The Federal Bank Limited

Ladies and Chairman, good day and welcome to the Q2F527 conference call hosted by Federal Bank. As a reminder, all personal lines will be in the list and only more, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on your touchstone phone. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Swavik Roy, Head, Investor Relations, The Federal Bank Limited. Thank you. And over to you, sir.

Thanks, Pran. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our earnings call. We have announced the results. I'm hoping all of you have gone through it already. And we are pleased to share that the bank has delivered a strong performance this quarter. We have with us today our MD and CEO, Mr. K.V. Smanian, along with the entire senior leadership team, who will take you through the performance and the key developments that happened in the quarter that went by. With that, I will hand it over to Mr. Manil for his opening remark. Over to you, sir.

Thank you, Javed. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Federal Bank's quarterly results call. Let me begin by briefing you on some changes to our board. Virat Jivanji, who has been our National Leader of Consumer Banking, joins our board, and we look forward to his continued leadership. I am also pleased to welcome Rajesh Warrior to the board. He is strong as an independent director. His strong technology background and experience will be valuable as we continue to strengthen our capabilities in the technology and AI areas. I would also like to place on record our sincere appreciation for Ramanan Munkur for his valuable contribution and service to the bank over the past five years. We thank him for his guidance and association with the Federal Bank and wish him the very best. Coming to the quarter, We have delivered a strong performance underpinned by sustained momentum on the liability side, disciplined growth on the asset side and continued focus on fees and operating efficiency. A significant milestone this quarter has been our average CASA deposits crossing 1 lakh crores. This reflects the progress we have made in strengthening our liability franchise and improving the quality of our deposit mix. We have also garnered our meaningful share of FCNRB deposits under the special window, participating at a quantum and economics that we believe are appropriate for us. On the asset side, we have continued to grow in a calibrated and disciplined manner, with healthy momentum across our chosen segments. Our focus remains on pursuing quality growth while maintaining disciplined while maintaining the discipline on risk-adjusted returns, which continues to improve each quarter. As we have articulated in our annual report, sustained momentum and discipline remain central to our approach. The progress we are making on both sides of the balance sheet reflects this commitment. A stronger liability franchise combined with disciplined asset growth is helping sustain our NIM trajectory. And we remain confident in its underlying resilience. The evolving interest rate cycle should provide an additional supportive factor as we move forward. Beyond margins, we have delivered a strong performance on fee income. Fee income as a proportion of average assets has reached an all-time high with performance broad-based across various fee-generating businesses. At the same time, we have maintained discipline on operating expenses and kept Our Cost to Income Trajectory Under Control If we look at the guidance we provided about a year and a half ago, we have by and large tracked well against our stated objectives on NIM, ROA and fee income with certain parameters actually outperforming the anticipated metrics. Our profitability trajectory and profitability Paid growth reflect the underlying strength of the franchise and progress we are making towards our strategic objectives. Our reported profitability for the quarter also incorporates the impact of the change in accounting policy related to ESOP expenses. Venkat will later explain on this call the accounting treatment and its implications in more detail. Looking ahead, we remain constructive about the balanced quarters of the financial year. We will continue to pursue growth with discipline, strengthen the quality of our earnings and remain focused on delivering sustainable value for all our stakeholders. With that, I will hand it over to Venkat to take you through the financial performance and the key numbers in greater detail. Venkat.