RBL Bank Limited (RBLBANK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

That's the quorum for today's meeting. I request you to start the meeting.

I'm on mute.

No sir, we can hear you.

Please go ahead, sir.

I confirm that the quorum for the meeting is present at the meeting. On behalf of the bank and the Board of Directors, I extend to all of you a very warm welcome to this 78th Annual General Meeting of our bank. Let me welcome the directors of the bank who are also attending through video conferencing as well as in the Board room. I request them to introduce themselves to their members one by one. We'll start with -- I will start with myself. I'm Prakash Chandra, I'm the Chairman of the bank and also Chairman of the Audit Committee. I am participating in this meeting through video conferencing from my residence at Noida, Delhi.

This is Vimal Bhandari, I'm a member of the Board and I'm joining the meeting from my office in Mumbai.

Good morning. Good morning, everybody. Hi, good morning. This is Vishwavir Ahuja, managing Director and CEO of the bank. I am participating in this meeting through video conferencing from our corporate office in Mumbai.

Hi, good morning. This is Rajeev Ahuja. I'm Executive Director of the bank. I'm participating in the meeting through video conferencing from our corporate office in Mumbai.

[indiscernible]

Madam Ranjana, we cannot hear you. Sorry.

Good morning. This is Ranjana Agarwal, I'm attending the AGM from my residence in New Delhi. I'm the Chairperson of the NRC Committee.

Good morning. This is Ishan Raina. I'm a member of the Board, and I'm attending this from my residence in Alibag in Maharashtra.

Good morning. This is Veena Mankar. I'm a nonexecutive non-independent Director of the Board, and I'm attending the meeting from my residence in Mumbai.

So we also -- good morning, shareholders. We also have Mr. Manjeev Singh Puri, who has joined us. He is the Independent Director of the bank. And we also will be joined by Mr. Somnath Ghosh. There is some technical issue he is facing. He's the Chair of Stakeholders Relationship Committee. I welcome you to the AGM of the bank. The members may know that the Chairman of the Audit Committee, Mr. Prakash Chandra; Chairperson of the Nomination and Remuneration Committee, Madam Ranjana Agarwal; the Chairman of Stakeholders Relationship Committee, Dr. Somnath Ghosh are present at this meeting. I also wish to inform the members that the representatives of the statutory auditors, M/s. Haribhakti & Co LLP, Chartered Accountants, the representatives of the proposed joint statutory auditor, M/s CNK & Associates LLP Chartered Accountants and representative of the Secretarial Auditor, M/s. Alwyn Jay & Co., Practicing Company Secretaries are attending this meeting through videoconferencing. In view of the COVID-19 global pandemic, social distancing is a norm to be followed. MCA and SEBI, via their respective circulars, permitted the holding of the AGM through videoconferencing and dispensed personal presence of the members at the common venue during the AGM. And this AGM is being held in compliance with the said circulars. In accordance with the MCA and SEBI circulars, the annual report for the financial year ended 2020-2021, along with the notice of the 78th Annual General Meeting has been sent on August 26, 2021, only by electronic mode to those members whose e-mail addresses are registered to the bank or the depository participants. The notice of AGM and the annual report for the financial year ended 2020-2021 were also made available on the bank's website, CDSL's website and also on the website of the stock exchanges, that is BSE Limited and National Stock Exchange of India limited. With the permission of the members, I take the notice of the AGM as read. Members are requested to note that there are no adverse observations, qualifications in the Auditors' Report, on the financial statements and the Secretarial Audit Report for the financial year ended 31st March 2021. With the permission of the members, I take the statutory Auditors' Report and Secretarial Audit Report as read. Members will also note that as per the aforesaid circulars, the inspection documents, including the documents mentioned in the annual report and notice of the AGM are available with the bank for inspection through the electronic mode during this AGM. The bank considers it prudent to not propose any dividend for the financial year ended 31st March, 2021, in light of the situation developing around COVID-19 pandemic in the country and related uncertainties that it claims. The members should know that the bank is in compliance with all the requirements of the Companies Act, SEBI Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements Regulations, 2015 and amendments thereof. I would like to take you through certain points regarding participation and proceedings of this meeting. All the members who have joined this meeting, before , placed on mute mode by the host to avoid any disturbance by the background noise and ensure smooth conduct of the AGM. During the AGM, if any member faces any technical issue, he may contact the help line number, which we have mentioned in the notice of the AGM. Members are hereby informed that the transcript of this AGM shall also be published on the website of the bank. Now I request the Chairman, Mr. Prakash Chandra to address the members.

Good morning, dear shareholders. I welcome you all to this 78th Annual General Meeting of the RBL Bank. I hope that you and your families and dear ones are healthy and safe. The year gone by was different from anything we had seen in the past. It came with its set of learnings and distinct experiences for us individually as well as for the bank as a whole. The role played by essential services in supporting the nation has been phenomenal. At our bank, too, our employees have displayed commendable strength, time, commitment to service our customers in these trying times. In the face of these unprecedented challenges in the past year, we fortified our balance sheet to make it well placed to tackle the impact of the pandemic and handle any short-term disruptions. We took several steps to ensure that the institution remains robust and delivers profitable growth by maintaining prudent risk management, purposeful governance. The progress made by the bank in last year has been satisfactory. The banking landscape was evolving radically, but the pandemic has accentuated the changes both in terms of speed and scale. Physical and virtual have coalesced into one. And therefore, we have been making strict strides to address this changing trend. We significantly increased digitization in operations for a robust infrastructure backbone. We continue to maintain the lead in digital banking innovations for both corporate and retail customers driven by innovative product offerings and through partnership with fintechs for retail and business customers. We will continue our focus on maintaining a strong capital position, enhance our physical and digital footprint, quality learning with the strong risk practices, strategic investments in technology, processes and people, collaborative partnerships and cross leverages, thus improving our earning, diversity and predictability. We truly value your support and association with our bank. The strength we derive from our stakeholders has been instrumental in our journey, and we continue to quote to count on that. We are confident of coming out of this pandemic stronger, together and building a better future. I hereby confirm that the bank has made all arrangements under the circumstances, which are feasible to enable the members to participate and vote on the items being considered in this AGM. The facility of joining the AGM through video conferencing is made available to the members on first-come-first-serve basis. The bank has avail the services of Central Depository Services India Limited, that is CDSL, for facilitating voting through electronic means as the authorized e-voting agency for the purposes of the AGM. The attendance of the members through videoconferencing shall be counted for the purposes of quorum as for the Companies Act 2013. In the end, I once again wish that shareholders and their families a very good health in the years to come. Please take precautions and stay safe. Thank you.

Thank you very much, sir. Now I request our MD and CEO, Mr. Vishwavir Ahuja, to address the members.

