HDFC Bank Ltd
NSE:HDFCBANK

Watchlist Manager
HDFC Bank Ltd Logo
HDFC Bank Ltd
NSE:HDFCBANK
Watchlist
Price: 1 745.6 INR 0.25% Market Closed
Market Cap: 13.3T INR
Have any thoughts about
HDFC Bank Ltd?
Write Note

Earnings Call Transcript

Earnings Call Transcript
2019-Q4

from 0
Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good evening, and welcome to the HDFC Bank Q4 FY '19 Earning Conference on the financial results presented by Mr. Srinivasan Vaidyanathan, Deputy Chief Financial Officer. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded.I now hand the conference over to Mr. Srinivasan Vaidyanathan. Thank you. And over to you, sir.

S
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer

Thank you very much. You all should have received a copy of the results released.Now highlights for the quarter and year ended March 31, 2019. The bank's total income for the quarter ended March 31, 2019, at INR 31,204.5 crore grew by 22.1% from INR 25,549.7 crore in the corresponding previous year's quarter. Net revenues for the quarter amounted to INR 17,960.7 crore. Net interest income for the quarter was INR 13,089.5 crore, registering a growth of 22.8%. The core net interest margin for the quarter was 4.4%.Other income for the quarter amounted to INR 4,871.2 crore, which grew by 15.2% over the corresponding prior year quarter. Looking at the breakup of the other income for the quarter, fees and commission income constituting 75.8% of other income, grew by 10.9% to reach INR 3,692.1 crore. FX and derivatives at INR 403.3 crores compared to INR 416.4 crores in the prior quarter -- prior year's corresponding quarter.Profit and loss on investments were at INR 228.9 crore against a loss of 22 crores in the prior year's corresponding quarter. Recoveries and miscellaneous income at INR 546.9 crore grew by 8.4%. In summary, the total other income, as I said before, INR 4,871.2 crore grew by 15.2%.Operating expenses for the quarter were INR 7,117.1 crore, an increase of 17.6% over the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Core cost-to-income ratio for the quarter ended March 31, 2019, was 40.1% against 40.6% for the corresponding quarter ended March 31, 2018. Total provisions were INR 1,889.2 crore for the current quarter as against INR 1,541.1 crore for the corresponding quarter in the previous year.Profit before tax for the quarter ended March 31, 2019, was up 22.8% to INR 8,954.4 crore. Net profit for the quarter grew by 22.6% to INR 5,885.1 crore.Moving on to results for the year ended March 31, 2019. The bank earned a total income of INR 1,16,597.9 crore as against INR 95,461.7 crore in the previous year. Net revenues grew to INR 65,869.1 crore as against INR 54,315.2 crore. Core net interest margin stood at 4.3% and core cost-to-income ratio stood at 39.9%. Net profit for the year ended March 31, 2019, was at INR 21,078.1 crore, up 20.5% over the corresponding year ended March 31, 2018.Now for some balance sheet items. The bank's balance sheet size as of March 31, 2019, was INR 12,44,541 crore as against INR 10,63,934 crore as of March 31, 2018. Total deposits as of March 31, 2019, amounted to INR 9,23,141 crore, an increase of 17% over March 31, 2018. CASA deposits grew at 14%. Savings account deposits were at INR 2,48,700 crore and current account deposits were at INR 1,42,498 crore. Time deposits at INR 5,31,943 crores grew by 19.4% over previous year. CASA deposits comprised 42.4% of total deposits as of March 31, 2019.The bank's continuing focus on deposits helped in the maintenance of a healthy liquidity coverage ratio at 118%, well above the regulatory requirement. Total advances as of March 31, 2019, were INR 8,19,401 crore. Domestic advances grew by 24.6% over the March 31, 2018 period. The domestic loan mix as per Basel II classification between retail and wholesale was retail 54%, wholesale 46%. Overseas advances constituted 3% of total advances.Coming to CapAd, network and asset quality. With regards to capital adequacy, total capital adequacy ratio as per Basel III guidelines stood at 17.1% as against a regulatory requirement of 11.025%. Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio was 15.8% compared to 13.2% in the previous year. As of March 31, 2019, the bank's distribution network was at 5,103 branch outlets and 13,160 ATMs across 2,748 cities and towns. 53% of the branches are in semi-urban and rural areas. Number of employees increased to 98,061 as of March 31, 2019.On the asset quality front, gross NPAs were 1.36% as against 1.38% as of December 31, 2018, and as against 1.30% as of March 31, 2018. The coverage stood at 71%. Net NPAs were 0.4% as on March 31, 2019. The bank held floating provisions of INR 1,451 crore as on March 31, 2019. The provisions, which comprises specific provisions, general provisions and floating provisions, were 117% of the gross nonperforming loans as on March 31, 2019.Subsidiary summary results now. The financial results of the bank's subsidiaries -- subsidiary companies have been prepared in accordance with notified Indian Accounting Standards, Ind-AS, with effect from April 1, 2018. April 1, 2017, being the transition date. The financial results for the comparative reporting period have also been prepared in accordance to [indiscernible].HDFC Securities Limited's total income was INR 782.1 crore as against INR 800.1 crore for the year ended March 31, 2018. Net profit for the year was INR 329.8 crore against INR 344.7 crore in the previous year. Total number of branches are 278 across 165 cities.[Audio Gap]

Operator

Mr. Vaidyanathan? Sir, are we connected?

