in the past. However, we slowed down our average advances or AUM assets under management growth to about 7% last year in alignment with our strategic objectives to bring down the CD credit deposit ratio from 110% at the time of merger to about 95% as we speak today. This rate of growth on the assets under management has improved to 8% in the quarter just ended, which is the June FY 'twenty six. Our growth engines are well geared to grow. And as we move forward, we expect our loan growth to continue to improve from here and remain confident of growing our advances at the system growth rate in FY 'twenty six and higher than the system in FY 'twenty seven.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

The growth enablers, apart from balance sheet growth, remain customer centricity, technology and our people. Some of these aspects, I think, during the course of this quarter and probably the next half of the year, I think we shall be talking more about it as we unveil some of the initiatives that is underway in the bank. As mentioned in the previous earnings call, both the CFO and Bhavan did mention and you can sort of recall some of the transcripts of the last earnings call, Policy rate changes impact the loan side to external benchmarks, while deposit side takes longer to factor it in. As they probably would have mentioned, a large part of our asset side of the balance sheet is floating in nature. It's somewhere around the 70% and whilst the library side is more or less fixed in nature.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

So this would be a headwind in terms of when the rate cycle is on a downward trend. This impact is dependent on the pace and depth of the rate cut. You're seeing that in the results just announced. Whilst we may see quarterly fluctuations in margins due to this lead ag impact, we expect to stabilize it over a period of time. Our asset quality, one of our main USPs, remains healthy, positioning us well for growth in both assets and deposits as liquidity and demand improve.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

During the quarter, we carried out the HDB Financial Services listing process wherein the bank also diluted some stake and which eventually culminated in the stocks being listed on July 2. We thank all the investors who participated in the said IPO. Earlier today, the Board also announced an interim dividend of INR 5 per share, and they also recommended to shareholders the first ever bonus share issue in the ratio of one:one. Shing and team will probably give you more details as questions come about from all of you. So until then, I would like to express my gratitude to all our employees for their hard work and performance in a very challenging environment As we move from a they manage the slowing down of the engine last year, now to get back into its momentum as we have laid out and as a strategic objective, It requires a lot of courage.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

I think they have done extremely well, and we are proud of it. And great and gratitude to our shareholders who have supported us in all our times and to the Board for their leadership support and their strategic guidance. So thank you all on the call for your support as well. Srini, over to you.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Thank you, Sachi.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

If we go straight to Q and A, we can open it up and proceed. Nida, please open and get into the queue, please.

Operator

Thank you very much. We will now begin with the question and answer session. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Participants, please restrict to two questions per participant and kindly join the queue for a follow-up question. The first question is from the line of Maruka Jania from Nuama. Please go ahead. Yeah.

Mahrukh Adajania
Analyst at Nuvama

Hi. Good evening. So I had a couple of questions. Firstly, on your margin. So just wanted to recap on your method of repricing on EDLR.

Mahrukh Adajania
Analyst at Nuvama

So following a rate cut, in how many months does the book, the full e d l r book reprice or at least the repo book? And just wanted to make sure that the repo the the the the e d l r linkage is around 65, 67%. So that's that's my first question. And my second question is on growth. Obviously, there's hope that it will recover, but it's only slowing in the interim.

Mahrukh Adajania
Analyst at Nuvama

So what will trigger growth from current levels? Right? Because in the first quarter, even a GST bank's growth was subdued and so was everyone else's. So what will trigger growth? Because it's been falling over the last two quarters for the sector.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Maher. Good evening. Let's talk about the margin.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

You asked about the EVLR and the pricing and so on. The February price change on UDLR and the April change, yes, both of that for most part would be fully in. The June change of 50 basis points will not be fully in. In fact, the substantially will not be in because it takes one month to three months, right, at least one to three months for pricing. Some are monthly resets, some are quarterly resets.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

And so once we have to wait and get there. So two of those are done and the third one has happened in June. We'll have to wait for that balance of the past to play out. So that's one of the margin from an EDLR is impact. That's why you see the change in the yield on assets is about 20 basis points or so.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

No, 13, but we had seven, eight, last quarter had a terms of all of the both the monetary policy support in terms of the rate reduction that puts more money in the hands of certain consumers with certain products and also the yield going down. And also the fiscal policy, which also provided relief in terms of some tax benefits and the overall the market inflation, both food inflation and the total inflation below that 4% target is 3.7% and some are even below. The food inflation is extremely low or nothing. All of that all those well for consumption demand to pick up faster, both in the urban segment as well as in the rural segment. And with the onset of the festival season, we do expect that there will be a greater billet in that area.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Our approach is not only one segment, while we typically tend to mirror the GDP spectrum, which is consumption being 60%. So retail predominant in that. We are present across all of these segments, and we would would enter a balanced growth across all, but that's still towards the consumer, especially from from overall.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

So we are seeing some amount of healthy demand from the rural side. I think the segment which we are catering to is already factoring in better monsoon.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