Dear shareholders, good morning, and once again, a warm welcome to all of you. I thank you all for joining us today at the 78th Annual General Meeting of the Bank. I join our Chairman and all my [indiscernible] and hope that you and your loved ones are safe and well in these trying times. I also hope that all of you are either fully vaccinated or on your way to towards it so that together, we can emerge out of this pandemic stronger. At our bank, we successfully conducted vaccination drives in various locations across the country including our subsidiary, RBL Finserve Limited. I'm happy to share that over 80% of our employees have been vaccinated. I would have liked to see all of you in person today. However, none of us could have imagine that we would continue to be impacted by this pandemic even after 1.5 years. The crisis has truly tested humanity's resilience and alter the way we live and work. I use this occasion to place on record our immense gratitude and appreciation to all our employees who have shown exemplary courage and commitment at great health risk for continuing to serve our customers in a seamless manner. Sadly, we lost a few of our peer colleagues to the pandemic despite our best efforts to assist them with all the critical responses. I wish to offer my deepest condolences and support to the families at the time of being . Moving forward, I do want to share a few comments on India's economic prospects as we look ahead. And I must say that the India story remains strong. India's structural advantages should play a key role in putting our economy back over the medium term on the high-growth path. As physical infrastructure driven by government spending picks up, the economy will witness the start of the private CapEx cycle over the next few quarters. The widespread proliferation of digital tools can also become an accelerator of India's reforms. However, much still depends on the race between the virus and the vaccines. Although vaccine approvals and the rate at which it's being administered have raised hopes of a turnaround in the pandemic later this year, renewed waves and the new variants of the virus pose concerns for the outlook. Now to get to our year back where, as the Chairman said, we use this time to strengthen the institution in every facet. No doubt, FY '21 has been a very difficult year. At RBL Bank, we occupied ourselves in building resilience and strengthening the franchise across several fronts. In the last few quarters, we have been repositioning for growth by de-risking the business model through granularization of both sides of the balance sheet, tightening risk filters, taking accelerated and additional provisioning on COVID-19 impacted portfolios and significantly improving the quality of new origination including new product introductions. We have substantially raised our capital buffers, rapidly ramped up our retail deposits and CASA base, enhanced our other income particularly core fees. And therefore, managed to maintain the earnings momentum and net income of the bank. There has been a significant reduction in the cost of funds of the institution, which enables us to enhance our competitiveness and facilitate build-out of new secured loan products going ahead. As you will appreciate, we have also augmented our Board strength with strategic appointments of 2 distinguished members. With these new additions, the bank's Board now has 11 members and their collective experience and standing in the financial sector will provide the Bank with requisite strategic direction and guidance. I do want to delve a little more on our performance. Despite the challenging environment, we continue to stay on track and are cautious, conservative and committed towards preservation and growth of this valuable franchise. Through a very critical time for the banking and financial services industry, we manage today's high-quality capital from pedigreed investors. Capital is oxygen for a bank. We have ensured adequate availability of the same to further fortify our balance sheet and to address our future growth needs. We raised INR 1,566 crores through a preferential allotment from marquee domestic and international investors, which include Barings Asia Equity Private Limited (sic) Barings Private Equity Asia , one of India's leading private equity -- one of Asia's leading private equity firms, who is now our largest shareholder. The CDC Group Plc, which is our second largest shareholder and our consistent supporter since March 2014. Gaja Capital, our anchor investor from the start of our transformation journey in 2010/'11. And our new investor, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co. These 4 marquee investors recently in November 2020 invest to the bank. This was our ninth capital raise since 2011. Aggregating over this period, INR 8,600 crores from a very diversified base of high-quality shareholders, reflecting their faith in the Bank's potential. Our capital adequacy ratio is now at a very healthy 17.5% and we remain comfortably surplus in terms of our liquidity position. We also saw a very strong momentum in our total deposits, which grew to INR 73,121 crores during this year, up 26% over the previous year. Our CASA growth was even stronger at 36% year-on-year. Our CASA ratio improved from 29.6% as at the end of the previous year, to 31.8% in FY '21 and has further increased to 33.7% by June 30, 2021. We hope to continue to deliver further improvements in this in the months and quarters to come. Our net interest income was up 4% in the year at INR 3,788 crores with net interest margin, what we call NIM, at 4.48%. Our other income grew 8% to INR 2,058 crores. Similarly, our core fee income, despite the lockdown in the country during the first half of the fiscal year was higher at INR 1,757 crores for the year. Our pre-provisioning operating profit was strong and reflected a satisfactory growth of 14% to INR 3,091 crores. After taking necessary provisions and additional provisions, mostly COVID related, profit after tax was INR 508 crores for the year. Our advances grew to INR 58,623 crores. Retail advances grew faster year-on-year between the retail and the wholesale advances. The mix between the 2 was retail is now 59% of our portfolio and wholesale is just above 40%. At this juncture, it is important to pause and reflect on our journey between 2011 when we set out on this campaign and FY '21. Our bank has experienced, as you all know, quantum growth and evolution during this period, both quantitatively and qualitatively, and has developed consistently in an ever challenging and difficult economic environment. The business base of the bank has grown manifold. The deposits of the Bank have grown over 46x in this period. The advances have grown more than 50x. The net worth of the Bank has grown 35x from INR 350 crores to over INR 12,500 crores now in 2021. The net profit of the Bank has also steadily grown from a meagre INR 12 crores in FY '10/'11 to INR 508 crores in FY '20/'21 after absorbing the COVID impact. The customer base of the Bank has grown from just about 2.5 lakh customers in FY '10/'11 to approximately 1 crore customers today. And very importantly, our employee strength has grown from about 700 then to over 17,000 currently, including our subsidiary, RBL Finserve Limited. This, I think, we cannot say has been a great transformation journey. Having said that, this is also a time to reset for Transformation 2.0. The measures we took in FY '21 has stood us in good stead entering FY '22. However, it is important to note that just as the environment was returning to near normalcy in March '21, we faced the impact of the second wave which was more severe than the first, especially impacting our small retail borrowers, which including our salaried customers, small business, and our rural customers, where, in fact, the impact was the highest, all of which were just coming out of the effects of the first wave with some difficulties. For our Bank, these businesses have been our core focus. Therefore, despite the planned countercyclicality and all the potential measures taken by the bank, the impact we faced was disproportionately higher. We now feel that economic activity and growth revival is now visible with vaccination drive picking up and there is better preparedness on the health infrastructure front. This augurs well for normalcy to return gradually. We have, therefore, reset our business approach, capital allocation and capabilities. Our transformation journey 2.0 focuses on those areas, which we consider right to win. In other words, where we have a reasonable position in terms of scale, in terms of capabilities, in terms of incorporating business learnings across market ups and downs. And therefore, the ability to deliver above cost of capital return over market cycles. The franchises and the associated capabilities that meet these tests are credit cards. We are building a very strong credit card franchise at the Bank, which despite adversities, has remained profitable even in FY '20/'21, as this was one of the significantly impacted segments. But despite that, it has remain profitable. We are undertaking a significant ramp-up of our investment in technology, app design, risk, information security and service architecture in credit cards over the next 18 months. This will make us more competitive, not just against the larger players, but also vis-a-vis the fintechs that are redefining customer experience significantly. We now have a better understanding