Product maturity, channel expansion, better productivity to drive AUM growth, says Piramal Finance MD

Jairam Sridharan, MD and CEO, Picamal Finance

You expect AUM to cross ₹1.5 lakh crore by FY28. What will drive growth?

Our growth is largely driven by product maturity, channel expansion and productivity improvement. We’ve launched new products over the years, and some are getting bigger. Previously we only had home loans, over time we launched loans against real estate, used car financing, personal loans, etc. We continue to invest in the growth of our network and we strive to improve productivity. Because we are still a young company, our locations are maturing and as they mature, they become a lot more productive. We aim to open 100 new branches in the fourth quarter, of which 25 will be full-service branches in semi-urban markets, 20 branches specific to gold loans, and the remaining microfinance branches in rural India. We want to get to a point where we have 600 full-service branches in our core markets, we are currently at about 515. We will continue to invest until we get there, and we have just started microfinance and gold operations, so we still have many years of investment to go.

What would be the mix of retail and wholesale in AUM and when will the old DHFL book run out completely?

We are currently 83 percent retail and 17 percent wholesale. We stay roughly near the same zone. Many years ago, about five to six years ago, we had about 95 percent wholesale and 5 percent retail, but that has completely changed now. Our old book will fall from almost ₹5,000 crore to zero in FY27.

Your guidance on margins?

Margins should improve, but banks have not yet started cutting back on MCLR on a large scale. So the MCLR reduction by the banks and essentially the repo rate transfer should happen in the near future and if that happens, it will lead to an expansion in the margins of all NBFCs. We do not have specific guidelines for margins. On a profitability basis, we expect to post a total profit of ₹1,300-₹1,500 crore in this fiscal. After three quarters, we are now at ₹1,000 crore, so we have come a long way. Furthermore, we want to achieve a return on assets of 3 percent in three years, and we are currently at 1.9 percent.

Do you see any stress on lower ticket loans?

In small ticket lending against real estate, we have seen a small but steady upward movement in risk over the past four to five quarters. It’s not dramatic, but that number has increased.

Published on January 27, 2026