Bajaj Finance’s consolidated PAT rose 22 per cent year-on-year to ₹3,639 crore in Q3 FY24. The consolidated results include the earnings of wholly-owned subsidiaries Bajaj Housing Finance and Bajaj Financial Securities.
Consolidated AUM crossed the ₹3-lakh crore mark during the quarter to stand at ₹3.1-lakh crore as of December 2023, growing by ₹20,704 crore during the quarter and 35 per cent y-o-y.
The number of new loans booked during the quarter grew 26 per cent y-o-y to 98.6 lakh. Customer franchise rose 22 per cent to 804 lakh, recording the highest-ever quarterly increase of 38.5 lakh customers.
Net interest margin
Net interest income (NII) increased 29 per cent y-o-y to ₹7,655 crore. Net interest margin (NIM) fell 11 bps quarter-on- quarter owing to increase in risk weights and higher incremental cost of funds.
Cost of funds in Q3 was 7.76 per cent, an increase of 9 bps sequentially. As a result, the company has increased rates across all portfolios by 20-30 bps.
“While net interest margin continues to soften gradually on account of lagged effect of cost of funds increase, in Q3 FY24, elevated loan losses and impact of Regulatory action have led to profit growth being lower by approximately 5-6 per cent,” it said in a release.
On a standalone basis, Bajaj Finance posted a net profit of ₹3,177 crore, up 21 per cent y-o-y, led by 30 per cent growth in NII to ₹6,973 crore. AUM was up 38 per cent to ₹2.3-lakh crore.
Consolidated loan losses and provisions were ₹1,248 crore, with provision cover on stage 3 assets at 62 per cent. The company holds a management and macro-economic overlay of ₹590 crore as of December 2023.
Gross NPA ratio improved to 0.95 per cent from 1.14 per cent a year ago, and net NPA ratio to 0.37 per cent from 0.41 per cent.
The company raised ₹9,097 crore of capital during the quarter, taking the capital adequacy ratio stood at 23.9 per cent of which tier-I capital was 22.8 per cent. The increase in risk weights on certain consumer loans led to a hit of 290 bps on the capital, without which CRAR would have been 26.8 per cent.
On the RBI’s November 15 directive to stop sanction and disbursal of loans under two lending products, ‘eCOM’ and ‘Insta EMI Card’, the company said that it has conducted a comprehensive review of Guidelines on Digital Lending and KFS and is implementing requisite corrective actions.