S
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer

Yes, we are. Net profit for the year was INR 1,153.2 crore compared to INR 933 crore, registering a growth of 23.6%.HDBFSL had 1,350 branches across 981 cities. Gross impaired loans were at 1.8% of gross loans and net impaired loans were at 1.3% of net loans. The total capital adequacy ratio was at 17.9%, with the Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio at 12.8%.In closing, the consolidated results. Kindly note the bank's consolidated financial results include financial information of the subsidiary companies based on the recognition and measurement principles as per Indian GAAP. Bank's consolidated net profit for the year ended March 31, 2019, was INR 22,332.4 crores, up 20.7% over previous year. Consolidated advances grew by 24.2% from INR 7,00,034 crore as on March 31, 2018, to INR 8,69,223 crore as on March 31, 2019.Now with that, I hand this back to the operator to open it up.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Abhishek Mody from Asit C. Mehta.

A
Abhishek Mody
Research Analyst

Yes. Sir, just first question. Can you give the figure of slippage for the quarter?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

Yes, just a moment. The slippage for fourth quarter is INR 3,577 crores. It was above almost INR 4,000 crores in third quarter of this year.

A
Abhishek Mody
Research Analyst

Sir, one [indiscernible]...

Sashidhar Jagdishan

Hello?

A
Abhishek Mody
Research Analyst

Yes.

Operator

Mr. Mody, we're unable to hear you clearly.

A
Abhishek Mody
Research Analyst

Hello? Can you hear me now?

Operator

Better.

A
Abhishek Mody
Research Analyst

Hello?

S
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer

Go ahead, please.

A
Abhishek Mody
Research Analyst

Yes. Sir, RBI cut the repo rate by total 50 basis points. So [indiscernible]...

S
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer

Your voice is breaking up.

Sashidhar Jagdishan

We're unable to hear you, Abhishek.

A
Abhishek Mody
Research Analyst

Hello? Sir, can you hear me now?

Operator

Yes, Abhishek, we can hear you.

Sashidhar Jagdishan

Yes. Sure.

A
Abhishek Mody
Research Analyst

RBI has already cut repo rate of 50 basis point. Sir, any idea with [indiscernible]?

Operator

I'm sorry. Mr. Mody, we request you to rejoin the queue?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

Let's go on to the next caller, please.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Pavan Ahluwalia from Laburnum Capital.

P
Pavan Ahluwalia
MD & Director

Two questions. The first is to do with provisioning. So you talked about possibly higher provisioning coming in June on the last con call because of a link to the agricultural cycle. And you had also said that structurally because of the build-out of the ag loan portfolio, we should get used to just a higher steady-state rate of provisioning. Is -- if we were just to take the average of the last few quarters, is that -- how should we think about the new normal when it comes to slippages, provisioning, et cetera? If you could give some color, that would be very helpful. And also if you could -- there is a very strong growth on the nonretail side of things this quarter. Could you give us some sense of what it is that's driving that and what the implications are for that on yields and margins? Is this generally coming in at a blended yield below that of the overall portfolio and what does that mean for the outlook on NIMs going forward to the extent that this higher growth in the nonretail side is likely to persist?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

Okay. On part one, which is on the fact that we did mention in the last call that agri will continue to be a bit of a bother for us both in the June and the third quarter, at least we have visibility in the quarter ended June. So we have actually created some contingent provisions which is already embedded in the financials for that particular period. So there is a bit of a contingent trade provisions that we have created for that anticipating a bit of a spurt in the agri delinquencies in June of the -- June 2019. We created a portion of that in December 2018, so we have carried that and we have added some more in March 2019. As I said -- as we said even in the past, we're not too sure how the environment will span out. Obviously, we'll have to wait for the election results and we have to see what are the different kinds of announcements that happen on the debt wavier side. So -- and also the fact that -- I believe Skymet has also sort of given some not so encouraging forecasts on the monsoons for the year ended March '20. So we will have to wait and watch how this spans about. So that's part one. Part two is on...

S
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer

Nonretail.