And so we are seeing some amount of positive inquiries coming in at our ground level there. So there is an opportunity on that front in terms of potential growth. In the recent past, in the urban consumption, obviously, the premium side was is growing. There has been a little bit of a fatigue, but we expect the festival season, which will start shortly, I mean, it is the Unam or the Ganesh Sutti, etcetera, a fair amount of festivals will start to kick in in the country from August onwards or even earlier. I think that mood will have a reasonable amount of impetus and that could be a good trigger as well.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

As as I mentioned, the fact that interest rates have come down, the fact that people would have now started to see savings arising out of the fiscal largest that was given in the last budget, I think all that will play in with the convergence of the sentiments and the moods, which normally the Indian festivities normally bring about. On the MSME side, I think the sectors that we normally cater to, as I said, despite the kind of uncertainties on the tariff front, I think we have seen a fair amount of uproar or up fronting of exports to sort of take advantage of this potential tariff rate. And so we do see a reasonable amount of buoyancy in some of the good customers in the MSME segment as well, which should continue even as we get into the second quarter or the second half of the year. As regards corporate, I think they've been enjoying in the last couple of months reasonably benign interest rates and obviously the systems since being flushed with liquidity have the rates being offered to these double A and above corporates are pretty attractive. So obviously, we may be, you know, to the some of the good corporates, which we're comfortable with, we shall be participating in some of them for their working capital demand as well.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

We're not seeing anything great on the capital private CapEx side as yet, but we shall surely participate in as Suneet has mentioned across all our segments, whether it's rural, whether it's retail, whether it is MSME and whether it's corporate as well. As regards to mortgages, that too has been has seen intense competition from the private public sector enterprises. But having said that, I think some amount of participation considering the brand and considering the fact that we are also trying to see how to optimize our cost of processing on that. I think we should be able to pick up some of the volumes during the stress of period as well. So we are we have a clear cut roundup strategy in terms of how we will achieve our momentum from now on.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

As Srini did mention, we are coming from a very low growth for the reasons that I just mentioned that we had a compulsion to bring down our credit deposit ratio rather quickly, which we did reasonably well last year. But now from that low, we have already seen the momentum, although small in the first quarter. I think it's playing out well, and we should see this sequentially moving up over the next three quarters from now. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you.

Operator

Next question is from Manu Prakansha from IIFL Capital. Please go ahead.

Rikin Shah
Senior Analyst at IIFL Securities Limited

Thank you. Just had a couple of questions. The first one, noticed that the CRB loan classification has been regrouped.

Rikin Shah
Senior Analyst at IIFL Securities Limited

So how are the portfolios now located to different business heads? Has there been any there as well? That is the first question. The second one is on the asset quality. Just wanted to clarify what is the NPL recognition policy for any onetime settlements offered to the standard customers?

Rikin Shah
Senior Analyst at IIFL Securities Limited

And thirdly, on the credit cost, while it's still very, very benign, it has moved up from 29 to 41 basis point on net credit cost basis. Where do you expect this to settle in the interim? Thank you.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Okay. Yes.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

A few things. One on the region of the portfolio. You'll see it on Page 11, we have you'll see that there is a small and mid market, which is there as a separate category and the emerging corporate is part of corporate, that's one. Second, there is one other reporting that is there, which product wise advances, which is part of the separate release, which is also financial metrics release that we've done. That also has got similar breakup and for the three time periods, which is last year, last quarter and this quarter.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

But that's where it has moved, right? And there are some agri book and agriculture book and some SLA book which are part of retail, which are core retail, which has moved to the retail app.

Rikin Shah
Senior Analyst at IIFL Securities Limited

That grouping you will see in that product based advances list that we have provided, you will see that what has moved from the But has the business location to different heads also been regioned along with this, if you could highlight that?

Executive

So Abhishek, the respective products, you can respective product heads, for example, the SLI head is continuing to be the same SLI head is reporting into the retail franchise, which is being headed by Arvind. So the respective businesses, businesses have remained the same.

Executive

They will be reporting into a different hierarchy who report into Shashi differently. That's the only change that will happen. No ground level staff has changed.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Got it. You're you're NTA.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

We follow the norms, sir. Just an NPA. There is a RBI regulations around those, which will which will be following that. In most cases, there will be some exceptions to it. But in most cases, it will follow any change of such will necessarily classify have a classification downgrade, whether that turns into an NPL, it will depend on each case by case.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

But largely, any change in that, a onetime settlement would lead to an NPL recognition.

Rikin Shah
Senior Analyst at IIFL Securities Limited

Yep. Got it. And lastly, the credit cost, moved up slightly. So how does that kind of behave in the next twelve to twenty four months?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Credit cost, normally, that the June and December quarters are slightly elevated, which is what because of the agri largely driven through the agricultural portfolio based on the crop season, it moves up between June and December. While I won't venture to give you one particular number, but we have been planning to tell that over the last few quarters that the credit cost continues to be benign and there will be some point in time it will revert to NIM. And what does that mean is a move point and how long it takes is also a move point. But as of now, it continues to be benign and healthy.

