Bank Of Maharashtra

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Bank of Maharashtra Q2 and H1 FY 2026 Earnings Conference Call.

As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode. 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 “*” then “0” on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded.

We have with us from the management, Shri Nidhu Saxena, Managing Director and CEO; Shri Rohit Rishi, Executive Director, and all Chief General Managers and General Manager of the bank.

I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Shri Nidhu Saxena for opening remarks. Thank you, and over to you.

Good afternoon and thank you for joining this conference call. We have announced our Q2 and H1-FY2026 results, will quickly cover the main highlights while you would have gone through the presentation.

Our total business grew by 14% to Rs. 5.63 lakh crore. Deposits has gone up by 12.13%, Advances have gone up by almost 17%, CD ratio for us has improved to 82%. Gross NPAs have declined to 1.72%. Net NPA have declined to 0.18%. Our provision coverage ratio is standing at 98.34%.

Our net profit has increased by 23% to Rs. 1,633 crore. Operating profit has grown by 17% to Rs. 2,500 crore. Net interest income has increased by almost 16%. NIM stood at a healthy 3.85%. Cost to income has also improved to 37.1%. ROA has improved to 1.82%.

Yes, our capital adequacy is improving to 18.13% within which the Tier-1 is standing at 14.96%, almost 15%. SMA, the loan book is also behaving well. SMA-1 plus 2, which is always an element of concern within the overall SMA book, so that SMA-1 and 2 have actually gone down from 2.61% to 1.87%, it has been an improvement of 74 bps. A couple of things over and above these parameters of business growth, asset quality, efficiency ratio, profitability and capital adequacy metrics.

I would like to mention about that S&P Global has assigned us a BBB- rating, and which is three notches improvement of what other international rating agency has assigned to the bank. Now we have two international agencies that have assigned ratings for the bank.

Our GIFT IBU, which was made operational in this quarter within a period less than six months of the Reserve Bank of India’ approval to our application; and we have closed this half year with Rs. 100 million of business in the IBU. There is a complete pipeline that is getting built to see

Page 3 of 13 that we are getting more and more traction in that IBU. We are keeping aspirations. We have yet to put some numbers, but maybe it can be a $1 billion book in the next 12 months, it should be a profitable business which is also our aspiration in the GIFT IBU branch.

The sharp rating improvements, which has come from the international rating agency. We are also seeing traction in FII holding, which is going up steadily. Recently, we are seeing interest getting built up in FIIs who are looking and tracking our stock. From 0.39% FII holding in 2023, for September 2025 the FII holding has improved to 2.58%. Likewise, mutual funds have also been building books with our Bank of Maharashtra scrip in their kitty.

We are consistently outperforming the industry. We are fast expanding our presence in potential growth centers of the country and that is one thing which has not only helped us register more than industry performance, but it is also helping us sustain this kind of growth performance in the years to come because this is a 5-year plan to open 1,000 branches in the next five years is what the broad Board approval we are having. In this FY26, we have taken one big initiative to open 321 branches, we are calling it as the Project 321, and the plan is to open 321 branches in the next 18 months. The new branch opening that we have shortlisted after doing a scientific exercise, taking help of external agencies, for us to understand these potential growth centers of the country, where we will be opening our presence in a phased manner. This is what is going to support and sustain our fast growth rate that we are clocking every quarter-on-quarter.

I am satisfied as a bank, as a management that whatever guidance at the beginning of the year for the last 12 to 15 months we have been talking about, we are maintaining and beating our own guidance quarter-on-quarter. If you look at the metrics of importance to the investors, specifically the ROA, ROE, NIM, these numbers, we are having a decent guidance for NIM of 3.75%.

This quarter also, we have, despite the rate cut impact coming in completeness in this quarter, we have been able to maintain our NIM above the guidance that we had shared in the beginning. And the Q3 and Q4, we have seen that with most of our deposit maturity profile, seeing the deposits getting repriced, we should see that further NIM contraction should not be. But yes, we are keeping a conservative number of 3.75% in terms of the NIM guidance.

Let me take a pause here and maybe take some questions before we keep sharing couple of other things.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. The first question comes from the line of Rohan Mandora from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead.

Page 4 of 13 Sir, I wanted to understand the movement in cost of deposits this quarter, which has gone up by 8 bps. So, what was the benefit from term deposit rate cut? And what was the adverse impact from the current account changes, the decline in CA balance?