Sashidhar Jagdishan

On the nonretail front. Yes, we did have a bit of a spurt in the nonretail wholesale loan growth. Having said that, these are all short term opportunistic assets. I wouldn't sort of give too much to the fact that it's a very high growth. So we have done a couple of NCLT cases. We would have done some short term assets. There has been -- we have seen a bit of a better utilization of the working capital limits. So, yes, there has been a core momentum, but I would say that a large part of it was just -- has been a short term opportunistic, which will runoff in the next 30 to 60 days. Third part is on the -- there were 3 questions -- on the margin. So obviously, during the course of the year, we have been seeing a fair amount of strong growth in the AA and above corporates. So that has had an impact in the margins. So people keep on saying -- in fact, let me answer that right away. Whilst the proportion of unsecured has been growing up, the proportion of even the top end corporates have also being moving up as well. So the margins from the unsecured is actually offset -- is being offset by the spread on the AA and above corporate book.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Mahrukh Adajania from IDFC Securities.

M
Mahrukh Adajania
Director

Just a couple of questions. Firstly, your retail growth has been slightly slower than previous quarters. So any comments? And also, within retail growth some comments on housing and CVs, because -- of course you've not been as aggressive as others in growing the CV portfolio, but ironically when CV sales are slowing, your CV growth has picked up. So that and even housing. So that's my first question. And my second question is on the movement of current deposits during the quarter. What really happened there? And also, a related question on deposit rates. In general, retail deposit growth for the system has not been strong. So what drove your deposit growth and how would you view your rates given that SBI has cut savings rates?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

Okay. Let me come to the retail growth. There are 3 parts to the retail growth. One is the core consumer assets growth, which comprises of personal loans, auto loans, 2-wheeler loans. We'll talk about the commercial vehicles separately. Let's come to the unsecured books, which is the personal and business loans. We had seen some furious levels of growth even within the bank for the last 2 years. We had about almost 30% odd growth in the past 2 years. So there is a bit of a base effect which is playing off. Consciously, I think as it has been done over the last 25 years, whenever we had this kind of a growth rate, we normally pause and see how the portfolio behaves before we can further ramp it up. So this is a conscious strategy that is there, which is a part and parcel of the architecture itself. Two is, we also sort of -- in some of the other products, we were more conscious about the fact that the cost of funds was moving up. So we were very clear that we would do it only at a minimum -- certain minimum yields. So we were happy to shave off some of the volumes in some of the other products, which is why we had a bit of a slowdown in the other products as well. On the commercial vehicle -- and having said that, on the commercial -- sorry, on the commercial vehicles, the growth rates, as you also alluded, have been pretty much in line with what is happening in the industry. We see that pretty much buoyant. And in fact, the outlook in the CV markets as an industry seems to be pretty buoyant for fiscal year '20. But also -- we must also sort of realize that the BS-IV is also kicking in from 1st April 2020, so -- which probably may have a bit of a slowdown in the year 2021. So we may have some sales preponed in FY '20 as well. But we're okay in the sense that our portfolio is pretty much stable, and I think we should see some buoyant sales happening there. The auto and 2 wheeler, the prices have shot up, which has impacted the underlying sales significantly. And that is pretty much reflected in our books as well.

S
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer

Housing?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

Housing. Yes, we have been distributing steady levels of housing loans to HDFC Limited and we have been buying. In fact, we bought about -- our growth rates in buying for the year is...

S
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer

300%.

Sashidhar Jagdishan

Is about almost 41% growth rate?

S
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer

Yes. That [ equates ] one last year. Well, last year...

Sashidhar Jagdishan

Yes. Where we caught up on some of the backlogs that we did not buy in the fiscal year 2018. So I think that continues to be pretty strong and we will continue to distribute and buy back at the same levels. The third one is on the deposits, retail, current accounts and deposits which we mobilized in quarter 4. Yes, we had a very strong quarter, but not as strong as what we mobilized in the quarter ended March 2018. We mobilized almost about INR 90,000 crores of deposits in March 2018. March 2019 I think the same quarter, we mobilized about INR 70,000 crores. A large part of it is coming in from current accounts. These are very granular. And both retail and wholesale have contributed. There have been some amount of short term flows coming in from some corporates as well. There was bankers to issue, which is also lying in the period ended March '19 as well. Having said that, the rates seem to be pretty much stable, especially on the less than INR 2 crore, which is the retail buckets. We are not participating so aggressively on the wholesale buckets in terms of rates. We are happy to -- we are pretty much comfortable on the LCR at 117%. So when we need it, probably we will step in to match some of the rates on the wholesale side. So as -- I think you also mentioned about SBI dropping the interest rate -- savings rate. Was this announced? Or this is the one which they were contemplating effective 1st May. So that was in the hope that RBI will come out with the guidelines on the linking of rates to external benchmark. We will have to wait and watch whether this becomes a reality or this is -- because we are still awaiting some final regulations from RBI on that.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Adarsh Parasrampuria from Nomura Securities.