Rikin Shah
Senior Analyst at IIFL Securities Limited

Alright. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you.

Operator

Next question is from Manav Patnav from Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Pranav Dheeeraj Gundlapalle
Senior Research Analyst at Bernstein

Hey. Good evening. Thanks for taking the Two questions. One on the Karnav deposit. The bank hasn't really changed Karnav market share or maybe even lost some share in the last four to six quarters after a stellar three year period from 'twenty two, 'twenty three.

Pranav Dheeeraj Gundlapalle
Senior Research Analyst at Bernstein

So what's really changed? And of course, more importantly, what will reverse the trend? The second question is on your lending franchise. Can you share what percent of your 100,000,000 customers would be loan customers? And I ask this in the context of HDB, right, which claims almost a 20,000,000 customer franchise that has growth ambitions.

Pranav Dheeeraj Gundlapalle
Senior Research Analyst at Bernstein

And was wondering if there's a chance of a future conflict there, both entities target the same customer. Thanks.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

Pranav, let me answer this, and then Srini can sort of complement what I'm trying to tell. So number one is on let's face it, when when we merged with HTSC Limited in July 23, there was day zero adjustment of about 3.5%, 4% from where we were. So 41 to 38 is or 38 37.5, 38 is where we settled down on that.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

If you look at the what we needed to do right from day zero of the merger, we had a massive effort to reduce the credit deposit ratio. It was a combination of trying to slow down the engine on the loan side and also try and step up the deposits to not only cater to some of the incremental reserve requirements that was necessitated because we took in more liabilities from the Erzshan HDFC Limited balance sheet, but also provide that business as usual incremental reserve requirements as well where we needed to keep that amount of extra deposit momentum. And mind you, we had a kind of an environment which is rather challenging where the liquidity was very tight from the time we merged with HDFC Limited. When you have this scenario, when you you need to give clear directions in terms of what their priorities are. When you have branches and when you need to give clear directions, the direction that was given was the you need to get deposits so that we can ultimately ensure that the primary objective of bringing down the CD ratio was comes down.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

So we did not sort of provide any nuances to say that we also want good CASA, etcetera, because that's it's not something that you can ask anyone to say get CASA. It is CASA is a resultant of multiple ground level strategies in terms of how you engage with customers, how you fulfill the financial needs of a customer, how do you upsell multiple products. And when you upsell, there is a lot of historical evidence and empirical evidence to say that with more and more products that you upsell, you will get your customer balances. So we are very clear that you will have the priority is to get deposits and that is what the signal was given. So whilst which is reflected in the fact that we've gotten deposits, we've gotten good amount of market share, we've gotten at the prices of the market is paying amongst the large peer group entities.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

And I think they have done extremely well. And where we are at this juncture, I think going forward with the liquidity environment being of the benign, the fact is that now we have some amount of breather on the credit deposit ratio and the liquidity in the system and in the bank, we probably will have. And this year in FY 'twenty six, we will our directions to the frontline team is to now start to upsell more and more products, fulfill the needs of what a customer wants, step up engagement and use great customer experience, which we will talk about now or even in the coming quarters in terms of how we're going to be creating a great delight, which will eventually lead to getting back some of the module on the low cost deposit franchises then. So this is part one and we you will start to see this. Of course, for a large balance sheet, this would take a little bit of time, but I think we will cover it up and you will see the needle moving slowly but surely on this particular front.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

The second part of this question was on the and HDB lending customers on HDB HDB, you know, we have maintained this. I think the segment that they cater to is about a notch or two below that of HDFC Bank. For the kind of rates that they offer in the market for products, there is definitely why would a customer from HDFC Bank who has a much lesser rack rates would even go to an HDB for their incremental requirements. Obviously, it has to be a notch below and that is not a segment that we are catering to at this juncture. I think we have enough to penetrate our own existing customer base and also the kind of segment that we are comfortable with from a product program basis.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

So even one were to do a kind of a deduplication within the customer sets, the overlap would be extremely minimal, etcetera. So as we speak and Srini, if you want to add something, segmentation will continue to be distinct between the bank and HDB for a long period of time. There is zero or very minimal overlap at this juncture that will continue to stay for a long period of time.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

So one other aspect of what we had asked is also, kind of, if I even just to say, In our customer base, cost is the maximum penetration from a customer base, almost call it 15% to 20% car. We have 24,000,000 cars is one of the highest penetration of that.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

So every other product in call it anywhere between 5% to 10% to 12% kind of. So the long runway in terms of penetrating into our own customer base for various cross sell opportunities.

Pranav Dheeeraj Gundlapalle
Senior Research Analyst at Bernstein

Okay. Very clear on the HDD one. Just a quick follow-up on the CASA one.