Right. If you see our deposit growth for this quarter, year-on-year, we have grown by 12.12%, but within which CASA has grown at almost 15%, so, focus clearly stands out to have more and more low-cost deposit in the system. The high-cost bulk wherever we have identified, which is sitting in our deposit book, we have been very consciously not renewing the bulk high-cost deposits. What data we will share is that our bulk deposits have seen a 9.9% de-growth.

Deposits have grown majorly from the CASA, which has grown at 15%, and that's how the total story is growing at 12%.

Right. But sir, the question is on cost of deposits, which has increased.

Our focus is to maintain our deposit growth majorly through the low-cost element. We have done a lot of efforts to see that both the components, the core CASA that is coming from our branches and the institutional CASA, which we focus from institutions, government departments, ministries, corporates. We have a separate vertical that takes care of that. The two objectives are strategically achieved through a lot of strategies that we have put in place.

If I have to tell you, in terms of business that is happening in branches, we have done a lot of product improvements, we have introduced products for some segments where we were missing. Today, we have a complete basket of products that is taking care of the professionals, the HNIs, the NRIs, the business community and so current savings, salaried, non-salaried, we have a complete basket of products. We have also looked at the process part, whether the process is a healthy seamless onboarding of clients to the bank's business and once they are on boarded, whether they are able to seamlessly transact.

Our mobile banking application, which we have revamped, we have not just upgraded our existing mobile application by introducing a new version, but we have revamped the version, and this is moving faster. The concept of giving ease of doing business for a client that they are able to transact on this mobile application with minimum number of clicks has been our theories in building, developing this mobile banking application. Someone should experience it to understand what I am indicating. A lot of technology is helping in this segment, the individual core segment that is happening in branches.

For the institutional segment, we have started with putting up a new business vertical, calling it as new business customer acquisition vertical headed by a lady General Manager. Having a complete structure with her, the only two KRA is to reach out to institutions and look at their banking needs and try to get institutional deposits from them. Bringing some value also to the institutional clients and understanding their specific needs and also offering some technology- based solutions there, so, these two verticals are independently working. As I said there is a

Page 5 of 13 core business of CASA, there is an institutional business of CASA and we are trying to address both these components with a different strategy that is working for us. We are trying to see that we maintain this low-cost element in our deposit profile, which is a big enabler, contributor to our bottom line. The system would have seen the average CASA at some point of time, which was in the industry 43%, 44%, came down to almost 37%, but we have been able to maintain our guidance to maintain it above 50%. That is one. Second, a lot of our experience is that with this rate cuts in the deposit side also, clients are also parking their money from the CASA to creating term deposits with us.

Sir, we heard all of these points. This point is well understood.

Okay. So, I think we can move to the next question Sir, second was on what is the outstanding AFS reserve at the end of Q2?

It's around Rs. 340 crore on the gross basis.

Okay. And just kind of the similar number, Rs. 500 crore at the end of Q1, right? Yes.

Okay. lastly, there's almost 10.5% Q-on-Q increase in credit RWA this quarter, so if you can explain what is the reason for that?

My CRO is just joining the call, and he will respond.

The total RWA from the June to September 2025 has increased around Rs. 16,000 crore, out of which, the credit RWA has increased around Rs. 15,000 crore and market RWA has increased around Rs. 1,180crore. If you see the credit RWA has increased because of gross advances have increased around Rs. 14,000 crore and there is some extra undrawn so, that has also increased around Rs. 7,000 crore. Likely, it is around Rs. 16,000 crore on credit RWA has increased.

Okay. So, the higher share is because of the undrawn lines as well. Okay, sir. I got it.

Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Abhishek Kothari from Aviva India.

Sir, if you could guide with respect to your growth that I am seeing in the RAM portfolio, retail has grown very nicely, but SME and Agri, the growth is lagging behind. So, any thoughts over there?