A
Adarsh Parasrampuria

A question again getting back to deposit rates, and more importantly, linking it to corporate growth, right. So what we are seeing is -- we're seeing slowdown in retail and that can persist because of the standard is changing. If we compare the retail term deposits, you all are now 20-30 bps at least higher or maybe 40 bps in some buckets vis-Ă -vis PSUs and that's also reflected in higher MCLRs of yours versus, say, a PSU, right? So I wanted to understand when you go in looking at the AAA market, when you're trying and competing there, is that a source of problem, right, that you've been growing fast so you offered higher rates vis-Ă -vis, say, the top 2, 3 PSUs. But then MCLRs are now higher than most -- the top 3 PSUs. So -- and all of them are probably growing as well. So in this context, is there a tradeoff which you choose now, margins over growth? Or how should one look at it?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

I think the very fact that we've been able to maintain and in fact grow our margins a bit reflects adequately that across products -- across products, across customer segments we have been able to maintain yields, in fact in some cases even increase our yields. So you're right. I mean, it's not so easy to compete with this kind of a pricing. But having said that, there is always -- one is we compete more on the working capital side, whereas some of them compete on the term side. Second part of it is obviously we go on a relationship basis, which means that we just don't compete just for only the loans. We want the entire relationship, which is one of our key objectives for quite some time for all our relationship teams that they need to self-fund their own relationships as much as possible. So we go not with just one product. We go with multiple products. And probably when the customer sees that, it makes economic sense for him to do banking with us despite the slightly higher funding cost.

A
Adarsh Parasrampuria

So Sashi, just to follow up here. I'm just trying to understand which segments, right? At least when your MCLRs are now higher than, say, PSUs and the top one in private banks, where -- obviously, there's been the other effect of better pricing maybe in some segments because SMEs are not there. So just want to understand which segments the pricing is holding up for -- so that you've been able to maintain margins, right. So your deposit costs may have gone up or will likely go up, but you've been able to maintain margins. So where is the pricing -- where is the maximum amount of improvement in pricing in the next -- in the last 6 months?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

So a couple of things. Number one, while the pricing that we have laid out is for the working capital part of it, the same kind of a pricing is different for term even from a PSU bank, okay. So effectively you cannot sort of link the MCLR pricing to a term pricing, which will be way, way different from what is available on the website, number one. Number two is, I think we are probably strong on the cash management on the trade front, which is what we give value services to the customer, be it in terms of the trade on net, be it in terms of the API integrations that we do with the customer, so -- not to mention the salaried relationships as we have. Look at it as a basket. I think the value the customer gets or the perceived benefits that he has is much higher than what we would lose on the working capital front on the funding side. So I think if you see the track record of the PSU banks for a long period of time, they've been more on the term side and we and some of the banks have been on the working capital side. So that's where we sort of score much more than them.

A
Adarsh Parasrampuria

And my last question on -- fee growth has been a little lower. I appreciate that the base effect was there. But if you can just talk about which parts of the core fee income was muted at least on a percentage y-o-y growth basis?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

Yes, there were 4 key elements in the fees. Number one is on the payment side of the business, which is the cards. We have been -- ever since demonetization, we have been seeing -- and it will surprise us as well in terms of the growth rates in the debit and credit cards spend. So obviously, that has now sort of seen a bit of a more moderated growth from the highs of 30-plus percentage growth. So while it's still very healthy, it's still moderated and there's a base effect playing there. The second one which is -- which has had a bit of a knock is on the mutual funds distribution. From 1st October, as you know, the regulations kicked in wherein we could not -- we did not get the upfront fee. So we have seen a bit of a sharp decline in our mutual fund distribution fees since October of last year and that will continue for the next 6 months. So you will have this continuing for the next 6 months and the next couple of quarters as well. Having said that, we also got another regulatory hit, which was in June 2018, where the trail fees itself declined by about 15 basis points. So these two were one of the bigger changes. Having said that, even on the retail assets we saw -- as I mentioned in the beginning of the call, we had a fair amount of healthy growth rates both in unsecured and some of the other asset products for the last couple of years. So that incremental disbursal, where you get processing fee, petered down during this particular quarter. So I think all put together, there is some amount of base effect playing here. But I guess after some time, all things remaining same, we should sort of catch up to around the 15%, 16% level.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Prakhar Agarwal from Edelweiss.

K
Kunal Shah
Research Analyst

Yes, Kunal over here. So in terms of -- if we compare unsecured books, so TL plus credit cards, which [indiscernible] 17-odd percent. So if we have a look at in terms of the credit cost [indiscernible], if you can share some numbers out there? And given the rising proportion, how should we see the steady state credit cost now going forward?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

You mean share the credit cost? No -- but, yes...