Pranav Dheeeraj Gundlapalle
Senior Research Analyst at Bernstein

I was more wondering if any of your recent actions, I mean, seems that coincided with you slowing down corporate credit, for example, right? So so I was just wondering if there's something even more immediate or a side effect of what you have done apart from all the other stuff that you talked about in the customer experience in terms of driving the longer term product.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

No. I don't think probably if I've understood you right, are you saying that the slowdown in CASA is an impact of the slowdown in the corporate segment?

Pranav Dheeeraj Gundlapalle
Senior Research Analyst at Bernstein

Yes. I was referring to that.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

Not really. See, the thing is you corporate contributes to just a very smaller segment of or a proportion of our cost. Yes, is. It it is volatile.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

It has a a significant gyrations in the fourth quarter of every fiscal and hence the outflows happen in the subsequent quarter. But is it something that has a significant impact because of that? I don't think so. Frankly, our CASA M and A start off the kind of engagement that we do to the retail segment and that maybe let me add a slightly other nuance as well. The segment that we cater to on the retail side is the middle and upper middle income segment.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

We have this is something that we have always maintained over a long period of time. And, you know, and this is if I have I can see about 687 people on this call, and I have about a few people in the room. If I were to take this as a microcosm of how a retail of a middle and upper middle income segment will behave, all of us would like to maximize our returns or optimize our returns. So this segment is the propensity of all of us to move and manage our funds is going to be far higher than what you would do to probably in the mid to lower segments. And that is that will also have a nuance a slightly amount of impact in the near term for for some of the institutions like us.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

But that's not something that but I still am very optimistic that the medium to long term, if we get our customer experience and our upsell strategies, you know, well at the ground level, I think we should be in a position to get back some of the gains that we lost on the low cost deposits.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Kunal Shah from Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Hi, Kunal.

Operator

Kunal, may

Operator

I a good sir, unmute your line and go ahead with your question, please?

Kunal Shah
Director at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking the question. So in annual report also, you have indicated that you have been taking singles in FY twenty five and now position to go for boundaries. So any any particular segments, the priorities which have been set out apart from what we have indicated in general, the strategy which has been there.

Kunal Shah
Director at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

Any key segments which we are looking at. And this quarter, when we look at the number of employees, they they have gone up by almost 4,000. So is it like we have ramped up employee addition or it is to do with the lower attrition rate in the first quarter? Otherwise, in the last full year, we have added a hardly, like, thousand odd employees. And this quarter, still here added 4,000.

Kunal Shah
Director at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

So is it, like, front loading, lower attrition? What is leading to that?

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

Yeah. No. See, on the employee front, while I think Srini and the team will give you greater color, but I think these are the impact of the branches that we opened in the fourth quarter of last year.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

So that is coming about now. At least a larger portion of that incremental hiring is from there. The balance some portion will be in technology teams as well.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Lot of people in we've added in the sales force, that's part of the approach, both asset sales force as well as the branch sales force are added and getting the branches fully manned.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

Yes.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

That is as I said, that's the thing. I mean, see, the thing is I'm not sort of here to say that I want to lay off anybody and we are very clear about it because we are blessed to be in a sector and in a country where the demand outstripped supply and we have a long runway. Frankly, even with, you know, since you mentioned about the fact that what I spoken about in the annual report, apart from the singles and hitting into the boundaries, I've also mentioned that there are some exciting tech initiatives which is underway, which I may sort of spell it out not now. I just gave a teaser in the annual report, but at the opportune time, which is just a few months away, we will sort of unveil as to what we're talking about. It will have ramifications in the capacity, but that's not our primary objective.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

Our primary objective is customer experience and we are quite excited about how that is going to do about it. But even then, even at that point in time, what we foresee or what I foresee is that we will have employees, we will grow our resources, but it'll be more and more in the front end, more probably in technology and less and less in the back end of back end operations or back end enabling functions, whether it is operations, credit, other enabling functions of the bank. So the way I see it is that we will have going into the future more and more people at the customer facing and maybe revenue generating, and that is that is a vision that we have. So adding a 4,000 in quarter is just tactical in terms of as Srini just mentioned, because we've had opening, I don't know how many branches we opened in the fourth quarter and we're just manning it now completely. These are all low end employees where which is necessary from branch operations and sales perspective. The second question, Ketan?

Kunal Shah
Director at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

I think you answered the segment of growth, if any specific segment.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

No, that I just mentioned a few questions ago, Kunal. I mentioned about the fact that where we see pockets of opportunities in terms of some of the rural segments, the MSME, some of the MSME segments, even corporate, even though the rates are going to be very fine, but we still have now that we have liquidity, I think we will sort of unlock some of it. And even retail, even urban REIT consumption, I believe that with the festive season coming up, should see the premium segments also and unsecured segments moving up as well.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

Mortgages, pricing has been as like the corporate side, the pricing has been rather fine, but we have our we still believe that we can compete there and there are some pockets of opportunities that we are sizing up as we speak.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

In this quarter, we did see approximately 1,000 people migration from back office to front office to augment more part of the Got it. Part of the process of the migration.

Kunal Shah
Director at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

Very good.

