On cost of deposits — we have reported a small rise while many other banks saw stagnation or improvement. Are we expecting this to inch up further before it stabilises and comes down? When will we see the bottom, 2Q or can it get delayed to 3Q?
I think the cost of funds uptick is essentially a significant movement towards fixed deposits. If you see our FD growth rate is almost 14%, and very large FD book at that. But some of the rate cuts on the fixed deposit that we have done, we will get the benefit in the quarters going forward. And our fixed deposit book also will get repriced predominantly in the next 8-12 months. Every month, of course, there is a repricing which happens on maturity. And the reduction in CASA YoY also and particularly from Q4 to Q1, that also has impacted the cost of deposits. But I am sure that I think it will moderate.
There is pricing competition on corporate and NBFC loans. We have cut SA rates and term deposit rates by 65-70 bps. Do you plan to cut term deposit rates further?
We will see. I think how it is playing out is not appropriate to comment at this juncture. But we will look at... See, earlier also I mentioned that deposit for us is a franchise activity. And as I mentioned in my inaugural remarks, though it sounded a little philosophical, I think we want to take care of all our constituents. So, we never want to short change our depositors and we want to provide... And we have a large base of savers and also senior citizens. So we need to take care. While I am not ruling out, but I think we will be mindful of those elements also before we take the rate cut on the deposits.
Interest earned on RBI and interbank borrowings has gone up from ₹1,000 crores to ₹1,800 crores, and there has been a sharp drop in interest expense on interbank and RBI. What kind of operations were there?
We do not give that kind of granular data. See, both our borrowing, market borrowing and market lending depend on the liquidity management. I think it is not in terms of supporting any credit growth. We do not borrow to support the credit growth. It is essentially the liquidity operations. So, not any great variation in that. But the cost will come down because most of the TREPs and CROMs rate have significantly come down there.
NSE stake — what methodology do you use to value the stake in NSE Ltd?
Is it appropriate to talk about an individual investment on that? When the NSE gets listed, you will come to know what methodology we are adopting. I think that is not appropriate.
Any plans on listing of any other subsidiaries?
No, as we mentioned that we definitely have a couple of candidates for listing, but the timing is not very... there is no sense of urgency there, I believe. And you all have helped us to raise ₹25,000 crores now.
Do you expect that the ECL norms will come this year?
ECL? No idea on that.
What is driving growth in the SME segment — is it largely working capital demand? Any signs of initial stress in the SME portfolio? And has asset quality in Xpress credit held up but with slowed growth due to lack of good quality demand?
I think both these questions I have answered, I do not want to repeat again.
We had a sanctioned pipeline of ₹3.4 lakh crores. But in this quarter, we have grown only by 0.80% in the credit. Could we not have done better on the credit front? Fresh slippages have gone up to ₹7,945 crores as against ₹4,222 crores. Other income dropped by about ₹6,500-6,700 crores though offset by reduced operating expenses. Miscellaneous income has gone down to ₹1,711 crores as against ₹4,575 crores. Any fresh guidance for FY26 on credit, deposit and business growth? Any colour on buffer provision of ₹30,000-31,000 crores?