K
Kunal Shah
Research Analyst

[indiscernible] write-off plus maybe the provisioning which we are doing against...

Sashidhar Jagdishan

I know what you're talking about. We don't sort of really give the product-wise charge in the public domain. But you can see it for yourself that we used to be hitting about 90 basis points of charge. In the last couple of quarters, it has come down to 70 basis points. I think that itself is a reflection of the fact that some amount of moderation is happening, thanks to the fact that agri has come off during this quarter and wholesale is also sort of been pretty much reasonably or relatively -- relative to the part, a bit benign. But on the retail front, I wouldn't say it is benign. It is probably stable. We have neither seen deterioration, nor have we seen any improvement in that. So we are watching. And one of the reasons which I did mention is that as a part of the architecture whenever you see strong growth rates, the architecture itself sort of pulls back some of the growth rates just to wait and watch how the portfolio behaves.

K
Kunal Shah
Research Analyst

Yes, so maybe towards that -- so whatever contingency provisioning would be there, that would be...

Operator

Mr. Kunal, may we request you to be a bit loud and clear, please? You are not audible, sir.

K
Kunal Shah
Research Analyst

Yes. Sorry. So whatever the contingency provisioning is there, maybe I think that's largely towards agri and the other portfolio. But are there any lead indicators wherein we think that we should start making slightly higher provisioning on this portfolio as well given the growth which has been there in the industry and maybe [indiscernible] cycle?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

So Kunal, wherever it is required we have already factored that in. But otherwise, largely contingent provision is primarily on account of the agri portfolio. But otherwise, I think now with whatever provisions that are already in -- baked into the financials, we seem to be pretty much comfortable in terms of the outlook as well.

K
Kunal Shah
Research Analyst

Okay. And in terms of the retail ratios, so when we look at it overall in terms of the portfolio, this could be almost like 17-odd percent. But if we have to look at it in terms of the overall profitability, the contribution of this unsecured growth -- and if you look at the ROAs, would it be very much in line with the industry [indiscernible]?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

No, I...

K
Kunal Shah
Research Analyst

Or it will be better...

Sashidhar Jagdishan

I have not sort of benchmarked my return on asset as a product -- from a product perspective with others. I don't think it's available in the domains. Probably people like you all if you do have any research on that, maybe we can benchmark. But even otherwise also, even if we were to benchmark some NBFCs, the segmentations might be completely different than what we cater to. So it may not be exactly apples to apples, the comparison. So as of now, we have our own benchmark in terms of what should be the pricing, what is the expected loss on a particular product and whether -- and that's sort of honed over years of observation and modeling. So as long -- and that's exactly how we have operated over the last 20 years. So anyway, I would like my colleague Jimmy also to comment on this particular aspect, yes.

J
Jimmy Minocher Tata
Group Head & Chief Risk Officer

On the subject of retail asset loans, whether secured or unsecured, there is -- we do monitor what happens in the industry. We are conscious about what the rest of the industry does juxtapose to us. What I would point out over here is when you assess a product merely by its name or its segment, the actual pricing, which you were just thinking about right now, depends upon the [ TV ] that is bought as a function of that portfolio and a function of the various policies that exist for that product. So it's not necessarily an apples to apples comparison. But once we are conscious, we do look at what other people do. We are rather cautious about everything. But unfortunately, product-wise we don't put these numbers out in the public domain.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Saikiran from Haitong Securities.

S
Saikiran Pulavarthi

Quickly -- on the savings bank deposit, the growth momentum has come down significantly. How would you like to comment on this? Is it a one-off kind of an event or do you expect this to trend backwards again getting into FY '20?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

So Sai, what we are observing is that the gross momentum of customer acquisition and the change in relationship that is happening on our savings portfolio continues to be very strong. But we are also -- because we are also -- as someone mentioned in the call, our retail rates are still much, much higher on the term deposit side, higher than what some of the other banks are offering. So we are seeing some amount of people dipping into the savings accounts and moving into time deposits, which we are okay with because as long as we are able to at the margin manage our both durations and the spreads, we should be all right. Because one of the key objectives of the Asset Liability Committee is to ensure or maintain healthy liquidity and that is a prime importance for us. CASA is just a tool or a means. It's not necessarily the end all. As long as we are able to maintain margins, I think we are all right with that.

S
Saikiran Pulavarthi

Got it. Just a couple of data keeping questions. One, on the upgrades and recoveries, can you just give it for this quarter as well as for the full year FY '19?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

Yes. So upgrades for the quarter is about INR 1,000-odd crores. Write-off is roughly about INR 1,100 crores. Recovery is roughly about INR 1,200 crores. This is for the quarter.

S
Saikiran Pulavarthi

Okay. For the full year by any chance if you have it handy?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

Full year -- you want only the upgrades?