Kunal Shah
Director at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

Okay. Got it. And lastly, with respect to margins, so maybe what would be the average duration of the deposits maybe in ALM maybe because of the CASA classification doesn't make it very clear. But if we look at maybe the average duration of deposits, the way wholesale deposits proportion is also in Singapore now, it's closer to almost 80 odd percent. When do we see NIMs of the Q4 level getting reached?

Kunal Shah
Director at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

Would it be by end of this fiscal or would it take time after the repricing is over and we see the benefit on deposits also flowing through, plus maybe the borrowings also getting repaid over a period.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

I understand on the deposits as far as rate. We have a significant portion of our deposits, which are call it twelve to eighteen months, call it mid fifteen, eighteen months thereof. So that's the kind of where you have it in the front and you have it in the back, but then the most of it is centered around that kind of a time period. So that's very important.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

So for the entire cost of funds to play out, it takes a few quarters. That means on renewal and growth, that's where it plays out there. That's one. From an overall margin you are present by end of the year, yes, you'll have to it will take a few quarters. It depends on the how fast and how much the rate changes.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

So that we'll have to wait and see and there is always that June was something that one didn't expect that there will be a 50 basis point change in June. And so these kind of things play out. So I will urge you not to look at quarter to quarter at all because that is not how we can manage because one, there are certain things on the asset side that will automatically reprice. And on the managed side, which is the deposits that we manage, there will be a lag effect both from a managing the pricing of the policy change and the rules that happen, there is a timeframe to it. Yes, as exit the year, there should be more stability if there is no more rate change, but then we'll allowed to go through that process as time goes by as to what is going to happen in the forthcoming policy meeting, one of those meetings will happen.

Operator

Okay.

Kunal Shah
Director at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.

Got it. Yes. Thanks.

Operator

You.

Operator

Next question is from the line of Rahul Jain from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Rahul Jain
Rahul Jain
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

Yeah.

Rahul Jain
Rahul Jain
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

Thank you, and good evening, everyone. The first question is on the loan growth. So can you give some qualitative color on how would have been the growth in this versus the new loan that you would have underwritten in this quarter? How's the pace picking up there? And, of course, there's always, you know, time lag between the this person growth and the loan growth.

Rahul Jain
Rahul Jain
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

So if you were to just start looking out the next few quarters, how would that start looking out? Can you just share some color on that?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Yes. See, the dispersal growth in mortgages, if you see, is consciously down. The reason being that when there are certain institutions, particularly on the public sector side, which have a rate of anywhere 7.1%, 7.3% or thereabout, we are not competing, right, at those kind of rates.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

And we are both looking at rates which are fifty, eighty basis points more than that to provide where we provide better service and get a holistic relationship of the ability to have multiple products. And we are okay to be a grower there because that's what we want the full relationship, not a product as such getting pushed at this kind of price. And as it relates to non mortgages, the disposals have been quite strong and we have seen that 9% of growth in the retail assets year on year. And there are some seasonality, agreed season and so on so forth plays out. But overall, those have been reasonably good.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Within hours, right, we are not at 9.6% rate of growth, there is far higher room to go up to our own standard software. We are used to growing on those things. That's on the loan growth.

Rahul Jain
Rahul Jain
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

So thanks, Jay. And so if I can assume that by the time we get into second and third quarter, the stock of loans should also start building the gap for this growth.

Rahul Jain
Rahul Jain
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

And the diversity growth has been stronger in non mortgages, shouldn't it also reflect the strongest fee income? But this quarter, we didn't see fee income being that strong for some reason.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Yes. Yes. Fee fee income this quarter has been subdued through the third party distribution fees.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Right? That's where it is lower. Typically, June is lower than March. But then even March versus June, the third party distribution fees has been subdued. And again, we believe it is timing through the year that this quarter industry wide, we did not see much of that third party distribution fees coming through or distribution sales coming through there by the field.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

But the overall outlook for the full year in terms of the distribution remains quite optimistic and quite strong.

Rahul Jain
Rahul Jain
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

Okay. Just so so the reversal growth and and loan growth in second and third quarter should start getting similar. Is that a fair assumption in non mortgage retail?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

No.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

That's I don't want to give one particular outlook, but then certainly, it depends. I think Ashish alluded to say that at the onset of the festival demand, we do expect a good amount of uptick there, and we are positioning ourselves to take advantage of that coming through the next few quarters.

Rahul Jain
Rahul Jain
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

Alright. Just one last question and more additional question on cost to income. It's actually still letting the math, just 42% of thereabouts.

Rahul Jain
Rahul Jain
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

Of course, it has improved versus last year despite the balance sheet. But what's what's the sense we should get? Where would this number start to get towards in the next couple of quarters? Do we have the dividend cost down to below 40? Because we are adding employees, we are adding, know, branches, etcetera.

