Refused to commit on fy27 topline margin guidance.

How is the competitive intensity in the gold finance sector trending? In the past, you have explained that whenever gold prices go up, the tonnage will come down. Something we have seen this quarter. We have also had other gold financing NBFCs, much smaller than you, but we are still seeing tonnage growth come through for them. This time around, maybe for the first time, we are seeing a bunch of all AAA rated NBFCs who are themselves deep pocketed, can raise liabilities at finer rates than us, and at some point in time can also build a distribution muscle, which is very important in gold financing. Could you put some of those pieces together for us?

Thank you. And you actually asked the question and also gave the answers also. The competition is there. New and newer people are coming. Fine. I think I would repeat what I said earlier also. We are a company which is focused on gold loan. The new players who are coming, maybe deep pockets, maybe lesser cost of funds, they are not focused gold loan players. Focused gold loan players and also gold loan players have a difference, which people will realize after some time only. Because this is a very operationally challenging, operationally intensive business. And I am sure people will realize that going forward. So, competition will come after some time. Again, I am repeating, some of them will lose interest. Some of them who stay focused will definitely be able to do this, do better. So, they are all opportunistic people. So, we don't find any people, anybody taking away our business also. Because in spite of all this, we have been growing reasonably well, if not better than the previous years. So, we see continuous growth in this sector. Now, if you look at our Slide #9, Muthoot Money, the tonnage has increased considerably. So, because the tonnage which was 7 has gone up to 12. So, that will be the same for any new player. Whereas, in Muthoot Finance, we are an established player. We are having old legacy accounts with us. And there, the tonnage will be definitely, will be proportion to the new loans. The churn in the loan is actually, every four months, it is churned. So, when every time a four-month churn happens, the new loans are created at a higher LTV. That means, they need to give only lesser gold. So, that is why you see the tonnage coming down. But when you said about the new companies, in the new company, you just compare Muthoot Money where the tonnage has also gone up. The AUM, which was about 3,700 has gone to 9,700. So, tonnage has gone up. The AUM has also gone up. And the number of customers in Muthoot Money was 2,74,000 in the last year. Today, it is 4,64,000. So, both are growing because it is a new company, young company. For Muthoot Finance, the big company, the number of customers, not that easy to grow. Because in Muthoot Finance, that old account, the smaller accounts, up to 10,000 and accounts from 10,000 to 30,000. Actually, we have lost about 15 lakh customers there. But we have added the same in the higher tickets of 50,000, 1 lakh and 2 lakhs. So, overall, that is the churn which is happening.

On employee attrition. Given that there are so many other NBFCs who are also looking to start gold financing, obviously, they will want to hire people from the best gold financing company in India. So, how is that?

Thank you for branding Muthoot Finance as the best gold finance company. There is always some people going away, but nothing of any alarm because our numbers are also steady. If somebody goes, we take a new person. And again, with competition, some people think that just by taking a few managers or staff from Muthoot, they can start a gold loan business and maybe start branches. Okay, I am not reserving my comments now. Let us see what will happen, what they will be looking after two years and three years. Now, we have not lost any attrition. We have not lost any staffs. We still have about 30,000 staff. We still have that. Last quarter, we increased our rates by about 0.5% to 1% over certain types of loans. So, that is why we see the yield has gone up.

Now that we are anyway earning a pretty solid yield of 20.8%, is there a thought that we can maybe cut yields a bit and increase our customer count, because our customer count has also gone down a bit?

Piran, this is something which we have always discussed. We have the luxury to reduce the rate. So, that is why we always used to give a guidance of a median term ROI of around 3.5%. So, if the yield reduction adds a lot of customer, certainly we would like to do, which we are already doing. Last several years, we have been offering schemes at lower rate. We have different schemes. We have a yield for 22%, 23%, a yield for 18%, 15%, 14%, 12%, we have different. So, at some point of time, when we feel that we need to step up the lower yield portfolio, we will do that. So, as of date, we don't see any need for that now.

On slide 28, where you talk about the margin of safety on loans from the lender's perspective, the market price of the gold ornaments, INR 2,634 billion for March '26, is it as of 31st March, or do you take a monthly average number?

No. So, we have put the price also on the table above, no? INR 13,441. As of 31st March. The date, sir. As of the date, not monthly average.

Looking at the customer metrics, while the acquisition this quarter is better, reactivation of customers is better, we have still kind of degrown at the customer base level by 2%. Is there any observation around it that the customers already with us are also moving to competition in the quest for better rates, or the high-value customers are moving out, which is impacting not just the customer number, it is also impacting the tonnage growth as well?

So, I think I Five minutes back, I explained, even somebody did not ask that specifically, but we explained that we have the customers up to 0 to 10,000 customers. We have lost about 5 lakh customers, and between 10,000 to 30,000, maybe another 8 lakh customers have gone out. But then if the customer total count is remaining same, it only means that the customers in the other segments, maybe 50,000, 1 lakh, 2 lakhs have grown. See, very small customers or ultra-small customers, they may tend to leave or maybe go away also. But that does not matter much to us because a customer of 10,000 or 30,000 leaving us, maybe he takes it off, either he comes again for a bigger loan, or he does not come again. But I do not know whether somebody is taking away the 30,000 customers or 10,000 customers. I do not think anybody would like to take such a small customer. So, the point I was saying was very ultra-small customers, ultra-small loan customers would have left, but the medium and the better customers are still growing with Muthoot.

Coming back to the yield thing, because the movement is so sharp and last quarter you had a major interest recovery as well, which you don't have this quarter, you have raised the price. So, this NPL increase which has happened in this quarter, which is stage 2 has increased, stage 3 has also significantly increased, that would have given you some more interest income recognition maybe in this quarter. But why did we see an increase in stage 2 and stage 3 so much in this quarter?