S
Saikiran Pulavarthi

The thing -- yes, upgrades or write-off...

Sashidhar Jagdishan

You need the same one, yes. About INR 3,250 crores is the full year upgrades. Write-off is about INR 4,600 crores. And the recoveries is about INR 4,000-odd crores -- sorry, INR 3,900-odd crores. My apologies.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Rakesh Kumar from Elara Capital.

R
Rakesh Kumar

Sir, can you hear me?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

Yes, Rakesh.

R
Rakesh Kumar

[indiscernible] has there been in the [indiscernible]...

Operator

Your audio is breaking, sir. We are not able to hear you clearly.

R
Rakesh Kumar

Is there a reduction in the cost of term deposit this quarter on Q-on-Q basis?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

No.

R
Rakesh Kumar

Okay. And second thing is that [indiscernible] at 180 [indiscernible]...

Operator

Sorry, Mr. Kumar, you are not audible. So may we request to use your handset?

R
Rakesh Kumar

Yes, [indiscernible]. Can you hear me? Can you hear me now?

Operator

Yes.

R
Rakesh Kumar

So considering the LCR requirement at 100% and we have at 118% now. So this -- like CD ratio, this must be the optimal number what we have for this quarter?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

You're talking about the CD ratio or the LCRs?

R
Rakesh Kumar

Considering that we have to maintain the LCR now at this level, close to this level, so would we continue with -- this is the optimal number of CD ratio?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

No, no. I mean, my point is this is definitely one of the lower numbers that we've seen in the recent past, but actually, when you really look -- we are endeavoring to ensure that we try and self-fund most of the incremental growth going forward. It's not an easy task, but that's going to be our objective. So I guess we should start -- we should be seeing a bit of moderation, not too big. At the same time, I think as a company we have been trying to diversify our funding sources. We have been resorting to in fact even at a slightly lesser cost in terms of institutional funding, which is far more stabler, long term, et cetera. We'll continue to do so in terms of the coming year in terms of raising some bonds, raising some foreign country bonds as well. So from a CD ratio, yes, it may be slightly elevated, but I think when you look at it as a company -- net off the institutional long-term funding and capital, I think we are pretty much around the 72%, 73%.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Rohan Mandora from Equirus Securities.

R
Rohan Mandora
Analyst

Sir, this is basically on HDB Financial. If you can just share how is the NIM trajectory during the quarter? And also given the Tier 1 issued at 12.8%. So any plans of infusing -- raising new capital in that in the next year?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

I don't have readymade, but for sure, the NIMs have sort of fallen from the peak.

S
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer

It's gone up.

Sashidhar Jagdishan

No, it came down in the third quarter and then it has moved up in the fourth quarter, which is -- and so on a full year basis marginally down from fiscal year 2018.

R
Rohan Mandora
Analyst

Okay. And on the capital piece?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

On the capital, obviously, he is pretty much comfortable on the total capital ratio. He is also doing a lot of other ways and means of raising liquidity. I think he's pretty much comfortable even from a borrowing perspective or even doing some amount of asset sales very judiciously. If the markets are pretty much buoyant, then maybe I think he will have some amount of plans of raising equity. But I wouldn't say it with certainty. But maybe in the next 12 to 18 months' time.

R
Rohan Mandora
Analyst

Okay. And like the growth -- loan growth [indiscernible] 24% for the year. So it is primarily due to the event that happened in September or is there any other thing that is driving -- that leading to a cautious growth trajectory there because it is the last when we compare...

J
Jimmy Minocher Tata
Group Head & Chief Risk Officer

This is Jimmy again. I presume you're referring to the loans in HDB?

R
Rohan Mandora
Analyst

Yes.

J
Jimmy Minocher Tata
Group Head & Chief Risk Officer

So there has been growth in loans across products. They have been not so swift in the property loans and LAP segments but all other products have witnessed good growth rates. There was of course -- as with the entire NBFC sector, cost of funds during Q3 did go up, but it wasn't really a question of availability. When you speak of the liquidity, the ALM is rather well matched and liquidity is very comfortable.

R
Rohan Mandora
Analyst

Okay. And sir, lastly with respect to the car loans portfolio for HDFC Bank, it has de-grown sequentially, the outstanding amount. So just wanted to understand it is -- just whether it was a market condition wherein the sales were slightly lower or -- and how do either are projected for the next year? Is it that the target segment which we cater to in the car loan, there the growth is likely to remain subdued in the next year? Or is there something else to read into?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

So sorry, Rohan. I think the initial part of the conversation we couldn't hear clearly. Are you talking about the bank's car loans? I mean, your...

R
Rohan Mandora
Analyst

Yes, yes.

Sashidhar Jagdishan

Outlook for next year? Is that what your question was?

R
Rohan Mandora
Analyst

Yes.