Rahul Jain
Rahul Jain
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

And going to the Or, you know, should should they just hope for it to improve and bring it down to below 40? I'm putting a number there. I know I know you don't comment on the number, but still just to get some direction. Or that, you know, management would want to prioritize growth, so therefore, cost income is not an immediate priority.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Cost income cost income is always a priority. You you even at the at the rate of growth that we are prepared to do. We are at a normalized rate of 39.6% or something.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

But having said that, I would say that quarter to quarter certainly is not something that we look at to manage because there will be times then where there will be spend required to be supported, that is let it be the card spend or let it be some of the festival spend and programs and marketing that needs to be supported. So we'll not be shy of that where we need to do. You should look at an annual where we do. But certainly, yes, we envisage to take it down and keep improving on that.

Rahul Jain
Rahul Jain
Managing Director at Goldman Sachs

Thank you, Shneur.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Abhishek Raghur from HSBC. Please go ahead.

Abhishek Murarka
Abhishek Murarka
Director at HSBC

Yeah. Hi. Good evening, and thanks for taking my question. So, Sashi, you said that there's a bit of a breather in CD ratio in the system and liquidity in in response to one of the questions earlier. I just wanted to check from a CD ratio perspective now, where would the comfort zone lie?

Abhishek Murarka
Abhishek Murarka
Director at HSBC

Earlier, I believe it was somewhere between eighty five and ninety. But now in the new scheme of things, better liquidity, you know, system looking at growth revival. Would you be comfortable with a relatively higher CD ratio?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

See, I'm I'm going to take that, Rishi, from a CD ratio. We are at 95, 96, last quarter was 96, we are at 95, thereabouts on CB ratio.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

While quarter to quarter, again, even for this year, it can be different. But in the medium term, we would envisage to get the CD ratio to be at that level we were prior to the merger, which was about 87, 88. So that is why between eighty five and ninety is the range that is a medium term, we will expect to be there. And that naturally comes in when you have the deposit growth superior to the loan growth and you keep moving on that discount. And that result that FY 2026 grew in line with the system and FY 'twenty seven grew faster on the loan versus the system, gets you in the medium term to around those kind of levels and cost of time.

Abhishek Murarka
Abhishek Murarka
Director at HSBC

Yes. Srini, the thought was that actually with now a little bit of leeway, if you target something a little higher than $87.90, then you can actually grow a little faster as well and use all the deposits that are coming in. Because at a headline level, you're getting, you know, great deposit market So that's what I was thinking. That is that an opportunity now.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

Yeah. Theoretically, I agree with you, Abhishek. But as I said, it it will have a certain amount of gradient. That's the thought process. I think we are in that kind of a we are aligned to that kind of a thought process.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

But obviously, we need to also see appropriate demand at appropriate pricing and appropriate risk premium as well. So it's something that we have to manage all these aspects as we move along. But I think we are all geared up to ensure that we don't miss out opportunities. And yes, if we need to sort of have a direction downwards, but not necessarily be tied down to a particular CD ratio number, we are going to be happy to do so. But I guess that clarity will come about as we move to the second half of the year because as you know, whether in any year and more so in this particular fiscal, I think last part of your growth will come in from the second half and more probably more yielding towards the fourth quarter of this year.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

So at that point in time, I think there will be enough clarity for all of us. But in the meantime, we are ensuring that the engine is gearing up towards a trajectory, which is what we have stated up. And whether it is the versus whether it is across multiple segments, it is reexamining the market opportunities or the competitive intensity and trying to see how we can now that we have liquidity, how to sort of back on the front foot, I think we will be doing that, and that will be very visible to the world at large.

Abhishek Murarka
Abhishek Murarka
Director at HSBC

Sure. That that sounds good, Kashy.

Abhishek Murarka
Abhishek Murarka
Director at HSBC

And the second question is on this contingent provision of 1,700 crores. This was a little, you know, over and above the you know, whatever you use the windfall gain for. So is this specific to some account or is this some policy that that drives you to make or that drove you to make this additional provision? What was the reason to make the additional INR $70,100 crore provision?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

I would say, we should look at what is contingent provision, right?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

As the name suggests, it's concentrate on occurrence or non occurrence of certain events, right? And this does not represent any uniquely observed changes in the portfolio. These provisions run through model on various pools of assets under certain probability scenarios, setting various factors, right? It is intended to provide resiliency and essentially strong reserving position now and for the future. We were at 51 basis points prior to this.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Now the contingent portion is about 57 basis points of the loans portfolio. So it is done at kind of various levels, pools of assets runs through various property models, and then that's the reserving that we do.

Abhishek Murarka
Abhishek Murarka
Director at HSBC

Perfect. And finally, can you give some color on, you know, asset quality and, you know, also on asset quality in PLCC and secured retail? Just sort of an update compared to, you know, last quarter.

