HDFC Bank Limited (NYSE:HDB) Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

HDFC Bank Limited (NYSE:HDB) Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript October 16, 2023

HDFC Bank Limited beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $0.8, expectations were $0.45.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, good evening and welcome to HDFC Bank Limited Q2 FY ’24 Earnings Conference Call on the financial results presented by the management of HDFC Bank. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Srinivasan Vaidyanathan, Chief Financial Officer, HDFC Bank. Thank you, and over to you, sir.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan: Okay. Thank you, Nirav. Good evening, and a warm welcome to all the participants. Our MD and CEO, Mr. Sashi Jagdishan has joined us today to provide an overview of the business before we get into the quarterly results. Sashi, over to you to get started, please.

Sashi Jagdishan: Thank you, Srini. Thank you for allowing me to steal your talk time. I’ll keep it as brief as possible. This being the first results post-merger, I thought of sharing my thoughts. It’s such a pleasure to connect with you all after a very long time. As you know, we just consummated one of the largest mergers in recent times with seamless integration of people, process and systems, and that too without any external help. This showcases the power of our execution. The day one merged balance sheet was audited by the 31st of August and the team disclosed this to the world at large around mid-September. The presentation, which they did to the analyst, brought out some of the one-offs on account of the debt funded liquid assets to meet the liquidity coverage ratio, the LCR, as per banking norms.

As you know, sometimes, the assumptions and cash flows that an NBFC does is going to be — is different from that what a bank would do. And so therefore, there was some amount of build-up of liquidity to meet those liquidity coverage ratio norms and also provide an extra cushion to take care of contingencies. As luck would have it, there was an incremental CRR which was announced and this cushion came in extremely handy. Obviously, it came with a cost which is approximately 25 basis points between the liquidity build-up and the ICRR impact. I think Srini will talk about it more in detail in his call. The presentation also brought about the day one adjustments to equity, which was one of the arcs of all you, of this fraternity, to say what will be the day one equity and with all the adjustments that one would do on merger.

I think a lot of people probably mistook some of them to be destroying or value the equity, but it’s not. If you look at it deeply, and I’m sure most of you would have — would realize that these are all accounting and timing differences, which means that these benefits will accrue over time from here on. A lot has been spoken about the non-retail book of erstwhile HDFC Limited. Surely, there was a bit of a spike — incremental spike in NPA in an account which was standard, but had to be restructured. And as per the norms, when you restructure, even if it’s a performing asset, it tags, it gets tagged as an NPA. Yes, there could be some tail remaining from this book, which could slip into substandard in future, but the impact to the overall bank’s gross NPA will not be significant at all.

In fact, I can categorically say that the bank will not incur any incremental costs or losses on account of this book into our P&L going forward. And this is something is because of the realizable value of security, the provisions that we’ve made is going to be adequate enough to cover some of the exposures that we have inherited. A lot of questions and question marks come about, what are we planning to do on the construction finance? It is going to be extremely important. It’s going to be an important part of our mortgage business. We have just absorbed the contours of this book. You will now start to see the construction finance book growing steadily from here on. And that will sort of help in building not only the top line, but also some of the margins back.

If you’ve seen the results, which has been released a couple of hours ago, I think it showcases the execution capability, which is what we’re known for, what is then — which is what we have constantly spoken about as well and even demonstrated. Let’s look at some of the key metrics. Look at the deposit accretion of INR1.1 lakh crore. That translates on an apples-to-apples basis of a sequential growth of 5.3%, which if you annualize it, it’s upwards of 20%, 21%. And mind you, this is — almost 83% to 85% of that is retail. Now one would wonder and one — probably one of the questions that you may have is, what happened in June, which is — which I think we may have explained, but let me articulate it slightly better, is that when the liquidity cushion was being built on the other side, that is in HDFC Limited, we decided that we will not roll over some of the large ticket deposits even for a few basis points as well.