Sashidhar Jagdishan

Right. As I mentioned to you, the reason for the slowdown is primarily on account of the shift in the behavior -- or the structural shift that we're seeing where the millennials are preferring to hail a cab or do pool sharing, which is one of the strong reasons why this has -- we are seeing a lesser demand on auto products. Having said that, the cost has also gone pretty much -- we have seen steep rise especially when -- nowadays you have to have 3-year insurance, mandatory insurance also embedded in the cost price. So I think that's gone up almost about 12% to 20%. So people are feeling the pinch and that's one of the reasons why we have a bit of slowdown. But having said that, as a company I think we are -- we believe that we can leverage on our distribution both on the branch side and multiple other distributions that we have laid out, i.e., the virtual relationship management program and some other new channels that we have set up, which will start to fire going forward. I think notwithstanding the underlying momentum, we should sort of still outpace the growth of the market going forward as well.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Pranav Gupta from Birla Sun Life.

P
Pranav Gupta
Research Analyst of Banking & Financial Services

I have just one question. So the bank is looking to raise about INR 50,000 crores through the long term infra and housing bonds. Is this largely to do with how we fund the home loan book or is this just beefing up liquidity for the coming year? What is -- I just wanted to understand what the rationale is.

Sashidhar Jagdishan

So this is just an enabling provision, because since we have to go to the shareholders as per the Companies Act, we said let's go in with a slightly generous amount so that we don't have to -- in the case that we do have a bit of a bonus in getting these kind of issuances done, then we don't need to visit to -- or get shareholders' approval multiple times. Having said that, as I said, our requirements and our funding will match our demand for credit products. I think -- which I mentioned just about a few minutes ago, we will resort to multiple such forms of raising funding. It could be in the form of infra bonds. It could be in the form of masala -- not masala bonds -- the foreign country bonds swapped into rupees because the forward rates have sort of come down. We would also be raising institutional funding as well because post our results the appetite for some of the institutions would have -- on us would have gone up as well. But having said that, our core key focus area is on the core deposits. And if you walk in into any of our branches, each one of them will be focusing on the granular deposits. That is what our key focus would be.

Operator

The next question is from the line of [ Brijesh Mehta ] from [ Investec ].

U
Unknown Analyst

I have a question on the consumer durable loan side. Can you share with me the market share you have from the feedback you get from the manufacturers of this year?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

Frankly, I've not had any feedback and we have not sort of got any market share data as yet. As I said, it's still about very nascent. We do a lot more on the credit card side and the debit card side, where at the margin it's -- virtually incremental cost is 0 and -- but on the in-store, we still are setting up our systems and processes, et cetera. We haven't still fired in full gusto as yet. I guess it will be too premature for me to even talk about market share. Give us a bit of a time before we can start commenting on -- and measuring and commenting on that.

U
Unknown Analyst

Okay. Can you share with me what is the proportion of corporate loan linked to external benchmarks?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

Well, when you say external, it's not so much. It's roughly around the 5% to 6%.

U
Unknown Analyst

Okay. What would be the implication of the lower savings account growth on third-party insurance products like TATA AIA or Birla in that sense?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

No, I didn't understand that. What is the implication on?

U
Unknown Analyst

What would be the implication of lower savings account growth on third-party products like insurance?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

What is the link here?

S
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer

Perhaps cannibalization could...

Sashidhar Jagdishan

There's no -- what link? Why would there be a link between -- can you explain the connection? Sorry, I've not got that.

U
Unknown Analyst

Like with the lower current account rule, would there be any impact on the third-party products like insurance in terms of sales or anything, lower customers? Like there would be low number of customers, so third-party product sales should also have some impact.

S
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer

I think we're mixing the balances which have been in and the number of accounts or the number of customer acquisitions. The acquisition continues to be healthy and strong. What we have been -- if you look at the total deposits, right, that -- if you're looking at a comparative, then you should look at total deposits and not necessarily just savings. Because I think we explained as well that some amount of the time deposit also comes out of the savings account. But the customer acquisitions, which is what is important from a distribution perspective, continues to be very healthy.

U
Unknown Analyst

Okay. One last question. In terms of distribution with consumer durable loans, you are targeting all credit card customers, which is your bank and other banks, and the debit card customers of HDFC. Is that correct?

S
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer

So we cannot target other banks debit card or credit card customers, because obviously when they swipe, it is something which goes to those banks 10 points. And let's -- just give me a minute.

J
Jimmy Minocher Tata
Group Head & Chief Risk Officer

There are various products where we assess and look at the consumer durable loans. The endeavor of course is -- due to the nature of the product and the requirement to sanction fast that the maximum possible amount over here does go through a strike-through process, does take place through a pre-approved loan. Or an extremely expeditious surrogate is used, which is reliable. We are currently building a lot of models. Therefore, we look at many of the new ventures selectively and surely and not in a quantum that would be impactful should there be any mistake. But there are various measures that we use by way of surrogate as well as assessment even beyond our internal customer base.