Overall share of RAM is 62:38 and our guidance has been to maintain it at 60:40 plus/minus 2%. We are doing a conscious rebalancing again in the two verticals. The idea behind is the

Page 6 of 13 loan book that we are creating, and it must be of good quality borrowers, prime borrowers. In the Agri portfolio, we are going from production credit to investment credit and trying to look at reaching out some mid-segment kind of clients. The overall guidance is 60:40 plus/minus 2%, we are already at 62%. If you see in the retail, there are a couple of products which are seeing a lot of traction. The home loans are growing at fast growth rate of 30% - 31%, gold loans have grown at 47%, vehicle loans have grown at 49% and these are our own set of clients who have been banking with us. We have tweaked some schemes to introduce new customer- friendly schemes to bring them on our fold. The entire focus in this segment is towards the big ticket advances where we are seeing the LTV is also very favorable to the bank. We are having that comfort that this growth in the retail portfolio, we are growing in the segment which is constituting the prime and super prime borrowers.

In the bank, today, there is no loan that is available for a client having CIBIL score less than 681, as per the definition of TransUnion CIBIL is a subprime segment. We have strengthened our underwriting benchmark, so, that is one of the reasons that industry growth is supporting in these retail segments. Plus, we have done a lot of product improvisations, introducing new product lines to see that there is a good traction in the retail. In the agriculture and MSME, while we grow the loan book, we are mindful of the pool of assets that we are going to create.

We are focusing this time more on investment credit, some big ticket mid-segment kind of proposals where we will see a lot of ancillary business opportunities coming in cold storage, dhal mill, rice mill, so ticket size and portfolio will improve. We will get some tangible securities, which are going to be with those credit limits that we are going to consider for borrowers, so, that kind of consciousness migrating from production-linked to investment-linked credit. In the production, in the KCC, we have already created digital journeys, and we would want the underwriting for small ticket KCC loans to be end-to-end digitalized.

To begin with two states, state of Maharashtra is the first where luckily, we have good exposure, and the land records in this state are fully digitalized. With that, end-to-end journey is possible in underwriting for the small ticket size KCC loans so, that's how the strategy is and I think in coming quarters, we will see a lot of traction in these two segments also.

To answer your question in one line, bank is looking at wherever profitable opportunities for growth are there, we will definitely be participating. We will be mindful of the quality of the loan book that is getting created and how the loan in times to come should be behaving. We are fully mindful of that, and then that's how we are going to increase.

Okay. Sir, your capital consumption was high in this quarter, around 193 bps. You have a resolution or Board approval in place for fund raise. So, by when could we expect your fund raise to come by? Will it be in this fiscal, Q4or will it go to next fiscal?

Page 7 of 13 So, there are plans. We have approvals in place from our Board, from the government, RBI, shareholders. So, approvals are in place to go for a fundraise. Within this FY2026, we are looking at the opportune time and opportune mode to do that. And the one aspect that I would like to share here is while the capital adequacy stands at almost 18%, which is our guidance to maintain it going forward, and yes, 193 bps that we have consumed. But if I factor in the profitability of these two quarters, my CRAR improves by another 1.72%. So, this is one thing.

And coming back to your fund raise query, I have Rs. 7,500 crore of approval from the Board within which equity is Rs. 5,000 crore, the rest is debt. At the opportune time in the remaining FY26, we would definitely like to take a call on this and we will use to go for the fund raise. That's the two reasons for us.

Sir, just to ask, would you be raising the entire Rs. 5,000 crore or it will be like Rs. 2,500 crore kind of a number?

Since this enabler is there and we take it from the beginning of the year, so that approval is on the higher side. With the healthy CRAR of 18%, there is no urgent emergent need for raising the growth capital, but going forward, our guidance is to maintain at this healthy level, that makes the case for going for a capital raise to fund the growth that we are fast clocking. The branch expansion reaching out to new geographies is only helping us with more and more business opportunities coming to the bank.

And second, one of the reason with us is that we started the last financial year with the Government of India holding standing at 86.46%. With the last rate, it has come down to 79.6%, so, it is below 80% now. To comply with the SEBI MPS norm, we have just to complete this tranche of 4.60% and once that is happening, we are complying with the SEBI guidelines of minimum public shareholding. These two reasons are very much there, which are there in our mind and at the opportune time, we are definitely going to decide to do this effort within this FY2026.

Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Suraj Das from Sundaram Mutual Fund.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity. Sir, two questions. First one, your Agri GNPA has increased quite a lot over the last one year, and the number is touching almost 10% now.

Anything specific that is happening there or any particular state or anything there? That is question one. Question two, sir, your comment on ECL, any impact there on both the credit cost or the asset quality side as well as on the fee income side, because now I think fee will be amortized?

So, there are three elements of your question, if I have understood correctly. One is the increase in the agricultural NPA. Second is on fee income. And what was the third part? Credit cost.