Abhishek Murarka
Abhishek Murarka
Director at HSBC

Now what you're seeing and how that has While while Srini may probably give some numbers, if at all he does.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

But I can tell you that that continues to be our greatest, what shall I say, our USP. I reiterate that ex Agri because Agri is more cyclical in nature, which you see a little bit of a blip in the first quarter to the third quarter. It continues to be extremely benign, whether it's gross NPL levels or even in terms of the credit cost. I mean, if you look at the credit cost ex Agri also, it's sequentially, it's been pretty much stable.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

So we are extremely happy and even the outlook, as we just mentioned, is pretty much benign. And so even the so called counterfeiters of the buffer, all the contingent provisions, there is no correlation to any pain points that we are likely to have. Virtually, there is none. It is just building resilience into the future. And that's been a philosophy that we have been patronizing for a long period of time.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

And I think this is something that we are proud of.

Abhishek Murarka
Abhishek Murarka
Director at HSBC

On particular number, if you look at the NPA on the retail segment, excluding agri, it's at about 82 basis points.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Last year same time, it was 82 basis points. So it's been pretty steady at that level. So over a year, 82 basis points.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

That's the G and P on the retail segment, which contains cars, steel and all of those other products other than that.

Abhishek Murarka
Abhishek Murarka
Director at HSBC

Right. So essentially, you're saying there's no real stress and it's stable. The asset quality there is stable.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Exactly. Yeah.

Abhishek Murarka
Abhishek Murarka
Director at HSBC

Okay. Thank you so much. Thanks, and all the best.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Thanks. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is from the line of Jentan from Autonomous. Please go ahead.

Chintan Joshi
Senior Analyst - Indian Banks at Autonomous Research

Hi. Good evening. Can I ask you couple of detailed questions from your twenty f? First one is, last quarter, you had said that you have about 500,000,000,000 of expensive or trial limited deposit debt that will mature in 2026. In your twentieth, your long term debt maturity for 2026 is about 1,500,000,000,000.0.

Chintan Joshi
Senior Analyst - Indian Banks at Autonomous Research

I wanted to understand what that other payment looks like in terms of cost or and what the opportunity is there in that trillion, so excluding the limited debt. So that's the first one. And and within that also, you know, how do hedges play a role in helping you offset the NIM pressures? The second question I have is on PSL. If I look at the achievement rates, it has come down year on year probably because of the one third base being added from HDFC Limited.

Chintan Joshi
Senior Analyst - Indian Banks at Autonomous Research

If I think about another third coming next year, you know, there is some kind of rolling shortfall building up in certain areas. How should investors think about this? You know, would RBI make a call on this at some point and then it is what it is, you know, or can we prudently put something in our expectations on names on on that call? How should we think about it?

Executive

Thank you.

Executive

So, Shintan, that twenty years, you know, I is a consolidation of all the subsidiaries. So it's not really if you look at any numbers there and try and look at that from a stand alone, it's not going to really make sense. I would encourage that you don't try to find data points from a bank perspective in there. You're not going to be able to match it, and it's a completely different accounting standard as well. We will pick it up offline to see where we can how do we get there on that.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

All the subsidiaries are added in that.

Chintan Joshi
Senior Analyst - Indian Banks at Autonomous Research

And the PSL any color on kind of non limited borrowings, you know, any opportunities there to do any liability management exercises or something that can help you reduce your cost of funds there?

Executive

If you see, the borrowings that we do give a breakup, we constantly have something which comes up from maturity, which we have done. Last year, we did have some opportunity to prepay or try and advance some maturities, which we have taken through. And we'll keep looking for this as and when they are available, we'll do that.

Executive

But given the rates where they are in the market, these opportunities may not necessarily be as much in this current year is the way we think about.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

And little two bits on this one, Shantan. Even if there are opportunities, you have to take a fair value hit, if at all there are any early redemptions of some of these long term debt as well. So that is something that you need to factor in. But if I were an investor, I would you know, why would I even want to do that if I'm holding a very attractive coupon on the other side?

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

I mean, that's the reality, and that's that's what some of the investors have been saying. I'm happy not to keep holding it to maturity. This is so sometimes while on paper, I would love to do that. But in practice and in reality, there are very few takers on such early redemptions as well.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

On the PSL, you touched upon the PSL.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Yes, right, the PSL is an actual management book in terms of how we have. We have at the aggregate level, the target is 40 and we are more than 40. We'll try to see how to get it to 40. There's always a buy and sell on the PSLC that happens for actively managing. And again, with the market availability, not that it is here, it provides an opportunity.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

But yes, I think we're referring to the annual report of the CECL status of the FY 'twenty five status. Yes, there were sales also, which exceeded the price in the year. Because we were at the aggregate level. We always Even as we speak, I think we are reasonably comfortable at overall price of the portfolio despite adding one third of the or the a portion of Ursula HDFC Limited The only thing that we always the only thing we always look for to get is the smaller margin farmer and the micro segment, which is much more data, even availability is limited in the market. But we are not aware of any regulation change that provides leave or an opportunity space, we don't know.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

But those two segments are dearer all the time. And even the last year that you referred to, we were about a percentage point or so looking Okay. For

Chintan Joshi
Senior Analyst - Indian Banks at Autonomous Research

And can I slip in one more? Will 2Q be the trough of NIMs for the bank, given that a lot of the asset repricing will come through by?