of how different segments performed through extreme stress. And hence, these learnings are now built into our risk models, guiding our future portfolio buildup. We are already now the fifth largest card player in the industry with a current base of over 3 million cards. I'm happy to share that we have also launched our credit cards recently on the Visa platform. Previously, we are only on the Mastercard platform. And the entire integration was managed in a record time of just around 8 weeks. We are starting the discussion on adding another network partner several months earlier. So when the RBI ban on Mastercard happened, we were better prepared than most others to integrate quickly with a new platform. I congratulate my team members for this effort. Our approach over the next 2, 3 years would be to continue to focus on partnerships with multiple other relevant and well-known brands and platforms. And you will hear a lot more of this in the coming weeks. To expand our reach and accessibility, we will integrate the card business with other parts of our banking franchise in terms of cross-sell of savings accounts, insurance and other retail loans and products. The next is microbanking, which we are now saying transformation to Bharat Banking. In microbanking, we have been able to evolve processes, enabling us to seamlessly manage branch operations and customer engagement across 1,200 districts. Our onboarding and other branch operations have now been completely digitized. Our focus, therefore, now is to expand into other areas of secured loans such as 2-wheeler, home extension, loans against gold, et cetera. So we want to use this franchise and network and distribution that we have built and digitize to now move away from a single product to expand into other secured loan products in this space. This will also help us deepen relationships with existing customer households and offer a range of products. And our strategy also is to increase our distribution more via our subsidiary, RBL Finserve to reach 70% to 75% of the districts in Tier 4 and Tier 5 geographies in the country. The third engine is to look at other new secured areas of growth. We are diversifying across secured businesses and reducing concentration risks. This has been achieved by leveraging our domain expertise in some of our leading businesses and expanding to new interconnected businesses such as affordable housing, tractor finance, secured MSME loans, home improvements and 2-wheeler loans. In our housing business, we already have 66 branches and plan to add another 50 branches in this fiscal year FY '22 and 120 branches over the next 2 years. In rural markets, we are beginning to build a tractor finance book. We will see greater traction in the coming years in this space. Fourth, our physical infrastructure. The retail business adds critical granularity to the liability franchise and our branch banking network helps accelerate that and also adds to the Bank's customer base. The Branch Banking business, as we call it, already does a significant cross-sell of financial products. We expect this scale and product penetration to increase significantly. Our retail and small business deposits as -- our retail and small business deposits today are approximately 40% which we want to take to above 50% within the next 18 months or so. We intend to add 75 to 80 branches each year primarily in the metro urban locations to add to our branding, customer acquisition and servicing. I want to add here that for our non-metro urban centers, we -- our distribution is to add 100 in subsidiary, largely RBL Finserve. And as we have already reported, that itself has approximately 1,400 RBL Banking outlets or BC points. The fifth is what we are calling internally right now as Project Abacus. This is our internal neobank solution that we have been creating on a silent mode, if I may say, for the last 3 years or so. Our objective in doing so was to figure out how we could increase our customer base in Tier 1 cities in India, mainly our cards and branch banking segments without having to disproportionately invest in high upfront fixed costs. We are now prepared to take the leap and up the investment and exposure significantly in this platform. In 3 to 4 years, we plan to achieve exponential growth in total customer base, targeting to increase and expand this to 12 million to 14 million customers from the current 3 million to 4 million customers, who will engage with us for a variety of products and services spanning deposits, cards, loans, payments, demat, insurance, investments, et cetera. Sixth is our wholesale business. We are strengthening the wholesale banking franchise and enhancing our capabilities to work closely with corporate clients. We continue to add better quality names and keep our portfolio granular. This is something we achieved significantly over the last couple of years. And today, the quality of that portfolio is of a very high level. In terms of our other opportunities, while overall corporate demand has been muted, we have been making inroads through digital solutions, foreign exchange, trade and cash management and cost deposits also. Seventh, to build a robust technology backbone and infrastructure. Our approach of classical banking model, backed by strong digital framework has helped us create scale even in a tough period of time. In many of our applications, we have seen growth rates of about 50% during the last financial year. When I say applications, I mean digital applications. All of us -- all of this has been feasible because of our new technological solutions have helped us offer agile, reliable and superior solutions to enhance the customer experience and provide scale. As an example, we migrated more than 60 mission-critical applications to the cloud, including retail assets, branch and business banking corporations, human resources and customer-facing websites that allowed us to offer 24/7 services to our customers during the pandemic. Next, to continue to have a strong focus on risk and governance. Transaction practices, governance and credit quality monitoring mechanisms have gained increased impetus. The government and the regulators have tightened credit practices and reporting of delinquencies to create a better future for lending. Our bank has continuously invested in new technologies, processes and skill talent that has given us the ability to manage a challenging year and is creating a foundation for a robust future to tackle greater complexities and opportunities. Finally, a modern institution is as good as how it embeds with a variety of stakeholders and fulfills the broader mission of a socially anchored franchise. Being all this moving towards responsible banking. A key learning of the past decade has been that of inclusivity. We have taken it further at RBL Bank through a wide gamut of products and services, including responsible financing, reducing our environmental footprint by promoting digital banking platforms and conserving energy. Environmental and social, E&S, risk assessment is an integral part of the Bank's overall risk management framework. In response to the growing impact of the pandemic in July 2020, we supported relief efforts by placing orders for 70,000 masks with an NGO as our endeavor to increase awareness and protection against COVID-19 virus. In September 2020, we donated mobile medical vans in Maharashtra equipped with doctors, support staff, medicines and protective kits. In December 2020, we successfully raised over INR 5 crores through the banks RBL Bank's UMEED 1000 Cyclothon in support of girl child education. This has been our forte for several years, and this year, our performance was phenomenal as had been in previous years, too, all while living -- all of this happened while the pandemic was still on. Our care and commitment towards communities has been recognized by AsiaMoney by delivering to us the Best Bank Awards 2021, where we won this award for India's Best Bank for CSR in March 2021. So in conclusion, I think the message I want to give is that we are definitely here for the long haul. As I look into the future, eventually the world will conquer the virus, but all of us will need to maintain a continued vigilant stance. The pandemic has changed the world in many ways. Customers of financial services will use bank services not just through its branch and the various digital channels but also through the partner ecosystem. What is needed, therefore, is to look at the opportunity through different lenses. We have improved the resilience and strength of the Bank over the last 1.5 years. And now with the overall economic environment returning to normalcy, we expect to return to our pre-COVID momentum. Earnings trajectory and return ratios over the later part of the year itself, leading to sustaining the same over the next year and beyond. Our culture of agility, capabilities, the emotions of connectedness and empathy as well as the courage of experiment makes us who we are at RBL Bank. We are leveraging our partnerships with startups, fintechs and even established players to offer our services through these partners. We are building a team that's empowered, curious and ready to meet the evolving requirements with speed. To conclude, I would like to extend gratitude to all our shareholders for believing in our vision and us. With you, as an integral part of our journey, we'll continue to rise and grow Stronger Together, as we call it this here, Apno Ke Saath. Thank you very much.