U
Unknown Analyst

Okay. One more question. In terms of the -- what do USP do you offer like to any other -- to any customer who already has an existing card from a bigger -- another bigger provider in the market in consumer durables?

S
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer

Specifics we would need to revert to you on that.

U
Unknown Analyst

What is the USP of the -- like what is the additional benefit, why would we come to HDFC?

S
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer

Why would a customer take the loan from HDFC?

U
Unknown Analyst

For the better manufacturing tie-ups or something like that?

S
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer

So the 2 drivers of this product in-store are typically cost and speed. So as I mentioned earlier, the way you can design surrogates that have an analytical verifiability, it helps you on the speed. And of course, the cost is a function of people's relative cost of funds.

U
Unknown Analyst

I have seen that some of the stores do have a stronger cash back compared to any other provider. It is because of better manufacturing tie-ups? Or what -- is it kind of an acquisition strategy with respect to giving better cashbacks?

S
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer

These would be case to case and in-store, online, a lot of varies. I wouldn't really be able to -- I'm so sorry, I wouldn't be able to detail this one out.

Sashidhar Jagdishan

I think we'll need to move to the next question because there are a lot of people in the queue still.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Chintan Shah from Elara Capital.

C
Chintan Shah

Yes, I have just 2 data keeping questions. One, could you help me with the interest expenses on deposits for FY '19 overall? And secondly, breakup of the provisions for FY'19? Hello?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

Hold on, please. Just a moment.

C
Chintan Shah

Hello?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

You have to wait for some time. I'm just pulling up the total interest expense. The total interest expense for the year is INR 50,728 crores and the total provisions for the year ended March '19 is INR 7,550 crores. This includes specific, floating, contingent and other provisions -- general provisions and other provisions.

C
Chintan Shah

And sir, the breakup, if handy, if you could provide that, that INR 7,550 crores breakup?

Sashidhar Jagdishan

What breakup do you want?

C
Chintan Shah

Sir, the provisions breakup which you mentioned, INR 7,550 crores of total provisions. The breakup if possible if that is handy?

S
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer

So we don't have the annual one ready because we're doing the quarter thing, but it will be there in every press release. If you look at the 4 press releases, you should be able to get that, because we break up the provisions in press release.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Kislay Upadhyay from Abakkus Asset Manager.

K
Kislay Upadhyay
Research Associate

First question on what is your strategy and outlook on exposure to NBFCs in terms of growth segment and any co-lending practices, any co-lending initiatives that we're looking? And secondly, what is our strategy and outlook on microfinance, including direct and portfolio buyouts?

J
Jimmy Minocher Tata
Group Head & Chief Risk Officer

The NBFCs, we have no significant change in our strategy. Our strategy was always cautious. Our approach was always cautious, even before last year's events. We continue to have a cautious approach. We look at the financial metrics. We look at our own internal ratings, overlay it on the external ratings. And we also look into the business models and business practices of the NBFCs. So there is no change in our strategy. We continue to be cautious and we continue to do business as well. So that's where the NBFC situation is placed.On microfinance, again, very little change in our strategies. I think we are now seeing the reversal of the adverse effects of the demo and those scenarios which took a toll on SLI delinquency. That is remediating to a fair extent. So once again, we have our policies, our practices. We typically do not deviate and make exceptions in this sphere. There's very large and close monitoring overlaid on this. Buyouts are a case to case and portfolio-specific issue, so can't comment. We certainly would by portfolios if we find them to be suitable within the touch that we provide, within the parameters that we provide. And of course, then there is a commercial negotiation behind it.

K
Kislay Upadhyay
Research Associate

And any co-lending initiatives with NBFCs that's in pipeline you would like to mention? And any update on deposit generations from MFI customers? Is there a trend that started, seeing visibility?

S
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer

So co-lending, there is nothing in the pipeline just now. But that doesn't mean we are averse to transacting with selected parties. But at the moment there is no major -- significant transaction on the pipeline. The deposit build up for, you said, MFI and SLI customers. So the advances are small and the deposits are small. They will not really move the needle for the bank. A lot of our SLI and microfinance business is I think a part of our initiative to be all over India, to have financial inclusion and to be [ early ] in our approach. It wouldn't -- the savings -- of course we would try to welcome and encourage them, but it wouldn't -- it wouldn't really move the needle.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraints that would be the last question. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Srinivasan Vaidyanathan for closing comments. Thank you and over to you, sir.

S
Srinivasan Vaidyanathan
Chief Financial Officer

Okay. Thank you very much for dialing in. If you need anything more and we can be helpful, we will. Please reach out to our Investor Relations. Thank you.

Operator

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