I think fundamentally you are coming from QoQ, the ideal way is to look at YoY. Because this QoQ comparison particularly from Q4 to Q1, it does not give any indication because Q4 generally is a good quarter across the banks, and SBI is no exception to that. But still your question in relation to the credit growth QoQ being low, I would like to answer that question. But if you see, most of the segments in the retail we have done well, barring Xpress credit we could have done better, but we hope to do well going forward in the Xpress credit. But home loans we have done extremely well, 15% growth rate YoY, and overall, in the quarter also we have done well on this segment. What has been the challenges on the corporate credit side? It is not in terms of what you said, whether terms are being renegotiated, we have not seen that. But what we have seen is that lot of prepayment has happened in any declining interest rate cycle, particularly on the loans which are fully disbursed, one or two years old, the cash flows are stabilized, everybody wants to refinance and negotiate for repricing. There, some of the exposures we let go. We almost had around ₹12,000 crores prepayments because we did not want to go to that level of pricing considering the risk pricing in view. So, around ₹12,000 crores is something what impacted the corporate in the current quarter by way of prepayments. We also had a few large corporates accessing the CP market because CP rates have become extremely competitive and we would not have offered to give that rates. So, that also led to almost ₹16,000-18,000 crores movement towards CP market by the corporates. So, this in my view, is a recurring phenomenon whenever the rates of interest are on the downward movement. So, pipeline, yes, we still have a robust pipeline. We almost have ₹7.2 lakh crore pipeline both, on the sanctions but not disbursed, as well as proposals in pipeline, which gives us confidence that we will be able to get back to a double-digit corporate credit growth next quarter onwards. Slippages again, the comparison should be with Q1 of the previous year. If you see that, there's very marginal movement. But let me also assure you that there is no concern on the asset quality in any of the segments; we have seen. And even among those slippages which we have witnessed in the Q1, as it happens every Q1, there has been a significant pull back as we speak in the last 30 or 45 days. So, there is no great concern on the slippages in any of the sector. Recovery, yes, we had given a guidance of around ₹7,000 - 8,000 crores in recovery from AUCA, which means that ₹2,000 crores every quarter, but it is not uniformly distributed. Again, if you see my Q1 of previous year, it is almost similar to what we have had now. But we are confident that we will be able to achieve the guidance what we have given on the recovery front. And the buffer provision, we have not touched the buffer provision at all. Miscellaneous income again in Q4, Mr. Ajmera, again you mentioned Q4 comparison. We have lot of miscellaneous income coming by way of inspection charges, folio charges; there are so many miscellaneous incomes which are recovered at the year end, which is not available in the Q1. SMA numbers also have moderated. Again, you have to see Q1 comparison; there is no untoward development.
Xpress credit has not been growing even though we have a lot of government employees. Why have people stopped taking repeat business on Xpress credit? And what is the margin outlook from here?
Xpress credit, we have had some systemic improvements when we saw that some of the low net monthly income group, even among the government employees, which are predominantly our customer base, we have seen some over leverage happening there. So, such segments, temporarily, we have had a relook at it, that is in the last year. In the Q1, we have seen that NMI, EMI profile of our customers, even at the lower end of the income segment has improved. So, we are again reactivating some of these segments, which we have not considered earlier to be brought back. So, you are right, I think Xpress credit is basically a rollover product, where people take, close and then take. And many a time their income levels also go up and they take more loan. So, that is happening. Otherwise, the portfolio would not have remained at ₹3.5 lakh crores. And the amount of repayment which happens every quarter is phenomenal in this. Because while it is given for 6 to 7 years, the average tenure of the loan is 2 to 3 years only. That means, faster repayment happens here. With these improvements, what we have done is, we've completely reoriented the process. In the last quarter also, I did mention that we have made it completely a digital process. And this also had taken some time to stabilize. People still have to come to the branch and sign the paper, because in some of the areas, digital documentation has not been rolled out. But we are seeing a good comeback in the current quarter. Q1 was slightly disappointing for us also. We have expected the growth to come back. In fact, I said that we may reach double digit growth in Xpress credit. It is taking a slightly longer time to get back to that growth rate. But in this quarter, I am seeing a good development there in Xpress credit. And there are also some practical difficulties. For example, in the defence area, that is our major segment of customers. During these disturbances, many of these defence areas were not available for access. Neither they could come to the branch, nor could the branch people go. That also had some impact. I am not saying it is a major impact, but all of them have collectively resulted in lower growth in Q1 than what we anticipated. But I am seeing a good growth coming back there. As far as margin outlook, we are still standing by our 3% guidance on NIM. As I mentioned earlier, I think the NIM trajectory will be U-shaped. It probably will come down in Q2. While we are not hazarding a guess how much it will come down, but I think it will definitely improve from Q3 to Q4 for 2-3 reasons, one is the deposits get repriced, predominantly the fixed deposits get repriced. We will also have the full benefit of savings bank account rate reduction, and the NIM contribution which will come from the CRR cut. So we are sticking to our 3% guidance.
On QIP — congratulations on the response. One is the cost to income ratio at below 0.5 on annual run rate — can we expect cost to income at 0.49 or below? Second, supply chain disruptions from tariffs — cancellations by Walmarts and the like. Is there concern at the ground level?