Page 8 of 13 Sir sorry, fee income and credit cost is in the context of ECL.

Understood. Agri NPA is a conscious strategy to recognize the issue and then go ahead and resolve it. Although what we have seen is the first half of the year and more particularly the first quarter, we would see some slippages in the Agri segment. We have seen some agriculture stress in some pockets, in some branches where we have seen incessant rains and flooding, and those kind of small, small issues. At the holistic level also, I have mentioned about we are rebalancing our Agri book and taking it towards the investment credit side. We were a little slow in doing the production KCC credit for some time. We had consciously decided to have the underwriting in one level above, not allow the branches, so, somehow the portfolio in terms of volume has not grown. Denominator actually reduced and the NPA stays there and you see the percentage slightly going up.

The RBI guidelines on classifying your advances, gold loan advances and agriculture had gone some changes. That's how a lot of our agriculture classified gold loans, we had marked them as nonpriority to comply with the RBI guideline, as it was a substantial number. In real terms, nothing has happened in the agricultural NPA, but this rebalancing plus this RBI guidelines undergoing a change, which again, now up to Rs. 2 lakhs RBI has permitted. We are again able to reclassify that to the agriculture gold loans because anything and everything that is getting to be done has to be compliant with what the regulator regulatory guidelines are. That is first and foremost requirement.

This is how the agriculture NPA for the moment is looking elevated, but we are very consciously working on it. Going forward, we do not see any major challenges. Our strategy may take a quarter or two when we are onboarding fresh advances, big ticket advances in the Agri segment, and we are able to build the denominator also. So, you will see the percentage also normalizing in the following quarter.

Coming to the next question is ECL. ECL calculations, once it was indicated as something as a forthcoming guideline so, the broad number is there with us, Rs. 2,500 crore. We had already started proactively providing for ECLs provisioning. I am holding in my balance sheet, Rs. 250 crore of ECL provision. If I give you a sense of it, it is Rs. 2,500 crore to be maintained from 1st April 2027 to 31st March 2031.There is a glided path available. The number is requiring me to provide Rs. 100 crore to Rs. 125 crore every quarter towards ECL, which is very well managed, and we see absolutely no challenge in making those provisions when the guidelines are coming into effect from 1st of April.

Credit cost has seen a slight improvement in this particular quarter. Credit cost has actually come down from Q-on-Q, if you look at from 1.19% to 0.92%. Our new underwriting norms, which are put in place for the last 10, 12 months, wherein even in the individual segmented loans, we are not underwriting to the subprime category and for the MSME loans, we are benchmarking our underwriting to CMR ranks given by the TransUnion CIBIL. Anything which

Page 9 of 13 is below the investment grade, it is not considered in the bank, so only CMR 1, 2, 3, 4 and up to CMR 5, which are defined as investment grade, we have restricted.

If I give you a sense data, home loans that have happened in this bank, this fantastic growth of 30%-31% after we have introduced that no home loans below 681. An outcome of the one simple step of no underwriting in the bank below 681 in the home loan segment, one product category. My 27% of home loan sanctions that have happened in the last 12 months are 800 and above CIBIL score category, 57% has happened in CIBIL score category, 750 and 800. You will see the major underwriting that is happening is in the prime and the super-prime categories, so that's how in times to come, quarters to come, we will see that the slippage number, which has shown slight improvement. We are on the right track of building a loan book which is of, good rated borrowers, prime category borrowers and the slippages, which is a guidance for us is to maintain below 1% we would be able to maintain it on a sustainable basis.

Sure, sir. Just one follow-up, sir. On the fee income, do you see any decline in fee income because now you have to amortize fee under the ECL versus now, I think upfronting of fee income?

The way we are growing the credit along with fund-based and non-fund-basedso, the opportunities that we are creating for enhancing our fee-based processing charges, LCBD commission, then we have identified other areas of augmenting the fee income. We have gone for entering into new partnerships, we are joined with SBI Cards, where we are offering co- branded cards for clients. So, my clients, I am seeing are enrolling in large numbers. We are seeing the traction, and I am getting fee-based.

A couple of bancassurance is another area we have ramped up our partnerships in life and non-life. These partners are in the process of onboarding, but we are also very conscious of the misselling part of it. We are digitalizing the entire end-to-end policy issuance so that there is no chance left for any income leakage, revenue leakage and right selling practices, customers getting what they actually require. We are mindful of that. All these elements, which contribute to enhancing our fee-based is definitely in our to-do list and very consciously, we want to improve this parameter of performance.