So, we let some of them grow and that is masked. These outflows in the larger ticket deposits or the non-retail deposits maskedthe outflow of the core momentum of the retail ones. So, we are very sanguine and very confident that funding is never going to be an issue and you will see the kind of execution that we are capable of going forward as well. Look at the loan growth. We’ve also accreted on an apple-to-apple basis INR1.0 lakh crore during this quarter. These are high-quality assets, whether it is corporate, whether it is CRB, the commercial, rural, the MSME book or the retail book. These extremely high-quality book where we’re extremely comfortable from the quality of the book now and into the future. But look at the kind of sequential apple-to-apple growth rate, at 4.9%, it’s an annualized growth rate of 19.6%.

So, when you look at these two metrics, it’s a very strong, very healthy numbers, which is what we have mentioned several times over that even on such a large scale that we — the bank will have the energy to continue to grow at a pace that we have done in the past, even on such a larger book. The NIMs, I think, the presentation in the mid-September called out that there will be a kind of an impact because of the liquidity cushion and the incremental CRR impact of about 25 basis points. We had said that we will — the core margins on a total asset basis on a pure arithmetic should be somewhere between 3.7% to 3.8%. So, when you adjust for this 25 basis points, we are at the lower band of the 3.65%, but that’s all right. I mean, that’s something that we, I’m sure, with time, we will recoup some of the margins as we substitute the high-cost bonds with deposits and the changing mix of our business loans mix more and more towards retail.

Look at the return on assets. Despite that, I think the company maintained the return on assets around the 2% mark and the ROE at the 16.2% mark. So, the top-line growth and the profitability has been intact and it is something that will only improve going forward. This being the first quarter, we wanted to ensure that the fabric of HDFC Limited’s profits on mortgages is maintained, especially on the retail mortgages. We wanted the teams to settle down and we wanted them to slowly but surely start to energize themselves and galvanize the home loan retail disbursal momentum. We have mentioned in the early release that they did the highest-ever retail mortgage loans of 170,000 in numbers and INR48,000 crores of disbursals, the highest ever. This demonstrates that this is the start, this is the tip of the iceberg.

It’s just now a matter of time where we now will start to sweat the franchise, both the distribution and the customer franchise to take this forward. But what is going to be exciting is when we launch our digital journeys for bundling products during this quarter, that will be incremental in terms of icing on the cake. So, the innate strength of the institution, to galvanize energy, to execute consistently even on a larger base is what we have demonstrated year after year for 28-plus years. As one can see in the recent results, the bank is poised to silently deliver the core growth that if you have just seen in this quarter and I’m very confident and sanguine that it will continue to do so quarter after quarter even on a larger scale, maintain the profitability in the range of 1.9% to 2.1% as in the past.

So, without much ado, I just wanted to tell you that we are extremely excited about this merger and we will slowly but surely demonstrate to the world that how we will execute the way we have done in the past. So, over to you, Srini. Thank you so much.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan: Okay. Thank you, Sashi, for those opening remarks. Now, let’s get on to the main. I want to start with the macro content — context provided that it provided a good healthy tailwind in the quarter, right? We continued to see a good domestic demand conditions and push from government through CapEx. You know well that the GST collections were healthy in manufacturing services, PMI, and in the expansionary zone. The key logistics indicators were quite healthy and good. RBI kept its rate unchanged at 6.5%. And as we look ahead, we see the environment is good for robust growth. Our estimate of the GDP growth for this year FY ’24 is 6.3%, which will demonstrate that it’s one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

Now, if you look at some of the key factors in the bank’s growth journey, on the distribution footprint expansion, our branch network stands at 7,945 outlets as of — branches as of September 30. Overall, there has been an increase of 1,446 branches over the last 12 months, including 85 branches in the quarter. In addition, we are operating over 400 branches of erstwhile HDFC branches as — under the bank banner now, and we’re progressively developing other banking product capabilities as we go through the year. Payment acceptance points currently at 4.9 million and year-on-year growth of 43% as adoption of the Vyapar app builds momentum there. In the CRB, which runs the SME businesses, the rural business reach expanded to 1.85 lakh villages and it’s on track to go to the objectives of over 2 lakh villages in the near-term.