In terms of cost to income ratio, I think what you have observed is right. I think this historically low operating expenses YoY are difficult to replicate. There could be some increase in the operating expenses going forward, but in the Q4 there have been some front loading of the expenses. That also is one of the reasons why you see a lesser growth in the operating expenses. But our effort, what I mentioned in my speech also, the project SARAL what we keep talking about is aimed at increasing the productivity. While we still are sticking to our guidance that the cost to income ratio, our effort is to keep below 50. I am not giving any number whether it is 47, 45. The effort is through the cycle, we would like to maintain the cost to income ratio below 50. As far as supply chain disruption and tariff order, there are two elements of this tariff narrative. One is, the direct impact on the sectors. There are 4, 5 sectors we are all familiar which probably have more impact. But these sectors, from a banking system perspective, do not pose any systemic risk, because there are not very large exposures on this sector. Definitely, for SBI, very, very minor exposures on these sectors, number one. So, so you need not worry about the institutional credit quality point of view. But from a larger perspective, I think more than the direct impact, the uncertainty surrounding the tariffs, both in terms of investment decision, in terms of the trade disruptions, offtake, is something what we should have... definitely we have a concern, and I am sure the Government of India is working very hard to ensure that the issue of tariff related negotiations are concluded at the earliest and the clarity emerges there, while keeping the nation's interest paramount. And from the ground level, we do hear anecdotally that there are some people who want the shipments to be held on, but we have not heard so much to cause concern at this juncture. So, this is what I can respond immediately, but let us wait and watch how it is going to evolve.
On Yes Bank monetisation — part of a deal was signed for a small portion at ₹21.5, the market has also gone up significantly, should not we expect upward revision in the price?
Sir, these are binding offers. The binding offer is valid for certain period of time, that period has not elapsed. For the next tranche, there are no limitations on our either pricing ability or when do we exit; there are no such restrictions. So we are free to look at that opportunity.
Given high delinquencies in unsecured segment with many other lenders, do you see any risk of spillover to SME, MSME which traditionally have been more vulnerable segments?
In our SME book, barring the micro loans which are essentially below 20 lakhs, the government-oriented schemes and all, most of the lending either is secured lending or it is backed by the CGTMSE guarantee. From that angle, I think we need to say that we are well protected there. But in terms of the asset quality, we have not seen any great concern on the SME book so far. And the underwriting of SME also has improved tremendously. As I mentioned last time also, the Business Rule Engine which we have adopted, now we almost have crossed more than ₹65,000 crores worth loans which are processed using the Business Rule Engine where the data sets are much more robust. We have GST data, income tax data, our own account statement and historical default data. And we were able to develop a rule engine where the assessment, in my view, and underwriting, has tremendously improved. So, while SME definitely is more vulnerable than any other segment, but we are confident that the kind of loans which we are underwriting today, may not pose any major problems. As far as unsecured personal loans are concerned, as we keep saying, our Xpress credit is more secured than the secured.
On RoA — you suggested to maintain RoA above 1%. This quarter we are at 1.14% on the back of significant treasury gains. Does this imply that the 2H RoA will be lower than 1H?
I think there will be some contribution coming from the CRR cut and many other things which are in the offering. That will also improve the earnings; NIM will be improved. Yeah, some impact will be seen if the treasury gains are not as robust as we are today. But I believe that is the reason our guidance is 1% and above. We are not giving what level of above that 1%, but we are sticking to our 1% guidance on the ROA.
You have ₹7 lakh crores of pipeline sanctioned. Seeing the current US tariff challenges, India may accelerate domestic development of infrastructure. Do we sense a different colour in infrastructure spend starting second half? Roads, power plants, manufacturing, PLI schemes?
I will just give some brief and then I will ask Mr. Tewari to supplement me. See the government capital expenditure, there is a good visibility of government capital expenditure, but, I think, to the extent what they have committed so far. We will have to see as we progress whether they are going to further enhance that ₹11.5 lakh crore commitment what they have given on the capital expenditure front. As far as infrastructure is concerned, we are seeing good enquiries on the infrastructure. In fact, some of the power related, other than the simple renewable energy like solar, wind, we are also seeing the green hydrogen and many other new emerging areas people are discussing with us, we are looking at those opportunities also. Ashwini Kumar Tewari: So, to your specific point whether in response to the uncertainty by tariffs, is there a government plan to speed up or enhance the investments? I think we have not seen that. It is too early. I think they were still finalising what they want to do. But as rightly pointed out by Chairman, that ₹11.5 lakh crores, plus the enquiries we are having in terms of not only the power on the renewable side etc., but also thermal. Because clearly the base load issue has not gone away and that is why the power sector is a big place where lot of investments are planned and also already sanctioned. And these will be disbursed. So, there is no question of these not being disbursed at all. Similarly in other areas for example the commercial real estate, both for the malls and the real commercial LRD kind of loans, and also residential on the premium side, this again is seeing a lot of uptick. Still lot of this is in planning stage, discussion stage etc. Having said this there are some players who are kind of putting things on hold which they planned earlier and may be wanting to know more in certain sectors, and some are seeing more consolidation. Cement for example is seeing more consolidation. Steel, again, there are some plans, but again they are coloured by some developments which you are aware of. So therefore, it is overall a slightly mixed picture. But as rightly said by the Chairman, that overall, we still think that we might have this year still at around 10-11% in corporate growth.