This you have COVID provision of Rs. 1,200 crore also. So, that Rs. 2,500 crore of ECL provision is after adjusting for this Rs. 1,200 crore or this, you can use towards this Rs. 2,500 crore?

It is not just Rs. 1,200 crore of COVID provisioning. Today, we have ad hoc provisioning in the balance sheet cushion, which is almost now Rs. 3,000 crore. This is a very conscious strategy going by what guidance comes from the regulator also from time to time that these are the good times for the industry and all the players, entities operating within it. We should be looking at building extra cushions and buffers in the balance sheet, so that's how we are doing

Page 10 of 13 it. I am holding today almost Rs. 3,000 crore and I can do it in one go, but that's not what is the right prescription to do. Rs. 2,500 crore as against that. We have already built Rs. 250 crore, and we may follow a glided path as is also allowed by the regulator to create the provisions.

Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Siddharth Rajpurohit from Systematix Group. Please go ahead.

Sir, first on gold loan. What will be your LTV in the Agri and non-Agri side? . LTV in gold loans, the RBI guidelines are 75% at all times, so, for agriculture, we have kept 85% LTV. We have some variance within this range in the nonpriority, but wherever we get higher LTV, we offer a lesser ROI to incentivize clients to come and pay a higher rate. If they want more loan, they have to pay me a higher pricing. The pricing is tweaked towards the higher LTV, which is our safety. But in agriculture segment, we are 85%. All our product variants are following the RBI LTV norm of minimum 75% at all times.

Sir, second, on your small and medium segment. In the segment, sequentially, the NPAs have gone up. So, what is the trend that we are seeing? Is there incremental pain that is in this segment? And also, these are numbers above Rs. 5 crore. So, if you can give some trends that we have observed in, say, below Rs. 5 crore?

The NPA in the lower segment, we are trying to address in a long-term basis. Mostly for like Mudra segment loans, we have created digital journeys end-to-end online. A customer can apply online through application, without reaching to our branch The processing, the documentation and disbursement happens end-to-end online. We do for maintaining the quality part of it that the rules we are prescribing in this digital journey, BREs are decided by the bank to see that the beneficiaries are the right kind of beneficiaries that are entering into this loan book, my system once they follow this underwriting.

Our experience is whatever physical mode that we have been erstwhile doing, legacy, the loan book that is getting created through digital sanctions. End-to-end digital journeys, the quality, the stress level, everything is far, far better. The low-ticket loans, in the Agri segment or in the micro MSME segment, we are all migrating to this digital journeys.

We also have done a lot of co-lending partnerships; almost eight to nine co-lending partnerships we are having today. The RBI guidelines have undergone change and I have to make it compliant now with those things, but we have built a good book through co-lending, where we are getting a reasonable pricing and we are having this co-lending and the business that happens entirely digitalized. There is no intervention from the branch when they are dealing with the low ticket size. so, this is the broad way to look at the micro and that kind of stress that generally may be experienced in the lower segment and pricing the risk also properly.

Page 11 of 13 Sir, are you seeing some incremental stress in the MSME space, of late?

It is not something too alarming in the retail and MSME. If you ask me the stress which is there, so retail, more than 50% of book is home loans it is backed by mortgage. If there is an account which is experiencing stress and tomorrow, SMA-2, it will slip to a delinquent category, we can start the recovery action very fast and with the mortgage, I am able to recover my dues also.

We are seeing quick upgrades also happening because since it's backed by mortgage and the value of security only appreciates. So, we are not seeing any stress in that retail element.

Just a final question, sir. On the MSME particularly, sir, are you seeing any incremental stress?

MSME, in fact, if you see my absolute number, percentage terms, in the presentation, if that is accessible to you. MSME has the stress number, year-on-year if you see, September '2024 was 2.39%, it has come down to 1.73% now. If you see for our bank, the MSME portfolio is also behaving well. There's no issue. Thank you.

Thank you. We take the next question from the line of Akshay Badlani from HDFC Securities.

Given the fact that the ECL provisions, the impact is Rs. 100 crore to Rs. 125 crore per quarter.