Gold loan processing, that we started this vehemently few quarters ago, is now offered in 4,544 branches, an increase of 53% over prior year. In the customer franchise building, we added 2.7 million new liability relationships during the quarter. Our based — customer base stands at 91 million, including those added on the merger. This provides the opportunity to further engage and deepen the customer relationships. In order to position this for greater engagement with those customers, we’ve added 16,000 people during the quarter. On cards, we issued 1.7 million cards in the quarter, taking the total base to 18.8 million. The granularity on the deposit focus continues with total deposits currently at INR21.7 lakh crores, grew by INR1.1 lakh crore in the quarter on a comparable basis, 5.3% sequentially.

Term deposits had been the bedrock of this growth given the interest rate scenario and the customer preferences, aggregated to INR13.6 lakh crores, registering healthy growth of 7.8% sequentially. Savings account deposits stands at INR5.7 lakh crores and grew by INR9,000 crores or 2,000 — or 2% sequentially. Current account stands at INR2.5 lakhs crore and that’s INR18,000 crores over prior year. Retail of this current account constitutes 72% and grew by 3% sequentially. So, we are focusing more and more on the retail current account as we go along, because as the corporate or the wholesale current account gets managed professionally through various treasuries, the retail current account offers the biggest opportunity there. Overall, CASA deposits ended the quarter at INR8.2 lakh crores, resulting in a CASA ratio of 37.6%.

This is after the impact coming from the merger which came from HDFC Limited, the time deposits that got added into our base. On the advances side, the gross advances at INR23.5 lakh crores reflects the sequential momentum of about 4.9%. Retail advances grew 3.1% sequentially. CRB advances grew 9.7% sequentially. The wholesale segment grew — excluding the non-individual loans of HDFC Limited, grew 5.8%, and the non-individual [Technical Difficulty] loans of the HDFC Limited is now at INR1.03 lakh crores compared to INR1.09 lakh crores as of the beginning of the quarter. We continue to pursue the technology and digital kind of a foray. PayZapp 2.0 currently has 3 million registered users and handles a daily volume of 2.5 lakh transactions. SmartHub Vyapar Platform handles monthly transactions of INR19,000 crores and provides monthly disbursals of INR650 crores.

Xpress Car Loans brings and contributes almost 30% of our car volumes. HDFC Bank One, the customer service hub, the AI-driven channel platform serving contact centers nationwide, serving 30 million engagements has interactions with 15 million customers monthly through email, social care, WhatsApp and chat banking and phone banking services. Balance sheet remains resilient. LCR for the quarter was 121% after absorbing the 4-plus percentage points coming from the ICRR. Capital adequacy ratio is at 19.5% with CET1 at 17.3%. Let’s get to the net revenues for the quarter, which were at INR38,093 crores, grew by 33% over prior year. Net interest income for the quarter at INR27,385 crores, which was 72% of net revenues, grew by 30% over prior year.

The core net interest margin for the quarter was at 3.65% on total assets and 3.85% on interest earning assets. After absorbing the debt funded cost for additional liquidity and merger management, the reported net income — net interest margin for the quarter was 3.4% on total assets and 3.6% on interest earning assets. Getting to the details of other income. Total other income was INR10,708 crores. Fees and commission that constitutes two-thirds or 65% of other income was at INR6,936 crores and grew by 19.5% over prior year. Retail constitutes 92% of fees and commission, demonstrating the granularity of the fees and commission income. FX and derivatives income at INR1,221 crores was higher by 12.8% compared to prior year. Net trading and mark-to-market income was INR1,041 crores for the quarter, prior quarter was INR552 crores and prior year was a negative INR387 crores.