Most banks in RAM sector have shown 17-18% growth. Do you think RAM will get accelerated in the second half after the festive season, or are numbers at peak?
In our book I think home loans we have done 15% on a base of 8 lakh crores. I think that is a phenomenal growth. But I definitely visualise that the unsecured personal loan segment and auto loan segment... Auto is not all that doing well in terms of the sales and it is also getting reflected in the auto loan segment. These two will pick up in the second half, that is what our assumption is, and that will have some spin-off effect on the SME also. SME, my view is that 19-21% growth rate is very robust. I do not think it will further get into a higher mode. Even if we are growing at 19-20%, it is a good growth rate to have.
On digitisation and AI initiatives — will your digital expenditure substantially increase, or will the stable number continue?
No, we have been investing in technology and digitalisation significantly. And many of these initiatives what we spoke about are not very costly events. It is not that we have to spend a lot. It is more in terms of the re-engineering. That means, you look at the process and see what are those redundant steps which we have not looked at for quite some time? Another element is, if you really ask me what would be the major investment coming forward, it would be a build-up of our own AI stack which we are undertaking, but that does not require any great amount of capital expenditure.
On your margins you said 3% for the full year — is this global or domestic? And what is the amount of bulk deposits that will reprice at a much faster pace?
Domestic. We do not disclose that.
On SME — 15%+ growth on a consistent basis for 9-10 quarters. Would you have visibility on the self-funding ratio? What is the kind of self-funding that we are getting from these SME pool now?
See, most of these SME loans are sole banking loans. Very few have consortium arrangement. Which means that the whole cash flow is routed through our cash credit account. If that is what you are looking at, yes, we have a good visibility of the cash flow. And we actually insist that the whole cash has to be routed through us and that is one of the preconditions.
Can you give the slippages breakup for this quarter, especially in agri, retail and Xpress credit?
Sir, can I respond to the slippages part? So, in SME, the slippage is 2,680. Agriculture is 2,464. Personal is 2,602. Total is 7,746 and there is some small slippage in CCG 196 crores, the total is 7,942, out of which 1,585 has already been pulled back.
On the power sector — NBFCs are growing faster than banks in this space. Our book is flat YoY. Why aren't banks participating? Are the risks still high in this segment given the yields are pretty good, north of 10%?
We are extremely oriented towards the renewable energy which is coming up. Even on the thermal capacity addition, which is happening, I think SBI is there. But some of the NBFCs what you are mentioning, are focused on some of these renewables, for example. So obviously their book will be much larger than what bank books are. So, the three NBFCs what we all know are actively involved because their mandate is to finance the power sector. So obviously, their book will be always larger. And they are also diversifying their book from the conventional DISCOM and GENCO funding to renewable financing in the private space. That is where you see the growth coming for them. But we are not staying away, we are very actively involved in this space. No, see the challenge in the renewable is the typical short-term execution there; execution is just less than 12 months. The moment the project is up and running, either they will go for refinancing or most of them are moving into InvITs also. So that gets refinanced and the churning happens faster in the renewable space.
On NIM trajectory — aspiration to reach exit FY26 NIM at par with exit FY25. What assumptions are being made on further rate cuts? Is it simply repricing of term deposits? Are we assuming CASA ratios will also decline?
Our assumptions are broadly the following. One is, you are right, I think more than further rate cuts, we are building our model based on the repricing. As the book gets repriced, that benefit will be available both on the savings bank and as well as fixed deposits. The second thing also considers the CRR cut; almost ₹52,000 crores get released which is not currently earning anything. So, that will also add to the NIM. And we believe that the policy decision of not cutting further rates have established that in the retail segment, the rates will be stabilising on the asset side. So, all these elements give us confidence that the NIM trajectory is what we have assumed.