[Operator Instructions] Now I invite questions from members who have registered themselves as speaker one by one. I request the moderator to please start.

Our first speaker is Mr. Pasan Mossouri .

I'm Pasan Mossouri from Samrai .

Yes, sir, [Foreign Language]

[Foreign Language] Under the dynamic leadership of Mr. Ahuja, [indiscernible] and Board of Directors, the bank has done a lot of development, whatever figures given by the various imminent personalities during the last 0.5 hours, that is as per the parameters of the bank. Those figures are above the bench -- benchmark of the banking system. There is no note that the Bank is developing in the proper direction your achievement is great. We have a great of dynamic leadership because whatever word you have given during the past period that the share will be quoted up to the more or less 700 that have been achieved before 3 years back. Due to the pandemic condition and adverse condition to the banking system, there is some setback to the profit ratio, but this is not the first time. During the past period of the banking history, a number of times, bank has not paid the dividend but we have great pleasure that your development is in the proper direction, and we have a great faith upon our leadership because under your leadership, again, the glorious days will come back towards the bank. You may have good vision. According to your vision within coming years, the Bank again in the share market, achieve the target whatever you want, once it will be passed more than INR 1,000 also. That is expectation from the shareholders. I suppose that your vision, your leadership, whatever the steps you are going to take, that will be beneficiary to the Bank and shareholders. The staff has also contributed a lot in the pandemic condition. That staff member's contribution is also a great one in the development of this bank. You developed the Bank from the INR 3,000 crores to the more than INR 75,000 crores. That is great achievement. And in the future, we have great expectation from you. Please clear what type of vision of yours that we will receive the same glorious days in the share market for our price of the share in the future. Thank you, sir. I wish I want some sort of clarification of what your next development and next vision about the bank's development.

Thank you for those remarks. And within the next few weeks, we intend to, once again, as the last part of this COVID impact is taken care of, I think we will be in a position to give all our stakeholders a very clear vision statement for the coming years as we did previously. As you know, the uncertainties of the last 18 months made things very unpredictable, but I think it is important for all of us here who are running this bank to be able to give a clear path road map with reasonable degree of predictability to all our stakeholders, and we hope to be able to do that very shortly. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Mr. Arun Boppana. Mr. Arun?

Hello.

Yes, please turn on your video.

Hello.

Yes, sir. Please, you can speak.

Is the video clear?

Sir, please go ahead.

Hello.

Yes, it's clear, sir.

I'm in attendance of this AGM through VC. Thanks to the bank it has made even available, kind of a [indiscernible] and complements to the management for healthy capital adequacy ratio at 17.5%, remains [indiscernible] liquidity. But performing through extreme pandemic stress, we have bring together for seamless services, ramping up investment in digital technology for long haul of transformational journey in my questions. What our India's structural advantage for high-growth path for RBL? So how many COVID victims did we have in RBL? And how did we take care of their families? What are the cost? The vaccine audit, you said earlier 70% is done, when will the balance 30% of staff be vaccinated? And what is the success rate of vaccination? Any casualties during vaccination? Do we use this solar panels to produce emissions in line with the international emission control at climate Paris? And RBL commitment towards inclusive growth, what are your plans? Projected value creation in the long term for all our stakeholders. What is the higher share price of RBL in a lifetime, and what are the lowest and when? Why world richer now but heavily in debt, I don't know why. What do you think is the cost? Lastly, eventually world will conquer the virus with race between virus and vaccines. In conclusion, I wish RBL to succeed. I wish the world to be richer and its people to live free of debt and RBL to increase shareholder value year-on-year. with customer has goal with simpler processes, with more branches in rural areas, too. I wish you all the best. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir. Thank you. Yes. Sir, just I'll pick up 1 or 2 points from what you said on Page 107 of the annual report, some of the questions that you have on vaccination, et cetera, are all being highlighted. So if I may direct you to that. And several of your other questions are also addressed, but we have noted some of your other comments with appreciation. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Suresh Chougule.

Suresh Chougule [Foreign Language].

[Foreign Language] Thank you.

Our next speaker is Viraj Mehta.

Can you hear me?

Please turn on your video.

Yes, Mr. Mehta.

Yes. At the outset, I would like to congratulate the team for good performance on CASA and deposit trends. However, in the last few years, our [ 1-year ] forward [indiscernible] has declined from 3x to 1x, leading to shareholder value destruction. I would like to flag [indiscernible] that in FY '21, our asset quality performance plus PA, plus technical written off has been deplorable compared with our peers. We do not deny the COVID challenge, but our performance versus peers is really poor. So can we -- so the question is, can you please walk us through how we have fared in terms of asset quality versus our industry peers in segments like credit card, site and ATM? And I would also like to understand what changes have you made with respect to credit filters. That's it.