Other miscellaneous income of INR1,510 crores includes recoveries from written-off accounts and dividends from subsidiaries. On the operating expenses for the quarter, which were at INR15,399 crores, represents the cost to income for the quarter at 40.4%. Our pre-provision operating profit was at INR22,694 crores and represents [Technical Difficulty] times of the total provisions from a coverage point of view. Coming to the asset quality, the GNPA ratio was at 1.34% as compared to 1.41% on a pro forma as of July 1 that we mentioned. Out of the one point — and last year, as you know, was 1.23%. Out of the 1.34% as of this quarter-end, we have about 22 basis points which are related to restructured accounts, which are restructured accounts in erstwhile non-retail HDFC Limited which are current and performing, but have been classified as NPA according to the extant guidelines.

Net NPA ratio was at 0.35%. The slippage ratio for the current quarter is at 32 basis points, about INR7,800 crores. During the quarter, we had recoveries and upgrades that are — that were INR4,500 crores at 22 basis points. Write-offs in the quarter was about INR3,250 crores, approximately 17 basis points. There were no sale of NPA accounts during the quarter. On the provision side, the total provisions reported were around INR2,900 crores against INR2,850 crores during the prior quarter and INR3,250 crores in the prior year. The core specific loan loss provision was around INR2,500 crores against INR2,700 crores in prior quarter. The provision coverage ratio was at 74%. At the end of current quarter, contingent and floating provisions were approximately INR15,600 crores, general provisions were INR10,100 crores, total provisions comprising specific floating contingent and general were about 156% of gross non-performing loans.

This is in addition to securities held as collateral in several of the cases. Floating, contingent and general provisions were about 1.09% of gross advances as of September-end. Now coming to credit cost ratios, total annualized credit cost ratio for the quarter was 49 basis points, prior quarter was 70 basis points and prior year was 87 basis points. Recoveries which are recorded as miscellaneous income amount to 16 basis points of gross advances for the quarter as against 19 basis points for the prior quarter. The total credit cost ratio net of recoveries was at 34 basis points in the current quarter compared to 51 basis points in the prior quarter and 64 basis points from prior year. The profit before tax was INR19,790 crores and grew by 39% over prior year.

After INR1,000 crores write-back of tax provisions no longer required consequent to favorable appellate orders, net profit after tax for the quarter was INR15,976 crores, grew by 50% over prior year. Now, few sentences on our subsidiaries before we get to the summary. Firstly, HDBFS, this is on Ind-AS basis. Disbursements at INR14,150 crores were higher by 43% over prior year. Loan book at INR78,000 crores grew 5.8% sequentially. Customer franchise grew to 13.6 million customers with 6.3% additions during the quarter. Quality of the book continues to see sustained improvement with gross stage 3 at 2.38% as of September against 4.88% prior year. The provision coverage of stage 3 book stood at 68%. The profit after tax for the quarter was INR601 crores compared to INR471 crores for prior year.

The ROA and ROE annualized in the quarter was 3.2% and 19.6%, respectively. The earnings per share in the quarter in HDB was INR7.59 and the book value per share in HDB is at INR158. Now getting to few other subsidiaries, HDFC Life. On an IGAAP basis, the profit after tax for the quarter ended September increased to INR377 crores compared to INR326 crores for the prior year. In the HDFC AMC, again this one on an Ind-AS basis, profit after tax for the quarter amounted to INR438 crores, registering a year-on-year growth of 20%. In HDFC ERGO just on an IGAAP basis, because there are different standards, profit after tax for the quarter ended at — for the September quarter increased to INR236 crores compared to INR177 crores in the prior year, registering a growth of 33%.

Securities HSL has a network of 203 branches, and the net profit after tax was INR214 crores as against INR191 crores for same time last year. Now, I want to take the opportunity to provide a quick update on ESG. We further strengthened the integration of ESG and climate change risk assessments into our credit appraisal process for corporate borrowers. We also have finalized a sustainable finance framework to classify loans and advances as green, social and sustainable in alignment with International Capital Market Association principles. Now, getting to a summary. Our results reflect robustness in growth after consummating the merger, 5.3% sequential momentum in deposit growth, 5.7% sequential momentum in retail deposit growth and advances growth of — or a sequential increase of 4.9%.

