Bl. Interview: Satin Creditcare can open up to 400 branches as a repayment, improve growth trends, says CMD, says CMD

Do the new MFIN guidelines influence the repayment trend of borrowers?

The impact is not visible on reimbursement trends, but more about acquiring customers. The rejection percentages have risen, our rejection percentage of the loan was 65-68 percent earlier and has risen by another 4 percent to around 72 percent. This would certainly lead to dent about growth.

When do you see the growth breathing in new life?

We have not given any guidance about growth. The only thing I can say is that we have identified and open around 188-200 branches these tax, more than we opened last year. In fact, we can start nearly 400 branches in the current tax, except Karnataka, which will ensure growth.

Do you see the portfolio in risk (par) level rising in early buckets?

Since it is a cyclical company, you will be technically a peak in par 1-90 buckets in the first half of the financial year when there are heat waves and monsoons. Borrowers can miss a few episodes due to floods or extreme heat waves. But for us, the safest part remains stable for the credit costs for the full year. And if we are able to maintain stable credit costs through the tax, we would do better this year than earlier tax. Our FY26 credit costs guidelines are 3.99-4.5 percent, lower than 4.6 percent.

Would you be eligible according to the legal change on the minimum qualified asset threshold requirement, in other activa classes?

For us we are different from others. We have two other subsidiaries that secure lending. Only a few other MFIs have a subsidy for housing financing or carries out that company within the core company. Our two subsidiaries focus on housing and MSME loans. We have just appointed a new CEO for green financing. Green financing is done by Satin Finnier, who performs MSME loans. We have made contours very clear. Microfinance will be done by parent Satin Creditcare, Satin Housing focuses on home loans and any other lens segment will fall under the work of Satin Fineserv.

Your guidance on loan costs and margins?

Due to headwind in the industry, the costs of funds have not fallen, as it should be due to reduction reductions. So we believe that costs of funds would remain stable at the current level, there are fewer opportunities to go down. Although we had certain transactions in July and August where the financing costs have been slightly reduced. Due to a headwind in the MFI industry, liquidity is a challenge for many players. Fortunately we are the same with liquidity, but if the financing costs fall, there will be slightly better margins for us.

Banks remain a high caution for borrowing MFIs. Does it have a potential cause of material crises in the sector?

Whatever happened is in the past. With these making are normally lenders very careful in the loans to MFIs, they do not assess how large the organization and its family tree are. I think that for them the first thought is always to take a break when there is a headwind in the industry. But this approach causes more damage to the end customers, MFIs, employees and all stakeholders attached to it. This is not something that happened at night. During this time of emergency, caused by over -fidding or other factors, we followed a careful policy at Satin. We have grown over the past two years, as a conscious call. It is important for people to look at the future instead of aggressively borrowing due to the smooth liquidity. Now we feel the feeling that the environment is stabilizing, things are getting better and that is why we think this is time to open 400 branches. Portfolio quality gets better. We must take actions that may have consequences in the short term, but are useful in the long term. This approach helped our company. End