Thank you for those comments and questions. Actually, as I mentioned in my speech, it's all a question of the business model and focus that each institution has had. I think the peer comparison, in our case, the -- what you are probably looking at is different from the way, perhaps, we should look at things. In our card segment, if you see, our performance benchmarks compare as well or favorably compared to the other card players. These are detailed, published information that is available. And periodically, it is updated. There are bureaus and others who also throw up data. And in every quarterly announcement and our commentary, we are highlighting the details. If you go back to just the previous quarter's commentary and you look at our deck that we put out in public domain, it has very detailed data on all these competitive benchmarks and characteristics of performance. So therefore, on the contrary, I will maintain that in the card space, to your question, we have performed as well and, in some cases, better than our other, if I may say, comparable group. Our market share has also remained intact through this period. Some players have lost market share. And you should also understand that we had a new org plan in this segment. The top 4 players in the card industry for the last 15, 20 years have not changed. They are the same people. There were -- there are other players at #5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 position. You have to appreciate that in this short period of time we have entered this segment, we have established a market-leading position, reached #5. Obviously, we must have done a good job as far as that is concerned. And as I mentioned, despite the COVID impact, we remain profitable. In micro banking, once again, I think if you look at comparable data, the fact of the matter is that micro banking is not -- is limited to a few small finance banks. And as far as the mainstream commercial banks are concerned, there are only 1 or 2 others. And other than that, they are the nonbanking micro banking companies which are in this business. So I think you need to look at comparable data from this set of players. And again, I must say that we -- our performance has been not worse than most of them. It is possible that perhaps 1 or 2 out of the 15, 20 may have performed marginally better, and that is largely depending on the states to which they led. As you know, this sector has been impacted by many factors even before COVID. COVID is the last, if I may say, big issue that has affected this space largely because of the disproportionate impact of the second wave, particularly in the rural parts of the country. But even prior to that, there were so many event risks that were there. In terms of natural calamities in certain states, certain political factors in certain states as you're, I'm sure, aware of and read about and so on and so forth. And if you have a slightly higher exposure in these states, then your impact will be relatively higher. So what we have done, in this space particularly, in the last 12, 18 months, we have reduced concentrations on states significantly. We have diversified across states. We've reduced the concentration per state, and we have constantly revisited the filters to, therefore, mitigate the risks in that portfolio. And as a result, again, I repeat very strongly that on a comparable basis, we have come out quite well. Structurally also -- I mean, I don't want to take up everybody's time today. But structurally also, the way we do business with our partners where -- with our other BC partners, we have structured like first loans guarantee, FLDG, et cetera, further mitigate the credit cost of this business on our bank. So the truth is a little different, and that is one part. However, you cannot -- we cannot take away from the fact that as a bank of our size, scale and vintage, we obviously can't compete with the players who have been far more established, which are far more competitive with us and cost of burn, et cetera. So we have necessarily had to focus on segments which give us growth opportunity and which give us an opportunity to generate massive returns, which has held off very well for the last so-called 9 years up until FY '19. And if anything, for the most part, it is because of the nature of our portfolio that the impact of the COVID has been somewhat more severe. Having said that, as I mentioned very clearly in my speech today and in my previous announcements and the quarterly meetings, we have completely retrofitted the organization. I mean this has been a busy period for us in terms of taking various learnings and holding all the new, if I may say, paradigm in place, making the bank much more future ready, much more resilient and giving it the ability to grow across a much more diverse segment of products and services and also grow in an environment where the risk paradigm may have changed completely, taking into account the digital future of the economy, et cetera, et cetera. So all of the steps have been taken. They have been highlighted. I request you to go through our annual report. I think it's a well-put-together, very detailed, very comprehensive document. And many people have already written to us, like communicating, saying that the presentation in the annual report is of high quality, high caliber, high on transparency, disclosure, et cetera. And I think it will -- it should provide many of your answers, but we can always connect separately.

Our next speaker is [indiscernible]. [indiscernible] has not joined, so our next speaker is Mr. Yusuf Rangwala. Mr. Yusuf? Mr. Yusuf?

[indiscernible] Hello? Hello? Can you hear me well, sir? Hello? Can I speak? Hello? I'm speaking from Mumbai. My name is Yusuf Rangwala. I'm very -- yes, sir. Sir, I'm very happy with our bank, RBL Bank, which is [indiscernible].

[indiscernible]

You cannot hear my voice proper now? Now, sir, you can hear my voice?

No, we can. We can.

Go ahead.

Yes, sir. I'm talking, sir. [indiscernible]. Sir, I'm speaking from Mumbai. Sir, I'm very happy with our [indiscernible] [ 70 50, 78 ] [indiscernible]. But on the month of January, February, can you please call us the shareholder at your office and say [indiscernible] because the 70 50 [indiscernible] 3 years back. So as you promised, sir, you would [indiscernible] COVID-19, anyone infected at our bank? The total number of ATMs are represented. The foreign branches are Canada, Africa, U.S. [indiscernible].

Yusuf, COVID -- as soon as COVID effect is a little -- if I may say, if we reach -- if we are safe from this COVID situation, I think, obviously, we are also very keen and eager to start physical interactions. And ideally, we would all love to have this AGM also in physical format. But I think it is unfortunate that the last 2 years has coincided with our post 75 years situation. And schools are closed. Colleges are closed. Like it has been what it has been. And everybody is eager to get back to normal life. So as soon as normalcy is there, we will definitely arrange a proper interaction with shareholders, as you have requested. And to your quick question on global footprint, we are purely a domestic bank. We have no global footprint or branches, except one. We have an offshore center in GIFT City in Ahmedabad. And that is our so-called option center, as we call it, which allows us to do cross-border transactions. But that is under the rules and regulations of the country.

Our next speaker is Prakashini Shenoy.

Hello? Hello? Hello? Can you hear me, sir?

Yes, please, we can hear you. Yes, we can hear you.

Yes. Yes. Respected honorable Chairman, Sir Prakash Chandra, other dignitaries on the Board and my fellow shareholders, good afternoon to all of you. I received the annual report through email, which is colorful, informative and contains all the information set for the corporate governance. I thank the company secretary and our team for the same. So we are living in a day where everything is unpredictable, like including our existence. In such circumstances, running a bank like ours is a great thing. I appreciate, Chairman, sir. The Board member has given a beautiful picture regarding the bank, its working, its future. It was really an excellent information which has given. Sir, I have a few questions. My first question is, after demonetization, this global pandemic, coronavirus, has put a added focus on digital payments. I wanted to know what are we doing in this front. Number two, how beneficial is our bank's digital platform in the current times? Is our bank educating customers on dos and don'ts? Please let me know. I wish the bank good luck for a bright future and pray God that the profit of the bank shall reach the peak in due course. Sir, I support all the resolutions put forth in today's meeting. Thank you, sir.

I'll ask my colleague, Mr. Rajeev, executive director, to specifically address your question on digital operations of the bank.

Yes. Thank you. I just want to share that technology, digital has been a focus of the bank from the get-go. And over the last 2, 3 years, as the country has become a lot more digitally oriented, the government has promoted electronic payments, especially as a means to reduce the inconvenience customers are caused as well as promote inclusion. We have played a very, very major role. For our small sites, we do a lot of payments, not just for urban and metro India but also for rural India. And there, we work with a variety of partners and have offered some strong back-end infrastructure in terms of payments. Especially at the time of COVID when many of us were working from home, we ensured that our technology allowed us, our customers to operate 24/7 on a very, very large scale. And I think this has been possible because of the early investments we've made. And I can assure the members that technology, digital safety and cybersecurity are going to be very critical for the bank's future. We are a midsized bank. We don't have a long brand history. We don't have the same level of footprint. We have to leverage technology and digital, which is how India is working. And our bank is pretty much focused on this. And hopefully, you will learn a lot more. In his speech, both the Chairman and the MD CEO talked about digital technology. We referred to some of the initiatives we've taken on payments, Project Abacus, which is our way of turning into a neobank. All of these investments have been made. And I think over the next 6, 12 months, you will hear a lot more about this. And hopefully, all of you will be more proud of the achievements of RBL Bank, especially in these areas. I want to finish the comment on technology and digital with one very important thing. All the technology and digital will not help if we do not have a service and equity in our dealings in the way we work with our customers and within the employees. So in our bank, we always talk about a big tech and a big heart. Both have to go together. That's the only way we'll remain socially relevant for customers as well as for the society at large. Thank you.