You said there will be a release of about ₹52,000 crores from CRR, we have ₹25,000 odd crores coming from capital side. Do you believe the 12% growth can become 13%? Do you see any signs on mortgage growth pickup?
So, the liquidity and capital has never been a constraint. See, even earlier also we had adequate CRAR to support the credit growth. While this 25,000 definitely has augmented our capital, as we mentioned earlier also, it was mainly for confidence capital or improving our CET-1. So, it need not be linked to our ability to fund growth; the growth capability was always there. In terms of the liquidity, again we had one of the lowest CD ratios and excess SLR of almost ₹3.5 lakh crores. So, these are not going to really move the needle. This is not about supply issue ever for us, it was always in terms of what demand is coming in the market. That's the reason we are still sticking to 12%. And as the uncertainties get cleared, probably there is a potential upside of 13%. On mortgages — I don't know about other players. At least we are seeing that good amount of sourcing of applications, sanctions, disbursements, and we probably have historically high level of sourcing going on now as we speak.
Xpress credit was below 1% NPA but it has now gone up to almost 1.2% on a flat book. Where do we see eventually GNPAs in Xpress credit stabilising? Do we see a further inch up or is most of it now recognised?
So, the absolute number has not moved much. It is only the base effect because it is almost stagnant; the book is at the same level. That is actually resulting in the uptick. We don't see major concern in terms of the asset quality in Xpress credit. We may still have some pull back happening on that.
Can you share AFS reserves number?
₹7,700 crores.
Could you give us the income from written-off accounts?
Q1 FY26 - ₹1,229 crores, I think it is mentioned in the presentation. Q1 FY25, it was ₹1,008 crores.
Can you please give the breakup percentage of your loan mix in terms of based on external benchmark like repo, others and fixed rates?
Our MCLR book is 30.69 %, EBLR is 30.24 %, fixed rate is 22.58 % and others which includes T-bill link pricing of 15.93%.
What is quantum of IT refund in last Q4 FY25 and this quarter?
This quarter we did not have any IT refund. IT refund in Q4 was ₹1,319 crores and IT refund in the corresponding period last year was also nil.
Do you think pain in unsecured segment MFI has come to an end?
I think we never had any issues in our unsecured book, as well as our MFI exposure, which is miniscule. But we believe that from a system point of view, there is definitely an improvement in the asset quality in unsecured loan and MFI segment. While lot of upfronting in terms of cleaning up the book by MFI is also one of the reasons why we believe that situation is better now.
How QIP funds will be used in future?
As I mentioned, it is not in terms of growth capital. It is definitely to augment our CET-1. So, today after this capital raise, the available buffer is 233 bps over minimum regulatory capital. So, we believe that this supports adequately our growth plans.
What is driving such sharp increase in current account balances given other peer banks are grappling to correct current account balances?
So, the current account growth has come from both government and non-government accounts. We definitely focused on many initiatives such as creation of specialized hubs and deployment of dedicated workforce. Relationship managers for current account also are there to look specifically into it. But more than the quarter end balances what we are witnessing to our pleasant surprise is, the QoQ improvement in the daily average balances in the current account.
Can you give us colour on what is the weighted average saving deposit cost?
The average weighted deposit cost in savings bank deposits as on June 2025 is 2.68%.
What is the outlook for slippages?
We had slippages of ₹7,945 crore in Q1 FY26, out of which there has been some pullback. So, we are still sticking to our slippage ratio, to contain the slippages below 0.6%.
Why did your cost of deposits increase during the quarter? Also, what is the share of bulk deposits?
I already explained that the CASA ratio decline, as well as TD significantly increasing, has contributed to the cost increase, but we expect it to moderate. And normally, we do not disclose the bulk deposit-related data.
As SBI continues to scale its digital banking footprint, how are you envisioning the integration of AI-led underwriting and behavioural risk scoring across the YONO and SME platforms in the next quarter?
As we continue enabling our digital document execution for the BRE and non-BRE journeys under LLMS, that is, Loan Lifecycle Management System, we also have an auto-renewal journey on the BRE loans. We have integration of a vendor verification module, and many things where we are using AI will also be there. As I mentioned, the AI stack is something we are setting up. So, this would help us. Underwriting BRE is essentially using the machine learning models and we probably visualize AI to set the patterns. Today, we are using predictive AI models. We also intend to use the Gen-AI models going forward. And with customer migration to the alternate channel, end-to-end digital channel products will be launched.