Profit after tax for the quarter at INR15,976 crores increased by 50% versus prior year. The consolidated profit after tax for the quarter is at INR16,811 crores, delivering the return on assets in the quarter of about 2% and return on equity of about 16.2%. Earnings per share in the quarter is — on a standalone basis is INR21.1, and at a consolidated bank level, it is INR22.2. The book value per share on a standalone bank level is at INR534, and at a consolidated bank level, it’s at INR553. With that, may I request the operator to open up the line for questions, please?

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Q&A Session

Operator: Thank you very much. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Mahrukh Adajania from Nuvama. Please go ahead.

Mahrukh Adajania: Yeah, hello. Hi. My first question is on margins. So, of course, you’ve explained that it’s the ICRR and the excess liquidity on Limited’s book, but would there be any other adjustments in the NII while moving from Ind-AS to Ind-GAAP for HDFC? Like for instance, HDFC’s NII in Q2 FY ’23 was around INR45 billion, INR46 billion, right? So, would that be restated significantly under Ind-GAAP?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan: Mahrukh, maybe we’ll have a session about what the Indian GAAP and the Ind-AS would be. There are several differences that happen. I’ll give you, for example, one important — there are several of them. On the non-performing loan in Ind-AS, you accrue for interest, in IGAAP, you don’t accrue for interest if the loan is non-performing. Just as an example I’m saying, right? So, there are several differences that happen. And so — and the time has elapsed and the profile of the balance sheet, including the interest rate structure of the balance sheet is different now versus what it was at that time. So, they are not comparable as such. They are different regulatory regimes, different accounting standards, different regulatory regime, and the composition of the balance sheet is different.

Mahrukh Adajania: Correct. But most of the margin decline from pro forma 3.7% to 3.4% is largely excess liquidity and ICRR or…

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan: See, the way you think about it is that, the balance sheet is funded with debt, right? There is a level of additional borrowing that has been exercised and that is debt borrowing, right, that has come on. And debt borrowing comes in at a cost that is north of 8% or so. So that’s part of how the — there is a transition post the merger. As part of the merger management, we carried additional, one way to describe this additional liquidity. But if you think about what is there, where does it reflect? It reflects in the cost of funds. So, that’s why the cost of funds is higher.

Mahrukh Adajania: Got it. Makes sense. And sir, my next question is on the tax rate. So given that they were favorable decisions and that’s why the tax rate fell, does it normalize to 25% next quarter or…

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan: See, yes, there is this one-time effect if you take or take it out, whatever is the normal tax rate. If you look at last quarter or the past year, we’ve been around that 25%, 24.9%, 25% thereabouts that’s where we have been.

Mahrukh Adajania: Got it. And just…

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan: So, there’s no different from that, yeah.

Mahrukh Adajania: Okay. And sir just one last question. So, do you see margins — how long would it take for margins to come back up to 3.6%, 3.65%, like two to three quarters? Would the exit margin for FY ’24 be at that level or would it take longer?

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan: Yes. See, Mahrukh, I think Sashi alluded to say that there are few things, right, one is the utilization of this through a better mix of loan originations particularly focused on the retail shift is something that would bring this to a normal level over a period of time. Then there are other choices to make. But given that these are — that this funding is longer-term funding that we’ve chosen part of the merger management, we need to get through building assets which are of a better yield.

Mahrukh Adajania: Got it. Thanks. Thank you.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan: Thank you.

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

Kunal Shah: Yeah. Thanks for taking the question. So firstly, maybe what Sashi highlighted earlier that in terms of the run down in the wholesale portfolio of erstwhile HDFC, is it more or less done or should we see it getting towards…

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan: Kunal, if I request you to slightly come closer to mic and speak up. I can hear, but not as best.

Kunal Shah: Yeah, sorry, now if it’s better.

Srinivasan Vaidyanathan: Very good.

Kunal Shah: So I was just saying whether this rundown in wholesale portfolio, is it largely done? Because earlier we thought that it can come down to INR80 crores, INR90 crores or INR1,000 crores from INR1.03 lakh crores, but I think in the opening remarks, you said like it should largely be done and now we should see the growth coming through in the construction finance portfolio.