Sell

Equitas continued to post dismal results, as it slipped into loss of Rs2.2bn, mainly due to persistent higher MFI/non-MFI stress and accelerated standard provisions on MFI loans (Rs1.9bn, mainly to ease provisioning in 9MFY26).

AU SFB reported weak core performance, with margins declining sharply by 40bps QoQ to 5.4%, although higher treasury gains and surprisingly lower nonstaff opex, amid bidding for a Universal Banking license led to a ~6% PAT beat, at Rs5.8bn/1.5% RoA.

AU SFB continues to grow its credit portfolio at a healthy pace, defying industry trend and the declining MFI/Card book. However, higher CoF and interest reversal on MFI/Card NPAs has led to continued margin correction (10bps QoQ).

Fusion Finance (Fusion) has bolstered its balance sheet by upping its provision cover across Stage-1/2/3 assets and de-recognising interest income on Stage-3 assets.

AU SFB logged a muted performance with a 5% miss on PAT at Rs5.3bn/RoA at 1.5%, mainly on lower other income and elevated provisions owing to ongoing stress in unsecured loans (MFI, Cards, PL) and seasonality impact on the agri and wheels book.

Fusion Finance had posted disproportionately higher stress/LLP in 1Q, and indicated guiding on incremental LLP after assessing the asset quality trend in 2Q.

Fusion Microfinance’s (Fusion) Q1FY25 earnings were marred by elevated credit cost at INR 3.5bn vs INR 1.2bn QoQ. This was led by it proactively moving 55k customers with exposure of INR 2.21bn.

Equitas SFB continues to report subdued credit growth at 20% YoY mainly due
to slower growth in the new CV and NBFC segments, which coupled with
elevated funding cost has led to further deterioration in NIM by 20bps QoQ to
8.2%.

High moratorium & weak asset quality to weigh... Ujjivan Small Finance Bank, the wholly owned subsidiary of Ujjivan Financial Services Ltd. (USFL) serves over 54.7 lakh customers through 524 branches and 17,370 employees spread across 244 districts of 24 states in India with gross loan book size of Rs.14,366cr. Also, it has about...

Consequently, we prefer ICICIBC, AXSB and KMB amongst the large caps. We prefer CUBK amongst the pack of smaller regional banks. We maintain our REDUCE rating on RBK and KVB, despite their sharp underperformance. Recent events (YES and COVID-19) are likely to have multiple order and far reaching impacts on the banking sector. COVID-19 will obviously impact growth and asset quality. The events at YES have impacted depositor sentiment, causing them to become more risk-averse, we believe. Consequently, the less obvious (but equally important) impact is expected to play out on the liabilities side. In such a scenario, we believe deposit flows will become more polarised. Larger banks, with strong granular liability franchises, reasonable asset quality performance and sufficient capital are likely to emerge stronger.