Very good.

Our next speaker is Tamal Majumder. Mr. Tamal?

Myself, Tamal Kumar Majumder, an equity shareholder from Kolkata. Sir, I firstly want to share my anguish as regards to your company secretary's view is concerned. Only [ TMCRs ] are attending the meeting. So if you allow 3 minutes, another one shareholder is not coming. So you want to complete 400 pages in 27 minutes. When you're counter passing, if you notice in Tata, Mahindra, they used to be in the meeting for 4 hours, minimum 4 hours sometimes to be in the meeting. You have shown your respect to the shareholders. You have shown your respect to the shareholders. You are replying, all the points. So in this scenario, it looks very odd. Why don't you allow shareholders to share, to talk from their heart, share their thoughts in this regard? Because one shareholder who did his homework, reading all the papers, all the papers, all the pages, he should be allowed to share his thoughts . Not 0.5 hour, not 15 minutes, at least 5, 10 minutes. He should be allowed. So this gives a wrong signal [indiscernible] one day, the Chairman, the entire Board is [indiscernible], shareholders for only 30 minutes. I think it will not happen. And the new trend come -- a new trend came. If they are not happy with your questions, they will disconnect your line saying it's a technical fault, the new trend. So I think this will not happen in this regard. I am not going to take much more time. But I have gone through, and I'm going to share my thoughts. Sir, the [indiscernible] in the year is commendable despite the COVID scenario. But due to second wave of COVID, a further provision of INR 604 crores. For COVID-related issues, a huge loss of [ INR 947 crores ] booked by retail banking segment in the first quarter of 2022 and Q1 of financial year '22. The bank booked a loss of INR 459 crores in the Q1 of financial year '22. Would you share with us your expectation from the remaining part of the year? Sir, do you believe that total provision of COVID-related issues amounting to INR 604 crores will be enough to deal with the matter during financial year '22 or any further provision will be required? Sir, I have noted that during financial year '21, net interest margin decreased to 4.48% from 4.56% in financial year '20. Taking into account the current scenario, do you believe that the bank will be able to keep -- able to increase it further, keep the NIM margin at 4.404% at least given the remaining part of the year? Sir, as per your segment result, retail banking incurring losses in Q4 of financial year '21 as well as Q1 of financial year '22. What is your thinking in this regard? When do you believe that it will again become a profit center for the bank? And sir, it is nice to note that CASA deposits increased by 36% to [indiscernible] INR 23,264 crores during financial year '21. Actually, a high percentage of CASA deposit helps the bank to decrease its total cost and also helps it to offer schemes with attractive interest rates. But taking into account RBL current account rules to be affected from 1/11/2021, do you believe that it will decrease as well as -- total amount as well as the number of accounts as related to current accounts? Because new policy is coming with effect from 1 -- 1st November 2021 as we get parity for these accounts. Sir, the bank mentioned in the report that they will focus more on granular and retail deposit in the coming years. You also mentioned in your speech. And -- but what I noted, the 20 largest depositors contributed INR 11,209 crores or [ 15.33% ] of our total deposit during financial year '21. Sir, there are several models are working now. DCB Bank is following. They are not depending on high-value deposits. They are depending not on CASA deposits. They are depending on ARBs , and their share is 62% with a ticket size of only INR 2 crores. And their CASA deposit contribution is 22%. IDFC Bank is following a new -- another model. They are depending on 82% on granular deposits and 18% on high-value deposits. Sir, depending on pile deposits, it's a risky proposal, and what is your thinking in this regard? Why do you think the company will be more able to depend on granular deposits in the coming years? And sir, the bank has 429 branches and 412 ATMs as on 31st March 2021 . Why the bank is not taking steps to increase its number of ATMs for the convenience of its customers? Would you please share with us your ATM expansion policy and target for the current year? How many branches, banking units the bank management wants to add during the remaining part of 2022? As far as I know, as of 30th June, you added 6 branches. And sir, you also mentioned about the Mastercard. You are coming out of that. But please share your thoughts in respect of its impact on our financials. Is there any impact on our financials? And how -- and it is noted that RBL -- you also mentioned the RBL started issuing credit cards on Visa payment network from 15th September 2021. What about existing debit and credit cards issued on Mastercard platform? And sir, during the financial year '21, the number of products decreased to 352. Last year, it was 387. And amount involved increased more than 2x at INR 86 crores. INR 85 crores from a figure of only INR 41 crores during financial year '21 -- '20. For a new bank, this trend is very alarming. And what step the bank has taken to stem that out? What about software detection -- for early detection of frauds? And whether the bank has taken steps against its employees, officials for such miss. And last point I want to ask, just, sir, for subsidiary, RBL Finserve limited book debt by a PBT of INR 23 crores against a turnover of INR 383 crores during financial year '21. What is your expectation from the subsidiary during financial year '22? And lastly, one thing I have to know. I hope it's a good bank. I noted your passion in replying to those points. I really enjoyed your passion as regards the bank is concerned. But look, call centers are not following your end. I have a credit card. I actually surrendered it because they talked in such fast manners. So when you are a passionate banker, I think this should be trailed in such fashion in order to get more business. Nothing more to add.