So, what are we sensing in terms of a credit cost, like a sustainable credit cost guidance, if we could get? Also given the fact that our tax rate would get normalized also maybe to some extent in FY'26 or '27. So, what could be the normalized credit cost range that we are looking for?

Right, credit cost guidance has been to maintain it below 1%. If you see September '25, we have achieved 0.92%on a half yearly basis, it is marginally 2 basis points above, 1.02%. I think we are seeing that the steps we have taken to keep the credit cost in line, they are delivering the results and this guidance number going forward also, we would be maintaining to keep the credit cost below 1%.

This is including the ECL impact as well that we will additionally provide for the next four to five years, right?

If you see in terms of IRAC norms, if you look at my NNPA, it is 0.18%. Now to maintain that kind of NNPA number. Whenever we are encountering slippages, so as against the IRAC norm of providing 15% on day one, we are providing 100% and that’s how my credit cost also looks elevated. If I say from the IRAC perspective, it is ranging from 0.4% to 0.45% in real terms. If I look at as per the regulatory norms, my credit cost is 0.4%. But because of this maintaining the fine NNPA of 0.18%, I am providing 100% against the regulatory prescribed of 15%.

And just to add, our PCR, if you see is 98.37% now. With 98.37%, I do not have the pressure of aging provisions. It's mostly book which is provided for. Minus two, it is also 90.37%. So, with that kind of high provisioning we are holding, the aging provision pressure is also not there.

Understood. Got it. And the second question was given the fact that you have given this target of 321 branches in the next 18 months, in which geographies are we seeing these incremental branches? Which geographies how much of it would be like non-Maharashtra, given the fact that we are looking to expand beyond Maharashtra as well? So, which kind of geographies are we looking for to expand?

Today, Maharashtra, is the highest contributing state to the nation's GDP, we all know is Maharashtra. We are adequately represented within Maharashtra. Our expansion is all beyond Maharashtra, outside Maharashtra. If you see 12 months from now, our branch ratio was 52% Maharashtra and the other side is non-Maharashtra, that ratio has changed to 42% now in Maharashtra, rest is all outside Maharashtra. The 1,000 branches that we have taken approval and this 321, it is all opening branches outside Maharashtra. Very consciously, we are planning our presence where two things are happening. One, there is an existing banking business potential already there, Second, the growth is also happening.

The scientific work that we have done using lot of data points, they have down to the PIN code level. One center suppose has three PIN codes, the Kanpur city, if has three to four PIN codes, we have a recommendation from the external expert that this is a PIN code that you should be opening the branch. Where the city is expanding, that makes a lot of sense. and we are opening branches where the existing banking potential is there and potential for growth is also there.

Our sense is that when you are going to be one another player in a mature market, it will be very difficult to get traction. But if you are going to open your shops in places where the opportunities are increasing, business is growing, you will find that there will be a scope for a new player to also garner reasonable business in the first year of operations. We have very clear laid down metrics that if it's a metro branch, that branch, how much of business in the next 12 months of opening is that they will be expected to garner, within which what should be the ratio of advances, what is deposits and we would expect a branch on their own to become a profit center head for us. That's how very clearly measurable metrics for the new branches in metro, urban, semi-urban and rural.

If you see my new business verticals that I mentioned about, they are now in this year, given five focus states, which are, of course, Maharashtra, we have a strong traction edge, we are building on that relationship through more cross-selling to the institutional clients also. But outside Maharashtra replicating our experience and handling institutional business in five focus states. If you ask me those focus states, these are the states where the central allocations are coming in big numbers. We have done an analysis, studied the budget, the allocations, and we have a sense that there is always a scope for a new player to even garner an institutional

Page 13 of 13 business. These five focus states, my new business vertical approaches and they are able to understand their needs and offer customized tech-based solutions and get that business on the board.

We have got a lot of tractions from this initiative. This year, we have only gone ahead and strengthened the vertical further with every 50 zonal offices having some extended arm of the new business vertical so, that's how we are approaching the branch expansion strategy.

Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraint, we take that as the last question, and we conclude the question-and-answer session. I now hand the conference over to Shri Nidhu Saxena for his closing comments.

So, I think there were rounds of disruptions and probably sometime got consumed, but we are very actively and aggressively doing the reach out outside these quarterly calls and meeting the investors and analysts and the community as a whole, both domestic and foreign.

Thank you. On behalf of Bank of Maharashtra, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. And you may now disconnect your lines.

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