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

It will depend on if there's another rate cut coming or not during the year.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Assuming no more rate cuts.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

And we should expect that to happen subject to, you know, repricing on the liability side, which should come through. So logically, yes, but, you know, there are lot of other people on the call. They don't want to give guidance of any form or manner because there's been a lot of moving parts in there.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

The deposit cost is a managed deposit cost.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

And the deposit cost do not reflect yet fully pricing in of the policy rate change. And you know that the deposit pricing, particularly I'm talking about the time deposit savings also is the same, but for good amount of time deposit pricing is more or less maintained parity across various peer players in the system. So it is not just about one moving, you'll have to see whether the cohorts are moving.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

Having said that, I sort of mentioned in the past, liabilities are more fixed in nature. So even incrementally, we start if our incremental liabilities come in at a lesser price than the stock, it takes a long time for the stock to run off.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

I mean, the modified duration will be about a year or one point three years. So you have to wait for that. And that is the reason why you will and rightfully that's what even you have alluded to. You will have a little bit of a trough, all things remaining same, assuming no incremental changes, a little bit of a trough in the coming months before it starts to pick up and stabilize to the where the liability benefits also catch up with the transmission that has already happened on the asset side.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Sir, those to look at these things in the annual report?

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

This is what you've been mentioning. Even in your last earnings call.

Chintan Joshi
Senior Analyst - Indian Banks at Autonomous Research

Yeah. Thank you.

Operator

Next question is from Manav Piranjan from CLS India. Please go ahead.

Piran Engineer
Investment Analyst at CLSA

Hi, team. Congrats on the strong results. Most of my questions are answered. Just a couple of follow ups. Firstly, Shreedi, when you mentioned that credit costs will normalize, it's a matter of when and not if.

Piran Engineer
Investment Analyst at CLSA

I'm just thinking which segments will result in this normalization because corporate isn't likely to worsen, secured retail is fine and unsecured will only get better. So why should we assume that credit costs rise in the future?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

No. Again, it's a question of the overall credit cost in the industry or the bank remains pretty low. When I say reverse into mean, it is simply a statistical model.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

That is why I do not know when and I do not know how much. Right? But if you ask a credit expert, like our Chief Credit Officer, which I think he has alluded to a couple of quarters ago in one of those investor calls, that, yes, across all the segments, it has been pretty good and benign. It started maybe a year ago in the global segment like the microfinance, I'm talking about the industry started around that. And then it did not find its way into the other segments like retail segment, SME segment, wholesale segment and so on.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

So again, that is a question of when, right? It's not something that just moved from one on a quarterly basis or a two quarter basis, which didn't start to move across. So it depends on when it does and but across all segments, there will be some kind of a revision to me.

Piran Engineer
Investment Analyst at CLSA

But there's nothing on the horizon, at least in the foreseeable future that we see?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

No. No. No.

Piran Engineer
Investment Analyst at CLSA

Okay. Okay. That's good.

Piran Engineer
Investment Analyst at CLSA

And then secondly, in terms of fixed rate lending products like car loans, personal loans, etcetera, how much have we see and our competitors cut incremental disbursement interest rates by?

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

Aperam, it will be difficult to gauge that, right, because different there's a large segment there and different players play in a different way. So it's very difficult to gauge what if everybody has cut and not. First quarter is a new year is a bit slower. If anything, you will find some of this competition playing out as the festive season picks up in the next quarter.

Piran Engineer
Investment Analyst at CLSA

Okay. Okay. Fair enough. That's it from my end. Thank you. Wish you all the best.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Thank you.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

Thank you all. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you very much. Participants, we have come to an end of the line allotted for the call. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Vaidyanathan for closing comments.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer at HDFC Bank

Okay. Thank you all for participating today. If you have any more questions, queries, comments or whatever you need to talk, please reach out to our investor relations team, which are anyway used to reaching out if required. We'd be happy to engage in some. Thank you. Bye bye.

Sashidhar Jagdishan
Sashidhar Jagdishan
MD, CEO & Director at HDFC Bank

Thank you all. Thank you very much. Bye bye.

Operator

Thanks. Thank you very much. On behalf of HDFC Bank Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.

Executives
    • Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
      Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
      Chief Financial Officer
    • Sashidhar Jagdishan
      Sashidhar Jagdishan
      MD, CEO & Director
Analysts
    • Mahrukh Adajania
      Analyst at Nuvama
    • Rikin Shah
      Senior Analyst at IIFL Securities Limited
    • Executive
    • Pranav Dheeeraj Gundlapalle
      Senior Research Analyst at Bernstein
    • Kunal Shah
      Director at Citigroup Global Markets Inc.
    • Rahul Jain
      Managing Director at Goldman Sachs
    • Abhishek Murarka
      Director at HSBC
    • Chintan Joshi
      Senior Analyst - Indian Banks at Autonomous Research
    • Piran Engineer
      Investment Analyst at CLSA