So sir, first, I must say that we appreciate all your comments and observations. There were several of them. I think let me address some of them, and then I will perhaps ask my colleague, Rajeev, who is the current speaker of the bank from a numbers point of view, to address as many as we can today with the kind of time constraints that we do have. I think on the larger picture, the -- let me tell you that our -- I mentioned in my commentary also, there are -- in the year FY '21, our card business was profitable. The business that would not -- that was more affected was the micro banking business, among the various digital businesses; and some of the unsecured personal loan business that we were doing, which we have since stocked. Since you have such a thorough tracker of our bank's performance and financials, I may request you to refer back to our last quarterly commentary, where some very detailed, if I may say, detailed data and responses are provided to each of your questions as far as the numbers are concerned, where we gave the -- by each business segment, we actually gave the NPA numbers, the provision numbers, the credit card numbers, et cetera, et cetera. And we also gave an indication that because of the buildup of stress on the book, how much time more will it take to absorb most of that impact, which is largely in the second quarter of this year in terms of slippages and a smaller proportion in the third quarter. And we had suggested that from the fourth quarter of this year, the -- we should start heading back to normal business and profit momentum of the bank. Just referring back to the commentary already made because I cannot say new stuff right now. This is a public forum. But just to repeat what we had said very recently, that we do expect to be profitable -- return to profitability this very quarter and then keep improving from there. And in the fourth quarter of this year, we expect to reach our normal trajectory of performance and profitability, where we expect all our businesses to be profitable. Even as we stand today, the credit card business is not only profitable. It has bounced back very nicely and, in fact, doing better than pre-COVID levels. The impact of the Mastercard bank was there for 2 months. As it is, then the second wave was on in the first quarter of this year, hardly any card sourcing was happening because of the lockdown and restrictions. So anyway, that activity has remained constrained, restricted or stopped for a long period of time. We started reviving that sometime in July. But then this Mastercard situation happened. Our existing customers, debit card, credit card on Mastercard or Visa platform were unaffected, to answer that part of your question. It is only -- the [indiscernible] was only for new originations, new customer additions. So that was there for a couple of months. We were the earliest, fastest bank to be able to sign up with another partner, i.e., Visa. And as you yourself noted, on September 16, we started issuing new cards on the -- new credit cards on the Visa platform. Our expectation is that we should be able to do at least at a run rate of 100,000 cards per month, all things going well. That is the expectation, that we should be able to do 100,000 cards per month, certainly, starting October, but we will do almost that number in September also. So actually, if you see fiscal year '21, '22, from a card point of view, it will be a growth year because last year, because of the overall pandemic being there for most of the year, there were hardly any accretion to our card base in 2021. But in '21/'22, we expect between 700,000 to 800,000 net card additions in fiscal year FY '21/'22. So this business will not only grow. It will be profitable. And it is our most profitable business. So this is something I want you to understand. On the micro banking side, across the industry, while there has been improvement because, rural India was very badly impacted and several states were impacted even more, the bounce back and collection efficiencies in the micro banking business have been relatively slower in terms of pickup. So while they may have dipped to a low of mid-70s in the worst part of the second wave, they have improved since every month and are probably hovering around the 90% mark right now. If they improve by another 2, 3 percentage points, then that business also becomes profitable once again. Our other businesses are doing well. Our corporate business, our wholesale business is doing well. As I mentioned in my speech and in my last quarter commentary, we have significantly tightened the returns in those businesses, and we have reduced concentrations, bulkiness, et cetera, and we have started growing again in that business with a much cleaner and much higher-quality rating profile of the balance sheet there. So the quality of business, quality of customers and the level of risk in that business model is much better than before, and we are doing incremental business, maintaining the new risk paradigm. So overall, it's actually an encouraging picture. As far as this year is concerned, second half of the year and going forward in the future, you will see the growth momentum and the profit momentum coming back to normal levels. And with our increased digital footprint, cross-sell of products and services, I think in terms of returns also, return -- both in terms of return on equity, return on assets, you will see very steady and progressive movement happening as far as RBL Bank is concerned. You mentioned about NIMs. NIMs, obviously, when there was a period of forbearance, moratorium and also a significant part of the portfolio across banks, which became nonperforming, obviously, that part of the portfolio, we don't accrue interest. So therefore, there had to be some reversal of interest in some part of the portfolio, which were impacted because of COVID. And until new business happens, the growth of improvement out there will be constrained. In other words, as -- we have to grow our asset book to increase our interest income beyond the levels that prevail right now. So -- but we will not -- our NIMs have been in the 4-point -- between 4.1% and 4.3% range, okay? And I'm confident that we will retain it there. NIMs are not -- they may remain somewhat, if I may say, modest in the second quarter of this year, which is the prevailing quarter. But we'll start seeing improvement again from the third quarter. And for the year as a whole, it will come up to be in similar territory as compared to last year, give or take 5, 10 basis points. So there, again, the picture is quite reasonable and satisfactory. So we need not worry about NIM compression from where -- from the current levels. I think I've tried to answer as many questions I could remember.

Top 20.

Yes. I mean retail deposits, CASA and all that, I think that is a question that has to be viewed in the context of the kind of bank we took over 10 years ago. And at that time, there was no retail bank, 0. So reasonably, as we had hardly any branch footprint, we had physical presence only in 2 states of the country. And we had no brand. We had a very difficult situation that we were trying to recover from. So I think it's a journey. And if you track our journey year-on-year on year-on-year, and in the last 10, 15, 20 quarters, even quarter-by-quarter, in all these aspects that you are mentioning, we have shown improvement. Our CASA has grown from 2011 to today every year. Our retail deposits for the last several quarters have been growing every quarter. So -- and for every INR 100 of new deposit that is coming into the bank, more than 80% is retail now. So that is indeed the focus and strategy of the bank. And the good thing is that as a bank, now we have achieved a certain size and scale. You mentioned 429 branches and as many ATMs. The fact of the matter is every bank which needs to have a pan-India presence, a minimum threshold of size, scale and footprint, a national brand in which you need all these things and many more things, of course, very strong service architecture, technology, et cetera. So all these things take time to build. And having crossed 400-odd branches, we all believe that we need another 200, 300 branches at least and a much wider digital footprint to be able to be truly competitive with some of our bigger, more established players in the industry. So there is still a journey ahead of us. You asked how many branches. I think we would add 75 to 80 branches this fiscal year. We may add a similar number or a little higher next year. But the target is to get to a threshold, which we believe is the critical mass required for a relevant national banking institution of around 700-plus branches. So there is a little journey ahead. That will help us both in terms of reality of deposits, more retail and also further improve our cost of funds to make us even more competitive. So that is indeed what we are doing, investing, and that is indeed our clearly articulated strategy. And it is entirely to your point. So it is not different from what your expectation might be in this respect. So directionally, all these parameters are improving. Directionally, every -- you can see our information directionally. This is improving. And I think the pace of improvement is also very satisfactory according to me and compares well with other industry benchmarks. So Jaideep, I've more or less answered.

Yes, I think.

Yes. So I think because of positive time, I've done my best to answer as many of your questions as possible. We are always available to interact with you off-line and address any other concerns that you may have. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Mr. [ Abhishek Shah ]. Mr. Abhishek ?