So, the stage 3 increase has happened primarily because RBI has advised us to do a borrower wise classification. So, earlier we were doing this classification at the loan level. So, today, this time we have done at the borrower level. So, to that extent, there is an increase in the NPA. So, that is why there is a jump in the NPA. But if you look at percentage wise, it is much lower than what was there in the March '25. So, March '26, it is 2.34. I think last year March, it was 3.35. So, the NPA absolute amount has increased because of the borrower wise classification. And when you do a borrower wise classification, a lot of this stage 1 and stage 2 customers also will be classified as an NPA, where probably the interest servicing is done. So, the interest reversals will be much lower. If you look at the LTV including on this NPA bucket, including the interest accrued, it is only around 58% on stage 3.

This stage 1, stage 2, stage 3 increase that you said that it is because of borrower-wise classification. Is that the only reason? Apart from that, asset quality, you want to stable? And how do you see AUM growth as a standalone entity and console AUM? Any guidance that you would like to put for next fiscal broad range?

The receivable, including principal and interest, is only 58% of the present market value of the good. So, it is not because of any impairment in the loan, etc.. It is only because of the regulatory guidance that it should be shown as an NPA. 100%. We have our audit team also. So, asset quality has always been stable. Wherever there is anything else, we just write off at that time. So, for the standalone Muthoot Finance, we have been always been giving a guidance of 15%. Last 10 years, the first quarter, we have always been giving a guidance of 15%. We will continue to do that. We will re-look at it in Q1 or Q2. After Q1 or after Q2, we will re-look at the same.

Any strategy or any guidance on branch expansion year and after? And could you give some guidance on consolidated gold branches across all the companies. Increase in stage 2 loans would also be similar reasons in terms of the borrower classification or any other reason? And anything specific that's going in non-gold loans, around INR 3,000 odd crores in a year. These are unsecured loans? Or what are these loans? And coming back to the yield part, you always kind of maintain that 18%, 18.5% is probably a more normalized yield. Would you kind of incrementally say that the 20 plus is a new normal? Or would you probably say that next year you would settle somewhere between 18.5 to 20?

Okay, so probably last year, we opened 170 branches or so. This year, maybe 200-300 branches. That's it. I think Belstar, we were thinking of opening another 200 branches or so, because it was only about 100 branches. So, Belstar, which is a microfinance company. And Muthoot Money, I don't think we are aggressively looking at, maybe just because the branches are quite young. So, we are waiting for it to mature a little more before opening many branches there. Yes, gold branches. Sorry, gold branches. These are unsecured personal loans, salaried personal loan and unsecured personal loans, which is doing actually quite well. We have about INR 4,000 crores of portfolios, mostly cross-sell. It is mainly a cross-sell to our existing or gold loan base. We have a gold loan base. We give personal loans to them. Cross-sell. I think, our treasury finance says that the borrowing cost is looking of north. So, probably we expect borrowing cost also may go up in the coming. So, probably we may not be able to reduce anymore. We may be able to maintain at this rate.

On the newer framework by RBI in terms of for the gold financing players. From first day, we are supposed to maintain or monitor the LTVs more closely. So, what are the challenges are we facing at ground level, or what are the deviations that we have made in terms of our processes, policies, or operations standpoint at branch level? And if we have taken an interest rate increase during the quarter, and since we are also following the final framework by RBI, our disbursement yield, our disbursement LTVs would have declined on a sequential basis, right?

So, I think the policy has been quite good. The LTV maintaining has been from, the last 10 years or 15 years back, only the LTV came. From that day till today, we are always maintaining the LTV at the RBI regulated rates only. Now, they have given an option of giving 85%, 80% etc. So, that gives us a little more room for giving different types of LTVs and loan products to the customer. That is the only advantage. Now, the processes for that, the software for that is not easy. We are also in the process of doing it. We have rolled out some products also. So, going forward, we can tailor make more products for the customers. So, just like Muthoot, everybody else is also coming out with newer loan schemes, etc., in line with the new regulations. But your first question, we always, whether it is now or before this new regulation, or previously, we have always been maintaining the LTV at the regulated rates only.

In continuation to LTV, on an average, what's our goal on LTV today? And what LTV range we consider comfortable from a risk management perspective?

So, today, our goal loan LTV is 57%. The average goal on in our book is 57%. Range comfortable, higher end or lower end? No, RBI regulations allow up to 85%, you know. We don't see much risk in giving it 85% currently. I think in the last 10 years, it is up to 75%. Right now, RBI allows up to 85%.

If we see loan AUM per loan account, with reference to the slide number 19, the number has gone up for Muthoot Finance as well as for Muthoot Money by around 48%-49% year on year. So, is that rise is due to the customer borrower appetite just because of the gold loan price has gone up? And what is the basic reason for such a sharp rise in the loan AUM per loan account? Considering the inflation rise or considering the credit growth in the entire lending ecosystem, if this kind of a growth is there per customer or per loan account, that looks very surprising.

If you look at the same similar account, similar statistics for any NBFC, it will be the same because the loans are given for a very short period. In every three months to four months, the loan gets churned and new loans are priced at the new LTV. So, somebody who had taken INR 1 lakh last year, when he comes after one year for a INR 1 lakh, instead of 10 grams, he needs to give only 5 grams because the price has gone up. So, definitely the grammage will be lesser and the LTV also will be higher. Not LTV, the loan amount will be higher. So, small customers, people take, tend to take more loans also. Average ticket size has been growing up over the last 10 years. Maybe 5 years back, average ticket size was 15,000. Then it became 25,000. Then it became 30,000. Then it became, today, 1,30,000.