Hello? Yes. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Yes. So my question is that we have multiple businesses from corporate to SME, loan against property. We have credit cards. We have micro finance. But it's very difficult to understand from the annual report that -- what is the profitability for each of those, right? So while you give an overall sense of the NIMs, but it's very difficult to understand, for example, credit cards. You say it's profitable, but it's very difficult to compare. I think earlier, we were showing credit card separately. But it's very difficult to know that, okay, how much did we lose on micro finance since you are saying the last year was bad from a micro finance perspective. So it's very difficult to ascertain that. So that was one. So if you can share those details and even going forward, maybe in the quarterly and annual report as well. The second thing is if I -- like credit cards is one of our strong areas, where we have achieved a leadership. And as you mentioned in one of the earlier questions, that very few banks have been able to do that, so I think that's quite commendable. But the fact remains that credit card is only, say, 15%, 16% of the book. And some of the other things are dragging the overall performance down. So while credit cards may be comparable to the peers, but some of the other divisions have not been as profitable or maybe because of COVID, there have been losses -- loan losses on some of those. So my question really is on the focus like going forward also. I think in the last -- I read somewhere that we are entering into vehicle finance, affordable housing. So my question really is that what is the focus area going forward. If I were to look, say, next 2, 3, 5 years, what does RBL look like? Because if -- meaning -- I think -- so that's really my question because when I look at the annual report, when I look at all your communications, it seems that there's no clear-cut strategy. We are a little all over the place, and now we're adding 2 more segments. So that is the second question. And the third was really on fintech, where, of course, there are a lot of players. And as a consumer, we see that, right, where some of these players are offering loans, et cetera, in a very different manner, very different customer service. And you mentioned Project Abacus in the last quarterly presentation. But again, I was not able to figure out that what really does that mean. And I'm sure as you may sort of give more details as we go forward, but just those 3 broad questions I asked.

Yes. Thanks, [ Abhishek ]. I'll try to answer them as quickly as possible because much of that information we have put out already. If you go back to our last quarterly commentary, segment-wise information was provided, both in terms of portfolio quality, provisioning and other aspects. So those financial details were provided, yes? I don't know in what detail there, but the segment data is there even in the annual report. But more importantly, I mean, in the analyst commentaries, we do provide a lot of this information in absolute great detail and transparency. Just to tell you, the -- in terms of -- we don't have -- in fact, one of the limitations of our bank is a relatively narrow product suite. In fact, if you compare with any of the well-established banks, there are many more product segments, many more. We actually need to diversify and have more. And in the past, limitations of size, scale, branding, ability to invest, grow and lack of competitiveness did not allow us to play in certain segments, which were already participated by several players and strongly competed -- very competitive, so intensely competitive space. So the whole idea was to build that capacity, capability, competitiveness in the institution, and that requires us to build both physical scale and build our technology capabilities and build our talent base, et cetera, et cetera. So it's an evolution. But if anything, I think we need to add more products. Historically and up until now, our main business segments have been wholesale banking, which is corporate lending either to large corporate or mid-corporates. So the large -- we call it corporate banking to the next -- to those small, medium enterprises, we call it commercial banking. So that's on the wholesale side. Simple, very clear. On the retail side, the main businesses have been micro banking, cards. We started micro banking very early, about 9, 10 years ago, and cards came a few years later. And micro banking -- so these have been our 2 main clients on the retail side. And we have been doing what is called some business lending against what is called loan against property. This is very standard of prospects every time we'll have portfolios. Some will have more of something. Some will have less of something. But we didn't have home loans. We didn't have vehicle finance. We didn't have tractor finance. We didn't have [ gold ] loans. So we were actually lacking some of the much-needed secured loan products, which a more complete bank and a more established bank should have. But to do those businesses, you have to have the right apparatus, wherewithal, competitiveness, scale, technology, et cetera. So now we think we're at a point where those investments can be profitably big. So that's the first part of the answer. Micro banking, as I have said repeatedly, was the most impacted by the COVID across the industry. And I have made that very clear. Our performance benchmarks there are no worse than any peers. In fact, better than most. Having said that, micro banking has been a highly profitable business for the bank up until FY '20, up until 15, 18 months ago. It was one of our most profitable businesses and has been for the previous 5, 6 years. So the impact was entirely according to the [indiscernible] on COVID situation and because of the impact that COVID had on those pockets of the country and partly because of the event risks, which I've also highlighted earlier, in terms of calamity, some political issues, et cetera. We are expecting this business to bounce back or start recovering from a profitability perspective from the second half of this year. It will not happen in the first half of the year. As I mentioned, collection efficiencies have yet not reached that level. But in the medium to long term, this is one of our key businesses, which will give us good returns over time. And that is why in my speech where I said that there are a few businesses where we think we will focus on and focus on with a very clear strategy is micro banking, which, I said, moving to [indiscernible] banking was second in my list after cards. So clearly, I think that is purely circumstantial, the impact on that business in the last 12, 15 months. The card economics are all then in our quarterly data, yes, and in the commentary that follows. We talk about our growth returns. We talk about our credit cost there. We talk about different buckets of delinquencies. All the detail is there, yes? And obviously, it's not in front of me right now, but all the details have been shared with everybody. So -- and if you want that again, I'll request my colleague to give it to you off-line after this session is over. So thank you for your comments, and I hope I've been able to satisfy you.

Our next speaker is Mr. Bhimrao Bhujappa . Mr. Bhimrao ?

Sir, can you hear me?

Yes, sir.

Yes. [Foreign Language] [indiscernible] shareholder call benefit data. Another one, it is [indiscernible] digital banking. Digital banking is [indiscernible]. [Foreign Language]

[Foreign Language]

[Foreign Language]

[Foreign Language]

Thank you, shareholders, for your queries. I hope management has been able to answer most of them. As per the applicable provisions of the company, the bank has made arrangements for remote electronic voting, which was opened from Friday, September 17, 10 a.m. to Monday, September 20 until 5 p.m. If you have done the remote e-voting, you need not vote again. However, the bank is also providing e-voting facility at the AGM for those members who have not exercised their right to vote through remote e-voting. Please also note that the Board has appointed Mr. Alwyn D'souza, practicing company secretary, as a scrutinizer to scrutinize the voting and remote e-voting process in a fair and transparent manner. The voting will be scrutinized by Mr. D'souza, and the result of remote e-voting and voting at the AGM will be consolidated. And the final results on all the resolutions as set out in the notice of the AGM shall be declared within 2 working days from the conclusion of this AGM. In case you have not cast your vote by remote e-voting and wish to cast your vote now, you can do so during the AGM. The instructions for remote e-voting during the AGM is same as the instructions mentioned in the remote e-voting in the notice of the AGM. The e-voting on all the 15 resolutions as set out in the notice of the AGM will be kept open from 15 minutes from the conclusion of this AGM today. The proceedings of the AGM and e-voting results shall be intimated to the stock exchanges, along with the scrutinizer's report and simultaneously shall also be published on the website of the bank and on the website of CDSL. All the compliances with respect to the AGM shall be adhered to by the bank. With this, I give my sincere thanks to all of you for your attendance at the AGM today. Thank you very much.